Chapter 102 - Downpour

Marka carved a perfectly circular chunk out of the prison’s second floor and sent it flying across the street, closely followed by the flailing form of a short, balding man in a suit. The man hit the ground hard and tumbled a ways before slamming into a nearby storefront, eyes rolling and plump legs akimbo.

With Lifebringer in-hand, Marka leapt down to the street in pursuit. Roulette watched him go, hopeful that some kind of agreement might be reached. Negotiations hadn’t exactly gone well so far, of course–McQueen had refused to return their weapons, forcing them to take a more direct approach than she would’ve liked–but now that they understood each other, she was confident that the squirrelly little man might heed their demands.

“You’ll have to kill him, you know,” Antony said. “He’s Copperlock’s creature through and through. He’ll never let the inmates go; falsely imprisoned or not, they keep the whole enclave running.”

“All the more reason to free ‘em, then,” Roulette replied. “If this place needs bonafide slave labor to survive, then it probably shouldn’t.”

“You don’t need to tell me. I’ve spent ages brooding on the injustice of it all–it’s him you need to convince. And, somehow, I doubt he’ll just roll over to make way for the revolution.”

The girl smirked back over her shoulder. “He will if he knows what’s good for him.”

With that, she followed Marka through the hole Voidthrower had punched in the prison wall, leaving Antony and the busted-up furniture of the devastated warden’s office behind. A flurry of loose papers trailed behind her as she jumped down after him, her right foot extended to take the brunt of the fall; it wouldn’t do to pop her stitches so soon after her check-up, after all. From there she moved to cross the street, intent on swaying the petty tyrant quivering at Marka’s feet into seeing things her way.

Before she got the chance, though, Roulette’s ears were met with an awful din–explosions and the sound of wrenching metal, culminating in a moment of heart-stopping silence that drew her gaze northward. She turned her head just in time to witness Copperlock’s tower in freefall. It caved in the enclave’s northwestern wall, sending powerful tremors and thick waves of dust reverberating throughout the area; it was all Roulette could do just to keep her feet, and when the worst of it had finally passed, she found herself faced with another unexpected development:

Rain.

Typically, she would have welcomed it. Rain on the range was a rare thing, and was generally considered to be a good omen. However, something felt distinctly off about this bout of rainfall… She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but on this occasion–for whatever reason–the pattering of rain against her skin unsettled her to her very core.

McQueen chose that moment to scramble to his feet. His glasses were broken and his chest was heaving, but otherwise he seemed no worse for wear. “Y’all have no idea what you’ve done!” he bellowed, breaking out into a fit of maniacal laughter. “Ahab called to let me know the score: every damn Niner on the range is out for your blood, now! They know where you are, they know where you’re goin’... And unless I’m much mistaken, the leader of Folger County is already here!”

A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, bathing everything in a stark, white light. It was then that Roulette noticed it: a lone figure stood among the rapidly-dissipating dust, their face shrouded by the brim of a 10-gallon hat. Intentionally or not, they blocked the path toward the fallen tower, and exuded an aura of supreme confidence.

The hairs on the back of Roulette’s neck began to bristle, her optimism dwindling as rapidly as her view of the clear, blue sky above. Dark clouds gathered with astonishing speed, obscuring the sun’s rays more effectively than the enclave’s smoggy atmosphere ever could; every surface in sight fell prey to the resulting shadows, and the stranger appeared to delight in it. They flashed a wicked grin from underneath their hat and, in the fleeting light of a fresh lightning strike, tossed something bulky into the center of the muddy street:

The smoking corpse of Ahab Copperlock.

Roulette recoiled at the sight, her mind awash with questions. Who was this person, and why had they chosen to dispatch Copperlock in such spectacular fashion? Surely they hadn’t needed to go so far as to topple his tower to get at him… And, most perplexingly of all, they appeared to be dressed just like Bubba Lee and Copperlock! Was this some kind of spat among Gunn’s chosen, then? A bit of infighting between Niners?

…Or the opening act of a full-on rebellion?

She heard Marka curse under his breath. “Who are you?!” he bellowed. “What have you done?”

“What does it look like?” the stranger answered. Their voice sounded unmistakably feminine, but had a rich, deep timber to it that evoked the rumbling of thunder. “I cleaned house.”

“Is that what you call it? Because it looks like murder to me. How many were crushed beneath that tower just now? How many of Copperlock’s captives were harmed by your actions?”

The stranger looked taken aback, as if Marka’s outburst had genuinely surprised them… But the return of that wide, knowing grin showed that they were anything but repentant. “Oh, I get it. You’re worried about your little friend. Well, don’t be. CJ is seein’ to him as we speak. So long as he cooperates, he’ll be right as rain.”

They clucked their tongue, then, looking between them with a kind of dark, predatory detachment. “She told me to let you alone–that the prettyboy from HQ was all we needed. But Copperlock put up hardly any kind of fight at all, and I’ve got some time to kill…”

Without further preamble, the stranger pulled some kind of cannon from their back and took aim at the clouds overhead. It was a big, chunky thing with a transparent cylinder built-in just behind the barrel. Inside, Roulette could see ribbons of electricity crackling away before being forced to the weapon’s bulbous metal tip, which dispensed several long, fingerlike arcs of blue lightning directly into the sky.

“The storm clouds are all charged up,” the Gunslinger announced, as if the phrase should have some significance to them. “That means I’ve already won. Toss your weapons aside, or be destroyed.”

Roulette gritted her teeth and swung Lady Luck around into her waiting hands. There was no way she was abandoning her firearm just on the strength of a Niner’s say-so; they could be bluffing, after all, and the last thing she wanted was to be tricked into letting down her guard. Yet, the moment she leveled the barrel at the hulking Niner before her, she felt a prickle on her skin as a charge began to build–the kind that always filled the air in the lead-up to a violent summer storm.

“Marka!!” she shrieked, fumbling with her gunstrap as she struggled to uncouple it from her body, “Do as she says! The lightning–”

CRAK

Everything went white. For a moment, Roulette assumed that either she or Marka had been struck; it was only when the bright, blinding flash receded that she learned the truth: the scrap-hewn eaves of the nearby storefront had been sheared clean through by a tine of lightning, transforming it into a mess of sparks, smoke, and molten metal.

She didn’t think; instinctively, she ran, tugging at Marka’s arm in an effort to get them both to safety. The Gunslinger cackled as they loped across the muddy street toward the prison doors, shedding Marka’s weapons as they went, until the two of them were nearly unarmed:

All that remained was to toss Lady Luck aside.

“You’d best drop it, girlie!” the stranger taunted. “I can feel another one comin’! And it’s a big one!”

Marka tried the handle, then started throwing himself against the doors. “No good!” he cried, “We cannot get in!”

Roulette cursed under her breath. Marka had done the smart thing and disarmed… So why was she hesitating?

“Roulette!!” he bellowed, “You need to let go!”

The situation was hopeless. She could feel the pressure building all around them–a fresh bolt was sure to strike any minute… But if she tossed aside their last remaining defense, what chance did they have?

“Let go!”

Was that really the answer?

“LET GO!”

Roulette shook her head and set her jaw, glaring at the Gunslinger through sheets of driving rain.

“No.”

Instead, the girl plodded through the muck toward their grinning foe. Marka screamed at her to come back–to think about what she was doing–but she was deaf to it, now. She had already made up her mind.

She took Lady Luck into her hands and held it aloft, saluting the sky.

If there’s no sure path forward…

…Then it’s up to me to make one.

Before another thought could cross her mind, the lightning struck her dead-on, smashing her beneath a torrent of crackling electricity.