With one last forceful push, groaning and grunting with exertion, Genevieve pried her legs from under the automaton pinning her. The long skirt of her dress was ripped, but still thick and heavy enough for her to get tangled up in it. She kicked the tight, high-heeled wedding shoes she’d been made to wear off the stage. They fell onto barren earth. The crowd fled the scene as soon as the shooting started. She couldn''t exactly blame them–nothing was coming to this place except a whole lot more trouble.


    The devil girl cast her eyes to the chapel, on the lookout for that very trouble. She tilted her guns down at an angle, and twisted one of them slightly to the side. With the hand that was holding her other gun, she held out a few fingers and spun the weapon''s rotating center piece. It made a rapid clickclickclickclick sound and then settled itself back into place. Switching sides, she repeated the same motion on the other gun. With a flick of her wrist, two long metal rectangles fell out of the guns, and she raised both of them up, prepared for any further assailants.


    While she slowly turned around in a careful circle, sweeping her barrels across the area, the gunslinger dug around inside her cloak with her tail. It came out wrapped around another one of the metal rectangles, which it inserted into one of the guns, and then dipped back inside for another. Once both had been replaced and the girl turned far enough to see Genevieve, she lowered the guns and tucked them away in holsters beneath her cloak. Her tail darted out to scoop up the two metal boxes she dropped, and slipped them into a small pouch at her waist.


    It took a bit of effort, but Genevieve managed to stand back up by herself. The wooden stage was warm and smooth beneath her feet–she wasn''t afraid of getting splinters from it, at least. Just as she was taking a few experimental steps to make sure the automaton hadn''t crushed anything, the devil girl approached, sprinting to her while she pulled her cloak back around her shoulders.


    "Sorry for droppin'' that thing on ya," she said. "I just–"


    "No, don''t apologize for that." Genevieve bowed her head gratefully. "Thank you for killing it."


    "Ah… all right." The devil girl ran her fingers absent-mindedly over the scales on the back of her hand. "Hey, listen. Your, uh… well, I mean, I assume the whole wedding thing is off, otherwise this was all a lot of wasted effort, so, uh, that asshole? Definitely has a whole bunch more of those metal men marching out this way." Her eyes wandered around the landscape just past Genevieve''s head, never quite looking directly at her face. "So we gotta, like, get all the way not here, pretty damn quick. Is the thing."


    "You''re absolutely right." Genevieve took a deep breath and mentally prepared herself to run. "Lead the way, then," she said, holding her hand out towards the blue-scaled woman before her.


    "Lead the–oh. Yeah. Right. Sure. I can do that." The girl looked at Genevieve and then reached out to clasp her hand. "Just, stay close, all right? I''ll do what I can."


    "Of course–" Genevieve began, but she was cut off mid-sentence when the girl suddenly jerked her forward, dashing towards the stairs.


    It was an instant disaster. There was no way she could keep up with this girl at the best of times, and with the big poofy dress she was in, her feet got themselves tangled up in fabric and each other after a single unexpected, bounding step. She stumbled and tripped forward and then the world was a tangle of limbs and scales and fabric, the pit of her stomach dropping out as the ground disappeared from under her.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Genevieve squawked in the least dignified way possible as she fell into the devil girl, knocking her off the platform. The girl fell onto the stairs with a grunt of pain and bounced off of them like she was made of rubber. They both wound up smacking into the tightly packed earth of the walkway below the stage, slightly battered and entirely caught up on each other.


    “Aaargh!” Genevieve howled angrily, trying to extract herself from the impromptu girl-pile. “God damn it! I can’t move in this, this fucking–”


    “Hey, hey, calm down!” the devil girl snapped sharply. “Just for like two seconds. You''ve got no idea how many explosives I’m carrying right now, you’re gonna set something off if you keep flailing like that.”


    “That–you–” Genevieve started, but she didn’t actually have anything to say. The warning scared her still, and she kept her body as rigid as possible while the girl dexterously slipped her way free, leaving Genevieve to sort herself out on the warm, hard ground.


    “Thanks,” the devil girl said. “Sorry, it was just easier to pull myself out with you sitting still. I only have a couple of bombs on me, for the record, an’ they shouldn’t be going off just from getting jostled a bit, but uh. Rather not risk it. S’dangerous stuff.”


    Who are you and why are you like this, Genevieve thought to herself, but this really wasn’t the time to look a gift horse in the mouth. “It–it’s all right,” she said, shakily rising to her feet again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall. I just–this stupid gown, it’s…”


    Genevieve leaned down and started tugging at the skirt of her dress, trying to rip the bottom part of it off, or detach it, or something, so it wouldn’t be getting completely in the way of her legs, but it was a durable enough garment that just tugging with her hands wasn’t going to rip the thing apart. “I can’t run like this, I just–they put me in this, it’s not like I had any other clothes, I-I have to…”


    The devil girl glanced around, her body still on alert and wary of another fight. She exhaled softly and stepped towards Genevieve. “Okay, hold on. Do–d’ya need help? Do you want me to help you?”


    “I–yes,” Genevieve said, refusing to let everything that had happened in the last two minutes hit her, trying to keep her eyes locked forward. “Yes. Please.”


    “All right. All right. Just… don’t move or nothin’, I’ll try to be, y’know, considerate.” The devil girl held out her hands, which ended in long, sharp, dangerous looking claws, and kneeled down next to Genevieve. With a deep breath she reached out and grabbed the fabric of the skirt, tearing into it with her claws. Then she yanked on the dress, harder and faster than Genevieve could have expected. In a single motion she ripped the lower part of the gown apart, shredding the fabric, leaving a tattered, uneven, ruined skirt that went down to vaguely around knee-length, give or take.


    The speed of it took Genevieve by surprise and she squeaked a little as her legs were suddenly exposed to the warm, dry air. That seemed to embarrass the girl, who looked away from Genevieve as she quickly stood up, like she didn’t want to be caught staring at a lady’s legs. “Hey, look, I–” she started saying, but then she shook her head and tossed the scraps of fabric she was holding aside. “Sorry. Thought it’d be better to get it done quick. Should have given you a warning.”


    “No,” Genevieve insisted, “it’s really fine. Quite fine.” She took a few steps forward and was relieved that, while the gown was still heavy and awkward and no good for moving in, she at least wasn’t tripping over it with every step. “I’m glad to be rid of it. I’ll be more glad to get rid of the rest.”


    “Oh. Okay. Well, uh, so long as you’re glad… I guess I am too?” the devil girl said tentatively, like she was trying to ask if that was the right answer.


    “It’s a relief, at least,” Genevieve said. “But, please, let’s just keep going.”


    “Yeah, yeah, of course. C’mon. I’ll, uh, run slower,” she said, and she took off, leading Genevieve off the pathway, past the cordon, and away from the church.