~An Old Cowboy Came Ridin' Out~

-o0o-

Before reading this, I want to clarify to all readers that this is all pre-written. I wrote it a long time ago, and just recently found it just hanging out in my notepad. I decided that I would edit it a bit and release what was there. It's not much, only 20k words or so, and only covers the first arc I originally had planned for it, so it doesn't have the best closure since I intended to continue writing but never did.

I might pick this up in the future, but probably not, and if I do, it most likely won't be for a pretty long time.

The schedule will be a new chapter automatically uploaded every three days until the final chapter is uploaded. This is because I would like for this to get at least a little bit of recognition, and if I uploaded them all at once the Webnovel algorithm wouldn't promote it on that little part at the bottom of other people's Fanfics that recommend other fanfics.

Webnovel doesn't like it when Authors don't upload daily (or at least, semi-daily), Fanfic Author or not, so if I just released everything in bulk then the algorithm might even go out of its way to make sure this gets zero attention.

Anyway, thanks for reading, enjoy.

-o0o-

Clint opened his eyes, blinking immediately as a bright white light assaulted his vision.

"Ugh, why the hell is it so bright?" He said as he cupped his brow with his hand, blocking the light.

After a few moments, his eyes finally adjusted to the light, and he was able to see his surroundings.

He was in a dark black room, so black that he wasn't even sure if there were walls, as whatever was there seemed to eat light like it was going out of style. The floor and ceiling were the same. The only reason he didn't think he was floating in some kind of void was because he could feel the ground beneath his feet, even if he couldn't see it.

Then his eyes landed on the source of the bright light, or rather, sources. A few meters in front of him was a table and a manikin. The table had various objects across it, none of them with a discernible shape, all of them a bright white. The manikin was the same, giving off a brightness akin to a spotlight. All of these weird objects seemed straight out of the uncanny valley.

"Well, what do we have here? What weirdo's decided to kidnap a random homeless person? Did I piss someone off?" Clint thought to himself as he stretched and casually walked toward the strange objects.

Strangely enough, he had seen weirder on multiple occasions; so a few things rigged with some fancy LED weren't going to intimidate him.

"I wonder how they made one of you work… Maybe you're just some strangely shaped light bulbs? Nah, that can't be it, the light wouldn't be distributed this evenly." He thought out loud as he carefully reached out and poked one of the strange objects on the table. When nothing happened, he went ahead and picked it up.

~Weapon~

A voice whispered in his head, startling him. Dropping the item and looking around warily, Clint decided to talk to his captors. There had to be someone watching in, right?

"Look, I don't know how you managed to make that thing whisper in my head like that, but I'm not having any of it. I know that I didn't piss off any important people recently, so unless one of you has an unhealthy obsession with holding grudges, you shouldn't have any beef with me right?" He asked while putting his arms out in a questioning gesture.

Hearing no response, he continued. "I'm just a homeless man, I have no value to you. If this is one of them psychology analysis thingy's, I think you may have taken it a little too far, don't you? You won't be able to publish any of this work if you don't have the test subjects' consent after all…"

He waited a few minutes but received no response.

Shrugging his shoulders, he said "Fine, have it your way. I'm not touching any of them weird things though. I don't like voices whispering in my head. Until you decide to explain what's goin' on, I'll just sit here."

And true to his word, he sat back down on the floor that he had woken up on, leaning against the wall that he now knew for certain was actually there, and closing his eyes. He sat there, not moving a muscle…

For three hours.

Popping an eye open to look back at the strange objects, Clint sighed in irritation. 'So they're playing the long game huh? Well too bad for them, I can play longer. I doubt they know of my mili… No, Stop!' He hurriedly shook the thoughts out of his head, something that took great willpower.

'They somehow managed to make me hear that weird whisper in my head from touching that thing. I doubt they can, but I'm not goin' to discount the possibility of some kind of telepathy. With what I've heard of what they're doin' with them advanced machines nowadays, I somehow don't doubt that some kind of telepathy machine is possible. They even made a full-dive VR game like that anime I watched way back when… what was it called? Ah, shit, I can't remember, it's been too long. Whatever, point is, I can't risk giving away information with my thoughts, so I have to control them. *Sigh* This is gonna be hard.' With that last sigh of resignation, he closed his eyes again and went back to his game of "who is more stubborn".

-o0o-

Five Days Later.

At first, it was hell, controlling his thoughts the way he was. It was easier when he slept, as he was used to inducing lucid dreams and had better control in those, but keeping himself from thinking things while he was awake was a real chore. Luckily it got easier as time went on and he got used to it.

'Damn, why is this taking so long? Are they trying to break me? I've gone way longer without food than this, so they ain't gonna succeed. I'll starve to death before I give into these weird fuckers that may or may not be able to read my mind. I can just keep putting myself to slee- wait. Food? Starve? Now that I think about it, why ain't I hungry right now? I'm not even thirsty! I don't know how long it's been, but I'm pretty sure I should have died of thirst by now…' Clint sighed at that thought and opened his eyes to look at the glowing objects, 'This ain't technology is it?'

Standing up, he walked up to the table again for the first time in five days. 'I swear if this is some damned ROB fuckin around or something I'm gonna be pissed. No way in hell I just sat there for however long I did when I could have been reincarnerated… rincarnatered… reincarnarator… whatever, never could pronounce that word anyway.'

Thinking 'fuck it' Clint bit the bullet and picked up the same object as he had a few days ago. The word weapon was whispered in his head once again.

'Hopefully, this is a ROB, anyhow. It would suck if this was actually just some secret magic cult screwing with me. Whatever, nothing ventured nothing gained, I ain't sittin' around here anymore if there's a chance to fuck with some magic people.' A grin spread across his face at that thought. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad either way…

The image of him shooting a bunch of wizards in the face as they tried to cast a spell amused him. 'Fireball? What's that gonna do in the face of his revolver?'

Just as the thought crossed his mind, his hand was suddenly filled with a new weight, causing his gaze to snap back to the object; or at least, what was the object.

Now in his hand was a M1873 revolver.

His eyes widened as he looked at the new object. 'I see, so that's what this is? I can work with this.'

Opening the cylinder to see if there were any bullets—which there were—he took aim and shot the manikin, looking to see what would happen. Whoever his captors were, wizard or ROB alike, they probably wouldn't like that. But honestly? He didn't care.

Clint had already lived a relatively peaceful and work-filled life, even if he ended up homeless in the end. Wherever he may end up next, he would do it by having fun and doing what he liked instead. And if he died having a good time? Oh well, at least he died well, that was good enough for him.

Also, he'd rather be tortured for eternity or wiped from existence over kneeling to some asshole god that threw their power around. Maybe if the ROB was a decent person, he would kneel, but if this (maybe) ROB ended up being scum, then he would spit in its face. This was a test to see exactly which one the ROB might have been. If he got struck by lightning or something, then the ROB was probably a salty bitch and so it was worth it. If he was ignored, or maybe the ROB came and gave him a stern talking-too, then they were probably an okay person, and he would apologize.

The second the bullet hit the manikin it seemed to warp for a second, before turning into some type of metal liquid and dripping harmlessly to the floor, reforming at the bottom. Clint raised an eyebrow at the sight but shrugged it off. 'Magic' He thought before turning and waiting for a ROB to smite him, making sure to put the gun down so some weird horror-movie shit doesn't happen where the gun comes to life and shoots him or something.

A few moments pass, with nothing happening… eventually those moments turn into minutes and Clint realizes that he will probably live.

"I guess God and/or ROB is a decent person… Good to know. Or maybe this really is a wizard cult and they're just ignorin' me." He mumbled to himself and picked the gun back up.

Looking back at the gun, he started thinking. 'Now, this became a revolver the second I thought of it, so this material is obviously some sort of shape-shifting magic that reacts to thought and/or my imagination. I wonder how far it can go? It whispered weapon in my head when I picked it up, so I assume it can only turn into weapons, but that doesn't narrow it down much as I can use practically anything as a weapon if I wanted to.'

Deciding to test it, Clint began imagining a cutlass, which the gun promptly turned into. He then imagined a pickaxe, and the cutlass turned into it. Raising an eyebrow, he thought 'Interesting, so tools do count? Or maybe it depends on what I know how to use? What about something that I can't use?'

He then thought of nun-chucks, the only weapon he had never learned to use because he thought they looked stupid. The picaxe didn't budge.

'So it really can't turn into anything that I can't use? Okay, that's not too big a problem. I can work with that easily. Now… what weapon do I want?' He asked himself and quickly began eliminating options.

Big, bulky weapons were out, as they were too slow most of the time and he didn't like using them. Things like battleaxes, war hammers, and other such medieval weaponry were also out, because what fool would use those when they could use a gun? Bows and crossbows too, because again… gun.

The only options he was considering were guns and spears. Spears may be an ancient weapon, but they have been in use for so long for a reason, they were effective. Gun beat spear, but spear beat pretty much everything else.

Ultimately, he decided to do another experiment, which would help him make up his mind.

Imaging a gun once more, the picaxe became an M1873. He then went further and imagined the gun shooting bullets that create a small explosion upon contact with something.

Not feeling any change, he raised the gun and fired at the wall on the other side of the manikin. The bullet, to Clint's surprise, actually exploded when it hit the wall, but only caused a bit of hot air to hit him as the explosion was pretty small.

"Well," Clint smirked, "It looks like this might be more interestin' then I thought… Now, what are the limits?"

He imagined his gun being able to shoot endlessly first. While he wanted to see if he could increase the bullet's speed, he didn't know if he would be able to handle the recoil and didn't want to test it in possible enemy territory.

He began shooting, firing off the remaining five rounds in the barrel. When he got to the last one, he stopped. "Alright, moment of truth…"

*Click*

It didn't fire…

'Well damn… Though let's not give up yet, maybe there are limits to what this ROB wants me to do. How about instead of infinite bullets, I get magically reloading bullets? Or maybe make it so a specific action reloads it without needin' more bullets...' Clint continued to think as he experimented.

The magically reloading bullets turned out to be a bust, as no matter what he imagined, he couldn't seem to make the gun manifest bullets outside of itself… Maybe it was because he couldn't use a bullet as a weapon without a gun to help, or maybe it was just because the shapeshifting-material didn't want to split into two different things. He didn't know, figuring out how weird shit happened wasn't his department of expertise, so he decided not to bother with it and just stick to fighting.

His next test was much more specific though, and he hoped on all that is good that it worked.

'Alright, when I pull the cylinder out and spin it, the gun will reload. The bullets will be made from energy that the gun collects from the environment. Hopefully, that will solve the problem of the material not wantin' to split in two.' Clint hoped beyond all hope that this worked because he would much prefer a gun over a spear in any situation.

The image in his head, he raised the revolver and emptied its cylinder into the wall. With a glare toward the gun saying "You better work if you know what's good for ya'", he popped the cylinder out and spun it.

Clint's glare turned to a maniacal grin as he saw bullets materialize out of nowhere within the cylinder before it clicked shut automatically, just as he imagined it would.

He began laughing darkly as he aimed the gun once again…

*BANG*

The bullets actually worked too.

"Well then, I guess the gun wins… sorry spear," Clint said as he immediately began thinking up other upgrades.

'Let's see, faster bullets obviously, as fast as I can make them without making the recoil unbearable. In fact, let's see if I can remove the recoil entirely.' He immediately imagined the gun shooting without recoil, then aimed the gun and shot to see if it worked.

It didn't.

Turns out the gun couldn't just straight up break the laws of physics, which he supposed was fair. Fortunately, he was still able to upgrade it to reduce the recoil to not even be noticeable with a normal-speed bullet. After that, he just upgraded the speed of the bullets until the recoil felt normal again.

He wasn't as confident in the 'don't break the laws of physics' rule after he upgraded the speed though, as he was able to get it up to a truly ridiculous Mach 700.

"Whew! If I recall correctly, this should be somewhere around .08 or .09% of the speed of light. And I could have increased it more if not for recoil! Hmm… Actually, this may not be a good thing." He thought out loud as he looked at the gun apprehensively… though, if one looked closely, there was also a little excitement in his expression.

'If this really is a bunch of wizards, and they have access to something like this, then they can likely do things at much higher speeds, possibly the speed of light. I couldn't even see my bullet when I shot it, I only knew it went that fast because I imagined that specific number when changing it. If these wizards can move, or worse, think, at relativistic speeds, then I'll be screwed with just this gun.'

'On the other hand, if this is some kind of God or ROB, then wherever I end up after this is probably within the range that this weapon is limited to…' His thoughts trailed off as he rubbed the side of his revolver with his thumb, trying to think of a solution.

'Well, first of all, I need to be able to adjust the speed. All laws of physics that I remember say that shooting something this fast willy-nilly will probably destroy everything in its path, and maybe spawn a tornado or two on my location. That wouldn't be fun. Though, if wherever I end up really is as dangerous as I think it will be, I still need to be able to shoot faster, so I need to be able to change the speed.' He then imagined the gun being able to shoot at different speeds, each bullet changing speed depending on how he tapped the left side of the revolver with his thumb.

He decided that the gun would have nine modes, each signaled by their corresponding number in morse code taps. One would be normal speed, two about Mach 5, three Mach 10, four Mach 25, five Mach 50, six Mach 100, seven Mach 200, eight Mach 350, and finally nine at Mach 700. He could also tap the morse code as fast as he wanted, which was good because normal morse code speed would be to slow for active combat.

'Next, the gun needs to be more lethal—and flexible—if I want it to actually kill anything. If I shoot something that's near it's speed, one bullet needs to be enough to put it down, because I won't get a second chance. Hmmm… Hows about I make it so it can have different types of bullets? Poison, explosion, normal, etc… But how would I change them though?' After mulling it over for a few minutes, he got an idea.

'Them old phones! The ones that have the spinny dialers! I can make it like that. I spin the cylinder down to the space I need, then spin it up to reload with that bullet. I'll only have six bullet options, but that's probably all I'd be able to remember anyhow…' With that, he went to add yet another upgrade.

Spinning one slot down would result in normal bullets, two in explosive bullets similar to a bomb that would detonate on impact, three in poisonous bullets with botulinum toxin in them—a chemical he used on his weapons quite often as he was… well, that's not important right now. Four downward spins would result in an explosive and poisonous bullet, you know, to make sure his enemies are extra dead. Five would be a shotgun bullet that explodes out of his gun's barrel like a shotgun shell, destroying anything even slightly in front of him. He decided not to make this one poisonous since the explosion would be a little too close for his comfort.

Finally was number six, which he decided was his emergency bullet. It would shoot a tiny nuclear bomb that would explode on impact. Probably a little overkill, but he thought it would be fun to have, even though he would probably never use it.

'Alright, these seem good enough. Best stop now before I get carried away and add too many features to remember. Though, I'll add a few more things, for security's sake.' He thought after a few more minutes of working on his gun, which he was getting quite attached to already.

The final upgrades he added consisted of invincibility, which he had no idea how it worked, seeing as it almost definitely broke at least one law of the universe. Then again, nuclear bombs were also supposed to have a minimum size requirement which was much larger than a bullet, so he didn't know what to think anymore. The next upgrade was to make it only shootable by him, which was pretty simple as he just had to add a DNA reader of some sort on the grip and trigger. Now, even if someone else picked it up they would be able to use it. It would be a nice knickknack though.

Finally, he added a perfect accuracy feature, which just made certain that, if he were to miss, it would be because of either his poor skill or the wind, not the gun itself.

Looking at his handy work with admiration, Clint smirked again. "Well hello, there beautiful, how'd you like to be my new partner?"

Spinning the revolver in his hand, he stopped suddenly and shot the wall to test it. It didn't leave a dent of course, but he was still having fun with it. He then looked at the smoking barrel with excitement. It was love at first site.

"You'll need a name. Can't be caught walkin' around with somethin' like you nameless after all. But what to name you… OH! Ha, with my name bein' Clint, the name I just thought up would fit perfectly." With that said, he imagined the new name engraved onto the barrel of the revolver, in a dark grey that contrasted the barrels silver.

Eastwood