Mike couldn't help the wince of pain that escaped his gritted teeth as Chuck slid the syringe out of his arm in an unneccessarilly slow manner.
"Hold still, Mikey! Don't wanna strip any blood vessels." Mike could assume Chuck had rolled his eyes behind the curtain of blond hair.
"Right. I'm still." Mike's foot wouldn't stop tapping and his hands wouldn't cease their vibrating. How many tubes of blood did Chuck need before he was satisfied?
"And...okay, good to go. God I hope whatever that bot injected wasn't lethal." Chuck sighed, already scanning the maroon life force.
"Aw, I'm sure it's not too bad." Mike waved it off breezily. "If it really was lethal, wouldn't I already be on the floor in an agonizing heap?"
"You can't be too careful, and it's only been a half hour. Most poisons that Kane uses take their time." Chuck replied without looking up from the screen displaying three red bars, each loading at a steady pace.
"Got it...White blood cells, red blood cells, yada-yada..." He touched the screen gently, scrolling through all the resulting items in Mike's blood. "...Alright, whatever this is, it's something not even I've heard of. But it looks like it's triggering massive endorphin stimulations in your brain."
"Endorphins...those are chemicals that make you all giddy and happy, right?" Mike asked, his eyes faced upward as he racked his brain for a more proffessional definition.
"Yeah, something like that. They exist as a sort of sedative to pain. They can also be triggered by doing a good deed, achieving a goal, anything positive. It's like a mental reward. But if a bot is the cause of this, I wouldn't say it's a very good idea to settle down. There might be some very dangerous side effects to this."
"Well, nothing's happened yet. Think you'll have time to make a cure before it goes into full effect?"
Chuck didn't bother asking why he was so calm about a potentially harmful substance roaming around in his system. "Sure. But I don't think you should be driving for a while."
"What?!" Mike shot up, all relaxed features gone. No way was Chuck going to keep him from driving, especially if Kane was gonna try something funny again soon. Injected or not, Mike wasn't going to sit back and do nothing when he could just as easily be aiding in the fight.
"Mikey, don't argue with me on this one! If the substance really is a worst case scenario, I don't wanna take the chance of you getting hurt when you're going four hundred over the speed limit."
Mike groaned, visually admitting that Chuck had a good point. And it only made him feel worse about letting his guard down in the first place. If he'd just seen that the bot could shoot some sort of dart from its eye ahead of time, they wouldn't be having this problem.
"But, if it makes you feel any better..." Chuck's voice sounded strained, like he'd swallowed a tough piece of meat and had to choke around his words, "You can ride in Mutt as long as it's on autopilot..."
Mike brightened immediately, not hesitating to give his friend a warm pat on the shoulder. "Thanks, buddy. I promise I'll be okay."
"Don't make promises you can't keep." Chuck warned solemnly. Mike's response to give him another fond pat before he jogged his way to the counter. "Good luck with that cure! You'll be done before the week is over, I swear it!"
Chuck could only sigh and pretend there was nothing to worry about.
XXX
"Jules, have em' chase your holograms to the east gate. Dutch'll meet em' head on."
"On it!" Two voices, one masculine and one feminine, rang.
"Texas, you're with me. Let's bring that last stubborn group down!"
"You got it, Tiny!" Mike could hear his loud voice even without the comm.
"See?" He focused his attention back on Chuck, grinning. "Told ya I'd be fine."
"I still say you should've directed us from the comm." The blond stated mechanically. Mike just chortled and resisted the urge to stomp on the gas pedal and clutch the wheel through sheer willpower. But damn, if he could just speed up by one little mile...
"Bots, Mikey! Right on our tail!" Chuck alerted him, bringing Mike out of his longing reverie.
"Right. Texas, this one's for me and you!" On cue, one green and one red laser shot out of the respective cars, pummeling the bots into a heap of static debris.
"Yeah! Texas does it again!" The eldest Burner whooped, Mike smiling in both satisfaction and amusement.
"All clear over here, Mike." Dutch's cubed hologram reported, the Julie head nodding in agreement.
"Perfect. That wraps up another painstakingly simple mission. Let's head..." He froze, his mouth agape.
"Head...?" Dutch demanded impatiently.
"Heh..." Mike's mouth twitched at the funny feeling in his stomach. He didn't know why, but at that moment it just felt light and ticklish, like a hundred invisible hands were tickling his rib cage, or he was falling from a sudden drop.
"What's so funny, Mike? Something on my face?" Texas asked curiously.
Mike snickered again, more prominantly this time. The sensation in his stomach floated to his brain, making him feel light-headed, giddy, and really, really happy. It was so intense compared to his usual carefree attitude- much more satisfying than any car ride he'd taken.
His gut already knowing where this was going, Chuck asked timidly, "Are you...alright?"
Mike turned his eyes toward Chuck, wide with mirth. "Hey-hey, buddy, do you get it?"
"Uh, get what?"
"The punchline?"
"I didn't even know there was a joke..."
Mike guffawed, breathing unevenly as he banged his head against the steering wheel. The HOOOONK that erupted was enough to startle all the Burners.
"Exactly!" He clutched his ticklish stomach, roaring with laughter that no one with a sane mind would make.
A chill roamed down Chuck's spine. "Guys, we gotta head back to HQ. Now."
"Please tell me you know why he's turned into a maniac?" Dutch stated.
"Yeah, and it'll get worse if we leave him like this. Mutt, go back to-," A hand clamped over Chuck's mouth, causing him to yelp in muffled confusion. Mike was there, still smiling at him. But Chuck didn't like the smile. It wasn't reassuring or humorous in the slightest. It was wide and clown-like, stretching ear to ear across his face like a rubber band that was about to snap. It looked so painful on him, but the silent giggles told Chuck otherwise.
"Why do we have to-heh-leave now?" Mike asked innocently, though Chuck was terrified to hear mischief and something much darker coating his voice.
"Mikey, you're not in your right mind; we gotta take you back so I can finish that cure and-," Before he could get another word out, Mike dug his hand into Mutt's lever, switching it from autopilot to drive in a matter of seconds. He hit the gas with more force than usual, giggling when the car zoomed forward like a bullet. Chuck screeched, more afraid of the driver than the car for the very first time.
"Mikey, stop! We gotta head back to HQ!" He yelped as Mutt took an unexpected U-Turn, his octobelt saving him from crashing through the windshield at breakneck speed. He closed his eyes, not wanting to look at their destination or Mike's horrifyingly joyful face.
"Aw, you're-heh-no fun at all!" Mike cackled, reaching for the lever again. Chuck peaked one eye open, gasping when he saw what Mike was doing.
"Wait, no-!" Too late, Chuck's seat was already launched out of the car, air bags shielding his body possessively from the impact of the road that was quickly catching up to his face.
And when he turned around, Mike was already gone.
XXX
"Heh-heh! Oh, God, Mutt baby, I dunno what I'm on right now, but I'm loving it!" Mike whooped and hollered as he tore down the roads at a speed that the wind couldn't beat. He couldn't recall the last time he'd been able to go so fast. In fact, now that he thought back on it, he never went that fast at all. With Chuck normally occupying the passenger seat, the fastest he could go was at two hundred or so miles per hour. And that was on a good day, too. Finally he didn't have to worry about anything or anyone else. He could go as fast as he wanted without an ounce of consideration or care. Chuck had been no fun anyway. What was the point in enjoying a drive if you had to constantly worry over someone's safety?
Mike's cheers could be heard miles away, petrifying those unfortunate enough to hear it.
Damn, did he feel good!
XXX
"What the hell's going on here?!" Julie demanded as soon as they made it back to the garage.
"Do you remember those bots with the darts from yesterday?" Chuck reported rapidly, having felt the foreboding signs of a panic attack seconds after Mike had abandoned him. "One got Mike, and it's making him go crazy, and I still don't know how to help him out!" He cried, pulling at his hair and gasping for oxygen with blood roaring in his ears.
"So Mike is gonna continue to act like a total psychopath until we can cure him?" Dutch's mind was only halfway there, the other half eerily reminded of a comic he'd read when he was a kid; about a crazy guy with clown make-up on his face, who slaughtered hundreds of innocent lives, and only laughed and laughed and laughed...
"Oh, God, this is all my fault! I should've kept him home, I should've remembered the worst case-scenario, I should've stayed up all night working on that cure, I sh-,"
"Chuck, calm down! We don't have time to panic!" Julie snapped, already searching for Mutt's beacon signal. "Texas, Dutch and I will go and bring Mike back. You can stay here and work on the cure. Think you'll have had it fully developed by the time we get back?"
"Yeah..."
"Then get started. We've got a job to do."
"And I'm the one to do it, right?" Texas raised his hand hopefully.
Julie didn't have the energy to groan or roll her eyes, so she just moved past him and into Nine Lives.
She started the engine, biting her lip as she tried hard not to remember Mike's terrifying laugh. Not comforting in the slightest. Not the Mike she was familiar with. And if that was only phase one of the chemical, she prayed to God they found him before he entered the final stage.
XXX
"Mutt's not moving anymore. He must've stopped around here."
The three Burners parked their cars near a cliff side, the same site where Mike and the weather machine had dissapeared into the blizzard. Connecting that memory with their current situation only succeeded in making the hair on the back of Julie's neck rise. Her gut told her to leave before anything bad could happen, but her will forced her to stay put and search for her friend.
No way were any of them going to leave Mike behind.
"Hey, guys! Found the car. But no Mike..." Texas called from the cut in the corner of a rocky wall. Sure enough, Mutt was there-in fact, it was crashed head first into the wall in an ugly mix of green and dirt and broken fenders.
Julie was almost relieved that Mike wasn't in there. He'd survived the crash, but now he was wandering the land in an unhealthy state of mind, no doubt lost and confused. For all they knew, he could've been miles away already, laughing and startling everyone he ran into.
"Okay, don't panic. Maybe there're footprints he left, or an item he dropped. Just look for some sort of clue as to where he could be." Julie declared, slamming a fist into her palm when she finished. Dutch nodded and took out his multi-tool to light the ground. It wouldn't be easy to track Mike with dirt that dark.
"Meh, Texas doesn't need any equipment. Texas relies on Grade-A instincts!" He proceeded to clench his eyes shut, face scrunching in concentration. Julie's mouth was a flat line as she watched Texas make a fool of himself as usual.
"Got it! He went that way!" He darted straight ahead.
"Texas, that's a cliff."
"Nevermind, he went that way!" Texas twirled a hundred eighty degrees around, running past Julie, urging the wind that sailed with him to blow her hair.
She sighed, deciding that reasoning with him would just be a waste of time. She put one foot in front of the other...
And stopped when she heard a sound.
Whipping out her boomerang, she crouched low on the ground, eyes darting left and right as she struggled to find out where that noise had come from. At that point, she wasn't sure if she was being paranoid or careful. She just knew that Tex and Dutch were already quite a bit a ways from her, not close enough for her to hear them.
Someone else was here. And he was close.
If it was Mike like she was anticipating, would he come without protest if she explained the situation? Most likely he would just laugh it off like she'd just told a funny joke, but then that would mean they'd have to force him to come back. And the situation truly was a worst case scenario, did that mean he would fight them just to escape? Would he think the whole damn thing was just a game?
"Boo!"
Despite her heightened senses, Julie did not expect the sudden shout in her ear, belonging to none other than the guy she was looking for.
"Mike! Don't do that!" She clutched her hammering heart.
Mike giggled, and Julie hid her horror with a mask of fury. His face was scarred badly on the left side, dry blood smeared all over his forehead and dirt clogging up the wounds. They were turning green with infection and yellow with pus. His hair was matted with asphault, falling in uneven clumps before his bloody forehead. The right side of his lip was split, the scar stretching almost all the way up to his ear. Not even a halloween mask could match the sheer terror his face struck in Julie.
He wouldn't stop laughing.
"I'm...I'm bleeding, Julie..." His left leg waddled forward, simultaneous with Julie taking a step back. "But...I don't hurt a bit..." Another step. "It was worth it, y'know...? When was the last time we had that much fun?" He chuckled quietly, blinking out of sync.
Julie swallowed the lump in her throat, standing her ground. "Mike, this isn't like you. And if you stay here any longer you could die or hurt someone else. Come back with us!"
"Aw, but it's just so FUN here!" Without warning, Mike took out the skull hiding his weapon, activating it. He jammed it into the ground and held onto it, swinging around like a pole dancer. "Do I really have to go, yet? I mean, what's the harm in waiting a few more seconds?"
"Mike, knock it off! This isn't a joke or a gag or anything! You're in danger!"
"I like danger~!" Mike sang, still spinning around and making himself dizzy. "It's my favorite game!"
Julie clenched her fists. Nothing she said was working, and Mike was even worse off than he was earlier, just as she had feared. And now that he was terribly wounded, it wouldn't be long before he'd collapse or worse. If he was being this disagreeable, she had no other alternative than to knock him out.
"Mike, please forgive me for this..." Julie crouched on the ground again, whirling her boomerang in the air and taking careful aim at Mike's head. Not too hard, or she would increase the damage dealt. Not too soft, or he'd still be standing. It had to be perfect, and she only had a few seconds to aim right.
She tossed it, and Mike cartwheeled out of the way with ease.
Julie cursed silently, preparing another boomerang.
"Oh, you wanna play, do ya? That's my kind of language!" Mike cackled pulled his staff out of the ground, charging at the Burner with a battle cry.
Julie gasped and caught the staff before it could plunge into her stomach, swerving it to the right and backflipping right over Mike. Easily caught off guard thanks to the combination of endorphins and blood loss, Mike lost his balance and fell on his left knee. Julie chopped at his head with her bare hand, hoping it'd be strong enough to knock him out.
But he just laughed, bending his head backwards to get a good look at her stunned face. "That's cheating, Jules!" He placed his hands on the ground, pushing his whole body backwards so that his legs kicked Julie in the gut, sending her flying.
She quickly got back up, once again reaching behind her back for a boomerang. Mike was using his staff as a pole, flying himself forward like an athlete at the olympics. He spin-kicked Julie's legs as soon as she was in striking distance, and she sprawled to the ground with a shout. He pointed the staff at her chin. "Looks like I win~! Up for Round 2?"
"Gladly." Julie kicked the staff out of his hands, smirking when Mike watched it soar with a shocked look on his face. Then he faced Julie, his grin toned down a bit. "No fair. You can't play the game if only one of us has a special weapon."
"Mike, this isn't a game!" Julie snapped. Mike tilted his head, smiling as innocently as a child. "Sure, it is. Why else would we be having so much fun?" He giggled.
Julie just glared at him, realizing that her efforts to talk him out of this were futile. The only way he was going back was kicking and screaming. And if he wanted to treat this like a game...then it'd be the only chance she'd have of saving him.
"Fine. If you say it's a game, it's a game. And we're playing two out of three." Just play to his weakness and it'd be fine...
"Don't forget a penalty! There's always a penalty for losing." Mike said matter-of-factly.
Julie quirked an eyebrow suspiciously. "Fine. If I win, I knock you out and bring you back to the garage."
"Why do I have to sleep the whole trip? That's no f-,"
"I'm not giving you the chance to escape."
"Hm. Okay. Well, if I win..." His laughter was silent at first, the only sign he was chuckling the shaking of his hands. But as the seconds passed by, it grew into a chortle, then a chuckle, then a laugh, then a full-blown, enthusiastic, bone-chilling guffaw. "I get to kill you~..."
Julie's eyes widened in shock. "M-Mike...you have to be joking..." She laughed uncomfortably, hoping he would do the same any minute.
But Mike just kept smiling. "No, no, no. I get to kill you...If I let you go, you'd come back and try to take me again. And that's just no fun!" He tilted his head again. "You understand, don't you, Jules? You came down here to have fun, didn't you? Well, what if someone was trying to take that away from you? Would you fight against them with every ounce of your strength to make sure you'd keep having fun? This is no different than the war, isn't it?"
Julie perked up. "The war! Mike, you can't be doing this-ya gotta snap out of it! There's still a war to fight, and if you're just over here, wasting your time and slowly dying, who will fight for Motorcity? The same goes for if you kill me. What then?"
Her hope rekindled when she saw a flicker of humanity flash through Mike's eyes...but it dissappeared as quickly as it came, and he laughed again. "Fighting for the city? So stressful. So boring. I'd rather just keep feeling great and having fun..."
"But you've always had fun! You've had fun with us, you've had fun with the citizens, and you even had fun fighting! Please, Mike, you're not in your right state of mind!"
"Are we gonna talk, or are we gonna fight already?" Mike held out his fists, staring at her expectantly.
Julie grit her teeth, both in frustration and a little fear. Whatever that bot had injected in him, it was working terribly well, so much so that she couldn't recognize the monster before her. If not even Mike himself was fighting back, what chance did she have of snapping him out of it? And what if she lost, and Mike really did keep his word?
Her only choice was to fight.
"Right...No weapons this round, okay? Hand-to-hand combat." Julie declared reluctantly, the weight of her boomerang suddenly feeling so much heavier.
"Sounds good to me. 3 2 1 GO!" Mike said all in one breath, charging at Julie like a bull again. Julie copied him, minding the scars on his face and mentally aiming for the pressure point on his neck.
Just knock him out quickly, and bring him back.
But Mike apparently read her mind, as he pressed two fingers into her eyes, blinding her momentarily and pushing her back roughly. She could hear him laughing as she covered her eyes in pain.
"Sorry. It's just too funny~." He sang happily, already preparing for another punch. Without her eyes, it was easier for Julie to feel the vibrations of his feet through the ground, and he was coming quickly. Julie hastily kicked from where she could hear him coming, sighing with relief when she heard a pained grunt.
Mike was panting, no longer energetic enough to even giggle. "Good...one..." He grabbed her arm before Julie could respond, flipping her over his head and slamming her into the ground. Black dots danced in front of Julie's vision, her back already turning purple with a bruise. But she blinked them out and used her free arm to punch the right side of Mike's face, careful to avoid the scars.
He stumbled backwards, scrambling for balance. "Another point for Jules!" He declared. "But this one's for ME!" He picked her up with both arms, pinning them to her side slamming her legs together. Julie barely had the strength to move a muscle. With nothing to stop him, he slammed her head into the ground. Once gave her a bump. Twice she was starting to bleed. Three times, she could no longer feel the gravel meeting her head on. Only Mike's laughter roared in her ears.
"I win again~!" He turned her around, gently this time like she was a porcelain doll. He leaned really close to her ear and whispered gently like she was a sleeping baby, "You remember what the penalty is, don't you?"
He limped away, soon returning with his staff, buzzing with sparks that seared Julie's numb skin.
"M...i...ke..." Julie's eyes were slowly closing, her head swimming with stars and thick mud as she tried to focus on the man-no, now there were three-now two-now one- man before her.
'You're stronger than this! Wake up! Fight back! Don't give in!' Her mind screamed, but her mouth wouldn't say anything. All she could do was stare at him through her darkening vision, and utter one word.
"Please..."
"..." For the first time since the whole fiasco started, Mike frowned. The mind numbing feathers in his brain were starting to make him feel nauseous. The sight of Julie bleeding suddenly didn't seem so victorious anymore. His mouth sagged with relief from smiling too long.
"That's not funny..." He murmured, something stirring in his stomach as the image of Julie injured became clearer and clearer.
"That's...not..." He blinked rapidly, groaning as his head felt like it was meeting with a shock of freezing air after being held down in hot water.
"N-Not..." Where was he? What was going on? What was he doing? Why did his face hurt?
Why was Julie bleeding?!
"J-Jules?!" He gasped, pushing his own pain to the side as he knelt down beside her, holding his head in his hands.
Oh, God, so much blood...
The only reason he didn't go into full blown panic was that her eyes were open and thriving with life. Though it looked like she wouldn't be there long.
"No, no, no...Jules, I'm gonna get you outta here. I'm gonna get you back to the garage, find the first aid kit, and kill whoever did this to y-,"
It all came back in a flash of light. The bot. The injection. The happiness. The laughter. The fight.
Mike didn't even realize he was crying until he felt wetness drop on the hands cradling Julie's head.
"I did this..." He could only sit there and let the tears fall as he let the horror of what he just did catch up to him. This wasn't being fooled into destroying a building full of tenants. This wasn't following Kane's orders. This wasn't looking up to a monster like a father. This was worse than all three of those combined.
This was near-murder of one of his best and closest friends.
"No...No..." It was a nightmare. Another hallucination from the terra dwellers. It wasn't the least bit real. It couldn't have been.
Before he could register what he was supposed to do next, there was a thump in the back of his head, and...
XXX
"Well, that should do it." Chuck sighed, pulling the syringe out of an unconscious and heavily bandaged Mike.
"So he should be okay now?" Julie asked hopefully, leaning on Texas for support as Dutch wrapped her own head in bandages. The excuse she'd have to come up with for Kane later...
"Yeah...and it looks like we did it just in time. If he'd stayed out there any longer, his nervous system would've collapsed upon himself from endorphin overload. And seeing what he did to you..." He looked at her sadly. Julie avoided his gaze.
"He wasn't in his right state of mind. And he stopped himself at the last minute! Not even Kane's machines could make him do something so horrible. Mike has the willpower to overcome anything." She stated passionately.
"Ugh...What hit me?" The leader slowly came to, everyone leaning over him with anticipation.
Mike frowned in confusion. "Guys? What's...going on? How long have I been out?"
"A few hours." Chuck reported. "You scared the crap out of us, Mike; falling asleep on the wheel. That stuff Kane put in you sure did the trick."
"I...fell asleep while driving?"
"Yeah. Crashed yourself into my car. Both of us got out with cracked skulls." Julie pointed to her head and lightly tapped Mike's.
"Oh, thank God...Had a terrible dream...almost killed you, Jules..." He said sadly, the weakest Julie had ever seen him. She smiled down at him tenderly, sending each of the Burners a grateful glance.
"It's okay. It was only a dream. And even if something like that could happen, I know you'd be able to overcome anything." She hugged his neck, careful not to touch any bruises or scars.
Mike tried to smile but it hurt. So he settled with hugging Julie back and holding her against him. It was much more comfortable anyway.
XXX
AN: Yeah I know it's rushed, but I wanted to try something different. Next story will be more lighthearted I promise.