Adara: A tumbleweed blows across the dusty street as the sheriff strolls outside, gun in hand, watiing for the outlaw to arrive. A moment later a tall, sinewy man stalks out of the bar, the half-doors swinging behind him. From inside the building, a woman's head appears, watching the scene. The sheriff steps forward, "I've been waiting a long time for this.." Chuckling, the outlaw smiles, "Not as long as I have, sir." Guns are drawn and cocked on both sides, ready for action. Tarka: With fast action both the sheriff and outlaw open up with their guns... blasting away at each other with one shot after the other. People all over the town leap for cover and cower behind anything handy... the bathtub... a horse... the outhouse... anything to get away from the flying bullets. A few moments later the shooting dies down after they both run out of bullets... the sheriff squits his eyes and looks at the outlaw. "Make a deal with ya... lets both reload before we start shooting again. Alright partner?" The outlaw waves a hand a little off to the left. "Sure thing." Both outlaw and sheriff start to feel around for their bullets while the townsfolk used the oportunity to look for better shelter. One mutters to himself as he darts into a doorway. "Damn that American with Disabilitys Act. A blind sheify and a blind outlaw... what is the world coming too." Argon: The Sherriff backed up his wheelchair to keep his oxygen tank out of the line of fire. He opened the chamber of his six shooter and dumped the spent shells on the dirt of the main street. A drop of sweat appeared on his brow. He reached into his pocket and pulled out five more bullets and loaded them into his gun. He reached into his other pocket with the hook he had in place of his hand and grasped a 'special' bullet. He loaded it into the gun and flipped it closed. The Outlaw reloaded his gun, spilling a few bullets on the ground. He heard them fall and swept them aside with his wooden leg. "Ok, Sherriff Dead-eye, are you ready?" The town clock struck 13.st Mavra: When the Outlaw finished loading his weapon, he thought he'd show off by flipping it and catching it, but unfortunately he forgot to close the cylinder, causing the bullets to flip out in random directions. "Curses," he muttered, "foiled again!" Shaking his blind fist blindly at a townswoman, cowering behind and underneath the window at the local shoppe, he got out his cane and tap-tapped around, finding and reclaiming his bullets. Soon, his six shooter was loaded, with four bullets, a pebble, and a twig. Apparently his sense of touch was heightened, but was countermanded by his drop in intelligence. Rick: The outlaw say to the shieff draw partner, were the shieff and the outlaw start shooting it out again. Hitting everything in town but each other cause the town folks to take cover again. When the outlaw gun came to were the pebble it exploded taking off the outlaws hand causing to cry out in pain. The shierff said see that what you get for play with gun! Adara: Angry at his misfirings, the outlaw stomps of, yelling over his shoulder, "I'll be back....you aint seen nothing yet....I want me my woman!" and other various witty remarks that butchered the English language to no end. A woman, peering from inside the bar, now runs out onto the street, wiping the sweat from the Sherrif's face and exclamaing over him, "Oh, how brave of you to fight that wicked wicked man for me! Oh!". The sheriff smiled, and traced her face with his finger, his blind eyes staring out into space, "It was worth it to rescue a beautiful lady such as yourself from the grasp of such a wicked man." The townsfolk, in the meantime, go back to their daily business, discussing the evening's events. One man looked at the Sheriff's prized woman, and shuddered. "Lucky for her the Sheriff and that outlaw are both blind. She's one ugly hag!" The rest of the men nod in agreement, as the wart-covered bulbous-nosed woman continued to tend to her man, as he lavished compliments on her, calling her hi ...calling her his "beautiful angel" and his "precious darling". Out in the distance, the outlaw glared in what he believed to be the general direction of the town, when in all actuallity his comments were directed toward a rather robust looking cactus, "I'll have her yet, that beautiful woman. Surely, there is no woman in this town that is as lovely as she." Tarka: The Cactus... being a forthright plant and highly misunderstood just caues it happens to have lots of spines... looked out between the folds of its hard cactus skin at the peg legged outlaw. Then... for the first time in all its existance it took pity on a human. (Takeing pitty on a human is very rare for plants. They just don't make the right kind of fertalizer at all.) It opens is mind nad sonic control ray and spoke to him in a langage he could understand. "Oh hear me outlaw of the sands... outlaw of the world... outlaw so fine as to love a woman to all his heart. For I am your god. The spiny one! Do as I say and you will win the heart of your loved you. Refuse to do as I say and you will die a spiny death!" The outlaw shivered in his boot and listened. Argon: The cactus beamed it's message into the Outlaw's mind, "The woman you wish to be yours has given her heart to the Sherriff. For you to win it, you must prove to her that your love for her is stronger than his. You must show her that you are a man, well at least the parts that you haven't shot off, who is worthy of her love." The Outlaw reached out an pricked himself on one of the Catus' spines, "ouch!" he said. "How can I prove my love to her?" The cactus beamed into his mind, "You can choose one of two ways, You can let me me embrace you to restore you to perfect health, or you can shoot the Sherriff and hope, after killing her love, hope she will accept you. Which do you choose?" The Outlaw thought, a drop of drool driping from the corner of his deformed face, scarred by the bong fire. He reached for his gun, he held it loosly, it's barrel pointed in the general direction of the sentient Cactus. Mavra: "Yer not gettin' ahold a' me, prickly-puss!" The Outlaw cried out and opened fire... in the wrong direction, entirely missing the cactus. The Cactus sighed in the way that cacti tend to do in their own cactusi way, letting the wind blow throw its spines. Considering the future enjoyment that it might get out of the further torment of this hapless, tormented soul of a human, it then released some of its spines into the very same sighing wind, and caught the Outlaw downwind in the barrage of spines, pricking him about his face, arms, and legs. "So be it." The Cactus said, and then fell silent once more. Rick: Causing the Outlaw to scream in agony, he trys to pull out the spines, but they are to fermly inbed in to his skin. So there was the Outlaw scared, missing one hand and being prick by a Cactus. The Outlaw stumbule around crying why oh why how did it come to this, oh lord what have I done to deserve such a fate as this, as the Outlaw fall down on his knees causing him to cry out in pain once more. There was a voice from above the Outlaw blindly looks up to see who it is, but remembers that he can't see and says whos talking to me? Adara: The Cactus replies, "I am here, oh prickled outlaw!" You want to know what you have done to deserve this fate? Being an outlaw, that['s what. As for how to remmedy this...that is difficult. "PLease, I'll do anything... The cactus smiles gleefully, "Here is what you must do: in order to win your fair lady's hand, you must bring her....a shrubbery!" "A shurbbery??" cried the outlaw, "what the heck is that?!" "It's a bush, you idiot." replied the exasperated cactus. "Fine, fine," said the outlaw, "what next?" "You must then bring her...a herring! and and african swallow carrying a coconut!" The outlaw stared at what he thought was the cactus, "How am I supposed to do that?" "Hey, you're the one who wants the woman, you figure it out. Why does it matter to me? Give me a green female cactus with some sexy spines....- .oh...uhm...anyway...yes, you must bring her these things, and she will love you forever." Tarka: So... upon the next day the peg legged outlaw with a bloody stump for a hand set out to find a shrubbery! He didn't really know ahat it was or where to find it... but he marched accross the land form end to end... along the way picking up a band of men to follow him... (Actualy, I will admit that the people that followed him were just lost and thought that he might know where he was going, so they were following him... and then more people started to follow nad in the end you couldn't stop following him cause you would look dumb. Circular logic. Gota love it.) Anyway... he made it to the town of shrubsville and wondered into their holy plot of shrubs... he couldn't see the sign.. and pulled a shrub out of the ground. "I have the Shruberry! Off I go again to win my loves heart!" Argon: As the Outlaw and his group started puilling up shrubberies, they heard a long low sort of groaning sound, suddenly, the Outlaws followers removed their disguises and revealed thems selves as "French!, Viva la Francious, you stupid silly outlaw!" They farted in his general direction as they all scattered. The Outlaw was left standing in the shrubbery patch as whistling through the air, a Cow smacked into the ground next to him! "What is this he asked, as he heard another low groaning sound. He turned to run for cover and ran face first into a tree. He saw stars! "My blindness is gone! I'm cured!" He cried! Mavra: The Outlaw cried in utter happiness over having regained the sense of sight lost so long ago. He danced a jig in utter glee under the tree, traa-laa-laa-- lay! Such was his bliss that he failed to see or even comprehend the bovine mass that crashed through the branches, only to proceed to land on him, crushing his bones and various internal organs, amoung one was the often-not-u- sed brain. The Outlaw's group stood around his broken, DEAD body, which was smothered by all that is hooved, sans the arm and leg that was left sticking out, and remained speechless and dumfounded. "So," one said to the other, "what do we do now?" The other said to the one, "I don't know, what do you think?" "I don't know." Adara: And so our wild west saga ends...but what happened to all the characters? The outlaw, of course, was dumped in a shrubbery, where vultures feasted upon his body The sheriff and his ugly, ugly woman married, and had fourteen hideous children, half of whom were blind at birth, and the other half who gouged out their eyes after seeing the ugliness of their parents. The Sheriff retired and became a schoolteacher, while his wife became the cheap Town Prostitute. the frenchmen went back to france, where they told the tale of the ugly outlaw from country to country, farting in people's general directions to cure them of all illnesses, from upset stomach to warts The cactus found himself a beautiful prickly cactus mate, and they married at St. Cacti Church of the Desert, and had a beautiful cacti daughter Oh...and the remaining followers....uhm...joined a circus troop and spent their days cheering up ugly blind children from around the world NOW.