The Power Hungry (Mad Max: Fury Road Fanfiction)

6: Phase one

     Rowdy flashed me a toothy grin, "How was that, Imperator?"

     I laughed softly, "Gastown won't know what hit 'em."

     The pups retreated from us, high fiving and chattering. I stood and dusted the grit from my clothes and skin.

    Nux approached the little group, ruffling his apprentices' non existent hair, "Time to sleep, pups." he announced.

     "Aw, comon'! Why?" Ozz cried.

     "'Cause you're gonna need some shut eye if you're gonna fight Gastown, right?" Nux countered, raising his eyebrows.

     The two boys groaned, "Fine!"

     "Wait, Hummer, you stay here." I called as the war pup moved to follow his friends. He turned with a wide grin on his face and a smug glance to Ozz and Rowdy. They two grumbled angrily and stalked off to the pups' sleeping quarters.

    "What is it?" Hummer asked me.

      "I'm going to have ya help me work on the war rig. We're goin' to prepare her in case we need to drive." I explained as I began walking to the black thumb's cave.

    We emerged to the cave to find the war rig Jr nestled across at the far end of the room. With the light dimming more and more by the minute, I jogged to the front end of the truck and pulled a small lantern from under the driver's seat. I clicked it on and white light flared from the little bulb inside of it. I smiled warmly at the lantern, "Found some batteries for this little thing the other day, works like a charm."

     Hummer leaned his face close up to the light, squinting and tapping the plastic encasing the bulb, "Sure is nice." He commented, "Now we can work after dark."

     I playfully thumped my apprentice on the head, "Don't be gettin' any ideas. I'm not gonna let ya stay up late all the time." I set the lantern to the floor in front of the rig, pointing to the huge slab of metal attached to the grill, "Ya see this? The first war rig could lower that and use it to scoop up a bunch o' sand in case the rig caught fire. Worked very nicely, if I do say so myself." My mind flashed back to Fury Road, when we fought the motorbike men. The grenades rained from the skies as if the men were cloud gods looking to punish us, "The rig Jr. can't do that yet, and I think we can fix that tonight."

     "Okay, what do ya need me to get?" Hummer asked, struggling to keep his voice at a reasonable volume.

     I prodded at the device, peeking behind it and rolling ideas around in my brain, "Jus' go and find me all the gears ya can, we're gonna need 'em." I concluded, fishing a screw driver out of my back pocket. I began to unscrew the metal slab from its home as Hummer hurried off.

     This continued for hours. My arms ached and my spine cracked with every move I made. Hummer was a live-wire, and his energy did not falter despite the tedious nature of the job. He insisted on installing nearly every part to the machine. He was a damn good black thumb, and I felt pride surging up in my chest for my teaching skills. This boy was just a shy little bug when he was first assigned to me. He spoke like the wind, quiet and fleeting. He hardly was able to look me straight in the eye. He knew I was an Imperator, and I was a veteran from the battle of Fury Road, and that scared him. He had always tried to do everything perfectly in order to impress me. Once he even tried to build an entire engine from scratch. It ended dangerously and the motor blew up, sending hunks of metal soaring through the air. He was so ashamed he tried to get re-assigned to a different mentor so he wouldn't have to face me. Now here we were, nearly 6 months later, and he was a whole new person. He was outgoing, happy, and good natured. I have grown attached to the pup like he was my little brother.