Open RP Post

[eumenis]

* Leave a prompt or a starter or something.
* Furiosa doesn't bite but she hits pretty hard

Comments

starter (for lanced)

[eumenis]

There are good War Boys and bad War Boys, by all estimations, but Furiosa's criteria for which Boys are which are different from those the other Imperators set. She favors control and cooperation more than most, for one thing. Maybe that's just because she drives the War Rig, and no matter how much an individual crewman wants to get to Valhalla, the mission has to be paramount. So, no showboating. No stupid chances. No throwing other Boys under the metaphorical bus.

you can get yourself killed on your own time, War Boy; today we're going to Gas Town

Slit is, by most accounts, the opposite of controlled and cooperative. He's a loose cannon in a lot of ways, which is not necessarily career-killing for a Lancer, but it's a good excuse for Furiosa to dislike him. And that in turn is all the excuse she needs to harass him, while they're both crossing one of the long, chilly underground halls of the Citadel, at the same moment, by pure chance.

The light slanting through a narrow window is enough for her to see who's coming and make a snap decision, pausing to fold her arms (one hard and metallic and not terribly shiny for all that). It's also enough light for him to see her expression, a careful balance of challenge and contempt under the black paint. "You look bored, War Boy. Slit, right?"

She knows damn well who it is. He's actually fairly distinctive.

[lanced]

War Boys ain't supposed to know Imperators. It's a rank thing and speaking to them other than following their short, barked commands is frowned upon. There's a system, here. A system Slit doesn't follow all that well. Wants to be a driver more than anything and he's willing to cheat to the top, steal the wheel of his assigned partner and strut out like it's nothin', so why should he pay this Imperator Furiosa any real respect when she passes him?

His face splits into a wide grin at her mentioning his name. Already got a big mouth but the scars make it seem so much bigger. And he knows her name, too, but he doesn't say it on purpose when he replies:

"That's me." A breathy growl. Makes eye contact and squares his shoulders as he stops. Whatever he was doing wasn't too important. Doesn't confirm or deny if he's bored, either, just stares at her with that smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

[eumenis]

The system exists for a reason. It protects Imperators from War Boys and War Boys from Imperators. You don't rise in the ranks at all without blood on your hands, and by the time you get to Imperator--if you live that long--it might be the blood of War Boys, not just Buzzards or scavs or the Wretched.

Not that anyone's encouraged to kill other soldiers in the Immortan's army, but accidents happen. A lot of accidents happen.

Furiosa's lips twitch subtly. Slit's response, his body language, it's all completely inappropriate, and she's delighted. She's been off the road too long, she's restless, and she's expecting a meeting with the Immortan soon, and all of that makes her blood itch. If he's going to present himself as an easy target, she's going to take the shot.

"Pretty sure there's supposed to be a 'yes, Imperator' in there somewhere, Slit." She says his name like a threat. Or a curse. "Are you looking for trouble?"

How's this?

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

She was actually having a pretty good day, she told herself. She'd broken up the slaver caravan with extreme prejudice and the kids she'd been sent to look for had been smart enough to run. There was cover here and their people were looking for them. Sure, she was pinned down with less ammunition than she'd have liked and more raiders arriving, but into every life, some rain must fall. (She'd never understood what was wrong with that, but it probably wasn't worth arguing with songs written before the sky burned.)

"What do you think, puddin', improvised explosives? We're so good at that game..." It helped center her to chat with Dogmeat, who was an old hand at firefights and quite sensibly crouched beside her behind her helpful ridge of rock. The mangy little shepherd just cocked his head and she patted him absently as she debated tipping half her failing supply of bullets into an incendiary and hoping for good aim. A peek around the side just let a bullet burn a scored line in her cheek and sent a few curls drifting to earth.

Great!

[eumenis]

In the last few months, the roads between the Bullet Farm and the Green Towers--formerly the Immortan's Citadel--have gotten dangerous. Partly it's due to more limited traffic between the two strongholds and partly the significant reduction in the forces they have to defend themselves. There may be other factors; one revolution can easily spark others, after all, but if there's more to the sudden influx of scavs, Buzzards, and other road gangs, Furiosa isn't yet aware of it.

She's interested in becoming aware of it, though, which is why she's out today. She had an escort of one Vuvalini and three War Boys, but when they spied the dust and gunfire ahead, they split up. The other two vehicles are circling around with the intention of gauging the means of their opponents; the numbers, how well-armed they may be, and why some of them seem to have broken off into a haphazard retreat while others are closing in to serve as reinforcements. Furiosa, though, in the smallest and lightest car, is just reckless (kami-crazy?) enough to plow into the midst of the violence.

The resulting shower of sand is impressive, and backed by the pop of bullets from a Taurus PT99AF (why it's her favorite, she can't explain, except it feels right in her hand). It's just a strafing run, but in the sweep and turn at the far end, she gets a glimpse of what the slavers had been shooting at up until she showed up.

A person; she can't determine age or gender at this speed, and it doesn't really matter. She was born of the Vuvalini and raised a War Boy, and both of those groups love to root for the underdog.

Getting them both killed would be pointless, though, so she makes another charge through the ranks of scavengers, and this time she fires off an incendiary bolt from a handheld crossbow. By itself, it will do limited damage, but the fireburst might create enough confusion for the stranger to run, or at least for Furiosa to swing around and try to pick her up.

((Thought I'd leave space in case you wanted Indrani to have a chance to heave a bomb, because explosions make the world go round.))

[iwanttosettheworldonfire]

While she keeps her makeshift bomb more or less ready, the sudden influx of roaring engines complicates matters enough that she holds off for now. Really, much as she enjoys the idea of a big boom solving her problems, she's a much better precision shot than she is a strong upper arm. Better to take her chances and conserve her ammunition a little. The new players on the field would shift the power balance and hopefully distract from the bolting scruffy kids. Which meant the possibility of making a better vantage point for a girl and her dog. She didn't even think of running away. Thing about slave takers. They'd come back for more unless you really went ahead and crushed the bastards.

At the wonderfully convenient flare and the mess is causes for her opponents, she makes a break for a higher ridge. One that's even mostly successful. Bad luck does her in as much as bad choices, the wild fire of a blinded raider ricocheting off the rock and into her shoulder. The loss of momentum minimizes the damage, but it's still too much to count on remaining functional. Certainly without much in the way of drugs on her. With one arm hanging useless, she opts to draw a revolver that looks much too big for the little girl pointing it and fire a few decisive rounds at the slavers before she even thinks to try and stop the bleeding. That's what they get.

[commandshumor]

Some sort of celebration above. He could always hear the roar of the water, even down here, though he'd never seen it.

Somehow this celebration was different, and the waterfall was not short lived. What had happened?

His prison was exactly twenty feet by seventeen and a half feet. He knew every inch of it by now. Knew the notches, knew the pebbles, the rougher spots in the wall and the smoother ones. The best place to sleep. No, no bedding, not even a blanket, might try to hang himself. And he would.

No windows. Just the rock walls and the two doors.

The tunnel was about fifty feet, one door at each end of solid iron bars. The outer door had a hook and pair of keys beside it. No one voluntarily came down here, except Joe, so no need to keep the keys secret.

The celebration seemed to never end. What purpose?

He sat in the corner in the dark, wrists and ankles shackled with a length of chain, lifting his head a tad only when footsteps were heard down the tunnel.

[eumenis]

The water has been running for almost 48 hours before Furiosa and her allies make it down to the dungeon that houses some of Joe's best-kept secrets. The truth of the matter is the road war took a lot more out of Furiosa than she cares to let on. Her lungs will take time to heal fully, but after two days' rest, she's at least able to walk on her own and carry a gun.

She and some of the other high-ranking Imperators have some idea what Joe kept down here. She's only seen him once, at a distance, when her best efforts failed to get a Buzzard prisoner to tell them what Joe wanted to hear. Joe dealt with the next step, and the aftermath, by himself; she was left wondering where he ever got this strange, sad, living weapon.

She's heard stories about the wars that killed the world, and how beings like this prisoner featured amongst them. She's not sure whether she's afraid or not. Not sure whether he can be trusted with his freedom or not. She's not as cruel and merciless as they used to say, though. Leaving a person to die in solitude in the rock is more than she can do.

So, she comes. She does not come alone; there are two very jumpy war boys and one Vuvalini woman behind her. It's Furiosa that takes up the keys, though, and rolls them in her hand as she approaches the cell door.

Her mid-body is swathed in bandages, and her prosthetic arm is absent, but she carries herself like a soldier, and leans her left elbow on the bars. "You should know," she begins quietly, "Immortan Joe is dead. There's been a coup. I'm Furiosa, formerly his Imperator."

[commandshumor]

This was not Immortan Joe?

Dead.

He is dead.

The shackles jingled softly as he shifted and then hauled himself to his feet. Slowly he shuffled over to the bars and looked down the tunnel at her

This was an imperator. One of many he'd seen accompany Joe when he came down here. Furiosa. The one with the mechanical arm. He remembered.

"Have you come to kill me then?" His voice is dry. Hoarse from lack of use. But deep, intelligent.

for symbiosys

[eumenis]

((Continued from here))

Home. [That's an easy association, although even now she's not entirely sure what home means to her any longer. The Green Place was home. The Citadel...well. It never was, and while she's deeply attached to the people there, the place has such ugly memories for her, it's hard to feel at home there.

Things are changing, though. Maybe time is all she needs.

She rests her chin in her right hand, attentive and becoming comfortable in the conversation.]

[symbiosys]

[The corner of her lips curls up in a little smile. It seems that no matter how different people are, or how different their lives and experiences may be, some things are a universal constant.]

Heart.

[Home is where the heart is, or so the saying goes. Her home is with an Artificial Super Intelligence, its creator, two former government assassins, and a dog, and she wouldn't have it any other way. For the first time since she was twelve, Root feels like she belongs, like she has a family to call her own.]

[eumenis]

[Two words occur to her simultaneously: blood and love. There’s a brief delay while she chooses one, and maybe in the end it’s the little smile Root is wearing that cements her decision. Not the smile of a triumphant killer, but the expression of someone who’s known affection. Who knows it even now. It's nice.]

Love. [She smiles, too, but it’s a little sad. Home and family and love are so delicate. She's seen such things destroyed all too often.]

for theravenous

[eumenis]

Imperators are not, as a rule, expected to work on their own rigs. Some drop into the garages to supervise, especially when there's new salvage, but only one or two ever take a regular interest. And then there's Imperator Furiosa, who almost seems to prefer the company of the blackthumbs and war pups to that of her fellow ranking commanders.

It may have something to do with her choice of Second. The Ace is fairly well known as a master blackthumb, and he's usually in the garage working on the Rig when he's not out on the road with it. Furiosa works alongside him often, but when he's in a narrow space and there's nothing else of hers available to work on, she's been known to wander. Sometimes, she'll even pitch in to help with other projects, grim and quiet, but a skilled and willing mechanic.

She loves motorcyles, in particular, so when she spies a handful of older pups shining up what appears to be a Norton Commando, she's drawn in. Unlike your average war boy, she doesn't carry the entirety of her possessions in her pocket--she has a room to keep them in. So she's quiet, no jingling; maybe even quiet enough to sneak up and stand behind the little group, observing the work.

[theravenous]

He knows, in the back of his mind, the glory is waiting Outside. He knows, as much as he can conceptualize beyond what he sees, that the point of being taken into the Citadel is to become something more--to make a proper sacrifice of his half-life.

It's never stopped Freki from being entirely happy exactly where he was.

There might be time, after all, to have a better purpose later. He had already survived long enough to begin smearing his eyes black; he might well survive long enough to find himself properly out under the sky again, lungs full of proper exhaust rather than the cough of backfiring and metallic tang of soldering. Geri was always dreaming on that: on the road, on the chase, on the intangible possibility of driving. It was beautiful to listen to, now and then.

But here was already happy.

Here, after all, Freki could half crouch next to the 750 with the snarling camshaft chain fighting its intermediate gear. He could bump shoulders with the pups next to him as they de-gritted the timing cover and murmured quietly about the reposition of the crank cheek and all invariably let their fingers brush against the cylinder head while the entire engine finished falling into place. Here, he could reach out and a hand would appear with a rag or a torque wrench. Here, he knew exactly where he stood; here, his purpose was to be part of the pack.

So he's grinning as he works, teeth snapping almost unconsciously when an arm passes too close to his cheek or another pup bangs too hard against his side. There's no hesitation in moving aside slightly so a younger pup can get his hands on the bike, one of his own hands catching briefly at the other boy's neck as he watches the work. It's impossible to imagine anything more satisfying than watching a machine fall properly back into place under a flurry of well-coordinated hands.

His attention stays focused on the 750 as he leans back slightly to reach for the spanner he'd set behind himself. Overbalancing slightly in his groping search shouldn't be a problem. There's usually not anyone lurking near clumps like this, after all, so there's usually not anyone to accidentally bump into.

[eumenis]

Her gaze is on the machine first--not as shiny as some, but plenty shiny enough. She sees no marks identifying what tribe or gang it might have been taken from. Not the Rock Riders, most likely; while it's hardly a ponderous machine, they tend to go for even lighter and leaner. Not the Buzzards; there are no spikes or wicked little hooks and traps for unwary hands. Maybe just scavs, then.

Hard to tell how much work they've already put in, these pups; not without knowing what condition it came to them in. It looks to be coming along well, though. Her attention falls, then, to the team of pups working on it. There's the faintest flicker of a smile, fleeting, as she watches them move in and dodge aside for one another. Sometimes a group that works together often like this comes to look like a kind of multi-limbed creature, a hydra made of eager youths.

She remembers some of that, even if it's been a long time since she was a pup.

No one of the pups seems to stand out above the others to her eyes, until the one--one of the older ones, judging from the paint--leans back without looking to pick up something or another. She's not standing in the way on purpose, but she happens to be just close enough that his hand lands on the toe of her boot.

One of his fellow pups glances back at the perfect moment to see the minor faux-pas and makes a small, startled sound, then claps his hand over his own mouth, staring.

It's a real effort for her to keep a poker face.

for furious_ace

[eumenis]

[She can feel the calluses on his fingers when they graze the back of her neck. For some reason, the feeling almost makes her want to laugh. It's not quite ticklish--she's so far beyond being ticklish these days--but it's novel, and pleasant.

She runs the risk of ruining the warm mood with her next question, but she thinks Ace will take it better than most.]

Did...anybody ever give you that kind of order, Ace? Other Imperators? [Most of her team has worked with other crews and other leaders. Ace is the oldest, so him probably more than many others.]

[furious_ace]

[Ace doesn't let the question unsettle him. Life is what life is and he's reached a comfortable agreement with it. And he doesn't stop his light stroking.]

Yeah. When I was younger. One of the older Warboys stepped in, said I was too young. Took care of it. Happened a couple of times since, but I haven't been a good looking Warboy in a long time, boss.

[He's older than many of the Imperators these days. He's protected Warpups and Warboys like he was protected. But his age and lines and refusal to die despite his lumps scare a lot of the Warboys and the Imperators that come from their ranks.]

[eumenis]

[She closes her eyes, displeased with the response and trying to hide it so he doesn't think he's the one that's displeased her. This godforsaken place...is there anyone it won't take from, and try to break?

She breathes slow and deep through her nose, calming herself and focusing on the sensation of being petted. Thus, it takes a minute before she manages to respond, in a low, dark voice.]

It's not about looks most of the time, Ace. Just power. Anyone ever tries that on you again, you tell me. [Now that is definitely an order.] And I will handle it.

[darklighthero]

The Wastelander hero made his way through said desert with a ottsel riding in the seat next to him. They probably didn't realize they were in a new world not until Daxter pointed out the obvious. "Hey, Jak.... we aren't in Spargus anymore..."

Jak turned when he realized the vehicles were no longer Marauders and there were giant cars with big spikes on their wheels.

[eumenis]

Somehow, the stranger has picked up the attention of a particularly nasty road gang. They're widely known as Buzzards, and the spiked vehicles are more or less their calling card. They're exceptionally tenacious today; chances are they're hungry.

Or not. Maybe they're just pissed off. There looks to be heavy dark smoke boiling up off the dusty road far to the left, the sign of a fire or explosion, and as the strangers watch, a lone figure on a motorcycle zips around the outside of the ranks of Buzzard vehicles at high speed.

Maybe they're not after him at all. Maybe they're just stirred up by the presence of another enemy.

[darklighthero]

Daxter hopped on the gun, aiming to get the gang off the lone figure. He called to Jak "KEEP DRIVING!"

Jak sweared around, hoping to avoid being crushed into by the buzzards but by now Daxter was already pelting the gang with speedy gunfire.

Jak pulled up aside the figure, a red handkerchief over his face, and goggles on his eyes. "Need some help, stranger?!"

[darklighthero]

Jak eyed the large truck through his goggles as he stopped his car after seeing the truck nearby.

Daxter eyed Jak and eyed the others "Are these others friends of yours too?"

Jak looked over at Furiosa and nodded, a little on edge after running into what Furiosa called the Buzzard Gang.

Jak started to stop, a soft clomp in the sand. "You have the tools? Me and Dax can start anytime."

"Right Dax?"

Daxter's eyes moved to the pretty ladies "Yeah, Jak, I hear you." He was distracted.

Jak punched The ottsel;s shoulder and muttered "Daxter, pay attention."

Daxter muttered "Ow.. Ok ok I'm listenin', Jak."

[eumenis]

"We always have tools." She pulls the bike to a stop and slides off, whistling to signal her people. "How bad?"

"Engine block is cracked, Boss. Damn excavator blade sliced into it," one of the men says, then breaks off when he looks up and sees who she's got with her. "...uh...?"

"They say they can help with repairs, in exchange for water and intel. Hela, can you get the tool kit out for us?"

The older woman looks amused, a contrast to the gaping war boys, and hops up into the cab of the rig to fetch a large box of equipment.

[facelesshunter]

[Wanna do some adventuring with these two? Relic hunting? A small mobile city wreaking havoc on the Fury Road?]

[eumenis]

[Sure! Maybe a mobile city attacking the Bullet Farm and their alliance demands they go help defend it? Also, sorry I'm such a slow tagger. I'm doing a lot of RL stuff plus I have a lot of amazing threads going on.]