Shift in Spectrum

by Superdale33

2 - Chosen by Force

The roar of the V8 engine resounded through the hills, increasing the speed of the Interceptor little by little. The other cars could be heard still, alongside the yells of the group that drove them. Pounding on the steering wheel, Max pressed harder on the gas pedal, but it would not go any further. He was already flooring it.

A blast of blue flames burst from the exhaust pipes of a truck leading the pack. The others followed its example, their nitro propelling them closer with each use. The Interceptor was fast, but their nitro kept up with him easily. Pulling out his shotgun, Max held the steering wheel in place as he reloaded it, retrieving two more shells from a nearby bag. Finished, he held it up next to him, glancing back to the group chasing him.

Their car bodies were littered with bullet holes. Sunlight streamed through the ones on their roofs, just barely illuminating the occupants. Each wheel had four spikes jutting from them. Facing forward again, Max shook his head. He had dealt with the group the other day. Leopards.

A flash of blue caught his attention. He jerked his shotgun to the driver’s window, almost leveling it with Rainbow Dash. Her eyes were half-lidded, flying as if it was a pleasant afternoon.

“You should probably know who you’re dealing with here,” she explained, holding up a hoof to examine nonchalantly. “Just to make things fair. I’m the Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in Equestria.” Max stared at her for a second more before putting his attention back on the road ahead. Rainbow furrowed her brow, fake coughing into her hoof. “I said, fastest flyer in Equestria. I don’t want to make you nervous or anything, but you should probably rethink this whole race.”

At the mention of the last word, Max raised his own brow but otherwise remained unmoving. “Hello?” Rainbow called, waving a hoof. “Anypony home in there? You can at least give me your name.”

She reached a hoof towards him, but wasn’t even close to touching him before Max aimed his shotgun at her forehead. The twin barrels pushed her away while Max glared harshly at her. The nudge made Rainbow falter in her flight, taken off guard by his actions. However, she glared right back at him as she swatted the shotgun away.

“Okay, okay, jeez,” she said, flying normally with her forelegs in front of her. “You don’t need to shove your stick in my face.”

Once again, Max was silent, and Rainbow rolled her eyes. With a hard flap of her wings, she ascended above the Interceptor, keeping pace with it. Despite Max’s behavior, her snideness returned in florish. The wind blew through her mane, her heart raced, and the only clouds around were far away. Turning her attention to the Leopards behind Max, she spotted six vehicles in total. All but one were the same; five cars and a truck. The latter had a large harpoon gun bolted to the bed with a man wielding it. Blue flames erupted from the exhaust pipe of the lead truck, putting it a meter or two closer to the Interceptor.

“These clowns are the competition?” she laughed, clutching her stomach. “This race will be a piece of cake.”

Her wings gave a couple more flaps, gaining just enough height before diving back down. The wind picked up, whistling in her ears, but it didn’t detract her in the least. With the extra speed, she was able to reach the front, still a couple meters above the Interceptor.

Max regarded her for a moment before grunting in frustration, “Fucking thing thinks it’s a game.”

Behind him, in the lead truck, a man crawled out through the side window. His fingerless gloves gripped the rusted bars running along the side. It was a smooth climb onto the roof, and he stood upon it openly, presenting himself with arms spread wide. A dozen black spots randomly dotted his back. A rope was tied around his waist, with some extra flowing behind him, along with his long, black hair. Clothing was sparse on him; he only had pants on, which were bleached yellow from age. Strapped to his wrist was a single knife. He was the Leopards’ leader, Pedant.

“My leap!” he bellowed, garnering the attention of the other men. All of them stuck their heads out, gazing upon the man on the roof. Pedant pointed to the Interceptor, his vision sweeping over the others. “A Gazelle drives before us! As the Voice has prescribed, waste not the prey of the hunt, and gain the bountiful meat that nourishes!”

“Leopards!” the men chanted, pumping a fist into the air. All at once, other men climbed out of the windows of the other cars, each one standing on the roofs. They were different from Pedant, lacking the rope around the wastes. Even their backs bore fewer spots, ranging from six to ten. However, they were equally as clothed and armed, and far more rowdy. They clapped their hands, hitting the roof of the cars with fists, and screamed over the roars of the engines.

Without so much as turning his head, Max sighed.

The Leopards’ display interrupted Rainbow’s concentration. It was hard to brush off their act while maintaining a high speed. Her falter pulled her back a bit, putting her directly above the Interceptor instead of ahead of it. Pedant beheld her with both arms, looking to the others again with vigor.

“And yet another Gazelle!” he said with a raised fist. “Take out the first one, and the other shall follow!”

“Leopards!” the men chanted again, their own fists raised.

Rainbow looked behind her in bafflement, scratching her head, “Are these guys a team or something? They sound like they lost their marbles.”

The rambunctiousness of the Leopards’ toned down as Pedant held up his hand again, palm open. The other men were tense, the drivers hunching over with gleeful smiles while the ones above bent their knees with bated breath. And when Pedant threw his arm forward, cheering loudly, the others cheered as well. The exhaust pipes of every car burst with blue fire, and they all launched forward.

The lead truck slammed into the back of the Interceptor, causing it to skid. Max wrestled with the wheel until he had control again. The short stall, however, allowed the other cars to clump together around the truck. The harpoon gun aimed and fired on the Interceptor. A whirling noise was heard as a harpoon, a metallic rope tied to it, struck one of barrels on the back and locked in place. Gasoline gushed out from the hole, filling the back compartment. The odor wasn’t hard to miss, and Max ground his teeth. Being so close, and attached to the lead truck, it wasn’t difficult for the Leopards to slowly hop from car to car, making their way to the front.

“Are those guys cheating?!” Rainbow Dash asked, her head jerking back. “I mean, it’ll make it easier for me to win, but I was going to do that anyway!” She swooped down, just a meter above Pedant. “Hey, bozos! Let’s keep this clean, alright? I want to win fair and square, and not cause you cheaters made it harder on that guy.”

She gestured to the Interceptor, where Max tried his hardest to pull away from the others. He put all his might into turning the wheel, and only managed to slightly sway the Interceptor back and forth. The harpoon kept him harnessed to the truck and prevented him from driving off. Cursing quickly, he turned back again to see the Leopards already reaching the lead truck, brushing by Pedant. He stared up at Rainbow in awe, holding his chin with a hand.

“You are far more like a true Gazelle,” he noted with a nod. “Perhaps the only creature close to one! You shall make a fine sacrifice to the Voice!”

“Sacrifice?” Rainbow questioned, her face in disgust. “Who sacrifices people? That’s just wrong.”

Pedant merely chuckled, holding his knife close to his chest as the first man jumped onto the Interceptor. Max didn’t waste a moment, whipping around with his shotgun and blasted the man on top of the barrels. The shot hit center mass, sending the man flying back onto the hood of the truck, cracking the windshield. Another man got clipped by him, and nearly fell off before catching himself on the handholds.

One of Rainbow’s ears twitched from the noise. Her eyes landed on the man splayed on the hood of the truck. Her breath hitched in her throat. His torso was a mess of blood and bone. He didn’t scream, didn’t move. He was dead.

And she could have ended up just like him.

The other men shied away, keeping their distance as Max waved his shotgun around the back. Though Max couldn’t aim anywhere past the hood of the truck, the Leopards stayed back, either beside Pedant or the harpoon gun, looking up to the former. Rainbow watched them before her eyes traveled down to the Interceptor. To Max holding his shotgun. The one Rainbow had thought was a strange stick.

“This Gazelle wants to put up a fight,” he said, bearing his teeth in anger before addressing the others. “The Leopards are higher in the food chain, so says the Voice! Put your confidence in him and do not falter!”

“Leopards!” the group cheered with fists in the air, all sense of fear disappearing. They clamored for the Interceptor, climbing along the sides - though slowly - as well as the trunk. A man in the trunk was easily taken out by another fire of Max’s shotgun, and the victim fell back onto the gas barrels.

The return of another shotgun blast knocked Rainbow out of her stupor. She flew from side to side, her forelegs rubbing each other.

“If that guy is a… killer, then is he the bad guy?” she asked herself, her ears drooping. “Those guys attacked him first, but they didn’t kill somepony.” She clutched her head, her hooves digging into her fur. “What’s going on here?!”

Another fire of the shotgun put attention back to the situation. A man hanging on the left side of the Interceptor, at the window, let go of his handhold, dead. His limp body fell to the road before being swallowed underneath the Leopards’ cars. The way the cars lurched up over the body made Rainbow shudder.

Another man crawled through the back window, and Max aimed at him. Before he could pull the trigger, his car went over a bump in the road, and a knife-wristed hand flew through the driver’s window, centimeters away from his throat. Max dropped his shotgun to grab the arm. With a yank, the offending man’s head followed, and got an elbow to the face from Max. Blood gushed from his nose as Max let go of him to sock him in the jaw, and finished it up by kicking open the door. All of the abuse was enough to knock the man off the Interceptor, who hit the road before the cars took him like the other.

Just as Max shut the door, a man leapt onto the roof, announcing himself with a loud metallic thud. Max snatched his shotgun and stuck it outside, pointing it above himself where he had heard the noise, and fired. The man flew off, screaming before tumbling onto the road.

Rainbow still didn’t make a move, even after watching several people die. Her breathing was amplifying, and she looked at the violence with uncertainty.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” she rambled, hooves covering her mouth. “I-I don’t know what to do. If Twilight was here…” She gasped as an idea came to her. “I’ll stop them from fighting! Yeah! Maybe they’ll listen to each other or-or something.”

Pedant still stood atop the roof of the truck, and Rainbow swooped over to hover in front of him. She raised her hooves towards him just as he took a step back from her sudden appearance.

“Listen, dude,” she said, her anxiety shifting into desperate defiance, “I don’t know why you’re messing with that guy, but just call your friends off. We can work something out-”

Hands lashed out and grabbed a hold of her forelegs. Rainbow squeaked from the pressure; her hooves were already going numb. Pedant grinned demonically, bringing her closer as she brought her head back in response. No matter how fast Rainbow flapped her wings, she couldn’t break free. The stench of his breath made it even harder.

“Your words mean nothing, sacrifice!” Pedant declared with a laugh. “The Voice is who we follow, and he says all Gazelles are food for the Leopards!”

“Let me go!” she demanded, clenching her eyes shut before holding up her hind legs and kicking Pedant square in the chest. He coughed as the air was knocked out of him, falling back into the truck bed. The kick sprung Rainbow away with a yell before landing on the roof of the Interceptor.

She lied on her back when Max had finished inserting two more shells into his shotgun. A groan escaped Rainbow’s lips, disoriented from the impact. Another jerk of Max’s arm clamped the shotgun shut, and he raised it over the side like he did before, but a tuft of Rainbow’s mane drooped over the windowless windshield. It’s rainbow color was unmistakable.

Max.

The girl echoed in his ears, and he grunted, tucking his shotgun back into the Interceptor to clutch his head. Facing the road ahead of him, he blinked. His earlier discomfort evaporated in an instant as he tightly clutched the wheel, narrowing his eyes at the obstacle ahead. The road lead them to a bridge that no longer existed. It had crumpled sometime in the past, leaving behind lines of rebar and chunks of concrete. The canyon the bridge had spanned across was all that remained, getting closer with each second.

Rainbow grumbled from her landing, flipping back onto her hooves warily. The Leopards had halted in their attack as they stared at the broken bridge they drove blindly towards. Rainbow glanced back, her jaw falling open at the missing bridge. She did another sweep around at the people and cars heading straight for it.

“Horse apples,” she whimpered out.

Comments

[High_Fidelity]

I feel that I should point out that, despite being commonly known as the 'V8 Interceptor,' it is actually a Pursuit Special. The only Interceptor that we see is Max's yellow car from the first chase scene in the original movie.
I'll just leave that little piece of trivia there. I'm liking where this is going.

[Conspire]

Holy shit, I've been waiting for a story like this for ages. I am a huge fan of Mad Max

[Conspire]

And also I suppose that this story will follow the movies, not the game?

[Superdale33]

7119930 Based my research, it's known as both Interceptor and Pursuit special. In the first movie, the V8 Interceptor referred to the prototype that was being built in the MFP Garage, which is what Max eventually steals near the end of the movie to take out the biker gang. All proceeding movies, as far as I know, never really refer to the Interceptor in name, although there were times when Max called it the Black on Black (specifically in the video game). For the sake of the story, I simply stayed with the name Interceptor.

Trust me when I say I did my research thoroughly.

[High_Fidelity]

7120277 Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. it's referred to as many things, but according to the Mad Max wiki, it's a Pursuit Special. But according to lore, pop culture and mixed messages in-movie, it's the Interceptor.

[UseFistNotMouth]

My opinion so far?

Rainbow sems significantly less physically powerful and significantly less intuitive than in canon.

If you compare her experiences in canon, to what she is experiencing here, other than the "kill as first resort" survival system, these events should not be beyond her intuition to comprehend even if she believed she was dreaming and acted rashly or thought flippant.

As to her power level based on canon, she should be able to easily lift off with that guy holding on. Only the rope and the grip should impede her.

Otherwise, promising tale.