Chapter 1

Missing Posters & Mysterious Circumstances

"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN THE LAST TWO WEEKS!"

From the middle of the desert, in the center of Zone 4, a voice shot out like a bullet from a gun, so loud that even the juvie halls hiding in the shadows of the city had to cover their ears. A small group of three killjoy rebels were joined with a fourth, standing in the middle of the open static.

The fourth estranged killjoy was Party Poison, a spritely but dangerous young killjoy with a fiery head of red hair and an even fierier personality. He simply shrugged. "I dunno. I always wondered what it was like to fade into the static. Always heard stories of people disappearing into the desert. Kinda felt like doing it myself. Y'know, just to see what it was like."

A second killjoy, named Jet Star, put his head in his hands, breathing irregularly. "So you decided to disappear into the desert? For two weeks. Without telling anyone."

Party Poison nodded, expressing almost joyously. "Yep!"

Jet's eye twitched. His face read 'I don't know what to do with you.' "I need to sit down," he muttered, lowering his knees into the sand. (Which might be the worst possible place to sit.)

"Where did you even go, dude?" A black-haired killjoy, Fun Ghoul, said, not even able to fathom the situation at hand. "We searched the entire desert, TWICE. Including the bifrost and the maple plazas and shit. We must've gotten half of the whole desert into your ghost chase."

"Ghoul actually went for a third round by himself," Kobra Kid added. "Just to make sure."

Party Poison pushed that last comment out of his head and shrugged. "I dunno why you guys are so surprised I came back," he admitted. "You think this massive pile of sand could possibly tarnish the rep of Party Poison?"

"We didn't think you were dead, exactly, we just.. You disappeared suddenly and when we couldn't find you we made some assumptions." Jet explained.

The desert was quiet. Party Poison tried to savor it, knowing that soon it would be over once the desert opened its eyes and realized he had returned. To him, the desert didn't even feel like the same place without people surrounding him, constantly bickering and yelling about whatever he fucked up this time. It felt like home, because really, it was home.

Behind the mask, Poison closed his eyes and tuned out whatever blab Jet was trying to get out.

Kobra interjected. "I wasn't surprised at all when he disappeared actually," he replied. "Obviously I was still worried as all hell- we all were. It just wasn't too much of a terrible shock seeing as he always talked about wanting to run away from it all."

"Yeah, he talked about that with YOU, Kobe, because he's your brother and he tells you fuckin' everything." Jet rolled his eyes, as he often did when he had to deal with Pois's bullshit. "Why didn't you tell me? Tell us?"

Poison sighed. "Because if I had told you that I wanted to run away, you would've lost your shit and made sure I never left your sight, Jet," Poison replied casually.

"Well I don't mean to alarm you, Poison Of The Party, but I'm definitely going to do that now!" Jet exclaimed.

"Calm down, you two." Kobra pushed the two apart, but maintained a smile.

"How did you even- survive out there?" Fun Ghoul asked the red-haired killjoy. "I can't imagine you had a lot to eat.."

"I took like, one can of beans with me when I left," Poison replied. "Unsurprisingly, it wasn't enough! It lasted me like 3 days and after that I just kind of ate garbage. I ate a dead rat once."

"YOU WHAT," Jet screamed. He was quivering with protective energy.

"I WAS HUNGRY," Poison exclaimed defensively. Kobra Kid and Jetstar both looked like they were about ready to throw up in their mouths. Fun Ghoul, in contrast, looked slightly offended.

"YOU COULD'VE GOTTEN THE PLAGUE. LIKE THE ACTUAL, BUBONIC PLAGUE. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU."

"IT WAS EITHER THAT OR I SURVIVE OFF OF SAND JET, DO YOU WANT THAT? DO YOU WANT ME TO GET SAND-INSIDE-YOUR-STOMACH DISEASE JET?"

"I'D RATHER YOU EAT SAND THAN DIE OF THE PLAGUE LIKE A FUCKING 15TH CENTURY EUROPEAN PEASANT!"

"Ok seriously you guys fucking break it up," Kobra said, pulling Poison and Jet away from each other by the back of their jackets.

"Yeah I second that, let's stop talking about this now," Ghoul advised, though it felt more like an order. Kobra Kid nodded in silent solidarity. This was getting ridiculous.

"Ok well anyways I'm back now, hi," Poison announced obviously.

"We noticed," Jet said. "Let's go to the diner and see who else is there. We're not the only ones who missed you, y'know. The others are waiting."

Since the other three members of the fabulous killjoys hailed from the diner, it wasn't a long walk from their meeting spot to there. The diner door swung open, and Party Poison knocked thrice, signaling his presence to the other inhabitants of the abandoned restaurant.

"Hm? No way." A pale figure wearing a royal blue motorcycle helmet popped up from behind a table. "A-HA! I knew I recognized that knock! POISON!"

"It's Britney bitch," Party Poison replied, smirking and tracing the mask around his face.

The killjoy with the motorcycle helmet ran up to Poison and tackle-hugged him.

Poison stumbled. "Whoa there, Pone, give some damn forewarning next time, I could've fallen and died for real this time!"

The helmeted figure let go of Poison, removing the helmet and revealing their face. "POISON! MY GUY!"

"Hello, Show Pony." Poison smiled. For the time he was gone, if there was anything he missed most, it was the sheer enthusiasm of everyone he met, especially the diner folk.

"I fuckin' knew it dude! When the doc announced you had been declared missing, people said you had fucking died, but I didn't believe 'em and I WAS RIGHT!" Show Pony started jumping up and down with joy. "Unless this is a hallucination, and I'm not ruling anything out yet."

"It's not," Ghoul confirmed, following Poison into the diner and sitting up on a table.

"Good to see you too, Pony. Though you seem more excited that you were right than that I'm alive." Poison crossed his arms.

"I'm just generally excited, guy! I don't know if I've ever been happier to learn that the Phoenix Witch failed to snatch a mask. Where the hell did you run off to?"

"The moon." Poison smirked.

Jet scoffed. "He got lost in the desert for two weeks."

"Wow, how did that even happen? Here I was thinking you knew these zones like the back of your glove.."

"Oh no, I do. I actually didn't get lost, I ran away! On purpose," Poison replied, smiling innocently like he had no regrets.

"..Wow." Pony replied, astonished. "That's…. Kind of the dream, not gonna lie. Running away from it all." Pony didn't look different at all, really. Not much had changed physically in the desert, it just had a different energy. Something that Poison couldn't quite put his finger on.

"Show Pony, if you disappear into the static for as long as Poison was gone I'm going to track you down and crush you to death with my wheelchair," exclaimed a familiar voice from the diner kitchen.

Poison turned his head. "Dr. Death! What are you doing at this dump, shouldn't you be at the radio station?"

"Looking for Kobra's candy," Dr. D muttered, popping his head through the swing door. "And waiting for you to come home. Looks like my wait is over. Good to see you alive and well, Poison."

"Thanks, D. Nice to know that no one forgot me."

"Cherri was pretty damn close to writing your name on the mailbox," Show Pony snitched, grinning.

"Was not!" Another voice from the diner kitchen responded. "I knew he was gonna come back, the static is no match for Poison."

"Then, o great Cola of Cherries, please elucidate why there's a red 'P' etched on the damn front," Show Pony accused, crossing their arms and grinning even wider knowing they were right.

"The P stands for Pony because I'm that close to murdering you," Cherri said in an uncharacteristically monotone voice.

"Are you also fruitlessly scavenging for my candy, Cherri?" Kobra asked.

"Yes. I'm sick of eating dog food and I want sugar," Cherri responded honestly.

"You guys know you're not gonna find it, right?"

"It's worth looking," Cherri replied. "Anything besides dog food is worth it, even if it's impossible to find. Where are you hiding it, Kobra? Does the candy even exist, Kobra Kid? If that's even your real name."

"Nah, it exists. You guys just aren't that good at looking for it." Kobra smirked. Cherri groaned.

"Hey Cherri-Cakes, could I get a soda, by any chance?" Poison requested, propping his legs up on a table like he owned the place.

"We don't have soda. But we do have fruit juice," Cherri answered.

The red-haired rebel considered this. "I will settle for a fruit juice. But watch yourself, Cola. One more missed soda and I'm stealing your last Mad Gear shirt." Poison's threats were never empty.

"You'll pry it from my cold, dead hands, Pois," Cherri replied coldly. "But yeah, I'll tell Pony to restock." He disappeared into the kitchen for a moment and returned a second later with a juice box in hand. "Catch."

Poison caught the juice. The plastic straw pierced into the box and the rebel took a long, obnoxious sluuuurp.

"How is it?" Ghoul asked.

"Slightly warm but it doesn't matter because it's the first thing I've had to drink in two weeks besides cactus water," Poison replied, taking another swig.

"Jeez," Kobra replied.

"We're gonna get you some water soon," Jet added.

"Warm juice is good for now, boys." Poison turned around and approached a hung corkboard. Every day there was something new- be it a job opportunity, a cry for romance (or, god forbid, carbon dating), maybe the occasional vague/shady prophetic message that usually didn't come true. Most of these were usually tiny anecdotes written on sticky notes or index cards hastily tacked to the bulletin, but right in the center of the corkboard was a missing poster. Poison stared at it. It stared back.

MISSING

Name: Party Poison

Appearance: chin length neon red hair. Likely wearing a blue Dead Pegasus brand jacket and neon yellow domino mask at all times. Last seen in zone 3 on a "solo mission".

Any information you can provide is infinitely helpful. Please report to the Diner in Zone 4 if you know anything about his whereabouts.

The information on the poster was written in scrawl with a pencil. Some parts in particular looked like they were written with shaking hands. Under the text, there was a stylized profile shot of the red-haired killjoy.

Poison read the poster over and over. Every time it was the same.

"You guys made missing posters for me?"

Though he said 'you guys', he mostly meant Ghoul. It's his handwriting.

When nobody spoke up, Poison untacked the poster and held it up. He was looking right into Ghoul's eyes.

Ghoul looked at his feet. "Don't look at me! Jet asked me to do it!"

"No no, I wasn't gonna say anything," Poison replied, tracing the drawing with his finger. "I must say though, the drawing is quite impressive. Got the jawline on point."

"I did the drawing," Kobra added.

"Kobra, you are a fantastic artist and we all love and support you," Poison said truthfully.

Poison ran his fingers down the edges of the paper, which was definitely a potent paper cut hazard. "You guys didn't even laminate it? It's like you don't even care about me," he joked. No one laughed.

Ghoul mumbled something unintelligible. "Yeah, Kobra drew the pic and I wrote most of it. The poster, I mean."

"..Most?"

Kobra giggled a little before speaking again. "He was having trouble spelling 'whereabouts'."

Ghoul groaned. "Shut UP!"

Poison stifled a laugh. "Ghoulie, how do you think it's spelled?"

Ghoul was silent for a second while he shuffled his feet. "W-E-R-A-B-O-UT-S."

Kobra burst out laughing. Poison had to restrain himself from doing the same by putting his hand over his mouth.

"Oh shut UP, I'm sorry I didn't go to a fancy schmancy prep school in the city like you two batt rats!"

"Ghoul, don't worry, we're just poking fun atcha." Kobra ruffled the shorter killjoy's hair. Ghoul slapped his hand off of his scalp.

"Touch my hair again and I will scratch you with my claws," Ghoul said threateningly.

"You'd better stop, Kobra, he means that," Poison advised.

Poison tipped the straw all the way up til the last drop of juice was gone. He spat the straw out and it fell to the floor. "More."

Cherri groaned, turning back into the kitchen to get yet another juice. "You're gonna drink us out of house and home, Pois."

"This one's to go." Poison caught the second juice box without even turning to look. "We should get going, 'joys. Now that I'm back we've got some work to do."

"Damn right," Fun Ghoul agreed, walking out of the diner towards the trans am, Kobra and Jet following after him.

"See you later, Pois. Good to have you back." Cherri Cola smiled.

The leader of the fabulous killjoys nodded. Turning to look at the agent, he spoke again. "Cherri?"

"Yeah?"

The red-haired killjoy paused. "Where on the mailbox did you put that P?"

"Right on the front. Lower down, near the wedding ring. I.. thought you would have wanted it to be kinda prominent. You were an icon in the desert after all."

Poison snorted. "Why are you referring to me in the past tense?"

"Force of habit, I suppose," Cherri implored. "Since you disappeared, you're really all anyone wants to talk about. They'll all be relieved to learn that you're alive. Maybe then we can get the conspiracists to shut up."

"Oh god, what are they saying? Fill me in on all the juicy dust trails, Cherri, what are the tabloids saying?"

"Not sure about some of 'em, but the ones I heard were fuckin' wild. Most popular one was definitely that you had just gotten taken by dracs and turned into BL/ind... but I did hear some rose dusts saying something about you goin' nobody and turning yourself right in, like your heart wasn't in it anymore or somethin' like that. I didn't believe it personally but.. I dunno. It was never not a possibility."

Party Poison was silent. "Wow, that. Wasn't as funny as I expected. Like, at all."

"I know. There were wackier ones but those were the two most plausible to people. It's just that everyone was kind of having trouble believing that the most famous 'joy in the desert would get ghosted in a snap. It didn't make sense."

"Well, they did get it right that I wasn't dead," Poison remarked.

"Yeah, I suppose."

From outside the diner, Ghoul's voice called. "Hurry it up, chiddlers, we've got things to do and people to shoot!"

"I'm COMING, give me more than a JIFFY to finish up 'round here! God," Poison yelled back. He turned to the other killjoy standing in front of him. "See you around, Cherri." Poison smiled.

Cherri saluted. "And also with you, soldier. Try not to die any more than you already have."

Poison nodded, and Cherri left, back into the kitchen. Party Poison turned around, and on his way out, took one last look at the poster, which had been set down on the table below the corkboard now that it was of no use. Looking from the poster, to the trans am outside, back to the poster. Swallowing, he took the piece of paper and shoved it hastily into his back pocket.

Then, he was gone.