AUTHOR'S NOTE: This movie. Absolutely incredible. For an auto tech such as myself, I was drooling over the incredible machines... The action was superb and the storytelling phenomenal. Naturally, I fell in love, and here I am writing fics about it! This story is mostly canon, but I've only seen the film once so bear with me if there are any inaccuracies. I couldn't tell you where in the timeline of events it takes place in, either, so use your imagination!
This is a first-person narrative and I assume the perspectives of Max and Furiosa both, so pay attention to the names mentioned in brackets1
Please favorite and leave a comment if you're so inclined :) As usual I crave feedback! ^_^ Enjoy!
CHAPTER ONE
[max rockatansky]
I hummed, and the truck hummed with me.
Couldn't remember the last time I'd sang and I certainly didn't consider myself to be good, but, hey, it kept me from falling asleep at the wheel.
The truck, she sang better than I did. Twin Holley superchargers whistled in perfect harmonization in competition with the first of two massive diesel engines. She was running on just the one right now. I'd shut the second down some kilometers back when its temperature gauge flared red, and now, even as I watched, that of the first engine was slipping dangerously close to the red zone. I frowned, grunted, and tapped on the glass, halfheartedly hoping that I could jostle it back to a safe reading. The glowing red needle twitched.
I stopped humming. Held my breath.
The needle settled right back down, just like that, and much to my dismay, it continued towards the red zone.
I breathed in. Smelled coolant. Shit.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I bared my teeth as my right hand temporarily abandoned the shifter to rub at the bridge of my nose. It didn't help much. Raw skin stings when you grind dirt and sweat and steering column grease into it, and I once again cursed the bastards who'd forced me into that godawful metal headstall. The damn thing relentlessly bore into the soft flesh between my eyes and the bridge of my nose as I was paraded around as a hood ornament atop some modified Chevy coupe, my blood flowing into the sonuvabitch behind the wheel. The headstall was gone now, left somewhere in the wake of this massive truck affectionately referred to as the War Rig, but I could feel its constriction as though it were still clamped down around my skull.
I lifted my gaze. Darkness. So much darkness. The headlight stalk taunted me from the left hand side of the steering wheel, but I didn't dare touch it. Light in this darkness would be seen miles away. Squinting, I tried my best to pick out the imperfections in the sand ahead of me aided only by the weak glare of stars.
I had a decent view of the horizon in both directions, and so far they seemed clear. No headlights, no flaming exhausts, no glowing brake rotors. We'd managed to put some good distance between ourselves and our pursuers today. I knew it wouldn't deter them for long. Persistent buggers, those War Dogs, or War Boys, whatever the hell those sickly subhuman things called themselves. Didn't much matter to me. An enemy is an enemy, and when you kill them it doesn't make a difference whether or not they have a name.
My hand fell back to the shifter. I palmed the smooth bone handle and wondered, not for the first time that day, if it had belonged to a living human at one point. Wouldn't surprise me. This day and age, anything and everything was salvaged and fashioned into functional parts. Many of the vehicles I'd seen had human skulls proudly strapped to cannibalized grilles, including this one. It was morbid, but then again, so was everything else here.
I still smelled coolant. The sweet stench reminded me of syrup. I felt sticky saliva build up on the back of my tongue and frowned as my mind wandered. It'd been so long since I'd tasted syrup, real syrup; what I wouldn't give for a dab of syrup, just to take away the constant nasty rust-flavor lining the inside of my mouth!
In any other situation, I would've smiled, but right now all I could to was deepen the downwards curve of my lips. Focus, Max. Focus.
A glance down to the thermometer showed that it was edging on the red zone. No way we could keep going like this. I stomped the clutch pedal and began the process of reining the War Rig back in. Her engine cried, her tachometer slipped dangerously close to redline, superchargers singing, singing then dying as I dragged the truck back down through the gears and eased to a halt.
"Something's wrong." Statement, not question; the voice from the passenger's seat reminded me that I wasn't alone. Far from it, actually.
My eyes stayed locked on the expanse of starlit desert sand stretched between the sloping dunes flanking us. "Temp's spiked in Engine One," I muttered. "Two's shut off; still in the red."
My companion, if you could call her that, unfolded and split herself from the dark cloth of her seat. She blended with it, which was why I forgot she was there, her shadowed form barely visible against the backdrop of night. Brilliant green eyes blinked wide in the darkness as she leaned over and saw the screaming gauges.
I thought for a moment, pushed aside the muck inside my mind until I unearthed her name. Furiosa. Imperator Furiosa. I dipped my head as she met my gaze.
Both her hands went for her short-shorn hair. She made a noise in her throat, glanced all around, leaning out the window to stare behind us like she expected our pursuers to breach the horizon at any moment. Satisfied that it was clear, she kneed the door open, leaped nimbly to the ground, voice distorting as it bent around the front of the Rig. "Let's check it out."
I waited a moment before flipping the ignition switch off to silence the engine. My shoulder nudged the Rig's suicide door open and I dropped into the sand. Furiosa was already in front of the truck, hoisting the hood up with a mighty shove, glaring into the engine compartment like she could intimidate the thing back into working condition. Her mechanical arm scraped and rasped against hot metal as she leaned over her machine. Teeth bared, she latched onto a rubber hose the size of my forearm, carefully examining it before delving deeper into the guts of the Rig and locating the next.
I jumped up on the head of the plow hanging in front of the truck's nose. I didn't dare touch anything – I could feel the heat radiating from the grille even from here, and I wasn't in the mood for another brand. The back of my neck still stung from the first one…
"Hmm." She was prodding at something. Steam hissed from deep within the machine. I looked on curiously as she squatted, swinging herself around to the side of the truck and using the tire as a perch. "Damn! Gashed hose," she murmured. "Nicked by a bullet, probably. Must've taken a while to split under the pressure, but we're losing coolant fast."
She turned back to me, jerked her head backwards. In some distant corner of my mind, I described her as savagely beautiful with her shorn hair, sun-weathered skin, and slim battle-trimmed physique, but as quickly as the thought appeared it crumbled back into the depths of my consciousness. "I've got a toolkit in the cab," she rushed. "Should have some cutters and clamps in it. We can cut this broken hose and splice it back together."
I nodded and forced my aching body back down into the sand. My bad knee, confined within a brace to minimize the aftereffects of an old gunshot wound, hinged under my weight, and I narrowly stopped myself from smacking the ground face-first by catching myself on the Rig's plow. My shoulders hadn't gotten over the abuse of being a human hood ornament quite yet, and I gritted my teeth against the pain as I lurched back up to my full height. Stumbling back to the driver's side door, I hauled myself up and prepared to mount into the cab, when I heard engines.
My head snapped around. Wildly scanning my surroundings, I felt a rare, deep bolt of fear spike at my gut when I couldn't pinpoint the source. Arms shook as I launched myself into the cab and grabbed at the weapon I'd stashed on the dashboard, and again to the one I'd balanced precariously on the door panel. Shotgun and pistol. I jammed the pistol into a loop on my belt and slipped the shotgun across my shoulders.
Movement stirred in the back of the truck. I took my lips between my teeth and forced air through my nose in frustration. The four women, taken under Furiosa's care, had obviously heard the engines as well and were scrambling to hide themselves.
"It's leaking coolant, isn't it?" The bald, pale form of our resident War Boy glanced back at me as he ushered our silent stowaways back into their hiding place. I snarled at him. Bastard had taken my blood for the sake of powering his sick body, and it'd been his ride that had seen me used as ornamentation. Not really a way to score points in my book.
Unfazed by my hostility, the War Boy smiled sheepishly through his horribly disfigured lips, scarred to look like the skeletal grimace of death. "Smelled it from back there, and you were talking about an overheating problem." He stepped over the seat. His arms were heavy with the black toolbox. "I can help, you know."
"Really." Furiosa appeared at my side, arching a thin dark eyebrow at the pale man, who gestured towards the gruesome scarring plastering his chest. A representation of a cross-sectioned carbureted V8 engine marked him.
"Say what you want about Immortan Joe, but his program puts out some damn good techs, and I'm one of them." The War Boy was all seriousness now. "Please, let me help."
Furiosa regarded him with suspicion, but as the engines in the distance became louder, she gave a sharp, quick nod. "Fine. Come on." With that, she jumped back off the truck, but not before she'd armed herself with four guns stashed in every available gap in her clothing. "Girls, stay down."
"Right," came the soft reply as the trapdoor in the cab's floor slammed shut.
The War Boy – I think he called himself Nux, or something like that – moved to leave the Rig, finding I blocked his exit. He met my gaze and I made sure he saw my teeth as our shoulders thumped heavily together. He pursed his lips and averted his eyes, subconsciously submitting to me. Good. He dropped off the truck and trotted to its front. I waited a moment before stepping back down to the ground. This time, my sore legs finally gave out and I fell. Elbows dug into sand that was still hot from the day's torturous sun.
"Look alive." Furiosa's husky voice carried to me around the front of the truck as the War Boy inserted himself into the Rig's guts. Angrily, I sorted out the leather straps of my leg brace, yanked it back into proper position. I stood, shook the grit out of the folds of my jacket, and faced her. She pointed to the horizon where I finally picked out the source of the thrumming engine sound. It was a single vehicle, a jacked-up pickup looming above us on oversized tires, and one that certainly didn't appear to be slowing at all.
"Scout truck," she murmured. "Must've been on the other side of the dunes."
"Will they attack?" I took my shotgun into my hands. Its cool weight was a solemn reassurance.
"We're sitting ducks out here."
I took that as a yes and racked my shotgun with a menacing cha-chink. Stalking in front of the ailing War Rig, I paused, widened my stance, and prepared to face off against the pickup bearing down on us. Furiosa brandished her sniper rifle. It clicked as she sent a bullet into the chamber and peered down the sights. How she could see in this dim light, I had no idea.
"I can splice this, I think," the War Boy hissed from his perch inside the Rig's engine bay.
"Great. We don't have much time. Get on it." Furiosa gritted her teeth.
"I'll work quick, but a fast repair might not hold for very long." He hummed. "It won't hold for very long."
"Make it hold long enough to get us out of this!" She stamped a foot down, snapped at the Rig like Nux could see her. A pale hand flung above the edge of the hood was his response, and I heard the clinking of tools as he set to work. I didn't move. Not so much as a muscle twitched as I gripped the shotgun with one hand. The other thumbed the edge of the scarf wrapped around my throat. Tension cracked through the air like lightning, and I bristled, staring down the pickup that thought it could take us on.
Silence.
Then, it all exploded.
War cries, pounding pistons, screaming turbochargers, rattling suspension, staccato gunshot bursts. I twisted out of the path of a bullet as it whined just past my ear, using the same motion to throw out two rapid shots of return fire. I hadn't really aimed, so you can imagine my surprise when I heard the unmistakable watery crashing sound of shattering glass as the windscreen erupted. Of course this pissed them off even more, and another volley of gunfire tossed grit and dust into the air in front of us as they answered my shots. At my side, Furiosa loaded, aimed, shot, loaded, aimed, shot in methodic cadence, like she was more machine than woman. Loaded, aimed, shot…
The pursuing truck sagged in the front as its rubber tire gushed air. Two more rounds were dumped into my shotgun. Racked it. Fired. Saw sparks as my bullets struck something metal. The windscreen was mostly gone. I aimed for the driver. He had a passenger, hanging out the opposite window with a machine gun in hand, and another perched on the bed of the truck manning some sort of turret. The muzzle blazed as he opened it up at us.
"Cover Nux!" Furiosa's command was unnecessary. What did she think I was doing right now? My arms, fatigued from doing so much of the same already today, weakened more as I pulled the trigger. Goddamn, I was tired. I hadn't slept in, what, close to a day and a half now? My muscles burned as they absorbed the weapon's kick, my shoulder blades shuddered as I abandoned the heavy shotgun in favor of the lighter pistol. There we go. The kickback wasn't near as harsh, and I took sloppy aim at the turret gunner, pulled the trigger, danced around the shots he got off at me as I sent my own in his direction.
The turret gunner screamed. His skeletal face reared back as he spun away from his post, neon blood slinging into the night as he wailed his agonies to the sky. The cry morphed, turned into something akin to a dark laugh. His lips formed something about that Valhalla thing they all lusted after, and like elastic, he snapped forward and latched onto his weapon again.
The shot glanced off my left bicep. I actually felt the muscle and skin blast into a fine, bloody spray as my scratchy woven shirt ruptured around the bullet's path. They might as well have struck me down with the grille of their pickup. Felt the same. The force yanked me off my feet and sent me slamming rather ungracefully onto my back. Sand cushioned my fall, thankfully, but buried itself in my eyes and coated my lips. Blood leaked from the wound and weighed down my shirtsleeve. Shock numbed the pain, or it might've been adrenaline. I wasn't sure. Didn't matter. I flipped over onto my stomach as I swept the dirt in search of my gun, fingers gouging deep tracts in it.
There! My hand latched around the cold metal and I whipped it forward. Shots rang out from both directions, pinging off the ground and the grille of the Rig behind me. Furiosa had ditched her sniper rifle and was waving a Tommy gun around, spraying the pickup with rounds. Up close, I saw that it was an old Ford that might've been orange at some point in its life, with some crude but intimidating bladed supports bolted to the front end. They jutted like fangs bent at strange angles, and they were headed right towards me.
Sparks skipped across the rusted hood, blood spattered over what was left of the windscreen, and the pickup spun into an awkward skid to the right. Its rear end barreled towards me and I jumped at the opportunity to get a clear shot off, then two, then three, and saw the turret gunner's body thrash as he absorbed the bullets into his flesh.
A battle cry split he air in my immediate area as the War Boy hanging out the passenger's side window threw himself at me with his pale, pasty arms outstretched. I brought my gun up, sent a bullet into the chamber, tried to shoot. No time. He was on top of me before I even really knew what was going on. My head snapped to the side as he pounded a fist into my jaw, driving the side of my face into the sand as I collapsed under his weight.
He had a knife.
I deflected the swift downwards stroke of the blade by sweeping my elbow out and knocking his wrist out of its intended path. The flat side of the knife scraped me across the chest, the tip catching in my woven shirt as he collapsed forward with an arm on either side of me.
An uppercut to the underside of his jaw was enough to throw him off of me, and he howled, clutching his chin and spitting curses in my direction. I'd accidentally thrown my gun when I hit the ground. It lay in a little crater of sand a few meters away. With some difficulty I tossed myself back onto my feet and scrambled after it.
A sharp swing from both of the War Boy's feet knocked me back to the earth. My throat rattled with a surprised cry. The ground met my side without mercy, and stars exploded behind my vision as my head slapped the sand again. Just to make sure I was down, the Boy towered over me, hauled one leg back, then kicked at the base of my skull.
The sonuvabitch had on steel-toed boots!
Blood flowed into my mouth and dripped down the back of my throat as I lay there stunned. The sky, it had some clouds, but as I watched, the stars turned in perfect circles, everything was spinning, where's my gun, I need my gun, it's in my hand, okay now Max thumb back the hammer and take aim and then –
My assailant jerked around to the left as my poorly-aimed bullet nicked him in the side of the ribcage. Oh well. Better than wasting a shot. Head still swimming, I threw one leg out, then another, stood up. The soft sand didn't help the whole balance situation, let me tell you. I limped up to the poor bastard who grinned at me through chrome-stained lips and started to whisper something, but I was somehow able to put a bullet through his head and he lay still.
My sleeve felt hot, sticky. Furiosa seemed like she had the driver pinned down on her own, so I braved a glance at it. Blood. So much blood for such a tiny wound. I splayed my fingers over it, spreading the fabric so I could get a good look at the damage. Meaty muscle gleamed under a fine coat of blood, colorless in the dim starlight.
Furiosa screamed, a hoarse, raspy cry. Her gun cracked, and then suddenly it was all quiet. My ears rang. My arm stung. Tired muscles finally unwound, and my shoulders sagged, but I knew something wasn't right with me because the landscape rocked in a lazy motion, my eyes scrambled to find something solid to ground myself to…
"You okay?" She looked towards me. Her face was shadowed, but the way she was standing wasn't quite right. She favored her right leg, hip cocked at a strange angle.
I nodded, keeping my hand pressed over my shot arm as I holstered my pistol. "You?"
"I'll be fine. I stepped wrong. That's all." She frowned and came closer to me. "You're bleeding."
"Just a scratch." I shrugged her off and faced the War Rig. Nux seemed to know I was staring at him, because I saw his dark eye sockets peer over the top of the hood.
He waved a ratchet at us. "Going back together now," he declared. "It needs a new hose if we really want to keep the coolant in, but this should at least get us—"
"Do you hear that?" Furiosa threw up a hand. I squinted in the direction she was facing, trying to ignore the screeching tinnitus echoing in my ears and the way the sand dunes rolled like ocean waves.
Over the top of the dunes, there was dust. Dust in the air, and an engine screaming towards us.
I drew my pistol in the same instant that a second vehicle breached the top of the hill, all four wheels in the air so I got a nice view of its undercarriage. This one, it was a car. A boxy hatchback, a relic from another time. Swirl marks gleamed on the plated armor riveted to every available surface except the windscreen but even that was barred with thick metal beams. I fired blindly with the pistol, but my shots bounced uselessly off the reinforced steel coating the car's exterior.
Click. Click. No more bullets.
There was another clip in my pocket. At least, there should have been. I felt all over myself but turned up nothing. Cursing, I tossed the pistol to the side and threw myself at the shotgun I'd abandoned earlier. I think I got off two shots with it, I'm not sure, because suddenly I was very woozy, and my bad leg gave out, and my center of balance wasn't anywhere close to normal, and then I was on the ground again and there was a War Boy on top of me.
He took my shotgun.
I need that. I groped around for it, fueled by desperation and a biting will to live. The skeleton straddling me caught my wrist and bent it painfully over the top of my head. His face blurred into a white and black smear of paint on a deep blue canvas.
"NO!" Was that Furiosa? She sounded far away. I fought the War Boy and stared in her direction. There she was. Her eyes were wild and her mouth was open as she galloped in my direction, only to be cut off by a warrior leaping from the roof of the hatchback, pinned to the ground. He shoved a gun in her face. I thrashed when I saw that, even as my wrists were linked together in cuffs and I was dragged into a kneeling position with my arms pinned to the top of my head.
"Where are they?" The one holding Furiosa hissed, and she laughed in his face.
There was a flash of white from the War Rig's hood, a slamming of metal, and Nux scrambled like a spider back over to the door I'd left open. He swung the toolkit into the back and paused with a pale arm on the door, glaring wide-eyed at Furiosa, then to me.
"GO!" she screamed, and I think I did, too, because the Rig started up. The scouts ran after it, but they'd foolishly abandoned their car and found that they were much slower on foot. Nux put the Rig through her paces, and I watched, hopeless, fearful, as it lumbered off, picking up speed as it went away in a shroud of orange dust.
We all watched it go.