Chapter 15 Lightning Shard

Gabe and Mark were sitting in the Stagecoach talking about the technique that Mark is going to teach him, Gabe started to ask questions. "So, is this new move powerful?" Mark answered. "Of course it is, the only reason I didn't teach it to you in the first place is that it can't be lethal." Gabe was confused. "What does lethal me?" Mark sighed, he was upset that Gabe didn't understand what that meant. "It means causing de-" Leroy and David rushed inside the Stagecoach. "WE HAVE TO GO NOW!" Mark was concerned. "What are you talking about?" Gabe asked. "JUST SHUT UP! NOW MOVE DRIVER!" The Stagecoach driver then whipped the horses and they ran into the desert fast. Meanwhile, Casity walked outside the building, looking directly at them as they left. "You ain't getting away now little man."

They kept going as fast as they could. "What happened?!" Mark asked seeing that Leroy and David were freaking out. "I OVERHEARD THEM! THEY ARE COMING TO GET HIM! HE'S HEARD THE PLAN OF BILLY AND THEY KNOW HE IS AGAINST IT!" Leroy was freaking out. "What plan?" Mark asked. "TO START A REVOLUTION WITH CRIMINALS AND TAKE OVER THE WEST!" This made Mark's jaw drop. "I know Billy is one scary man, but I know that he isn't capable of something like this!" It seemed unbelievable to the three that Billy would try it, not making a whole lot of sense. "We need to get to Gavin DC…NOW!" David yelled, scaring everyone. "HEY, DRIVER! PICK UP THE SPEED!" The Stagecoach driver turned toward David who was sticking his head out the window. "First of all I have a name, it's Te-" Leroy cut him off. "SHUT UP AND SPEED UP OR WE WILL ALL BE KILLED!" This scared the driver so much that he picked up the pace. As soon as the group thought that things were looking up now that they were going faster, they began to hear galloping noises nearby. "Do you hear that?" Leroy asked as he began to listen. "Yeah that's the horses in the front-" Leroy shushed Gabe, he then realized that the galloping was coming from behind the carriage, only for an icicle to smash through and nearly stab Gabe who dodged at the last second. "HOLY SHIT!" It turns out that Casity was not far behind them riding a black stallion, she also was using her witchcraft to her advantage. It turns out that Casity's ability that was given to her by the witch as she left the earth was to manipulate Ice, she could create ice from any part of her body, making sharp objects made of icicles, entire structures, and just walls of nothing but ice. Casity proceeded to throw more ice throwing knives at the Stagecoach, but everyone ducked underneath so they couldn't hit anyone. Casity knew she wouldn't get anywhere by attacking them since all they did was a dodge, so she proceeded to make a throwing knife of ice and throw it at the driver, Leroy noticed this and created a hell flame between them that melted the ice. "Your Suden hell flames...of course...I should have known." She then noticed that Leroy had been tired from that blast, so she took the opportunity and threw an ice knife at Leroy's stomach. Gabe and Mark noticed this, making Gabe completely freak out. "LEROY!" He proceeded to fall in the back seat, holding the piece of ice in pain. Gabe tried to comfort him and help, meanwhile Mark had enough of this. "Take care of Leroy, I'll handle her, and also watch closely as I do it." Gabe was confused. Casity readied a throwing knife to hit the driver, meanwhile, Mark hid behind the window and closed his eyes to concentrate, with his hand making a gun sign. Gabe was confused about what Mark was doing until he noticed the tip of his finger began to surge static electricity. "WOAH!" Soon, the entire tip had been surging, Mark then opened his eyes and told himself. 'Ready.' Casity had the ice knife ready, she then pulled back her arm ready for the throw, only for Mark to come out of the Window with the tip of his finger aimed at Casity. From there, the lightning that was at the tip of his finger and flung straight at Casity as he put his thumb down. "ARG!!!!" Casity began to shake in pain and lose balance on her horse, she then fell down with it, the Stagecoach had officially gotten away from Casity.

After about 2 miles of moving, the Stagecoach finally stopped. "We'll make camp here tonight," Mark suggested. Leroy was brought out of the Stagecoach by Gabe on his shoulder, he then laid him down in front of the fire. "Just wait till the ice melts away in your stomach, then use your hell flames to patch up that hole." Leroy looked at Gabe and smiled. "Thanks, you idiot." He then proceeded to fall asleep. Meanwhile, that night, David and the Driver sat by the fire, along with Mark and Gabe. it had been hard to talk about what just happened amongst all of them, except for Gabe. "MASTER! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?" Mark smiled. "I knew you would like it." Gabe was intrigued. "So, that's the thing you're gonna teach me?" Mark nodded. "Like I said it can't be used to kill anyone, but it can be used to stun them and temporarily restrain them, at least with this amount of volts." Gabe was getting excited, he had wanted to learn this technique badly, but David broke the happiness as he spoke. "Alright, it's official. We're going to Gavin DC." Mark was hesitant at first since he was wanted there but agreed. "Fine, but Leroy will probably be knocked out the entire way sleeping off the injury." This bummed Gabe out, he had wanted Leroy to learn this move as well, like the two students they were. "It's settled, we leave in the morning."

It was 9 am in the morning, Everyone was sleeping around the campfire, the stagecoach was in the distance, after a long long night. Unlike the others who were sleeping, Gabe was wide awake. "MASTER WAKE UP! WE NEED TO START THE TRAINING WITH THE LIGHTNING THINGY!" Mark looked to be unhappy like every morning person. "Go back to sleep kid...we gotta start moving soon…" Gabe then decided to whisper something in Mark's ear. "If you wake up now and train me before everyone wakes up, I will buy you a jug of whiskey in the next town." This was the thing that woke Mark up and started acting enthusiastic. "ALRIGHT THEN LET'S START TRAINING! NO TIME TO WASTE!"

They walked some distance from the group so they wouldn't wake everyone up, Gabe was sitting on the ground while Mark stood in front of him. "Alright, what did you notice yesterday about the technique that I performed?" Gabe thought about it. "It was like a lightning blast that you shot out of your hand, kind of like Leroy's fire." Mark tried to think of a better way to explain it. "Think more kid, what did my hand look like when I made the lightning come out of my finger?" Gabe thought again, he then remembered that hand sign before. Gabe played cops and robbers with the Watersville kids before, when you played as the cop then you would get a gun, to make the gun you had to make a fake gun hand sign. The left three fingers were touching the palm, while the pointer finger stuck out, along with the thumb that pointed upward. Gabe also realized that the small lightning ball came out like the bullet of a gun. "OH! IT'S LIKE A GUN!" Mark smiled. "Yup." Mark decided to explain it even more. "Like before with the reaper scythe technique I think I should explain this a little bit so that you could understand this technique." Gabe listened. "As you know, we all have an energy meter in our bodies. This purified energy is taken from our limbs, organs, blood, and heart. What nobody who uses it knows is that if you summon a small amount of that purified energy in a somewhat unstable way, it will create static." Gabe was confused, so Mark decided to give a demonstration. Mark proceeded to put his pointer finger in front of Gabe, he then closed his eyes again and concentrated, only to create a static at the tip of his finger. "WOAH!" Gabe was amazed by seeing it up close. "Now, there are three steps to this technique. Number 1, to gather the energy, but make sure to get a tiny amount of it so that it will create static, I'd go for at least 5%. Number 2, to move the energy to your finger, once you do that you will concentrate to create static if you keep moving the energy to the tip of your finger over and over, like a power generator. Finally, Number 3, to release the energy. Unlike with the scythe, this is different. Lightning is an unstable element and once it is released from your body, it will move at speeds faster than your eye could see. Make sure that if you use this technique, you have the exact aim, or it may bounce off a surface and potentially hit you." Gabe thought he understood most of it but was still a bit confused. "So, do you think you can handle it?" Gabe got up with a serious face, he looked at Mark in the eyes. "YES SIR!" Mark smiled.

Gabe closed his eyes and held his wrist as he made the gun sign. Gabe had the 5% energy ready, but he couldn't create a static, this went on for about an hour. "ARG!" Gabe concentrated as much as possible, all he got were the occasional spark he got every 10 seconds. Mark was getting the Stagecoach ready as Gabe practiced, he put Leroy on the ground of the carriage part, who was still sleeping. 'Poor kid, he really did take a lot recently.' Mark remembered the moment where Casity threw the Ice Knife in Leroy's stomach, and the scream he made from the blow. 'Don't worry kid, we'll take that bastard down.' Mark then glanced at Gabe for a second to check his progress, only to see he hasn't improved. Mark then walked over to him to maybe help him out. "Hey, kid, maybe it's just too much of a technique for you, after all, it was developed by Sam." Gabe stopped and turned to Mark with surprise. "The First Sheriff made it?" Mark nodded. "After I made the reaper scythe, he wanted to make a move of his own. So, he tried to make a move that could help him win any fight with one hit, but also to consume as little energy as possible." Gabe was surprised. "After lots of training, he fully mastered it, and it was later used to take down several Bounties at the time." This made Gabe want to learn the Technique even more since he had some unexplained connection with Sam. "So, do you want to quit it or keep going?" Gabe smiled. "I made a promise with Red Hercules, and I intend to keep that promise till the day I die. This technique is my key to getting through the door in front of me right now that is blocking my path to being the best bounty hunter of all time." Mark liked the enthusiasm. "Alright then, I'm gonna wake everyone up and get more stuff ready, while I do that you can train, alright?" Gabe nodded as he continued to try and make a bigger spark. 'That kid has so much confidence it can get annoying sometimes, but he really has grown since he first came with me.' Meanwhile, after 10 minutes he still had no results with the spark. 'Dang it, no matter how much I try to do it, a spark can't be made.' Gabe thought about all the times that Mark used his energy as a weapon, but then he remembered that whenever he summoned the scythe, he put his hands together. 'What if I tried that?' Gabe put his hands together, but what he didn't realize was the energy was still in his hand that he tried to use to summon the electricity. Gabe put his hands together, only for a small explosion of electricity to happen in front of him. "WHAT!?" Mark saw the electricity, he was just about finished with packing when he saw this occur, he then ran over to Gabe with fear for his life. "KID?!" Gabe had looked completely fine, his hands were now together with no static. "WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED?!" Gabe freaked out. "What did you do?" Mark asked. "I figured that since you summon your scythe with your hands, I could do the same with lightning and pull it out like the scythe, but all it did was summon a bunch of static and go away." Mark was confused but realized what he did. "Oh, I think you still had some energy from trying to summon it with one hand before that when you tried clapping, it grabbed that energy and made a static out of it." Gabe was relieved now that he knew what he did wrong, but then it hit him. '"It grabbed the energy and made static out of it."' Gabe had an idea but wanted to test it. Gabe proceeded to separate his hands like he was about to clap his hands. "Kid, what are you doing? Don't do that again!" Gabe summoned 2.5 energy in each hand. "Mark was confused, but then he realized what he was doing." Gabe proceeded to clap his hands together, only for some small static to appear as he clapped. Once Gabe pulled his hands apart, he made his left finger into the gun sign, only for there to be static at the end of his pointer finger. "I DID IT!" Gabe cheered. Mark was surprised but proud. 'Oh I see, so it was hard for him to learn to do it with one hand, so he created a static with both hands by clapping and then made some static left over to his finger. What a smart kid!' Gabe held the static for a bit until he finally made it go out. "That was awesome!" Mark agreed and kept smiling. "Don't celebrate yet kid, now comes the hardest part." Gabe listened. "Release." Gabe realized that it does sound hard. "With the release, you need to move the lightning from your fingertip, to out of your hand. Though that does sound easy, you also need to remember to aim as I said before." Gabe nodded.

Mark proceeded to wake everyone but Leroy up. "Come on everyone! We need to get going." The Stagecoach Driver and David both woke up. "Ugh...five more minutes.." The driver said. "Tell me this Mr?" Mark asked for his name. "Surenia-" David cut him off. "No, we don't have time to waste. We must move now as he says or we will surely all be killed." The Driver was confused. "Who is trying to kill you? Or us?" David sighed, he was disappointed that the driver didn't even know who, even though they got into a chase. "We'll explain to you on the way, let's just get moving." Gabe ran over to Mark. "Wait, but I haven't finished training yet. I still need to learn how to aim." Mark got on his knees. "We'll learn that later kid, right now we need to get out of here, if not then that Ice guy will probably show up again and try to kill us." Gabe knew Mark was right, but he still was upset that he didn't get to finish training. "Alright then, let's go." The team was off, to Gavin DC.

Meanwhile at the Abandoned Sheriff House

"I'm sorry for failing you Billy, they got away." Billy was still in the shadows with that demonic smile and glowing red eyes. "It's alright Casity, don't be so hard on yourself." Unlike other criminals in these scenarios, Casity wasn't afraid of Billy, she genuinely felt like a disappointment for not catching David. Billy saw he was hurting, not even smoking. "Hey come on Casity." Billy stood up from his chair and went over to Casity, but his face wasn't seen by the audience. He proceeded to put his hand on her shoulder as he knelt down to her in sadness. The hand the audience saw looked to be an ungloved hand with a black trench coat for a sleeve. "Remember what I told you the day I asked you to join me," Casity remembered those words for the rest of her life, never forgetting the man that saved him. "Don't worry, you do not have to impress or give your life for me. You're perfect just the way you are, and that perfect person you are is needed to help me. Will you do it?" Casity was a young girl wearing brown rags, the man in front of her was a man on his knees, his face blocked by the shadows of the sun, not revealing his face to the audience. "As I said, you are perfect the way you are. I do not have high expectations for you." Casity stopped feeling guilty. "Thanks, Billy." Billy then got up and walked back to his chair and sat back in the shadows. "Besides, it's all going according to plan." Casity was shocked and confused. "What do you mean?" Billy looked at Casity in the eyes with his own glowing red eyes. "If I told you now, then it would ruin the plan, your dreams, your power." Casity didn't ask. "All I can say is that everything is going according to plan, and soon. The West will be ours."