As he got further and further towards the center of the death tribunal, the past few hours seemed like they'd taken days to pass. He could remember standing on a cliff overlooking the wasteland, his Interceptor a black stain on an otherwise uniformly brown world. She had been in trouble since the moment he first spotted her, and now that she and her friend were captured by a notoriously vicious biker warlord he had no choice but to finally intervene despite all his qualms and regrets about all those he hadn't saved in the past. First he hid the car behind an outcropping of rocks, then he crept towards the death tribunal motorcycle circle until he could kill one of the riders and use the bike to work his way inwards til he got to the girl who was hung up by her arm. It took bloody hours to work his way towards the center of the ring, fortunately the warlord on top of the tow truck was too distracted by the glory of having a throne to sit upon to notice much of anything going on around him, but regardless he had to do some serious jockeying to move inwards and was repeatedly bounced back towards the perimeter. At one point he ran over the man who'd been captured with this girl, and pangs of guilt ran across his face like beads of sweat but he had to keep going. He'd probably been dead for a while anyhow. At last, he was finally able to make his way to the center of the death tribunal and was horrified to find out that she was bound by a chain instead of some rope which would be easy to cut. Now what was he supposed to do with himself?
"Cut my arm off!" she said when he finally communicated to her that he was there to help. Wouldn't that hurt? "No, it's already broken." So he sliced and diced as fast as he could, sticking her on the back of the bike and riding as quickly as possible back to his car where he stuffed this barely conscious and oddly attractive woman into the passenger seat then sped off towards some friends who knew how to dress wounds. The maggot farmers lived in a cave that you wouldn't find very easily unless you knew where it was or had nothing better to do than look for hidden caves. They welcomed him in and he tried to be as friendly as possible despite the horrible stench of rotten flesh. The maggots weren't really that bad once you cooked them properly and all three of them set outside the entrance of their home later that evening, gathered around a small campfire which was a special occasion since wood was so scarce. "Who is she?" Oh, just some damsel in distress. "Where'd she come from?" I think she's from those large towers over there on the horizon. At this point the farmers turned stark white and said he needed to get her back there as soon as possible, that's where Immortan Joe lives and he'll tear the country apart from top to bottom to find her again if she's so important. Nonetheless, they tried to be pleasant and cheerful as they ate their delicatessen of fried maggots and the feral child promised to come back in a few days when she was healthier so he could help her finally get home, not once suspecting that she had been trying to do so for years.
Unfortunately, this woman woke up while the feral man was gone and she stumbled out of the cave in blind confusion and began wandering in the general direction of the Citadel with a weight of total hopelessness in her chest. Her severed arm had a star map tattooed on it and that was how she would've found her way home one day, now any chance of escape was gone with it and Dementus had what he'd always wanted. Would he realize that? He hadn't even been smart enough to follow the tire tracks back to the Green Place when she was first kidnapped, choosing to murder her mother when everyone and their brother could see it was blatantly obvious that she'll never divulge that information, he'd tortured her out of spite or for the sake of making a spectacle for his gang members so they'd know he was powerful, he was in charge. But was the Immortan really any better? Had she traded a rock for a hard place? All this and more rushed through her head like water rushing through a dry creek bed in a flash flood, and the feral man couldn't have known any different as he stood by his Interceptor and looked down on the plains through a pair of binoculars which had been a gift from one of the many people he tried to save. Thankfully she was still breathing when he skidded to a halt by her motionless body. She was unconscious and extremely pale, so he collected her for a second time and raced as quickly as possible to the desert fortress.
Upon her return, Immortan Joe personally came down on the large industrial elevator to bring the feral man and this woman into the Citadel and rushed her to the hospital wing in his arms as quickly as he could run. She must be really important. There was such a fuss to capture her, and such a fuss when she came back on the brink of death. Hopefully these people could help the him fix his car and restock his woefully inadequate supplies, in the absence of proper roads he improvised a path to a hiding place near where that psycho bike horde was torturing her and her friend, on the way down from the butte he'd hit a few bumps which had definitely left a mark on his Interceptor. The V8 under his hood certainly wasn't what it used to be and he needed a real mechanic to take a look at it. There's only so much he could do in the desert with only a basic set of tools. This place was weird, though, where did they get all this industrial equipment and why were they all painted like their leader? He was getting an odd vibe off the entire situation, it was too cut and dry. Their general came back from the hospital after an hour or so and personally invited him up to the throne room so he could properly thank him for what he'd done and explain why it was so crucial that she was still alive.
Liquid poured endlessly out of the faucet. "Go ahead", the man with the teeth of a horse insisted, "drink your fill". The feral kid sat in a room that was unnaturally cool with a plate of hot, steaming food in front of him and a glass full of the clearest water he'd seen since his childhood at Bartertown. Removing his breathing apparatus with help from a man wearing a false nose, the Immortan sat at the other end of the table and began to speak, "I suppose it would only be polite to introduce myself. I am Colonel Joseph Moore, but my soldiers refer to me as the Immortal Man or the Immortan. At this point, I should explain to you the great importance of what you've done by returning my trusted Lieutenant and I was struck with despair when I first saw her condition. She's one of the few people I really trust around here other than the Bullet Farmer and the People Eater, and losing such a compatriot would've been devastating to what we are trying to accomplish." The Feral Kid sat and nervously ate his meal while this pale figure explained how she'd been kidnapped at a young age and traded to him like an animal by a psychotic biker who was currently waging war on everything he'd worked for.
"Losing them both at the same time might've undermined everything I've worked for and Dementus knew that, which is the only reason he cared enough to run them down. Otherwise he would've gone away to chase his next wild dream that he's only wanted for the better part of the past minute or so", the Immortan continued, "This aquifer was in tatters by the time I got a hold of it, the previous tenants were living by candlelight at best and barely made any effort to trade their water for anything useful or renovate this place to be somewhat livable, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to overthrow their stronghold, I knew the other gangs and hordes might not care as much about preserving that potential. We've added our own machine shop and rewired the interior lighting with hydro-electric power. Anyways, Pretorian Jack was an incredible driver, but the woman he trained is something else entirely. I thought about offering to make her one of my wives to give her as much protection from the brutality of the outside world as possible, but she's too fierce. She's extremely traumatized from what that biker gang did to her before she came to live with us in our lovely fortress and she'd slit your throat in a second if she even thought you betrayed her. No, running convoys on the Fury Road is the place for her. Would you believe that the veteran scavengers are scared of her? Sometimes even I am unnerved by her steeliness."
"It would help relieve the tension if she'd talk about her home more often", the Immortan continued, "she's never told where it is or what it was like, and maybe I could help her find it again once these roving gangs have been cut down to size. Maybe then we can all finally sit back and take a much needed rest from the daily squabble for resources. That's really the only reason anybody has to fight their way through each day, before the collapse many people fled to the outback to escape the violent ganglands in the cities and unfortunately the gangs followed suit. I used to be a Colonel in the Army and this is the exact scenario that I foretold many, many years ago. If the gangs had been curtailed while we still had them in our sights, then people could've come back to the cities and we might've been able to rebuild. If they had just listened to me and everyone else who went into the field and saw the exact same thing but didn't have enough rank to throw their weight around, we could've saved so many lives."
At this point he sat back and looked towards the window. "Sometimes I wonder whether I'm taming the wasteland at all, or is it consuming me one day at a time? Have I become so engrained into this structure that it is now an intrinsic part of who I am? If anyone could be in my place for a day, they'd understand everything. But they'll never be where I am, they'll never be faced with the decisions I face every day, so they'll always call me a heartless tyrant out there in the desert." Then he looked back at the feral child, "However, I'm not as cruel and unusual as they say, which is why I give you my word that your car will be repaired to the best of our abilities and you will have all the guzzoline and supplies that you need. Normally, it would be standard fare to add you to the blood bank in the hospital as my doctors have so adamantly recommended or maybe even make a Warboy out of you since the car is obviously kitted out for a fighter, but you've returned one of the wheels that kept my empire rolling forward and this debt is almost unpayable, so in a highly unusual act of kindness, I will grant you your freedom instead. However, if we ever cross paths again, just remember there are no rules out there."
Several days later, the Interceptor was finally repaired and the feral child was unceremoniously ejected from the aquifer after they gave him the chance to bath and wash his clothes, when was the last time he'd been able to do that? As he drove away into the night, something still didn't feel right. Would the Warboys come for him when he got to a narrow pass? Would they chase him down on the plains? The Immortan was a bone-chilling warlord and he knew the Citadel was a place to avoid at all costs in the future. Approaching it had been risky enough the first time but he had absolutely needed to fix his car and restock his supplies, hopefully the repairs would last until he was far away from here because he couldn't afford to take that chance for a second time.
As the Interceptor's tail lights disappeared into the night, the doctors watched from the hospital wing doors like vultures watching their prey saunter off into the distance. He wasn't theirs yet, but one day he would be. One day fate would drop him straight into their hands and they would have a lifetime supply of the healthiest blood they'd ever seen, a universal high octane donor for the whole horde. The Immortan deemed this stranger to be untouchable, but would he care about his promise the next time around? Probably not.