He lolled the thick, bitter tobacco juice from beneath his tongue, hocking it into a perfect sphere before launching it out the window of the King with a soft pft. He oozed out a smile at the divot in the cement, chewing openly as he grinned. His teeth, although oddly white, still had a brown film complete with tiny bits of tobacco that had escaped the main clump.

The passenger in the massive red truck, a skinny white man in his mid-twenties, reached up to adjust his cap. The Sheriff fixed him with a stare, his head snapping around from facing the opposite direction in an instant, and he froze for a moment before reaching down to wipe his hands off on his pants. The older man nodded, his mirrored Aviator sunglasses turning their baleful gaze away. The younger man, having wiped the small amount of cleaning oil from his hands onto his blue denim jeans, reached up and turned his cap backwards.

His hands had not dropped further than his shoulders when he thought better of it, reaching up to take it off entirely. He spoke, carefully measuring each word for necessity and clarity, mentally shrieking at his tongue to move as it should.

“Do you mind if I roll down the window, Sheriff?”

The Sheriff looked over at the young man again, rolling to a stop at a stop sign. He considered.

The truck started moving again, and after a moment, the Sheriff nodded once, his hat dipping down and concealing the reflection of the young man sitting in the passenger seat, looking nervous and out of place in blue jeans with one ripped knee, a wrinkled polo shirt, and a brand-new, flat-brimmed red hat held carefully in both hands.

He looked away from his passenger as he pulled up to the edge of town, pulling through the middle of the street to move to the head of the convoy. There were the mentioned trucks and Jeeps, as well as two people on dirt bikes. The pair were leaning on their dirt bikes at the current head of the convoy, one of them spitting sunflower shells at the town’s faded and bullet-ridden “Welcome” sign.

They were both wearing armored motocross jumpsuits, the form-fitting black plastic “armor” clashing with the extra equipment they had obviously gained post-Sorry System. The plastic armor had letters and numbers etched into the back, obviously a professionally done job. The words were different on each rider, and they served as one of the few things that differentiated them.

The shell-spitter had a large “14” in white Dispatch font set in the center of the plastic crash-armor, with the words “Special” above the number and the word “Treat” below the number. He was wearing a bowl-like military helmet, complete with a spike in the center of the top. It was obviously a Ysari System-item, the spike briefly glowing a whitish-red as the Sheriff pulled up. He had a long staff with intricately carved metal caps on each end leaning between his handlebars, the other end resting on his dirt bike seat. He sat up, spitting a small stream of uncracked seeds from his cheek. They didn’t come out as easily as he had hoped they would, and he had to tongue several of them out awkwardly, glad he had done this before he had to speak to the sheriff.

The other dirt-biker was wearing the same plastic armor common to motorsports before the Ysari System, exactly the same as that of his apparent companion, but his armor had the number “42” engraved in the middle, with “Party” and “Zero” above and below the white number, respectively. He was not wearing a helmet, but rather had an old-style leather football cap dangling off of one of the handlebars, dyed a deep red. He had no weapon out in the open, as did Special Treat, but he nonetheless radiated an aura that spoke of an absolute willingness to engage in sudden, blinding violence.

While Special Treat was spluttering the remnants of his aborted snack, Party Zero stepped forward, hopping up the metal side-step to reach the window of the truck. He waited patiently for it to roll down, peering and squinting to see inside.

A frightened dud… young man stared at him. Party Zero ignored him, moving his position to look past him entirely. The young man thankfully got the hint and leaned back, unblocking the view between him and the Sheriff.

“Howdy, Sheriff. We’re all here and good to go, sir.” He paused for a moment, leaning forward to light a cigarette, shielding his flame with his body and the truck. His cigarette lit, he leaned back on his heels again and took a deep drag of it, holding the edge of the truck with his other hand.

He took it from his mouth and stared at the silent passenger, holding himself just far enough away from the window that the smoke would not fill the cab of the truck.

“Gimme yer hat.”

The passenger looked at the Sheriff, confused. The Sheriff watched impassively, the young man’s own reflection the only response. He turned to look at the dirt biker again, slowly reaching to take it off.

Party Zero reached out and grabbed the hat out of the hands of the man in the vehicle, putting his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and clenching it firmly with its lips.

“I see you got yer bat back there, as always, Sheriff. Can I borrow your ball?”

The Sheriff stared at Party Zero for a long two seconds before laughing heartily, his hat bobbing as he nodded and reached behind his seat into the rear seat pocket. It took him several attempts, but he managed to put out a square box the size of a grapefruit. He immediately dumped the perfectly white softball (except for the stripes and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League logo, of course) into his hand and tossed it to Party Zero.

“It’s my wife’s”, he said in a deadpan tone that clearly indicated any arguments would be at the speaker’s peril.

“Mind poppin’ the toolbox, bossman?”, the biker asked, ignoring the matter entirely, hopping onto the climbing step.

The Sheriff nodded magnanimously and flipped a switch labeled “Toolbox O/C” to the upwards position. The brief hum of machinery filled the cab for a moment as the toolbox that was nestled against the entire rear of the truck bed just below the rear window opened, the hydraulics performing their labor in moments.

The rider yelled his muffled thanks as he leaned into the toolbox. There was brief rummaging, and then the biker made a happy-sounding grunt and leaned back. A ripping noise followed, and then a thunk as something was thrown into the toolbox.

Party Zero slapped the top of the cab twice before hopping to the side-step and dropping the red cap into the unnerved passenger’s lap. The brim had been wrapped around the ball and held in place with a couple wraps of duct tape. The biker hadn’t bothered to try and prevent the sticky side from contacting the curve of the brim, just taping it directly.

The Sheriff leaned his mass forward, an impressive feat in the confined space of a vehicle cab, and lowered his sunglasses until he could just barely peek over the tops of the rims. His voice was congenial, almost grandfatherly.

“Did you just hit the Throne, son?”

Party Zero paled, the perfect lines of the goggles-shaped tan on his face betraying his inner workings, and he stammered out a response.

“No, boss, I just… I mean, yes, boss, and I’m sorry, boss, it won’t happen again. I don’t know what I was thinkin’.” Party Zero’s eyes landed on the red hat he had taped and he began speaking rapidly. “I was just trying to make sure Jensen’s”, he gestured at the passenger with his thumb before continuing, “cover was squared away and good to go for the mission at hand, especially with this being official business and all.”

The Sheriff watched him, his unblinking blue eyes seeming to worsen the nervousness of the man hanging on to the outside of the lifted truck, and neither of the two members of his audience thought for a moment that the Sheriff did not realize the effect he was having..

Party Zero’s eyes were darting between the Sheriff and Jensen rapidly, his nerves quickly exceeding his ability to control or even conceal them. He brightened, offering a too-bright smile, and awkwardly fumbled with the zippered pocket on the waist of his armored jumpsuit. After struggling to open it for a moment, he pulled out a cheap rose made of red fabric, the “flower” roughly the size of a nickel.

He leaned forward and stuck it into the air vent in one swift motion, his abrupt, wide smile only freezing and slowly dropping when he looked back at the sheriff.

“Get that garbage out of my sight, boy, and then put that tape back where you found it.”

The Sheriff raised his glasses and glanced at his watch in an obvious way, waving it slightly to punctuate his point. “We’re runnin’ out of daylight.”

“Yes, Sheriff.” Partry Zero snatched the cloth rose from the air vent and then leapt into the back of the truck, leaning into move the duck tape he had carelessly tossed. When he finished, he did not slap the top of the truck, instead moving directly to the side-step.

“Done, boss.”

The Sheriff nodded, waving with the back of his hand to shoo the nervous man away. Party Zero hopped down and ran to his bike, hopping onto it and checking his gear. The Sheriff reached forward and flipped a switch labeled “PA/MIC”, unhooking a police-style wired radio handset from a holster in his truck middle panel. He keyed a side switch and began to speak, hesitating after his first word to make sure the speaker was working.

“Boys… Y’all know why we’re here. We’re going out to the Bell Vet place to save some god-damn animals.” He gestured with his thumb (rather uselessly, but he was an emphatic man) in the direction of the trailers. “We have trailers to try and gather as many of the livestock as we can. Priorities are the chickens and cows, though. Try and focus on them, they can keep on givin’. Pigs only give once.”

He glanced over at Jensen, continuing to stare at him as he finished his monologue.

“We don’t know how far it is, but it was one and half miles, so expect a lot more than that. Guards, you know what to do.”

A loud whooping filled the air, as well as more than a few honks of vehicle horns.

The Sheriff continued speaking, and the cheers and noises quieted immediately. “Drivers, I don’t know if the Mayor picked you because you’re skilled or volunteered. Hell, I don’t even know if you’ve been voluntold. What I do know, though, is that none of y’all have been in the field with me, none of y’all have ever shown me what you can do at my range, and none of y’all are even police officers. So… If the Mayor did not tell you, your job is to stay quiet, drive where and when you’re told, and otherwise stay quietly behind the wheel.”

The Sheriff took a deep breath, panting slightly after speaking so many unbroken words, and then plowed forward, short of breath or not.

“My boys know what to do and how to handle the animals, the monsters, the livestock, everything. I hand-picked the best of the best from our humble village.”

Good-natured boos erupted at the sarcastically-spoken word “village.” Very few of the townsfolk had enjoyed learning that their “city” was only qualified as a village by the Ysari System, thanks largely in part to their population of five hundred or so.

“Enough of my jawin’ now, we got work to do. I’ve been yakkin’ at ch’all like one of them Dumbocrat deep-state talkin’ heads. Follow the Red Throne, boys!” He pressed the switch to close the toolbox, revealing the massive gold-rimmed red throne that dominated most of his rear windshield. The Sheriff let out a long yoooo-ah into the mic before hanging it up. Similar cries came through the air, and he smiled, tipping his hat back.

He glanced over at Jensen, smiling wider.

“Watch this. Declaration of Authority!”, he spoke, invoking a class ability. He then jammed his meaty fist onto the horn.

A massive wave of sound swept out, and Jensen could feel raw vigor for the crusade filling him.

The Red Throne went, and the Riders followed.