Return of the Nine Slightly Aged Jumpers

A mysterious stranger walks through a dreary forest under the cover of night. The sunlight annoyingly shines in his eyes, disrupting his train of thought. He stops the train and takes a step outside to take in his surroundings. Nothing. He's stopped in the middle of a large desert plain, the only visible life the passengers of his railcars. 30 of them to be exact, though he hasn't checked on them since they embarked over 45 minutes ago. They could be turning on each other by now, motivated by their uncontrollable instinct to eat in order to reverse the starvation brought on by being locked in a metal box on wheels for so long.

 He decides to abandon the train and take it on foot. The man's name is Ridgewell. Bridge Ridgewell, though he usually just goes by Ridgwell. Or Bridge. Or Bridge Ridgewell. It really makes no difference to him what he's called. You could make up a name for him if you want, like Pat. The man wears a dark cape and nothing else, not even shoes. I don't know how he's managed to get this far without even a pair of shoes but he has. The cape has never been washed (dry cleaning is a thing of the past) and it's feathered shreds sway with the cool poisonous breeze brought on by the imminent desert sunset.

Bridge Ridgewell, aka Pat

He decides to settle down for the night after he has covered a good distance, about 34 feet from where he started. He builds a large fire but doesn't light it, as strike anywhere matches are a rare novelty only used in emergencies such as a drought. He covers himself loosely with his cape and falls asleep almost instantly, soothed by the comforting sounds of his miserable prisoners scratching the walls in the rustic boarded up cars of his old train.
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In the morning, he sets to work finding breakfast so he can begin his journey. By digging several inches below the ashen gray sand he uncovers a rusted can of something. He bites directly into the can and chews the contents satisfyingly. He throws the remainder of the contents back onto the ashes and stomps on it. Bad idea, because now he has disgusting slimy food all over his half disintegrated boots that he found in the back of some shoe store 20 some years ago. Time to get moving.

Abandoned chair in the desert

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Midway through the day, he decided to take a rest from the miserable sun that has been in his eyes for the past 4 hours. He has sunglasses but they are missing the lenses so he filled them in with some plastic wrap, but they still don't work very well. Ancient dust rolls with the relentless never-ending wind over the road he walks on; no one has traveled here for some time. A single building survived the flashes here, though not much is left, unsurprisingly similar to most of the continent, as he has discovered in his many years of exploring. He sees no other choice but to stop and take a rest in the crumbling old structure.

The ancient glass doors literally crumble to dust as he attempts to part them. This is a very bad sign, because it is considered bad luck for doors to crumble to dust as you try to open them. No one actually said that, he made it up just now. Most things that happen these days are marked as bad luck by him.

The building appears to have been some sort of meat store; a collection of miscellaneous animals stare blankly into the eery darkness of the room, fully preserved by the initial flash of deadly radiation so many years ago. He half expects one of them to start talking to him, he had a dream like that once when he found a boat. The boat was half burnt, but he carried the half that was still intact around for a while, until he realized a half destroyed boat was very heavy and essentially useless.

He decides to take a nap. There is no where comfortable to lay down so he pulls his mattress out of his small satchel. It may be difficult to imagine a man carrying a full sized mattress in a small satchel but Pat has somehow managed to do it for over 47 years.

 He sleeps for approximately 7 minutes before waking to a disturbing sight. He abruptly rises and hits his head on a rusty pipe. The man standing in front of him laughs. If you want to call it a man. The. . . creature stands on three legs, except the third leg has been cut off at the base. So basically it stands on two legs. It has a psychotic grin displaying a gnarly set of 3 rows of teeth filed to rather dull points, still intimidating nonetheless though. It has no eyes, but instead where its eyes should be there are what appear to be glass circles attached by pieces of metal.

A strange creature appears out of no where

After staring at the creature for a good half hour, he suddenly realizes that this is nothing more than an ordinary man standing before him. He tries to speak but discovers that he has forgotten how, so his words just come out as a loud screech instead. The man falls on the ground, presumably because the screech was so loud that it brain washed him to become a servant and obey all orders. Pat walks away proudly to continue his journey, although he has no destination in mind.

As he turns to walk outside though, his worst nightmare becomes a reality. Standing directly in front of him are his worst enemies: The Jumpers. Standing proudly in their skin tight multicolored patched up jumpsuits with smug grins on their dirty sun tanned ugly faces. He hates them. He tries to lunge forward to strike one of them, but finds that he can no longer move. So they've learned a new trick. It's no problem for Pat though, for he has a few tricks up his sleeve as well.

Portrait of The Jumpers, goons of the north.

It's time to use something that he has been saving for many years, waiting patiently for this exact moment. It will completely throw down their guard, they will never see it coming. Pat agonizingly breaks the state of paralysis the Jumpers have set on him enough to reach his right arm into his front pocket to reach his secret weapon. It is very slow going, and the Jumpers stare in awe as Pat takes the next five minutes to move his right arm several inches. Finally though, he finds what he is looking for. A small pellet. Not just any pellet though, for this is a special edition secret blend pellet created by a legendary scientist before the end of the world.

The pellet begins to smoke instantly. The smoke rises up through the cloudless yellow sky and begins to swirl, slowly at first but gradually quicker. It begins to change color. Red, then blue, then red again and it stops changing colors.

The Jumpers realize what's about to happen and flee desperately in separate directions, hopping about crazily in their stupid little outfits. One of them rips its suit leaving everything to hang out. Pat stands there grinning proudly as the vortex of harmless smoke above him dissipates. Another victory for Pat.