The shotgun is pressed into the nape of my neck at the advent of the Black Robin's final countdown.
"Tu vas a quierer el Diablo….," El Maquino winks evilly as he fingers the trigger.
I suppose I should be wondering why Bard hasn't been showing his butt by now. But I have about one third of a second before my 'injun' brains litter the muddy crags of the gold mine beneath me. I consider teleporting, phasing, wisping—Anything in all manner of smoky rapture to save myself from this high caliber bind. But even if I was to teleport away to safety—how 'safe' would that safety be until the rest of Black Robin's posse attempted turning me into a lead souvenir? And would they waste off Raven as a reprisal for my attempted escape? And just where is this 'Miss Raven' anyways, I—
The trigger pulls.
I wince all over against the shotgun.
Why couldn't I die on a Nickelodeon Game Show?
"EL MAQUINO! BLACK ROBIN!"
The shotgun lifts. Everyone gasps and mutters, turning with their rifles and pistols to face the voice of the sudden stranger. I glance with quivering black eyes to see the lone Drifter Luke mosey on out from behind the rock. His arms are up over his head. He is gloriously brave… …or gloriously stupid… .. ..but either way hideously unarmed.
The flying fluff are you doing, Bard?
"I'M HERE!" He shouts sweatily into the heat of the rising morning Sun. His eyes squint and his poncho flaps in the wind as he sets his dirt-grinding boots to a stop dead center of all the crooks' rifle barrels. "Let's settle some of this quarrelin' like grown men."
El Maquino glances worriedly aside at the Black Robin.
'Robin' leans down on a propped-up knee, tilts his heat back, and narrows his eyemask. "This some kind of dag-blamed trick, Drifter?"
Bard cricks his neck. He lets his head hang….hang…..lean to the side—
Fwump! His arms spread out from under his poncho—
Every crook jerks into a split-second firing position. Flinching.
"…. ….," Bard's hands are empty. "Can't you tell from there, blackbird? I'm unarmed as a newborn calf. You call me yellow-bellied? Well, you ask yourself if you're cowardly enough to shoot a man with no weapons."
The Black Robin smirks. "I ain't here to be a diplomat, Luke."
"You ain't here to be much of a good gentleman neither, Robin," Bard cracks his knuckles as they dangle by his side. The wind dies as he coldly adds: "Someday, you're gonna have to answer for that. It might me God that does you in, or it might be me." His eyes squint all the harsher. "But you better say your prayers that it's God."
A few crooks shake in their boots. Many an eye is cast helplessly towards the… ..the 'cowpoke' in black.
I glance at Bard. Then back at 'Robin'.
The bandit scratches the nonexistent stubble on his chin and murmurs: "I may not be a coward… …but I sure as Hell ain't stupid." Cl-Click! He readies a pistol from long range, aiming down at the lone Bard. "If you're fixin' to be hero today, I'm not obliged to give that to you, Luke. You're giving me an opportunity I just can't miss."
"An opportunity to do what, you reckon?" Bard chews on a spat of tobacco saved in the corner of his mouth. "Run off with the pretty girl of your dreams whose hand you could never win even if you proposed till the cows came home?"
Robin's lips curve ever so slightly. "I could care less about the pretty little darlin'."
Bard smirks. "Oh, so you're that kind of a cowboy!"
"Heh heh heh…," El Maquino chuckles.
Robin glares at him.
"Ahem…," Maquino clears his throat. "Mi malo…."
Robin gnashes his teeth and aims his pistol at 'Luke' again. "All right, Luke. You've been messin' around with my town one too many damned times!"
"Since when was it your town?"
"Since the Demon made a deal with me," Black Robin smirks. "You've met him before, haven't you?"
Bard says nothing.
I scratch my head slightly—before being shoved by Cyb—er—El Maquino. I growl mutely….
"Well, no biggie, I reckon," Black Robin cocks the hammer of the pistol back and squints through one aiming-eye. "The Sun has set on you for the last time, Luke!"
"This is a bad day to try and break the Ten Commandments, Robin," Bard says.
"Why the Hell not? Tuesday's my best day for committin' murder!"
Bard's lips curve. "Tuesday's Gone With the Wind…" His voice is a hum. And he clenches his fist just as his cross pendant around his neck glows and—
A gale.
FWOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOSSSSH!
A sandstorm sails up from behind him and blindingly splashes over the entire gold mine. A golden dust of chaos and tempest storms the entire scene. The crooks gasp and scream and thrash all bout as the magically-summoned wind throttles in and pounds them from all angles.
I hold my breath and summon a field of murk around me. It acts as an ice cutter and separates me from the particle locusts in a sort of personal cocoon. I take a few deep breaths and look about, flinching helplessly in my shirtless surprise.
I see the faint forms of flinching, squirming cowboys in the brown mist. Just a few feet away from me, two outlaws on the muddy cliffs overlooking the gold mine wrestle with themselves and try to keep the sandstorm out of their eyes.
Then suddenly—sailing coldly through the orange cloud—two bright blue ice shards impact with the thug's weapons. CL-CLANK! The men gasp and stumble back---And two more shards sail upwards with crystalline energy and ricochet off their heads. TH-THAP! The men collapse without fanfare.
And from my smoky shield, I smile to myself.
There's the Titan I know.. ….
SWISSSSSSSSSH! SW-SWISSSSSSSSH! More ice daggers fly up through the cloud. They slam against the shoulders and foreheads of the thugs. A few skewer a miscreant's ankle or two. Men yelp and flail dramatically off of the mine car bridges and into the muddy ravine below. Rifles are dropped as a few panicky cowpokes run off, screaming like bats in Hell.
I stand up straight. I glance to the side.
El Maquino is twirling around and around, trying in vain to 'beat off' the sandstorm with the length of his rifle. He growls and hisses and curses in Spanish.
I take a deep breath and clench my murking forearms….
Let it be said that this has no bearing whatsoever on my opinions over immigration… …
I run, I leap, I perform a flying jump-kick into his side with a burst of smoke.
WHAM!
"Madre de Pollo!" He sails off, lands in a mine car several feet below, and goes rolling chaotically into a mine shaft. THUD!
I land, pant, and look aside.
BLAM! A lucky thug aims at me through the mess of the sandstorm. A bullet whizzes towards my head.
My black eyes widen.
I don't think.
I reach to my belt and pull out the first and only thing I touch—
CLANG! A tomahawk deflects the bullet in my grasp. A smoking tomahawk.
"… … …," I suddenly smirk.
The crook reloads his rifle and takes aim at me again.
I hold my breath, run up a wooden mineshaft brace, bounce off, twirl, and toss the smoking tomahawk at him. TH-TH-TH-TH-THWISSSSH! The black blade twirls through the air, hits dead-center between his double-barrel rifle, and slices all the way back into the chamber as the gun goes off—
POWWW! The gun backfires in his face. He grasps his hands, yelping.
I land in a squat, smirking.
Clean the highways, butthead.
SWISSSH! SWISSSH! Icicles fly over me.
I blink. I turn behind me and look into the blinding dust of the sandstorm.
Black Robin is right behind me with his pistol—a pistol that is being knocked violently from his grasp before he can pull the trigger towards me. He clenches his fist and grits his teeth in momentary pain. Then his eyemask narrows in his hatred as he leaps for me.
I gasp and duck like an ostrich.
But just then, the sandstorm clears and—
"THIS IS WHERE YOU LOSE!" Bard windsails up through the clearing grit with a flying uppercut.
WHOPPPP!
The Black Robin falls back in the mud. His lip bleeds. He shakes his head and looks up—
CHIIIING! A sword of ice is summoned and aimed square at his throat as Bard leans over him.
"Say it.. ….," Bard hisses. "Go on, varmint, say it… …."
Black Robin gulps. He murmurs: "You're plum loco!"
"NO!" Bard grunts, then smiles and leans in. "The other part?"
Robin blinks under his mask. "Yeeha---?"
"WRONGGGG!" Bard slams his boot across the Robin's cheek.
THWAP!
"Nnnngh.. … …," Robin falls unconscious, lying in a heap of his own black suit.
Bard adjusts his poncho and picks up the Black Robin's pistol. He spits a tobacco wad on the outlaw's chest. "Them words are reserved for the hero, horned toad." He dusts off his hat, shakes more dirt off his pancho'd shoulder, and looks my way. "… ….what?"
I shrug. Helplessly smiling.
"Yeesh… ..We gotta get you a shirt," he walks past me.
I do a double take.
What does that mean?
I scamper and follow him towards the lone shack atop the now-vacant gold mine.
"No reason to shed blood, especially when it's a fantasy worth keeping me warm in my pajamas for a fortnight," Bard checks the bullet-cont in the pistol chamber and then clamps it shut with a spin. "I reckon they'll wake up wondering why we didn't send them to their Maker early."
I smile at him.
You're so badass.. ….
"Eh…what am I kidding?" He reaches the door, holding the pistol. "Nobody's waking up from this wyrd dream but you and me, huh?"
I snicker breathily and nod.
He winks and kicks the door in.
WHAM!
We both rush inside, at the ready.
"All right, Miss Raven! We've come to rescue you-----" Bard stops. He blinks.
I blink.
We both shudder helplessly and take a step back.
"Wh-Who.. … …Who in the blazes are you?"
There Raven is. Unconscious. In a fancy belle dress. Pale, but prettiful. But she's not standing or sitting…
She's dangling…
Dangling over the forearm of a massive, ten-foot tall behemoth in dark and crimson cowboy gear.
And the figure looks our way.
We can't see anything under the shadowing brim of his hat…
Except glistening white teeth…..Razor sharp.. …
And four equally sharp, red eyes glowing.
"Heh heh heh…well if it isn't the boy with the pendant?"
Bard shudders.
I glance aside at him.
Bard's hand shakily clutches his cross pendant.
The other hand tightens around the trigger of the pistol as he firmly aims it at the….
At the thing.
"Who…. …Wh-Who….?"
"Who else, imp? Every nightmare needs its Demon."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Well.. ….here we be," Static shrugs as they enter Raven's blue-on-blue room. "So, where's the book of Azar or should we—?"
"Never mind that creepy 'ol book," Beast Boy scratches his pointy ears. "Where're Bard and Noir?"
"All right, folks," Robin tosses his arms and sighs. "That explains it. Guess who's doing laundry duty again?"
"Yeah…about that," Terra bites her lip and blushes slightly. "After last time, I kinda sorta lost track of my training br—"
"RAGE" Raven lisps. Her eyes flash open, and four red specks flare mightily from her forehead. Just at that moment, the mirror on her vanity rises up with four red orbs flickering and explodes in an aura of flickering black tentacles.
FLAAAAAAAAAAASSSSH!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Cyborg drops Raven onto her bed and runs over into the corner to huddle with the howling Titans. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Swisssh! Starfire somberly waltzes in. "Dear friends, I-I have an announcement to make—RIGHTEOUS FECAL MATTER!"
