Hey everyone. This is my first fic, so I need your help to make the story better as I write it. I want you to please post reviews and give me your criticism. I don't care if it's a little grammar error or an entire chapter, if you see an issue please tell me. This story is super cool in my head and I don't want to ruin it with my lack of experience. I am also open to suggestions for all the little details of the story and the interactions Axle will have.


The sun was scorching the Earth below. There was no wind, none at all to bring relief from the heat, and without anything to give shade from his vantage point Axle sat baking in the sun. Yet he did not dare move, for below the hill he now resided was a wide road that sees traffic at all hours of the day and night. He was laying on the ground shirtless with his binoculars out, next to him was his custom 37 mm recoil-less anti-tank gun, it was loaded and set facing the road he was now watching.

It had been about five months since he began his journey south, and the farther he went, the harsher the land became. The heat from where he came was at least tolerable from just how far north he was, Michigan was what it was called before, But where he was now was almost uninhabitable. He now understood why the cannibals were, in fact, cannibals. It would be impossible to grow anything here. The water in the air couldn't condense because of this heat. They were at least able to grow things in the settlement back home with the lake water.

Axle took a swig from his canteen. His brown hair, now in long curls that stretched to just below his shoulders, was drenched in sweat. He had to keep brushing it back with his hand to keep it from hanging around his face and, therefore, increasing the heat. He had also started growing facial hair. It was thin, but it did have it's color. At least it wasn't patchy, that would drive him insane. If he wasn't already insane that is, he wasn't sure anymore. He cracked a smirk at his own grim humor.

With the binoculars to his eyes, Axle spotted a large sand cloud on the horizon. Without any wind to kick the terrain up, the cloud only meant one thing. His target was fast approaching. Axle quickly got behind his gun and traded the binoculars for the scope.

Axle had already used the rangefinder (again a gift from Francis) to get the distance from him to the road. He had to be careful, he was about 3,400 ft. (1 Km. or 1,133 m) from his target area and he only had 6 shells, 4 HE (high explosive) and 2 AP (armour piercing). He could not afford to miss. As the convoy finally came into view, Axle counted four vanguards with the main hauler.

The four cars were small but heavily armoured and would be intimidating to most, not him of course, but most. The hauler, however, was a mobile fortress, the workhorse at the head was an old 8-wheeled military APC, it was decorated to be the head of a snake so there was no doubt about it being his target. The APC was hauling what appeared to be trailers made out of buses. Each trailer was two buses fused side by side and equipped with various scrap plates on the sides. The four trailers were placed in a square rather than a line in order to form the foundation for the giant structure on top.

It was a horrendous tower of scrap formed to look like a king cobra with its hood outstretched. The whole vehicle was probably 2.5 stories tall and was easily twice the length of most war rigs. It was crowded too, a whole war party with at least 150 fighters if you include the cars below.

In the mouth of the cobra was the person he was looking for. He went by Fang-foot the fire breather. He was a nasty piece of work. His skin was overall wrinkly and burnt in several places. He had no hair and was missing a chunk of his left cheekbone. He had willingly cut off his feet to have rusty metal spikes as replacement. He had all his teeth plucked from his skull and replaced them with 4 silver fangs that sat where his canines would. And as Axle watched he understood where "fire breather" came from. Screwed into his chin was a little pilot light for the two fuel lines that ran through the flesh of his cheeks and sat inside his mouth.

Axle watched as they brought forth one of their prisoners. Fang-foot stood and said words that could not be understood from this distance, and with the press of a button on his left hand he opened his mouth and a stream of blue flame reached out and charred the prisoner to black. He then sat back down and proceeded to watch the man burn.

Disgusted by the cruelty he saw (and almost amused by the fact that they didn't know that snakes don't breathe fire), Axle prepared to take his shot as they came upon the impromptu firing range. Axle was just going to take out Fang-foot and bolt, but the display he saw hit a nerve and just pissed Axle off. So instead of the HE shell to the man's personal fuel tank, Axle preferred an AP shell to the whole rig's fuel tank.

The second's slowed down and he lined the sights up with where the fuel tank was supposed to be. He stilled his breath, and started to ever so slightly apply pressure to the trigger...The rig just reached the sweet spot. Axle blinked once and then

BOOM

BOOM!

Axle thought he had gone deaf from the crack of thunder that the gun made, but the resounding earthquake from the rig exploding reassured that his ears still worked.

The Rig was APC had been decimated, the trailers were now burning husks, and the cobra head. Well, It had flown nearly doubled its height and came crashing down in several tons of scrap.

Two of the cars around it were just about incinerated and one of them flew tail over head for nearly 7 seconds before crashing down into a ball of flame. The last car which was far ahead of the pack had come to a dead stop and its passengers started searching through the wreckage in hopes to find Fang-foot.

Axle prepared to load an HE shell just in case he WAS still alive. He wasn't going to leave this job unfinished, after all, it was Fang-foot who led the attack on his home. But as the lackeys pulled a charred body out of the mess they started to scream and curse. The corpse had silver fangs in it's mouth, but other than that, there were no recognizable features.

After confirming his kill, Axle quickly packed up the rifle and safely stored its ammo. He started the big block and had the throttle wide open for the whole way down the hill. The runts quickly realized they were being ambushed and tried to make it back to the last car.

They never should have left it to begin with.

Axle's charger had hit eye watering speed as he plowed into the first person. He put the brake pedal to the floor and even yanked up the emergency brake to bring the car to a stop. Axle whipped the nose around and made a beeline to their vehicle instead of them. He stopped just feet away from it and jumped out. The "snake children" as they call themselves, broke out into a sprint once they realized what he intended to do.

Axle had maybe 30 seconds before they reached him. He snatched the gas cans first and then prepared the siphon. But he was interrupted before he began stealing the gas straight from the tank. He turned just in time to counter the swing of a mace with a right hook. The owner of the weapon lay dead after having four inch long bolts driven through his skull. Aside from him were five others who now stood in a half circle in front of Axle, they were… Hissing at him. At least they got that about snakes right.

As Axle cracked his knuckles, the third one, the oldest of the group, spoke. "Your dead meet you are, no scales. Our great leader, Blood-Tail the immortal is almost upon us. He will make your death slooow and torturous to avenge our children." he finished by drawing a human rib bone fashioned with a cloth handle.

Axle paused and nonchalantly replied with "Thanks for the heads up". He then followed that with a quick draw of the 1911 and quickly put a round through each of them.

Axle didn't like wasting ammunition, but if what the man said was true then he simply couldn't screw around. So with that done, Axle quickly began to siphon as much gas as he could put in his charger's own tank. It was at about three quarters full when the second, and much MUCH larger, cloud had formed up.

Axle picked up the pace but there was only so much he could do with a hand pump. He also could not leave the tank partway full, It was still original to the car so it could not hold as much as the tanks of the modified cars, He needed as much fuel as the tank could hold. After closing the gas cap, Axle turned around and was filled with dread by what he saw.

Hundreds if not thousands of vehicles were heading his way. Axle didn't bother stowing the pump, he just brought it in the front seat with him. Thankfully he left the car running because as soon as he had matched their pace, they were a mere stone's throw behind him.

He drew more attention to himself than he thought. He tried his best to remain inconspicuous in his information gathering. He only asked those who were against blood-tail and his clans if they knew anything that would help kill the tyrant. And he never confronted groups of snakes if he wasn't sure that he could kill em' all. Someone must have ran their mouth when they weren't supposed to. Not surprising though, A young man with a decked out machine and strange accent shows up and starts asking about convoy routes and what warlord lives where would turn more than a few heads.

As Axle shifted into fourth gear, The charger started to pull away. This victory was short lived as the faster cars of the snake army revealed themselves. They all had practically no armour and limited weaponry and were built with the sole purpose of speed. They were making suicide runs to cancel Axle's headway.

They all failed in stopping him as his car was better built for fighting. The charger weighed at least twice as much as these little rattle-boxes, which allowed Axle to push them around with ease. But because he had to fight them, the charger's speed suffered. He couldn't pull away because that would leave him open for attack.

There was a moment when Axle was too focused on fighting and some of the heavier bruisers caught up. He had narrowly avoided getting caught by a spear gun that was obviously designed for larger vehicles and would've torn his ride apart.

For what seemed like hours but only could've been minutes, Axle Struggled to stay ahead of the main force whilst battling the runners. He needed to escape quickly. He couldn't try for the dunes, his car would get bogged down just as badly as the cars chasing him, and then he really would be dead meat. Then up ahead he saw a large boulder. It was nothing special, just a rock a ways off the right side of the road. The only reason he saw it was because there was no cloud of sand in front of him. everyone else was blinded .

That's when he had found his salvation. With the sight of that rock he realized what he had to do. Axle's plan relied on too many assumptions to be really called a plan, but he didn't want to spare any thought on thinking of another word for it.

After dodging yet another attempt at stopping him, Axle punched the gas and tried to get as much distance between him and his pursuers as possible, He needed enough dust to fly up for this to work. When he was satisfied with the cloud and the rock was less than a quarter mile away, Axle turned left hard and made his way towards the rock. His dust trail would give away where he was going, but that wasn't the point. He barely had enough time to slam on the brakes and tuck in close behind the rock.

The war party had seen him go left, but they didn't see the rock. The rock was larger than he first thought, about the size of a shipping container, or a bus maybe. The ones immediately behind Axle had seen what he did (the ones that didn't ram straight into the rock) and turned around at just the right time. Well for him at least.

A loud screech of metal could be heard as the front right wheel from the second largest rig in the war party hit the rock. The entire right side of the "Earth Quaker" class behemoth shot upwards higher than it was ever supposed to go. The rig itself was GARGANTUAN, being made from various construction vehicles, including three cranes whose purpose was unknown to him, and a literal four story building that had served as the mobile citadel. How they even managed to build a monster like that was beyond him. The only rig bigger than that was Blood-Tail's personal land crawler.

But what really topped it off was the fact that the rock had forced the rig to turn right. Even as the rig rode on on the left wheels only, the vehicle turned right. As if in slow motion, the entire structure, and all hundreds of tons and a thousand or so occupants, rolled. It all came crashing down on several dozens of the vehicles chasing Axle. The only reason Axle wasn't crushed was because of the sheer weight that the vehicle was carrying. It had just enough forward momentum to force the vehicle to continue forward by just a car's length past the Charger.

Shortly after it's collapse the rig's fuel reserves ignited and a roar that equaled thunder emanated from the debris. The smoke, coupled with the dust thrown up by the crash, created a blinding wall of black that was pierced only by the inferno that had become of the Quaker. The entire procession that had been chasing Axle was forced to stop dead in it's tracks, creating total confusion among the various ranks of the warlord's force.

As the rest of the convoy started to asses the damage, Axle shot out from behind the rock. His plan was to quickly escape by heading the opposite direction before anyone could find out that he survived. To Axle's dismay, the dust cloud had forced him to slow down to a crawl in order to weave between the chaos. But as he drove farther back, Axle realized he was indeed in the clear before he even reached the back of the pack.

All the vehicles behind the front line likely had no idea that he was what they were chasing. In fact, They couldn't have known. There was no time for the leaders to inform the rest of the horde of what they were chasing.

Axle's theory was proven true when he passed two cars far in the back that were parked. The two drivers were outside talking to each other and watching the chaos.

"- flipped? How could that Quaker flip? I can't imagine what kind of death machine could flip somethin' that big." The first one said while leaning against the front of his small buggy.

"There's a few rigs I could think of, but we were chasin' it, and fer awhile too. Nothin' that fast could also do sum'in like that. Ey, look there, That's a fine race machine if I eva' seen one, need me one o' those I do." The Second commented. Axle believed him, His ride was ready to snap in half from the rust.

Axle drove behind one of the larger rigs to not cause suspicion and then gunned it when no one was looking. That was way too close. He has had run-ins with hunting parties and scavengers before and had little trouble, but he had never seen one that large. If that rock wasn't there- wait, no.

He was not going to think about what could've happened, He needed to look ahead and plan his next attack, He needed to find a way to kill Blood-tail. He had dealt a serious blow (be it by chance) to the snake's forces. He figured that it would take them a while for them to deal with the wreckage so he decided to take a detour and head for Blood-Tail's camp. He needed to scout it out and create a plan that would eradicate the snakes once and for all.

- Several hours later outside Blood-Tail's citadel -

Axle had already finished scouting the perimeter of the fortress and was spying the internals from far away. He now understood why the snakes could construct the war machines he had seen. Their citadel was built within a factory that was in the process of being built when the oceans receded. The snakes were cunning enough to repair the old equipment instead of scrapping it all, they had the capability to build any kind of machine, be it a small buggy or a colossal dune crawler.

Blood-tail had the sense to send a portion of his war party back to reinforce those who had stayed to guard their dwelling. Axle had positioned himself far away from the walls. Even so, he was thankful of his car's color scheme, If not for the black paint he would have never dared to get as close as he was now, the night concealed him well. Axle's attention was drawn to a fleet of tanker trucks near the main building, it appeared that this is where they kept the convoy trucks when they weren't doing their fuel runs. Axle was taking note of this when an aged but smooth voice spoke behind him.

"Have you not filled your desire for blood, young warrior?" Axle spun around and put his fist up before his pencil even dropped onto the hood of his car.

Who Axle saw in front of him was not what he had expected. A thin, old man with leathery skin stood in front of him. The man wore padded pants that were tucked into heavy black boots, In place of a shirt was a tattered burgandy scarf with a small satchel hanging from his neck, He wore large round goggles that hid his eyes and a gray hood that would sheild his face from the sun if it were daylight. But the most eye catching thing about him ws the large pack on his back that resembled a turtle shell, though being made of mostly cloth (on the outside at least), the pack seemed heavy, as the carrier was hunched from carrying it.

Axle didn't know if he was with the snakes and he did not want to wait for reinforcements to see if he was, Axle simply did NOT want to deal with this. "Who are you?" Axle said with more than a little bite behind his words.

The man raised his hands and stopped his advance but did not seem unsettled by Axle's hostility. "I am a friend to those who tread the wastes alone, like you. They simply know me as Griffa, and just like the others I offer you guidance, But I offer you something more as well"

Axle shifted his feet slightly for better balance but otherwise did not change his stance. "Why should I believe you? Why would you ever have any reason to help me?"

Griffa then lowered his arms some and pointed at axle "I offer you help because you were robbed. You were given a chance to lead a life that this world has forgotten, but that chance was taken from you, Those survivors of the old world had promised you a life that still sung of humanity, of justice, of joy, of love. But the wasteland denied you that life and punished those who sought to resurrect the old ways."

Without knowing it, Axle had relaxed some while listening to Griffa, who was now circling axle during his speech. "In your rage induced hunt you have traveled far from your home and found yourself in the cruelest of lands, wreaking havoc along the forsaken roads which you now wander. Already the wasteland whispers of the legendary road warrior who brings with him the promise of a war lord's death."

Griffa stopped circling and now stood in front of Axle. "The question is, however, Is this what you want? Your vengeance tells you to kill, but what does your heart say? What does it whisper in your ear? Or can't you hear it anymore?

Axle put his fists down and gave his answer. "I will kill Blood-Tail, Nothing else matters."

Griffa frowned and brought his hand to his pocket. "Your answer is one that should belong to someone with nothing left dear to them, Yet you have more than most. You are an oddity, Young warrior. You were born an orphan of this wasteland and a child of the old world. You carry yourself as if you don't belong here, whether you realize it or not. You are a living remnant of the old world, destined to never fit in this one. So this is my gift to you. I give you a new life, one where you will have the chance to live a life better than any that this world could've ever offered. Leave your anger here and begin anew." Before Axle could react, Griffa brought up his hand and blew a substance from it.

As he blacked out and began to fall, Griffa caught him and began to drag Axle. Convinced that he had been drugged and he was now about to lose his car and everything in it, Axle felt his rage flare up again. It was short lived however as he began to listen to the song that had emerged from his memories, It was "peaceful easy feeling" being sung by Francis when Axle,who was nine at the time, had asked him about the guitar case in the corner. Quite ironic considering the circumstances. Axle's mind finally shut down as he entered a deep slumber.

Griffa placed Axle in his car and quietly shut the door. "May you live, for those who couldn't." Griffa turned around and began to walk away. After a few steps he looked back, but instead of black supercharged speed demon with a driver snoozing in its seat, there was just empty space, without even the slightest hint of what had just occurred.


The next chapter will take place in Remnant, It will also be from someone else's point of view. I wonder if anyone can guess whose it will be. Anyways, please leave a review so I can make the story better, Thank you!

P.S. I don't really know how this site works yet so please tell me if I put the author notes in the wrong spot.