TEINAR > Wastelands

Nothing Says 'Hello' Like A Fist to the Face [Neph!]

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Lion:
The sun wouldn't be getting any higher today. It was all downhill from here, and Ibsen wasn't going to be waiting around for the skin around his ribs to get any tighter. Food had been scarce the last few days. Between avoiding the slobbering packs of raider gangs and wild animals, he knew he had to get to his stash before someone else did.

The last haul paid shit. Such as it were. A few pieces of scrap from a junked out truck that had picked apart from anything good. Ibsen took the pieces that could be used for a few mods on his bike, but not much else could be salvaged. He'd need something bigger to pry off the hull and drag that back. Outposts could always use more scrap to fortify their defenses. A good steel truck hood could do just that.

In return, the location of a stash of goods that had been stolen from one of their ranks, tried to take off toward one of the raider gangs, they suspected. Not that it mattered now, the guy most likely was a pile of bones in the dirt. Just like everything else, the earth swallowed it up and never gave it back.

The engine shut off and he took the key from the ignition, letting it cool off, and overlooked the crater where the stash was located. It was...one hell of a goddamned mess. It was a massive cylindrical structure that had been hollowed out, clearly having crashed into this hollowed out section of earth, and the skeletal remains only partly protruded out from beneath the dust. The crater itself was deep enough to be hidden in a valley between sections of dead canyon.

Ibsen had found the location well enough. A fallen airplane, or whatever it was called. Didn't matter since the only things that came out of the skies were dragons when Pilots had a mind of stepping out into this place where they didn't belong. The skies were largely clear, not even a storm on the way, and it didn't seem as if there was anyone else around.

He readjusted the poncho over his shoulders, flipping up the front flap and pulling his sidearm from the makeshift holster on his side. It was an older beat-up revolver, a piece that had seen better days. But it worked and the grip was custom adjusted for Ibsen's hand. His clothing blended into the tawny earth, except for the dark brown poncho that now looked like little more than a cape over his back. Better safe than sorry, that's how he saw it.

For now it didn't seem like anyone else was around, so betting down toward the metal cache that seemed rather shiny in that high sun. Seat leaked down his brow, and passed over the black goggles that were sealed to his face. The bandana over his face was more for aesthetics than necessity in this case. The air never bothered him. The goggles, however, tended to keep others from staring into his eyes overlong.

The hood stayed on his head, as he carefully made his way down. The metal cache was right there. And...

“What the fuck?” Ibsen murmured, holstering his revolver. He looked inside and found that it was empty. “Shit...”  Well, mostly empty save for a  16 ounce can of “Rootin' Tootin' Ron's Pinto Beans” that hard hardly collected any dust sitting just carefully at the bottom of the tin.

“Well shit, if today ain't my lucky day, spank my bottom blue,” Ibsen laughed and pulled the black bandana from his face, reaching down to pick up the can. Or almost. The sound of movement nearby indicated he wasn't as alone as he thought, and like wildfire his hand reached for his revolver.

nephero:
   Chasing that crow had been a bad idea. For one thing, crows could fly, and no matter how much Konstantin tried he could never do anything close to the same. And you could only move your arms so fast before they just got tired, all without getting more than a jump's worth off the ground.

   The second thing, was, of course, that the crow had never been real in the first place. Kostya had his suspicions of course-- he couldn't remember if crows still existed or not. He remembered that they were crows, so maybe they did? Or maybe he remembered that crows once existed? But surely if he remembered they once were that meant they still were, because he wasn't that old. And he'd never lived anywhere but the Wasteland, so where else would the crows be?

   Either way, though, chasing that crow had been a bad idea. For one thing, Konstantin had already been massively hungry before taking off after it. The chase had expended what few calories he still had left, and he was presently in the process of squeezing the life out of the last, solitary survivor. It screamed for mercy, but none was to be had. He needed to keep going, he needed to keep going, he hated starving to death-- no amount of painkillers was enough to stem off the agony of your own body eating itself to keep moving, the agony of forcing already overspent muscles to Do The Thing one more time. And one more time, and one more time.

   Chasing that crow had been a bad idea. His bag bounced listlessly against the back of his leg-- it was emptier than usual; just a scrap of metal with paint all over it and some threat of bodily harm scratched into the paint in lieu of any real writing instruments. Kostya was just impressed that the person sending the message had been able to write in the first place. Kostya was still impressed that he, himself, was able to read in the first place. Or maybe not, because wow, what was scratched into that metal was a whole level of open hostility that Kostya hoped to never face himself.

   He was pretty sure just delivering the damn thing would get him shot. But not delivering it would also get him shot, and the sender had lots of things that Kostya needed. Including but not limited to Someone who could rewire his goddamn headphones. The left one was starting to crackle in and out of focus, fading here and there and sometimes cutting out completely unless Kostya held his head at a certain angle-- and he couldn't really go around the Wastes with his head at 45 degrees for the rest of his life.

   Well, he could, but it would hurt after a while, was the point.

   Wait, where was he going with this.

   Right! His bag against the back of his leg. Bounce bounce. Super light. No messages. No food. And a stupid, probably not even there crow.

   Kostya looked around, squinted at the hazy sunlight overhead, made even hazier by waves of heat off the barren dust. He licked his lips, did a slow 360, and then another just for the hell of it. Okay. Okay. West, there. And... if he remembered right, further east was the skeleton of a highway that had once been the lifeblood of some metropolis or another. Or maybe not.

   One way to find out.

   It was only about two hours later that Kostya realized that chasing that crow had been a mistake, because he was lost as fuck. Hungry, hot, and lost. He squinted through the visor of his gas mask as something wavered in his line of vision. Metal, maybe. Some bigger skeleton of something that might've once moved, the remnants of a great metal beast lost to the old world. Back before the earth was soured, back before the sky was hazed, back before the winds put poison in your lungs and stripped the skin off your bones.

   Either way, that big a corpse meant at least one thing-- shelter, for one, a place to sit and hunker down and die in some kind of peace. But maybe... maybe...

   Kostya saw the can before he saw the other person. Such was the level of his hunger, the level of his inability to focus, such as that particularly was. He had just shimmied his way underneath the curve of rusted and pitted metal, dust and sand kicked up under his feet when he spotted them, finally, the other figure covered in the same brown as everything else in the Wasteland. Camouflage. It worked.

   Camouflage didn't hide the fact that this stranger was reaching for a gun, though, and some surge in adrenaline kicked what was left of Kostya's energy reserves into overdrive. He didn't wanna die today. He was tired of dying today. He didn't wanna die today. So, like any normal person who saw someone else reaching for a gun, Kostya ran at the other guy in a full tackle, slamming both of them to the ground and scrabbling for that gun.

Lion:
Ibsen's focus hadn't noticed any crow passing over it. For now it only saw a stranger encroaching on his find. First come, first serve! This can of bean was coming along with the scavenger and whoever this muthafucker was, he was about to get a goddamn bullet to his goddamn --

"FUCKHEAD!" was all Ibsen was able to get out before the fuckhead was bullrushing him and tackled him into the ground. The debris all around proved to be a rather deadly web of old pipes and protruding spikes of rust, steel cords rusted out and from the corner of his eyes a skeleton was still hooked on a section of cording not far from his head.

The sheer force of landing knocked the breath from Ibsen and he gasped, the revolver knocked from his hand. His eyes were wild beneath the tinted lenses of his goggles, wide and that primal urge to survive kicking in full force.  That knocked out wind left the scavenger half-dazed and when it came to deciding which one of the three distorted heads to attack - picking the middle one tended to be the best bet.

Ibsen screamed and forgot about the gun for a half second, it was tossed a few feet away from them at the moment anyway, and he reared his head back and launched it forward, cracking his skull against the other guy's as hard as he could, ignoring the gas mask that was largely in the way. White took his vision, and he squeezed his eyes shut to stem the dizziness.

Ibsen forced away the pain and pressed a hand underneath his shoulder, feeling the bracing of armor just partly underneath the man's dirty filthy duster. Ugh, he was nasty! With as much momentum as he could muster he shoved the other body off of him, rolling along with him, and shoved a knee in against his chest, reaching down to rip that mask off him.

There air was still now, but it'd make hitting his fucking face a hell of a lot easier.

nephero:
There was lots of screaming. Some of it was his own, Kostya could feel it in his throat, raw and dry and thirsty. Some of it was this Camouflage-- he could see him, teeth bared and mouth open. And shut. And open. Syllables, loud and echoing, and coming from every single direction after that headbutt. The world was swimming, and for a second Kostya thought about his headphones, how they faded in and out and then nowhere at all. He blinked, hard, and noted the telltale spiderweb crack in the upper corner of his mask.

The world swam again, and then rolled all the way to the side. He sputtered as his mask was yanked off, dust and dirt and sand kicked up and into his exposed mouth as he swatted at the body above him. Kostya gasped, harsh and ragged, half expecting his lungs to melt right then and there-- but no, it seemed the dust devils decided to keep at bay for the moment. Baring his teeth and spitting grit, Kostantin lashed out, grabbing for the Camouflage's face, trying to get under his goggles and into his eyes and instead grabbing a fistful of hood.

Kostya pulled in either regard.

The pitted carcass of the former airplane was a death strap of loose cabling and exposed shards of metal. Below them, tiny shark fins of rust pressed into Kostya's thankfully armored back like a bed of nails. Above them, warped metal broke small holes, little palm sized beacons of daylight pouring down into the muted shadows of the plane's interior.

Kostya pulled on the Camouflage's hood, and threw the useless scrap of cloth to the side. He reached for his assailant's face again, the pair scrambling to get in as many hits as they could before the other, and their mutual thrashing bucked the Camouflage up against Kostya's thighs.

It was enough, just for the barest moment, to push the other guy's head in the path of one of those sun-holes, a halo of light caught at the back of his head and sending cascades out against his hair. It had looked black at first, but now, like this, there was no mistaking the deep hue, deeper and more vibrant and beautiful than Konstantin had ever seen it.

He had seen lots of blues before. There was the blue of paint, liquid and shiny when the can was first opened and settling into a soft chalky matte as it dried. There was the blue of wires, partially stripped away by weather and time and coated in a fine dust. There was the blue of plastic beads, partially transparent and shiny despite everything the Wastelands had to offer. The soft and pale blue of some eyes, like old bits of string faded in the sun.

And then there was this blue-- deep and rich and inky and, and oh, oh Kostya wanted to touch it. He didn't even seem to notice he was still being punched, eyes wide in amazement as his hands scrabbled upwards again, curling against soft-- so soft!-- strands and gripping tight, trying to fight the guy and get him into better light to see that halo of blue once more.

Lion:
You often had to learn the hard way never to squander opportunity when it came knocking your way. Or in this case screaming bloody murder in your face, with life or death clearly on the line now. It was always this way. And would always be. That was just the reality of surviving out here in the Wastes. Nothing could be taken for granted. Blink one moment, and you might never wake up.

Isben's heart was racing and eyes burning and somewhere underneath his flesh was all the adrenaline that he'd stored away for moment's like this. He wasn't going to die here, not now, not over a can of fucking beans. There were a few options of course. He could just beat this bastard back with everything he had, smash his face in until he was dead then take the beans for himself.
 
He could forget the beans and just surrender, let the man take them, and most likely just get a bullet in his own head - thus joining the ranks of the dead that littered this mass grave. Momentarily Ibsen could only think of all the people he'd killed, or had been killed by others that went unnoticed, and were left lying in the dirt, a feast for the crows.

His heart kicked up again, and that primal fear of death surged in the moment that mask was wrenched from his face and Ibsen cracked his knuckles has hard as he could against his face, trying to avoid a tangled mess of arms and other limbs. A shift in the fuckhead's posture and Ibsen was awkwardly settled into his lap.

The heat flared into Ibsen's face because he was now straddling him, the hood now gone, and he blinked through the goggles, snarling at the hands that clawed at his face. Another punch, right in the bastard's eye once they were widened.  He was staring at something because his eyes were bugging out.

The tendrils of light caught part of the purpling edges of this stranger's eyes and in that reflection he could see himself above him, and from the edges of his vision, the man's fingers were reaching up to grab a hold of Ibsen's hair.  His hair!?  What in the actual fuck!?

So of course he resisted and gripped at his wrist to shove his hands away from him, no matter how much they flailed and tried to grasp at his hair. He felt the other man's fingers snatch a hold of it and pull it into the light, revealing the deep rich hues of blue therein, leaving Ibsen's neck awkwardly angled.

His one hand pried at his wrist and the other flailed at his back, snatching out the sheathed bowie knife at the back of his belt and yanking it free and stabbing into the underside of this interloper's left wrist.

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