16 A Duel Between Men

They landed in front of a nicely paved trail with stone steps leading to a rather ominous looking cavern where Duchess Bolita was no doubt being held hostage. Calorie looked at the stairs and dreaded the climb. Auricularis looked at the stairs and flexed her currently nonexistent leg muscles excitedly.

"Aight then folks," the captain called. "Let's get ready to rumble."

Then they began the trek upward, and ten stairs in, Calorie was wheezing. Thankfully, there were only ten stairs for them to climb. The cave hadn't been very far up after all. It was just kind of small entrance-wise, which did a little something tricky with perspective.

As they approached the entrance, a blinding white jumpsuit came into view. It was Sarman in the flesh, and he was smoking a blunt. Upon closer inspection, Auricularis saw that it was not a blunt, rather it was a cluster of brown sharpie-colored toothpicks taped together. There was also some beard hair stuck in between the toothpicks and waving in the slight breeze that slightly resembled smoke. Auricularis wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Milady!" The butler cried from behind her. Auricularis glanced behind her to see him staggering to the front of the group. She turned back to the front to see Sarman pulling out a spit that looked like it was probably meant for roasting wild game, only there was the silver-haired lady from the tea party where the animal was supposed to be.

Duchess Bolita craned her neck from where she was tied up and nodded in her servant's general direction. Auricularis envied her abdominal strength. It would have taken some real effort to keep herself upright this whole time. Or maybe the ropes were just that tight and the slight purpling of her face was just that she was finally starting to suffocate and lose circulation.

"Return Her Grace Junior," the captain said stonily, the glare from the sun obscuring his expression from within the hazmat suit.

Auricularis was seized with the sudden urge to pull the brim of her cowboy hat extra down low, whip out and spin a handgun, and mutter 'You heard the boss' threateningly.

She was not the only one, evidently, as the entire knight regiment readied their muskets and took aim. One of the ones at the front did something to his musket that caused it to make a clicking noise and thrust his head in the direction of the captain.

"You heard the boss," he said.

"What if I said… no?" Sarman did an arm wave, his arms resembling the tentacles of an octopus, but horizontal.

In the distance Auricularis swore she could hear the twang of a guitar and a kazoo whistle as the world around her faded to sepia like an old Western movie. Dust rose from the floor and swirled around the feet of the battle's participants.

"Hmm, hard to argue with that," the knight captain frowned, then turned to his second. "Huddle!"

The knight regiments huddled together like a group of football players during a particularly distressing game. After a few minutes of heated and very intelligent discussion, the knight captain nodded and the regiment resumed proper formation.

"Alright. Would you be open to any negotiation?" The knight captain nodded once more, looking very proud of himself, or at least that was what Auricularis was guessing based on how the top of his hazmat suit was looking. Her eyesight was not doing much to help.

"I'm always open to negotiations. Especially if said negotiators are, shall we say, potential clients eh?" Sarman scruffed his beard nastily, pulling out a tupperware filled with what appeared to be clear plastic bags. It was stained with what smelled like buffalo sauce.

Auricularis sniffed the air again. Now that she thought about it, the area around the cave smelled an awful lot like a food court. She could make out the scent of dumplings, wings, and rotisserie chicken. Or maybe it was a rotisserie human? She wasn't quite sure which one was worse.

"Clients?" The knight regiment as a whole exchanged glances, once again impossible to read from inside their hazmat suits. But then again, they were vampires, so their enhanced senses had to be doing something for them that regular ol' humans like Auricularis simply wouldn't understand.

"Yees, yees." Sarman sat down next to the human rotisserie spit, and took the lid off of his tupperware. He pulled out a few bags, some of which were labeled in sharpie. His handwriting was surprisingly neat.

"This here, ya see, is the most finely granulated white stuff you'll find in a backwater town like this." Sarman sneezed through his beard. It was a consequence of sampling too much product on the job.

"And this beauty right here," here he pulled out a grams worth of white powder that looked suspiciously similar to the first bag and also a little bit like salt, "Is top of the line, extra-crystallized, original flavor and full sodium. You won't find it anywhere else, I promise. A Sarman exclusive."

Sarman wiggled his arms like an octopus again. Auricularis attempted to imitate the action and found herself somehow able to roll her arms all the way in with the elasticity of an overcooked squid.

"Powder!" exclaimed one of the knights near the back of the regiment. "And he doesn't even have a license!"

The rest of the knights shook their heads disapprovingly.

"Right you are," agreed the knight captain. "And there ain't no warrant out there for his weapon either."

The entire regiment gasped in a perfectly synchronized intake of breath.

"Arrest the fraud!" cried another from the back of the regiment. Thus began the shootout.

"AAAA!" Sarman screeched with all the anger of a sleep-deprived banshee, which, now that Auricularis could kind of see beneath his sunglasses and very long eyebrow hairs, was pretty accurate considering the size of his eyebags. They were haute couture eyebags. Very Wucci.

Faster than the fastest shot in the west, Sarman rose to fame as a quick-draw bandit, whipping out his rasengun with one hand from inside his beard so fast there were sparks. He pointed it at the knights while cackling deviously.

"Take this ya suckers!" A line of bright blue swirly, whirly orbs began forming at the muzzle of his gun.

"ARGH!" the knight regiment yelled back, as if they were competing to see who would transform into the final form of an alien race first.

They hefted their own guns, each beaming out a tiny red laser that joined into a giant beam of light aimed straight at Sarman. It looked as if it had enough strength to take out an entire planet. Specifically a planet called with a cinnamon bun princess on it who had a long lost brother that she would be reunited with because of a robot and an old man who was secretly one of the last few powerful members of an organization that had been wiped out.

The knights pulled their triggers first, and from the muzzles of their guns shot out an even more concentrated red light that ran through the path provided and toward the criminal. Sarman wasted no time in firing away, letting his weaponized orbs fly free.

Bzzt bzzt went the laser. Swoosh swoosh swoosh went the swirly ball things. They crashed into each other with enough force to turn a plant into a pile of dust and the sheer power of their collision almost blew the hats off of Calorie's and Auricularis' heads.

Sarman narrowed his eyes, seeing that he was noticeably outclassed. He was a master at his art, and knew that it was time for him to go. With a laugh befitting of a third-rate villain, he fired his rasengun again, though this time the orb it launched was so bright the retrieval squad was temporarily blinded by its blue glow.

And then, there was silence.