Bert took a deep breath. "Hurl!"

Her voice tumbled through the chaos like a drunk homing missile, bouncing from building to building until it had silenced the entire courtyard and landed somewhere near its target. Bandits paused mid-fight to stop and ogle, hands frozen around necks, feet ceasing on rib cages, and the occasional mouth drooling on its opponent's ear. Only the bonfire at the battle's heart dared to defy the trend, concerned more by its fleshy feast than trivial human matters.

"Hurl you overgrown sack of shit, I challenge you."

Bert stood, feet apart, hand on her weapon, and metal finger pointed straight at the chief. Her brows had come so far down into a glare that they were almost a single strip of hair. Her blue eyes danced with a dark, orange glow in the fire's light. Her trigger finger begged to be released, to satiate its most primal of desires, but the man on the trailer needed to accept her challenge first. Otherwise it was just straight up murder. No, a pointless bit of banter needed to take place first before murder would become politics.

The meaty bandit known as Hurl rose to his full height on top of the metal trailer, one solitary eye wide open, pupil small. What was left of his face twitched uncontrollably, the emotion behind the expression unreadable. It was a face even a mother could hate.

Bert stood and watched as the man, cyclopean eye fixated on her in its best impression of an Overlord, took a lumbering step towards the edge of the metal trailer and stepped off with a loud thud. A weapon dangled at his waist, bumping loosely off his leg as the man moved. It had a short handle made from an old wrench, maybe a foot and a bit long, with what looked like three individual Old World axe blades welded together at one end. Rust had discoloured the blade's edge, or rather, blades' edges. Bert felt intimately familiar with the weapon. Her skin started to ache beneath its metal prosthetic, and it just made her madder.

Hurl searched Bert's face, either scowling, laughing or quaking with fear - it was really hard to tell what was going on. He took his time, taking one long footstep after another towards her, lip twitching with maybe anger, but possibly also lust. It may also have been trying to smile. Either way, the point here was that he was emoting in some fashion, and moving slowly towards Bert, who tensed, her body feeling impatient, wanting to be let loose.

But she needed the words.

The man's face twisted in on itself in what could be assumed was a frown, his lips mouthing the word "Who?" in silence. Wind wandered around in the background, hissing through the corpses of Dunce Town carrying an icy chill. Ancient wood moaned with displeasure as it fought back against the pressure, bringing the entire historic town to life with the long, slow conversation of dead houses. What they were saying to each other was anybody's guess.

Then Hurl got slapped by a wall.

More correctly, it appeared that he was slapped by a wall. His hunched, predator shape suddenly shot upright, shoulders back, feet sticking to the dirt. His one eyebrow fought its way up his head while, in a separate but equally difficult struggle, his lips clawed open into an O shape. Blood flushed into his face and threatened to pop out the seams. But it was laughter that instead broke the surface tension.

First there was a "bah", which slipped out without the body noticing. Then a "hah" followed suit, but it shattered the foundations beneath his expression and the whole face collapsed downwards. Another "hah" rolled out third, and then another, and another, and soon the bandit chief known as Hurl was locked in genuine hysterics, doubling over and slapping his knees. His face danced to the tune, but with quite an incredibly poor sense of rhythm, revealing a wide, toothless mouth.

Bert bared her teeth, while nobody else in the camp dared so much as whisper. Even Doris, her machete locked around a bandit's neck, had stopped smiling.

It was a number of seconds more before Hurl's bahaha-ing ebbed sufficiently for him to manage to sneak a word or two out at the same time. "Well, well, well," he said, a tear drooling out the edge of his bloodshot eye as the Waste Beast bellowing faded. One of his muscular arms fell onto his axe. "Ain't diz a blast from da past, eh?"

Bert bore two eye-shaped holes into his misshapen face.

"Ya know, Berty," he said, voice deepening. His smile faded, either because it was tired of fighting for supremacy or because the man was now growing deadly serious. "I've dreamed of ya."

He took another step, left, and started to circle slowly. "How long's it been? Years, I reckons. But I rememb'rs ya, Berty. Oooh don't ya bring back mem'ries, so ya do. Took me a second, eh? He he he, not so good at seein' dese days widout me eye, so's I ain't. I sees ya got a new hand, dough. Pity, eh? I dink ya looked bett'r wit' da stump - showed off me handiwor-"

"-Do you accept my challenge or not, Hurl?" Bert cut in, grinding her feet into the dust. And, at the same time, grinding her teeth into dust.

Hurl stopped circling.

Bert bent her knees ever so slightly, preparing her balance for the impending fight. He was much bigger than she, but she had a gun and he didn't. From her memory of the man, he'd be a charger - someone who cares little for strategy and wit, but knows the power of their beefy upper body and the axe that it wields. This might be trouble if Bert only had a melee weapon, but who brings an axe to an axe fight? She'd give him a bit of banter, he'd get mad because he's stupid and can't think of a comeback, he'd charge in and get shot in the face. Probably more than once. Bing, bang, wallop, fight over.

She sneered at the man. "Or do you feel scared after our last encounter at the manor?" Go go banter.

Bert saw his knuckles tighten, giving her the slightest flicker of satisfaction. "Ooh yer a brave one, Berty, dats for sure. But yer don't have da Woman with ya tonight, eh? Nobody t' save ya. Pity ... I hear she got what wus comin' for her when da Mayor came for his money. I hear she screamed till she died, tryin' t' save you."

Uh oh, thought two little mechanics in Bert's brain. They watched in trepidation as a pipe burst down the hall and steam started to pour. Sandwiches were ruined.

"He he he. Struck a nerve, eh? What, you dun like remeberin' how da Woman was shot full o' holes 'cause o' you? I guess dat's like how I dun like talkin' 'bout wut you did t' me face all dem years ago, eh? When you wuz a coward, hidin' behind da Woman. But you toughened up now, eh? Here you stand."

"Here I stand," Bert replied through her teeth. Say the damn words, she thought afterwards.

"Alright, Berty, if yer wants t' die so badly, I'll make it happen. Ye can jus' try t' take me crew from me. But nobody dun take Hurl's Crew - not you, not Farmer Brown, not anybody."

Doris looked on with bated breath, Sir Robert frozen in anticipation next to her.

The Polite Bandits clenched their collective anuses, nervous about the outcome of the coming storm - and, ultimately, about whether they'd be going to war or not.

Hurl's Crew almost forgot about the fact that they were being headlocked, half-stabbed, and held to the ground by boots, their attention instead coiled around the scene before them.

And Bert stood in the centre of them all, the two sapphire eyes of the storm. Her human hand waited in readiness atop her gleaming pistol, her left fingers curled into a tight fist, skin pulsating beneath metal. Her mind raced between images of the Mayor, Hurl's face, and the Woman's final moments: Her determined expression when she turned around, the confidence that shone with her every fibre, the blood that seemed almost surprised to be bursting from her chest. Bert had forgotten or repressed so many memories from the days before Smack-dab, but those were the ones that stuck out - veritable splinters nestled just beneath the skin of her brain, where she struggled to pull them out. Hurl was the last remaining link to her past, and ironically, the key to her future.

He just had to say. The damn. Words.

Next, something happened to Hurl's lips. They got a little wider, but it took a few attempts. From the look in his hungry, lonely eye, it may have been an evil grin, but then, all grins are evil when you wear an eyepatch and have a scar running the length of your face. That's just science.

"Berty," he said slowly, chewing the words on the way out. "I accept yer challenge, for what good it'll do yer."

Finally.

In the nanoseconds between Hurl's words emitting from his face and for the attack order to travel from his brain down to his axe, Bert was moving. Her breathing slowed to a freakish steadiness, her eyes trapped in blinkers, Hurl the only visible target. Her body began to tense again, feet sliding just slightly farther apart. All at the same time, her hand closed quickly around the butt of her weapon and drew it from the holster, the shiny metal of the barrel trembling in the flickering orange fire light. Her thumb fingered the weapon's hammer and pulled it down, her trigger finger slipping into place with practiced ease.

Hurl was also moving, axe coming free from its leather belt strap, his grin disappearing under the weight of momentum. His mouth started to open for a battle cry, his animal throat rumbling with a distant thunder. He took the first steps forwards, shoulders lowering down, arm drawing back for a first strike.

The pistol's hammer clicked a familiar sound as it locked into place. Bert's face looked grim, determined, as she squeezed the trigger to end this nonsensical waste of time once and for all. To tie up the last loose end of her past on a one-way train to repress-your-memories town. But more importantly, to steal Hurl's significant horde of monsters, fight back Farmer Brown, save Smack-dab, and go back to the way things ought to be: Bandits staying the hell away and dying on the Highway while Bert served drinks to good, honest folk. Or at least good folk. OK, just folk. But at least they weren't bandits.

Her finger finished curling, the trigger letting loose its hungry hammer. The hammer needed no further introduction, thrusting forwards with all its tiny might to peck at the firing pin. The primer was struck, and Bert waited for the familiar recoil as gunpowder exploded in the casing and a bullet launched from the barrel to gore through Hurl and end his life.

Except ... it didn't happen. The bullet was a dud.

Hurl roared.

* * *

Hurl versus Bert - ding ding ding, fight!

If "Smack-dab" was a fighting game (ala Tekken or Street Fighter), which of its characters would you choose to play as, and why?

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