The caravan rolled through the gates at dusk, wheels creaking, brahmin groaning under their loads. The settlement's people moved with weary caution, trading caps for goods, hands rough from work. Guards leaned on their rifles, half-relaxed in the fading light.
Ash didn't relax. He leaned against the wagon, revolvers at his hips, eyes fixed on the horizon.
Then came the sound.
A thunder of boots. A chorus of guttural roars. The watchman's voice broke across the yard—
"Mutants! They're coming!"
The bell clanged once, twice—then the barricades shook with the first impact. Settlers screamed. Guards scrambled for position. Some froze.
And then the wall split open.
A Super Mutant crashed through with a rusted car door for a shield, another carrying a sledgehammer the size of a man. Behind them came more—hulking silhouettes in the smoke, their voices booming with bloodlust.
The line wavered. One guard bolted. Another dropped his rifle.
Ash stepped forward.
He didn't shout. Didn't curse. He just drew. The twin cylinders of his revolvers hummed to life, red light pulsing like embers.
The first mutant raised its sledge. Ash squeezed. One shot. A beam of light cored through its skull. The body fell heavy in the dirt.
Silence cracked for half a breath—then the boy moved.
He walked through the chaos like a metronome. Fire. Step. Fire. Pivot. Fire. Each shot dropped another giant. His coat flared behind him, his eyes unblinking, his hands steady as if the battle were nothing more than practice.
When the glow in his guns dimmed, he didn't falter. He shifted, slipping behind a half-broken wall. Two seconds. Three. The revolvers thrummed alive again, humming with light. He stepped back out, fire in his hands.
The rhythm continued. Fire. Evade. Pause. Fire again.
The defenders saw it. A man who had been on the verge of running found his feet planted, rifle tight against his shoulder. A woman screamed not in fear but fury as she joined his flank. Settlers raised old pistols, axes, whatever they had, their courage pulled from him like sparks off steel.
The mutants pressed harder. A brute swung its hammer down at Ash—he rolled aside, came up firing, two beams burning through its chest before it could lift the weapon again. Another charged with a jagged blade; Ash's revolvers glowed back to life, and the mutant collapsed mid-stride, smoke curling from its skull.
It was a massacre—but not of the settlers.
The warband broke. Survivors limped, dragging their wounded, roaring frustration as they fled into the wastes. The barricade was shattered, the ground littered with blood and broken bodies—but the settlement still stood.
Silence returned, heavy, thick. Survivors stared. Their hearts hammered in their chests, but their hands no longer shook.
And at the center of it, revolvers cooling in his grip, stood the boy who had never flinched.
Not a savior. Not a hero. Just a drifter who hadn't moved when the world came crashing down.