They pushed the horses hard as they rode back down the highway. Roy gripped the reins tightly, bouncing in his saddle as they slowed just long enough to salute the moon-man sheriff on the way past.

  Its head glowed far brighter than the real moon, even with the hole they’d made in it, making the night colorful and wonderful.

  Glowing signs left trails of neon at the edges of his vision as they raced by: Flamingo-Mart, Dino-Store, Duck Deals, Treasure’s-Best, Store in the Stone.

  Roy felt the same excitement as when he’d first stepped into Bay Town. That tingling in his stomach that rose up into his chest, making every breath of night air feel good. That light feeling in his head, as though he might take off at any moment.

  The prospectors cheered as they rode triumphantly through West Town’s gate, dragging the crystal wizard behind them.

  They had hammers and nails in hand, boarding up holes in the stunt show facades and adding false doorways. Sheriff Ryan was down on the street organizing the work crew and quickly wheeled over to greet them.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “Great,” said Samantha.

  “Better than we could have hoped for,” said Tex.

  “We got the tokens,” said Bastion, pulling the bag from his backpack and showing it off. “And we got this thing.” He pointed at the crystal wizard, now caught in the mud in the middle of the street.

  “And what’s that thing do?” asked Ryan.

  “It’s like the wizard’s secret weapon,” said Samantha. “Well, not a weapon really. It’s more like an amplifier for all their other weapons.”

  As she finished speaking, the driverless carriage ploughed into the statue, grinding its wheels against it to no effect before skidding off in the other direction.

  “We could keep it to boost these wands,” said Samantha. “You know, fireball any raiders or wizards who get close.”

  Ryan shook his head. “We need to destroy it. They’ve got way more wands than us, and we’ll never beat them when it comes to wizard theming. We need to play to our strengths, make this place an old west fortress.”

  He scratched his chin. ”Looks like we need to work out some other way to break it, though, since running it over clearly ain’t enough.” He turned to face his cousin, visibly uncomfortable. “Nate…could you—ah.”

  Nate nodded, grabbed the rope, and started dragging it into the gunsmith’s.

  Next, Ryan swiped the bag of tokens from Bastion’s hand and placed it on his lap. “I’ll put this in the safe until tomorrow.”

  Bastion opened his mouth to speak, but then decided against it.

  Samantha cut through the tension in her excitement. “We got some of their wands, too. You should have seen the things they did back there. One hit me with his huge thunder-blast. There was this grabber thing the main wizard-guy tried to use to take Roy’s movies, but Roy overpowered it using pure heroic strength. Oh, and he also made himself wings with one of them and flew. He looked so cool. Like this awesome flying knight against the moonlight.”

  Roy hadn’t felt very cool when he’d face-planted. Bastion was the one who’d had the wings long enough to gracefully glide down, but that didn’t seem to be the way Samantha had seen it.

  “OK,” said Casey, who’d stepped out from the saloon midway through Samantha’s retelling. “I’m gonna need to see one of those wands in action. Not the explosive ones, though. I’ve barely rebuilt the saloon from the last fireball.”

  “Ooh,” said Samantha. “We can use the wings to glide off the balcony.”

  Roy handed her the butterfly wand, along with a set of robes.

  She ran into the saloon and emerged on the balcony seconds later. Her jump from the railing let her glide most of the way across the street. “Woohoo. I bet if I practice, I can make it all the way to the other side.”

  For that, she had to wait, because first, everyone else wanted their turn. The disco ball wand was another source of endless entertainment. People snuck up on each other with it and set them to dancing, singing the cheesiest pre-Warp pop songs and clapping along while the dancer had no choice but to wait for the effects to wear off.

  Roy didn’t stay and celebrate for long, though. He wanted to be at maximum energy when they rode to the Raider base at dawn.

  Bastion followed him into the saloon. “Hey. Do you think we should get our share of the tokens now? This town has enemies on all sides. Who knows if we’ll be able to get them later.”

  “The plan’s only half done, and if we did get our share now, we’d be taking it to the arcade anyway, since we’ll probably want to buy some stuff ourselves while we’re there.”

  “You don’t think the raiders will be a problem? Once they see all that money?”

  Roy shrugged. “If they are, then we’ll beat them.”

  “I hope so. Just stay on guard. Ever since we got here things haven’t stopped blowing up.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Roy awoke at the first hint of sunrise and went out to his balcony to do pull-ups on the balustrades. They creaked with every rep, so he made sure to position himself above one of the stunt show’s crash mats in case the railing snapped.

  Bastion stepped out onto the adjoining balcony, bleary-eyed and yawning. “God damn, I hate alarm clocks. They screech at you like something from the bowels of hell, then you’ve got to look at those red segmented lights, and they’re in military time.”

  “Is there another type you’d prefer?” Roy asked. He didn’t need them himself. He usually just woke up early naturally.

  “Some of the better mini-disc players can wake you up with a song. Not the portable ones like I have now, though.”

  He finished rubbing his eyes, then finally looked at Roy properly. “Are you seriously working out? I thought you wanted to be at full strength for today. Wasn’t that the whole reason you went to bed early? Even when Samantha was blatantly flirting with you?”

  “She was?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought the wing dive must have looked cooler than I realized.”

  “It looked fucking horrendous. Trust me.”

  “Well, whatever. I’ll do cool-looking stuff today, and it’ll be easy. Definitely not something worth skipping a workout for. Think about how much of a pushover those wizards turned out to be, and they at least had wands. These guys have barely any theming at all.”

  They walked down to the saloon and found Ryan and Casey waiting.

  “Ready to go over the plan?” Ryan asked.

  “Sure,” said Roy.

  “The Krazee-8 is here,” said Casey, pointing to a crate of neon green cans with jagged letters scrawled across them. Many had visible dents.

  “The prospectors dug these cans out of the trash. I distilled down the most potent mix of caffeine and ethanol I could, then added a bunch of wormwood to get it close to the original formula. I can’t stress this enough: do not drink any of these. Seriously, I used siphoned gasoline to make this. It’ll melt your guts.”

  “Are we poisoning the Raiders? Is that what this is?” asked Roy.

  “I hope so,” said Bastion. “Wait, what if they drink it right there in front of us? The rest would attack immediately.”

  “It’s not meant to be poison,” said Casey. “It just might kill anyone who drinks it, is all.” She shrugged. “It was a rush job.”

  “So it might not kill them?” asked Roy.

  “I don’t know,” said Casey. “Maybe being in the original cans will give it the effects of regular Krazee-8, but even that killed people before the Warp. I’ve seen old newspapers saying two cans gave folks a heart attack. The government was going to ban it, but it kind of stopped existing a few days later.”

  “The Star Republic did ban it,” said Bastion, “but all that did was fuel the gangs. You couldn’t walk down the street in Star City without dodging people going loco on the stuff. They used to stand around throwing rocks at invisible monsters.”

  “That’d be dangerous as hell out here, with real monsters around and no way to tell the difference,” said Roy.

  “It’s dangerous period,” said Ryan. “That’s why you need to get in, buy the weapons, and get out as quickly as possible.”

  “What weapons do you want?” asked Bastion.

  “The arcade is multiverse themed, so we don’t know exactly what you’ll find in there. Most Raiders seem pretty poorly equipped, but they might just not have enough tokens for the good stuff. We have elevated platforms here, so you should buy any ranged weapons you see. Guns in particular go well with the costumes around here.”

  “Guns. Got it,” said Roy. “Anything else?”

  “Explosives, if you can find them. Nothing too modern-looking. We’re cutting down trees along the approach so we can blast any large groups from a distance. We also need to talk about who you’re taking with you.”

  “Huh?” said Roy. “Won’t it just be the same people as last time?”

  Ryan shook his head. “This isn’t a stealthy infiltration; it’s a negotiation with the absolute worst guys around. You’ll want to look intimidating, and I’d strongly suggest you don’t bring any women at all.”

  That would leave them short. Samantha and Cate had put on a good show against the wizards.

  “So that’s me and Bastion, Kyle, Tex, and Nate then?”

  “Not Nate. He needs to destroy that crystal wizard and he’s not a front-line guy anyway.”

  “Is that really enough?” Bastion asked.

  “I could send a bunch of prospectors with you, but that’d risk looking like we’re spoiling for a fight. Which we’re not…yet.” Ryan sighed. “I wish I could go myself, but I’d never make it over rough terrain like that. I can’t even stay on a horse anymore.”

  “It’s fine,” said Bastion. “I know how to strike a deal without a whole army behind me.”

  “Stop by the gunsmith’s on your way. Things are difficult between Nate and me, but somebody needs to check how he’s getting on with that statue.”

  The gunsmith’s shop was full of the tools of a trade that had never actually been practiced there. Iron vices, brass calipers, a lot of wood-handled screwdrivers. What it didn’t have a lot of was guns.

  Its workbenches were littered with all the things Nate had tried and failed to destroy the crystal wizard with: ball-peen hammers with shattered handles, a dented anvil, and a worn-down sharpening wheel. Flattened rifle rounds littered the floor, and when Roy and Bastion entered, Nate was taking a chainsaw to it.

  They watched sparks fly against the crystal until it finally jammed and spluttered to a stop. Nate slumped his shoulders.

  “Tough luck, we’ll come back later,” said Bastion.

  “Keep it up,” said Roy. ‘I’m sure something can break it.”

  “Hey guys,” said Samantha, running over from the saloon as they stepped back outside. “Did Nate wreck that statue yet?”

  “Nope,” said Bastion.

  “Good. Because I’m still not sure destroying it is even a good idea. These wands are a lot of fun, especially with the fast recharge.”

  “You know. I’ve been thinking about that…” said Bastion. “Last night, the butterfly wands still took a few minutes to charge up. Not seconds like back at the tower. Are we missing something?”

  “I’d take a guess that the tower itself is doing the same thing,” said Roy. “The wizards were doubling up on their resonance boost.”

  “That does make Ryan’s plan seem better, letting them come to us.”

  Speaking of the plan, they were just about ready to start the next stage of it. Tex and Kyle wandered over to the stables and began unhitching the horses.

  “Huh?” said Samantha. “Are we leaving already? Nobody came to wake me up earlier.”

  “Yeah,” said Bastion. “Ryan said the Raiders won’t react well if we bring women. He wants you and Cate to stay behind.”

  “Oh fuck that. I’m not missing out on all the fun. I can go full skeleton mode, mask on. Nobody will even know.”

  Roy doubted that. Her costume was too tight to hide the shape of her body, but he wasn’t going to tell someone they couldn’t go on an adventure.

  “Go get another horse,” he said.

  “You won’t regret this,” she said. “Arcade prize shopping spree! Let’s go.”