Tin Stars and Big Irons

"And...done!" SK proclaimed as he pocketed the pen and stared at the completed canvas before him. "I have really got to stop making heroes in the middle of a conflict, though."

After several grueling minutes of drawing, redrawing, and painting, SK had finished creating his second superhero.

On the canvas before SK at this time was a cowboy-themed superhero, with his name written at the very top of the page, that was armed with a pair of slightly exaggerated revolvers that he had named "Fate and Fortune."

There was a non-zero chance that he named the revolvers as such due to the current situation.

"Okay, System! I'm done!" SK called out. "Where's the-"

*Ding!*

"Ah, there it is."

[The user's declaration of completion has been acknowledged. Skills based on the materials, design, and crystals will be bestowed upon the created familiar. Time will resume immediately after canvas break.]

[Please stand-by for Canvas Break.]

As soon as those last few words appeared on the system's windows, a pair of rugged leather boots had already manifested out of nowhere and began to take their first steps on SK's floors. These boots were soon followed by a sleek black cowboy hat, that was decorated with a tin star, a brass facemask, a leather cowboy outfit and the person that these clothes were attached to.

As time began to move once more, the newly minted cowboy hero, with the swagger of a man unable to die, made his voice heard.

"Hoo boy! Sounds like there's a bit of a tussle going on outside, Sheriff. I guess it's time for me to get to work. Mind if I go through that there window?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, you can-wait!"

Before agreeing to his newest friend's request, SK made moves to open his apartment's window to the outside first. 

"I cannot afford to replace a broken window right now; thank you very much!"

Once his path to the battlefield had opened itself, the cowboy hero took off on a running start.

"Much obliged, Sheriff. YEE-HAW!"

...Now back to the fighting...

"Ha! Hiyah! Hurrah!"

"SKREE!"

"GROAA!"

"DIE!"

Despite clearly being outnumbered, Platiknight was proving himself quite capable of fighting a giant demon dog, a freaky death owl, and a gremlin, all at the same time.

However, he couldn't keep this up for long.

Even though Platiknigh's armor and shield were both incredibly tough, the trio of monsters had managed to consistently leave scratches at specific spots all over the shining knight's body. Little by little, they were breaking his shell and were just about to attack his soft and squishy innards. 

"Look alive, you lot!" Gamble the Gremlin called out to his companions. "I can already see this shiny toy of ours is finally running out of juice. Once he's out of batteries, you two go in for the kill!"

"Woof!"

"Skree!"

"I would like to see you dastards try!" Platiknight shouted, only mildly putting up a confident front.

"Actually, let's see if I can short circuit him first!" Gamble suddenly declared as he began to gather electricity between his grubby yellow claws, this time from the buildings and the power grid they were all connected to. "[Lock Shock]!"

KER-ZAP!

"AAAAAAaaaaaaAAHHhhhHh!"

A continuous stream of electricity began to pour out of Gamble's hand and electrify Platiknight, freezing up the percious metal paragon and leaving him wide open for attacks of opportunity. Opportunities that both Mortis and Fletcher took full advantage of.

"AWOOO!"

"SKRA!"

The monstrous omens of death and illness began to surge with power once they realized the opportunity before them, their claws glowing with dark and evil power.

They didn't use these types of attacks before because they didn't want to waste it on trying to pierce through Platiknight's shell, but now that he was significantly more vulnerable, they would be fools not to take this opportunity before them.

"SKRA!"

"GROA!"

Mortis opted to charge from the front of Platiknight, wanting to rip at his neck, while Fletcher attacked from behind in order to go for the knight's spine.

The barghest and strix, however, were not going to be able to get either of their talons into Platiknight's flesh at this time, because before either of them could get close enough, a brand new interloper entered the scene from an unexpected direction.

"YEE-HAW!"

From the third-floor window of a four-story apartment building, a cowboy dressed in dark leather suddenly took a dive out of it and began falling towards the spot directly behind the paralyzed Platiknight.

Evidently, the strix, the barghest and the gremlin weren't expecting to see a cowboy taking a swandive out of a window.

"What the fuck?!" Gamble shouted in disbelief at the sudden newcomer's appearance and the fact that this crazy cowboy was about to hit the pavement headfirst. 

However, that wasn't the case in the slightest.

"Tumble Barrage!"

As this unknown cowboy started falling to the ground, he pulled forth a pair of heavy-looking revolvers that would put most handcannons to shame and fired them both three times in a row, in different directions.

BANG! BANG!

The first two shots were shot to correct his position in the air; the force of the blasts literally caused him to rotate in the air long enough so that he was now upright and able to properly aim his pistols at Mortis and Fletcher.

BANG! BANG!

"SKREE?!"

"ARUF?!"

The next two shots were fired directly at the strix in the air and the barghest on the ground.

The former bullet took a path slightly above the diving strix before suddenly changing direction mid-air, piercing right through Fletcher's wing and causing the rotten bird to let out a shriek of pain as he went tumbling to the ground.

As for the latter bullet, it immediately did some serious damage as it pierced through the barghest's right front leg before impacting the ground at just the right angle that pieces of pavement were knocked upward and sent flying into the barghest's left rear leg. Mortis was sent tumbling over to his right and forced to faceplant into another wall. The bullet wound and sudden sharpnel being the reason why he took such a ferocious dive. 

BANG! BANG!

"GAH! MY CLAWS!"

As for the last two shots fired from the mysterious desperado's guns, they were both fired in Gamble's direction and lined up to pierce through the dead center of both of his paws, cutting the electrical charge coming out of them and releasing the paralysis that was holding Platiknight hostage.

"Woo! Now ain't that quite the sight! Six shots is all I needed to turn this bout around! Lucky me," the cowboy shouted before blowing the smoke coming from his pistols. After he had done so, he twirled and holstered one of them so that he could give Platiknight a helping hand getting back on his feet.

"You doing okay, fancypants?" the cowboy asked in a well-meaning voice. "Sorry, I couldn't assist sooner; I was created less than a minute ago."

"I am alright, my leather-clad friend," Platiknight answered while taking the cowboy's hand. "My name is Platiknight, and you?"

"Me? Well you can call me-"

"YOU BASTARD!" Gamble shouted, interrupting the cowboy's introduction. "HOW THE HELL DID YOU MANAGE TO INJURE ME?!"

Smoke and blood were leaking from the gremlin's paws as sputtering bolts of electricity arced between the shattered claws.

Gamble knew full well that mundane firearms had no effect on him and that only the accursed tools of the Machina System were able to even scratch him. So the fact that some random cowboy that radiated an aura similar to Platiknight was able to injure him was...wait a minute.

"Oh fuck! You're another one of those heroes, aren't you?" Gamble shouted in painful realization. "Who the hell are you?"

In response to this question, the cowboy in leather turned to his shining knight of a counterpart and shrugged before walking forward and making a bit of a show of his introduction.

"Well, since you so kindly requested that I give you my moniker, I might as well oblige," the cowboy said as if he were a posh gentleman. "I could say something like I'm the fast gunslinger since Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid, but that would be bragging. I could say I'm a bounty hunter who hungers for justice, but that would be a lie since I do this for free. I could even say I was the smartest man on the frontier since I know my way around gunpowder better than a miner, but that ain't exactly a high bar."

At this last word, the cowboy clicked his boots together and flicked a finger at the tin star that decorated his hat.

"But above all of that, I was a Tin Star, and that's what you can call me," Tin Star declared as he leveled his pistols at Gamble. "Now reach for the sky; you're under arrest."

...Meanwhile...

"Hey, are you sure we're heading in the right direction? I've been to this neighborhood before, and the amount of times I've been called here for actual crimes has been close to zero."

"Yes, I'm sure. The dispatch said it was this way, so this way we will go."

"If you say so."