The Good, The Bad and The AU

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Old West AU

Welcome to Dry River. You're a long way from home partner. It’s the mid 1800s and this dusty little frontier town isn’t much of a landmark but the local color might make your stay interesting.

Cut some cards at the rowdy saloon. Stay at the inn and pay for a little company. Or take a job as a farmhand if you just need to make a quick buck and buy your ticket out of here.

Keep your nose clean though. Train robbers, card cheats and bandits have been known to pass through these parts. But you wouldn’t know nothin’ about that, would you?

It’s a Wild West AU. Establish yourself as a local or a stranger and rustle up some adventure or romance.

Top Level

with your western AU scene and see what kind of trouble darkens your door. Check out some old timey professions and their associated tropes if you need to.

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with your western AU characters and make yourself less of a stranger ‘round these parts.

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[girlofclay]

If Betty had a spare hand, it would have been up by Holtzmann's head, keeping her in place. Lucky for the task they were doing that she didn't, so she couldn't create a distraction she coudn't afford.

"They called me Bombshell, during the war."

Back when she was James Barnes, young and stupid. Rather than now she was older, and apparently still stupid.

But she was not being overtly brave when she said she wasn't afraid. Not after those days, what she saw then.

[holtzmann_ed]

"As nicknames go," she said, doing her last check, "that's a pretty sexy one."

There was a strange thrumming noise from her rifle as the chemicals started to power up.

"Ready to gun down some ghosts?"

[girlofclay]

"Damn right."

Betty had to take a few minutes to secure everything, deflate the balloon slightly, fold up the wings, but the she had her hand on her revolver, and felt the hum as it charged itself.

"Lead the way."

[holtzmann_ed]

She leaped out, onto the ground, with the weapon immediately up. It looked like a shack, ahead of them. But she had a feeling.

"They're tunneled into the mountain. Let me guess, old played-out mines?"

Because the departed had habits, it turned out. Those in her field only had guesses as to why.

But then one of them lurched clean out of the ground, a haze of blue smoke and elongated features, fingers the length of whole arms. The scream it produced was...well, unholy was a vastly inadequate term. It was a scream of rage and unearthly pains and desires. To the uninitiated, it often looked like hell rising to drag them down - for her it was a slow-motion show as she pulled the trigger, the rifle kicking into her shoulder and emitting a ball of bright, scintillating vermilion as the energy flew free.

The creature - the ghost - was hit center mass and ruptured, exploded in a burst of blue fire and then green slime, splattering all over the ground and, thankfully, only on her shoe.

This was the matter of a few seconds, and then she was standing there, shaking it off her shoe, pulling back the bolt on the rifle.

"Ugh, I hate when they do that."

[girlofclay]

Betty stood behind her and enough to the side to have given her a decent view of the scene that, while horrific, had still elicited any reaction more girlih than a widening if the eye and a readying of her pistol.

"They bleed green."

[holtzmann_ed]

Impressive - but what damage had caused that? Short term, very useful. Long term, what to make of it...

"It's not blood, it's ectoplasm. It's what they're made out of, it can just sort of..solidify, I guess that simplifies it."

[girlofclay]

"Don't sound that different from blood."

She lowered her revolver, not ready to holster it just yet, and gave the green slime on the ground a hard look, long enough to take just one breath. Then she glanced back up at Holtzmann, and nodded towards the mineshaft entrance.

"I assume there's more?"

[holtzmann_ed]

"Devil's in the details," she replied, "you aren't literally a blood sack. Which, sort of, they are. And also the sack. If indeed there's actually a difference. It's complicated."

She nodded, though, moving carefully.

"Well if that butt-face is any indication, then yes. Some of the more powerful ones can...draw others in. Not control, really, but...again, complicated."

[girlofclay]

Again, Betty drew behind Holtzmann, to the right side to give her a clear view and ease with her revolver, but two steps behind so the experienced woman could take the lead.

She became quiet though, now moving almost as silent as the spectres they were hunting, as she prepared for the inevitable firefight ahead.

[holtzmann_ed]

What she wouldn't give for the nascent electrical technology to catch up to what she needed. It'd make life a lot easier if she could deploy constant-stream capture technology.

This way is messier, less efficient. And merely disperses energy that will, likely, one day be taken up by another spectral entity. But you do what you can with the tools that you have.

She approaches the shack, slowly.

"Got any of the grenades left?"

[girlofclay]

"Couple."

But she had to present her back to Holtzmann, including backpack, to let her get them out herself.

[holtzmann_ed]

She fished one out, priming it.

"Because I ain't walking into ambush junction without knocking first," she replied, nodding towards the door.

"You kick it in, I toss."

And for good measure, she retrieves another one.

[girlofclay]

Betty waited until she was free to move, then squared up against the door. She grabbed her revolver, looked at Holtzmann and counted down, silently mouthing the numbers three... two... one...

Then she threw a foot against the door.

[holtzmann_ed]

The second the door is opened, she's lobbing the grenades inside with a yelled out "special delivery!" before moving very quickly to clear the blast radius. When the grenades go, there's what they might call a commotion.

Namely, most of the shack detonating with the eerie screams of something trapped inside, resulting in a brief fountain of wood splinters and ectoplasm.

From her position, dived on the ground, she rolls over and punches the air.

"Now that's how it's supposed to work!"

[girlofclay]

Betty fell backwards as soon as she opened the door and then ducked sideways with Holtzmann, resisting the urge to flatten herself on the floor as getting up would be harder with the backpack and revolver to worry about. So with more space between her and the explosion she crouches down and grins.

"'Supposed to?'"

[holtzmann_ed]

She grins, sitting up, then pushing to her feet.

"Chain reaction. Get close enough it creates an exponential effect. And splatters 'em from here to Tulsa."

[girlofclay]

Betty stands up with her, and is now staring at her directly.

"You have an attractive brain yourself," she admits.

[holtzmann_ed]

She actually blushes, kicking the ground a bit.

"Bet you say that to all the girls with ectoplasmic detonators.

But she hefted her weapon, nodding towards the remains of the shack. "Bet you the dead-but-not-enough bastard we want is under that."

[girlofclay]

"So far," Betty confirms, bringing up her revolver to shoulder height, holding it high and ready.

"So you wanna go over and kick it, or what?"

[holtzmann_ed]

"Hell yes. It's way past time to bring an end to him."

She moved over to the remains of the shack, pulling pieces aside. Finally, the two of them working, she found what she was looking for - a double-doored hatch, leading downwards into the ground.

"Time for more fun."

She took hold of one of the doors.

[girlofclay]

Betty had her revolver holstered now, freeing up her arm for the clearing of the rubble. She took a wide stance, bracing herself, and took hold of the other door, looking up at Holtzmann and nodding.

[holtzmann_ed]

They heaved at the same moment, and then it was figuratively and probably literally out of their hands, the doors slamming open as a gust of long-stale air blasted forth with a roar on the wind it created, an unearthly howl of challenge, or something.

Unearthly, ungodly - pick an 'un', really. She closed one eye, leaning away from it. Then just yelled right back down the moment it was done.

She wasn't taking that shit from ectoplasm.

[girlofclay]

Betty glanced away so that Holztmann couldn't directly wee her laugh. But when she turns back her face was all business, her revolver drawn again.

"Are you done with that?"

[holtzmann_ed]

"Yeah, I'm good. Pasty little shits always try that."

She starts the descent, grumbling about that.

"Honestly, it's either that or the Big Speech, like I haven't heard all about the hell you're about to unleash on the living a half-dozen times before..."

[girlofclay]

Yessssss, there is going to be so much kissing later.

Betty follows her close behind, behind and slightly to the right with her revolver ready.

"As long as that's an either/or, I'll take the scream."