The bounty hunter pushed the rim of his hat up with his rifle, revealing more of his face. His eyes were light gray so soft that they seemed to blend in to the white around them.

“Now, I know I jumped the gun a bit by taking that shot, but I do want to give y’all a chance to give up the woman, and the little noble.”

Michael’s eyes widened as he looked at the others who were wearing the same surprised expressions. The man was speaking English.

The man held up a hand, “Wait, wait, let me try this again.” He coughed a bit into his hand to clear his throat and hardened his expression. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. It’s up to you.”

“What is he saying?” asked Lance.

“He’s asking us to give you and Francesca up. I’m surprised he wants you both.”

“You shouldn’t be too surprised. One bounty is from Stent, and the other from Tusinia. Of course, I’ll likely be giving both to whichever one feels like increasing my pay the most.”

“You’re a taker?” asked Michael, surprised at the man’s ability to hear him, though he shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t hard to see that his long list of titles and deeds included several that seemed to be related to awareness.

The man pulled the brim of his hat back down and nodded. “Clint Westwood, at your service.”

“Cute,” muttered Pyotr crouched low with his sword and shield. “He is playing cowboy.”

“It was only playing for the first few bounties. I’d say I’m the gen-yoo-wine article now.” He slid the rifle behind his back and cocked his neck left and right causing a loud crack that made Marcus wince a bit.

“Listen, we’re mostly takers too. There’s no reason for us all to fight. What if we could create some kind of fake proof that you killed us? They don’t trust takers anyway, there’s no reason to work with them for just some coin.”

“Trust ain’t important. What’s important is strength and integrity. Unfortunately for all of you, I have both in spades.”

Michael frowned and dropped into a low stance with his sword in one hand and his shield in the other.

“Guess we’re doing this then,” said Michael.

Clint placed a hand on each of his dagger hilts and then, quicker than Michael thought was possible, he slammed into Ollie’s forcefield with his shoulder, shattering it.

Marcus fired his shot, but Clint had already moved in front of Pyotr.

Pyotr attempted to slash at Clint, but the man was too fast and ducked under Pyotr’s elegant strike before driving his dagger smoothly into his side between the slits in his armor twice and moving toward Ollie.

Michael started healing Pyotr even as he moved in front of Ollie. He slashed out at Clint’s midline, but the bounty hunter ducked smoothly under the blow before kicking Michael with enough force to cave in his chestplate and throw him backward.

Lance slashed at the man while his back was turned, but he turned around so fast it kicked up snow all around him, and caught the blow on one of his daggers before slashing across Lance’s face, carving easily through his helmet. If Michael hadn’t already been healing him his lower jaw would’ve likely fallen into the snow at his feet. Didn’t seem like he minded if he brought the young man in dead or alive.

Ollie clenched his fist as he blurted out obscenities and the snowflakes that were falling around them all stopped in the air formed up together before shooting at Clint like tiny daggers.

Clint jumped easily ten feet into the air to avoid the attack and landed next to Davi. He drove a dagger into Davi’s side, and Davi wrapped his own arm around Clint’s, locking the dagger into his side. He followed that up by attempting to smash his helmet into Clint’s face, but Clint stopped the blow with his forearm before twisting the blade in Davi’s side and pushing him away.

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Pyotr stepped toward Clint and aimed a kick at his center mass.

Clint moved to block it, but changed direction at the last minute and moved around the kick, slamming his dagger into Pyotr’s leg when it was fully extended and quickly dragging it down his calf exposing red muscle to the freezing air.

Pyotr just gritted his teeth and slammed his shield toward Clint’s face. He dodged that as well, yanking his dagger free violently as he did so. Unfortunately for him, Lance was right behind him and slashed downward with his sword. Clint twisted and caught the blow on the rifle across his back, then smashed the hilt of his blade across Lance’s face and sent him tumbling into the snow.

Michael was on him again, and threw a flurry of strikes his way that he dodged and danced around as he cut and stabbed him a dozen different ways. This time, Michael didn’t heal himself, but when he was riddled with holes, only his highly boosted durability keeping him standing, he focused, and transferred all of the pain he was feeling to Clint.

Clint shuddered and fell to his knees for a moment.

Davi took that chance to slash his bastard sword with both hands down at him.

Clint barely managed to deflect the blow and it caught his hat, tearing it from his head.

“You mother fuckers!” he said as he tried to stand, but another shot rang out and he jerked backward as it hit his chest at an angle. “Sunavabitch,” he yelled, throwing himself toward Marcus, dodging around Pyotr and slamming through another of Ollie’s shields to drive his dagger a half dozen times into Marcus’s stomach.

Michael was already healing all of them, and Clint spun around to look at him, his light gray eyes burning with rage, the bullet in his chest seeming to enrage him more than anything else. Michael was forced to stop the pain transfer and heal himself quickly as Clint launched himself at Michael.

Michael managed to mutter an incredibly quick prayer before Clint reached him.

“Seras, or ‘the’ whatever you are. I could use some help.”

There was no answer, the whispers of the divine he’d heard were too quiet for him to make out as Clint slammed into Michael and pushed him back several yards with dozens of rapid knifestrikes.

Michael focused entirely on defense. Using his shield spell on his vitals when his regular shield fell short, or his parries weren’t quick enough. In spite of that he soon found himself covered in just as many wounds as he’d had when he transferred his pain to Clint the first time. He was overwhelmed, his healing unable to keep up with the damage and his stamina depleting quickly. He was being pushed back so quickly that the others were having difficulty catching up with him. Then his foot slipped slightly, and he smiled. He was standing on ice. He could hear a light twinkling laughter in his ear.

He aimed a shield strike, not at Clint, but at the ground between them. Clint leapt to strike at his head, but when his feet landed in front of Michael again, he plunged immediately into the ice cold water below them. Some of the ice broke apart, and Michael felt himself slipping toward the hole he’d created as well, but managed to awkwardly roll backward onto more solid ground. He stood there for a moment with his sword and shield still ready as he watched the hole.

Ollie ran up to where he was.

“Hope you freeze your nuts off, fucker,” said Ollie placing his hand into the water and channeling his Magicka. The already cold water froze again, and Michael could see even the ice under his own feet thicken as Ollie used the same spell he cooled drinks with to rapidly freeze the top of the lake, thickening the ice several inches, though he actually vomited from the effort as he pushed his mana channels to the brink.

Michael very carefully brought himself back up to his feet and walked over to Ollie to lessen the damage the cold water had done to his hands..

“I dedicate this victory to the divine,” he mumbled as they carefully made his way back to where the road was solidly under his feet. The whispering of the divine grew loud enough for him to hear again.

~Ha~ha~ha~

It was the laughter of, The, as he’d come to think of him. It had a different quality to it than the other words which were feminine and he assumed were Seras attempting to communicate with him. The statue was where he’d first begun to hear it. Whoever this new god was, he was clearly a trickster of some sort. That made sense, it didn’t seem like any pantheon on Earth was complete without one, why would this new world be any different.

He raised his hand, enjoying the warmth in it that endured in spite of the biting cold that was all around them, and healed everyone. No one was without damage. Clint had been the most dangerous man all of them had fought by far, and he was just a particularly skilled bounty hunter from what they could tell. An example of how monstrous all of them might be able to grow with enough time. Michael was curious about the man’s circumstances, but it didn’t seem like he’d be able to get any answers soon.

“Where’s Francesca?” asked Davi as he tried to re-tie one of his chestplate straps that had been severed by Clint’s daggers.

A patch of dark hair popped up from behind a nearby hill, and Francesca shook some snow off of herself as she walked over to them

“Didn’t seem like I’d be much help, so I thought I’d get out of the way.” She looked around. “Where’s the body?”

“Frozen at the bottom of a lake,” replied Ollie with a smile.

Francesca shook her head. “No body? We should be making sure he’s dead. Did you not watch any TV back on Earth?”

“If you want to swim to the bottom of a frozen lake, you’re welcome to,” replied Ollie a little bit of irritation bleeding through his voice.

She shook her head and sighed. “Guess I’ll be sleeping with another dagger under my pillow.”