The Gunstringer hadn't talked about his past, and he never intended to. The wounds which he concealed were probably best left without being opened up again.

His relationship with Mictecacihuatl hadn't exactly been great, that was obvious. So when some people decided to go asking him about it as if he got paid to answer questions, then that really got on his nerves. He much prefered to talk about fighting her, if only to distract from the other things he knew about her.

The Lady of the Dead was brutal, especially when it came to dealing with her enemies. Looking at her, she looked as though she couldn't hurt a fly without breaking her back, but she was a Voodoo Priestess. She could fly too, though she didn't often exercise that ability, but many lifeless corpses were turned into dolls which she used to put on shows for herself. The Gunstringer had no basis at all for that statement, but he denied any allegations that he was making it up.

"Hmm...looks like we got here alright." Marcus Fenix remarked, looking at the western set up that awaited the group. It was done in the style of a puppet show, with nothing seeming very real at all. The buildings were ripped straight from spaghetti westerns, some of them weren't even fully above ground, there was a bit of Mexican style mixed in for good measure, just to reinforce the fact that nothing was real in this world.

"Maybe bringing a few men with us would've helped." Marcus suggested. "No. Not today anyway. I'll bring only what I need, and on this occasion, that means only me."

"He has a point. What can puppets do to us, huh?" Niko Bellič asked, loading an AK-47. The Gunstringer shot him a glare, which the Serb ignored. "I guess you're right. Still, I've seen some shit so far. I'll bet there's probably way more that'll surprise us all, and I'm kind of banking on this being one of those things."

"Cortana said she's a Voodoo Priestess." Shepard remembered. "She attacks with dolls doing all her dirty work, so we'll have to kill them all. Fortunately, they're all quite fragile, so that won't be a problem with what we have."

"So what is our plan?" Niko asked. "I'd say we want to get to her as soon as possible. We'll probably waste too much time if we focus on destroying all her minions. Try to cut out the middle man, just go straight for her."

"So this will be about speed. I can do that." Ryu affirmed. Kasumi was confident too, having brought along her own swords rather than going for hand to hand combat, expecting plenty of foes.

"Great. This should be pretty easy then." Joanna pointed out, loading her guns, while Spelunker sorted through his own weapons, nodding in approval as he took out a staff.

"I don't want anyone thinking that!" Shepard snapped. "We have to take this seriously. If we lose, the consequences will be severe!"

"Well, why don't we ask the only one of us with experience against her?" Marius suggested. The Gunstringer cursed the Centurion. Why had he all of a sudden brought that up. "Oh yeah, uh, the price of losin' is mighty steep, so don't go foolin' around against this one. Not as easy as some of you folks are acustomed to." He said half-heartedly.

That seemed to satisfy them for now. As far as the Gunstringer was concerned anyway. He had his revolvers, and his shotgun. Hidden underneath the back of his poncho, of course. That was only reserved for especially sticky situations though, and the Gunstringer much preferred his smaller dual wield hand guns.

"Alright, let's get moving." Shepard instructed the group, as they moved forward into the Lady of the Dead's territory.


Cinder had walked away from the Ultratech facility a while ago, having left about two dozen overcooked Fulgores behind him, a nice little surprise for when ARIA decided to come and inspect the place.

Honestly, the more he thought about her, the more he hated her. She was gonna just betray him like that? All because that purple die headed little fag decided that he didn't want anyone who wasn't braindead working for Ultratech. Why was he so concerned anyway? Not like he'd ever been involved with Ultratech in the past, so what was his craic getting involved with them now? Either way, Cinder was on the run now. The Elite knew he worked for Ultratech, so there was no chance they'd take him on. Ultratech, for obvious reasons, weren't an option either.

It seemed as though he was a lone wolf from now on, with neither side willing to take him in. He didn't mind though, so long as he got to cause chaos for anyone he didn't like, and there were a lot of people who fell into that category.

"Hey, you're Cinder right?" A voice asked. Cinder almost thought he imagined it. Who the hell would be calling his name out here? It wasn't exactly in the middle of the desert, but he was still in the desert, a very long way from anywhere hospitable.

"You are Cinder, right? There are no other ex-Ultratech employees that were permanently set on fire that I could be mistaking you for?" Cinder turned to the source of the voice.

"Who the hell are you?" He asked. "Name's Juri." She said. "Anyway, I heard you were kicked out of Ultratech's little clubhouse, figured you might want a parnter to cause chaos with."

Cinder paused. "How do I know you're not trying to bring me back to Ultratech so they can make sure I'm not a problem?" Juri paused. "Uh..." She rubbed her hand against her head and shrugged. "No idea. Guess you'll have to take my word for it."

Cinder was already a little confused. Surely this was all a hoax? She seemed absolutely batshit insane, even by his standards, and he had no other ideas as to what she was like. She was a woman...she was also Asian...aside from that, Juri might as well have just tried to kill him as soon as she saw him.

"Look, I can't exactly pay you for this. The last guy I tried to get on my side had that issue." She rolled her eyes, thinking of Balrog's fixation on money. "But...it'll be a lot of fun..." She had-wait, she grabbed his hands? Admittedly, when the flames on Cinder's body were hiding undermeath his rock skin, it didn't hurt to touch him as much, but he was still able to cook bacon strips on his back. Her hands must've been absolutely incinerated by now.

"I'd take your hands away from me if I were you." Cinder suggested. Juri seemed very disappointed by that suggestion, almost a little upset. "Why?" She asked. "Um, hello? I am literally on fire!" He screamed in her face. Juri looked down at her hands as she held his, not talking for a moment. "Uh-huh. That's right, you're on fire."

"So why don't you stop giving yourself third degree burns and let go?" Juri ignored him and began to move her head closer to his...

Cinder then pushed her back. "What the hell is your problem?!" He demanded. "Well, ya think I'm still working for Ultratech now?" Cinder had to be honest. There was no way this nutjob would ever get a position at Ultratech, so she had at least proven that she wasn't working for ARIA. "Yeah yeah, you proved that much. But what the hell was that all about?"

"I think we'd make a great team. I'll be honest, I'm really not into you, at all, but...it can kinda get lonely when you're making chaos all by yourself. I think it'd be nice to have someone to work with."

Okay, so the crazy lady was now going with the honest sweetheart approach. Well, ok, it wasn't exactly a sweetheart approach when large scale crime was involved, but still, she was being ofdly polite all of a sudden.

Did she really have a hidden agenda? Did it matter? He was, as he said, a lone wolf now. Did he prefer it that way? In some ways, but to have someone else to work with again...

"You said your name was Juri, yeah?" She thought about it for a second. "Last time I checked, yeah."

"Okay. Well, I'm the smartass around here, so drop that schtick and I'll give ya a chance to work with me."

She smiled a little. It was a sadistic kind of smile, the one that said 'I'll be able to hurt so many more people now' rather than one of genuine happiness for a good reason, but it was a smile nonetheless.

She even shook his hand, which he tried to incinerate her for by letting the fire seep out through the cracks in his rock skin, but she pulled away before he could do that.

"You're a little too predictable. Work on that." Cinder then noticed something even more alarming.

Her hands weren't even slightly burnt.


Mictecacihuatl was expecting them, being completely honest. She had seen the attack coming a while back, and while seeing the Gunstringer back again did evoke a mixture of emotions inside her, she was focused on destroying them where they stood. If it helped her earn trust amongst the villains, then it was worth it.

Was it?

Yes, of course it was. That was out of the question. What did concern her though, was that she could be trying for hours to bring down the Gunstringer and his little gang, so she had to have plenty of fodder ready. This came in the form of loads of voodoo dolls with pins sticking out of them rather than into them that were mainly used as projectiles, as well as some interesting machines. She could of course defend herself too, with her being able to fire blasts of voodoo magic, but she hoped it wouldn't get to that stage.

At least not with all of them.

Back down at the little surreal town, the Elite noticed that the weather seemed to be gettinv worse. Not in a natural way either, but the sky was getting darker as they neared the Lady of the Dead, indicating she had plenty to do with it.

She was on top of a giant tabletop mountain, seemingly one she had the Shadowman or ARIA level for her, as it looked unnaturally flat, but the climb up to the top was more about gradually getting higher as they ran, rather than one steep climb.

"It seems as though she has something to do with it." Marius remarked, taking his sword out of its sheathe. "Yeah, I think we can expect a lot of attacks really soon." Shepard backed him up, already having plenty of weapons on standby. The Spelunker still clutched at his staff, knowing he'd have to use it, and knowing that time was probably soon.

Too bad for him, 'soon' meant right now. They were greeted by a barrage of voodoo dolls from the left. Niko swore in Serbian and fired his AK at them, getting most of them down before more began to appear. Joanna helped out by decimiating them while Niko reloaded, but it wasn't long before they started coming from all directions.

Then two of them came by on a machine spilling oil across the path and then lighting it on fire as they went, creating more chaos as the Elite were caught at sixes and sevens. Gunfire went in every direction as the voodoo dolls began to crowd them.

Thankfully the team of leaders were soon able to regain their composure.

"We're making it too easy for them, spread out!" Shepard ordered. As soon as she did that, the dolls became confused, splitting up in pursuit of different targets. Niko used his free space to take out a rocket launcher and fire it at the oil spilling machine, blowing it to smitherines instantly.

Marius and Kasumi both had swords which were able to cut through the dolls like butter, making the whole affair seem like something of a gross mismatch, while Spelunker's staff killed anything the projectiles fired from it touched, so he was always quick to kill off any dolls that came his way, no matter how quickly they came back.

Ryu Hayabusa undoubtedly benefited the most from the extra space, having the area around him to swing his sword and take out huge chunks of the 'armies' against him proved to be a huge advantage.

However, it seemed as though this was only a temporary solution, as there seemed to be no shortage of the projectiles being fired at them. Ryu knew there was only one person he could ask for help.

"Tell me, you must have dealt with this before, skeleton!" Ryu called out to the Gunstringer. "How many must we kill?!"

"It ain't a matter of numbers! Just gotta keep goin' on ahead!" Ryu realized then that they could probably be there for a while.

"Only way for us to stop this is to put it out at the cause!" He explained. Ryu then knew what had to happen for them to win.

"Then you must go on yourself!" Ryu ordered. The Gunstringer was sure he had misheard, so he asked again to be sure. "What'd you say?!"

"I said you must go yourself!" Ryu repeated. "Go on and fight this menace, or we'll all die!"

"Why me?!" He asked. "Because you know more about this enemy than we do!" Ryu explained. "The rest of us will stay back and draw the attention of all the dolls!"

"I second that!" Shepard called out. "You can go alone!" The Gunstringer was now caught on the spot. He had to go, as by now, it was obvious everyone had heard the plan, and no one voiced any objections to it.

"You have my go ahead too!" Marius yelled, bashing through a huge amount of dolls with his shield before slashing them all with one clean swing. "You'll know better than any of us how to fight her!" Kasumi agreed, using her own swords to slash so fast, sometimes the dolls were destroyed before they even appeared. More support for that idea. Exactly what he wanted!

"Go!" Shepard shouted over an explosive going off to dispose of another oil machine. The Gunstringer looked around, but no one payed any more attention to him, all focused on making sure they didn't get hit by any of the dolls. Faced with no other choice, he ran.

He hated this idea so much, and he didn't know why. It was just so infuriating that he had to confront her again!

For a puppet, or just in general, the Gunstringer was very fast. He could cover a lot of ground with very few steps, and it wasn't like he had poor balance or anything. Hell, he was still firing at more dolls further up the path, and hitting all his targets, not getting hit once as he raced up the mountain.

It wasn't long before he finally arrived to the centre, where she was waiting for him already, as if she had expected a one on one from the start.

"It's nice to see you again." She began. "How about we cut the chit-chat. Ya know why I'm here, right?" She sighed. "You know, I had hoped we could start over again. Turn over a new leaf, like the old days."

The Gunstringer wasn't interested in what he viewed as half-baked crazy talk, and he let his feelings be known.

"Save yer voice!" He barked. She seemed highly offended, but not all angry...

"Well, if you're going to be like that about it, then I regret ever associating with you!" She shrieked, as dolls began to float up all around him. "This arena will be your grave!" She then sent all the dolls flying at him, giving him very little time to react. He was able to avoid most of them, and, taking out his revolvers, he began firing at the rest, destroying anything that got close.

The Gunstringer wasted no time in firing like crazy at her, while she tried to fly over him, firing blasts of voodoo magic at him. He rolled away from the blasts and returned fire, but she was quick. Despite getting plenty of good shots in, the Gunstringer was hit in the face by another blast of voodoo magic, knocking him off balance. He had barely enough time to steady himself before he found himself targeted by a doll, Mictecacihuatl cackling as she threw it. The Gunstringer aimed one expertly placed shot and got rid of the projectile just like that, it was gone. The Priestess let out an angered shout before firing more voodoo magic at him. He wasn't getting hit though, as he kept jumping and firing, making sure none of the projectiles even got close.

She could see his strategy though, trying to close down the gap and make it much harder for her to keep track of him. She had a plan exactly for that, beginning to spin around as a black haze surrounded the lower half of her body, then she charged for the skeleton. He fired a shot that ricocheted off her, before being hit himself. He was knocked back, but it wasn't enough to deter him, as he ran in, fueled solely by bitter anger, and whacked her across the side of her face with one of his revolvers, causing her to jerk her head. She quickly grabbed his arm though, and in a display equally as savage, she sunk her teeth into his arm.

It wasn't so much the pain of the bite, but the shock that she would do something so vicious that shocked the Gunstringer, and it was enough to make him drop the gun he had hit her with. He quickly got his arm out of her mouth and dropped to the ground, rolling away from any potential attacks.

They never came, as she forcefully threw his gun across the arena and returned her focus to him. The look on her face though...it wasn't...entirely angry?

He was caught thinking too much about it, and she was already launching attacks. Taking advantage of his halved firepower, she began launching streams of smaller dolls, with the pins facing outwards, knowing he couldn't shoot them all down now.

That didn't stop him from trying though, as he started firing and took out several of the dolls with his lone revolver, before realizing the situation was getting dire. He jumped out of the way of the rest, but they were already coming back. They had split up too, forcing him to divert his attention, which became overwhelming. He began firing one shot each side, left, right, left, right, but too many on the right forced him to back up and begin opening fire to just the one side. That proved to be a mistake though, as his lack of attention to the left side resulted in a barrage of successful hits, followed up by hits to the right as he couldn't focus on firing at anything while he was under intense assault. To top it all off, a blast of voodoo magic to the back knocked him on his face, and though he quickly picked himself up, it wasn't quick enough.

The Voodoo Priestess cackled again as she sent another doll careening towards the Gunstringer, now defenceless and only able to watch as the doll was only getting faster the closer it got to him.

He couldn't react fast enough, as the doll nailed him head on, sending him crashing to the ground. The Gunstringer cursed his bad luck and then remembered something, as his landing reminded him of something...

As she prepared another giant doll to throw at him, the Gunstringer didn't want to spoil the surprise straight away. He began another direct run at her which seemed to be his only option, at least to her. He was faced with no other option, both his revolvers too far out of his reach. She did feel a pang of sadness as she watched him so determined to win. He was literally defenceless, but even then he wouldn't admit defeat, especially not to her. Why was she thinking so much about it? Better to just get it overwith!

She screamed and forced the doll forward, hurtling towards him like a bullet train.

It was a mighty good thing she hadn't counted on a third gun. Reaching for the back of his poncho, he pulled out the shotgun and fired. It completely obliterated the doll, time slowing down as fabric and splints went everywhere. Through it all, he could see her look. It was genuine shock on her face, either not knowing about, or having forgotten entirely that he had a shotgun. She quickly regained her composure though, and she was trying to pick up another doll, but the Gunstringer got the better of her. He fired the shotgun, a deadly slug coming from the barrel and shooting across the arena, into her shoulder. Time remained slow, and somehow got even slower.

It was fragments of bone this time, that flew through the air. Her right arm was seemingly suspended mid air, a look of horror on her face as the realization of what had happened just sank in.

Time picked up again, she fell to the ground, allowing the Gunstringer plenty of time to pick up his revolvers and put them back in their holsters, then put his shotgun back behind his poncho, before he walked up to the Lady of the Dead. She was still clutching her shoulder, but slowly getting to her feet. She was still on her knees by the time the Gunstringer made his way over, and he had both his revolvers back in his hands. He put one of them back, and pointed the other at her, never faltering as he slowly walked towards her,

As she stared down the barrel of his gun, waiting for him to pull the trigger and put her six feet under for the last time, she thought about what could have been. Maybe if she had not betrayed him, things would be better. Perhaps they would've been alright together. Just the two of them against the world...

"Go." He said. Just the one word. Nothing else. She looked surprised, but didn't say anything. "Get the hell away from all them nasty characters. It ain't good for ya."

"But where will I go?" She asked. "None o' my concern. Just skedaddle." She paused, not knowing what to think of the proposal which had been put before her. "Well? What're ya watin' on, Chinese new year? Beat it!" He almost fired a warning shot, but stopped himself, as she got to her feet, picking up her arm and moving away. As she was going, she kept looking back at the Gunstringer, maybe to see if he would move at all, or maybe to try a surprise attack.

Or maybe she wanted to say something. But she just couldn't bring herself to say it. His cold stare met her eyes every time, as she moved farther and farther away. She eventually stopped looking back. Strangely, she didn't start floating at all. Maybe a lack of energy, maybe a choice to make the journey away as slow as possible, the Gunstringer didn't know. What he did know, however, was that he was feeling that same way again.

Hurt.

It hadn't gone away. Oh no. It was still there, and still strong inside him. He cursed her, cursed her for ever forcing him to feel this way. His grip became so tight on his revolver that his hand began to tremble, but yet nothing else happened. As her prescence grew weaker, the normal weather returned, with the sun beginning to set as it returned to sight.

It wasn't long after that he was finally found, having taken some time to rest after a long fight. It was Shepard who had come up to get him.

"Hey, it's time to go." She told him. From her response, it seemed as though she knew of the history between the Gunstringer and Mictecacihuatl, but neither said anything more on the matter. The Gunstringer turned and nodded, fixing his hat. "I understand. We best be goin' home now." He took one last look over his shoulder, wondering how far away she'd be by now.

Was he a fool to let her go so easily? Surely she would be back to her old tricks in no time, gone back to ARIA and the Shadowman, albeit with her tail tucked between her legs, but no doubt looking for round 2 the moment she was ready to do so.

Or maybe she would give up. Maybe that was one failure too many for her. Maybe she would go back to the underworld, maybe she would find a place to live, or maybe the world would just forget about her. He didn't know, but...but...

He couldn't say he didn't still care.

Author's Note

I actually had to watch Gunstringer playthroughs to figure out what was going on with the Lady of the Dead, and that was where I realized the Gunstringer has probably never in his life heard of reloading. Good on him though. Also, I know they're probably not voodoo dolls, but it made the most sense to me to have it as that, because them being actual live people raised a lot of logical inconsistencies. So what happens to Mictecacihuatl? Probably ded, just cos I don't want to keep copypasting that name :P

Nah, I'm kidding, she'll be back, but I won't say when, or what she'll do from here on out.

And yeah, Cinder showed up for a little while, and he found someone equally as crazy as he is. What can I say, I had the idea one morning and I loved it too much to just let it be a crazy idea.

Hope y'all like it, I'm gonna try and be way more productive now, hope to have nine more chapters up by the end of June, while I'm really enjoying writing.