Mad Max: Road to Salvation: Volume 3
Episode 61: Shadow of Vulk PT 3
A/N: I apologize for the further delays of the story. This was difficult to write and I apologize for any drop in quality. BTW, anybody have any ideas why I've lost so many readers when compared to the other volumes? It it the volume format that's doing that? Otherwise it's good to know I have some loyal readers continuing to support this tale.
[Dungeon Wyrm: Thanks!]
[Helljumper206: Well spoken Helljumper!]
[Wombag1786: I see what ya mean. Get ready for the big payback!]
[Ronmr: Oh he will.]
[Dragonbluejay1: Thanks, I tried my best to find the perfect moment for that quote. You guessed it what's going to happen!]
[Guest: There's no where to run when a man of Max's conviction is out for blood.]
[Lordofuselessness: Message received, commencing orbital resupply drop. Coordinates are as follows [REDACTED]. Enjoy the special delivery!]
-VALE PARK-
"So what's it going to be? Are ya too soft now to fight me? Living in this place has made you scrawny and weak." Stump grinda said in a condescending manner as he hefted a blade covered sledgehammer over his shoulder.
"Here's how this is going to go, Stumpy. I'm going to break you bones, rip your throat out, and cave in your skull. Then I'm going to kill all your cronies and get my little sis back." Bruz growled through gritted teeth as he unholstered his blaster from a hidden pouch on his back.
"Now that sounds like the old you." Stump Grinda chuckled.
"Who said I ever changed? But as word of warning, leave my friends out of this. What's going on here is between you and me." Bruz turned his head to his downed comrades while still keeping an eye on Stumpy.
"Heh, warning?! That's rich! But fine, when I'm done gutting you, that new crew of yours is next!" Stump Grinda complied and nodded to his thugs. "Alright boys, rip him apart!" He shouted as he pointed the hammer in Bruz's direction.
"You're going to have to get through me first!" The raging dingo faunus charged forward and headbutted a thug before blasting his head clean off. He swapped to the scattergun mode and blasted a group of thugs backwards, their walking corpse lighting on fire from the fire dust blast. Bruz barely sidestepped a swing from Stump Grinda's sledgehammer. The hammer impacted the ground with a loud slam that devasted the concrete of the path beneath it. Bruz fired a shell at the larger boy, causing him to stumble a bit in pain. The dingo faunus grinned at the obvious weakness and began firing shell after shell at his opponent.
"You've got so much explaining to do when this is over, Bruz!" Weiss exclaimed as she stood back up and began to fight off a group of thugs that tried rushing the heiress.
"Yeah you do!" Blake shouted in agreement with her teammate. The cat fauns used her whip to fling two thugs at Weiss. To which the Heiress delivered a punishing response with he rapier.
Krel swung his hammer in circular motion, clearing away five thugs with audible snaps from their bones. "There's always SOMETHING with you kids!" He immediately backhanded another goon to the side with ease before turning to face the teens. "How are you kids holding up?!"
Bruz leapt over the brute's hammer and delivered an axe to his head. Stump grinda stumbled backwards but mangaged to recover quickly and yanked Bruz out of the air and flung him to the ground in quick fashion. A powerful stomp to the chest knocked the wind out of the young dingo's lungs. With a howl of anger he managed to force Stumpy's boot off of him just before the blood thirsty brute could finish him off.
"Just fine! The rest of ya handle the thugs, but stay out of my brawl! This is between Stumpy and me!" Bruz replied as he and the bulky killer exchanged hits.
Bruz rolled onto his belly and made a swift attempt to stand back up. Stump Grinda charged at his former friend in a blood fueled rage and sung the sold steel hammer as if it were golf club. Bruz darted out of the way and moved to counter the attack with a swift assault of rapid punches. Despite Bruz's efforts though, Stump Grinda seemed to take the hits quite well.
"Who in their right mind names themselves Stumpy?!" Krel shouted while he held back another wave of thugs with his hammer in gun mode.
"I'll tell ya later!" Bruz responded as he jumped back out of Stumpy's reach.
"IT"S STUMP GRINDA!" The brute howled at the older faunus. " Old man, after I squash this runt you're next!"
"Hey focus on me ya wanker!" Bruz barked furiously. He hurled a sizeable rock at Stumpy's head to emphasize the importance of their conflict.
"Don't worry, you're the whole reason I'm here, hahahaha." Stumpy cackled psychotically. "NOW DIE!"
In midst of the brawl the other fighters continued their battle against the hired thugs the brute had hauled along with him. "Sally watch your back!" Weiss alerted the bat girl.
"What?" Sally shouted back. "Whoa!" She exclaimed as crazed bandit leapt by her.
Weiss lunged past and behind Sally and managed to stop a downward strike from another thug with a hammer. The heiress then blasted him away with a burst of fire dust that bowled over several other thugs in the process.
"Thanks popsicle!" Sally said as she slashed three thugs in a row with her buster blade.
"Don't mention it Loudmouth!" Weiss replied as countered a baton strike and took down another thug.
"Whatever Ice Queen!" Sally retorted as she kicked a man in the chin and slammed flat edge of her blade into the torso of another.
"Now's not the time, both of you!" Blake scolded the two quarreling girls while she dealt with six enemies at once.
"Fine!" Both girls shouted simultaneously as they stood back to back. The two fighters fought off their attackers with combined attacks from Weiss's rapier and Sally's chaingun fire.
Blake whipped her weapon around and flung some more of the attackers into a nearby gourp attacking her fellow students. She gritted her teeth at the sight of just how many men the demented brute had brought with him. They seemed to flood the surrounding area, though their numbers were dropping considerably as the group of fighters stood their ground and fought them off. Blake knew this couldn't last much longer and tookinto consideration the words of Stump Grinda. An idea formed in her mind and hailed her fellow female faunus. "Hey Sally!" She called out the bat girl.
"Little busy kitty!" Sally replied as she fired a barrage at the dwindling group of thugs.
"You need to scream again!" Blake told her.
"Are you serious?!" Sally responded.
"Your sonic scream, do it again!" Blake ordered.
"Just do it!" Weiss urged the bat faunus.
Titus bashed a thug to the ground with the butt of his automatic rifle. "Sister, do it now!" ordered to his younger sibling .
"Everyone, Cover your ears!" Sally shouted as she took a deep breath.
"Don't let her cry!" Stump Grinda barked in fear, but he was too late give the order as Sally had begun to wail her sonic screech.
Everyone attempted to shield themselves as the powerful sound wave hit. The sheer intensity of it pounded the air like a freight train that collided with a mountain. Stump Grinda and the remainder of his horde dropped to their knees and writhed in agonizing pain from the earsplitting wall of sound. Bruz struggled along the ground as he crawled towards his enemy in order to deliver the killing blow.
Sally had provided him with a golden opportunity to finish the fight quickly if he could make to Stump Grinda in time to slit his throat. One of the thugs, slowly drew his gun and steadied himself before aiming his shot. The shot managed to hit Sally in the shoulder and caused enough damage to her weakened aura to shatter it and send her stumbling backwards. With her concentration lost, and the wind knocked out of her by the shot, Sally ended her screaming and dropped to knees. With Sally no longer screeching both sides had begun to recover from the effects.
Bruz sucked in a puff of air and leapt at his enemy. "This ends now!" He shouted fiercely and bashed into stump grinda's side with his shoulder and stepped back to aim the blaster.
"Grragh!" Stump Grinda growled in pain as turned back to face his opponent. "Then come here ya little pest, your death will make me a legend in the cages!" He pointed the crude tool of destruction at the object of his hatred.
"Legend?! I did my time in that hellhole and got out! How would that make you a legend?!" Bruz snorted at Stumpy's twisted reasoning.
The brutish mercenary charged Bruz again and barely missed his devastating swing, even taking a shot to the shoulder in the process. Forced to get in close, the both of them locked into a struggle of wills. "You escaped at my expense! Heh, You were the fiercest brawla in the pen and you're the one that got away!" Stump grinda roared while he pressed down on his opponent.
"Didn't you tell me to run ya moron?!" Bruz countered with a headbutt and followed up with a brutal punch to Stumpy's skull that forced the small giant to stumble back again.
With his aura broken by the screech and the force of Bruz's punch bloody tears began to drip from the eyes of his mask. "Hah *cough*I also told ya to come back for me, but ya left me to rot instead. But it doesn't matter anyway, what matters is that Vulk taught us. It's survival of the fittest and by killing you I'd get to call myself the champion." The brute chuckled in a dark tone and smeared dripping blood into demented smile across his mask. "And your little sister is going to make the boss a very powerful man."
That struck Bruz with the force of a thousand pound explosive. He rushed Stump Grinda and pinned him to the ground. The enraged dingo boy began to viciously beat the living tar out of his former friend. "The day hell freezes over is the day Vulk harms a hair on her head." He whispered in a low hiss.
"If you want a chance to stop him, then kill me! Prove you haven't gone soft!" Stumpy howled madly.
"I never went soft." Bruz unholstered his gun again and pointed it at the twisted top dog's forehead. His fellow student and Krell rushed over to him after they'd dealt with the rest of the defeated thugs.
"Bruz that's enough, let the Police-" Weiss started to tell him but she was interrupted.
*BANG*
A small pile of skull bits exploded where the deceased top dog's skull had been. "Why did you kill him?! What's wrong with you?!" Weiss screeched in horror. Sally and Titus stood dead silent in shock at what their teammate had just done.
"He wanted to die." Bruz replied coldly.
"You murdered him in cold blood, it was over!" Weiss screamed in his ear.
"That was mercy." The dingo faunus re-holstered his weapon and stood up. "Didn't you hear a single word that came out of his mouth?" Bruz looked at her with a dark thousand yard stare replacing his usual grin.
She shook slightly at the look of utter fury on his face. She steeled herself and attempted to argue with him. "He was your friend!"
"Stumpy died long before I put a bullet in his skull." Bruz said in an almost remorseful tone.
"He could've had more information." Blake stood with her teammate but couldn't brigng herself to feel anger at Bruz for what he'd done.
"Hmph, Vulk doesn't tell his thugs anything they don't need to know. I know that better than you ever will. As far I'm concerned my 'friend' Stumpy died helping me long before he turned into this... thing. What I fought and put down was just his howling corpse." The dingo faunus coldly replied. "Now let's go get my little sis back." Bruz said in ruthless tone as he turned to walk away from the headless corpse.
"Bruz-" Blake reached out her hand.
"Keep buggin' me about it and you'll get a bullet." He growled at her.
-LATER: OZPIN'S OFFICE-
"Max I understand that your daughter has been kidnapped-" Ozpin attempted to soothe the wrathful man.
"Help me or get out of my way Ozpin." Max said stoically.
"To the point as always. I don't need to remind you that a rampage through the city is the last thing we need at this point in time." The wise headmaster cautioned with a sigh.
"Officer Rockatansky, I can say that I agree with Ozpin. Though I have received a call from some… influential figures in Atlas about a VIP or two being assaulted." General Ironwood added.
"What do you know, General?" Max turned his focus to the military man.
"Morta Vulk is who we believe to be behind this." He replied.
"Tell me where he is!" Max arrogantly demanded.
"We don't know yet! And you rampaging through the city will get you nowhere! If anything he will more than enjoy your efforts of trying to find him from what my analysts suggest." Ironwood stood his ground despite the toxic nature of the livid Max.
"He has my daughter!" Max seethed with fury.
"And I understand that. But you will ONLY make this harder than it needs to be! You don't understand how cunning this man really is. For every successful arrest you make, every step you will take. Vulk will always appear to be 10 steps ahead of you." The general retorted.
"I've killed worse... and I cannot allow him to escape with my daughter. Criminals like that never keep their word. He called me and made a vague promise that I would see my daughter and her friend." Max explained in further detail what had occurred at his wife's home.
"Then I hope to Oum that you are successful. Many like you have tried and failed to stopping him." Ozpin chimed in from his desk.
"Nothing will stop me." Max told both men.
"We shall see. Now if you excuse me. I need to alert my officers of the situation at hand." The general said spitefully.
"DO that, and tell me when you find him. I'm going to rip his spine out when you do." Max ruthlessly growled to the man from Atlas.
"Then I suggest you restrain yourself by not blowing up half the of city. We are dealing with enough problems as things currently stand." General Ironwood ordered the feral man.
"You expect me to wait while my daughter rots." Max looked the general directly in the eyes, a savage burning within them.
"I didn't say that." The General responded weakly, having flinched at Max's utter conviction.
"Then what do you expect me to do?" Max hissed.
"To just..." James pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration and then turned face his fellow headmaster. "Ozpin. Keep him in check if you can."
"That will be quite difficult given the current circumstances, general." Ozpin replied.
"If you're not going to assist me, then I WILL tear this city apart to find him…" Max "*sigh* Once again, the only one I know I can depend on is myself." The road warrior growled and turned to walk t the elevator.
"Now that is something I take offense to. Give us time Max, we will find him and your daughter." Ozpin stood up, sporting an irritated look on his face.
"You would have me show restraint to a man who doesn't deserve mercy. I'm wasting my time here." Max walked towards the elevator.
"Max! You can't just go out on a killing spree!" General scolded the wrathful wastelander.
"...watch me." Max replied coldly as he stepped inside the elevator, the door shut right behind him.
Ironwood turned to face Ozpin. "Ozpin, I implore you to detain him. He will cause more damage and lost lives than there needs to be!"
"James... I agree that we must try. But a man with his focus in that state of anger will be nearly impossible to stop." Ozpin replied.
"So help me, If there are any civilian casualties..." The general pointed to the elevator. "By Oum, I will be forced to stop him."
"For now let's hope not." Oz said calmly.
As Max exited the elevator, he felt a presence. He was prepared to draw his shotgun until he heard a familiar voice.
"How did things go?" Mari appeared from the shadows, bearing a look of determination and anger on her face.
"How you'd expect them to. I take it your assignment is to get in my way." He replied.
"It was...but that monster beat my wife to near death, and took her son. I'd be more than happy to help you track him down and splatter his brains all over the wall." she replied darkly.
"Good, we have work to do." Max grunted.
"Let's get started then." She grinned.
Max nodded in agreement and proceeded towards the garage, Mari followed closely behind him.
"Where do we hit first." The fox faunus asked friend.
"That's why I came to Ozpin, but there are other sources of information." Max said in an all business tone.
"Junior's maybe? He's bound to know something." She offered.
"Hmph, follow me." Max agreed.
-END CHAPTER-