eumenis | PSL post (for datbackstory)

PSL post (for datbackstory)

Even after Immortan Joe is dead and the Citadel won, they all know Gastown will be a problem. The lack of leadership from the People Eater doesn't make much difference; he was never a war leader so much as a businessman. The ranks of Gastown boys, flamers and polecats, are decimated, but guzzoline draws all sorts of desperates. Where trained soldiers are lacking, mercenaries are easily obtainable. All it would take is one charismatic leader to fill the power vacuum, and they would have the might of a very large city coming at them.

Of course, Furiosa and the Sisters have faced terrible odds already and come out better than they had any right to. She dares to hope even if the worst happened, they could survive and win. But if they can head off trouble at the pass, they should make the attempt. As the only one of them that's ever actually been to Gastown before, Furiosa is the only sensible choice for diplomatic effort. She's not much of a diplomat when it comes down to it. She can talk down a frightened feral, evidently, but diplomacy requires more patience than that.

Still, after several days of meetings in the city--some of them more like physical sparring matches than discussions--she thinks things are going well, and feels like she can breathe again. She slips away from the half-dozen war boys she's brought along as an entourage, and goes walking in the quieter alleys, the hovels on the edge of the marl pits. Half of them are being swallowed by sinkholes, and the rest are foul, but she won't be attacked here. The population is too sparse this far out.

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While he doesn't have the frame of reference to realize that such experience in a Lancer is unusual, The Spine knows confidence when he sees it, and the skill that both Furiosa and Throttle have is obvious. Which in turn just settles him some, focusing more on their surroundings while Furiosa worried about getting them where they were going.

At the scene of the attack, he frowns a bit, taking a long look at the area before answering the soft question.

"Not seeing anything that hints at tunnels underneath. Ground's as solid as it's going to get. No seismic activity either. Can only guess the creature, if it's as big as we're probably thinking, has moved on."

"Seismic activity?" Furiosa is intelligent, and far better educated than most of the Wasteland populace, but she's not sure what he means by that. 'Earthquake' she would understand, but not 'seismic'. He may have to boost her scientific knowledge.

Throttle doesn't know what that word means, either, but he doesn't care. 'Monster has moved on' is the part that matters to him, and with a nod for permission to Furiosa, he hops down and jogs across the sand, prodding at scattered car parts with the non-explosive end of his lance. "If there ain't no tunnels, and there ain't no tracks, how's this thing get around?"

"Don't go too far. Any other signs?" Furiosa calls over after Throttle. "Scat? Guess it must swim in the sand, like you said before..."

She half wants to get out and investigate, herself, but if there's danger around, her place is behind the wheel, ready to shoot, rescue, and run if there's trouble. "I wonder," she adds to the Spine, more quietly. "Does a creature like that have a den? Go to ground somewhere? You'd think after a meal it would rest..."

Not that she knows much about animals, but she does know the few that still live around the Wasteland tend to rest when the sun is high and move around at dawn or dusk.

"Basically earthquakes." He clarified easily, still frowning at the surrounding area thoughtfully. "Somethin' big enough to pull down cars and people would cause vibrations in the ground, picked up the same way earthquakes are."

Watching Throttle going to investigate, pushing his own door open. Not leaving, but if he had to jump to the warboy's aid it would be better to have less in his way, but also not wanting to be too far out in case they needed to make a quick getaway. Better safe then sorry after all.

"Maybe. It'd make sense, that it'd go somewhere to settle and digest. But then some animals don't keep dens like that, they just rest and move on, nomad style." Without much to go on he was leery to say for sure one way or the other. "Dependin' on how deep it can dig, might not have to rest midday either, it bein' cooler underground and all."

"Oh." Her eyebrows go up as she considers this. "I guess...I can see that. Thought earthquakes were bigger, somehow. But it takes a lot of force to pull a car into the sand."

Come to think of it, how much strength would it take? The sand around Gastown is fairly hard-packed, not like deeper into the badlands where you have to deflate your tires or risk being hopelessly bogged. The creature might have to dig the ground out from under its prey some.

"BOSS!" Throttle is crouching to look at something and yells out, waving them over. "You better look at this!!"

She starts, hand on her gun, but he doesn't seem to be under attack. She glances at the Spine, sets the kill-switch sequence quickly, then steps out and beckons him after her. "Stay close. In case we get jumped."

When she jogs over to Throttle, she's quick to notice what he's looking at. It's the front corner of a vehicle chassis. The rest must be buried in sand.

"They can be. Some can be so light you barely notice them too. As for the cars... yeah. That takes some doing."

Whatever else he might have to say was cut off by that yell, optics brightening as his gaze snapped towards Throttle, easing slightly once he saw that he wasn't in danger. Slipping out of the car easily to follow after Furiosa, keeping a careful lookout for any signs of trouble coming their way.

"...Looks like they weren't exaggerating about what it did." That was not comforting. Not in the least. He eased down into a crouch himself, searching for any clues about the creature aside from the simple position of the vehicle. "...Makes you wonder what drew it. A person sure I could see, smells like food. But a vehicle doesn't."

"Vehicles smell like guzz," Throttle says, scratching his head. He, too, crouches in the sand, scraping a little at the buried car as if to see if it can be unburied. "You think there's any chance of anyone alive in there, Boss?"

Furiosa shakes her head grimly. "The chassis is bent. Probably broke the windows, if there were any. Anyone that was in it would have been smothered, if they weren't eaten first."

She looks over and pats Throttle on the shoulder, though. Even now, not every war boy would think to ask that question. He deserves some credit for it, in her eyes. "Witness 'em; that's the best we can do."

To the Spine, she adds, "There's heat. It's always hot out here, but exhaust makes it hotter."

Just in case, the Spine took a moment to listen, but heard nothing from the buried car. "I'm not hearing anything. All we can hope is that it was quick."

Instead of suffocating, or worse.

"Could be. Plenty of reptiles sense heat, and whatever it is being at least semi-reptilian would make sense. Best equipped to handle this kind of place." Aside from insects, that is. But there was no way this was an insect, that was too gross to even consider. Ew, no thank you.

"Means they could hunt at night too. Even more effective then, body heat'd stand out more." Not to mention anyone lighting fires to cook by or for warmth on especially cold nights.

"If we--" Furiosa begins, then quiets as Throttle makes a V8 salute and ducks his head briefly. Whatever he's thinking or doing, she doesn't care to interrupt, but she resumes talking as soon as he's done.

"If we can learn more, we could set a trap," she says. "But we're going to have to find it first. If I were a big animal that had just eaten..."

She scans the horizon around them, trying to decide what direction to hunt in, but it's all pretty flat out here. One direction is the same as the others, except for the way they came. "Of course, if it's after heat, Gastown would be the place to go. They run the refineries at all hours, even now."

Gastown, or maybe the Citadel itself, but she doesn't want to think about that possibility. Throttle picks up a couple pieces of bent metal and begins to carry them back to the car as she trails off. Neither of them will notice, but the Spine may sense a distant quiver under the sand. Something is coming, whether it's the monster they're chasing or not.

The Spine nodded at that, optics dimmed as he thought.

"Some kind of bonfire? If this thing is after heat it'd probably try picking off stragglers first, so a small heat source near the larger one might attract it's interest... a good way to see if heat really is what draws it." More controlled han in Gastown, less people to get hurt. The bot eased back onto his feet, pausing with a deeper sort of frown as he felt that little movement, following after Furiosa and Throttle.

"Feeling some movement. Either off an earthquake somewhere, or..." Well.

"Guess we could do that...we don't have much fuel in the Septireme, though. Just a few emergency firebricks." She's wishing now that she'd brought a second escort. It might make hunting easier. One group could try to draw the creature in while the second circled to seek the monster.

She's heading after Throttle, frowning in thought, when the Spine makes his announcement. "Stop!" she calls to the war boy, and she freezes in place herself, too. Her gaze turns toward the Spine, a sharp question in her eyes. "Which direction?"

((Will have the attack begin next tag if that suits you! But feel free to NPC beaks and tentacles as you wish, too.))

[ ((Sounds good to me!)) ]

The Spine stopped moving when they did, optics dimming as he took a moment to focus on that vibration he felt. The expression that dawned as he realized what it meant? Wasn't reassuring at all as he pointed towards where he could feel the vibrations coming from.

"It's coming this way. Fast./i>"

It's coming from further out in the desert, and Furiosa will have to think on what that might mean later. She can see a plume of dust coming up where it approaches, smaller and less impressive than a Fury Storm, but still distinctly frightening simply because of the unknown it represents. Swearing under her breath, she makes a move as if to get between the oncoming creature and the car that represents their only escape route.

"Throttle! Start the engine, go! Spine, load up fast, I'll try and hold it off for a minute and catch up."

It's a foolhardy move, maybe; she's got her gun drawn and ready, and she knows she's a good shot, but since they have no clear idea what they're facing...

Well. It might take more than a bullet to kill this thing.

Nevertheless, Throttle is quick to obey, scrambling into the driver's seat. He is, in fact, a mediocre driver, half-trained, but he knows the kill switch sequence at least. Neither of them is looking to see whether the Spine is going to do what he's told. Throttle assumes everyone knows to obey Furiosa. Furiosa assumes Spine has the common sense to want to be out of danger ASAP.

The creature assumes they're all edible, but there are three different opportunities to feed here, so rather than surge up directly under one of them, it sends out questing tentacles, headed for Furiosa's boots, as she's the closest.

The Spine is all too happy to start to obey until she says the second part, that she'd try and hold it off. Nothing about that made him feel better, as he was prepared to offer to do that in her stead, as between the two? He was a much less attractive meal. Which meant that when those questing mouths breached the sand near Furiosa's heel, he spotted them.

"Furiosa, on your six!" Already running her way instead of towards the car, trusting that Throttle would get it running while he made damn sure that the strange creature wouldn't be pulling anyone under the sand again. If Furiosa was quick enough to backstep? Well she'd see three of those horrible tentacles, all intent on grabbing tight to whatever they could of her to drag under.

The running, the noise were hint enough that the creature's prey knew it was there, it would have to be quick. Not that it mattered much, it had been able to pull the last prey's vehicle under why would this be any different?

She's the leader; the leader takes the risks. Granted, he's right that he would be a far less attractive meal. Actually, depending on how much he weighs, the creature might not even be able to drag or swallow him...but she's not always logical about these things.

She's attentive, though, in a crisis, and she registers the warning and responds almost instantly, turning, dodging, and firing at the nearest tentacle. She's got excellent aim, and there's a resulting spray of ichor, which makes her grimade in disgust. The other tentacles twitch and writhe, like the shockwave or the sound has upset them, and they slide under the sand briefly, hiding but not gone.

And then the car's engine starts up. Throttle's doing his job, and he's doing it well, but the rattle and thrum of a V8 gets the monster's attention away from the other prey. Now it's turning and heading right for the vehicle...

He was relieved that she reacted so swiftly, but noticed the reaction of the uninjured tentacles at the shot. Implications are there, but no time to really test them, it was time to leave, far beyond time to leave.

"C'mon!" Not even thinking twice about taking her hand not the one she needed to shoot with, but he didn't want to turn and run without some physical link, some guard against another attempt as they ran for it however tenuous it was.

The creature had learned quickly that those large vehicles? Were often full of tasty prey, so it was all too happy to go right after Throttle and the car. Only Spine would be able to tell where it was going, optics brightening in alarm as he realized.

"It's going for the Septireme!"

It's her left hand he grabs, the one made of metal, and she's so shocked by it she forgets to protest or resist. Before the road war, most of her crew viewed the metal arm with a weirdly religious awe. With a few exceptions, they wouldn't touch it deliberately lest they be struck with lightning from Valhalla or some such foolishness. She didn't discourage the notion; she hates to be grabbed. Under the circumstances, though, it's for the best that she doesn't think to resist.

Her legs are long, but not as long as his, and she has to move at a fierce pace to keep up with him. Her scarred lung won't like that, long term, but right now everything is working well enough for her to shout her own warning in rapid succession after his: "Throttle! Eyes down! Incoming!"

Throttle is a good war boy; he responds quickly to orders. Still, there's only so fast his reflexes can respond, and even as he gropes under the dash for a rifle, the car rocks, tires popping and hissing with the impact of the creature under the sand.

When things were calmer, when adrenaline had faded, The Spine would apologize for grabbing Furiosa without so much as a warning. There were more important things to worry about, like the front tires of the car sinking a good four inches, the creak of metal hinting that the creature had grabbed hold of the undercarriage somewhere and had a good hold. And the way the car was jerked and tugged by the grip, the bot worried that Throttle would have trouble escaping before the creature had the car under the sand.

So when they got close enough, he let go of Furiosa's hand, sand spraying as he skidded to a halt, grabbing hold of the car by the rollcage, bracing against the sudden tug from the creature trying to drag it under. Heels drove furrows into the dirt, but with a shift of his stance the bot seemed to be holding his own, keeping the car from being dragged under by the mysterious creature.

"Throttle get out of there!" He didn't know how long he could keep the Septireme above the ground, didn't want to risk the Warboy going under with it. Steam hissed from vents as his grasp tightened, metal crumpling under his fingers with a creak, the creature trying to drag the car under screeching it's frustration at being stymied.

When the car rocks and starts sinking, Throttle yelps, eyes wide, and gets tumbled to the side. He's quick to try scrambling back up, but the Spine's fears are justified; the way the vehicle is being thrashed and worried, he keeps getting hurled into the dash and the seats awkwardly before he can reach the door handles.

Furiosa still has her gun drawn, and once she's released she crouches, hastening toward the back of the car where the monster has it gripped. She squeezes off a round or two, but there's no way to get a good shot in. The sand and the car itself block her way, and she swears loudly.

The hiss of steam from the Spine's vents make her turn, wide eyed, and really look at what he's doing. Fukushima. It's a tug of war between a ridiculously powerful monster, and a silver metal man pouring steam and fog like some kind of angel of the Fury Road. She's struck by the image, just for a split second.

Then Throttle hurls himself through an open front window and scrambles away. He's managed to grab the rifle, which is good because as soon as the Spine lets go or loses his grip, their car is going down.

He didn't even think about how absolutely ridiculous the situation was, or how things might look. More concerned with keeping Throttle from being dragged under the ground. When he finally saw the warboy all but fall out the window, he finally let go with a startled huff of steam, stumbling back to keep from getting caught up.

Whatever the creature was, it wasn't expecting the sudden loss of resistance, and as the car was suddenly dragged much farther, much faster, there was a screech from under the sand before everything went deathly silent and still aside from the slide of sand into the sumbmerged vehicle, the small pings and creaks of the metal settling.

The creature hadn't cared for being hit by the Septireme like that, and with the abundance of easier prey elsewhere? It was not sticking around for this group.

Not that The Spine had waited to see this, moving to help Throttle to his feet in case they had to run, optics bright as he turned his attention to the car. "...don't think it was expecting that much resistance, it's leaving pretty quick."

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PSL post (for datbackstory)

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