Chapter Two: Wayfaring Stranger

The stranger and Courage travel towards Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, hoping to find answers and hoping to find the mysterious "Sorceress." A chance encounter sheds some light on the world that the stranger has woken up and found himself in.

Despite walking for an entire day, it felt as though they had made no progress through the unchanging wasteland whatsoever. The stranger wondered over and over again if, perhaps, it were indeed infinite. He wondered if this was all there was to the world, just a big and empty and untamed frontier. He was quite thankful that he had taken the hat, as it had worked wonders to shield against the unforgiving rays of the desert sun. Courage was doing fine, and seemed to rather enjoy the long walk they'd embarked on thus far. The stranger figured he was just happy to have someone around after spending so long alone.

Last night, just as the sun was setting, they had come upon a well by chance and had their fill of water. Sam bathed, as there was no telling how long he had been laying there before Courage found him, collecting filth. They drank with reckless abandon, like Olympian gods to wine. They had set up camp right next to the well as that had seemed as good a place as any, and in the morning they drank as much as they could once again. As hot as the day was though, the thirst had begun to circle once more like a patient, waiting vulture.

"How did you do that?" Courage piped up at some random point.

"Do what?" the man asked.

"You know, fight like that against those ladies back at the farmhouse. You took care of all three of them like it was nothing. That wasn't just simple, dumb luck. You've had practice."

"I wouldn't know if I had. I still can't remember. I just shut my brain off, let my reflexes carry me through, and everything turned out fine on the other side."

"I guess that makes sense. About as much sense as it can make right now. Hm."

"Speaking of, I've been meaning to ask. Why would those ladies be after you? They seemed pretty hell-bent on getting their hands on you."

Courage shrugged behind the stranger, keeping pace.

"I don't know. I've never seen them before and I don't know who they are. They didn't seem like a pleasant group though."

"Well somebody wants to get a hold of you. Somebody with some serious pull. Somebody who made that merc too scared to talk, even while she was looking down the barrel of a loaded gun."

"I'm not so sure I ever want to meet whoever that is," Courage remarked.

"I can say with absolute certainty, you do not," the man said, matter-of-factly. "I have an idea of why they might be after you though."

"Why's that?"

"Back at the house, when your smart-ass computer brought up what was on the drive, it came up with that list. The Scribe, the Sorceress, the Ronin, the Berserker, the Bounty Hunter, and the Guardian. The directions were to look for the Sorceress, because according to that drive, I already have the Scribe. Something tells me I wasn't just randomly laying out there where you stumbled across me by chance. You were meant to find me."

The man could practically hear the gears turning slowly but surely in the dog's head as he pieced together what he was saying.

"Somebody put you out there. Somebody wanted me to find you."

"Mhm."

"Okay, that doesn't make sense though. Why? And what would I be the Scribe of?"

The man chuckled in his hoarse and raspy tone. "If I knew the answer to that, I'd tell you. Right now, Foster's Figments of Imagination–"

"Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends," Courage corrected.

"Whatever. Yeah, Foster's. That's our best bet. That might be where we find our so-called 'Sorceress.' If we're lucky, whoever she is will have answers for us. Or maybe not. But I've got nothing else."

Courage fell quiet and so did the man, at least for a while. In truth, the man wondered if perhaps the desert around him would swallow his mind whole if he didn't have the company of the dog. He wondered if the desert would instill some sense of delirium within him, and he would be driven mad by wandering the infinite nothing alone.

He was thankful that he had Courage with him and that he would not have to find out.

When the day drew closer to dusk and the sky flirted between a dying, bloody orange and a deep shade of purple, something finally began to take shape somewhere far-off. The man truly thought that he was just imagining it at first, that perhaps his mind did fall to the desert after all. When Courage began to move excitedly and point towards the horizon however, he knew this was no mirage. There was a town up sketching itself on the horizon ahead.

The outskirts of the town were marked by a crude, tombstone sign with the words 'MIDLOVE, NOWHERE' carved into it. Beneath, in smaller but still quite noticeable letters, it said 'POPULATION: WHO CARES?'

Courage was excited, even going so far as to run ahead of the man, periodically turning to see how far back he was and waiting for him like a child who couldn't wait to open a present. The town was bustling, even at this hour, and the dancing keys of a piano came from somewhere further along the dusty main street.

Courage's excitement quickly faded into unsureness, then full-on worry as they finally breached the town. Nobody really paid the newcomers any mind, not at first.

Up the road, a man stumbled through the batwing doors of a saloon and into the dusty main street that split the town in two, proceeding to bend with his hands on his knees and vomit in the middle of the road. As the pair passed a narrow alleyway, they glanced down to find two men viciously beating another down before shoving their hands in his pockets. Courage suddenly moved closer to his companion, and a shiver was evident in his demeanor. The man leered out stoically from beneath the low brim of his hat.

A disheveled, almost sickly-looking man stood to the side of the street, clutching himself in his own arms. In slow, ritualistic motions, he seemed to be attempting to soothe himself by rubbing his own back. The man's bloodshot eyes looked over at the pair, and landed on Courage in particular. His eyes were full of hunger.

"Dog…mister, what'll you take for your dog?"

Courage looked up at the man with a bulbous stare, as if to silently plead with him.

"He's not for sale," the stranger asserted, and he saw instant relief in the dog.

"Please…please, I'm so hungry," the beggar wheezed. "You have no idea…so, so hungry."

Courage stuck close to the stranger, almost attached to his leg as they walked on past the beggar. They stopped in front of the saloon, where the fella had emerged from earlier to puke in the street. It was a decent looking place from the outside, though by the looks of this town, that was a low bar to clear. Painted up at the top of the establishment in big, bold, red letters were the words 'KATZ SALOON.' Posted just to the side of the entryway's batwing doors was an unmissable sign that read 'NO DOGS ALLOWED.'

Immediately upon reading this, Courage began pulling against the stranger's pant leg, whining, trying to pull him further along.

"What's the matter, boy? Scared of the sign?" the man asked.

"We can't go in there," Courage said. "It's bad news, the guy who owns it is really bad news."

"Nonsense," he chastised Courage. "C'mon, let's head on in and pay this guy a visit. Wet our whistles, maybe get a place to sleep for the night. I'll make sure he won't mess with you. If he does, he'll regret it."

With that, the man started up the steps. Courage hesitated momentarily, rubbing his forehead with a shaky paw.

"Ohhhhhhh," he moaned.

Somehow, he found the willpower to follow the stranger inside.

The man pushed through the batwing doors and instantly, everything stopped, even the colorful piano music. It was as if time itself froze and chose to do so at the exact moment that every head in the saloon was turned onto the stranger and his dog. They stood there in the doorway for a moment, scanning over the riff raff, before pressing forward towards the bar. The bar itself was tended by a tall, lanky red cat, who in-turn stared the stranger up-and-down with a set of eerie and narrow yellow eyes. The stranger climbed atop a stool, crossing his arms in front of him on the wooden bar top, and Courage stayed put at his feet below the bar as if trying to hide. The cat leered at the stranger quietly, waiting.

"I'll have bourbon. Whatever you've got," he growled, his cold, icy eyes shrouded beneath his hat brim.

"My good man, did you see the sign posted outside? It says no. Dogs. Allowed. Especially that one."

"Must've missed it."

"Right, I'm sure. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to place that mutt outside."

"My dog goes where I go," the man replied, Courage vigorously tugging on his pant leg and whimpering from below. The stranger knew why.

The grimy, greasy mirror on the wall behind the bartender, which looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a decade at least, was clear enough to show four men approaching from behind. They looked like real trouble, the kind of guys you really don't want surrounding you. Still, that's exactly what they did. He had noticed them coming his way even before Courage started trying to warn him. He couldn't make out much in the way of details though, just their shapes. A hulking shadow fell over him. He felt a massive hand fall on his shoulder and beside him, a face slowly drifted into his peripheral vision. Though he wasn't looking directly at the face, he could clearly see that it was strangely a toxic shade of green, with long greasy black hair, sunglasses, and a sharp face.

"Look at this dope, boys. He's got the cowboy hat, the jeans, the boots. Even the gun around his waist. Must think he's some kind of big shot, huh?"

A cacophony of laughter came from behind him. By his count, there was one more than he could see in the mirror. Must have been pretty damn short.

"Tell your gorilla to take his hand off me and go sit down before you all get yourselves hurt," the stranger growled.

"Whoaaa-ho! Check it out, we got a real tough guy on our hands!"

"So you don't want me to let go, Ace?" the owner of the hand on his shoulder asked. Truthfully, he sounded a bit simple.

"No I don't want you to let go, Billy!" Ace scolded him. One of the thugs blew a raspberry as Ace turned back to the man.

"We'll give you one chance, tough guy. Katz told you to take your mangy mutt and scram, so do it. Or I might just have to take that cowboy hat for myself."

Katz watched the exchange silently but stayed sure-of-himself and of the situation. The stranger glanced down at Courage, who was of course visibly shaken.

"I think I'll stay," he said to Ace. "I like it here. And I still haven't gotten my damn drink."

A wide smile grew like weeds on Ace's face.

"Have it your way, cowboy."

Ace gestured to Billy and suddenly, the stranger was lifted from the floor and into the air, so high up he could brush the ceiling with his fingertips if he reached out. Like a rollercoaster he came crashing down, slammed to the floor on his back. Laughter came again from all around him.

"Had enough?" Ace said.

The man could see them all clearly now. Ace, Billy whom he had called a gorilla earlier (and it was an apt insult now looking at him), a small one with the build of a garden gnome and swept hair covering one eye, one with torn clothes and crazy hair and eyes literally bulging out of his head in a crazed expression, and lastly one who almost had a snakelike appearance with a backwards baseball cap. They were all that same toxic shade of green.

"That was it?" the stranger groaned, climbing to his feet. Courage watched him, still tucked beneath the stool.

"You heard him boys. He hasn't had enough."

Like a herd of buffalo the thugs came charging forward with violence written in their minds. The small one was up first, but was taken care of with a swift kick to the face from the man's boot. He went flying across the saloon like a soccer ball, colliding with tables and chairs and beer bottles as he smacked against the wall on the other side of the saloon. Bulge-Eyes was next, wildly flailing his arms at the man with no particular strategy or method like a crazed voodoo doll. The man swept his blows aside easily before delivering an uppercut to his attacker's jaw. He flew back, spit and teeth going with him.

Baseball Cap was up after. The stranger decided to go on the offensive this time. Baseball Cap tried to block as the man approached, but it was no use. He knocked down his arms with one hand and with the other decked him directly in his comically hooked nose, dropping him like a sack of bricks. It was just him, Ace, and Billy now. The man glanced over to find Courage jumping, his paws raised in a cheering stance.

"Okay tough guy, you asked for it now. Billy, hurt him!"

"Errr, okay Ace!"

Billy came barreling forward and, to the man's surprise, was impossibly fast for his size. A massive fist came his way and though he blocked in time, Billy was just too strong. His blow broke through, crashing into the man's chest and sending him stumbling back. The wind flew from his lungs, and he fought to reclaim it. Ace laughed.

"Not so tough now, haha! Bring me that hat after you're done with him!"

The man regained his composure, but not quickly enough. Billy hit him again, this time with both fists held together and crashing down on his back with the force of a meteor. He slammed onto the floor. Everything hurt in that moment, pain surging through his body. He felt the hat lift from his head.

"Hey Ace, I got the hat just like you said!"

Billy started to walk away just as the man began climbing back up to his feet.

"Watch out!" Ace yelled.

Billy turned, slack-jawed, just in time to watch the man speeding towards him, wielding an old wooden chair like a Viking wielding a battleaxe. He caught Billy off guard, smacking the chair across his body. The chair burst into a hailstorm of splinters as it collided against the green behemoth. Billy staggered, and the stranger refused to show any quarter. He kept himself close to Billy, throwing a solid punch into his stomach, then to his side, then up across his cheek. Billy stumbled back, his head rocking back and forth in a daze.

"Come on Billy, you can't let this dope beat up on you like that!"

Billy shook himself, which would have been a comical sight under different circumstances.

"Yeah, Billy. You gonna let little old me beat up on you?" the man mocked.

"Grrr, that does it!" Billy barked, stomping his foot. "You're gonna get it now!"

The big oaf rushed the man like a bull towards a red blanket. In a rage, Billy began to throw wild but uncoordinated haymakers. The man was nimble and careful, paying attention so he could dodge or duck every hit. They may have been uncoordinated blows, but the force behind them would have done some serious damage. Finally, the man saw an opening. Right after sidestepping one of the blows, the man latched on to Billy's tree trunk of an arm.

"Uh?" Billy lifted his arm up, confused. Seizing the moment, the man swung back as far as he could, brought his knees up towards his chest, and propelled both legs into Billy's face once he came close enough. Billy dropped him to the floor, tumbling back and onto a wooden table behind him. The two men who had been sitting and playing cards there a moment ago leapt to each side as Billy's reckless shadow loomed closer and closer to them. He groaned on the floor.

The man turned back to Ace, now wearing his hat loosely atop his head. He began to visibly sweat as the man made his approach. Once he was only mere feet away, the gang leader stuck his hand into his jacket and withdrew a large pistol, pointing it at the man's face.

"C'mon, let's see you t–AGH!"

A blur of pink leapt from the man's peripheral and latched onto Ace's arm. In a panic, he tried to shake Courage every which way, but the dog was gripped on too tightly. He raised his free hand and balled it, preparing to strike Courage.

"Mangy mutt! I'll show you!"

Before he could land his fist, the man seized the pistol in his other hand. Holding it by the barrel, he whipped it across Ace's head, shattering his sunglasses and causing him to limply fall to the floor like a marionette whose strings had suddenly been cut. The man reached down, grabbed the hat, and returned it to its rightful place.

Satisfied, Courage let go. The two looked all around them at the scene that had just unfolded. The saloon was an utter mess. Shards from broken glasses lay all over along with splintered wood from tables and chairs, and of course five thugs were now taking naps at various spots around the establishment. The remaining patrons who had either stayed to watch the fight or simply didn't care about it at all had now gone back to their own business. Even the piano player had resumed his cheery music.

The man and Courage approached the bar once again, where Katz stood in simultaneous disbelief and disappointment. They both climbed onto a stool to face him.

"I'll take that whiskey now. And Courage, what would you like?"

"Hmmm," the dog hummed, a paw under his chin. "Cream soda?"

"Cream soda it is, pal. And I believe your employees said they'd be covering our drinks on account of the poor customer service on their end."

Katz looked back and forth between the man and Courage, malice in his gaze. Finally, he relented and sighed.

"Very well. I suppose an exception to the rule can be made just this once. It is so very good to see you again, dog."

Courage glared. Katz moved to grab two glasses and pour their drinks.

"And if either of us taste cat spit in our drinks, so help me I will jump over this bar," the man warned.

Katz returned with their drinks (which they ensured to watch him make the entire time) and left them to it with a simple, "enjoy." He was even nice enough to include a bendy-straw with Courage's cream soda.

"Thanks for jumping in at the end there," the man remarked.

Courage smiled and nodded.

"Thanks for getting him before he punched me."

A half-grin spread across the man's rough, bearded face.

"I was thinking, we should really come up with something to call you. At least until you remember what your real name is," Courage said.

"That's not a bad idea," the man chuckled. "I just don't know what to call myself."

"Maybe something tough. Like…Razor. Or Claw. Or–"

"I've got an idea. Hey Katz!"

From the other end of the bar, Katz looked the way his name was called while he prepared another patron's drink.

"Yes?"

"What brand of whiskey is this?"

"It's Samuel's bourbon, sir."

The man turned back to Courage.

"There we have it. Samuel."

"Huh. I like it. We can call you Sam for short."

"Fine by me."

Sam raised his glass of bourbon and Courage his rather large cup of cream soda. They bumped glasses, and Sam threw back the liquid hellfire.

They hadn't stayed a terribly long time at Katz's Saloon, just enough to have a few drinks and get a little bit to eat. They are hamburgers, big and juicy and delicious, each with a side of french fries. The day was getting late and they didn't want to wait around for the Gangreen Gang, as they had learned the thugs were called, to wake up and start another fight. They decided that it was probably for the best not to ask Katz for any direct information or advice, instead opting to ask one of the other patrons in the saloon, a gray-haired man with a scraggly beard who almost given the appearance of being an old prospector. He had directed them to a place they could stay for the night on the outskirts of town, and had informed them that they were on the right path to Foster's.

Initially, they had decided that they would leave in the morning sometime, as early as they could. It was dark out when they left the saloon, emerging into the empty and dimly-lit main street that was only populated by the occasional wobbling drunkard. They started off towards the motel at the edge of town.

"I have my savings with me, for the room and stuff," Courage spoke up.

"Won't be necessary. I swiped through the pockets of those Gangreen guys before we left. Figured they wouldn't mind after the trouble they gave us."

"Boy, they sure are gonna be mad when they wake up."

"They sure are. Which is exactly why we're not staying in town tonight."

"Mmm?"

"If we stayed, they'd try and kill us. Someone in that saloon will talk when they wake up, tell them where we are. They'll go there, likely shake our room number out of the innkeeper, then break into our room and catch us by surprise."

"I…guess that makes sense actually. Smart thinking."

They passed a variety of ramshackle businesses and buildings . A general store, a doctor's office, multiple houses and apartment buildings, even a candy store. The town was eerily silent at this hour, with the sound of the piano fading further and further away as they went.

"Please! Why are you doing this?! Leave me alone!"

The sound came from just up ahead, right around the corner that seemed to lead to the next street. Courage and Sam looked at each other, then crept closer. They stuck to the wall of a house, slithering along until they reached the point where they could peek their heads out. It was difficult to see in the dark, with no source of light other than the pale sapphire moon above. There were silhouettes, deformed and misshapen, surrounding another, more humanoid shape. The deformed silhouettes weren't human, not in the slightest, that was clear enough even in the dark.

They moved unnaturally like winter-stripped trees, with strange jagged limbs jutting from their equally-strange forms. The person on the ground seemed to be a man as far as Sam could tell.

"Okay, looks like we're taking a detour," Sam whispered back to Courage.

"We're not gonna help him?"

"What? Have you lost it, dog? We've caused enough trouble in this town already. Not to mention I don't even rightly know what the hell those things are."

"Don't do it," a voice whispered from behind them.

They both nearly jumped out of their skin, and Sam pulled his pistol at the same time they turned to face whoever spoke. Behind them, a window to the house they were creeping along was cracked slightly. A face was slightly visible in the dark crevice, that of an old and haggard woman.

"Don't do it," she repeated in the exact same tone she had said it the first time. "Stay out of it. Those things…you don't want no part in that. Let them do what they're doing, and you move around them if you gotta. But don't interfere."

Sam tucked his pistol back in his belt, turning to Courage.

"See? Told you it's a bad idea."

"What are those things?" Courage asked to the face in the window.

"You mean you don't know? You boys must not be from around here. Those creatures, they're agents. Soldiers. They don't come around these parts often, but when they do, you stay out of their way."

"Agents for who?" Sam asked, his curiosity piqued.

The pale, ghostly face chuckled, a raspy and unpleasant noise.

"You boys really are a long ways from home."

With that, the old woman withdrew into the dark and closed the window.

"Can't argue with that," Sam spoke.

Courage put his hand on his sides, taking an almost scolding stance.

"Just an hour ago I watched you beat up an entire gang of lowlives for threatening to kick me out of that saloon. Now you're just gonna let that poor guy die out there?"

"Courage, I wasn't thinking straight. I wanted a drink and when that ape put his hand on my shoulder it pissed me off."

"Look, all I'm saying is that maybe one of us should distract those things and the other can sneak around and help that guy get away. Then we can run off and get out of town."

"And what if those things are faster than us?"

"Hm. Good question…shoot them."

"Aaaaand what if bullets and lasers don't work?"

"Well then we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

Sam peeked back around the corner. The creatures were closing in on the man as he scooted away in terror, still whimpering and begging for them to stay back and to leave him alone. Sam bit his lip in frustration.

"Fine. We'll help him. Then we're leaving. You go ahead and duck down that alley behind this house. Looks like it should wrap around and give you and him an out while I keep our friends occupied."

Satisfied, Courage smiled and ran off down the alley, leaving Sam to prepare himself.

"Ah, hell," he cursed before striding out into the open.

They didn't notice him at first, even with the crunching under his boots with every step. They were far too preoccupied with this poor soul. Courage was just barely visible in the alleyway about twenty feet from the man, patiently watching Sam as he approached with his hands on his gunbelt.

"Evening, fellas!"

The things whirled around and cast their sinister gazes on the man who had interrupted their torturous game. One of them hissed. Being this close in the moonlight, Sam could get a better look at the things and he almost wished he hadn't. There were three of them and they all looked radically different, but the one thing they all shared was that they looked like some abominable amalgamation of demonic body parts and…candy.

It sounded silly in his head and if these things didn't look like they wanted nothing more than to tear him limb from limb, it would be silly. These things were made out of candy, there wasn't a doubt about it. One was a lollipop with horns and a jutting jaw full of craggy teeth. One was a melting chocolate bar with four envious green eyes that were like those of a serpent. The last was a gumball, except part of its head was soft and mushy and beating, and its forked tongue flicked in and out of its wide, gaping maw.

"Why don't the three of you get away from that man? Seems he doesn't have a sweet tooth at the moment."

"The outlander dares speak to us like that. The outlander dares interrupt our feeding," the gumball growled.

"We should show this inferior creature its mistake," the chocolate bar said next.

The lollipop simply hissed and said nothing. With all of the focus on him and away from the man, Courage began to sneak towards him with a nimbleness that one wouldn't expect from the dog.

"Now, there's no need for all this nastiness and unpleasantness. Why don't we just all go our separate ways and pretend this never happened?"

The things did not respond, only staring. Sam sighed after a moment, drawing the pistol from his belt and aiming it their way.

"It was worth a shot."

The things screeched and uttered all manner of unholy noises as they scrambled towards Sam. He fired, quick and sure and until the cylinder of the mammoth-sized pistol was empty. He caught the gumball in the soft part of its head, blowing chunks of gum everywhere. The chocolate bar caught three shots and was torn apart by the massive bullets. The lollipop caught the last two rounds, massive shards splintering off in every direction. When it was done, everything was quiet. Sam stood there, still holding the hand cannon, the barrel smoking.

Courage had gotten the man away from the carnage before it had all happened. They were there in the opening of the alleyway, peering out. Nothing moved. Satisfied, Sam reloaded the pistol and shoved it back into its holster. He scanned the area all around, finding a variety of shaken, fearful faces in many of the windows.

Sam made his way over to Courage and the man in the alleyway. At this distance and in the moonlight, he recognized that this was the man from earlier in the street, the one who had wanted to take Courage.

"You…you got rid of the devils. They were gonna eat me."

"Yeah, like you were gonna eat my dog. Now go on, get out of here."

The man began to do as asked until he looked past Sam, his glazed eyes widening. His skeletal arm raised up, trembling, his finger pointing.

"Gah! L-look!"

Sam and Courage turned to see what was going on. There, among the pile of candied limbs and chunks and gore, there was movement. A lot of movement. The limbs and remains began to crawl and writhe.

"You've gotta be…" Sam started, turning back to the man. "What did I tell you? Get the hell out of here!"

The man finally jumped up and ran off, kicking up dust and rocks as he hauled further into the alleyway. Courage and Sam continued to watch on as the things began to piece themselves back together. Sam took the rifle from his back.

"Let's see if this does the trick," he said, turning the intensity-knob up on the side of the carbine as high as it would go. He shouldered it, aimed at the pile, and squeezed the trigger.

The barrel of the rifle emitted a bright flash and then a large red beam. When it landed on target, it almost seemed to splash the surrounding area, encompassing all of the various remains of the creatures. The vents on the side of the rifle blew hot, heavy air out to the side, so strong that he felt it caress his arm.

Whatever was left that wasn't atomized to ash was instead charred black like a marshmallow that had been dipped directly into flames. Sam and Courage watched and waited for a minute, then two, then three. Nothing moved, except the ash stirring lightly in the breeze.

Sam felt comfortable enough to put the safety on the laser carbine and return it to his back. It was nice to know that when bullets would fail, lasers might get the job done. Courage looked pleased. Sam was less so.

"There, we played hero and saved the day. Now let's get out of here."

Courage nodded in agreement, happy. The two walked on down the street that led out of town, the eyes of a dozen shocked townspeople on their backs as they vanished into the nighttime desert like specters.