|
Jess
|
My lord, I’m on the brink of completing my next technological wonder—a teleportation device! As a companion to my time machine! |
| That sounds like it would be a boon to have; it could become very handy to be able to choose not only WHEN you wanted to travel to, but WHERE! |
|
Jess
|
Sadly, a vital aspect is missing. It’s called Spunkarinium, a natural resource that works as a fuel when extracted from FOSSILIZED SEMEN! |
|
Jess
|
This fossilized semen comes from the countless men who died during the great war that led up to the Dark Wizard’s victory in the Wasteland timeline! |
| Oh Gods, was Jess asking you to return to the Wastes again?? |
|
Jess
|
I only need to visit my old hideout, grab the fossils I’ve collected there, and jump right back into this timeline! |
|
Jess
|
Kira will come with us, too! The Prometheus is due for a components exchange. |
| There was always trouble in the Wasteland, it was hard to find it very enticing to enter that timeline unless one absolutely had to... |
|
Jess
|
Oh, don’t hinder the flow of my CREATIVE GENIUS! I promise you’ll appreciate the teleportation device SO much once it’s done. |
|
Jess
|
Besides, I was going to give you a stellar blow job the moment we got back—I hoped to GIVE you a solid for DOING me a solid! |
| Well, when she put it THAT way! |
| A short while later, you, Jess and Kira arrive in a grimy town in the Wastes. For some reason, Brooke and Lucy have also tagged along. |
| WHY was that again? |
|
Brooke
|
I was bored. Kind of a slow day on the island. It dawned on me while I was trying to read a book, then realized I’d just read the same paragraph twice in a row! |
|
Lucy
|
It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I’m sometimes nostalgic for the smells of home... the tire fires, the rats being roasted. |
|
Jess
|
We seem to have landed some miles away from my place. This is one of those occasions where a teleportation device—not JUST a time machine!—would be incredibly useful! |
|
Jess
|
I hope you each wore comfortable shoes, because we’re going to have to hoof it to our official destination. |
| Regardless of the quality of your shoes, you don’t think it’s going to be that easy to start walking out of here—you notice more and more townspeople glaring, and coming closer! |
| Those who eke out an existence in this town don’t have much, and they don’t hesitate to jump you! |
|
Jess
|
We’re really getting battered, aren’t we? |
| An astute observation from a GENIUS! Had you simply IMAGINED Jess assuring you that this would be a trouble-free fossil-pickup?? |
|
Brooke
|
I just overheard some of the people from the ANGRY MOB order others to go fetch extra men from the next town over! |
| Reinforcements?? But you’d just had to fend off SO MANY! How could you make sure all your maidens got clear of this place without being swallowed by the swarm? |
| A beige, armoured dune buggy suddenly comes hurtling in your direction! |
| It screeches to a halt right in front of you and a leather-clad woman flings open the front door. |
|
Charlize
|
Take my hand if you want to live! |
| You and the maidens spend only a second exchanging glances before you dive into the woman’s car. She slams her foot on the gas and tears out of the town so fast that you and the maidens jolt backward, falling into each other like bowling pins. |
| You know better than to ask if the vehicle has any seat belts! |
|
Brooke
|
You drive like a madwoman!! |
|
Charlize
|
They don’t call me "Crazy" Charlize Miller for nothing. Would you rather I pull up this instant and kick you all out?? |
|
Brooke
|
No, ma’am!! |
|
Charlize
|
That’s what I THOUGHT. Now, I don’t care to hear anything else from the peanut gallery unless it’s "THANK YOU FOR SAVING US FROM PROBABLE CANNIBALISM, CHARLIZE"! |
|
Jess
|
I’ll be the first to issue that thank you—please don’t mind my sister! My name is Jess, by the by. |
|
Charlize
|
Ok, Jess—is there somewhere specific you want me to bring you?? |
| Soon enough, you’ve been escorted to Jess’ hideout. You wait with the car while Jess goes in to investigate. |
| The front door was hanging off its hinges, which wasn’t a good sign. When Jess finally steps back outside, her expression is dejected. |
|
Jess
|
Nearly everything is gone! I’ve been ransacked by grifters. I doubt they recognized what half the stuff they took even was, but they knew enough to know it had value! |
|
Jess
|
They DID miss the small piece of Spunkarinium fossil that I had wedged into my copy of “Sexy Science: Multiple Universes, Multiple Orgasms”! But it isn’t enough to teleport us to where we’d need to go to acquire more! |
|
Jess
|
I believe that would be the free city of Steam Spunk! Council members know me there. It isn’t heaven, but it’s one of the only places in the Wastes with extra reserves of ANYTHING! |
|
Kira
|
Steam Spunk is FAR, Jess. If you don’t think we can teleport there, you certainly can’t think we can make it on foot! |
|
Charlize
|
It’s nothing but acrid desert between here and there. If roving gangs don’t kill you, thirst and heat will. |
| You were already IN the Wastes, it’d be a shame to turn back now! You COULD fly, but you couldn’t feasibly carry five people! |
|
Charlize
|
... Listen, I’m making this offer against my better judgement but what if I drove you to Steam Spunk? |
|
Jess
|
Would you really?! You’re amazing! |
|
Charlize
|
Don’t praise me yet—wait to see if I can at least get you there alive. I’m not being selfless, I’m thinking of my conscience. If I got news that you were vivisected out there, I wouldn’t need that fresh guilt! |
|
Charlize
|
And for the past while, there hasn’t only been standard highwaymen preying in the desert. It’s CENTURION HYPPOLITA that you’ve got to worry about most! |
|
Hyppolita
|
Give us the TIME MACHINE and we’ll leave you alone! I know it’s in there with you and your heads WILL be blown off if it brings my girls closer to safety and comfort! |
| A tall woman with a mechanical arm and a shorn head stands on the hood of Charlize’s car, pointing a gun at the wind shield. |
|
Charlize
|
Well, fuck. Didn’t take us long to run into the Centurion, did it? And to think—I could’ve added bulletproof windows to the car, but I just HAD to have that can of beans instead... |
| A small army of waifish but well-armed young women hop out of the Centurion’s truck and surround the dune buggy, looking at you through machine gun viewfinders. |
|
Hyppolita
|
I don’t like to kill unless I have to, so please don’t make me have to. We might’ve avoided this stalemate if you’d not pulled YOUR gun on me after I told you to not reach for one... |
|
Charlize
|
If you thought I’d let you point a gun in my face without pointing one back at yours, you’ve got about as much brains as you do hair! |
|
Hyppolita
|
We WANT to be fair! We don’t want to commandeer your car or even claim whatever drinking water you may have. |
| You take the initiative to step out of the vehicle. Every maiden protests, but you exit anyway. You’ll take a turn speaking directly to Hyppolita, and you’ll do so while visibly vulnerable. |
| The Centurion watches you calmly as you approach with your arms up; you feel the barrels of her girls’ machine guns following you. |
|
Hyppolita
|
Are you a willing sacrifice? |
| Far from it—you very much want to live! Ideally, EVERYONE would come out of this scenario alive. What if no one got shot OR robbed today? |
|
Hyppolita
|
An optimist in a dystopia. Interesting. How will you manage to have your cake and eat it too, Optimist? |
| The same way you had at many other crossroads—by proposing a truce! If they all talked more—really talked, not argued!—they could probably agree to some terms. |
| The Centurion could then drive along with them to Steam Spunk! Surely, she could use some items available to her in a free city? If you all combined what you had, you might be able to trade for more stuff than you ever could’ve separately! |
|
Hyppolita
|
What a charming outcome you describe—I’d be a fool to fall for it! I don’t know what you’ve accomplished elsewhere, but there are no such things as truces in the Wastes! |
|
Hyppolita
|
I trust only myself, my girls and that Death is the one, true cure for suffering! |
| Gods, the Wastes were miserable. You consider this as a bullet crashes through the dune buggy’s wind shield and ricochets off the Centurion’s metal arm! |
|
Charlize
|
Damn! I hit the fake arm and shattered my own stupid wind shield in the process!!! There goes my chance to take her out while she and her Girl Scouts were distracted!! |
|
Hyppolita
|
See what happens when one lets their guard down, Optimist? |
| Curse Charlize’s LONE WOLF mentality!!! You had barely gotten to experiment with YOUR idea! Why did “Crazy” Charlize have to be so... CRAZY?? |
| The Centurion cocks her gun as her army of girls refocus their aim onto the car!! |
|
Lucy
|
This is where thinking like a lone wolf lands you! Wolves function AS A PACK!!! |
|
Charlize
|
Getting preachy won’t make a difference now, Lucy! Shove your fun animal facts up your ass, ok? |
| You watch Charlize as she tries to start the ignition again. Again, it fails. You’re so very warm. |
| You’d repelled the Centurion for just long enough to return to the car and haul ass, but a day later the dune buggy was stuck in sand and hadn’t moved for an hour. |
|
Kira
|
Don’t snap at Lucy when this is all your fault, Charlize. If you had just let the lord TALK with Hyppolita, we’d not be stuck like this AND you might still have an intact wind shield! |
|
Charlize
|
You’re all seriously lacking in gratitude! You would’ve been CORPSES in the sand AGES ago if it weren’t for me! |
|
Brooke
|
We’re probably going to be corpses in the sand BECAUSE of you—wait, what’s that noise? Is it just me, or... ? |
| It sounded like a... honking horn. The tone of the honking was deep. Like a truck horn. A truck, like the one— |
|
Jess
|
The Centurion!! She tracked us down again!! |
| Charlize furiously turns the ignition again. She mutters encouragement to the car and revs the engine. You’re unstuck! You motor up a steep sand hill and start cannoning through the desert! |
| The truck tails you. Clouds of black exhaust belch forth from the huge pipes situated on either side of it, making it look a steel dragon. It rams the back of the dune buggy! |
| There’s a lot of screaming as you lurch and skitter, but Charlize rights the car expertly. |
| As she grimaces at the truck in her rearview mirror, BODIES start falling from the sky! They hit the sand hard, but rise to their feet again as if it were nothing. |
| Many thud onto the roof of Hyppolita’s truck, and the truck swerves. Some of the emotionless men lean into the driver’s side window, clawing at Hyppolita! |
|
Charlize
|
Zombified troops of the Dark Wizard! |
| Zig-Zagging, Charlize blasts some of them away while they are mid-leap—trying to cling to the car like overgrown geckos. Simultaneously, enemy fire whizzes past your head from the truck. |
|
Jess
|
Those girls are STILL trying to take us out, even as we’re BOTH being attacked! One is hanging off the door of the truck and just FIRING AWAY! |
|
Charlize
|
Hey, will you grab the wheel for a sec? |
| You firmly take the wheel and steer from the passenger’s seat as Charlize climbs half-way out the driver’s side to return fire. |
| You can’t keep track of who was shooting who anymore!! And to think you were doing all this for some long-dead JIZZ! |
|
Charlize
|
She’s obviously looked better, but the old girl isn’t ready for retirement yet! |
| You observe Charlize as she runs a knowing hand across the dented parts of her dune buggy. It occurs to you how well she and Jean Remington might get along. |
|
Charlize
|
She’ll still get us to Steam Spunk—couldn’t say the same for that Centurion cunt’s truck! |
| The maelstrom with the Dark Wizard’s troops was over; you, your maidens, Hyppolita and her girls had defeated them, but it was a guarantee that more would come. None of you should pause for long! |
| Hyppolita’s vehicle sustained more damage than Charlize’s, and a few of the girls were injured. You decide to take this opportunity to pitch a non-violent settlement again. |
|
Hyppolita
|
If you’ve come to scavenge from us now that we’re weakened, don’t bother! Practically all we had has been destroyed... |
| You assure her that you’ve not come as a vulture; in fact, you’d like to revisit the topic of cooperation. Whether she liked it or not, it was your combined efforts that had wiped out all those troops! |
| This was undeniable proof that you could significantly help each other out. If you could just stop shooting at ONE ANOTHER, you could take on whatever else lay between here and Steam Spunk! |
|
Hyppolita
|
I’d rather have my other arm sliced off than allow myself to become dependent on YOU—or anyone else, for that matter! Dependency is subjugation!! |
| But what of her girls? Some of them had some pretty bad wounds... |
|
Hyppolita
|
Death in the desert before buying into the facade of some TRUCE! |
| Wow, that was a heavy price for those girls to pay—had Hyppolita asked THEM what they preferred to do?? |
|
Hyppolita
|
Don’t dare insinuate that I don’t care for the opinions or feelings of my girls! The reality is that if we went with you, you’d stab us all in the back eventually! |
| What the reality REALLY seemed to be, to you, was that Hyppolita had no other option but to trust you! Her truck was totaled, her supplies lost, and her girls needed medical attention. |
| Charlize’s dune buggy was oversized, in better shape, and could accommodate them. Charlize herself was crazy but could be convinced of the validity of your idea! |
|
Hyppolita
|
That Charlize woman definitely wants me dead! |
| Maybe, for now. But so did the Dark Wizard’s troops. And the various bandits cruising around. And hadn’t Hyppolita’s own girls wanted Charlize dead?? |
|
Hyppolita
|
... It pains me to say, but you sum up the situation well! We MAY die if we join you, but we WILL die if we don’t. |
|
Hyppolita
|
Fuck it all! Take us with you! I may regret it, but I put our lives in your hands. |
| When notified, Charlize is incredibly unimpressed by this. She relents when you make it known that one of the things The Centurion still has plenty of is ammunition. |
|
Charlize
|
Oh, alright But I’m still bitter about you sneaking off and making deals while I was busy tending to our only mode of transportation! |
|
Charlize
|
You would’ve made a better side dish for those hungry townspeople than a sidekick to me!! |
|
Brooke
|
We made it into the free city! ... How exactly is it a free, again? |
|
Lucy
|
By continuing to be one of the very few bastions in the Wasteland that governs itself WITHOUT interference from my fath—from the Dark Wizard! |
|
Brooke
|
Since it’s SO far from his HQ, right? He’s lazy even when he’s a successful dictator! |
|
Jess
|
It’s remote but it also presents itself as a simple trading post—and what it trades isn’t valuable to the Dark Wizard. Thankfully, he’s never opted to have an extensive look around! |
|
Hyppolita
|
I was about to add that Steam Spunk has developed it’s own adept militia to protect it during times of crisis—but I believe one of those crises has just come!! |
| The walls around the city begin to quake! Cracks form in the large slabs of stone! Floods of people start to race past you, in the opposite direction of the city’s entrance! |
|
Dark Wizard
|
CITY OF STEAM SPUNK! HEAR ME! You’re harbouring one of my greatest foes and I INSIST ON FACING HIM! |
|
Dark Wizard
|
If he won’t come out, I must come in! He jeopardizes your sanctuary, for I will break the treaty I have with your leaders should he refuse to reveal himself to me!! |
|
Kira
|
My lord, the Dark Wizard has alerted the whole city to your presence and the people will forcefully eject you if they can identify you! |
|
Charlize
|
I wouldn’t blame them! It would be obscene to let a siege happen here!! The lord HAS to get out there and show himself to the Dark Wizard! |
|
Charlize
|
Otherwise, a free city will be toppled. This place is at least 30% less crummy than most of the Wastes; it’s a lifeline to too many desperate people! |
|
Jess
|
I may have a compromise! My lord, go out there with every other maiden but me—start a fight, but try to stall! Draw it out! I’ll link up with my Spunkarinium contact, who’s expecting me. |
|
Jess
|
The moment I have what I came for, I’ll activate the time machine. We’ll hop in and fuck off before the fighting gets too gritty. We’ll take less of a pounding, and Steam Spunk will take none at all! |
| You’re sold! You gather your maidens around you and leave the city the same way you came in! |
|
Dark Wizard
|
Couldn’t bear the idea of the poor city getting smooshed, could you?? You might’ve hid among the crowd, but couldn’t POSSIBLY risk innocents dying in your place!! |
| You’re SO tired! You wish you could shut your eyes and rest, but you might never wake up again. You welcome the sound of Jess roaring up in a car you’ve not seen before. |
|
Jess
|
I’ve got my SPUNK IN THE TRUNK and I’m ready to fly! |
|
Charlize
|
I’ll lure the remaining troops away while you all escape! |
| Wait, what?? Everyone, INCLUDING Charlize, could properly escape right now! It wasn’t necessary for her to create a diversion. |
|
Jess
|
Um, guys? I kinda just started the machine and there isn’t really a pause button... |
| Your other maidens, Hyppolita and the girls come sprinting from far afield, ducking into the time machine with Jess—who now holds a crate of fossils against her chest. |
|
Jess
|
You two have to make a decision!! |
|
Charlize
|
I’ve already made mine! I’m NOT leaving the Wastes! |
|
Charlize
|
SOLDIER DUDES!! OVER HERE, FOLLOW ME! |
| When she bounds away, you chase after her without thinking—your fatigue evaporates. |
|
Hyppolita
|
Your man is going to miss his ride! There’ll be just the two of them, and still plenty of troops! |
|
Jess
|
There are only seconds now before we’re gone—the best I can do is squeeze out one last thing that may help! |
| Jess unholsters her ray gun and cranks the settings up as high as they’ll go, until the whole time machine is filled with its humming. |
| She fires the gun off into the distance—way off to the right, while you and Charlize had run off to the left. A neon beam buzzes through the sky, making heads turn. It strikes something—the something explodes! |
| The time machine vanishes. There’s an incredible din of confused yelling, some soldiers fall to the ground and others trample over them. People cough from billowing smoke. |
|
Charlize
|
What the fuck was that??? What exploded?? |
| Right before the blast, you catch up to her. You fight a bit at first—her straining, both of you panting and bleeding on one another. But when there’s a KA-BOOM!, you both startle and stop. |
| You recover and then bolt—dragging Charlize along with you, back toward Steam Spunk. The chaos gives you a cover to slip away from the Dark Wizard, undetected! |
|
Dark Wizard
|
GODS, THE WASTES ARE MISERABLE! W-who did that? I can’t see anything through this smokescreen! Ahh! Who just stepped on my foot?? |
| As you and Charlize hunker down in an underpass in Steam Spunk, the voice of the Dark Wizard carries over to you on the hot desert wind! |
|
Dark Wizard
|
They all got away! In the time machine of the little girl-genius! HOW INFURIATING! But mark my words—my hunky adversary and I WILL MEET AGAIN!! |
