"TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVE! TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVE! TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVE! TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVE!"

The crowd roared as he walked forward to the arena, his opponent already waiting for him. When he came on the floor the dome cage was lowered , once hooked up the both of them were lifted in the air.

They came to a stop while the announcer´s voice came up. "Gastowners! Wastelanders! War boys! it´s time for a second part of tonight´s show! THE THUNDERDOME FIGHTS! Tonight´s first fight will be between, the cold, the brutal, the ruthless, the unbeatable. STRIKE! Tonight he´s standing againts a wasteland fightter. DUKE!"

'Duke? Fitting considering how armed he is .' he thought, seriously he looked like he was about to take on an entire base full of Scrotus´s nutbars. He was wearing kevlar vest, his arm guards had metal plates with protruding screws and nuts and some heavy padding fixated with leather belts, on each of his gloves´s knuckle was more metal with small part protruding. Definitely don´t want to catch a blow with it.

Getting into boxing stances, started to slowly circle one another. Cheering of the crowd and beating of the drums was all around them

After some time Strike charged, he pulled his leg high in the air and forcefully swung it down at his opponent only for him to block it, grab it and sweep his other leg, sending him to the ground. Wasting no time, he rolled away. He could weakly hear how something fell on the ground, getting to one knee he saw the guy quickly getting up, he stood up and get into the stance.

They were circling each other again, he was stunned that Duke managed to block his kick. People his size either get kicked or dodge, only the big guys would blocked his kick and they rarely even manage to catch it.

Strike went few steps back then he charged once again but this time he got down managing to do very nice slide, when he got close enough he kicked out hitting the side of opponent's knee making him go down.

He immediately went behind him and got him into a chokehold, he grabed his arm trying to get it off, when that didn´t worked he started punching haphazardly and scoring hit right into his face, fortunately it was protected by his mask but it was still strong enough to make him let go, rolling backwards he used my fists to push himself upwards.

Strike didn't have time to react before he was punched into his chest and then being pulled by his hand and punched into his face. He lost balance and fell, looking up he saw that the guy wanted to stomp on his head, lifting his hands he blocked the attack, he tried to push him away but couldn't so he moved his hand to the right. Or atleast he tried.

Strike felt his abdomen getting stomped on, he breathed out and rolled to the left, when he stood up he saw the guy charging him. He used push kick to make him stumble backwards, wasting no time he came up to him and chained up with series of strikes. Jabs, hooks and right uppercut, once he was dazed he clinched him and started to kick him with knees into abdomen.

Then Strike for a double leg takedown and then brutally dropped on Duke. He stepped back to see if he would stood up. When he saw him trying to he began to kick him in the abdomen and stomped on his back hard. 'Come on just stay down,' he thought. He began rising again. 'He doesn't know when to quit, does he?' Admirable but useless in this place. He came up to him from the front and locked my arms around his neck. With a jerk of his arms, it was over.

The arena was lowered to the ground with its cage part lifted allowing Strike to take his leave as the cheering didn't ceased. He walked for some time before he got to his destionation, the man he made a deal with was already waiting for him. "Did you get it?" he asked indifferently as the man nodded and lead him to the back of the alley where was a box which was suposed to be full of water and gas. Lifting the lid and looking in he saw that it was less then they agreed upon, slowly lifting my head his glared at him through his mask, mentally asking if he was seroius.

"This was all I could get without getting myself killed, besides be glad I'm doing this at all,"

incapable and rude as hell. He had half of mind to gouge his eyes and snap his neck but the potential commotion would draw unnecessary attention, sighing he lowered the lid and just gave him his payment in a form of hard hook to his temple knocking him out instantly.

Grabbing the box he ran as fast as he could to his car, once close to it he oppened its trunk and put it in there, closing the trunk he ran to driver's seat, started the engine and took off. The engine revved loudly with the tires kicking cloud of sand, he kept going on a full throttle until he couldn't see Gastown. Only then did he slowed down to check if he had everything, 'knifes? Check, box? Check, full tank? Check, enough water to last me days and with gas lasting months? Double check.' Satisfied, he kept going on a much reasonable speed to save gas.

'Still can't believe that it worked without a hitch, pity I don't have any wood in here to-' he was interrupted from his brooding by sounds of other engines, looking back he saw War Boys chasing after him. He just shook his head at that and kept going, they want to die? Let them.

A car has caught up to him from the right. Pulling out his Glock he disabled safety then took aim at the driver and shot him in the head. Without anybody to control it the car soon went up a small dune and before crashing. A war boy jumped on the hood of his car and was greeted with a hole in his head. One shot a harpoon on the passenger door. Strike turned to left sharply, almost ripping the door out, crashing into another car making it lose control and crashed. He looked at the car that was connected to his up and down, spotting the sticking thunderpoon. Before he could take aim the truck rammed into him and caused him to loose grip on his gun and dropping it on the floor.

'Relentless, crazy and fucking annoying,' he thought darkly. The truck crashed over and over and over and gave him absolutely no time to pick up the gun. 'I have to come up with something, or I'll either end up back in the arena, or in the better case; dead,' that was decided for him when the door couldn't take it anymore and got ripped out.

Snapping his head to the left he saw a War Boy Holding Thunderpoons in reversed grip. 'Oh hell no,' he waited until he jumped before jerking the steering wheel to the right. The explosion shooked his car harshly but he managed to keep it going. When the car began ramming into him again he had just about enough of this shit. Looking around he put a brick he had stashed on the accelerator to keep it down. He grabbed his gun and enabled the safety before crawling through windshield on the hood. He jumped on the other truck's hood and disabled safety and took aim but before he could pull the trigger he was jumped by another War boy making him almost lost grip again.

"YOU'RE GOING BACK TO THE ARENA ,YOU THIEVING SCUM!" he screamed at him. He lifted him and threw him in back of the truck making him loose grip and dropping his gun. He got atop of Strike and began pummeling him. Strike managed to catch his left hands before he lifted my pelvis and wrapped his legs around the Boy's shoulder and brough him down. He kept increasing the presure until his elbow snapped making him scream in pain. Letting go of his hand, Strike stood up and kicked him off of the truck before searched for his gun. When he found it took aim at the driver only to get shot in return in his body with what he assumed was a shotgun.

Fortunately most of the damage was caught by his own kevlar vest which he kept hidden underneath his leather jacket but some pellets still managed to get through. He fell on his back from the inpact clutching at his chest in pain. Looking up he saw the War Boy fiddling with his sawed-off double barrel shotgun. Before Strike could aim on him, he jumped at only to get shiv into his neck.

Shoving him off himself, Strike stood up and saw that the cars heading right into a ravine. Fast. He unzipped his jacked a bit and set the safety back on he putting in and zipping the jacket back up. He got on the roof of the truck and jumped back on his car and got back inside it.

Once inside when took off the brick of off the accelerator before pulling up the handbrake and jerking the steering wheel the left he began drifting on the sand. When his car finally came to a stop, he crawled up the passenger seat to see how far he was from plummeting down.

Few more centimeters and it would be the end of him, sighing he got back to my seat. he took off his mask and tossed it on the back seat and rubbed his face with his hand, "what a day. What a lovely day," he said sarcastically. He turned rear view mirror on his face and saw that his hair was getting long again, 'two more weeks and I'll look like a hobo,' he thought as he checked his teeth for decay, most of them them were dark yellow and some had black head.

He turned the mirror back and slumped in his seat and closed his eyes. 'Where did we went wrong as a species? Who was the first one to strike and why? No point thinking about that, what happened, happened, now I can only adapt.' He dozzed off and didn't registered the sound of engine coming until it was too late and got rammed into and shoved off of the ravine.

Author's Note

Few things I'd like you to know:
- Strike is NOT Max but HIS OWN personality.
- the car Strike uses is black Ford Mustang 1969 (large grille up front for frontal impact, coverage for the tires, bit of armor, etc).
- write down what you think I could do better, what I should change.
- don't be shy to write down your ideas for how the story could or even should progress too.