The whole of Varga was empty. And how could it not? Tank shots were not something the people there were familiar with, much less used to. No, to them, it was thunder, an omen of calamity.
And with each omen comes the messenger. The thunderbringer, too, soon showed himself in Varga's square.
"I've been thinkin'," Mojave yelled at the top of his lungs, unconcerned with the idea that nobody knew what he was saying, "Thinkin' of leavin' this here town alone. For once. But unfortunately, I got into a brawl, and I've gotta fulfill a covenant."
People gathered to hear the mad man's rambling anyway. Curiosity is a powerful, annoying little emotion.
"So if you wanna blame anyone for what's 'bout to happen to y'all," he raised a lit red smoke flare into the sky, "It ain't me. It ain't me who's at fault. Blame your prince over there," he pointed at the road in the distance, the faint suggestion of Jun's body still visible, earning a few shocked gasps from the townsfolk.
Mojave mumbled numbers under his breath, descending from 600.
"Three hundred, eight, twenty seven," a familiar voice interrupted the man from behind, accompanied by the swishing of a blade through the air, "Or perhaps you'd be more interested in hearing to watch your six."
Mojave smiled, grumbling without even turning around: "What makes you think I can't kill you again?"
"What makes you think I'll stay dead?" Jun pointed his blade towards the distant body, "Didn't work the first time."
"Simple. You see, .9mm kills the body, but .45 ACP kills the soul, and in my case, that's very literal."
"But you're out of ammo."
Mojave's grin widened, "I've also got an Emergency Dropbox!"
In that moment, a wooden crate descended down on parachutes, landing next to the American. He threw the smoke flare away, pried the box open, and started restocking.
Nope, not letting you restock!
Before Mojave could finish taking everything out of his crate, Jun swung his sword. The box, although it saved Mojave from a hit, was completely in ruin, and so were any resources that he didn't have time to take out.
"Rude," Mojave spat on the ground, "I let you collect your knife."
"If you have any formal complaints, please send a letter to the Nocturne's royal mailbox," Jun shilled while assaulting Mojave with a series of slashes. From the side, overhead, lunges and feints alike, his opponent was not allowed a moment of breathing room.
Although Mojave managed to dodge a majority of the hits, he suffered several cuts to the shoulder, upper leg, and both hips. But there was not a trace of blood to be found. In fact, mere seconds after being struck, it seemed like all Mojave suffered was cosmetic damage to his clothes.
"You think you're the first bloke to pull a blade at me since I got here?" Mojave stopped, allowing himself to be hit clean diagonally through the chest, "Nah, I've had time to figure some things out. And one of those is that you ain't gonna kill me with somethin' so rudimentary."
And indeed, the slash on his chest turned into a surface wound in moments, and vanished without a trace as soon as it appeared.
"I will miss the shirt a little," he laughed, "That's basically the only reason I've been dodgin' at all. Don't wanna end up naked," he shrugged, "But I had to prove a point."
"Just because I can't kill you doesn't mean I won't try!" Jun declared before lunging forward, aiming the tip of his sword to the heart.
"Too predictable. Thumper!"
Mojave manifested a grenade launcher. Jun managed to cover too much distance for such a thing to be effective, though. Nevertheless, Mojave fired anyway.
Much to Jun's surprise, the grenade did not do him any harm, but it knocked him considerable distance back. He realized this only after shaking off the whiplash of being planted in the wall of a nearby house, whose owner stared at him worriedly.
Jun scanned his surroundings before noticing an unhinged door, probably for renovations.
"Can I borrow that?" he asked the owner.
The door flew out of the house with uncanny speed and precision, followed by Jun just as quickly. It slammed into Mojave faster than he could react, almost knocking him off his feet, but the man toughed it out. What followed, however...
"Ramshackle!" Jun punched the door from the other side, the impact comparable to a battering ram. The door did not survive, but Mojave did with nothing more than broken ribs. As was tradition by now, he was good as new within seconds.
This is bad, his regeneration does not require death to occur like mine does... Jun thought while circling Mojave, evading further gunshots, occasionally managing to land a slash of his own in exchange for a bullet wound to less significant parts of his body. And it seems the more damage he takes, the faster it heals.
Then he got an idea. His sword was a valuable artifact, but ultimately worthless compared to the lives of the people. He could afford getting a replacement even if it ends up being worse.
"Hey, shitass!" Mojave interrupted his train of thought, "Parry this!"
Instinctively, Jun planted his sword in the ground, summoning his golden shield again. And good thing he did, as an F-22 Raptor rocket sent him flying, though he turned out relatively unharmed.
Where the hell did that come from?!
Mojave didn't shoot anymore. He must've been out of ammo again.
I have to get him before he gets another resupply.
Jun took the opportunity to close the distance, zigzagging just in case Mojave was pretending.
"30 paces..." a single gunshot rang out.
Jun was absolutely sure he was out of his line of fire. So why, then, why did his head hurt so much? Why was he collapsing?
The revolver's special quirk to never miss a shot so long as its target is exactly 30 feet away from it. That was Mojave's final bullet. This time, however, he wasn't going to let Jun reclaim his weapon. He reached for the blade... And received a powerful upward kick to the jaw. Iron soles, they broke his neck.
"Hands off my shit," Jun Number Three rumbled as he reached for his sword himself.
Unsurprisingly, Mojave recollected moments later, "You broke my crate and made me fight at a disadvantage, why shouldn't I do the same?"
"You know what... Fair," Jun reverse-gripped his sword, "Take it!"
He threw the sword with the force of a ballista, skewering Mojave and impaling him to a tree. Although the wound healed quickly, he couldn't wriggle himself out.
"That's your plan? I'll get out eventually, you know."
"I'd like to see you try," Jun knelt down on one knee, his left arm resting on the other, and his right arm, perpendicular to his left, clutched in a fist supporting his head by the third eye, "Computer-Superior, Lord Of All Things Metal, I offer you my treasured sword. Take it, keep it, your collection grand grows ever more."
The sky churned as if forces beyond understanding took notice. Five gigantic metallic plates akin to an orange peel grab bucket descended from the heavens, enveloping not only the sword, but Mojave and the tree with it. His screams of panic soon became muffled, then silent as the steel cocoon returned above the clouds.
Jun exhaled and fell over, exhausted, mostly mentally. But his problems were not over yet. It was only then that he noticed the red smoke rising from Varga's square still.
A smoke signal... What was he calling? Or who?
He thought back to the man's countdown. 600. 600 seconds. 10 minutes. Something was coming 10 minutes from that point. Jun opened his brace's interface. It's been roughly 9.
In the distance, the sound of powerful propulsion echoes across the forest. Then the light became visible, overpowering daylight. Jun knew very well what it was now: a missile. And he also knew that there was nothing he could do about it anymore. He turned to face the town one last time.
"I'm sorry..."