Hi guys

Just the usual disclaimer: I can dream all I want but this world will never belong to me :(

Chapter One

She watched the sapphire sky, turn a into a rainbow of colour, as the sun sank lower in the heavens, drifting towards it's harbor in the west. The changing light caused the shadows cast by her bike and coat to form long distorted silhouettes against the rusty sand.

This was her favourite place to watch the sunset as she waited for the night to fall.

As her mismatched eyes scanned the surroundings of the beautiful and barren plain, she felt the solitude and serenity give her peace as she drifted in to her memories.

She remembered a time when she was just an average 20 year old studying hard and mucking about with her friends. She used to love lying in the grass under the shade of the trees after a training session but no longer. The tall trees and the lush grass were but a memory now because that world was gone, seven years ago the world had changed.

She had been on her way home from karate practice when the first explosions in her city started. They never got a really answer to why they had happened, why the bombs had been dropped, and most people didn't care anymore.

The fires had rages for what seemed an eternity, but all she remembered of that time was pain.

During the fires her body had been damaged to the point of death. She had lost her left arm, her left leg, and the bottom half of her right leg was so badly damaged that it too, had to be removed.

It was it this state that they had found her, those white coated scientists. They had a plan for the world that they could create from the burned wreckage of the old and they had planned to use her as a prototype. Ha like that was ever going to work.

In the following years Bl/ind used its drugs and its Dracs to build its colourless utopian city, keeping people as mindless drones, but not all.

She smiled looking down at the silver splattered ray gun at her hip and the cloth mask sticking out of her pocket. The Killjoys, the people of the desert, who followed the call of Dr D, and their own hearts, as the lived wild and free. Their spirits unbroken by drugs and disaster they roamed the outer zones and made a home in the barren and beautiful land, and she was proud to be one of them now.

One and a half years after the Great Fires, the day she escaped, was one of the best feeling in her life. The scientists had their Draculoids and there monstrous Scarecrow robots but they where after something more. The Dracs were only lobotomised humans, and while the exterminators who lead them were far more cunning and skilled they were still human and lacked the power and abilities of a Scarecrow. However the Scarecrow too had draw backs, they were metal robots with no brain of their own and to me manually controlled, which gave them a limited range away from their mobile base, and even though they were fast, they made a lot of noise so the enemy was able to prepare, (not that it usually helped against a ton of murderous metal). Their main drawback was that they could not be deployed during the day because the electronic components generated too much heat and under the desert sun the robot would over heat. No what they needed was something with the murderous abilities of a metal Scarecrow but with the skills and mind of an exterminator. A cyborge that could roam the desert and hunt and kill perfectly, and that is exactly what the planned to make, luckily the first time they tried they made a mistake.

See we they first found her it was judged that, because of the severe damaged to her body , that they should start reconstruction BEFORE they did the brainwashing, encase it damaged her too much. See the Cybernetic implant needed the brain to be working so they didn't want to further damage what they thought was a comatose brain.

So they went ahead and did the cybernetic reconstruction, even connecting everything up to the cybernetic implant which alloyed the mind to control the robotics parts. They used chemicals and controlled radiation to halt the ageing process and push all physical attributes past the human peak. They built the perfect sleeping warrior, except the warrior wasn't asleep. And one day, the day that the last of the reconstruction was completed, ready for the brainwashing to begin later the next day, she quit her comatose act (sure it had been real for a while but no longer) and freed herself.

The truth was at first they couldn't work out what had happened to their precious weapon, that is, until they saw the six foot hole torn in the back of the building and the "missing" motor bike. A year and a half of their precious work, walked out the back wall and into the desert.

Steel Tears looked earthwards as an oncoming plume of dust snapped her out of her memories and back to the present. She had a job that she was supposed to be doing, and hopefully she could get what she needed and be gone before that car arrived, although if it held a few Dracs she wouldn't mind the target practise. But if it held Killjoys she didn't know she would prefer not to meet them, because her striking appearance would be sure to cause a stir unless she hid her metal augmentation which was not to hard with the aid of a mask, but should any of them brush against or touch her left side they would know immediately that something wasn't right about her.

XXXXX *#*#*

Lucid Fortunes looked up at the sound of a bell chiming up above, she rose and headed for the stairs that led up to the shabby hut which hid the entrance to her Safe House/ Trade Station. As well as Providing a safe resting point she and her brother, Ruined Kryptonite, also acted as a place where the killjoys could trade and request special items.

Lucid dropped her hand to her holster as she made to lift the trap door, yes she was expecting it to be a killjoy , because Dracs rarely ring first, but it still didn't hurt to be careful, you never know who to expect. As she threw open the door her eyes connected with a mismatched pair that she defiantly did not expect to see. The light was poor in the entrance because of the planks of the hut but the one ray that fell across her face was all Lucid needed to recognise this killjoy by, even though a mask covered the rest of her face the one Brown eye and the other the palest of blue, almost white.

"Steel Tears" she asked in surprise, "I didn't think I'd be seeing you again."

"oh" she replied "and why not?" the tall, dark haired Girl asked.

"because the last time I did see you, two weeks ago I might add, you were flying by on your bike with two cars full of Dracs tailing you and firing on you like rain."

"oh yea," replied the slightly sheepish girl, "I forgot about them. They ended the chase soon after that,"

Lucid raised an eyebrow

"What they all must have wanted a break because they ended up lying at the bottom of Grey Stone Gorge ."

Lucid rolled her eyes, translation You ether shot them and threw them of the cliff or you made them lose control of their car and drive off the cliff themselves.

"What can I do For you?" Lucid ask changing the subject as she noticed Steels large bag.

"I've got some Gel Cell Batteries and a few ray guns, as well as some plain material, to trade and I'm looking for 30 watt or above Liquid Core batteries and a new filter for the van."

"Okay, I've got the Batteries but you'll have to wait till tomorrow for the filter, I've got one coming in tomorrow."

Steel Tears nodded and began to unload the contents of her bag while lucid headed to the supplied room to get the batteries. Steel was one to the only people to as for Liquid Core Batteries, Lucid reckoned she used them to power her base, (which she had never seen) Steel was always polite and friendly but she never shared anything about her past or life, her brother always said that Steel's eyes looked haunted, and it wasn't all that uncommon for the killjoys to have sorrows in their past that they preferred to forget. So she didn't press she just treated her respectfully, noting the fact that she didn't like to be touched, and that her clothes always cover her skin completely.

Steel wore a tight metallic coloured leather jacket and pants, the edges of a purple shirt just visible at the hem and throat, her waist was encircled by a neon studded belt and a thinner belt also crossed diagonally across her chest, attaching to the bottom belt, at the join of these two she carried a pair of heavy, and very sharp, Sai knives, in addition to the ray gun on her hip. She also wore soft gloves decorated with silver splatters. Over the top of it all she wore a long, loose, flowing, light weight cloak that was a cape and a coat, and looked a little like an open kimono, it was black on the outside but was a vibrant pattern of swirling blue and purple on the inside.

Going back upstairs Lucid finished the deal with her introverted customer and waved as she left on her bike, promising to be back for the van parts tomorrow afternoon.

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Storm