Across the plains, they came and at the edge of dirt and developed land did they stop. The stomping of their hooves ended 5 feet away from Lucia. The murmuring of the posse spoke of vengeance, and the rope in the hands of the one in the back seemed to scream. While her eyes were naturally drawn to it, she kept them focused on the man riding in front of the rest. His circular glasses hid his pupil but his smile showed all Lucia needed to know what his goal was.

“So Lucia. Fancy seeing you here.”

“Stamos. What do you want?”

The beast he rode stepped forward a few paces before stopping at the head of the ground. “Simply came to sort out a little incident back home.”

“Do you mean how you and your posse decided to assault my coworker?”

“ Harris always said you were straight to business. Of course, those people will be taken care of. But that would be dependent on whether or not the same due process goes for your… assistant.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“To keep it quick, I didn’t come here to play stupid with you. Where’s the machine?”

Lucia backed up a couple of feet towards her car.

“Before I answer that, is there a reason Harris didn’t want to come with you for your lynching,” Lucia pointedly asked. “Or did he suddenly grow a conscience?”

“You’ll have to excuse him for his sympathies towards you. I don’t take so fond to you. So where are they?” Stamos had gotten off his horse. The glasses on his face were angled in such a way that Lucia could see the look in his eyes. Annoyance, arrogance. In return for such a demeanor, Lucia gave him an answer befitting of his stature.

“I let another person take them. Just missed them.”

Stamos took another step forward and Lucia backed up in response.

“Get the hell away from me!”

“Oh I’m not doing anything to you, Lucy.”

With a snap of his fingers, a few of his men went off into the town. Leaving Lucia in the company of Stamos and whatever group of rejects wanted to hang with her. If she tried something now, she’d have them breaking her windows and leaving her to get debriefed by a hospital bed. All she could hope was that if Brocktree and all of them couldn’t hear them approach, then her scream would do the job for her.

In a separate room, Brocktree sat with his companions. For a metal man, the robot was a lot more emotional than expected. It seemed that whatever troubles he had with his self-defense had spiraled into some sort of unintelligible ramble about self-worth. His human companion seemed to listen with the interest of a rock. It was-

The air shifted.

Far enough away to act, not enough to be loud about it.

The smell of corn and dirt. Untreated things.

“Get the hell away from me!”

Vegas.

“It’s a lot more complicated than just-”

The badger put a hand to the Mechanoid’s face. Rhys reached for something before silently cursing herself for leaving her bag in the car. The badger peaked through the window while grabbing his axe and leaning against the wall. A couple yards away, his eyes could make out the black-and-white shapes of those outside. Salam motioned towards the window as the others came to see. A whole posse of men on horseback talking to Lucia about god knows what.

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“How did they find us? Why are they here?”

“We’re the only ones with a car for miles, tinhead. They were bound to be here. Just didn’t think they’d be here so soon.”

“Vegas-minded tend to be stubborn. We let Lucia talk it out and stay hid-”

Crack!

Rhys could hear it. Shoa could hear it. Salam could hear it and Lucia could most definitely hear it.

Lucia looked down the road at the Vegas men. At that moment, they had just kicked in the doors to a home that would never see its original inhabitants again.

“The hell was that?”

“Simple Lucia. Either you give them up, or we go through each house and we drag him out.” There was no change in Stamos’s voice at this course of action. Only a serious tone he seemed dead set on getting across. Lucia wasn't going to simply take his action as unnaturally calm as he was.

“You’d disrupt a mass grave just so you can get revenge for an assault your boys started?!”

“Messages need to be sent, no matter the severity. Others have tried it before, didn't work out well. How long has Harris been pushing this hands-off agenda? How long have we had to deal with your co-workers holding out on us for them to kidnap our fellow humans, put limits on their medicine, and overall fuck with us? Everyone and their mother has gone through the official channels, so now we need to do this where they'll actually listen.”

“This isn’t going to send the message you want. Demanding change this way isn’t going to ”

“Stop trying to spare them! If anyone could take the hit, it -

Whatever Harris would say was cut off by the sound of something getting violently pushed into rotting wood. As Stamos and his posse looked away in that split moment, Lucia took that opportunity to get back in her car and pop the trunk. By the time Stamos looked back, the screams had already started.

The town of Hickshaw was built house to house with some minor room for fenced-off property. A community town to its core with enough distance to foster safety. This system gave way for narrow walkways between the more consolidated buildings and the units built under one roof. It was within one such walkway that a Vegas follower found himself being pushed through the fence via the densely packed meatform of Brocktree.

“Stay close to me, metallic man!”

Shoa had no real urge to leave the side of his bodyguard or of his assistant next to him. The badger and the woman sandwiched Shoa with their backs as more Vegas men began to jump the fence into the backyard. Men in passed-down shirts and jeans surrounded them with their focus set on taking the android. With the axe gripped tightly on his back, Brocktree let out a grave growl as they started to close in.

Flow the vibes around you-

It wasn’t enough time. The first came in fast and ducked Rhys entirely. He had run straight under and came straight for Shoa. The robot had tried to get away but there was too much going on at once, too many people to avoid. All he could do was push the assaulter back. That push however, was enough moment for Rhys to grab him by the collar and pull him away from Shoa’s personal bubble.

Tighten the hell up, and get ready! You are hard as a rock!

That bead of energy flowed from their body down to her shoes. With her chosen combatant coming to grab the robot once more, she launched a fist directly into the man’s chest. The impact shook her arm in a way that seemed to go against the feeling of “rock-hardness” but as the fist came away from his sternum, the jagged edges left in the clothes seemed to show that the business end of her hands were firm and sharp as stone. A grin came on the face of Rhys as she kept the posse back from the robot behind her. One quick glancing blow at a time.

Comparatively, Brocktree handled his foes with a lot less of an amateur edge and more of a barely restrained urge to kill. While the sharp end of his axe met the flesh of those who came at him with weaponry, those who simply grabbed and clawed were left to be kicked down on the ground. It was only those who stayed down that were left to burn the form of Brocktree in their minds.

Shoa however simply tried his best to stay out of the way of the boxer and the rabid badger. The unfortunate buzzing from him would be an issue to any not in the midst of a brawl (or slaughter depending on which end you were on) but now he held his face to keep his eye on all that was happening. No matter how much he wanted to leave. Oh, how he wanted to leave.

Lucia had to move fast down the dirt for as much as the uneven terrain would let her. Running into the town limits, the scent of blood filled the air as the unbridled horses swished their tails impatiently from wherever their owners abandoned them. The popping of her trunk left them screaming but eventually, Terrance would be full, and she’d be fucked. The sound of combat running rampant as the swing of metal through the air gave sight to a body flight up over the fences. There were footsteps around her, too hard to navigate the houses and walkways on horseback. She couldn’t tell whether they were coming towards her or away.

Too much in her head for there to be a difference.

Once she got there, however, the fighting had stopped. In the middle of someone’s backyard, a woman stood with her fists at her sides and bits and pieces falling off her fingers, a bipedal badger man breathed heavily as the blood rage passed him by, and a robot simply stood with one half-splattered with blood and his face focused on the gore. As he looked up at Lucia, his scarlet pixels seemed blank until his face suddenly switched to a badger confronting a Vegas member as the latter struck first.

With a tired smile, Lucia nodded.