As quick as a striking snake, Trip took a tiny step closer to Mr. Drop-and-Roll while shifting her weight to her right foot, moving her head away from the pistol muzzle against her head. As she did so, her hands moved up to her waist, with palms facing upwards and her elbows tucked in close to her sides. For a split-second, she gave the impression of a coiled spring. Then, she shifted her weight back to her left foot, as her hands struck explosively outward. The edge of her left hand struck the wrist of the arm holding the pistol, loosening the grip on it, while the palm of her other hand thrust upwards to hit Mr. Drop-and-Roll’s chin.

While the motions may seem complicated and intricate, it took Trip less than a second to carry out.

To Mr. Drop-and-Roll, it seemed to happen between moments. One moment, he was in control, with Trip at his complete mercy, while he threatened some other new, unknown interloper. The next moment, he had lost all strength in the hand holding his pistol, his head snapped backwards, and there was a blinding pain in his mouth that spread to fill his entire head.

Landing on his behind on the ground, stunned, he tasted salty liquid iron as blood dripped from his mouth. He had bitten off the tip of his tongue!

Meanwhile, Trip had swept up both his pistol and his torch in her hands. In one smooth movement, she threw the burning torch towards the leftmost bounty hunter of the encirclement as a distraction, then fluidly turned back towards the rightmost bounty hunter, with her arm holding the pistol outstretched. Without pause, she shot him in the throat, then ran towards his falling body, while throwing the spent pistol towards another bounty hunter next to the one she just shot.

By the time the flying pistol hit the bounty hunter’s face, Trip had already reached the dying bounty hunter, as his legs finally realised that since their owner was almost dead, they might as well relax and take a permanent break from supporting his state of uprightness. As his body started to collapse, Trip darted behind his back and held his body in front of her with her left hand, providing herself with some cover. Not a moment too soon, as crossbow arrows and musket-shot were shot in her direction. A few arrows and musket balls hit her bounty hunter shield, as she dragged the dead body while walking backwards. Her right hand was already holding her large revolver, arm outstretched.

With loud booming sounds, so close together that they seemed to merge into one long echoing BOOM, she shot the six bounty hunters closest to her in the head, starting with the one her flying pistol had hit. Without exception, all six of them collapsed to the ground, like marionettes with their strings cut, sporting new holes between their eyes.

With a smooth motion, she flipped open the cylinder of her revolver while pointing it upwards, then hit the top of the cylinder against the bottom of her chin as the spent shells were ejected. Next, she pointed her revolver downwards, moving the cylinder under the rightmost end of a rectangular metal device on on her belt. With her thumb, she pressed a small lever on the side of the device, which dropped six bullets neatly into the cylinder. With a flick, she flipped the cylinder back into her revolver, while bringing it back into a ready position. Her motions were smooth, practiced, and were so fast they seemed to blur. The entire process took her less than two seconds.

By now, almost all the bounty hunters had recovered their senses. Four of those wielding swords and spears charged towards her, while even more of those with ranged weapons shot at her. Many of those shots went wide, but a few hit her bounty hunter shield. Fortunately, even light crossbows took some time to reload, to say nothing of the front-loading, single-shot pistols and muskets being fired in her direction. Taking her time, she shot and dropped all four of the bounty hunters who had been charging at her, while shooting another one holding a crossbow, replacing his nose with a large hole.

All this time, she had been scanning the bounty hunters, searching for the most potentially dangerous one among them. The ray of frost from her previous encounter with them had alerted her to the presence of a Mage.

When the last bounty hunter she shot dropped to the ground, it revealed another smaller one that had been hiding behind him. This bounty hunter was slim, not bulky like the rest. A sparse scattering of twinkling orange lights floated around him. One hand was tightly gripping a short baton, while the other was held level with his eyes, palm cupped upwards. Floating above it, was a bright green globe, half the size of his hand, that seemed to seethe with a noxious and virulent liquid. As he realised that he was exposed, his previously confident grin turned into a panicked rictus. With a desperate shout, he threw the green globe towards her...

… at the same moment that she shot him between the eyes, then took cover behind her bounty hunter shield. The green globe hit, and splashed all over in the form of a thick green liquid, that immediately began to dissolve her bounty hunter shield, while giving off a poisonous hissing sound.

Shoving her disintegrating human shield towards the nearest group of bounty hunters, she holstered her revolver then started running towards them.

Which was when she felt something hit her legs hard, causing her to fall. She tucked into a roll to get back up, but just as she completed the roll, something hard hit her again, across the back of her head.

Her world exploded into purple stars, as she dropped down to all fours and retched reflexively. She tried to move and recover as fast as she could, but the moment she raised her head, she felt, once again, the muzzle of a pistol pressed against her forehead.

“‘ITH ‘IME, I’M ‘ONNA ‘ESS OOO UP ‘OOD!”, lisped Mr. Drop-and-Roll, who had a mixture of blood and saliva dribbling out of his mouth.

She was disoriented and still seeing purple stars. She was so dizzy that it was all she could do to stay conscious. With every ounce of mental fortitude, she tried to remain alert, looking for a chance to turn the tables. She tried to make herself look as small and defeated as possible, while slowly inching her hand to a knife hidden in her boot.

That hand was caught in a rough grip, then pulled behind her back, along with her other hand. With both her hands crossed at the wrists behind her back, she was forced to straighten up, still on her knees.

She saw that she was surrounded by bounty hunters, less than ten of them. Leering, one of them approached her while drawing threatening patterns in the air with her large knife.

Upon seeing that they were going to use her own weapon on her, for a split second, fury burned in Trips eyes. Even if she couldn’t fight with her hands and legs, she could still fight with her head and teeth! Then, in a flash, the sudden flames of fury disappeared. She took a deep breath, calming and relaxing herself, readying herself to take advantage of any opportunity to turn the tables on her captors.

-- Chapter 6, End --