Rifles and Rapiers: An expansion of America Stranded

I plodded along on the side of the sandstone road, the cat person trailing behind me. I hadn’t gotten her name yet, and I didn’t plan on it. Our partnership was temporary. And besides. I was more of a dog person.

“Give me one of your boomsticks. The smaller one will do.” She asked for probably the tenth time.

“No.”

“WHY!?”

This is how we had been going at it for the past few hours. Every once in a while, my ring would run out of charge, and I would have to grab one of the spares that the Bucket Fucker- er, I mean the lieutenant, had given me. The cat lady’s ring never ran out though. No siree, she was too good for that. I fucking hate cats.

“Give me-” She began, but I stopped her.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you ask, I’m not giving a gun.”

“So THAT’S what it’s called. Motherfucker.”

I sighed. “Go eat a mouse.”

She gasped. “That is insanely stereotypical. Fuck your bigoted ass. Do I look like a house cat to you?”

“Pretty much yeah. Now stop talking before I blow the catalyst to kingdom come.”

Cat bitch growled, and for a second I thought our flimsy pact was about to be broken by her hands- well, paws? Did she have paws? I didn’t think so.

I swiftly drew my pistol and placed the tip against the catalyst, which I held in my other hand. We glared at each other for a moment, neither willing to give up the standoff.

“Why’re you such an asshole?” She asked.

“Cuz’ yous' a bitch.” I replied.

“Motherfucker!” She tackled me with speed I hadn’t expected, the gun and the catalyst fell out of my hands.

I wrestled with her for a moment before knocking her arms aside and throwing her off me. She rolled over to where the gun and the catalyst were.

I rushed to get it before her. We ended up grabbing the gun at the same time. We each tried to tear it from the others hands, before my strength began to prevail and the barrel slowly inched down to aim at her face. Her eyes widened.

Just as I was about to pull the trigger, she hooked her leg around mine and pulled it out from under me. I collapsed, but I held onto the gun. She was about to continue attacking, but a noise made her halt. I aimed the gun at her warily, before standing up and backing up from her. She barely seemed to notice though.

The noise happened again, and this time I looked.

It came from just beyond a dune.

I gave the cat bitch a warning look before scaling the sand hill, the grains slipping and sliding beneath my feet. I slowly crested the hill to reveal a huge complex, lit up by countless torches and, occasionally, glowing blue lights. I heard faint popping noises, then I saw a short, yellow flash of light from where the popping noises came from.

“Ryan!” I exclaimed. “He made it before us! And I’m pretty sure because of that, he’s not gonna be able to, uh, copulate, with my mother! Or my sister!”

Cat bitch looked at me with a weirded-out expression. “Uh, right. Let’s forget the fact you almost killed me and, well, go help him?”

I grinned. “Bitch, you read my mind.”

“And don’t call me bitch! I’m Aris, not bitch…”

“Ok, bitch.”