A secondary sim within the matrix, Friday

[vdistinctive]

"What in fucking tarnation is going on out here?" Eliot had stepped out to go find the doctor and see about procuring some headache powder, or anything else (anything else that wasn't an opiate, which, well, good fucking luck) that might help Kathy with what was sure to be a fucking tremendous hangover (Eliot's was no joke, so hers had to be terrible). Only to find the street in utter chaos as wagons and men on horseback rushed every which way. Someone fired a rifle in the air, and everyone on the street screamed and started looking around -- not for the shooter, but towards the hills in the distance outside of the camp. An enterprising gentleman who normally sold "soap with a prize!" was offering discount boards and "genuINE injin dream frighteners, guaranteed to keep the red man from entering your domicile or place of business!" Eliot had to resist the urge to strangle the man then and there.

"Ain't you been payin attention?" Swearengen, who was observing the whole show from the door of his saloon, stepped up next to Eliot. "The Sioux were spotted this morning circulatin' around the fucking camp. We're about to get raided by savages."

Eliot scowled. "The hell we are. First off, the Sioux are too fucking smart to try and come into town where every white cocksucker and whore's got themselves a peashooter at fucking minimum. And second, natives aren't fucking savages, you son of a goat-fucker. We're the invading fucking aliens in this narrative and what's more every thinkin' man in this camp knows that for a goddamn fucking fact."

"'Invading aliens!'" Swearengen gave him a startled and amused look. "More of that Jules Verne crap you been peddling since you first fucking showed up here, huh? I were you I'd keep that sort of talk close to your chest, Spencer, if you don't wanna get stripped of that nice shiny piece of tin and run out of town on a rail with that piece of sideways pussy of yours to face those dirt-worshipping cocksuckers you love so much. See how noble and fucking sweet they seem when they're scalping those gorgeous locks from your fucking heads."

Eliot's response was cut off by a fucking Hollywood war whoop echoing through the hills around the camp, sending the townspeople into even more of a tizzy. By the time he managed to make sure he wasn't going to get swept up in the resulting panicked stampede, Swearengen had gone again, probably to go figure out how to turn a fucking "Indian raid" into a profit.

[ooc: open for anyone who wants to come play cowboys and indians.
Content note: really blatant old school racism. Like, I feel dirty typing it. Here there be stereotypes (and even more cursing).]

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[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy's night had been...interesting. The hotel's proprietor had not wanted to rent her a room due to her 'ethnic' persuasion, citing how uncomfortable his upstanding white patrons would be, knowing that someone of her 'complexion' had slept in the same bed they paid full-price for. She'd sealed her removal from his establishment first by suggesting they'd have less of a problem with it if he washed his fucking sheets once in awhile and then by throwing up the last of her whiskey onto his boots. Eliot had hauled her away after that, but she was pretty sure he was more proud of her than annoyed at the difficulty of getting her squared away.

Her night had been spent in the shop that Eliot and his 'partner' Sol owned (she couldn't help but snort every time someone referred to Sol that way, considering she knew Eliot used it in lieu of boyfriend and girlfriend). Which meant that her sleep had been fairly comfortable and uninterrupted--at least until all the hootin and hollerin and random gunshots had gone off.

"...Tarnation?" she yawned, stepping outside to see the entire town in the process of losing its mind at once. "The collective bout of syphilis finally catch up with y'all's brain this morning?"

Who the fuck dialed the sun up to eleven this morning? Fuck everything.

[vdistinctive]

"Kathy, darlin'." Eliot put out an arm to keep her from trying to step any further out into the town. "I mightily suggest that further antagonizin' these here cocksuckers with your currently colorful vocabulary is perhaps not the most appropriate fucking response this morning. Also, keepin' your voice down might help your head."

A ululating cry echoed off the surrounding hills, followed by the pounding of drums. Eliot pressed his face into his hands. "Oh for fuck sake."

[spin_kick_snap]

"My head currently feels like a rotten melon on top of a toothpick and I hope that every single one of these motherfuckers drinks tainted water and dies in a shit slurry," Kathy growled, rubbing at her temples.

The residents of Deadwood had not endeared themselves to her, no. She was almost awestruck by the number of ways different people had managed to insult her race and gender.

"The fuck is that noise?" she asked. "I didn't think my fucking headache needed a dubstep score."

[vdistinctive]

"It's a goddamn fucking travesty is what it is. You ever seen any of the shittier old time westerns?"

A fancifully fletched arrow thwocked into the post above Eliot's hand and he flinched back.

"Goddammit. There ain't a fucking bow made could make a shot like that from that fucking distance!"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeahno, this is entirely not my genre of choice," Kathy said flatly. "At best, I might check out frontier space cowboys and then be fucking disappointed when a society that is half founded by China can still miraculously have no fucking Asians in it."

She looked up at the arrow buried in the post and frowned even harder. "Are--are we bein' attacked by Native Americans?" she asked, appalled. "That's so fuckin' stupid. They'll be out-fuckin-gunned and out-fuckin-numbered. Who the fuck thinks this is a good fucking idea? They should be skirmishers, not the goddamn cavalry!"

[vdistinctive]

"I know." It was more growl than words.

One of the grimier prospectors carrying a sharp looking shovel stopped in front of Eliot and Kathy. "Sheriff! Ain't you gonna do somethin' about them goddamn savages?" He spotted Kathy and his eyes went wide.

Eliot grabbed him by the shirt front before he could say another word. "You say one goddamn thing to slight my friend here and I will jam that shovel so far up your ass it'll find sunlight," he spat, then shoved the man away again.

The man clutched his hat to his head and looked rapidly between the two of them. "T-traitor. THE SHERIFF'S A GODDAMN TRAITOR! I knew it. I knew you had red in you. Shoulda made you report your blood quantum before we ever elected you." He shook his fist up at Eliot even as he backed into the rushing crowd. "Traitor! TRAITOR!"

"Well," said Eliot. "This just got uglier."

[spin_kick_snap]

Him running away wasn't going to stop Kathy from yelling after him. "You should report your blood quantum so we can finally figure out whether your momma fucked a pig or a fuckin' billy goat before shitting your ugly ass out!" she hollered. "Lookin' at your build and general hygiene, my money's on pig, but the smell makes a good argument for goat!"

She was like a chihuahua: a tiny ball of incandescent rage and aggression.

[vdistinctive]

There were rather a lot of townspeople staring at them now. Eliot was -- for the first time in a very, very long time -- regretting not having a firearm on his person. "The hell're all of you still doin' out here? Get in your fucking homes! Don't you hear those war drums?"

Fortunately the star he wore still had power for most of the town, and the people on the street started scrambling even faster, the "traitor!" shouts getting lost in the hubbub. Eliot reached over to grab the back of Kathy's fancy get up and haul her off the boardwalk, if necessary.

"As for you, let's get you some goddamn headache powder already and try not to get us both strung up or shot."

Another arrow thocked into the boardwalk by his foot. Eliot snapped his head up in time to see a man in a war bonnet and not much else howl into his flattened hand and go leaping off around the corner of the building.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Motherfuck me!" Kathy said, darting back out of the way--and ending up clinging to the rail at the end of the porch. Her expression of fear transformed into joy, even as she wobbled on the wood. "Eliot! Eliot! Did you see that? My bouncing is back!"

Her balance wasn't and she still felt like she was moving through molasses, but she was bouncing again! That was something, wasn't it?

[vdistinctive]

More of the horrifyingly cliche "Indians" had invaded the camp, as evidenced by the silhouettes of single feathers standing straight upright from the tops of walls and around the sides of buildings. "That's great, darlin', how's about you fucking bounce somewhere that ain't about to become --"

The end of his sentence got lost when the street erupted into gunfire.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy flung herself off the railing, hitting first the floor and then bouncing up to the ceiling, clinging tightly to the beams. "This is fucking ridiculous," she yelped. "Are we really shooting bullets and arrows at one another? For no reason?! Other than stupidity and bigotry and--what are we gonna fuckin do about this, Eliot? We can't just let it stand!"

[vdistinctive]

"We're two people in the middle of two armies, Kathy," Eliot said grimly. He backed towards the door to his shop. A shot ricocheted off the sign above him and he ducked reflexively. "All we can do by now is get the fuck out of the cocksuckers' way."

[spin_kick_snap]

"But people are going to die!" Kathy protested, swinging into the building after him. She might have forgotten it was just a sim. "For no reason! They'll just die!"

[vdistinctive]

"I know," Eliot ground out through clenched teeth. He wanted nothing more than to throw himself out there and start throwing punches, disarming people left and right -- but all that would do would be to get him shot as a traitor. Or worse. So instead he just closed the door behind her and looked for something to bar it with. "The history of the goddamn world is people dying for no fucking reason, Kathy. You gotta choose your battles if you want to survive it."

The glass in window shattered, and a clay pot full of nails sitting next to it exploded.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shrieked and ducked away from the window. "This is fucking insane!" she shouted, covering her head with her arms. "We're supposed to stop this! I don't fuckin care what the rest of the world is like or not like! This is wrong! I thought your whole job is to stop things like this!"

[vdistinctive]

"To prevent them!" Eliot shouted back. More bullets riddled the front of the shop, and a few arrows flew in through the holes. It was as if they'd all teamed up to come at Eliot and Kathy specifically. "You can't stop a train by yourself, Kathy, the best you can do is fucking damage control! And right now that means I'm fucking focused on keepin' us alive!"

[spin_kick_snap]

"How are bullets and fucking arrows coming in here?" Kathy snapped. "They've got, like, the worst aim in fucking history."

She glared out the remains of the window, pulling her hair back. Eliot might be willing to let this go but she was not. She was a fucking superhero. There had to be a way.

She traced a route over the rooftops, ducking behind posts and hiding under eaves. She could do this. She could stop this.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot knew that look. He'd worn it too often himself not to.

"Kathy, would you goddamn listen to me for once?!" He tried to get in her way without showing his back to the broken windows. "This ain't a fucking mugging! That out there is a fucking war!"

[spin_kick_snap]

"You're right, this isn't just a fucking mugging!" Kathy snapped. "There are people out there who are gonna fucking die!"

She glared at him for a moment, then turned around and flounced towards the back.

Where there was a back door and an easily accessible rooftop.

[vdistinctive]

"Goddammit, child!" Eliot roared. "I am trying to keep you safe!"

[spin_kick_snap]

"That's exactly what I'm trying to do for everyone else!" Kathy yelled over her shoulder. "It's what I have to do! Or what the fuck kind of superhero would I be if I didn't at least fucking try!"

She might not have her speed or agility back, but she wasn't completely powerless anymore! That had to count for something.

Opening the back door, she stepped outside, blinking in the bright sunlight. She squinted, raised her hand up to the sky, a perfect silhouette in the doorway.

"Don't worry, Eliot," she said, half-turning back towards him to give him a victory sign. "I'll find a way to keep every last one of these assholes safe."

[vdistinctive]

"Like hell you will." Eliot moved to rush after her, determined to tie her to a chair if that was what it took to keep her from doing something so suicidally stupid. "Dammit, child, you got the survival instincts of a goddamn --"

[spin_kick_snap]

There was a thunk. Kathy looked down at her chest that had suddenly sprouted feathers with an expression closer to disbelief than actual pain. It wasn't until she coughed and blood spattered on her lips that she realized something was truly wrong.

"Eliot," she choked out. "I--"

She took a step. And then another step. The crack of gunfire was louder than thunder, louder even than the pulse beating in her ears. A line of bullets ripped through the doorway, gouging wood to her immediate left and right.

Gouging flesh where there was not wood.

She looked at him, shocked and frightened. "You...blood..." she croaked, pointing at his face.

Then she toppled over. Her body hit the floor, bounced, and then lay flat. A moment of distortion when it was like the entire world glitched out for a second or two and when the world righted itself, the doorway was empty.

[vdistinctive]

"Kathy." Eliot had seen a lot of fucked up things in his day, enough that it took a lot to freeze him in his tracks. He'd gone around the bend and back on not caring about the casualties, but caring never stopped him from acting. He couldn't let it.

When he saw the arrow in Kathy's chest, he froze. Just long enough for the gunfire. Just long enough to watch her get torn apart and collapse --

"KATHY!" The world seemed to have shifted into slow-motion (and let's be honest, it probably had, not that Eliot was in any shape to realize that). When he finally reached her -- she'd vanished.

Eliot knelt on the floor, his palms flat on the boards where she'd laid. The world had gone silent but for the roar in his ears. Nothing moved. Nothing exploded through the windows or doors. The sunlight had shifted, mid-morning already gone to dusk. Eliot had no idea how long he stayed there before he rose back to his feet and rushed the door with a roar.

At first he thought the streets were empty. The camp had developed a particular sort of silence he instinctively recognized; his blood would have gone cold if it weren't already ice. Just past the boardwalk (the front boardwalk -- which door had he run through?) the road through town was littered with bodies, a few in chaps or skirts, most wearing buckskin and paint.

"Well fuck me sideways," Al Swearengen said, from where he leaned against the exterior of Eliot's shop. "Looks like we fucking won." He looked at Eliot and smiled. "You do not want to be a dirt-worshipping heathen from this fucking point forward."

Eliot punched him in the face.