Mad Max: Road to Salvation
Episode 9: Learning Curve
A/N: I intend to stand by the decision that has already been made, but I may have a solution to this that may prove to be even better. Just stick with me and read the story, please. I make no promises though.
[Guest 1: You are correct, she is blind.]
[Guest 2: Thank you for being understanding about that, Max has to be where all the action is.]
[Slim A Lou prime: She did.]
[Reluctant saint: Thank you for the Idea.]
[SilentType1997: Too late, but you are correct it doesn't.]
[Review Dude: Dude you are so very correct, besides Glynda took the win.]
[Witness Me: Yes I will continue, but no the harem doesn't suit old Max.]
[gold crown dragon: if you want me be more specific then well PM me. Otherwise, I have an open door policy.]
[Baron bolt: I thought so at first too, but then I really took the time to research Max.]
[SilentXD7: Yes it's better that Glynda gets the role.]
[Guest 3: Too late.]
[buzzsaw935: oh yes they do, just do the research and you'd see.]
[Guest 4: its where the action is.]
[Guest 5: Max doesn't need to be with her to change her mind.]
[6 Finger: I'm thinking about him.]
[Guest 6: They are, the vote's done.]
[Just walk Away: Nux had his ass kicked over and over, then he just needed a nudge in the right direction. That's what I believe, and Raven doesn't need to be with Max for her to get a similar nudge.]
[Guest 7: just wait and see.]
[Guest 8: yes that will be very cute.]
[SilentType1997: Like the idea, I really do, but without the designer's permission I'd be in a deep pile of ...]
"Oz, it's me." Qrow said over an encrypted channel.
"How is your progress so far, Qrow? Have you managed to find the Road Warrior?" Ozpin asked his field man.
"I did Oz, he's good, really good." Qrow praised the skills of his target.
"Has he accepted the invitation?" Ozpin asked calmly.
"About that…" Qrow scratched the back of his neck.
"I suspected this." Ozpin sighed.
"Not my fault he's good at getaways." Qrow snapped.
"I never said it was. Either way, have you managed to at least learn anything about him?" Ozpin chuckled, and the he asked Qrow for intel on the Road Warrior.
"Mostly what we already knew, but I did see a few new things that stuck out." Qrow started his report.
"Oh?" Ozpin raised an eyebrow.
"Besides being grouchy as hell, the guy fights like a cop, a damn good one. He even ties pretty good restraints like a rural cop would. Hell, he even drinks like a veteran street cop. He also travels with two kids as well as that dog from the video." Qrow explained his gathered intelligence on the road warrior.
"Yet I have perused the files, and he is not on any known law enforcement database that even I have access to." Ozpin said stoically.
"He doesn't strike me as a ghost, especially with the two ankle biters riding shotgun." Qrow gave his opinion.
"From what you've said I'm inclined to agree. It seems more like he's running from something besides us and everyone else." Ozpin surmised.
"Then just where in Oum's name did he come from and what is he running from?" Qrow asked in frustration.
"We'll just have to ask him." Ozpin said flatly.
"Last time I did that I ended getting a face full of flaming buckshot while I was chasing him, not to mention eating the asphalt face first after that." Qrow grumbled about his encounter with Max.
"Keep trying Qrow, I'm sure you'll succeed in time." Ozpin said faithfully.
"I never said I was giving up." Qrow smirked.
"That's the spirit." Ozpin said with some cheer.
"But just how am I going to get him to open up and listen if doesn't even want to be anywhere near me?" Qrow crossed his arms.
"I spoke to the mayor of Riverdale-Junction, and he told me something I found to be slightly enlightening." Ozpin brought new information to light.
"Care to share Oz?" Qrow asked the wise headmaster.
"The man doesn't consider himself a hero, and the mayor only got him to stay longer by offering for him to receive a reward." Ozpin said stoically.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Qrow said slightly annoyed with old news.
"It means he might be willing to make a deal with us." Ozpin stated the point.
"What have you got up your sleeve this time Ozpin?" Qrow furrowed his brow.
"We give him what he wants." Ozpin said.
"We don't even know what that is!" Qrow snapped.
"We know he wants to be left in peace." Ozpin listed the first option.
"That's obvious, I have a gut feeling we're going to need to bring more to the table than that. If we don't do better than he might come looking for us, and I have the sinking feeling he'll tear up continent to get to the bottom of this." Qrow deadpanned.
"Sanctuary and a better future for those children is another thing to offer as well." Ozpin said coolly.
"Still probably not enough." Qrow knew it would take a lot more.
"It will have to suffice for now Qrow." Ozpin told the dusty old crow.
"I hear ya Oz." Qrow accepted it.
"Qrow I have also received scattered reports of Raven sightings." Ozpin alerted his associate.
"What the hell is she doing out here?!" Qrow growled.
"Probably the same thing we are." Ozpin stated the obvious.
"Figures my psychotic sister would go after the guy who beat her harder than a rock star's snare drum at a concert." Qrow shook his head.
"Quite right, so we just have to find him before she does as well." Ozpin advised Qrow.
"That guy just doesn't seem to find any peace." Qrow felt sorry for the road warrior.
"While I would not wish to continue harassing him, he'll be far safer standing with us than he would alone." Ozpin reminded Qrow of the stakes.
"I get that, well time for round 2." Qrow stretched himself out.
"Good luck Qrow." Ozpin said to his field operative.
"Afraid that isn't my semblance Oz. Qrow out." Qrow smirked as he hung up the call. He transformed into his crow form and followed the highway from the air. He saw the still fresh tire tracks from Max's interceptor heading towards the coast. Qrow flew for quite some time as he followed Max's trail along the road. Eventually he discovered the old shipwreck Max was using for a base for the time being. He perched himself over a hole on top of the lift gate. He saw Max siting in his easy chair, watching Bruz work on the interceptor, while Anya played with the dog.
Qrow then turned his attention to the nearby ridge and spotted his sister. She hadn't noticed him yet so he took the opportunity to get a bird's eye view of the situation. Raven turned her back to the ship and kept thinking to herself about the whole ordeal. That man had beaten her once, and he seemed like one to follow through on his threats. She hadn't forgotten the fact that he had held a gun to her head, and allowed her to live. Was it worth her life to satisfy the craving?
She remembered her more practical reason for tracking him down, and that was to retrieve her weapon. The words he had spoken rang through her head as if he were saying them again. "I survive because I'm strong, you're weak because you slaughter." She tried to figure out what it meant. Then Raven considered that he meant he survived because he simply cared about himself. But there he was with two children and a pet. Her thoughts drifted back to Yang, Summer, and Taiyang. She had thrown it all away for a reason, hadn't she? She had her people to lead, and yet she was here not there. Qrow landed on a dead tree near Raven and eyed his sister. They had both found the man they were chasing, all either of them had to do was make a move to speak with him. Then a strange man walked up the path, he carried a large pack on his back, and wore a hood with industrial goggles covering his eyes.
"I see you eye the one who once traveled to forget, now he seeks to awaken his inner-self from its slumber." The hooded man said in a strange and eerie tone. Raven shot up from her seat and pulled out her dagger. She ran to kill the man but he simply disappeared as quickly as he came. The next moment he reappeared the opposite of Raven's position. "You seek perhaps to intertwine your destiny with his own. Yours lies elsewhere bloodbird, you have yet to remember the woman you once were. You say this is what you are, and always will be, and perhaps he is the strength you seek. I can neither say if he is or not. His destiny and yours do intersect, but he seeks to regain himself, you do not, not yet anyways. I am certain though that his destiny lies with another a good witch. She shall reawaken what sleeps inside of him."
"Who are you?" Raven hissed.
"I am one who seeks to unravel the mysteries, I am Griffa." The wandering mystic said in a calm voice.
"Why have you come here, Griffa?" Raven eyed the man suspiciously, ready to make another attempt on his life.
"Look down there at that ship and tell me what you see behind the rusted iron and twisted scrap? You flee yourself and claim that strength is the answer. But the true answer you seek for the question is as his reflection, so clear yet you blind yourself to it. He is regaining what is so precious, the thing that you have so callously thrown away without thought or remorse." Griffa spoke to Raven, pointing his finger at the at the ship and its denizens.
"What are you babbling about?" Raven growled.
"He would not accept you for your sins, for though he himself has sinned, he has done so in the name of vengeance and justice. You have sinned in the name of your misguided belief in strength, and others have paid the hefty price, and so will even more. It is a shame that such a young and spirited child should eventually lose something that seems so mundane, yet without them as a pair the child is no longer the same. Perhaps this can change by either your hand or his own, but together is not possible. You would claim you care, but you abandon the cub you find to be weak when her need of you would be at its truly greatest." Griffa continued his riddles.
"She means almost nothing to me. I would grant her that kindness once, if that. That man is the strength my tribe needs, with him at my side no one could stop me." Raven partially understood what he meant but did not grasp the message.
"Therein lays the blindness you try to justify, we have a long way to wander blood bird." Griffa paced in the dirt.
"Leave Griffa." Raven ordered to the shaman.
"Perhaps we shall see each other along the road if you choose to seek me out. If you wish to see the truth of my words for yourself then go. But heed my warning, he will not accept you. Innocent blood covers and forever stains your hands not his. The blood which covers his hands is tar black with the madness and evil of those who he has slain in his travels." Griffa said as he walked away and vanished without a trace.
Qrow was weirded out beyond all comprehension on the inside by that guy. Whoever he was, he seemed to know a whole hell of a lot more than everyone else. How did he know so much about Raven and the guy in the ship? Qrow tried to make sense of what he had heard. What Qrow did piece together was that the guy had mentioned his niece/Raven's daughter Yang, and something about family. But what did he mean about her need being greatest? Qrow would shake his head if it wouldn't give him away to Raven. She sat there pondering the man's words to herself, while her brother sat on a tree branch above her still unnoticed. Qrow flew away as silently as he could before Raven flung the knife at the tree, sticking it to the branch her brother had sat on, she finally noticed.
"Leave Qrow." Raven said coldly to her brother clearly wanting to be left alone. Qrow transformed again and found himself face to face with his bloodthirsty sister once more.
"You never call, or write-." Qrow rattled off sarcastically.
"Stay out of my business." Raven growled to her brother.
"I'm not here for you sis, but that was kind of funny to watch him kick seven shades of shit out of you last time." Qrow giggled.
"Losing my patience Qrow." Raven narrowed her eyes.
"What little you have, anyway I didn't come all this way to pick a fight with you-" Qrow started to explain.
"Then leave." Raven rudely cut him off.
"From what that raggedy guy said, you seem to have a death wish sis." Qrow crossed his arms.
"Same to you." Raven replied with her anger rising.
"I'm here to keep you from getting yourself killed doing something stupid, that'll lead to my niece getting herself killed the exact same way. From what I heard, he almost killed you last time, and Yang would get herself killed trying avenge you. But then again, she hardly even knows you, but she'd probably try to kill him since she'd find out someday that he killed you. I don't do bits and pieces sis." Qrow said with a heavy amount of spite.
"She's weak." Raven said coldly.
"Bullshit, if she wanted to she could probably lift a 10-ton truck with her bare hands." Qrow defended his niece.
"She'd never have the stomach for life in our tribe." Raven continued her callousness.
"Your tribe, not mine. I'm not a delusional mass murderer who thinks killing innocent people solves any problems at all." Qrow shot back with the heavy artillery. "Time to cut the shit, stay away from him, and there won't be a problem."
"I'm going down there and you won't get in my way Qrow." Raven said completely stone-faced.
"I came here to get him for Oz, you're the one picking a fight here. You don't even have your sword, he does." Qrow smirked as he pointed to his sister, then to the shipwreck. Raven ground her teeth in anger as she was outgunned this time and she knew it. But she stubbornly refused to let it go.
"Then I'll just go down there and get it." Raven stopped showing her anger and said revealed a cunning tone.
"Not happening sis, you should remember what I said about you doing something stupid. I don't want to put Yang, or hell even Ruby, in danger later on down the road because of you. Since she'd probably drag her along, and they'd both die trying to kill him. I love those two, but they are way out of his league, even if they work together." Qrow narrowed his eyes and ranted to his sister angrily.
"Hmph, you forget my abilities." Raven snorted.
"For once you're right, but that guy knows you all too well. Even if you get in there, he'll swat you down without your sword, plus he has the home field advantage in there. Just face it sis, he is way better than you." Qrow stated the facts.
"I'm going down there to get my sword, whatever happens, just happens." Raven said with determination.
"I don't think so sis, think about this." Qrow said as he got in Raven's way.
"Move Qrow, now." Raven snarled violently.
"Never figured you for knuckle dragging talk, but then again I should pay attention to that. Oh, wait I have been." Qrow said to his sister with heavy sarcasm.
"Last chance Qrow, move or I go through you." Raven growled at her brother.
"You know what fine, but if you lose something don't come crying to me!" Qrow finally let it go and Raven stormed off down the path on foot to avoid attracting attention. She then summoned a portal, and went to the upper deck of the ship.
-END CHAPTER-