A/N: Prompt by thestuffedalligator: "Wait, you have a crush on him?"
"Yeah?"
"I thought you had a crush on that chick from your English class."
"Please, I have crushes on most people. I have a crush on you, for Christ's sake."
"Wh-"
"Keep up."
"Wait, you're telling me that you fancy MeLaan?" Wax asked, firing off his Sterion at a coinshot, Pushing on the metal as it left the barrel. The shot didn't hit and blew wide because of the coinshot's Push. The blue line connected to the metal from Wax's chest blew up and away.
Wayne dodged down. "Bloody hell!" he cried, shots coming at him. He was holding onto his hat. "And yeah, I do fancy her. Got a problem with that, mate?"
Wax dropped down behind the crates with Wayne, needing to reload. First he swallowed his vial of whiskey and steel shavings, a fire burning in his chest with his stores replenished, and then he pushed bullets into the cylinder. It snapped into place with a clean, crisp sound.
"How much bendalloy you got?" Wax asked.
"Not enough. Just thirty seconds."
"Rusts."
"Yep."
There were loud footsteps, hurried, the sound of a thug coming right at them, and they both dashed to the side as he crashed through the crates. This put them in the line of fire. A bullet Wax hadn't seen whizzed past his head, managing to nick his ear. He shot at the ground and Pushed himself into the air, vainly trying to get to the catwalk above to stay away from the aluminum bullets. Beneath him, Wayne was a blur, and then suddenly, he was somewhere else. The thug had been downed by Wayne's dueling canes. That still left the coinshot.
Wayne got close to him with his dueling canes, but then his bendalloy must've run out. He was no longer a blur. He was wholly existing in their time.
Rust and ruin! Harmony, help us!
The prayer — if it could even be called that — was in vain. Wax didn't have his earring in. Besides, with anger burning in him like a large store of steel that could never be burned through, he told himself that Harmony wouldn't intervene. He only intervened when it was convenient, or to get Lessie killed.
The coinshot put a bullet in Wax's stomach, and he stumbled, falling to the ground, bloody. But then the coinshot turned, aiming at Wax. Wax grinned, glad that this agent of his uncle's didn't know that Wayne was a bloodmaker. Must've had bad information.
Wax Pushed against the nails of the catwalk, pushing himself into the air in an arc. To slow his landing, he found a discarded bullet casing on the floor, and Pushed on it. It rolled, but by filling his ironminds, drastically decreasing his weight, he landed where he'd planned… nearly on top of the coinshot.
Wayne was groaning on the ground, but a glance showed that he was fine. He was healing. He was just keeping up the act to avoid attention. There could be more of his uncle's agents around. Surely these two weren't the only ones. Perhaps they were sent in to weaken them.
Now that he was close, when the coinshot attempted to fire, Wax could easily get inside his defenses and slam him in the face with the butt of his sterion, Pushing on the metal as he did so. It snapped the burly man's head backwards, and as he stumbled, Wax said to Wayne, "I thought you fancied Ranette."
Wayne laughed, on the ground, bloody. "Please, I fancy most people. I fancy you for Harmony's sake."
Wax fired at the coinshot, hitting him in the head, dropping him. Blood splattered, and there was a heavy thump as he hit the floor. Wax now turned to his friend, completely perplexed. Still, he reached out a hand to help him up.
"Wh—"
A maniacal grin was on Wayne's face as he got up, and then reached down to grab his bowler hat. He placed it on his head smartly, and then said, voice the most stern he'd ever heard it: "Keep up."
More pewterarms burst into the warehouse, dressed in gray workman's clothes. Wax clapped Wayne on the back, and then cocked his gun.
"You keep up."
The fighting restarted.