A Hat of Brown
Once upon a time, the town of Black Gulch had been a relatively lively settlement. Hidden in the depths of Adder's Pass, it was sheltered from the worst of the dust storms and Grimm raids that plagued every other attempt to build an outpost in the deserts of Menagerie. Then, one day, no different than any other, the Black Gulch settlement went radio silent. Teams were dispatched to investigate, but by the time they reached the town, everyone was gone. No signs of a fight, or any other explanation, were ever found, the settlers were simply gone, without a trace. By order of the chieftain, the town was declared hostile, and citizens were forbidden to enter. That was years ago, and now the Black Gulch was lively again, but the current populace were of the decidedly less than reputable variety. The lost city had become a perfect haven for shady individuals to conduct shadier business. One part black market, one part safe house, and one part red light district, whatever you needed, Black Gulch had it.
So, when a lone stranger rode into town on a nondescript brown motorcycle, nobody asked any questions. In this kind of place, people who asked too many questions didn't exactly last long. The stranger rode slowly through the town, rolling to a stop in front of the local saloon. The stranger dismounted the bike with practiced ease, removing her long, dust covered traveling cloak as she went. She draped the cloak over the handlebars, then strode casually into the bar. Heads turned in mild curiosity as she pushed through the double doors, studying her. Brown, knee high leather boots transitioned to a slightly lighter pair of brown denim pants, into which was tucked into an off-white cotton shirt, covered by a leather vest that matched her boots. On her head was a simple, matching leather hat. The set was completed by the twin gun belts draped lazily across her hips, crisscrossing in the middle. Even her sun-tanned skin and the single braid of light brown hair that ran down her back fit the general palette of her outfit. The only spots of color were the band of green snakeskin that ran around the crown of her hat, and a single, poison green eye that glared out at the world from beneath the brim of said hat, vertical pupil widening in the sudden darkness. A simple leather eyepatch covered her right side, a thin band wrapping around her head to hold it in place, an Ouroboros sigil branded into its surface. Her good eye flickered left and right as it took in the patrons of the saloon, before she made her way to the bar. The barman, a lizard Faunus with rather thorny eyebrows, rolled his eyes at the sight of her, pulling out a bottle of whiskey and filling a glass. With a deeply predatory grin, the dust colored lass took a seat at the bar, smoothly lifting her drink while swiveling so that her back was to the barman and her face to the crowd.
"Ms. Westwood, it's been a while," the barman said quietly, a pronounced hiss on the s's in his sentence.
"Did ya miss me?," she replied, with just the hint of hiss being almost completely buried in her heavy drawl, "And how many times do I have to tell you, it's Viper. "
"I don't suppose you've come to pay for the damages you caused last time?" he asked drily.
"Hey, I told you, you could always just send the old bird the bill, didn't I?" she answered with a wink.
The barman grimaced, a hand reaching up to his throat reflexively. "Yes, well, I rather like living, so I'm afraid I must decline that particular offer. I almost regret asking, but I assume you're here on business?" A single nod from Viper affirmed his guess. Sighing, he looked around the bar. "I hate you so much."
"Love you too. Now, probably best you get on down. Things are about to get fun." The barman didn't hesitate, taking cover behind the bar. Viper grinned again, putting down her glass before reaching downwards with both hands. Her left hand went into a vest pocket, pulling out a folded piece of paper, while her right went down to her thigh, slowly drawing a brown and silver revolver from its holster, a small bayonet automatically dropping from the underbarrel as she drew it, like a fang. Unfolding the paper with one hand, she raised her revolver into the air and fired off a single shot. The saloon went silent, every eye turned towards the source of the shot. Without a trace of concern, Viper held the paper up for everyone to see. It was a picture of a man with a pronounced goatee and two curling ram's horns, the right one broken half way. Above the picture was a single word Wanted. "I'm looking for someone, goes by the name of Billy. Anyone know where I can find him?" The response was rather explosive, and to their credit, the assorted assembled cretins reacted quickly, but Viper was much, much faster. By the time they got off a single shot, Viper had flipped herself over the bar, crouching behind it. Laughing softly at the annoyed look the barman was sending her way, she drew her other revolver. She could feel the impacts as dozens of bullets slammed into the bar at her back, but the hard, solid wood held firm. She laughed more loudly now, excited. Eventually, the volley of shots died down, eventually stopping altogether. Now, she knew, they'd try to find out what they'd accomplished with that barrage. She waited for four seconds to pass, and then burst into motion, leaping into a standing position. As she did, a white light began to glow from beneath her eyepatch, and the world began to slow down. Unfortunately, she slowed down to match, meaning no super speed, but it did provide one very useful advantage. It allowed her time to think. For others, battle was a hectic fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of affair, but her perceptual dilation gave her plenty of time to analyze the situation, determine the best course of action, and put it into motion. Quickly she looked over the battlefield, examining her foes' weapons. In her head she ranked them from most immediately dangerous to least. Memorizing their positions, trajectories, and rates of movement. From there she decided how to maximize the number of high level threats eliminated while minimizing the amount of time taken. All this occurred in less than a single heartbeat.
Satisfied, she allowed time to return to its natural flow. Raising her revolvers, she pulled the triggers, already moving to the next targets before the first even fell, allowing the kick of the shots to move her guns into position. Her eye did not even follow her guns, instead choosing to dart around the room, keeping an eye on the crowd. Occasionally, her movement would deviate, catching anyone who was close to reloading. Fifteen went down, not one even getting a shot off, before Viper dropped back beneath the bar. Flipping a switch on her revolvers' handles, the receivers hinged open, exposing the spent shells. Shaking them out, she grabbed a pair of speedloaders from out of the many pockets attached to her gun belts, sliding eight more rounds into each revolver. She was just in time too, for even as she closed the actions back up, a ruffian jumped over the bar. Before he could even hit the ground, though, Viper swung one arm upwards, catching the bandit in the throat with the revolver's bayonet. His own weight drove him down onto the blade, and soft flesh gave way to hard steel. Without hesitation, Viper withdrew the blade, rising to meet her foes, who had closed the gap in the interval. Not one to sit idly by, Viper rolled over the bar-top, firing as she went. A few more down, and a little more breathing room. She stalked forward slowly, swaying as she went. Predictably, her enemies began to close in for the kill. To her, their attacks seemed sluggish, as if they were moving through water, while her own strikes moved like lightning, dispensing stabs and bullets in equal measure. It was no time at all before she was left standing alone in a mountain of corpses and an ever growing sea of blood.
"Strange," she muttered to herself, "coulda sworn there was one mo..." Of course, even as the words left her mouth, a large hand grabbed her by the back of her shirt, throwing her across the room. She could feel a sharp pain in the back of her head, and her vision was blurry. Shaking her head, she raised her revolvers, or she would have, except her hands were rather empty at the moment.
The bruiser who had thrown her, a very large man with an ox tail, let out a bark of laughter at the sight. "Well, well, little missy, let's see if you're so dangerous without your guns."
Viper just shook her head again, though much more deliberately this time. "That was a very bad idea," she replied, all trace of her jovial drawl replaced by a cold, metallic hiss. "I suggest you take this opportunity to shoot yourself, because without my guns, that's the only way your death will be either quick or painless." The ox man smirked confidently, charging towards Viper as he did. "Too slow." Viper swayed out of the way effortlessly, delivering a swift kick to the back of the knees. As he fell, she grabbed him by the shoulder and chin, forcing him into a kneeling position while exposing his neck. She opened her mouth wide, experiencing the familiar sensation of her lower jaw unhinging. Her mouth was filled with short, needle shaped teeth, and where her canines would have been, two long fangs folded out from the roof of her mouth. Biting into the base of the man's neck, she could feel her venom sacs discharging, filling the man's arteries and veins. In moments, the man began to scream and writhe in agony.
Releasing the man, she looked let him fall to the ground. Her venom was two-fold in effect. First of all was the hemotoxic component, which would work to destroy his blood, tissues, and organs. This was extremely painful, and would cause death within hours. But more sinister than that, was the neurotoxin, which, instead of simply causing paralysis like most of its kind, actually sensitized the nervous system, amplifying sensations exponentially. This meant that the pain of the hemotoxin was multiplied many times over, overtaxing the brain stem and heart, reducing the time till death to mere minutes.
Viper stomped on the man's hand. "Like I said, neither quick, nor painless." Leaving the man to his agony she retrieved her guns, holstering them before making her way back to the bar, retrieving the whiskey bottle from behind it. As she lifted the bottle to her lips, she felt annoyed that she hadn't been able to find any pertinent information on her target. Just then, though, she heard the distinctive sound of shattering glass above her, and then the sound of a heavy object landing on the ground outside. As she made her way to the door, she heard the sound of an engine starting. Hurrying now, she slammed open the door, only to see a man riding away on her bike. Before she could curse her luck, though, she noticed a rather distinct feature of the man, a pair of curling goat horns, the right one broken half way along its length. So much for no leads. The barman emerged from his hiding place behind the bar, looking out the door over Viper's shoulder.
"I doubt you could catch up to him now. What you gonna do?"
Viper grinned. "No worries, old man," she said, her cheerful demeanor and drawl having returned. She reached down into one of her pockets, withdrawing a single bullet which glowed with a silver light, "the nice thing about this contract," she slid the bullet into the chamber of her right hand gun, and time began to slow again, "this one's good alive..." her left hand rose to her eyepatch, drawing it up and out of the way "or dead."
Later, she stood in a dimly lit corridor with only one door, a table laid out in front of her. In the center was a Grimm mask, flanked by a golden helm and a white and purple kabuki mask. She calmly ambled up to the table, removing her hat as she went, and placing it down in front and between the helm and Grimm mask. Taking a swig from the bottle which she, ah, appropriated from the saloon, she passed through the door at the end of the room.