Hey all...I'm baaaaaaaaaack. This time with something a little different. Bending the rules a bit, but this is a fanfiction based off The Killjoy Chronicles by My Chemical Romance. I'll be taking a LOT of creative liberties. We're set in a post apocalyptic world where it's either fight and be free or submit and be conquered. We'll get deeper into things as the story goes. I'm hoping some of my old followers will give this a chance. Also, I make my own formats. You know that if you've read my other stuff. Enjoy!

-Nico

"Holy shit. We gotta get outta here. Like five minutes ago."

Broken Rainbow stared up at her friend, whose arm was still extended and holding a pale pink, smoking laser gun.

"Panic," Rainbow said, calling her friend's name, hoping to snap her out of her stupor. "C'mon, he's dead, we gotta go!"

Rainbow shifted her gaze briefly to the drac laying on the ground, just beneath the smoking gun. A pulsing red light on his chest, beneath the man's standard issue white jumpsuit, began to slow. After a moment, the blinking ceased.

His heart had stopped beating.

"Oh, my God," Panicked Star let out the breath she had been holding in a shaky chuckle. "That was close."

"They're training them better," Rainbow said, already rifling through the dead man's pockets, ignoring the smell of charred flesh wafting up from his laser wound. She lifted his weapon from his stiffening hand with a little effort. "And giving them better weapons," she remarked, marveling at the gun in her hand for a moment before taking in her surroundings.

The crumbling hotel room that she and Panicked Star had been sharing for the past few days had seemed like a palace when they first found the building. It had been a themed hotel at some point...no doubt a place of ill repute back before the world went to hell...a dirty hole of a place just off the highway on the outskirts of Las Vegas...but when the lifelong friends had discovered it after a week long journey by foot the faded animal print decor and rotted away mattresses rivaled any shelter they had found in years.

It looked a bit more in shambles now, with six dead Dracs littering the room. A bright crimson splatter dripped in trickles down one wall. Scorch marks covered nearly every surface, evidence of their latest...and so far most deadly...encounter with the soldiers of Better Living Industries.

Panicked Star, so named for the intensity with which she burned, had finally come back to reality and was already grabbing the faded green, canvas duffle bag she carried her supplies within. She grabbed her few possessions and within moments was ready to flee once more. She ignored the precision with which her escapes were now executed; it was becoming too normal.

"Where are we going?" Rainbow asked, also packed and ready to run.

West," Panic replied, double checking to make sure her weapon was recharging. "We take Route Guano out to Zone Six."

Rainbow shook her head. "Doctor Death-defying reported heavy surveillance along Route Guano. We're on foot...there's no way we'll make it out that far."

Panic stepped over a Drac's body, ignoring the squish of blood under her booted foot. She moved a faded curtain from the window with the tip of her gun, peering out to the sandy lot around the old hotel. Two official Scarecrow Unit vehicles were parked out front; one a sleek motorcycle and the other a shiny white van with blacked out windows.

"We'll take the van," Panic decided. Rainbow scoffed.

"Right," she said. "Then we get stopped or noticed and they kill us without waiting for us to speak."

Panic looked down at the dead Drac again, fighting against the revulsion rising in her throat. "Not if we're dressed like them," she said, looking meaningfully down at the Drac's issued mask.

Rainbow's eyebrows shot up as she inferred her friend's suggestion. "You're nuts," she said, shuddering. "I'm not wearing one of those uniforms."

"It's the only way," Panic reasoned. "We can't stay near Battery City anymore, this is the third time in two weeks they've found us." She gestured to the dead Dracs. 'We're running out of places to hide. We have to get out to Zone Six and join with other rebels. We gotta lay low for a bit."

Rainbow realized she was right. They had freed just over a dozen rebels from Battery City in the past month and were on Scarecrow's radar. They wouldn't be able to help for a while, lest they find themselves caught and imprisoned for their crimes. And there were no safe havens left near the city anymore. The Dracs were getting better at finding and eliminating rebels with every passing day. Their only hope lay out in Zone Six, where entire communities of rebels still existed and they could find a degree of protection and anonymity. True, the compounds were little more than ghettos, but they were free of the ever-threatening presence of Better Living Industries. At least for the time being.

"The one by my bed looks to be about your size," Panic said, already pulling the boots and pants off of a Drac that was a little bigger than she. "Bring your rebel clothes; we'll ditch the car and change just before Zone Six."

Rainbow swallowed against some queasiness and obeyed, trying not to look at the fallen Drac's face as she removed his mask.

Panic scoffed from behind her mask as she fiddled with an intricate push pad on the dash of the Scarecrow van. "Look at this," she said to Rainbow, who was sitting quietly in the passenger's seat, avoiding her own reflection in the passenger side mirror. "They have climate control in their cars." Panic scoffed again, her voice a bit muffled by the Drac mask she wore. "That's how they avoid Zone Sickness. All these years I've been wondering..."

"Yeah well it must be nice to go from place to place without having to vomit every fifteen minutes," Rainbow muttered, wholly anxious and uncomfortable in her current situation. "How much further?"

"We're about two hours from Zone Six," Panic replied, tucking a lock of pastel-pink hair back under her mask. "Then it's probably another two to Community Five."

Rainbow looked over at her friend sharply. "Why are we going all the way out to Community Five?"

Panic's mouth thinned into a tight line behind her mask. "Neon's mother lives there," she said quietly. "She deserves to know what happened to him."

Rainbow opened her mouth to reply, but then snapped it shut, thankful her friend couldn't see the action.

She knew not to push it when it came to Neon.

"Well, they better still have running water all the way out there," Rainbow muttered, changing the subject but remaining morose. She folded her arms across her chest and became fixated, once again and to her dismay at her own reflection in the passenger mirror. She couldn't quell the hate she had for the Draculoid image, even though she knew she lay beneath it.

The deep metaphor was not lost on her, but she put her head back and closed her eyes against it.