Roar, Lioness. Roar

Breaking All the Rules

"That will be enough of that," a slightly metallic thunderous voice echoes off the storefronts.

Rebel and her opponent wrestle on the floor, the former's strength meeting its match in the latter's skill in hand to hand fighting. Even as heavy footsteps approach, Rebel lifts the woman, Amari, up in the air by her neck only to have her hold reversed. The two spill to the ground entangled in a deadly grapple.

Tax collectors pour into the streets. Long shields raised and thin clubs in hand, they form a circle around the crowd. More move into position on the rooftops, rifles aimed down at the streets. Heavily armed and armored, they strike an unsettling image. Law and order within The Oasis.

"Yellow Sun! Valkyrie! Drop your weapons and put your hands on your head or be shot dead in the street like rabid waste hounds." The booming voice is tired, but slightly amused. "There will be no second warning."

"Amari!" shouts the older valkyrie, the one word sounding like an order.

Latisha looks from the tax collector guns to the infuriating faces of Phalanx's killers. She can pull the trigger and one would die. Gunned down in the streets of Market Town, she'd be remembered as a hero among not only her reaver clan, but any who bear witness. A martyr, however, can never be Lioness from the grave. Reluctantly she lays down her weapon and clicks her tongue twice, signaling her hunters to follow her lead. The look on Bria's face makes her hackles raise.

Latisha can read her expression easily enough. Twice in the same day she has let an enemy live in favor of her own safety... How dare she call herself Lioness.

A tax collector crouches down and takes her rifle.

"Don't go too far," Latisha grumbles, watching as the rest of the pack's guns are piled into a crate. "I'll be getting that back real soon. You hear me, yes?"

"That's up to The Old Fart."

Latisha glares up at the speaker jutting from the side of a nearby building.

"Escort the visitors from Phalanx back to their truck," orders the metal voice. "Bring the cats to me."

A tax collector grabs Latisha's arm and she pulls away, drawing her hooked blade. Three more tax collectors close in around her.

"Don't touch me unless you want to lose a few fingers," she snarls. Sheathing her weapon, she lets herself be escorted away.

The missionary resumes her song to Phalanx's vengeful goddess while volunteers resume handing out the care packages. The sound taunts Latisha as she leaves the area. The Yellow Sun hunting party go one way and the valkyrie are led another. The two groups watch each other until they are separated by leaning buildings made of flimsy metal and old wood.

Sand covers the streets as it does everything else in the desert. Denizens of Market Town scurry out of their path as the procession marches towards the tall building at the center. Wasters watch from the shadows: desperate faces, filthy and tired, observing their passage. Reavers haggle with traders: predatory eyes, viscous and dangerous, size them up while . Latisha feels their scrutiny like ants on the skin, minor nuisances to be ignored.

Sons of The Old Fart sit along tables at the base of the tall central building, pouring over ledgers and cataloging piles of trade goods: food, ammo, tools. Their ages range from barely out of puberty to a few as old as Bria and the elder hunters of the Yellow Sun clan. The color of their skin spans the full range of The Bright Waste from pale like white sand to dark as the midnight sky. Their only shared feature is a half-shaven head. Braids, waves, curls. Their hair is well maintained and clean, their bald scalps devoid of parasites.