A.N: Sorry for the late update. Classes and NaNoWriMo, and all of that.
CHAPTER FIVE: WHITE SISTER RAM-PAGE!
The village itself was composed of similar scrap metal huts arranged as a big circle around a central, flat area. All of the rusty, jagged, sand-beaten huts were about the same size, except for one atop a dune, which was three times as big, and had several flags made from tanned and leathered human skin. These flags were frayed, but they all bore a crudely drawn image of a fat boar with three tusks. The center of the village had a large gazebo-like roof made from rusty scraps, but had no walls, and was instead supported by four thin lead pipes that held it up like a tent. In the center of this "tent," there was a fat, mutated red octopus-like person who had warty arms instead of tentacles. They had long black hair that covered most of their face and some of their upper body, but they were very sickly greenish-yellow colored...and very fat. The person-topus was snorting as they sat nude in the center of a pile of dirty, greasy skillets and pots, but some of them were hoisted over small fires, and filled with chopped up, half-cooked human meat, including entire severed limbs. Many other mutants were scampering around, or waiting in line to be served the cooked flesh.
"Unhand me, you villainous bastards!" The train conductor shouted. He was tied up and inside of a crooked, rusty cage that several mutants were carrying towards the "tent." Lime carried her victims away from the screaming train conductor, and into the largest tent in the village. It looked like the interior of the other hut, but there was a large throne made of bleached, ivory bones in the center of it. The throne was adorned with long-snouted skulls that had long horns on them.
Upon this throne sat a beast of a man. His stench was the first noticeable thing about him; he smelled like a corpse that was wrapped in decaying moss. His face was young, but droopy and covered in scars, with two warthog-like tusks protruding from his mouth. His hair was arranged in several braids, with small wishbones sticking through each loop in a distorted, inconsistent way. Despite his bulging pot belly, he had very muscular arms and legs, with three-talon having hands and feet. His purple skin was covered in many scars and blisters, several of which had burst open and oozed a sky blue pus.
"Warlord Kazaa!" Lime cried out in an almost fangirlish manner, "I bring meat!" Linda stopped thrashing, and stared at the warlord for a few seconds.
"Kazaa?" Linda asked hoarsely, "You're a fu...friggin warlord now?!" Kazaa glared at Linda from where he sat. He slowly lifted his right arm, and pointed accusingly at Linda.
"Mutie Linda..." Kazaa growled in a seemingly impossibly deep, but very clear voice, "You dare show up here?" Linda frowned in a puppy-ish way at Kazaa.
"I mean seriously," Linda scoffed, "You're the LAST member of ASIC I expected to become a bandit warlord." Kazaa scowled, and stood up, stamping his feet harshly as if he were trying to start an earthquake.
"Shut up!" Kazaa screamed furiously, "I'm not wimp anymore! I'm Kazaa! I'm great warlord!" Kazaa slammed his right foot down upon Linda's chest, emitting a sickening CRACK!
"Oww..." Linda coughed out, "Is that...how you treat...the girl...who shared...her salvage...with you?"
"Kazaa don't need stupid Linda!" Kazaa barked, "Kazaa have Lime! Kazaa have tribe!"
"Oh, so you can beat around your old friend just because you're one of the 'cool kids' now?!" Linda hissed angrily. Kazaa kicked her right in her jaw as he huffed like an angry bull.
"Lime! Kill!" Kazaa ordered, "Kazaa want annoying EX-friend shut up!" Warechu, Bit, and Torrent gasped quietly from behind the hut entrance where they hid.
"Guys, you gotta take out the ball," Warechu whispered desperately to the mutant twins, "it's important." Bit and Torrent hesitated, but they pulled the anti-HDD ball from their robes.
"Why ball?" Torrent asked as she held out the ball, its antenna poking high up. Warechu's heart nearly stopped when he saw Lime toss Rom and Ram aside, and reach for a rusty machete lodged into the throne. Warechu lunged for the ball, slamming its antenna down with a loud CLICK.
"Rom! Ram!" Warechu yelled into the hut, "Do your goddess thingy! Now!" Everybody stared right at Warechu.
"We can't." Rom cried as Lime and Kazaa began to lurch for Warechu, "We tried already."
"Just fucking DO IT!" Warechu screamed as Lime raised her machete high into the air.
BWEEE!
A bright blue, and bright pink flash of light erupted from the inside of the hut, causing Lime and Kazaa to stumble off balance for a second. After the light died down, everybody looked over to the source of the lights. Rom and Ram floated above the ground in their HDD forms, their bindings now nothing more than a few shreds upon the ground. They both scowled at Lime and Kazaa as they formed their hands into fists.
"We may not have our staves," Ram shouted, "But we'll kick your butts!"
"CPU?" Kazaa asked in an almost amused tone, "You CPU?!"
"Yeah!" Ram squealed as she flew forwards, smashing her fist against Kazaa's malformed nose, "Don't underestimate us." Kazaa stumbled backwards, covering his bloody nose while Lime raised her machete in the air once more. She swung it downwards with breathtaking speed as she screeched menacingly.
CLANG!
Her machete abruptly stopped against a metal lamp that Rom held as she gritted her teeth. Lime swiped her machete to the left, yanking the lamp out of Rom's hands and tossing it aside. Lime leapt towards Rom, screaming like an angry panther. Rom drifted back...and yelped as her left leg was nipped by the very tip of the machete. Lime grinned for a moment.
WHAM!
Rom clobbered the mutant over her head so hard that Lime heard nothing but an intense ringing for a few seconds.
"Don't you dare hurt my sister!" Rom shouted as she kicked Lime in the side of her face, sending the mutant woman crashing to the ground.
"CPU! CPU!" Kazaa screamed to the rest of the village outside, "There CPU here! Kill them!" All of the mutants turned towards Kazaa's hut; even the human-topus dropped the train conductor they were about to chop up, letting him flop upon the big cutting board amidst his set of pots and pans. The train conductor took this opportunity to sprint behind a hut before anybody could notice him. The mutants roared as they grabbed sharp, jagged weapons from underneath various baskets, pots, and pans placed throughout the village. Bit, Torrent, and Warechu all shuttered at the sight of an entire army of poorly dressed mutants wielding rusty, sharp metal tools of death and carnage.
"Shit." Torrent muttered.
"We gotta get out of here." Warechu gasped quietly, "But how?"
"Vroom-vroom." Bit whined, "We need a Vroom-vroom." Warechu raised his eyebrow as Bit pointed frantically off behind some of the other huts. There were a few buggy-like vehicles decked out in broken car and train parts; they had jagged, sharp "wings" off to the side, spikes with skulls mounted all over them, and spikes on their tires. They were all parked in a disorderly frenzy in a flat area, as if they were frozen in time in the middle of a destruction derby. Bit and Torrent started sprinting for the cars, but Warechu stayed.
"I'm not leaving them behind!" Warechu shouted. He rushed into the hut as Rom was flung past his head, crashing into the sand behind him. She moaned in pain as she slowly pushed herself up. She briefly stopped when a flying metal spear flew past her left ear, and lodged itself into the sand right next to her. Kazaa laughed a cruel, throaty laugh as he held both Ram and Linda against the rear wall by their throats, despite his own body being covered in cuts and bruises. His whole body shook with pain, but his arms held despite their immense tremoring. Lime was on the ground, but slowly getting up.
"Lucky me." Kazaa growled, "Me kill CPU and annoying Linda..."
"Kill this, asshole!" Linda gurgled as she thrust both of her feet into Kazaa's stomach, causing him to drop both of his victims and reel backwards. Ram balled up her fists, and punched Kazaa in his face with both of her hands at once, causing him to roar as he fell on his back. Ram smirked at her handiwork for just a second before Lime slashed at her face with her rusty machete. Ram screamed as blood flew from her left cheek, causing her to move her hands to cover her wound.
"Ram!" Linda cried out as she rushed towards Ram. Lime punched Linda in her already-hurt ribcage with her middle arm, causing Linda to groan painfully as she collapsed to the ground. Lime grinned as she lifted the machete, pointing it down at Linda in a stabbing motion.
"Yes," Lime heaved, "I kill this asshole." Lime screamed as she thrust the sword into the sand next to Linda, then flailed about the room with Warechu on her back, biting into her neck and causing it to bleed like a broken ketchup bottle. Kazaa tried to get up, but Bit and Torrent ran over him, stepping on his face and knocking him back down.
"We gotta leave now!" Torrent screamed, "Village angry! Hundreds! Kill you!" Linda's eyes widened as she looked out the tent entrance, and saw the distant, but rapidly approaching mutant villagers, who swung their already bloodied weapons about with reckless abandon.
"Ram!" Linda cried out again as she reached for Ram, and grabbed her by her waist. She ran off after Bit and Torrent, stepping on Kazaa's face as she made her way out. Rom had gotten to her feet, barely dodging a spear that whizzed past her head. Linda grabbed Rom by her left arm with her own free arm, and continued to follow Bit and Torrent. They slid down the dune, kicking up a dust storm that partially clouded the spears and arrows that flew over their heads, lodging themselves in the soft sand. When they reached the bottom of the hill, Torrent pointed to a jagged, red buggy vehicle in front of them.
"There!" Torrent squeaked, "That vroom-vroom!" They made a mad, adrenaline fueled dash for the strange car as they narrowly avoided more rusty, sharp weapons impaling themselves in the sand where the girls had once been. Linda practically leapt into the passenger's seat, carefully holding Ram's head so it wouldn't jolt or jostle. Rom flopped into the back seat, heaving like a cheetah that failed to catch a gazelle as Warechu followed suit. Bit and Torrent stared wide eyed at Linda from the other side of the car.
"Do you know how to drive this thing?" Linda asked frantically as she held Ram close, looking at her cut face to see the extent of the wound.
"No." Torrent replied.
"Nu-Uh." Bit said in a worried tone, "Never drive vroom-vroom ever." Linda clenched her teeth as she frantically glanced to the top of the hill, the swarm of mutants already peeking over and aiming their next volley. Linda roughly shoved Ram to the back seat, eliciting a squeak from the girl as Linda jumped over to the driver seat.
"Then get in the back and take care of the girls!" Linda shouted, "Warechu, get up here!" Bit and Torrent barely had time to get on the buggy before Linda twisted the...oddly keyless...ignition and slammed her foot onto the gas petal. Warechu screamed as he nearly fell off, clenching onto one of the framework pipes as the next volley of sharpness barely nipped his right ear. A few arrows thudded into the framework of the buggy as it sped off towards the relatively flat, open desert in front of them. Linda sighed, but her arms remained shaky upon the steering wheel as she tried her best to drive around any bumps from the ground. A bright flash came from the back of the buggy as Rom and Ram reverted from their HDD forms, going almost limp with pained sounding moans.
"Are you okay back there?" Linda asked, not taking her eyes off of the road.
"So tired..." Ram groaned as she clenched her hands over her face wound.
"HDD makes us real tired, real fast." Rom added, "I was still sleepy, anyway."
"Well, that's fine," Linda said as she dodged another potential bump, "We've gotten away from them, anyway." Bit and Torrent shook their heads as they pointed backwards.
"Uhh...Linda," Warechu shouted loudly, "You're wrong about that." Linda glanced behind herself, and saw that a row of other buggies, filled with raging, screaming mutants, were rushing behind them with an enormous dust cloud in tow, like a stampeding barbarian horde riding to burn and pillage an unsuspecting peaceful town.
"Oh fuck me." Linda hissed too quietly for anybody else to hear.