Quiet Joe, Regulator
The door swung open, and there he was. Wearing a hat pulled over his eyes, a gun on his back and an easily recognized Duster. On his chest, was a silver star; its previous brightness dulled or rusted away by the wastes; but its meaning still shone. His face was one of quiet determination, marred slightly with scars gained not by accident, but through experience. Each step was as natural as a heartbeat, though retained the practiced grace of a man trained in combat. The gentle but forceful thud of his boots on the rotten floor announced his entrance and highlighted his subtle grace; he was ready to strike within a heartbeat, light but heavy. Balancing on a razor's edge, ready to strike.
He didn't fiddle; he didn't flinch, not even with every eye in the bar on him.
Not once.
He knew full well which bar he had chosen to step into, he knew a hundred percent that this bar was the last place any sane regulator would be. This place was the biggest hive of wrong doers in the whole capital wasteland, people that would slit their grandmother's throat for the right amount of caps. He was aware that almost every man, woman and ghoul in this place had there right hand on there gun and the left on there drink; ready to scull it down and start firing as soon as he even made a errant twitch towards that repeater on his back.
He didn't even bat an eyelid.
Calmly he walked over to the man in the far corner of the room, whose face was clouded by smoke, and pulled out a chair. Sitting, He stared flatly at the man, who had his arms draped around two women, both unremarkable. He wore a beaten up fedora, an open light black shirt and in his mouth was a worn cigar, lit. He lifted his hand away from one of the females, poked his hat up with his right index finger, drew the cigar from his mouth with his left hand and breathed the smoke into the Regulator's face.
"What do you want, lawman? This ain't your part of the wastes and you know it. What you looking for? Justice? Whores?" asked the man"Heh, that is if that's the team you bat for" he said, winking mockingly at the man across from him. The man responded with silence. He calmly reached into his pocket, fingering briefly the bullet casing he had found out side, and retrieved a small piece of rolled up paper, yellowed and worn. He unrolled it and smoothed it out on the table. Pictured, sketched by a witness from the scene, was the masked face of the man who sat across from him. He wore the same stupid, smug grin and the same stupid hat. Printed above, by hand in large, black, letters was WANTED, and below the bounty: 1,000 caps.
The man paid attention now. He sat upright, gave a sudden look of fear but quickly hid it, smoothing his features with his unoccupied hand. Putting out his cigarette in his tin cup, where the last remnants of his vodka made it go out with a small spark, he tilted his hat and looked at the man across from him. He paused for a second and then started to smirk, which quickly grew into a cocky grin, show casing his yellowed sharpened teeth. The man in the hat could make out the remnants of his last few meals, stuck between his razor-like mandibles.
The subject of what this man ate was exactly the reason the man in the duster was here.
"So, Mr. Badge, you've come to take away the one and only, undeniable, Joseph Cormack, Eater of men, stalker of the wastes?" He laughed, dislodging bits of what Joe could only guess was, or had been, someone. They landed on the table and mixed in nicely with the grime already taking residence on the grimy surface. The girls on either side of him joined in, laughing in a mocking, harsh manner; one which had been well practiced over the crumpled bodies of helpless victims, begging for mercy. Their hair, pushed up into crude shapes, and their clothes, studded leather and skulls, did not even try to conceal their lifestyle. Raiders. Scum of the wastes. Cormack went to pour another glass of Vodka, paused to examine the tin cup, and just drank from the bottle. Tilting back his head as he drank, his Adam's apple bobbed along with the rhythm of the drink sliding into his gullet. Finishing the bottle, he smacked it on the table, cracking it slightly. He stared wild eyed at the man across from him, his wild eyes suggesting that he was a little drunker than healthy.
"Who the hell do you think you are, to come and take me in?!? ME?" He began, ranting loudly as he stood from his place "I'm a bloody legend! Who are you? Some man in a hat! Take that stupid thing off!" He continued, waving the bottle to punctuate each point. He laughed again. "Come on then! Let's see the face of the man I'm about to have for dinner!" He swayed slightly and steadied himself, pointing accusingly at the man with the hat.
"You're a fool, you stupid, ugly…oh hell"
The man in the duster obliged his request, and slowly removed his hat.
The whole bar went quiet.
The man looked to be in nearing middle age, with piercing blue eyes that looked weary and tired; eyes that had seen way to much out there in the wastes. Upon his face was a modest beard, neat but still stylized. He showed the first signs of wrinkles, soon to widen as he aged, around his mouth and above his it wasn't these features that shocked the populace of the bar. From just under his hairline on the left side of his face and running across the bridge of his nose and touching his right jaw bone was a large, disfiguring scar.
The scar signified to the assembled crooks the one thing that they should fear, even when they fear nothing else. He was a legend amongst these wastes, a nomad, and paradigm of justice. Some called him the ghost of the waste, unstoppable in his pursuit of justice, others called him a myth; an impossibility. How could someone with such resolute lawfulness exist in such a despicable place? He didn't answer to any of these titles, these honors. He wasn't trying to be the hero. He's just a man, doing his job. He only responded to one name.
"Quiet Joe" the man whispered, shocked, as he sunk back into his seat.