An Alliance Forged in Blood

[Gildarts]

Christa gave a lasting look to the honorable man, she had only ever heard of them in legends, or stories passed by word of mouth, and each were quite laden with exaggeration and woven with lies. Never had she met one. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion at the thought, but she kept them fixed only on her empty glass until she heard the spurred footsteps behind her and saw a shadowed reflection in her glass. What, can't even finish my damned drink?

Soon, Issac would get another glimpse at the way Christa demonstrated her bloody "honor." Up to this point it had proved to be the distance between her rifle and its bullet. A method so simple. But, after all, c'est la vie – that's life – and this translated to the warrior by means of deadly action.

And there was only one direction to pull the trigger.

The silence crawled on, as though Smitty the bartender was absorbing the foreshadowed massacre that would soon become of his shop, he took the pouch before understanding the bargain. Issac's eyes flashed to the girl, only to see her lithe leg swing upward as she spun her entire body forward from the barstool.

"RESPECT THIS!" The top flat of her shoe collided with the man's jawbone and the momentum only carried him down into the hollowed wooden floorboards.

THUMP!

Empty like the sound of an already guzzled glass as the man's dense body shuddered on impact. Issac hadn't expected such speed from an already lethal fighter, yet there was no denying her strategy had been to catch her pursuer on the fly; he was too close ranged for her to battle with her masterful bullets and not risk the chance of an accidental discharge. As he fell in the air, she was able to scoop his weapon, it had been held out and well-aimed at her torso with his smutty, grime covered hands. Her eyes flickered with rage as the loudmouth woman freshly held the cold steel in her hands. And stay down. Her bloodthirsty eyes seemed to speak before the place was lit with sound of gunpowder and bullets, while the shells soon followed clanging like tolling bells upon the floor.

Christa had been quicker on the draw, and hadn't even pulled her own revolver from its holster. The rifle she held was long range and would have served her only as a hard metal bat. For now, it hung at her waist with an idle strap, though she had plenty to swing at.

If the next one, closest to Issac thought he would get one over on the armless man, the attacker was dead wrong. Well, not dead, but certainly bleeding. A whip that blazed faster than fire streamed at the man's gun as it flew in the air and skittered underneath the saloon's half door. With a slammed elbow brought down on the rogue's skull, Issac made quick work to silence his assailant.

Christa didn't have time to remind Issac – who was now on her left – that the bandit's gun was loaded. She was too busy trying her best to dodge the hot bullets whizzing too close to her cheeks and hair. Close range, closer calls, and these men were damn good shots. It didn't take long for her to open fire as she shot down a hanging ceiling accessory so they could take immediate cover. The bar would have been the best choice, and surely she wouldn't have hesitated to roll right over it. But alas, they had been flanked by these yellow bellied bastards on both sides.

Click click. With a scowl she threw the empty chambered revolver away and pulled out her favorite Beretta. It would soon be news to them just how full her clip was. She shot through a parting of the tender wooden bar rack as her shoulder became adjacent to the wood and her head dipped out of sight. With a little guesswork, Chrisra could survive yet another bar brawl. And these cowboys were much more fun to shoot at. The torched bullets danced in the southern-themed air.

Issac had taken his own initiative and ducked beneath the wooden covering. His whip had stained the floor with blood, not his own, as he only after realized that his aim had been skewed just a bit by the speed of violent action. He was been so sure his fluid blood had been well aimed, yet, there was the bandit's hand laying on the ground, staring him in the face. The roar of gunfire sounded in his ears, not as rapid as the automatics the empire hounds had used, but still just as effective. And there was a stranger's hand.

He heard her shouts through the blaring ringing in his ears. Someone had grazed the tip of his cartilage, and with the sudden fire that scalded his ear, telling him of injury, he doubted it would grow back.

Two, four, six, eight... Steadily she pounded off fifteen rounds before she exchanged a fresh clip. Issac looked in his hand as he too found a gun. Christa had to presume that his aim would be good enough though he seemed to favor some other scarlet and obscure method, Christa was keen on her own reliability. It seemed she trusted the gun to find its target and persisted the notion even if he only had one arm to stabilize it. One finger was enough to get the job done. Meanwhile, Issac's aim moved faster than his mind, and his bullets found their mark on the non-vital areas that would still drop his gun-crazed, cutthroat enemies.

In the carnage, the level headed Christa burst off round after bloodied round. Shards of glass hung in the air all around her, if the goons couldn't see where to hit her, they probably assumed they could rock her concentration by the rupture of bottles from the bar above her, and in consequence, her aim.

Broken glass just wasn't the sort of thing to stop the girl. The rate of fire from her bewildered enemy slowed, and with every gentle pull of her trigger, a bullet flashed from her gun with a babies kick. Issac found himself increasingly bothered, but he knew the best way to stop her without directly challenging her was to end this battle with the least fatalities. This meant he had to beat her bullet. He would shoot better. And he shot faster than she could keep track of.

Christa scoffed at his disillusioned mercy. She could tell by the way he aimed his weapon he was a capable man with good aim but the pained groans that followed each blast seemed to be enough to tell her that their survival was his intention. Shot after surgical shot. He beat her to her targets, executing his careful bullet and leaving her trailing behind just by a hair. And these stray bulletholes painted the chipping walls. Her head didn't bother to move to the side as she was about to shout something of an order to the man before a whiskey bottle hit its mark and crashed on her head with a rupturing impact. She bit her lip and a pained curse was shouted through the break of gunfire.

"Hey, I hit 'er boss!" One seemed to be celebrating, she would end it quickly and used the man's voice to pinpoint his location through the intense rumble of fire. Her head swung to the side and she felt her face flinch with a grimace of sheer agony. Her hand grew numb, and the trigger wouldn't squeeze when she called it to. Issac pulled the woman back from her peering spot that was the corner of their cover. Christa was jolted back, behind and into safety just as chunks of wood were obliterated by a sighted stream of bullets.

There were two Issac's now, though she knew the cause as her head spun. While she didn't strain herself to muffle a thanks to the old bloodlance, they both knew he had saved her ass. With a dizzy head, scraped shoulder, and skimmed bloody side; she braced her palm against the ground before fumbling for her rifle. She would fire through the bar's panels and secure for them a place to retreat to and end those positioned far in the corner. Slying them ensured their victory.

It was hard to believe at the start of it, Christa and Issac had been outnumbered, two to at least twenty, but that had steadily decreased with their ample firepower and the band of rogues only feed into her kill count. How many remained? She would find out as her high-caliber rifle made quick work and scorched a rapid line through the wood. Christa didn't hesitate to dive behind as Issac covered her flank.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

The remaining bodies fell to the ground as corpses, and Issac shook his head as he crawled around the corner. His eyes met the shivering bartender's, who – to the bloodlance's surprise – Christa had surprisingly spared.

Still, her eyes skimmed over Smitty, the coward, with bitter distaste. Blood pooled around him and she almost smirked as the unworthy became submerged in the thickening puddle.

The bodies bled. Sticky, warm, and smearing on her clothes, Christa readied her gun once more and on the count of three both their weapons propped above the wood. Christa peppered the area the best she could with the semi automatic, while Issac tried to anticipate her aim and could not stop the endless pouring of gore.

Issac dipped out of sight to reload and caught a glimpse of the shadow in the arch of the doorway, behind the unlikely pair. A swift gusting whip struck down the enemy, who had raised a gun to the back of Christa's head. The warrior was alerted to the danger by the cry of pain behind her. No panic breached her serene expression as she turned to neutralize the threat that he had already struck down. With Issac's cautionary glance, she carefully retrieved the gun and only the gun, as she passed it to him, seeming how he was convienently out of bullets.

Issac had gotten a good look a the speckles of shiny crystals embedded in the scarlet that glittered in her skull anime the sharpshooter carelessly tossed him the gun without a second glance. The enemy were down to two, but they seemed to be trying to disguise their numbers. Through their next reload, Christa challenged them in that graceful way that only she was capable.

"What's the matter boys? Can't handle a few bullets?"

Issac saw what she was going, playing to their pride and drawing out their ego. One, he assumed the stupider of the bunch, shouted back in annoyance, "SAY THAT TO MY FACE YOU F-"

Whatever his sentence would have formed, it was cut back by her clean shot into his throat. Issac followed through by beating Christa to the last one, and hitting the Stetson wearing man in the gut. No internal organs, though, he could only guess that the agony would be unrivaled.

Christa's glance flicked to Issac, and asked, "Now why'd you go and do that?" Though it wasn't clear whether she meant this about him stealing her kill, or him not finishing the job. The man bellowed with suffering and her glance held on Issac saying wordlessly, You aren't doing them any favors.

There was no silence here as there was at the end of war. Only familiar groans of groggy men filled the fated bar.

Muddled thoughts tainted Christa's battle-sore mind, as she came down from her steadied adrenaline, but did not drop her pistol from it's angle on the wounded. There were too many to count. She smirked realizing by the minutely lighter weight of her clip that she was out of bullets.

Speak of the devil... One gripped her ankle in a weak cry for help. She kicked it away and spoke to the dying, "You know what you did." As far as the girl was concerned, be truly knew his choice meant his death, or in this case, at least foreboding agony. Mercy had a different meaning out here.

"You're a bad shot." Christa couldn't resist as she felt her head cock toward to him, Issac, and her eyes turn to steel.

"That just depends what you are aiming for." He caught his breath, set down the metal, heavy in his hand, and met her gaze. But it wasn't over..

Though the rain of fire had ended, the endless bullets never seemed to stop flying around her.

To Issac's horror next well-aimed bullet seemed to find itself aimed at an innocent.

Christa threw herself to the ground in a skidding effort to reach for a gun as the last yellow bellied bastard picked a revolver up and held it up to a woman who, during the sobbing silence, had crept down the vintage wooden stairs.

The stetson-wearing bandit's greedy arms smothered her as the scavenged silver revolver brushed the side of her head. "I'll kill her!" He shouted, Issac's eyes widened, he was convinced the lady's life was in peril but before his lips would open to persuade the man differently, he was interrupted by his favorite abrasive soldier.

"Oh yeah?" Christa didn't hesitate from her freshly spot on the ground to test his conviction. "Go. Fucking. Head." She reached underneath the half-door from her position on the ground and quickly spin around as she heard it. Her incentive to fire.

The silent click of his empty chamber.

BANG.

Her improvised gun responded with a flash and lit the gunpowder in the barrel. The man remained suspended in the air before he fell hard onto the ground, bringing with him only the silence of still air.

The girl in his arms shrieked as she saw the mass of blood and brains that littered even her pretty and frilled pink dress. The hostage had gotten the closest look at Christa's marksmanship, too bad the innocent civilian was screaming too much to appreciate her perfect headshot.

For a moment, Issac's eyes fell to the side and landed on Christa with pronounced shock, he caught a fleeting glimpse of morality in her eyes, or perhaps, it was was something akin to disappointment.

"You didn't have to kill him."

The voice of reason. What a surprise. Her lips persed into a chiding "Tsk." As she rose from her fallen position and didn't bother to wipe off the accumulated dust, splinters, and drying blood. Her blue eyes had clouded some, but if anything was on her mind, she didn't speak a word of it to Issac.

Christa ventured over to the corpse to marvel at her own work, before beckoning the shaking Smitty over to help the freshly fainted lady. "See to it she gets her fair share of whiskey." That sentence was as close as Christa got to compassion. The shaken bartender just nodded and helped the blood-splattered southern gal to a stand.

Issac looked down at the bloody consequence, and then at the girl was alive and breathing, then to the woman holding an empty rifle, the grasp of cold metal familiar in her hands. Well, Christa was more of a machine than a woman, but she had helped the lady donned in pink up when she had fallen. He wondered if it counted for anything as he watched Christa who was still hovering over the corpse. The both recovered in their own ways from the blood and chaos that had ensued around them. Issac was left wondering what was going through her mind under that careful steel visage.

Cold eyes fell with a vacant sense of mourning. It was a pity, she had even told him where she would fire and he still hadn't proved to be much of a challenge. Her boot's sole pressed against the swelled cheek as she kicked the stetson man's bloodied head and looked at his not-so-fatal bullet wound to the gut. "Fucking zombies."