East Meets West 5 (Patreon)

The woman...no, the Filth had brought in a child. A boy of no more than seven years old. The broken expression in his eyes, the shuffle as he walked, this kid, this child, had seen a Hell that no child should ever see. I stood from the chair, slowly, carefully, approached the two. The Filth had a smile on her face, as I knelt in front of the child. I glanced up at her, kneeling in so that the brim of my hat covered his face.

"Close your eyes and cover your ears," I whispered, causing the boy to turn to look at me, the first hint of something other than a shattered spirit in his gaze.

As soon as I saw his eyes close, I moved, his hands coming up to his ears as I rapidly stood. My hand grabbed the hilt of my bowie knife, drawing it and lashing out, the edge hooked around her knee, the empowered and sharpened steel easily cutting through silk, flesh, tendon, and even carving out chunks of bone. My other hand flew up, covering her mouth as it opened to scream.

I drove her to the floor, onto her back, before I slammed the bowie knife into the floor next to her face. I let my power flow, the sheer weight of it bearing down onto the Filth like a mountain glacier, the sheer rage and hate I felt towards her undoubtedly burning in my eyes. Her eyes were wide, and I snarled, "The children of God are not for sale."

There was a look of confusion on her face, and I forced myself to focus enough that I spoke in the local tongue, "Do you understand me?"

She nodded, but then tried to speak again, only to have me cut her off, "Now, you are going to take me to every child you have here, then you and I are going to have a long, long talk with the local guard."

There was fear in her eyes as I lifted her to her feet, but I saw something else. I couldn't put a word to it, but it gave me a bad feeling about the local guard. It didn't matter, they'd do their job or die trying to stop me.

I turned to see the child staring at us, and he looked with barely there hope in his eyes. I smiled at him, showing him my teeth, "You did well."

Then I jerked my head towards the door, indicating we should leave. He fell into line, walking behind me. I paused, considering, before taking my hat off my head and putting on his with a smile. We made our way down a set of stairs, the boy looking nervous but also hopeful.

Turning my attention back to the Filth, I switched my bowie knife to my off hand and kept my main hand on the handle of my revolver. She had stopped screaming now, hobbling in front as I tapped the tip of my knife against her spine. I would be glad when she finally died.

We reached the bottom of the stairs, and I followed her to a door. Getting a bad feeling, I held a hand out, motioning for the kid to stay back. He understood, thankfully, moving around a corner and just barely peeking his head out. Giving him a nod, I turned back to face the woman, just in time to see her throw the door open and a bunch of goons lift crossbows in my direction.

[hr][/hr]

His name was Dai Dukul, from the northern tribes. The bad people who had kidnapped him when the tribe came south for the Wood Festival said it wasn’t his name anymore. They called him Little Dove, and the bad people who hurt him called him that as well. He’d long since lost track of how long he’d been taken, this far south the temperatures all felt the same, so he couldn’t tell what season it was anymore.

However long it had been, the Stranger, the one he’d been brought up to...make happy, Dai Dukul saw it in the Stranger’s eyes. The Stranger wasn’t like the people who’d taken him from his home, the look in his eyes wasn’t the look that the bad people who hurt him had when they looked at him. The Stranger wasn’t looking forward to hurting him. It didn’t show on his face, but the Stranger was furious.

The Stranger had put his weird hat on Dai Dukul’s head before following the Bad Lady to the room where the cages with him and the other kids were kept. The Bad Lady threw open the door and dropped to the floor, just as the guards in the room shot at the Stranger.

[Dodge the Bullet]

Dai Dukul’s eyes were wide as the Stranger seemed to flow around the crossbow arrows that flew at him. The hand holding the weird short sword lashed across his front, and one of the guards screamed. At first, Dai Dukul thought the Stranger had performed some sort of wind cultivation technique, only to realize, as the Stranger spun under another arrow, that he'd thrown his short sword.

As the Stranger continued his roll, Dai Dukul could see the weird metal and wood artifact that had been at his side in his other hand. There was a bang, like the fireworks at the city festival he'd seen one time, along with a flash of light from the end of it. It was sure to be some sort of ancient artifact, like the giant refinement tank thing in the city he'd heard about. A single hit from that thing, and the bad people would be dead. The Stranger's free hand flew over the top of his artifact weapon, and there was another flash of light and accompanying bang.

Then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth. Dai Dukul watched as the Stranger waited for a moment, before standing up and walking forward, his hands doing something in front of him. There was a clink of metal, but Dai Dukul couldn’t see anything, before there was a loud CLACK.

The Stranger paused, before there was a furious roar, and Dai Dukul felt the blood drain from his face as he realized: the Bad Man who worked alongside the Bad Lady was here. Dai Dukul was barely able to see it as it happened; the Bad Man, who called himself a Young Master, shrouded in a red, angry aura that screamed of anger and a desire to hurt, charged out of the room. The Bad Man snorted and roared like an angry ox, his wild hair curling up from the movement of his head to resemble horns.

[Indomitable Bull Arts: Furious Unflinching Red Rush]

[Wrestle the Ox]

Dai Dukul’s mouth fell open, as he watched the Bad Man use a technique that he’d seen turn Cultivators into bloody smears failed. The Stranger’s artifact was returned to his hip, and both hands came up. His hands wrapped around the horn-shaped lengths of hair, but instead of stopping the Bad Man in his tracks, like everyone else who’d reached this point had tried, he twisted.

The Stranger pivoted on his foot, redirecting the Bad Man’s charge and driving him face first into the floor, and said something in that weird language that Dai Dukul didn’t recognize, "Better that he be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck, than to cause one of the little ones come to harm."

The Bad Man got to his feet, facing the Stranger with a snarl, "The fuck did you just say, barbarian filth?"

The Stranger just stared at the Bad Man, his eyes narrowing, his legs bowed, his hands open and by his side. The Bad Man’s aura flared, a massive, angry bull appearing behind him, snorting and pawing at the air under its hooves.

[Indomitable Raging Bull]

"Brace yourself, barbarian scum," the Bad Man snarled, bits of foam appearing at the corner of his mouth. "Feel honored to die at the hands of the Young Master of the Indomitable Bull Sect."

The Stranger didn’t respond verbally, merely staring at the Bad Man like he was something unpleasant that the Stranger had stepped on. The Stranger breathed in, and when he breathed out, the world changed. Tears came to Dai Dukul’s eyes, a hand flew to his mouth to cover the sob that wracked his chest.

The sensation that the Stranger’s aura made...Dai Dukul didn’t have the words to describe it, there was no array of words in the Imperial Tongue that could properly describe how the ghostly horse that appeared behind the Stranger made him feel. In the end, there was only one word that came even remotely close, something that Dai Dukul could only now appreciate after the torment that the bad people had put him through: freedom.

[Stallion of the Great Plains]

The Bad Man and the Stranger moved, faster than any human being should be capable of moving. The Bad Man's fist flew, and Dai Dukul closed his eyes, unable to watch the Stranger die. He knew what would happen, and he prayed to the heavens that the Stranger would somehow escape.

[Wrestle the Ox]

There was a loud crash, then a leathery sound followed by a quiet click.

[Duel of the Quickdraw]

Then there was a loud booming sound, and the Bad Man letting out a bellow of pain. Dai Dukul gingerly opened his eyes. The Bad Man was face down on the ground, his knee a mass of blood and meat, the Stranger standing tall, glaring down at the Bad Man. The Stranger...won?

[hr][/hr]

It took every ounce of self control that I could muster to avoid killing the piece of trash in front of me, but I needed more information. I needed to know where the children were taken from, who the clients were, and that was just the start of the questions I had for them. Stepping over the man whose leg I’d shot out, I made my way over to the first goon I’d killed and reclaimed my bowie knife.

Cleaning the blade of my knife on the goon’s shirt, I stood and took in the cages around me. Four cages, each with a minimum of twelve kids crammed into them like sardines in a can. I did my best to give the kids a reassuring smile, and to not let the sheer, unadulterated, raw amount of hate and fury that I was feeling appear on my face. Looking at the locks on the cages, I immediately dismissed the idea of shooting the locks off.

I’m a damn good shot, bullshit power or no, but with how the lock was built into the cage and how many kids there were in the cages, I didn’t want to risk hurting them. Walking over to the trash who’d fought back, I grabbed him by his red vest and hauled him upright.

"Where is key?" I asked, keeping it short and to the point.

"You have no idea what you’ve done here," he snarled, spitting at my face. "You have made enemies beyond what you-"

He cut himself off, his entire body freezing in place. Understandable, considering that I had taken my bowie knife and placed the edge in a spot that no male, no matter how powerful they were, wanted something sharp.

"I only ask one more time," I said, my voice colder than a glacier. "Where. Is. Key?"

He swallowed, his gaze locked firmly on my knife, and quietly said, "It is on a string, around Han Yu’s neck."

The patter of feet on the floor made me glance up, seeing the kid with my hat on his head running up. He ran to the Filth and easily grabbed a key on a string from her immobile body, either dead or unconscious (right now, I couldn’t bring myself to give a damn which it was). I gave the kid a nod as he ran to start unlocking the cages, impressed with how he seemed to have rallied from what he’d undoubtedly been through.

Of course, it was at roughly that time that the universe decided things weren’t interesting enough.