Chapter 2 – Pepperin' all up in yo' grill

After a while a small box like building came into view, as they slowly drew closer Riot saw it to be a wooden clad building with two gas pumps standing like lone soldiers in front of it, a faded and aged sign above the shack read the words 'Gas n Gulp', the surrounding area was littered with various abandoned objects, such as a mound of ripped apart tires and a scattering of pop cans.

Jet Star smiled a sad sigh to himself, Kobra disappearing up ahead into the building. As Riot and Jet Star approached the boarded up doorway, with surprising ease he tilted up a few lengths of the barracking wood, allowing Riot to shimmy her way in first, then following suite.

Inside Riot was met with over whelming stuffiness and a cacophony of raised voices, diner style booths lined one wall and a counter top with seats the other. In the centre of the room stood a rather pissed looking Kobra Kid, whome was currently red in the face screaming at another man dressed in tights swirling around on roller blades across the scratched lino floor. A man with a shock of red hair sat on a stool at the bar, he looked tired and exasperated by everything around him.

"You see?! He just invited a complete stranger into our base! She could be anybody, a spy from BL/ind or a psycho outcast by the other packs she-"

The red haired man stood suddenly grasping Kid by the collar of his jacket, the whole room fell silent, as if his presence set them all to mute.

"She, is here, and a fellow Killjoy, who needs our help."

The man strode across the room to Riot, and with strange gentleness, he wrapped his long fingers around her slim wrist and pulled her towards on of the booths, gesturing for her to sit. Riot, nervous now to be finally achieving her purpose, sat down on the slippery plastic of the bench seat, her fingers twisting and knotting in the hem of her thread bare shirt.

"It's so nice to finally meet you, I've heard stories about you guys but after weeks of searching I had started to doubt your existence! You see, I had to come find you because my friends, I'm a member of the Killjoy pack The Hopeless, the medic to be precise, and you see something terrible happened, BL/ind had a tip off of our base out in Zone 2 and raided, they took them all! I wasn't there see, I had left to go trade for supplies on the border, when I returned I found nothing but a blazing bonfire in the foundations, BL\ind left a note though... a letter saying I had a month." Glancing up Riot realised her face was damp from tears and sweat, all eyes in the room bore into her skull. "Please I need your help to save them, they're all the family I have!"

A slender, clothed hand grasped her shoulder from behind, twisting in her seat Riot looked up to see a boy with black tangled locks and a Halloween mask pulled up over his forehead smiling down at her. With a small cracked lipped smile, Riot turned back towards the flame head.

"Oh come on!" Kid scoffed, swinging himself up onto one of the high stools, "You guys don't believe that do you?! She's obviously a BLI weasel, sent here to lure us into some elaborate, sharks-in-a-pool-James-Bond style trap!" Staring around disbelievingly at his friends, Kid's face began to flush at his sudden outburst.

The boy behind the crusading girl launched himself out of his seat, "Y'know Kid, I'm getting alittle sick of your shi-"

"Enough!" From a door behind the counter, the slip of rubber rolling over linoleum introduced a wise looking man, slumped proudly in a graffitied electronic wheelchair. Scowling out from behind dark shades at the men around him, his long dark hair sprayed out over his square shoulders. "Such talk, in my house! If you people have become so paranoid to suspect even a little girl then I'm sorry to say you've become no better then those peppermin's back in the city."

With the flick of a button on the arm, the low whirl brought the man closer to Riot and her small group.

"Now, I doubt you've all even thought to introduce yourselves. Hardly recognise you'll myself."

Once again, Kid scoffed to himself and turned away with a squeak of his perch. The man sighed.

"That little ball of sunshine over there would be Kobra Kid, and the walking loo brush is Jet Star I suppose you've met them already?"

Riot nodded slowly, careful not to incriminate Kid anymore then he had done himself, and to stop herself from giggling at the colourful description of Jet's hair.

"This firecracker is Fun Ghoul, don't worry about him though, puppy eyes struggle to hold evil within them."

The man, Ghoul, who'd leaped to her defence before, suddenly seemed to transform into a kitten, blushing and waving with a twinkle of his fingers in her direction.

"Fire hydrant here, is Party Poison. I'm sure he would have introduced himself in due time, but he is a plotter sometimes, more fascinated by his out mind then the minds around him sometimes."

The man ruffled the fiery locks fondly, Party in turn quirked a one sided smirk at the elder.

The man on the skates suddenly smacked himself into the table, giggling.

"Hi! I'm Show Pony! You can call me Pony, everyone does!"

Riot stared as he speed away, his figure spinning and twirling. The man tapped the point of her nose, bringing her attention back to him and causing her to jolt.

"And I, am Doctor DeathDefying. I'm the tip top fucking god of this place, and don't none of you forget that! Now... who, are you?"

All eyes once again jumped to her deer-in-a-headlight face, swallowing down her nerves, Riot felt as if she was standing before the Grand Court.

"M-... My name is Silent Riot. Medic and general sticher-upper. Ha ha..."

The Doctor smiled a warm fatherly smile, and placed a bottle of water in front of the parched girl.

"And how can I be of assistance?"