Russboy

— Russboy to Pete

**Russboy** is a freeway pirate and the leader of a gang of such pirates.

Russboy is portrayed by Nathan Vegdahl in *Dynamo Dream*.

## Biography

Nothing much is known about Russboy's earlier life, or why and/or how he became a freeway pirate. At the beginning of his outlaw career, Russboy had gathered a relatively small close-knit crew. One of the members of said crew was a man named Kenny, who was also known as The King of The Mall (believed by some that misheard the title to be "The King of Them All") as he was the owner of the derelict Hillsboro Mall, buried under the sands of the desert. However, at one point Kenny was thrown out of the crew when he double-crossed Russboy, though how he betrayed him or how he was expelled is unknown.

Some time after Kenny's betrayal of Russboy, the freeway pirate was camping far out in the Dustlands, in the general region where Kenny's mall was located. He was sitting at a campfire in the darkness of the night among some rocks near a cluster of ruined buildings while Russboy was cooking dinner for them when the Shade citizen Pete came by with his moped bike, who sat down next to Russboy. Russboy let Pete know that he likes his bike and Pete asked if he wanted it, but Russboy told him no and announced an intent to steal it, telling Pete that he was a freeway pirate. Pete, thinking that the occupation sounded exciting, noted that he must have lots of great stories. Immediately and rather awkwardly, Russboy told him that he ate a bug that morning. Pete, confused, asked if this was Russboy's story, to which Pete answered "Naw." Pete then sneezed and Russboy, startled by it, drew a knife and pointed it threateningly at Pete and told him to watch his steps as he wouldn’t want to scare "Russboy." Pete, who'd encountered Russbot shortly before, asked if "Russboy" was the name of his robot friend, and Russboy told him that it was he who was Russboy. Russboy then told Pete that some said that he had no eyes, and others that he could kill with a single stare. When Pete questioning the validity of the two statements, noting that they contradicted one another, Russboy tried to intently stare down Pete, who asked if he was trying to kill him. Awkwardly, Russboy stopped and asked him what he was doing in the desert. Pete told him that he was searching for "The King of Them All." Russboy told Pete of how The King used to be in his crew before he betrayed him. Pete asked Russboy if The King was in the area, and Russboy said that if there was one thing he knew about The King of The Mall, it was that he was in the area. Pete told Russboy that he had been a great help, which Russboy was quite surprised by, and Pete gave him his moped bike in gratitude, to which Russboy noted that Pete was "a really awkward guy." Russboy has kept the moped ever since.

Following his encounter With Pete, Russboy began using his new moped to travel the Dustlands with Russbot. At one point, him and Russbot came by a number of crates of dynamite while exploring long cave and took them for their own purposes. At first they tested the explosives, with Russbot dropping it from the air while Russboy watched from behind a rock, and it created a massive explosion. After that, they used them to commit crimes, such as blowing up a train. At this point, Russboy had also acquired a bazooka, which he was holding in his hand while riding his moped chasing along the side of the train.

At one point, he began to rise in notoriety as a criminal. As his crew grew in size and their crimes became more numerous, the highway patrol of Shade started to offer bounties on Russboy's head, dead or alive, in order to catch and stop his crime spree. As they weren't having luck catching the freeway pirate, the highway patrol continuously put increasingly higher bounties on Russboy, producing several wanted posters for the outlaw.

At one point Russboy noticed some of these posters, including on a bulletin board out in the Dustlands, and his robot companion, Russbot, burned them down.

As Russboy's crew grew, they acquired an old 1980s burnt umber and cream-colored Volkswagen Vanagon as their main vehicle, with a classic white Jolly Rogers painted on the sliding door on the side. When driving in the Vanagon, Russboy kept his moped bike attached to the front of it. At one point, Russboy's crew had parked the Vanagon at the burning carcass of a vehicle, either a bus or van, and used it as a sort of campfire for warmth, while Russboy talked to Russbot. However, the burnt out hull of the vehicle randomly exploded in a big ball of fire, possibly due to some of Russboy's dynamite being lit, but fortunately no one got hurt by the explosion. At one point, for unknown reasons, the crew was in high-speed pursuit of a bespectacled megamoth, with Russboy trying to hit it with a spear while sitting on a recliner chair attached to the top of the Vanagon. At one point in this earlier period of the crew, they stopped one of the vehicles that drove for and transported products for the chain restaurant Rotten Dragon. Russboy aimed a handgun at the vehicle. At some point, the crew also took a big group photo with the Vanagon in it, with most of the crew posing in front of the vehicle and some on its roof. For this photo, one of his pirates posed with the crew's flag, a special take on the Jolly Rogers flag of boat-borne pirates. Around this period of period of Russboy and his crew's pirate career, the crew would at times camp in different places out in the Dustlands, including among the ruined buildings of past towns. Russboy liked to entertain the rest of the crew when camping, for instance drumming for them. Several other members of the crew also drove moped bikes.

At one point during a rainy evening, the crew came by a HyperBole jet engine dumped in a water resoirvoir, and during the night they used it to build a huge and powerful jet engine on the top back end of the Vanagon. They tested the engine, firing it up that night, successfully. Following the successful test of the jet engine, at one point they were being pursued by a Superintelligence agent in a police chopper among red rocks and several massive giant tanks out in the desert and used the jet engine to get away from it, all while shooting several of their guns at it. The following night, Russboy's crew camped under one of the giant tanks, and over time built a relatively large community town there named Lovetown. At this time, Russboy's crew began to grow and as a result he gained a fleet of cars, which grew in size as more joined the crew and eventually Lovetown grew into a a proper city, although still a small one compared to that of a metropolis like Shade. At first, the buildings of Lovetown were sparse and more makeshift in nature, but eventually the town, then a city, would gain buildings of a quality more akin to those in the metropolis of Shade. In the beginning of Lovetown's settling, the crew began to repair and prepare the giant tank, utilizing big mech-like robot suits to turn the bolts and screws in the wheels of the giant war machine. Eventually, the citizens of Lovetown began to construct buildings on top of the giant tank as well, turning it into a city tank. Russboy, and possibly other citizens of Lovetown, started a vegetable field at one point, which Russboy grew plants in with the help of Russbot. While Russboy would dig in the ground with a small handheld shovel and plant seeds by hand, Russbot would water the seeeds from the air, holding the watering in their tiny robot hands.

When the city tank was finally completely fixed and ready to be used, the people of Lovetown abandoned their city to live on the tank. As they turned on the city tank and rolled it out, the electricity of the town was cut completely and the lights of every building, except the ones built on the tank, went out. At this point the city tank sported a massive version of the crew's pirate flag.

Russboy liked to dance for his people, doing so at several occasions throughout Lovetown's history. One of the times he did this was when the crew first decided to settle under the tank, where he danced a specific style of dance near the campfire they had lit there. Another time was when the town had grown somewhat in size and the first couple makeshift buildings had been constructed, where he danced the same style of dance under the official town sign, which bore the name of the town. Another time was when the town had grown even more in size, where did the same style of dance on top of a tall building in the middle of the town, where the Lovetown sign had been moved to, all while most of the town's people watched him all around, and some even "danced" themselves by circling around Russboy's "stage" building in cars.

Russboy has become a figure of legend, infamous and known by many people, both in the Dustlands and in the city of Shade.

## Physical appearance

Russboy is of an average height with a slightly stocky build. He has medium-long light brown or sandy blonde hair, white skin and blue eyes. He wears a brownish-sand green medium-long coat with a white wool-lined collar, under which he wears a gray shirt and on top of that a large thick brown belt of utility pouches made of brown cloth. He has a semi-thick full beard that even covers a little of his neck.¨

When Pete first met Russboy, he had slightly shorter hair but since then has grown it out quite a bit.

## Personality

Russboy is slightly awkward. He is fond of dancing, also in front of crowds.

## References

1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 *A Pete Episode*, episode 3 of *Dynamo Dream*. Ian Hubert. April 6, 2023.

## See also

* Russboy's coat was designed and made by Rowan Rhys for *A Pete Episode*, the third episode of *Dynamo Dream*.