"No, I'm telling you Jet, it's impossible. There's nowhere they could have sheltered!"
"You don't know that four sure. Can't you be a little optimistic for once, Ghoul?"
Party Poison half-listened as his comrades Jet Star and Fun Ghoul argued over the validity of the Zone Four killjoys. It seemed Ghoul was convinced the whole thing was a hoax, while Jet seemed pretty convinced it was real. To be honest, he didn't really care about their bickering and judging by the bored look on his face, his brother The Kobra Kid didn't either. The sandy-haired male was staring out the window, watching the desert go by in a blur of color, forehead resting against the glass. Meanwhile, behind him, Jet and Ghoul's disagreement wasn't improving.
"Oh come on, I bet I know more about the Zones than you do."
"Oh really? You willing to bet on that?"
"Will you two shut up already?" Kobra interrupted Ghoul, glancing behind him at the other two killjoys. Poison chuckled under his breath. He had been about to say the same thing. Don't get him wrong, Jet and Ghoul were his best friends, but neither of them were very good at admitting they were wrong and their bets always ended with someone doing something stupid. How no one had got hurt so far, he had no idea. Like Dr. D always said, they had the luck of the devil.
Dr. Death Defying. He was the whole reason they were making this trip, away from Zone Six and into the previously deadly Zone Four. The four of them had been listening from the moment the scheduled midday broadcast had been hacked all by that killjoy who introduced herself as 'Masked Harlequin'. Apparently she had friends, too. He had expected Dr. D to ask them to investigate the broadcast. So much so, they had already been on their way to Zone Four when he called in. Then the radio went silent, not counting the steady stream of rock music that always filtered through the system.
Poison wasn't sure what to make of the new killjoys, really. Ever since the bombing, he had always just written Zone Four off as uninhabitable, fatal. Even though every killjoy knew about the toxic gases that tainted the place, horror stories still floated around, ranging from skin burning off to eyeballs falling off. It was enough to warn even the infamous Party Poison away from it. But now that this new info had shown itself, an underground group of killjoys, he was curious. How they were going to get in, past the gas, he wasn't sure. They would figure that out once they got there.
Now he could see why Dr. D told them to drop Missile Kid off.
"So, Poison, how are we gonna get in there?" Ghoul's question broke him out of his thoughts.
"No idea," He replied, turning the car's wheel. They were nearly there.
"You don't know? Oh come on! We can't just dive in there. We'll die!"
"I'm aware of that."
"Then how are we going to get in there without getting killed by fatal gases?" Poison shrugged and heard Ghoul sigh behind him, pressing his palm against his forehead. A smirk spread across the red-head's face as he heard him mutter, "We're going to die because of you, I know it." The final few minutes of the drive was spent in silence, with every killjoy's mind on other things; Poison was thinking about what Zone Four might look like, Kobra was trying to figure out how they would actually get into the Zone, Jet was wondering what the four new killjoys would be like and Ghoul was running through all the great comebacks he could have used in the previous argument.
Finally, a wonky, charred sign appeared on the side of the road. 'Zone Four' was etched into the wood, still clear even after all this time. The desert around it had changed, though, the previously clear air now blurred with an ugly grey fog. The car rolled to a stop and the four killjoys climbed out, looking around. "This is as far as we can go," Poison announced, although the others already knew that. However, Kobra's gaze had been drawn back to the sign, and then to the foggy desert behind it.
"Guys, look," He said, pointing. The others followed their gaze, surprise flashing across their faces. Four brightly dressed girls had appeared from seemingly out of nowhere, similar smug looks painted on their faces. One stepped forward, her image getting clearer through the fog.
"You must be the Fabulous Killjoys. We were expecting you," She said, lips parting in a toothy smile. The four men had to stop their jaws dropping. These four females could only be Masked Harlequin, Combat Pounder, Starlit Annihilator and Steampunk Destroyer. The killjoys of Zone Four.