Andromeda Flynn hummed under her breath as she fried a few eggs in the skillet of sizzling oil in front of her. The eggs, along with some bacon, had been a pleasant surprise when she had dug through the fridge behind the motel counter that morning. She'd had nothing but travel rations since her last job, and one can only enjoy tough mystery meat jerky so many times before it became a bit monotonous. She figured that, since she was living on the Union's dime, she may as well live it up a bit. Hence, eggs and bacon.
She glanced over at Tallis, asleep on one of the bar stools with a blanket draped over her. The girl had been passed out at the counter bottle in hand when Annie had returned during the night. Annie hadn’t wanted to bleed all over the motel’s blanket anyway, Tallis made better use of it. She returned her attention to her skillet. A tinge of brown was beginning to alight the edges of her eggs and the bacon had curled in pleasing ripples. Breakfast was nearly done.
”Wha…?” a voice slurred from behind her.
Annie turned to Tallis, took a page from Conor’s book, and smirked, “Morning Miss Tallis! You have good timing, breakfast is almost ready. Don’t worry, Connor’s footing the bill.”
”He fucking… ugh… he fucking better be,” Tallis grumbled, “Eggs and bacon cost us a fortune to get from the runners.”
”No surprise there, running supplies out here to the ass-end of nowhere has gotta cost a small fortune,” Annie set a glass of water in front of the very hungover motel proprietor, “Here.”
She took the glass gingerly and pressed it to her temple, “You’re really running up our poor Deputy’s tab, Stranger.”
Annie snickered, “That’ll do you more good in your system than against your head. Drink up, Union’s buying.”
“I’d rather the Union buy me some more whiskey,” Tallis waved the empty bottle in the air.
”If you think you can talk the Paladin into buying you a drink, be my guest.”
Tallis thumped her head against the bar and moaned, “I’ve been trying that since the boy got here! I can’t tell if he’s just too polite to turn me down proper or just plain dense!”
Annie was reminded of how Connor had looked at Tulvir’s body. They were friendly.
“Probably the first one.” she said. Tallis grunted into the table.
Using her spatula Annie carefully lifted the edge of one of the eggs and eyed it's yolk critically, “How do you like your eggs?” she asked.
“Medium,” a pause, “Thank you, Annie.”
“No trouble at all, Tallis. Fixing you some breakfast seems a fair trade for any trouble I might’ve caused you.”
“Caused me? I shot you!”
“Nothing I've not seen before, you even missed me which was nice of you. Only thing that suffered was the drywall.” Annie stopped. Not the only thing. “I, uh, I’m sorry about your brother, Tallis.”
Tears welled in the girl’s eyes and she wiped at them furiously, "I'm trying not to think about it too much." she sniffled.
"Yeah," Annie eyed the empty bottle abandoned on the counter. She returned to her eggs, "Here!" She scooped two and some bacon onto a waiting plate and placed it in front of Tallis, "Eat up! Be a shame if these precious eggs of yours went to waste."
Tallis offered a weak smile and scooched the plate towards herself, then looked around puzzled, "No fork?"
"I have no idea where you keep those. You can eat with your hands like the rest of us heathens." Annie joked.
"Oh my gods," Tallis laughed, "Check the drawer to your right. Should be some in there."
Lo and behold, Annie found the small cutlery drawer and looted two forks and knives from inside. She offered the handles of one set to Tallis, "Here you go, didn't want to go rooting through your drawers."
"And yet you've found yourself a skillet and a spatula!"
"Hey now, these're mine! Girl's gotta eat things other than rations sometimes!" Annie protested.
Suddenly the doors to the motel crashed open behind the pair and a bellowing voice rang out, "You're a hard woman to find, Flynn!" A portly man, thick with muscle and clad in biker leathers, stood in the doorway with his arms crossed and peered at the Stranger over mirrored sunglasses.
"And yet you've found me," Annie sighed and looked at her eggs mournfully, then turned off the stove and eyed the heavy chain and sawn-off shotgun hanging at the man's hip, "You at least gonna tell me your name before you start causing trouble?"
"You've already got me pegged, Stranger!" he snorted.
"You wish." Annie sneered.
"Name's Chain Viper Patton." he took off his sunglasses and tucked them into a vest pocket, "Don Goblinsky's put quite the price on your head, little lady."
"Well, if the Don had paid me in the first place I might not've availed myself of his bike," Annie grinned, "That beauty's about worth the vampire I killed for him. I'd say that makes us even."
"You got balls, Flynn—"
"Not anymore." Annie muttered.
"— suffice to say the Don doesn't see it the same way. The price is for your head, the rest doesn't have to be attached."
She winked at Tallis and picked up her sword and pistol, "Guess the Don wasn't too attached to his bike if it's not even part of the bounty. Can we take this outside, Mr. Chain Viper? I'd hate to get blood on these nice floors."
Chain Viper Patton nodded and tugged his namesake off his hip, "Sure Flynn, I'll take you outside..." he cracked the chain like a whip and it writhed and twisted in the air, throwing off sparks of orange magic. Then it snapped towards her like an iron snake and it became clear to Annie how the man had gotten his name.
She threw herself to the ground behind the bar as the chain tore a chunk from the counter in a shower of shrapnel and looked to Tallis, "Can't say I didn't try," she grunted, "You finish your breakfast in the hallway, I'll escort him out."
Tallis looked at the Stranger incredulously, then snatched up her plate and bolted for the hall.
Annie leapt over the bar and loosed a shot at the bounty hunter. His chain curled in the air around him, causing the bullet to ricochet in a shower of sparks. The Stranger was already moving, keeping low to the ground and darting from table to table. The end of the chain followed her movements, swaying back and forth like the head of a serpent.
She fired another shot from behind a table and the chain deflected the bullet once again, then whipped out to strike the air where the Stranger's head had been seconds before. She wished she had one of her alchemical solutions to slot into her pistol right then, it would be nice to see what the bounty hunter looked like a bit more on fire.
Annie scrambled over to the next table and called out, "What the hell kinda magic do you feed that chain? That Idra you’ve got inside it seems madder than a damn hornet!"
"I always thought of it more like a snake!" Patton whirled his possessed chain in the air and brought it crashing down on a nearby table, smashing it to pieces. He was still standing in the doorway, blocking the only exit from the bar.
Annie stuck her head above the table and shot at the man again. Then, as the chain swung down in retaliation she kicked the table away from her and rolled to her knees just shy of where it struck the ground and thrust her sword at it with a triumphant, “Hah!” The tip of the blade caught the gap between the chain links and sunk into the wood beneath. The chain writhed and squirmed against the sword and Annie had to press her full weight down, straining with the effort of keeping it from throwing her off.
Patton heaved at the chain and she stomped her foot down on it; then leveled her pistol at his chest and pulled back the hammer, "You lose, Patton. Back off while you still can."
The bounty hunter stopped and looked at the gun, then to the Stranger, "Alright Flynn, you win." He raised his hands in surrender and released the chain, allowing it to clatter to the ground as he took a step back and smiled.
The chain beneath Annie's feet shuddered and she glanced down, only to feel a heavy weight hit her side and send her spinning through the air to crash into a nearby table. The opposite end of Patton's chain had raised itself from the ground and hung in the air, poised to strike. He let out a shrill whistle and the chain rattled across the ground towards him to coil around his feet like some kind of pet.
"Son of a bitch..." Annie groaned and clutched at her side. Her hand came away wet. She briefly considered just staying on the ground, then rolled over and pushed herself up leaving a bloody handprint behind.
Chain Viper Patton stood with his sawed-off shotgun in hand and eyed Annie's bloody shirt, "Rough night, Stranger?"
"You could say that," she winced, "Any chance you'll let me bandage this up?" a fervent buzzing crept up the base of her neck and she had just enough time to dive away as the bounty hunter’s shotgun obliterated the air where she’d just been standing.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.” Annie said from the ground. She could hear the click of the latch as he opened his shotgun to reload. Definitely a no. Annie took stock of her options. Some bounty hunter had rocked up to town trying to kill and/or her, she had no idea where her sword was, all of her gear was in her room (Because who armors up for breakfast?), and she had 3 bullets left in the chamber. Stellar.
The sound of Patton’s chain rattling across the ground dragged her from her thoughts and she rose to a crouch, then felt the buzz in her neck again and rolled away from the table she’d crouched behind before it was blasted into sawdust and splinters. The click of the shotgun’s latch echoed again.
”You’re a quick one, Flynn!” Patton’s voice came from somewhere a few meters away, “Want to make this easy for both of us and get this over with?”
Annie wiped her other hand on her shirt and rushed him. The self-proclaimed Chain Viper didn’t even glance up as he continued loading. His chain rose around him like a wave of iron and lashed out at Annie; this time she took the blow head on, grabbing the chain in both hands as it threw her away like a rag doll. It swung her wildly through the air, smashing her against the walls and ceiling in a frenzy until suddenly it stiffened. Sparks flew from every link of the chain as it let out an unearthly metallic shriek then spasmed and collapsed, dropping the Stranger unceremoniously and knocking the bounty hunter’s gun from his hands.
“What the hells did you do?” Patton cried.
Annie picked herself off the ground and dusted herself off, “Trade secret,” she pointed her pistol at him and pulled back the hammer, “Wanna make this easy for both of us and get this over with?”
Connor chose that moment to walk through the doors.
”What in the hells?” he cried before being shoved to the side as the bounty hunter bolted for the door.
“Son of a bitch!” Annie cursed and moved to chase after him, then stumbled into Connor and slumped.
”Miss Annie!” he caught the Stranger as she fell, “Who was that? What the hells happened?”
Annie was mostly pleased she hadn’t hit the floor again. She looked up at Connor’s face, “Morning Deputy. That was a man not terribly fond of neither me nor Tallis’ tables.”
“Tallis! Is she ok?” his eyes were full of concern.
“She’s fine,” Annie shrugged off Connor and jerked her thumb towards the hallway where Tallis was poking out her head, egg-covered knife in hand, “You ok Tallis?”
”I’m ok. You’re bleeding though.” the girl pointed at Annie’s blood-soaked hands and shirt.
“Annie! Damn it all, I just patched you up!”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I’m going to need a new shirt.”
”New shirt? Miss Annie you’re going to need some new blood if you keep losing it like this! I need to patch you up again!”
“I’m fine, Connor. I just hope I didn’t burn my breakfast.”
Annie began to limp back towards the bar, only to suddenly be lifted off her feet and staring into Connor’s very concerned face again, “Let me rephrase, I’m going to patch you up again before you bleed out in the damn motel lobby.”
Andromeda Flynn was, in fact, too tired to argue, “Ok, ok, fine. I’m gonna charge you for making me skip breakfast though.”
