Standard disclaimers.
A character developing piece.
It was mid morning on a nondescript summer's day in the Wasteland of Spectra. This part of the waste was random trees, patched with meadows. Not quite forests and too covered for grassland. Wind blew gently though the grass, birds sang cheerily in the trees. Winding though this semi forest was a greenway, an ancient track that had never been replaced with something solid. Aside from a few major highways and railways, these tracks were really the only roads in the Waste. Once they had been important roads joining ancient cities. Now the cities of the most ancient human civilisation in the galaxy were in ruins. Few used the roads.
Underneath the trees stood a figure that looked like a piece of the dark night brought to the day. The apparition's head was concealed by a great black helm, sporting a beaklike visor that curved down in a raptor snarl. What little of his face that could be seen was covered in a mangy brown beard. A tag of greasy hair protruded at the back of the helmet.
The Blackbird twisted his head back and forth; he had been waiting some time, and was getting stiff. He ruffled the long cape of wrinkled leathery material on his back, his wings in their flaccid, inactive state. Lean muscles strained against the polymorphic material of his Hawkstyle. Over that was a tunic of shaggy sloth hide naturally armoured with bony nodules in the leather. A wise addition in light of his razor sharp talons. The drabness of his colouration was broken in only a few places, the blue stripes bordered with a thin line of yellow on his helmet, boot and glove tops were also picked out in blue. The undersides of the wings were a light grey like a real birds would have been.
At the Blackbirds side hung a few random and mismatched pouches, a heavy knife and what looked like a flail. He stood under the trees, idly slapping a Spectran army assault rifle against his sable flank.
"What a bunch of jammy snots!" He turned to the person standing just behind him.
His companion was female, slim but still of good build. She wore scuffed black motorcycle boots over leather trousers the colour of aged red wine. She was a Devil Star; one of the other fabled Spectran elite. When Blackbirds and Devil stars hunted together trouble was found. The woman carried her fur fringed leather jacket (supposed to be matching the trousers but not quite) over one shoulder.
Underneath she sported a bondage T-shirt of titanium mesh on her appropriately endowed but still muscular form. Her arms were sturdy, sinews bulging over lean flesh. The blonde woman wore no helmet. She had left it back at her motorcycle; a grim blue mask concealed her face. Only the Chosen Elite of the Luminous One wore His sacred colour. The blue of His revealed image.
Like her winged comrade, the Devil Star carried a standard issue assault rifle, scratched up, with notches on the stock denoting kills. A weasel tail decorated the barrel.
Like the Blackbirds, the Devil Star was quietly observing the cavalcade of people on the greenway. Some walked, others rode horses, a few had carriages. The lack of motorised transport identified them plainer than a banner would.
"Pilgrims," the woman spat on the ground. "I wanted better sport than this!"
The Blackbird shook his head silently; he himself had already had good sport. The two small bands of elite had met by one of the ley stones of the wilderness. They had been meant to be planning joint manoeuvres but instead spent the evening and most of the night in drinking home brewed ale from leather jacks and happily coupling under the nebula wreathed sky. This was not what their superiors had intended, of course. It would result in stern faces and harsh words during debrief. If the practice went awry, it would end in a lot worse than that. But by and large the Elite got away with such undisciplined behaviour. They were savages from the wasteland, and better was not expected of them. The priests were more concerned with results than by the book methodology.
"Do you think He will be mad at us for robbing pilgrims?" He asked.
"I have no doubt." She replied grimly.
There were various unpleasant chastisements for breaking the Great Ones word. The Captains all carried heavy knouts. This was not just for show, as their subordinates marked skins bore mute witness to.
Another popular penalty was being stripped naked and hunted like a runaway slave. Everybody endured this several times during their initiation, but it was so indignified to be chased around by madly laughing comrades and lollopy drooling dogs. Nobody went though that any more than they could help it, -not unless there was a real reward.
The Blackbird paused, he decided better. "Not today."
His blue masked friend nodded. "No, not today."
The Blackbird gave a feral grin of yellowed teeth. "Not today...Lets scare them."
The pilgrims were very much startled when two wildly yelling apparitions burst out of the tree shadows and leapt bodily into their path.