Wolf swung her rifle onto her back. She checked her ammunition before cocking her handgun.

Wolf looked over, analyzing her targets. The swarm of scavengers kept growing in size.

She briefly hesitated, before swiftly darting closer to their position.

"Disable that Gauss cannon!" shouted a scavenger to get comrades as he aimed at the large mechanical walker, "Aim at the power lines- the left arm!"

Wolf dashed over piles of rusting metal and withered trash, taking cover behind the shattered metal wing of an Old War plane.

"We're runnin' low on rounds. When's that walker of ours showin' up?" yelled another scavenger beside the man. The sounds of clashing metal and firing rifles muffled their conversation.

"We got the pilot already, right?" questioned one of the men looking around the area.

The scavenger turned around and noticed the two scavenger bodies. The man stared at his two dead comrades. He reached for another magazine for his rifle in his jacket's deep pockets.

Wolf emerged from behind the trash heap slicing her sword through the reloading scavenger's neck. His severed neck sprayed blood in the air as she decapitated him within an instant.

The large mechanical walker's cannons began to fail. It's defenses had been breached, it's joints became stiff. Goalie turned to Wolf's direction, breep, it sounded.

Wolf could see that her walker wouldn't last much longer. She realized she made a mistake coming into an enclosed area. She was trapped and cornered.

Wolf whistled twice loudly alerting the crew of scavengers. Goalie looked at Wolf, before charging away from the debris pit, leaving Wolf behind. She had commanded him to return to their last resting point- the old factory.

Wolf watched as her walker and all of her supplies left without her.

The scavengers turned, facing Wolf's direction. One of the men fired his revolver at her.

Wolf slid to the dusty floor dodging the bullet. She stumbled on bits and pieces of serrated metal shards and discarded junk. 

Wolf removed the sharp metal bits from her knees as she crouched.

The scavenger fired another round off from his revolver as he approached closer.

Wolf sprung up from her crouched position and batted the bullet with her thin blade. Her quick reflexes directed the bullet away from her but caused the razor-thin blade of her sword to shatter on impact.

Dashing behind the tangled heaps of rusted girders and frames, Wolf tried to lose the men through the thick of debris.

"She's down here, over here!" shouted one of the men.

Wolf stuck out her handgun out of a small gap in the debris and fired rapidly, maiming the approaching scavenger and several of the men behind him before the clip ran dry.

Wolf continued to crawl under the rusted metal, digging through the heaps of plastic and garbage.

A shiny panel of tin reflected the image of her face back at her. Her blue eyes were surrounded in smears of black grime. The canary yellow paint on her forehead peeled away revealing the scar of an M carved into her forehead.

A sharp hook of a reeling rifle jabbed into her leg. Wolf held onto the panel of tin but it was no use.

The line pulled her through the sharp metal bits and dust, exposing her to the crowd of scavengers.

"I got her!" alerted a scavenger, prying Wolf from out of the debris by her legs.

Wolf dragged her fingers through the loose sand. She tried to fight the wire back from reeling in but it was it useless.

She pulled and tugged on the wire to get some slack. Wolf pulled the line and bent over, cutting the line from her leg with teeth. She watched as the swarm of men began to surround her position.

Wolf felt the weight of her handgun. It was noticeably lighter, she had fired all of her rounds.

She threw her empty handgun at the crowd of men and looked down at the shattered sword in her hand. She pressed the trigger on her sword's hilt, releasing the shattered blade from the hilt onto the sand below. Wolf sheathed her hilt, and attached it to a spare blade held by the multi-blade sheath belted at her waist.

Four scavengers surrounded the wounded, cornered Wolf, armed with serrated blades and tire irons.

The men stepped forward approaching her. Wolf stepped back, cautiously.

Wolf backed into the corner, her pale blue eyes began to shift colour, turning into a fiery light red like a smoldering coal. She panted frantically, breathing in and out as if she was hyper-ventilating. Cracking her knuckles, Wolf let out a sinister smile.

Wolf darted abruptly towards the approaching men with sword in hand.

One of the scavengers shot his reeling rifle bolt, missing the dashing Wolf.

The closest scavenger swung his heavy iron rod at her, missing her as well.

Wolf dived on top of the closest man and began frantically jabbing the him with her slender blade. Wolf slid her blade through his gut before charging towards the next man in her vicinity. The first scavenger sat holding his entrails from falling out as he bled out on the sandy desert ground.

The second closest scavenger charged in with his medium-length blade. He swung, grazing Wolf's cheek. Wolf attempted to evade by she swinging her head back, but caught a nick. Wolf jumped forward piercing her sword through the assailant's chest, leaving it in briefly, before kicking him to the floor. Diving on top of the injured man, Wolf held him down, pressing her sharp nails into his skin. Wolf ripped into his throat with her teeth.

Blood dripped from her lips as she stared menacingly at the remaining scavengers. Wolf pulled her sword from out of the suffering man's chest who was drowning in his own blood from the punctured lung and tear in his throat.

More scavengers flanked her position surrounding and cornering Wolf.

One of the men fired his reeling rifle into Wolf's thigh. Wolf instinctively slit the fishing line before she could be pulled. Wolf turned her attention towards him, ready to charge. The stake through her thigh bled through her dark purple battlesuit, dripping down her leg.

Three more barbed stakes launched towards her. Wolf attempted to evade, stumbling from her wounds. The barbed stakes pierced through her clothes and broke through her skin. The stakes punctured her legs and arms, pulling her in opposite directions. Wolf became suspended off of the floor. She was locked in place unable to move. She felt like a helpless fly in a spider's web.

Wolf's eyes reverted back to her normal bright blue. She looked confused, and attempted to pull herself free of the web of strung wires and lines. She stared figures standing on top of the heaps of debris. Men in black cloaks surrounded them.

"No," she whispered to herself, pulling at the lines stuck into her, "Harbingers..."

A loud siren blared in the distance.

The scavengers turned their direction to the men in black cloaks surrounding their position.

"These are our lands!" warned the scavengers, "You have no rights here!"

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Hovering ships descended down into the debris pit. The men in black cloaks cautiously approached with rifles in hand.

"Any man that doesn't surrender and lay down their arms will be shot," announced a voice over an intercom. Several hovering skiffs and floating barges swarmed in over the heaps of trash and metal, surrounding their position.

"This is Aldra's pit! This is her scrap!" screamed a defiant scavenger, "We fear none but Goddess Aldra!"

The scavenger fired his handgun at one of the approaching cloaked men, killing him.

The corpse of the cloaked man rolled off of the debris and onto the dusty floor creating a brief cloud of dust as he collided with the sand. Wolf tugged on the wires that held her in place. Using the slack in the line Wolf pulled it looser and cut her arm free with her blade.

Wolf looked over at the dead Harbinger. He wore a strange back veil over his face and appeared to be wearing no armour.

Rounds fired off from the cloaked men into the disobeying scavenger. The scavenger fell to the floor. Red ran down his chest from the many puncturing, bloody holes. He coughed, spitting blood to the floor.

"Long live Aldra," he muttered before losing consciousness. 

A black cloaked man disembarked the barge and looted the fallen scavenger, "Filthy nomads," he spoke.

"Lay down your arms," commanded one of the scavengers, "Harbingers. No one has faced the feathered-men and lived to tell about it."

"Aldra will gut us. She'll hang our entrails down into the dark pits," argued another scavenger.

"The Harbingers will gut us long before then," he replied tossing his reeling rifle to the floor.

A large force of men dressed in all-black cloaks disembarked their hovering skiffs. In their hands were strange, large weapons with clockwork bits.

The swarm of scavengers dropped their weapons, disarming themselves and surrendering to the Harbingers. The Harbingers tied the group of men down with thick black ropes, and hung them from a mesh net under their hovering skiffs. They were now prisoners of war.

"Bring that girl to me- the one in chains!" ordered the Leader of the Harbingers, who stared at the girl surrounded in massacred scavenger bodies, "Ashen hair, blue eyes and a pretty face. We're in the graces of a legend, men. The Wolf of the Wasteland."

The Harbinger men dragged Wolf through the dust pulling her by the lines embedded into her clothes and skin. The leader approached holding out his strange mechanical arm, gesturing Wolf to stand up. His face was covered by the mask of a crow or raven. The eye holes in the mask were like black chasms and showed no man behind them.

"Alas, we finally meet," spoke the Head Harbinger, "I am the Overseer of the Harbingers, Thal Sirren. But, you... You need no introductions. We all know who you are," he smiled, "You are the bloody Wolf. You're the one the slaves pray to while we drag them across the sea of sand." The Overseer stepped closer to Wolf, "You're the one the slavers curse as you hunt them down like rabbits. I've seen your work in person. You gut them and dice them like a bloody butcher. Those are my men, Wolf. We've paid them to do a simple job, and then you come along out of the filthy sand and gut them. You've stolen from me, and I want it all back."

A group of Harbinger men approached Wolf with a large ring device. Wolf looked down at the stakes and lines holding her down. She stared up above at her raven, who soared in circles above, as they placed a large metal collar around her neck.

The man turned around facing his large fleet of hovering cruisers, "Problem with these feats of yours, Wolf... The things you do interfere with my plans. The slaves you free, the lives you think you're saving, the men you kill while doing all of it... All of it affects my empire. The caravans you destroy affects me, the men you slay affects me."

The Overseer stepped back, "Why aren't you talking? Did these bloody scrappers cut out your tongue? Do you not see how this affects me? Do you not see how we both can not co-exist?"

Thal Sirren stood in thought for a moment.

"Those men you murder, the slave-masters, they are just doing simple jobs- with families they pray to return to. Now do you see the damage you cause? You rob them of that. You rob them of the chance to return home, that's what your killing does."

Wolf let out a smile, holding in a faint laugh.

The Overseer looked aggravated. "Does that not make you feel, Wolf? Are you as cold as they say?"

"I feel nothing for those kinds of men," she spoke, in a gruff tone.

"Ah, talking. I had to be sure you could. You are right, the men I hire are monsters. They deserve punishment."

The Overseer placed his hands against her face.

"I realized one thing growing up in the wasteland, Wolf. I realized men don't fear other men. They fight, they bicker, and kill each other, and they never listen. But, what men do fear- is monsters. They fear Bloody Mirra, they fear Aldra, they fear the demented, so I employ the demented. The most potent tool of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed, Wolf. I've wanted to have this talk with you for some time. I've never understood how you've avoided having this conversation with me."

Wolf silently pulled the last wire from out of her skin while listening to the Overseer ramble on.

"What I'm really trying to say is, you owe me, Wolf. That's what it comes down to. You've stolen from me, and I want it all back. You fight for me and in turn together we will end the Red of Mirra. We will end Bloody Mirra's reign together. Isn't that all you've ever wanted?"

Wolf looked up at the Overseer.

"Why do you want Mirra dead?" she questioned curiously.

"Mirra infests my lands, kills my people, and claims my settlements. The Harbingers will not remain idle any longer." 

"Free the wasteland of Harbinger chains and I will help you kill Mirra," she insisted.

The Overseer turned and approached Wolf, aggravated. The Overseer held up his hand as if he planned to strike her. Wolf, free of the lines holding her back held her sword firmly in her hand.

The Overseer placed his finger over her lips, "You make no requests. You are my slave now. You are free when Mirra's head is on my lap. Until then you are nothing but my pet."

The Overseer stared at the debris pit around them, confused.

"Where is that walker of yours?" questioned the Overseer, "I was told it would be here. I believe it has some of our property. You know the machine I'm talking about. That Old War Goliath unit."

Wolf looked at the Overseer and laughed.

"Oh well, I suppose we have plenty of time for questions."

The metal collar around Wolf's neck began to tighten. Wolf tried to breathe, but she couldn't.

She began to feel disoriented and hazy, before dropping to the dusty floor.

The Overseer looked over at his men, "Tie her up under the barge. We'll be taking her as well."