# minigun.wont-start → LAST STAND · "NOT DOWN YET" · beat summary (MINIGUN, 27 Oct; approved with changes: renamed (sledgehammer owns STILL STANDING) and no crutch (sledgehammer's))

**Rebuilds:** the gag WON'T START (the getaway car won't start) in its key. The full 0.1 s beat sheet is written at build time.

**Style:** LAST STAND. **Rarity:** RARE (key kept). **Victim:** Nitha, a gunfighter with a revolver. Brave, wounded from the first
second, and she will not stay down.

**Story:** the first burst takes her foot before the fight even starts. She fights anyway: from cover, then hauling herself up on one leg
over her own wall, then one-handed, then with nothing. Each exchange costs her a piece and each time she gets up. The pathos rises until
Faris has to hold her up himself to finish it.

**Length:** scene ~21 s; trigger to final ~24 s at real time.

**Needs:** FLOOR + space (w ~280); no map element. **Range:** mid → pointBlank.

**Casts (2, each a fight move; a third was dropped with the crutch):**
- **(1) Nitha · THE LOW WALL** ('thrust', from the floor): a knee-high gold barricade she drags herself behind to return fire.
- **(2) Faris · THE SHACKLE** ('point'): a gold manacle and short chain that locks round her good ankle and bolts to the floor
  when she tries to drag herself out of the open. It keeps her in the fight, and in front of him.

**The dismemberment, the opening, the end pose** (why they are this story's):
- **THE FOOT:** the first burst at the ankle. The stand starts already broken.
- **THE GUN HAND:** her revolver hand blown off mid-shot, the revolver still in its fingers on the floor.
- **THE SHOULDER, the whole arm:** as she hops and falls into a last lunge with the empty revolver as a club, the stream takes
  the arm at the shoulder.
- **The opening is the CHEST:** a sternum burst at point blank as he holds her up.
- **The end pose: HELD UP BY THE KILLER.** Faris holds her by the collar with his free hand, the gun on its sling at his hip; her
  dead face lifts upright in his grip, then he lets her down to her knees. Not a gold prop; the killer himself.

## BEAT SUMMARY (scene s)

| t | beat |
|---|---|
| **0.0-1.6** | **THE FOOT.** The face-off: she draws fast and fires; a round rings off his shroud. His first burst rakes the floor at her feet. **SLOW-MO 1:** her left foot blown off at the ankle mid-step, the foot tumbling, her weight going over. Snap back on the fall. |
| **1.6-3.6** | **THE LOW WALL.** She drags herself on her elbows, casts the low gold wall, gets behind it, reloads one-handed by the cylinder (her teeth on a cartridge), fires over the top: three shots, one clips Faris's shoulder (a hit spring, blood). Faris grunts, set-jawed. |
| **3.6-5.6** | **THE SHACKLE.** The stream chews the low wall down. She tries to drag herself away into the open dark behind; Faris casts THE SHACKLE: gold locks on her good ankle and the chain bolts into the floor. She pulls against it, the chain taut. |
| **5.6-8.0** | **UP AGAIN.** The shackle holds her in front of what's left of her wall. She hauls herself up the low wall onto her one leg, hip braced against it, and fires over it, swaying. Faris sidesteps the second shot (his own footwork, heavy). |
| **8.0-9.0** | **SLOW-MO 2 (the hand).** Their shots cross: her round sparks off his barrels; his stream takes her revolver hand off at the wrist mid-trigger. Hand and revolver turn in the air together. Snap back. |
| **9.0-11.6** | **NOT DOWN YET.** She doesn't go down. She looks at the stump; her face sets (horror into rage). She snatches the revolver off the floor with her other hand (empty now), pushes off the wall and hops at him, the chain at full stretch. |
| **11.6-13.0** | **THE SHOULDER.** The chain snaps her up short and she falls forward into the lunge, swinging the empty revolver as a club. The stream takes her arm off at the shoulder; the arm and the revolver spin away. She drops. |
| **13.0-16.4** | **THE CRAWL.** No arms to crawl with: she worms toward him on her shoulder and her one knee, the chain dragging, blood behind her. Faris lets her come. The sound drops to her breath and the chain. She reaches his boot. |
| **16.4-18.6** | **HELD UP.** Faris takes her by the collar with his free hand and lifts her up to face him (the gun on its sling). Her face: defiance, then fear. The point-blank burst into her chest: the sternum bursts open. |
| **18.6-21.0** | **FINAL.** He holds her a beat longer; her dead face upright in his grip, the chest open, the stumps. He lowers her to her knees and lets go; she stays kneeling, head bowed over the open chest. Faris steps back. |

**Camera:**
- A western two-shot for the face-off.
- Floor level with her behind the low wall.
- A tight tracking shot of the chain going taut.
- A low angle on her hauling herself up the wall.
- A crossing-fire slow-mo in profile.
- Handheld for the crawl, the camera on the floor with her.
- A close two-shot as he lifts her.

**Grades:**
- Warm dusk to begin.
- Draining toward cold with each lost piece (a grade step per limb).
- Bleached white at the burst.

**Sound:**
- Revolver cracks against the stream.
- The chain's clink and rattle.
- Her breath dominant from the crawl on.
- Silence under the lift, then the burst.

## LADDER (after XT approval)

- **VH:** the shoulder taken, she bleeds out crawling, short of his boot.
- **H:** the hand taken, she falls behind the low wall (dark).
- **M:** the stream knocks her flat off the wall; X eyes.
- **L:** the chain trips her lunge; she falls and faints.
- **VL:** her revolver clicks empty six times; she sits down, defeated, alive.

**Uniqueness:**
- No kill on the LEDGER takes a foot, then the gun hand, then the shoulder in one stand.
- None has a shackle cast keeping the victim in the open.
- None ends HELD UP BY THE KILLER with a sternum burst.
- No springboard. Not propped on gold.