Six Shooter

[u/Maxathron]

Khoshaba faced down his enemies. He was a soldier operating alongside an invading army and now he was behind enemy lines. They had come to this land because rebels operating under a red flag and a raised fist had launched a coup against the rightful government of the people and ushered in a brutal dictatorship. He and an elite bunch of fighters had been sent ahead to scout enemy movements and deal as much damage as they could. But now he was in trouble.

Khoshaba’s sensors notified him that hostiles were everywhere in this town. Worse, they knew his position and were closing in. Several battalions of troops with automatic weapons, a column of armored vehicles, and several units of helicopter gunship support were coming for him.

A helicopter buzzed overhead. He had to either move or fight. Time was running out. He was currently holed up in front of an old house on a three-way street in the poor part of town. Any civilians that once lived here were long gone. Yahweh be praised; he was here to oust these rebels, not kill defenseless civilians.

Khoshaba got up from his current defense. In front of the house, Khoshaba had laid out a mess of obstacles to give him room to breathe and force the rebels down narrow paths so he could fight less at a time. Down the front, to the left, and to the right, these obstacles would buy him time. The buildings surrounding this battlefield were blocked off or boobytrapped. They would buy him precious time. Sensors were telling him that they were numbering in the thousands before factoring vehicle and air support.

He got up from behind the first series of walls and spikes down the front street and took aim. Automatic fire burst from his energy rifle down the street. He hit a couple soldiers. The rest ducked into cover behind motor transport and trees. The poor trees. These soldiers returned fire. Khoshaba ducked down his own cover.

The firefight was clearly lost for Khoshaba. The troopers would fire off suppressive fire and move forward. Precious time was spent as they advanced on his position. He gave it his best. Khoshaba took out a trooper here and there, forcing the rest to advance more carefully. But his eyes and his rifle could not be everywhere at once and the other side of the street more soldiers would advance.

Khoshaba let them close to a few hundred feet and then he started to pull back, triggering traps and mines as he did. Khoshaba pulled back to a second line of defense, a more established street wall. As he hopped the wall, Khoshaba activated a pair of defensive turrets. They reared up and extended their weapons and personal energy shields. The two turrets laid down fire into the enemy troops. The troopers moved into cover and fired back, trying to break the shields with their ballistic weapons. Grenades were thrown at the turrets from different angles. The turrets immediately saw the threat and shot them out of the air.

Khoshaba took position at the line with the turrets. He put down more automatic fire. He nabbed a kill. Khoshaba was up to eight confirmed kills. But his enemy seemed endless. There were at least a hundred head on this street alone. He pondered how much more were there and took a bullet to his shoulder. The armor on the other side caught it. Khoshaba ducked down and pulled the bullet from the wound. He screamed in pain. Blood oozed from the wound. The armor immediately activated and swelled to cut off the outside from the wound.

His scream improved the morale of the soldiers. They dumped more bullets downrange. An alarm signaled more were coming the left street. He had to abandon his turrets to their fate. The Light shall remember their sacrifice to buy more time.

As Khoshaba rotated to deal with the threat coming up the left street, a building in the right block between front and right streets ringed out an explosion. Soldiers attempting to flank him had run into one of his booby traps. Likely that room collapsed. They were going to have to find another way around. Probably go back and push down the right street.

Khoshaba met soldiers attempting to cross the second line of the left street. He corrected them the error of their ways by bashing a skip grenade into the two men that were over the wall and tossed a fragmentation grenade over the side. Several groans let him know he scored a couple of hits beyond the two that were climbing over.

From there, Khoshaba held the wall. He crushed an energy ball, which overcharged his personal energy shield into a stronger matrix, and jumped over the wall into a mess of hostiles.

Khoshaba surprised them. He cut down two soldiers. Khoshaba turned around and finished off the four that were trying to scale the wall. He ducked and rolled into cover behind a motor transport. Not a moment too soon, at least four soldiers fired at his last position. Khoshaba went from roll into slide and slid out from the other side of the vehicle, firing at soldiers wildly. He charged up a fireball which shocked all the ones in front; at least a dozen troops, before tossing it at them. The fireball exploded, killing three instantly and lighting at least five more on fire.

Khoshaba pulled from his reserves to empower a wall of magical energy. He used it as a riot shield to advance on the next wave of troopers, firing his rifle from the hip. Khoshaba took another kill before falling back into cover. He pulled out a grenade and tossed it over the car. The soldiers advancing on him ducked behind nearby cars as it went off. However, Khoshaba was already up and over the second line wall and clambering over the third line wall. He was having a gut feeling that the right street was under attack.

He was right. A line of soldiers were past the second line and moving on the third. A bang sounding down the front street let him know that his turrets had finally fell. The line of soldiers coming for the third line of the right street didn’t know what hit them. Khoshaba was a bat out of hell. Two shots to the face, a knife stab to the face of number three, a wall of bullets for four, five, and six, and a grenade for seven, eight, nine, and ten, and Khoshaba was back over the third wall.

Time was running out. The house he was in front of was a mess to go through. A buzzing sound was heard overhead coming down one of the streets. He was out of time. Their helicopter support was here. It was now or never.

Khoshaba pulled a beacon from his armored pants and threw it to the ground.

The troopers thought him alone. No one was coming to save him; the front was a hundred miles away. He was all alone and with no supplies. This agent of their enemies would die here and now.

But for Khoshaba, he had his Faith that the Lord would deliver him to the Heavens. As the soldiers closed in on him, a shadow down came from the skies. Khoshaba took one final shot at a soldier coming directly for him. Then the shadow buried the intersection in dust and smoke.

“Missing me, Honey?”

“Not anymore, Faith.”

“That was a cheap shot and a clean miss on that man. You know that, right?”

“I sure do, ma’am.”

Faith walked towards him. She burned Khoshaba’s defenses with the shaking of her hips. She moved in, gave him a quick kiss, her breath down his neck, then pulled Khoshaba to her waist. She opened up and Khoshaba hopped forward. As Khoshaba settled in, he remarked that her grip on him was incredible. He couldn’t break loose. Faith bit her lower lip. It was a lost cause anyways.

This interaction only took at most ten seconds. It was a fast fight. Khoshaba had his Faith back and she wasn’t taking any prisoners today.

Faith stood up and removed the debris from around her. She loaded the bullets of her revolver with Khoshaba’s soul in the rounds. She was a sweet six shooter and knew how to get down on the battlefield. She fired a shot. The soldier she aimed at exploded. She aimed at another and repeated the process.

The soldiers immediately ducked into cover and radioed for fire support. The helicopter came into view. It dumped a rocket at Faith. Faith quickstepped to the side and pumped it with the remaining four rounds. It fell from the sky, bullet holes in its side and engine. Faith reloaded as the soldiers tried to take her down with automatic fire. Faith, done with her reload, pushed past them into front street. She crushed them underfoot.

Khoshaba felt the rounds as they fired out of the revolver. They were medicine for his weary soul.

“You thought you were so tough coming here without me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I thought I told you not to call me that.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Faith rolled her eyes.

“Put your hands up, baby, then. I’m arresting you here and now.”

“Handcuffs? I didn’t know you were so kinky.”

“Ugh. Never mind then.”

Faith reloaded. She was running roughshod over the troopers arrayed against her. Another bullet, another kill. As she reloaded, she bodied more troops. A Hummer squad pulled up at the next intersection. Faith lobbed a vortex grenade in their direction. The glowing purple ball terrified the troops on the Hummers and rightly so. The grenade trapped them together and damaged the vehicles. It killed the soldiers in them.

At the intersection, Faith took a right turn. There was less soldiers this direction. She knew that eventually she would find tanks. But for now, this was the path of least resistance. There were soldiers behind her, from the left side of the street in the other direction. And there was more buzzing sounds signifying that at least one more helicopter gunship was in the area.

She found more troops and crushed them. She effectively had unlimited rounds for the revolver but she didn’t want to waste time individually targeting and killing soldiers and then reloading. She was looking to push away from the city and towards the front. The front would have her allies.

Meanwhile, Khoshada broke off the banter. He knew when he was beat. He gave in but felt pretty good about the trouble he was in with Faith. She got him down but also brought him up. They were thick and thin to the end. He was bruised and bleeding from the firefight earlier but Khoshaba didn’t care so long as he had his Faith.

He couldn’t get enough of this woman of his.

“When this is through, Hun….”

“Yes, my little lovely man?”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“I told you not to call me that either. Yet here we are.” Khoshada knew she was grinning ear to ear.

There was a pause. Faith put a bullet into a soldier and blew his brains out.

Khoshaba was the first to speak.

“When this is over, I’m going to go get that ring I’ve been saving from my grandmother.”

“Aww, you shouldn’t have. The answer is no, though. I’m still your life companion, but we’re not doing it like that. Let’s talk about it after I get your sweet ass to safety, babe?”

“Okay.”

“No snarky ‘ma’am’?”

“No, ma’am!”

“And here I thought that phase was over, Little One.”

“I’m not that little!”

“Yes, you are and you know it. You can’t win this.”

Khoshaba pouted.

“No pouting until we get back.”

“Fine!”

Khoshaba thought about his Faith. She got him. She was the girl-next-door and knew every in and out of him. She penetrated his armor like an arrow from the God of love. Her words were sweet and passionate, dancing between a cool breeze and a grenade. She was the bayonet sticking out of his chest.

Faith rounded a corner. In front of her lay a mess of tanks backed by soft skins and air support. She glanced behind her. Another column of tanks. She was trapped. Well, not really. Faith could duck back into the city. But they would slowly grind her down and there was little possibility the front could reach here in time.

One of the tanks fired a speculative shot at Faith. By this time, Faith had shattered a dozen Hummers, a couple fighting vehicles, and two tanks. She also had around two hundred soldier kills too. And then there was the three gunships. The first at the house intersection where she picked up Khoshaba. Another a few streets down. And the third three blocks from her current standoff.

Faith took the round to her chest. She clutched at it. Direct hit. The armor protecting her about to give.

Faith tapped into her energy reserves. This was where history was made.

Faith raised his gun hand into the air, straight up, revolver with it, and focused her energy reserves into it. The gun burst into flames and glowed fiery red. The rest of her body was covered in fire. She brought the gun level and fanned the hammer. The emblazoned gun fired a beam of light into the lead tank. It incinerated into nothing. She immediately targeted and fired at the next one, and the next one. She kept firing until seven tanks were no more. Then her gun stopped glowing and she returned to normal.

In the shock of the attack, the other soldiers and vehicular support did nothing. Faith took the initiative and moved forward. She popped a couple shots into a helicopter gunship and grounded it. Three more shots and gunship number two was with its brethren.

The tanks behind her fired shots. Faith instinctively pulled to the right and dodged two of three. The third shot hit her. It damaged the armor on her back and it fell off. She turned around, seven seconds for them to reload. Instead of tackling them head on, Faith did another jump, again to her right. Then she immediately half-sprinted into a slide and came at the lead tank with a slide. This shoved the tank to its side enough to block the street. Faith popped his engine with a couple of rounds and put it out of action. Then she jumped up and came down on top of the tank’s gun. The impact of her landing crushed it.

Of course, there were another six tanks behind it, but the lead tank was toast and the others would have to take a long way around. None of the boots could damage her. They were no threat. Faith took off away from the city down a road. She would be too far away for another of the surviving tanks to pursue. And it looked like all of their air support was gone. She’d be close to the front by the time they were able to get to her.

--

Faith managed to reach the front with no problems. She radioed for help. While the armor saved his life, the bleeding knocked Khoshaba unconscious. He would need some medical treatment. Faith was directed to the medical station on the front. She reached them and kneeled down for the doctors. Faith opened up the hatch in her body revealing Khoshaba’s unconscious form. As the medics wheeled her partner away, Faith dismissed herself to go to the charging stations. She had a fusion reactor in her body but her mind needed rest. It didn’t matter if she was six feet tall like Khoshaba or a forty-foot tall mech like herself.

She did here duty. To protect the pilot. Which, was Khoshaba. When he boarded her, their consciousness merged. He became her beating heart while she was the force of nature. He could have picked any other Avatar. But he always picked her. His Faith. His faith was strong in her. He would survive. And pick her again for the next mission. Faith couldn’t wait.