Chương 123: Book 2 Chapter 34.1: Gunfight at the EO Corral

A knock on his door dashed all of Vell's plans to sleep in. With no classes today, he'd been hoping to catch up on some long overdue relaxation, but apparently that wasn't happening. He groggily got up, dressed himself, and headed for the door. A single drone was hovering in front of Vell's door, holding out a small case.

"Oh no." The drone lifted the lid of the case, displaying exactly what Vell feared: a single paintball pistol.

"Oh no," Vell repeated, louder. The campus's yearly paintball war had begun. Vell made a dead sprint for Harley's dorm, ignoring anyone he saw along the way. Action was rare in these first few minutes, and he wanted to get grouped up as soon as possible, before the real chaos began. By running as fast as he could, Vell made it to Harley's dorm without encountering any gunslingers, witches, living tanks, or any other forms of paintball based chaos. Harley actually hadn't even finished setting up her turrets.

"Jeez, you got here fast," Harley said.

"No loops this time, didn't want to risk it with no redo's," Vell said. He was hardly invested in winning the paintball—he'd deliberately lost a duel to avoid winning last year, even—but he didn't want to get downed early either.

"Good instinct. Help me with this real quick, then I got something to show you." Vell helped push one of the autoturrets into place, and then followed her back into her dorm. To his surprise, Lee was already there, fiddling with a leather belt pouch. She tended to wake up earlier than the other loopers, so she had gotten a slight advance warning on the beginning of the paintball war and headed straight to Harley.

"Ah, Vell, good that you're here," she said.

"I was just finishing up." She prodded the leather pouch once more, shooting a spark of magic into the stitches, and then tossed it to Vell. At the same time, Botley appeared and held up matching paintball revolvers, similar to the ones Vell had used last year.

"We solved your reloading problem," Harley said.

"Your guns now automatically reload themselves from that magic pouch Lee made!"

"It's quite small, unfortunately, so you'll still need to refill the pouch itself," Lee cautioned.

"But I think you'll find two-hundred shots per reload preferable to twelve."

"That works, yeah," Vell said.

"Thanks, guys."

"Well, you are the sharpshooter of the team," Harley said.

"Also we love you and want to give you nice things."

"Aw."

"But mostly the first thing," Harley said, giving Vell a quick slap on the butt to keep him from getting too sappy.

"And no throwing the duel this time! If you get a shot at first place, go for it."

"Okay, okay, I'll try," Vell said. He had purposefully lost a duel last year to avoid the spotlight, but apparently he couldn't get away with it twice. Harley's phone started to ring, and she answered it quickly.

"Hawke? What do- oh, yeah, right. I'll turn them off real quick, sorry about that," she said. She pulled her phone away from her ear and tabbed through a few apps real quick.

"Sorry about that, you should be good to go." Moments later, Hawke punched in the door code and walked in, followed by about two dozen people.

"Jesus Hawke," Harley said.

"When you said you brought friends I thought you meant like, Kim and some of your roommates."

"I joined a club," Hawke said.

"I know people now." People who wanted protection courtesy of Vell and his paintball prowess, apparently. Which wasn't a problem in and of itself, except they weren't the only ones who'd had the same idea.

"Yo, Harley!" Cane cried.

"Let us in!" Harley opened the door, and Cane, Freddy, Luke, and some assorted friends of theirs all piled in.

"I'm sorry, was there a 'Please Come In' sign on my door that I didn't know about?" While Harley was usually hospitable to guests, she was not hospitable to several dozens guests at once. If only because her dorm wasn't that big.

"Sorry, we don't want to impose," Luke said.

"We just figured Vell would be here, and, well, a lot of these guys wanted to be wherever Vell was." A few of the strangers in the room waved. Vell took a quick step back. Apparently taking second place had still attracted quite a bit of attention.

"Oh my god," Harley gasped.

"Vell, are you a warlord now?"

"What?"

"Oh, that makes sense," Lee said.

"Several of the previous warlords graduated. As one of last year's champions, Vell is a natural candidate for a replacement."

"Sweet, power vacuums! I'm down to be your wingwoman, bud," Harley said.

"I pinky promise not to coup you, even."

"Wait, wait, hold on," Vell said.

"Aren't there supposed to be phases to this sort of thing? Let's not get ahead of ourselves." His attempt at deflection was undercut by a speeding car driving past the dorm building, spraying paintballs in every direction. Thankfully Harley kept her windows closed.

"The chaos appears to be well underway," Lee noted.

"But if we intend to do this, we should make our preparations now. As a new warlord, you'll want to establish your position early." The initial chaotic period in which everyone tried out new weapons and debuted new strategies would only last so long. Soon, people would be rallying to safe zones and powerful paintballers, officially putting them in the "Warlord" phase of paintball warfare.

"I don't know if I want to be a new warlord," Vell said.

"Well, warlord or not, we need to find somewhere to go," Harley said.

"It's getting cramped, and all our friends aren't even here yet."

"Whatever your intentions, Vell, finding a more spacious and defensible position would be a good idea," Lee said.

"Stop talking to me like I'm in charge," Vell pleaded.

"Alright, I declare that we are going to go somewhere with more room," Harley said, putting the burden of leadership upon herself.

"But you're going first, Vell. Lead the charge, cowboy."

"Hello comfort zone," Vell said as he brandished his twin pistols and stepped through the crowd. Leadership wasn't his thing, but he knew his way around pistols. He exited the dorm just in time to see Himiko and Kanya headed their way.

"Hey guys," he said.

"Heading for Harley's?" They nodded.

"Kind of crowded right now, we were actually just leaving," Vell said.

"Also, duck." Himiko and Kanya both hit the deck, giving Vell a clear shot at the two would-be assassins who'd snuck up behind them. After shooting them down, Vell gave his pistols a quick spin and tucked them back into his holsters.

"Coast is clear," he said.

"Let's move." Kanya and Himiko stood, and the large gang in the dorm room started to file out into the hallway, guns at the ready. Harley shooed everyone out of her dorm and shut the door behind them.

"Where are we even going?" Cane asked.

"The stadium?"

"That's pretty hot real estate," Harley said.

"We need bigger numbers if we want to take that on."

"What about the robotics lab? We could set up some pretty good automated defenses," Freddy said.

"No, absolutely not," Himiko snapped.

"We're not turning our lab into a paintball warzone. Do you know how hard it is to get paint out of all the little gears and gyros?" The school's janitorial bots did a good job cleaning the frankly absurd amount of paint off of walls and floors, but they struggled with the nooks and crannies. Himiko had very little patience to begin with, and she had especially little patience for scrubbing paint out of gears.

"One of the lab spaces would be good, though," Luke said.

"Good sight lines, plenty of exits, but defensible."

"Good luck getting anybody to volunteer their lab, though," Vell said. Students were very defensive of their departments lab spaces, especially when it came to something as messy as the paintball war, as Himiko had just proven.

"Well, what about the arts department? They're all about paint."

"Not usually at ballistic speeds, I think," Vell said.

"You'd be surprised," Lee said.

"It can't hurt to ask, I guess," Vell said.

"Lee, why don't you text Adele and also tilt your head a little to the left." Lee started with the head tilt, and felt a little rush of air past her ear as Vell fired a paintball in the direction of another would-be attacker. At that point, everybody who wasn't Vell sat down, so as to avoid their heads being between Vell and a potential target. Lee pounded out a few texts to her girlfriend and then read the response.

"She says we're welcome to stay there," Lee said.

"Though she warns getting there might come with complications."

"Thank you for not pausing dramatically before you said 'complications'," Harley said.

"I have been trying to break the habit, dear, I know how it bugs you," Lee said.

"Now, we should get moving."

"You heard the boss, let's get moving, folks, and keep your eyes open," Harley said.

"There's only two ways to get into this hallway, but once we're outside, there's going to be more angles than even Vell can cover. Keep those guns ready and don't make him try to babysit all of you at once, because he will."

"I wi-" Vell stammered, before stopping himself. Even he couldn't protest that, knowing he had, in fact, very literally babysat the entire campus not that long ago.

"Come on, let's just go." Vell led the way down the stairs, guns at the ready, and his gaggle of followers made it to the bottom floor without incident. He was the first person out the door, and made it exactly two steps into the quad before turning around, walking back inside, and shutting the door behind him.

"Let's use a different door."

"What the hell's out there?"

"Ornithology department weaponized geese."

"What kind of geese?"

"Canadian." As one, the group turned around and headed for a different exit. By taking the longer, but much safer, route, they ended up dodging most of the chaos. Most of it.

"Is that Iron Man?" Vell said.

"And I think that's like... he's from Star Wars, right?"

"Babylon 5, but close."

"Close?" Freddy, being more of a sci-fi buff, felt the distinction between the two franchises deserved more recognition, but Harley shushed him down.

"Cosplayers," Harley said. The Einstein-Odinson school had a small but dedicated community of costumers, who used the technological and magical resources at their disposal to create intricate cosplays. A dozen or so were patrolling a small area of the campus, between them and the arts labs. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"This should be easy, right?" Cane asked.

"They'll be afraid to get paint on their costumes."

"If that was the case they wouldn't even be wearing them," Harley said.

"Don't underestimate these guys, Cane. Cosplayers can make shit you wouldn't believe out of thrift store finds, some thread, and maybe a little hot glue."

"Indeed. It wouldn't surprise me if that Iron Man has some kind of fully functioning paint laser in his palm."

"Lee, how is a paint laser supposed to work," Luke said.

"It can't be paint and a laser."

"You know what I mean." Vell ignored their discussion and kept an eye on the Cosplayers. He had some hopes he might be able to skirt by them with a few well-placed fandom references to build camaraderie, but watching an anime character gun down a sprinting student in cold paint made him feel like that wouldn't work. These cosplayers might have been dressed like various heroes, but they were out for violence.

"We're going to have to shoot our way through," Vell said.

"I'll go first, but they've got numbers, and probably a few tricks up their very elaborately designed sleeves." Harley readied her pistol and her nerves for the shootout to come. Vell waited for everybody to take a deep breath and prepare before making his move. With a diving leap out of cover, Vell raised his pistols and took aim, firing on the cosplayers.

He managed to take out a Naruto, two Stormtroopers, and a Captain America before the cosplayers caught on to him and started taking evasive maneuvers -and returning fire. The man in the apparently functional Iron Man armor pointed a palm at Vell's group and blasted a ring of pressurized paint in their direction. Lee narrowly dodged it, but pointed it out for her companions.

"I told you so," she snapped at Luke.

"Gloat later, we've got a Mandalorian incoming!" The armored cosplayer stepped to the front lines and raised a gauntlet, unleashing a spray of paint in place of a flamethrower. The multicolored spray eliminated several members of Vell's burgeoning army before Cane tarnished his plastic armor with a paint bullet. The paint spray had created an opening in the enemy lines, however, and a new problem started sprinting their way.

"Paint swords," Cane snapped.

"Is that legal?" Apparently they were, because one of the many ninjas running at them "stabbed" one of Hawke's roommates with a painted edge and eliminated him from play. Cane shot down one of the swordsmen attacking them and snatched the painted blade out of his hands just in time to parry a blow from another attacker. This cosplayer wore a bright pink kimono and had an equally pink ribbon in their hair. In spite of the fact that they were in the midst of combat, Cane raised an eyebrow.

"So, this is from, what, Dragon Ball Z?"

"Demon Slayer," the cosplayer scoffed.

"I don't know what that is but I will definitely check it out," Cane said, as he parried another blow.

"Maybe you can show me."

"Seriously? You're doing this now?"

"Well, you're going to need something to do after my man Vell's done with you," Cane said. On cue, Vell unleashed another volley of shots. After taking out a few Batmen on the backlines, Vell turned his attention to the swordsmen. Proving the relatively new adage that you should never bring a paint sword to a paintball gun fight, Vell tore through the ranks with ease. The cosplay squadron got off a few more shots, but they fell before the superior firepower of Vell's cowboy bullshit.

"Good thing they don't make westerns anymore," Harley noted, as the last of the cosplayers fell.

"Somebody dressed as a cowboy might've actually made for a challenge."

"Cowboy I could've handled," Vell said.

'Samurai would've been the real problem."

"Why?"

"Tell you later," Vell said.

"We should keep moving for now. We lost a few people." Cane included, though they had not necessarily lost him to battle. He handed over a towel to the pink-clad cosplayer who was hastily getting paint off her kimono. They had ways of cleaning their costumes, of course, but it was better if they got it done before the paint dried. She warily accepted the towel and then scanned the paint stain on Cane's shirt.

"So, why don't you tell me about this show you like so much?"

"Did you get yourself shot just so you could flirt with me?"

"Maybe." The cosplayer finished toweling her kimono clean and regarded Cane with a skeptical glare. Then she shrugged.

"Eh, why not," she sighed.

"Meet you in the dining hall. Let me just get this wig off first."

"That's a wig?" The cosplayer nodded.

"I couldn't tell, you must have some serious magic going on," Cane said, clearly impressed.

"Nope, all practical. Tell you all about it over lunch." The loopers watched Cane strut off to his date, and though they tried their hardest to begrudge him taking an early out, they could not.

"I can't even be mad," Harley said.

"Man saw his chance and took it. I mean, what are we fighting for, a gold star? I'd take a pretty girl over a gold star any day."

"Don't you bail on us too," Lee cautioned.

"I'm not going to, I'm just saying," Harley said.

"Speaking of pretty ladies, let's get you to your girlfriend." Lee, blushing profusely all the while, led the way. Kanya stared out the window and watched paint-bomb explode outside. As it coated a group of students trying to flee from the paint shockwave, Kanya stepped back and closed the blinds.

"Man am I glad we got inside." Their newly established base in the Arts Department had proven it's worth already, and proved it again when a paint-bomb splashed against the walls ineffectively. While the Arts' students themselves were not initially excited about allying with a bunch of strangers, they did want the firepower of last year's second-place winner on their side -along with the surprising numbers he brought with him.

As the initial chaos ended and students started to rally to the warlords, a surprising number of students rallied to Vell.

"Hi, Cyrus, long time no see," Vell said.

"How you been?"

"Well, it was all uphill after the way my year started," Cyrus said. He'd recovered pretty well from getting dumped, but not that well.

"Could be better, though. I think I broke my gun running over here." He'd slammed into a wall while sprinting away from a flock of weaponized geese, and cracked his gun in the process. He displayed the firearm, nearly broken into two pieces, to Vell.

"Oh hey, I know just the person for that," Vell said. He turned to the crowd that had gathered in the lab.

"Hey Isabel, can you help this guy with his gun real quick?" Isabel del Campo hopped to her feet, hiked up her skirt, and hustled across the room. She took one look at the gun and nodded affirmatively.

"I got this," she said confidently. Cyrus handed over the gun, and she got to work right away, busting out a repair rune she already had on hand.

"Cool, thanks," Cyrus said.

"Isabel, right? I'm Cyrus."

"Nice to meet you."

"Yeah. So, uh, will you just find me when you're done, or-""Nope. Already done," Isabel said. She handed over an already perfectly intact gun. Cyrus was surprised, but delighted.

"Wow. You are crazy good at that."

"Really?" Harley glanced sideways at the exchange of blushing and stammering that followed before Cyrus and Isabel slinked off to find somewhere to sit and talk. She shrugged and got back to Vell.

"Something in the water today, I guess, people're hooking up left and right."

"You'd know," Vell said.

"War makes for strange bedfellows."

"Yeah, some of those bedfellows stranger than others," Harley said.

"Are you sure you want everyone here?" While a few people like Cyrus and Isabel were genuinely interested in helping Vell, most of his newly-formed army were simply opportunists latching on to Vell's paintball prowess. Further still were former enemies, including some of the people Vell had eliminated last year.

"We're all on the same team here, at least for now," Vell said.

"I still don't buy it," Harley said. A gaggle of floating witches had taken up residence in the corner of the room, scheming among their coven.

"They're going to stab you in the back, Vell."

"I mean, yeah, but isn't that sort of what happens?" Vell shrugged.

"Chaos phase, then warlord phase, and then, uh, everybody tries to overthrow the warlord and you're back to roving gangs and gunmen."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you should invite the guys who're going to coup you into your shop," Harley said.

"Better the devil you know than the devil you don't," Kim said. She took a seat next to Harley at Vell's "command table" and relaxed.

"Oh, there you are," Vell said.

"What took you so long?"

"I was... trying to figure out how the gun worked," Kim said. She still had no affinity whatsoever for weapons. Harley squinted at Kim for a few seconds.

"Kim, did you shoot yourself?"

"No! I- Almost. But I didn't," Kim said.

"But I also didn't shoot anyone else. At all. I forgot my gun in the dorm when I left, if you can believe it." After leaving her dorm, Kim had lasted about three minutes before getting shot in the back by someone in a prototype stealth suit. She was only in the lab to hang out, since she had nothing else to do.

"You'll get there," Vell assured her. After speaking, he snapped his gun out its holster and shot down all of the witches who had taken aim at him before they ever even got a chance to fire.

"Told you," Harley said.

"And I agreed with you when you told me, that's not a 'gotcha'," Vell said, as he holstered his gun. The disappointed witches sulked away, covered in paint.

"Yeah, that's not even a real coup," Harley said.

"Eventually some of these guys are going to betray you, though, you're- Is somebody playing cowboy music?" As the conversation lulled, everyone could, in fact, hear the faint, whistling tones of a western theme. As the rest of the room caught on to the music, conversation came to a halt, and everyone looked around for the source.

"Could whoever's playing that please stop," Vell said.

"I know I've got the revolvers, but I don't really lean into the whole cowboy aesthetic."

"Vell, I don't think that's coming from inside," Kim said. Kanya reopened the blinds and took a look outside.

"What's out there?"

"I don't know, the window's covered in fucking paint," Kanya said. She stepped aside and displayed a patch of green paint from the earlier paint-bombs. Though they could not see what was outside, their curiosity was sated soon enough.

"Vell Harlan! I'm calling you out!" Vell rolled his eyes. He'd been hoping to avoid something like this.

"Is that the cowboy guy?" Harley asked. Half the people in the room looked at Vell.

"The other cowboy guy," Harley clarified.

"Ryder Storm."

"His name's Eric," Vell said. He made his way to the front door and opened it a crack, trying to peer out. It didn't work very well, so he just shouted instead.

"What do you want, Eric?"

"It's Ryder," Eric insisted.

"And I want the duel you owe me, you son of a bitch." The only other inexplicably cowboy-themed paintballer on campus stood some distance from the art lab, shouting to let his voice be heard. A dramatic breeze blew the coat tails of his duster past the ornamental spurs he wore.

"Why are you doing an accent, by the way?" Vell asked, ignoring the challenge.

"I know you're not actually southern. Aren't you from like, Milwaukee or something?" Silence reigned for a few seconds. Kanya watched some paint dry.

"Cudahy," Eric Storm said quietly.

"But that ain't important! What's important is that you and I have a proper duel, man to man."

"Is it that important?"

"Yes!"

"Uh... alright, give me a sec, I guess."

"Vell, no," Harley said. She stormed her way to the door and squeezed in under Vell's arm.

"Hey, Eric! Get a life! Vell's not your nemesis!"

"I thought you might say that," Eric grumbled.

"Harley, it's not a big deal, I'll just go and have a quick shoot out."

"Not on his terms, Vell," Harley said. She started to stick her head out the door.

"If he wants you he can come in here and-" Harley abruptly pulled her head back into the arts lab and slammed the door shut as roughly five hundred paintballs slammed into the space her head had briefly occupied.

"Yeah, so, he's got like two-thousand dudes with him," Harley said.

"I thought I'd give you a chance to settle things square, but if you don't want a fair fight, I won't give you one," Eric Storm said.

"I got two thousand top notch shooters out here, and every one of them is going to be gunning for you and yours." Much like Vell's reputation as the second place winner had allowed him to amass a small army, Eric's position as the first place winner had allowed him to amass a much, much larger army. Vell looked around the room and saw significantly less than two thousand people.

"We've also taken the liberty of making this a mano y mano occasion," Eric shouted.

"Ain't nobody left on the campus except for your team and mine." After doing a quick perusal of school social media, Lee gave a grim nod in Vell's direction. Ryder and his army had laid siege to the camps of other would-be warlords, taking them out of the picture before they had a chance to interfere in his planned clash with Vell.

"Well, this is just fantastic," Vell said.

"I knew being a warlord was a bad idea."

"Vell, it's not your fault the cowboy went crazy," Lee assured him.

"Anyone that fixated on Western aesthetics probably had a few screws loose to begin with."

"We'll be coming for you and yours at high noon," Eric said, once again displaying his fixation on cowboy tropes. Vell check the clock. It was currently ten forty-three AM, which felt like short notice to prepare for a climactic showdown.

"Could we fight at like, high two-thirty instead?" Vell shouted.

"I kind of want to get lunch."

"High noon!" Eric shouted.

"I'll see you then!" Though Vell still couldn't see anything out the windows, he knew a dramatic exit when he heard one. After waiting a moment just to be safe, Vell poked his head out to stare at the empty surroundings. No one took any pot shots at him, so he assumed the coast was clear.

"Well that's new," Vell said. He'd been excited to actually know the rules of the paintball war, but Eric had gone and changed up the game.

"Sorry guys, I think I sort of provoked him," Harley said.

"He didn't seem particularly rational to begin with, dear," Lee added.

"I doubt he had any intention of handling the situation with grace."

"Still, my bad," Harley said. She turned to the gathered paintballers who were hiding in the arts department with them.

"So, sort of looks like we're at war now. How do y'all feel about that?" To Vell's surprise, most of the people in the room simply shrugged.

"Honestly, I was expecting to go out in a way lamer way," someone said.

"Yeah, I mean, I went in to today expecting to get randomly ambushed by some dude with a nuclear-powered paintball minigun," someone else added.

"I'm cool with like, a relatively normal war."

"We can't guarantee there won't be paintball miniguns in the war," Harley said.

"Eh, still."

"Well, I'm glad we'll have allies, at least," Vell said with a shrug.

"And a defensible position," Lee said.

"Mr. Storm will have to bring the fight to us to satisfy his vendetta."

"Yeah, we are outnumbered by like ten to one, though," Luke said.

"And Ryder's almost as good as Vell, so we can't even count on skill."

"Maybe we should've gone to the robotics lab after all," Freddy said.

"Automated defenses could even the odds."

"I'm not spending my sunday scrubbing gears clean so we can satisfy some assholes cowboy fetish," Himiko said.

"There has to be something useful here, we're in the arts department. Paint is like most of what they do!"

"Actually we've got more sculpture students in here than anything else," Adele signed.

"And even the ones who paint don't really weaponize it."

"True enough. Any other ideas?"

"So I'm going to spitball an idea here that's probably going to be shot down, but I want to make sure this is on the table," Luke said.

"But, what if we just shot Vell ourselves and deprived Ryder of his insane vendetta?"

"That's quitter talk," Harley said.

"Mama Harley ain't raise no quitter."

"I know, I'm just saying,' Luke continued.

"If we get cornered, we can at least cockblock Ryder's attempts at revenge."

"Something to keep in mind if we're desperate, maybe," Lee said.

"But I believe an ideal strategy would see us never getting desperate."

"On that note, Vell, I do have an idea," Freddy offered.

"What if you just... taught us how to shoot?"

"Oh, uh, I don't know," Vell said. His skills as a gunslinger were one of the few things he felt actual confidence about, but his skills as a teacher did not share that rare status.

"It seems smart to me," Lee said.

"Since we cannot focus on recruitment, we should focus on improvement."

"Yeah, if even one percent of Vell's inexplicable cowboy bullshit wears off on the rest of us, we'll be unstoppable!"

"You guys know we only have like, uh, an hour, right?"

"An hour and twelve minutes, specifically," Harley said.

"So take twelve minutes to come up with a lesson plan while I set up a shooting range. See you in class, Professor Harlan." Harley winked at Vell once and then headed off to set up the training grounds. A cold chill ran down Vell's spine as he took a step closer to Lee.

"I think I've had nightmares where Harley said that to me," he groaned.

"Oh come now, dear, it won't be that bad," Lee said.

"Just trust your instincts."

"My instincts say it's going to be bad."

"Then... trust different instincts."