The Death if it All

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Viper sat on the steps outside a bar, the sun blazing down on him. He wiped the sweat off his brow and placed his wide-brim on his head. His hair fell below his shoulders in tight yet ragged dreadlocks. The one closest to his face had several bullet casings tied onto it and it clinked whenever he walked. He wore a long dust colored trench coat and a set of leather pants. He checked the rounds in his rifle and adjusted the scope. Today was the day he picked himself up out of the dirt. Today was the day he earned back the name Viper "Cottonmouth" Slate. Today was the day, he kept reminding himself. Today was the day...
 
The lighting in the watering hole was piss poor to say the least. It was the kind of place where you have to wait for your eyes to adjust before you went too far in and Lockjaw was as far in as you could go without passing the bar top and ending up in the unisex bathroom. Though the grimace on his face wasn't from the smell drifting from the door or the poor lighting. He had just takes a shot of the foulest tasting booze this side of edge of space.

Lockjaw wasn't his real name, he was called that because his jaw seldom moved. Not to speak, not to smile or to whistle at the very occasional girl that came by. The metal plate attached to the side of his chin might also have something to do with it sitting below a section of missing lip about an inch long that left several teeth permanently exposed. If you asked him that length his hair was he'd say "functional" which lean short though not to get in the way and it was impossible to look him in the eyes because he only had one left a scarlet scrap of cloth covered where the other used to be. He was a mercenary by trade, most people in this bar were.

He wore a long brown duster over a simple chest plate, boots pants armored on the shins and had nothing on his belt but and empty holster. Weapons were not allowed int he bar though the doorman was holding onto a revolver and a rifle for him. He was here looking for work, and it usually walked in the door. Its why this bar existed, well than and the gambling.
 
Viper looked at the bar that he was sitting out the front of. One last drink couldn't hurt. He tossed his rifle to the doorman and pushed the twin doors apart and walked in, his boots thudding quietly on the floor. He walked straight to the end. And someone was in his seat. He looked from the boots up. He neared the facial region and recognized him instantly. "Sweet bleeding Christ!" he exclaimed as he realized just who it was. "Lockjaw, you sour old bastard, how the hell have you been hiding yourself all these years?" he said jokingly. Viper and Lockjaw had worked together on a quite a few jobs together years ago, back when Viper wasn't knocking people off from a mile away for spare change as he had been recently. They had a history together, and Viper would be damned if old Lockjaw forgot about him.
 
The mercenary turned and cast his eye over to the newcomer, then his eye widened in recognition. "Viper, still on pest control I see..." he signaled to the barman that Viper would be drinking on his tab and to fetch two more. "I've just got back from babysitting supplies, cushy but boring and the pays not much to talk about. But I won't be fighting off any grus in the dark with my bare hands any time soon."

He was referring to the incident on their last job together where he had become a cyclops, then out of the blue Lockjaw punched Viper on the shoulder. "Whats been keeping you busy? Jobs are getting harder and harder to find.."
 
Viper took the punch with a smile. "That's because there are less and less people for me to pick off!" he replied chuckling. The booze arrived and he slammed it home. His face turned sour and he placed the shotglass back on the desk. "God damnit Gerald, what the fuck did you do? Piss in a glass and add whisky for colour? I forgot why I don't drink here..." he said with an irate tone. "Oh well. You are just the person I needed to see, Lock." he said turning back to him. "How about we do another job together? No employers, no gang bosses. Just you and me, our rules, our terms." he said trying to be as persuasive as he could be.
 
Lockjaw opened his gullet and pored the drink down. "Don't tell me you can't take your drink anymore." he said playing with the glass in his hand as he though the offer over. "Whats the payoff? Not turning bandit are you? I know times are tough but I'm not desperate enough to pull a bank job and get a price on my head." he said turning to look at Viper. "So before I say yes I'll need to know what you know, and you know you can trust me."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out some coin and dropped it onto the counter before rising to his feet. "Not here though, when I have Loraine on my hip and where in a place with fewer ears."
 
"I agree." he said, getting to his feet also. The pair walked out of the dank bar and into the blazing light of the outside world. Viper grabbed his gun back off the doorman, flicking him a coin as a tip. He checked the scope once more and adjusted it slightly. As they were now out of earshot, Viper began to speak. "This 'job', you see..." he said, looking around, making sure nobody would hear. "it's not about going bandit. Something much more decent. The payoff, my sour friend, will be damn near priceless. We may even be damn near able to 'buy' this god damned dustball of a planet once we get our hands on what I'm looking for!" he said excitedly, producing a piece of thick parchment with a drawing on it. The drawing showed what looked like a massive diamond being held by a tiki-like idol. "This motherfucker right here, my friend, is known as the Eye of Belial. Supposing that this thing is not just a myth, I estimate it's worth in the god damn trillions!" he said jabbing the paper with a callused finger franticly. "We would be rolling, yes, literally rolling in cold, hard cash... Whaddaya say?" he said putting the paper away and grinning insanely.
 
With his repeater slung over his back and Loraine, his pearl handled silver revolver that he seldom let out of his sight back on his hip he listened to Viper's proposal but when he pulled out the picture he shoved it against Viper's chest and looked around. "Do I look mad to you?" he asked completely serious as he pulled Viper off the street and into an alley. "Thats your payoff? Some mythical idol that even the sun touched folk who say exist say is cursed?"

He cast another glance around to make sure they were alone. "Everyone whose gone off looking for that thing has wound up mad, dead, or simply disappeared what makes you think I'll say yes to being next in line for that? You'd better have a more solid lead than a picture."
 
"You'll say yes, because I know you can't stay away from something like this. And there is no way in mother Mary's sweet lady bumps that you'll be shit-kicking for some man in a suit who thinks he's the hottest shit ever to come out satan's crack." he said with a serious tone. He looked Lockjaw straight in the eye, his gaze hammering home just how serious he was. Not working... Time for the trump card then, he thought. "Of course, if you don't want a share of the grand prize, that's fine." he said as if it was no big deal putting the parchment away. Any second now, Lockjaw would be begging to go with him. 3...2...1...
 
His eye scanned Viper's face and he breathed a huge sigh. "Curse me for a fool Cottonmouth.." he shook his head and "I'm going to need to know everything you do and if I'm going mad I'm taking you with me. Meantime may as well put on an act of being sane and get supplied." He turned and left the alley without looking back at Viper. "I'm going to regret this one way or the other so lets get it over with."

The general store was the logical first stop. It wild everything from soap to bullets. Though Lockjaw was interesting in water and dried food for the trail you could never have too many bullets.
 
Viper ran after Lockjaw as he left the alley. "I think I know you too damn well, Lock." he said beaming a massive smile. The headed towards the general store. They stepped inside. The place was lit better than the bar, to say the least. Shelves were lined with merchandise. Viper headed straight for the dried goods and then the bullets. He always stocked up on ammo. One could never have too many bullets... He put the items down on the counter and went back, looking at the gun rack for a sidearm. He spotted an older model Sidewinder revolver, eight bullets max in cartridge, elongated barrel. Perfect. He grabbed it and put it down on the counter as well. "Looks like that's me. Where abouts are you at with your shopping, Lock?" he asked cheekily.
 
A Canteen, bag of food, bullets, oil, another canteen, somehting stronger than water to fill it with, and a dull grey hat,. "Done." he handed over the money and collected his gear and stepped outside. "So why don't we get moving and you tell me on the say. That way no one will your what you've gotten me into and I can turn around if I think you're crazy.. Right now I think you're crazy but you still got a chance to convince me otherwise."
 
"You are in far to deep to back out now, Lock." he said, giving his new sidearm a look-over. "And even if you wanted to, you wouldn't let yourself. That would be the easy way out... And I know what you're like about the easy way." he said shuddering as if to visit and unwelcome memory. He stuffed his supplies into his pack and paid the man with what little spare cash he had left. He spun the revolver, checking the weight before holstering it. Waited for Lockjaw to finish buying before they walked out of the store, ready for one more job.
 
"Theres always an easy way out." he said holding up a bullet after exiting the stole. Then he jammed his new hat onto his head and looked up and down the street. "But you're right.. again. Turnign back now would leave me with more questions than answers and penniless to boot. So where this miracle rock of yours?"

He kept moving it was easier to notice eavesdroppers if they had to move to keep up and Lockjaw had been called paranoid on more than one occasion but it wasn't really paranoia if it kept you alive according to him. "And more importantly hot are we going to get there?"
 
"Well, as far as getting there, we walk. And if we manage to find an abandoned ride along the way, we could take that and do a bit of patch job on it." said Viper. "Should get us a few more miles than on foot. As far as I know, the Eye is somewhere 'here...'" he said, pointing to a spot a few hundred miles from where they were on his wrist mounted HUD Map. "And then it's rumoured to be in some kind of cave that is supposed to be frought with danger and cave monsters and this, that and the other regular bullshit that people tend to come up with when they tell stories." he said, flipping the HUD back down. He decided to load his sidearm, just in case, and put it back on his hip after adjusting the iron sights. "This thing could use a scope..." he said with a sigh of what sounded like dissapointment.
 
"Thats what you say about everything. You get a gun, needs a scope, you get a knife, needs a scope, you get a girl.. needs a scope." Lockjaw quibbled before getting serious. "Its a long walk and not a safe one. I heard Bill was killed out there not too long back, but what the hell I'm jested, I'm supplied, I'm armed and if this turns out to be a wild goose chase I can bill you as the standard rate." he grinned letting Viper know that last part was a joke. "Lets start hiking."
 
"Alrighy then!" said Viper cheerily, as they set off into the wasteland. There wasnt much too look at in the wastes except the ocasional sharpish spire of stone that rose up several metres, sometimes towering upto several hundreds of meteres tall and even moreso around the base of the spires. These were prime locations for bandit camps and highwaymen, being the only objects out there to hide behind in prepairation for a ambush. Viper felt confident that no-one would be sneaking up on them any time soon. Not with his keen eyes and Lockjaw's brutal and efficient methods of close-quarters and mid-range killing prowess. In combat, if you could call it that, Viper was like a phantom. He was unseen and unheard right until the last split second. This was mainly due to the fact that he did his killing from hundreds of metres and even whole kilometres away. He believed very firmly in 'One Shot, One Kill'. Nothing else would do...
 
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