The Last Round-Up

There was a fire over in the docks that had kept Glory busy, by the time she’d blown out most of the burning buildings and was confident the firefighters were able to handle it, the gunfight she’d heard on the comm was already over.

But when she’d landed to help with the clean-up, she froze as she saw the sole survivor, carefully going to each body and closing their eyes, muttering a soft utterance over each one.

“Gunslinger?”

It was less a question, more a shocked statement. The man, hair long since greyed, face wrinkled, slowly stood up and turned to face her.

“Ah yes, you’re the local flying brick type, yes? Glory, right?”

Glory planted her staff into the ground, trying (and failing) to keep herself calm.

“I am such a huge fan, Sir, as a kid I had my Gunslinger Deputy Badge and recited the pledge every night and it’s an honor!”

“I’m sure it is, but you do know all that was just PR, for the most part, right kid?”

“Oh, absolutely, I know that all too well these days, I spend most of my time doing photo ops and interviews and talk shows and I’m sorry, can I help you? Tracking down one last no good varmint, hey?”

“Sort of. You remember Calamity Joan?”

“Of course, one of your trusty partners who-“

“Was also my wife. Well, once I retired, we finally got hitched. Twenty years, wasn’t all perfect, but it was pretty darn good living. She died a couple months back.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. You’re tracking down her killer?”

The Gunslinger laughed, soft, dismissive, insulting.

“Nah, not unless you got a time machine. Hyper-radiation cancer, gets a lot of heroes from my time, hanging around too many atomic powered good and bad guys.”

The tone of his voice finally broke through Glory’s haze of fandom and hero worship.

“You know, the Custodians could use an old school hand to help train new-“

“Nah girl, that ain’t me. I need to join Joan.”

Glory picked up her staff slowly.

“You don’t have to do anything stupid here.”

The Gunslinger tilted his head. “What was the last line of the pledge?”

Glory dropped her head, as the Gunslinger went for his magically enhanced Big Iron. She spun the staff, deflecting the bullets back and dropping him.

“A true Gunslinger knows when to holster.”