Phoenix Fury had been watching the plane in the sky slowly descend toward the Killjoy camp and had men set ready to fire it out of the darkening sky if it proved to be a spy of some kind from the Draculoids. It hadn't been as terrifying stepping into the shoes of Party Poison as Phoenix had expected it to be. It seemed in times of crisis the Killjoys were willing to step up to the plate and work together despite whether or not they liked their leader just as Party Poison had told Phoenix they would. He found it strangely not comforting that Party Poison had been right about this fact.
This plane though was something he was unsure of how to handle. Paranoid after all the rotten sabotage the Draculoids had managed under his nose in the last week, Phoenix Fury was wary of it to say the least. He'd sent Cosmic Karma and Detonation Punx to check out the plane and offer it safe landing next to the camp since it seemed to be headed toward them anyway. When he'd brought it up initially, Captain Phantom and Commander Cutlass had ripped him a new one for offering what could possibly be another decoy from Better Living Industries safe haven.
Now as Phoenix watched the plane descend he knew they couldn't be right about that. It was stupid to assume that everyone coming from the City had poor intentions. Even most of the Dracs weren't completely under Better Living's spell, a lot of them were just stupid kids who craved violence after years of it being repressed in the City. It wasn't until the Dracs got older and started to catch wise to what was wrong with Better Living's approach to things that they were drugged.
On the off chance that the pilot of the plane was seeking refuge, Phoenix had decided to offer it an area to land outside of the eastern camp and to have the two armed women greet it in case the person flying was indeed hostile. He wasn't going to trust a stranger immediately but he also wasn't going to shoot them out of the sky simply because those around him were suspicious. This was his chance to redeem himself and he wasn't going to let pressure from the two pirates force him into the wrong decision. As much as Phoenix disliked Party Poison he'd found his new mantra "what would Party Poison do?" was working out pretty well for him in this particular situation.
While giving orders he'd received some curses and insults but the Killjoys over all had listened to what he'd asked of them despite their objections. As he stood outside of the front gates of the eastern camp, lost in his thoughts as he watched the plane head toward the makeshift runway on the desert sand, someone tapped the back of his shoulder to get his attention. Phoenix turned to find out who needed him.
Fun Ghoul, looking sufficiently dwarfed next to Phoenix Fury, was covered in dirt and looked exhausted. Phoenix looked pleased to see him. He'd sent the man with a small army over to the western zones with plans to take back the camp that had once been run by Tiger Beatdown. It looked as though Fun Ghoul was proud of what he'd done but had gotten in quite the fight in the process, judging by the amount of dirt on his clothes.
"How'd it go?"
"We took it back." Fun Ghoul smirked proudly, white teeth shining behind his dirt covered face. "It's raining like all fuck out there though." Ghoul spit a mouthful of dirt to the side then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "It's heading this way, slow as hell though. I'd start warning people in a little bit to tie down anything they value."
"Good job." Phoenix clasped a hand on the smaller man's shoulder and Fun Ghoul looked at him skeptically as if to let him know that they weren't friends and he didn't want to be treated as such. Pulling his hand back, Phoenix folded his arms over his chest awkwardly. "How many people did you bring back with you? Were there a lot of injured people from when my men took over?"
"Why don't you see for yourself?" Fun Ghoul smirked and upon seeing the look of curiosity on Phoenix Fury's face he started back into the camp. Phoenix followed quickly and was astonished at the amount of Killjoys that had been brought back from the other camp. "Two hundred men armed and ready followed me back. Turns out they're smarter than they let on. They didn't believe a word the Dracs were spreading about their leader. It took them all night but they took the camp back themselves and killed the Dracs. It seemed as though they didn't subscribe to Party Poison's No Killing rule. When the Dracs were exposed your men quickly joined up with those at the Western camp. So everyone's here, ready to fight." Fun Ghoul chuckled.
"So you didn't have to use any of the plans I came up with then, huh?" Phoenix Fury smirked, finding it almost funny that he'd spent so long on the damn plans to take back a base that he'd been in charge of taking down in the first place only to find that his initial plans hadn't gone as well as he'd hoped. He was partially glad that at least some of his men weren't following his orders so blindly. Now that he'd seen what it was like to lead such a large group of people he could tell how important good judgment was.
"They were good plans and all but we were greeted with open arms when we arrived so..." Fun Ghoul wiped more of the dirt off of his face, almost like a nervous habit. "So whenever you figure out our next steps, these guys are ready to move out. Jet-Star is taking a look at their wounded with Neon Rocket. None of them got it as badly as we did so it looks like we'll have at least another two dozen on our hands when Jet-Star's done with them." Fun Ghoul was proud of the work that he'd done.
"Man, you coming to me covered in dirt made me think that you had one hell of a fight on your hands when you made it over there." Phoenix Fury smirked, observing the large troop of people milling about the Killjoy camp that was clearly way too small for this many members. No wonder Party Poison had split them up into two separate camps. This many people living in close corridors like this was asking for violence to break out.
"Nope, just the sandstorm that is coming before this damn storm is a beast. It hit us on the way back… and well, you can probably guess how it affected us." Fun Ghoul continued to wipe the dirt off of his face. It bothered him to be this filthy considering he was probably the only Killjoy that cared about his level of cleanliness.
"Well, send the word out. Prepare for the sandstorm and for the rain as well." Phoenix nodded his head. He figured it was the best course of action though he wasn't sure what the procedure was for bad weather in this camp. He guessed they'd lock down the buildings and wait it out in case the rain was acidic.
"I saw that plane out there on the way in." Fun Ghoul followed Phoenix Fury rather than following his orders. He'd get to telling the people in the camp later, but right now he wanted to know what was going on with the plane that had been preparing to land overhead. "What's going on with that thing?"
"I'm not sure yet. I sent Detonation Punx and Cosmic Karma to welcome whoever it was. Hopefully they're not treating him too roughly."
"Punx might be a problem but I'm sure that Karma's at least level headed enough to keep them both in check." Fun Ghoul nodded his head, seemingly approving of the way Phoenix Fury was handling this newest development. "Look, these people know how to handle a sandstorm without me guiding them, I'm sure that we could send out a warning and all but the two hundred fifty people I came back with all knew it was coming so I'm sure the word has spread by now. It'd be a waste of energy for me to go around telling everyone."
"Fine, if you really want to see what's going on with the plane then you can come. But all you had to do was ask you know." Phoenix rolled his eyes. Surely, Fun Ghoul could've just requested to follow along, but no, he had to come up with a reason as to why the task Phoenix Fury had assigned to him was one not worthy of his time.
"Thanks." Fun Ghoul was compulsively wiping away dirt from his skin now, though his efforts didn't do much to make him look less like a mummy. He'd also chosen to ignore the second comment Phoenix had made.
Phoenix started back out of the camp again without another word and was surprised when a tall handsome man came toward him, walking quickly with purpose. Cosmic Karma and Detonation Punx were trailing behind him, Punx yelling for the man to slow down and trying to catch up so she could stop him.
"Who the hell are you?" Phoenix asked the man in the bomber jacket as he approached, assuming the man had once been piloting the plane.
"Out of my way, I need to speak to Party Poison, it's urgent."
"Whoa, hold on a second. You're not walking past me." Phoenix Fury held a hand in front of the pilot and narrowed his eyes. The man was persistent but Phoenix Fury was built like a brick wall so he was positive he could stop the man in his tracks if he wanted. The pilot seemed to realize this fact as well and didn't put up a fight.
"Look I don't have time to dick around with Killjoy security. I've got a message from Death-iNation and Fire Frenzy. It's urgent and I was told to ask for Party Poison and since I know he's scrawny and has red hair and a get fucked attitude, I'm guessing he's not you so my message isn't for you and I'd appreciate you getting out of my way." The pilot looked tired and jittery.
"Party Poison isn't here. I'm in charge now so you'll have to talk to me. I'm Phoenix Fury." Phoenix extended a hand to the pilot in hopes he would drop his hasty act and give him the information he had for Party Poison.
"He's telling the truth." Fun Ghoul, who had once again been dwarfed by Phoenix Fury, peeked out from behind the man. "Poison's not here, he's off doing something in the City. So he left this beefy thing in charge for some reason." Fun Ghoul smiled as he spoke, clearly joking about Phoenix Fury since he knew the man could easily pick him up and toss him around like a rag doll. "I'm Fun Ghoul."
"Fun Ghoul? I've heard of you before." The pilot suddenly seemed far friendlier than he had appeared only a second ago talking to Phoenix Fury. Deflating mentally at this fact, Phoenix cleared his throat to take charge of the situation again. "Oh yes, I'm Zeppelin Rocket, sorry about that."
"Oh shit, I've heard of you!" Fun Ghoul laughed, extending a hand to shake. "Great to meet you, I was at your last air show. That really went off without a hitch didn't it? Killed a few Dracs in the process… when they tried to stop you. That was a great day." Reminiscing, Fun Ghoul sighed happily.
"As nice as this catch up is…" Phoenix grimaced, noting the attitude of the two women who had followed after Zeppelin Rocket. They both seemed flustered and irritated that the man had paid them no mind and Phoenix Fury could relate at this point. "What is it you needed to tell Poison that was so urgent just a moment ago?"
"There's a war coming." Zeppelin Rocket said after shaking the sand out of his hair a serious note to his voice. He had to loop around in the sky since he'd passed over the camp initially and he'd run headlong into the sandstorm which had nearly downed his plane. Even the greatest of pilots couldn't fight grains of sand clogging up their engines. The four Killjoys surrounding him stared at him in confusion and awe of what he said. "We were in the City and the Dracs were mobilizing. They're going to be coming to your front door in the next few hours so I flew out here to at least give you the heads up."
"A war? You're sure about that?" Cosmic Karma chimed in from behind them when the others seemed at a loss for words.
"I wouldn't have flown all this way through that damn sandstorm if I wasn't sure." Zeppelin Rocket rolled his eyes as if this were obvious.
"What sandstorm?" Detonation Punx looked utterly surprised to hear of it. Phoenix Fury threw Fun Ghoul a knowing glance and Ghoul merely looked away and ignored the condemnation from his superior.
"Never mind that. You should prepare your men for battle and be ready to brace yourselves against the Dracs. You have time now to do a quick preparation and you don't want them to catch you unaware. They're coming in from the City so I suggest that you work that to your advantage." Zeppelin Rocket continued upon his thoughts. He'd been trying to plan out a course of action as he'd flown over the Killjoy camp and observed the sands that had surrounded them.
"Well, why don't we use the buildings we'd been hiding out in while Phoenix Fury took over the base?" Detonation Punx shrugged her shoulders as though the answer was simple enough, though her mind was still curious about the sandstorm that the others had mentioned but not elaborated on. The sky was a threatening color of orange even in the blackness of the night and she knew some kind of bad weather was upon them but no one had mentioned any sandstorm until now. Though Fun Ghoul is covered in dirt. I don't know, I guess that I thought he was just having fun rolling in it or something. He is a strange enough guy to do that after all so I wouldn't put it past him. Sandstorm makes more sense though.
"That's actually a good idea." Fun Ghoul mused, nodding his head to agree with the woman who had helped him set up camp in those buildings in the first place.
"What buildings?" Phoenix Fury asked curiously.
"Not too far from here there's a group of abandoned warehouses. There's all sorts of rumors around about how they're haunted. We could set up camp there temporarily and there's plenty of room in there for all of our troops. We could set up a medical tent in the basement so that any of our injured won't be sitting out in the open to be picked off by Dracs." Fun Ghoul contemplated further what they could do. Phoenix realized he knew exactly what buildings they were talking about. He'd used them to hide from the Killjoys when he'd been planning their rebellion.
"We should set them up along the abandoned buildings around the zone as well. The Dracs think they're going to catch you by surprise. I memorized the lay of the land from above while I was flying before I hit that sandstorm." Zeppelin Rocket chimed in. "You could set up camp in those buildings this girl was mentioning. I think I know the ones you're talking about, then send out small teams to hide further in the zones. When the Dracs storm the camp they won't find anything here. If we could keep the camp looking like it's busy then they'd walk right into a trap."
"Especially if we lay out some explosives in the camp." Cosmic Karma suggested. "Fire Frenzy taught us how to set some of that stuff up before she left. Fun Ghoul's pretty handy with explosives too so I figure we could set some things to blow. I mean, we can always rebuild after this is over. Our lives are more important than our things and let's face it, we needed an overhaul anyway."
"That's a fantastic idea." Phoenix Fury smirked. "You know when Poison put me in charge I didn't think you'd all be so willing to help."
"Well, we may not trust you but we trust Party Poison and if he thinks you can do this then I do too." Detonation Punx shrugged her shoulders as if this answer was simple.
"She's got a point." Fun Ghoul offered Phoenix Fury a smile. Though he still didn't like the man he hadn't made any outright stupid decisions since he'd been left in charge so he was willing to be more open to his ideas now than he had been initially.
"Zeppelin Rocket, are you going to stick around? We could use all the help we can get." Phoenix hoped the pilot would help them out. He had a plan for what he could do to give them the upper hand.
"Yeah, I'll do what I can for you guys." Zeppelin Rocket wasn't the type to back down from a fight and knew that he'd stick it out to the end with the Killjoys. "You look like you've got something in mind for me, Phoenix."
"How are you at flying in bad weather?"
"As long as it's not the nasty sand shit, I think I can handle it." Zeppelin Rocket was also always up for a challenge.
"Well, I suppose that we can wait out the sandstorm then. If you could keep in the air during the fight and radio down to us what you see then I think that we could have a real advantage. Plus, we could equip that plane with some weaponry and you could help us from the air too. You in?"
"Are you crazy? Flying up there during possibly torrential downpours, gale force winds, only to be targeted by Drac forces and possibly shot down in the thick of battle?" Zeppelin Rocket scoffed and Phoenix Fury looked sheepish. "How could I say no?"
"Thanks man, you need to refuel? I'm sure that one of the ladies here could help you."
"Not me." Detonation Punx pouted and shook her head, still rubbed the wrong way by the pilot since he'd ignored her when he'd climbed out of the cockpit and demanded to see someone with some authority.
"I'll help him." Cosmic Karma volunteered.
"After you, lovely lady." Zeppelin Rocket was in far better spirits, ready to prepare for battle and followed the red, white and blue haired woman into the camp to get fuel for his airplane before the battle began.
"Fun Ghoul, Detonation Punx? Find some volunteers willing to hide out in the suburbs of the third zone and then guide the rest to that hideout further back in the zones. Ghoul, when you've finished with that get Screaming Extinction and Neon Acid to help you with planting explosives around the camp. In the morning? We go to war." Phoenix turned away from the others without another word.
Where are the leaders of the Killjoys when their people need them most? The western leader disappeared without a word to me and Party Poison ran into the City. Perhaps if they're sending warning out to their people they'll stop the fight before it even gets to us. I don't think Party Poison is the type to abandon these people in a time of need unless it was incredibly important. Phoenix reflected on the situation at hand and stared at the looming shadow of the City in the distance. His heart started beating faster as he realized that behind that shadow was a force far stronger than the small army he was about to lead against it. They could all die in the next few hours, but at least they'd die putting up a fight.
As long as they stood up against Better Living Industries, even if they lost, they would've done what they'd set out to do. Killjoys until the end.
Agent Alpaca aimed a shot at Disco's head after he'd pulled Tiger Beatdown away from the woman. Tiger shoved him off and reached in a futile attempt to pull the knife out of his shoulder. We're too late, god we're too late. Better Living already got her. Fuck it hurts. Tiger wasn't sure if he was addressing the wound in his back dripping blood over his skin or the pain in his chest watching the woman he'd hoped to save looking so empty and ill.
Alpaca watched Disco Bitch dodge the shot with speed he didn't think the woman capable of. She ran at him, twisted his arm and knocked the gun from his hand. Alpaca shouted and threw a punch at the woman who grabbed his fist, pulled him close by it and shoved him past her. Alpaca stumbled but didn't lose his balance. He hadn't expected someone looking so ill and abused to put up such a fight.
"Don't hurt her Alpaca!" Tiger Beatdown finally managed to wrap his fingers around the handle of the knife and tugged it with a sickening suctioning sound out of his back. He threw the knife to the ground as far from the group as he could and leaned heavily against the spider web covered wall of the hallway. The initial shock of the blow had crippled him and he was also sure he couldn't fight Disco Bitch, even if she'd been brainwashed by Better Living Industries.
"Don't hurt her? Come on Tiger! This isn't like before! She's actually trying to kill us both now!" Agent Alpaca knew the woman had of course been assigned to kill Tiger Beatdown in the first place but this was far different. She was clearly no longer in control of the choices she was making.
"She's not in her right mind, can't you see that?" Tiger yelled in objection. Disco Bitch turned toward him and grabbed instinctively at his throat. Tiger didn't make an attempt to dodge or fight back, so Agent Alpaca did it for him. Grabbing his friend by the arm, Agent Alpaca tugged at Tiger and pushed him out of the way of Disco's attack just in time.
Taking a punch to the face, Agent Alpaca threw up his arms and blocked the onslaught brought on by the woman. She continued at him with her fists, hoping to wound his arms enough to get him to lower them.
"Yeah I can see that but I'm not going to let her kill us!" Agent Alpaca grabbed Disco's arm, tired of her punching at him and twisted it around her back, attempting to restrain her.
"That's it! Restrain her, get her down onto the ground and maybe I can talk some sense into her!" Tiger Beatdown suggested, finding the blood loss from his shoulder starting to drain him and leave him light headed. "Disco, it's me! It's Tiger Beatdown, don't you remember me?" Tiger walked around the woman struggling against Agent Alpaca's arms to face her. "It's me, come on… I know you're still in there! You loved me once… remember?"
"Oh God." Agent Alpaca rolled his eyes. "Come on, the power of love isn't going to bring her back, that's just stupid!"
"I've got to try! I believe in stupid fairy tales, asshole." Tiger Beatdown wasn't going to give Disco Bitch up without one hell of a fight.
"You're such an idiot, holy hell…" Alpaca was interrupted as Disco Bitch grabbed onto his wrist and ducked forward very suddenly, pulling Alpaca with her and practically throwing him off of her back. Alpaca lumbered into Tiger Beatdown who fell to the ground underneath his weight. Instantly jumping to attention, Alpaca narrowly dodged Disco's attempts to stomp hard on him with her boot. Catching the glint of the knife she'd used in the distance, Disco seemed to have an entirely different plan in her mind now. Shoving at Alpaca's shoulders to push him back to the ground, she used the momentum of the push to leap over him and Tiger Beatdown but fell face first on the ground when Agent Alpaca grabbed onto her legs to stop her from going as far as she had intended.
"Don't you remember the connection we shared? Disco, don't you remember me?" Tiger Beatdown scrambled to his feet and attempted to grab at Disco's face. She bit at his hands and he pulled back. There was no recognition in her eyes, simply anger and concentration. "You trusted me even when you were sent to kill me and I returned the kindness! You were amazing, we worked so beautifully together and I felt something for you I've never felt for anyone else! You told me your story, your history and I accepted you for who you are!" Tiger continued to rant. "Don't forget that woman you are, Disco, she's still in there somewhere, I can tell!"
"Fuck!" Agent Alpaca felt the woman's foot slam into his face, breaking his nose and blinding him with pain for a moment. Instinctively he let go of her legs and grabbed his nose to try and ease the pain and bleeding. "It's no use Tiger, she's a lost cause! Stop fucking preaching to her and shoot her in the fucking head!"
"I'm not giving up!" Tiger rolled to the side just in time to dodge Disco Bitch as she swiped at him and tried to take him down. Disco gave up on trying to attack them with just her hands and made another mad leap toward the knife. She seemed more like a wild animal than a calculated killer. Whatever was controlling her was no longer in control of their own mind, nonetheless Disco's.
Despite his bloodied nose, Agent Alpaca got up and ran after the woman. She wrapped her fingers around the knife and flipped it in her hand skillfully. Agent Alpaca wasn't going to give her a chance to use it on him and instead tackled her with all of his body weight. The two of them went flying down the hallway, skidding against the floor. Alpaca grabbed the woman's arms and pinned her to the ground, watching the blood spill from her forehead as it skidded against the floor of the hall.
"Disco!" Tiger got up and ran after his friend and the woman who had turned on them so quickly. "Disco, are you okay?"
"I'm fine by the way!" Agent Alpaca coughed blood out of his mouth that had come from his broken nose as he continued to keep the thrashing woman beneath him pinned to the ground. Tiger Beatdown walked over to the two on the floor. Disco Bitch thrashed and tried to shove Agent Alpaca off of her but couldn't seem to manage it despite how hard she tried. She still had the knife in her hand but couldn't move her arm enough to do any damage with it. Hissing and angered, the struggle soon left Disco and she fell quiet on the floor, her eyes closing and grip loosening on the blade she'd obtained.
Tiger pulled the knife out of her hand and slipped it into the sheath he carried his own knife in just in case she tried to reach for it again. Checking her pulse he felt how fast her heart was racing. "I think you can let her go now. She's unconscious."
"I don't fucking trust her, smack her or something to make sure." Agent Alpaca narrowed his eyes at his friend. "Some help you were back there by the way!"
"I couldn't hurt her. Look, she may be brainwashed but somewhere in there she's still the woman I fell for and I'm not going to hurt her."
"You're a pussy." Agent Alpaca nodded toward Disco Bitch. "If you don't do something to make sure that she's unconscious I'm going to smack her head against the ground again just to make sure that she's out."
"Fine." Tiger Beatdown smacked Disco's cheeks to try and wake her but she merely laid in place, clearly unconscious. "She's out, are you satisfied?"
"Thank you." Agent Alpaca let go of the woman's wrists and climbed off of her. "Fuck my nose…" Alpaca groaned and held his nose again, feeling the blood gushing. Tiger Beatdown pulled some gauze out of his pocket and handed it to his friend. Alpaca looked skeptically at him and pulled the gauze apart before shoving it into each nostril to try and stop the flow of blood.
"Are you alright?" Tiger Beatdown asked after checking Disco Bitch to see how else she'd been harmed. Her skin looked burned and abused but other than the fresh wounds Agent Alpaca had inflicted in his attempt to defend them both, she seemed alright.
"Yeah, she broke my nose but that's it." Agent Alpaca inhaled through his mouth, sounding ridiculous with the gauze shoved up his nose.
"I'm sorry I couldn't help. I knew you could handle it… And I couldn't. I'm sorry. I thought I'd be strong enough to fight her Alpaca but seeing her like that… I just couldn't do anything. I froze up."
"I get it, it's okay." Agent Alpaca didn't require further explanation and he didn't have the energy to hear any more of Tiger's "power of love" speeches. "What should we do with her?"
"I'll carry her along with us." Tiger Beatdown suggested simply. "We're not done in here yet."
"Yeah, I figured we weren't." Agent Alpaca coughed. They couldn't leave that spider woman alive. Tiger Beatdown felt his shoulder aching with the wound he'd sustained and knew it was still bleeding. It was possible they'd have to risk sitting down and checking out their wounds before moving much further on.
"We need to find out what's been done to her and what was done to Kobra Kid. Maybe we can find a way to reverse it and prevent what happened to Kobra from happening to Disco." Tiger grimaced. He wanted to do as much as he could for the woman he was now lifting off of the floor and pulling over his shoulder in a fireman's hold.
"Well, let's get going then." Agent Alpaca coughed on the blood in his mouth but felt considerably better now that he'd plugged his nose up. Hopefully the wound would at least stop bleeding so he could continue on without these damn things in his nose. "Come on, let's go find some computers and see if they're still working with this webby shit on them." The group headed down the hallway and beyond, down the stairs where Disco Bitch had emerged from earlier. The further downward they went the worse the damage done by the Widow had become. Beams had been knocked down and the building was groaning under the weight of the rest of the floors above it.
"This is the scene where the spider falls out of the ceiling and eats me right?" Agent Alpaca muttered as they continued walking under the flickering lights of the hallway. Peeking in each door as he'd done so far, Alpaca found one where the computers weren't sparking and headed into the room in hopes of finding some answers.
"Oh come on now, you know better than that. Clearly the spider would've pulled you into one of these rooms first, not come from the ceiling." Tiger Beatdown didn't feel much like joking with all that had happened but he still tried. He was terrified that Disco Bitch wasn't going to make it out of this crazy place, that he'd have to leave her dead like they'd done with Kobra Kid but as long as he felt her heart beating against his back with how he was carrying her, he had hope that they could reverse what had been done.
"Come on, let's see if we can find her file." Agent Alpaca sat down at the computer desk on the far end of the room and flipped it on. Tiger Beatdown set Disco Bitch gently down on one of the gurneys lined up in the room, hoping that he could let her be comfortable while he helped his friend. Slowly he brushed her hair away from her face, noticing the heat radiating from her forehead. Whatever had been done to her it was making her physically ill and giving her a fever. Tiger Beatdown hoped and prayed that her immune system would be able to take on whatever the Widow had done to her body.
"Good idea." Tiger walked over to where Alpaca sat at the computer and leaned his arm against the chair, his whole back aching from the damage the knife had done to his shoulder. Agent Alpaca worked through the encryption of the computer slowly with the help of Tiger Beatdown who was better with computers than he was. Slowly they navigated their way through the files, searching for anything on the experiments that were done in the facility. The power flickered and threatened to turn off around them.
"We better hurry." Agent Alpaca sighed and then stopped as he found some familiar words amongst the mass of text he'd been scrolling through. "Wait, here we go, jackpot…" Alpaca put his finger to the screen and read the lines above it. "First successful WEB experiment is an elite Killjoy having long been on the Wanted list and hunted by Exterminators." He read on in his mind and summarized what he'd found after he'd finished reading. "It looks like Kobra was infected during the earlier experimental stages of the WEB thing here… And it looks like they knew it would fail at some point and he'd succumb to madness. Apparently they never expected him to live for as long as he did. At the end of his file here it says experiment unsuccessful since they lost communication with him awhile ago…" Agent Alpaca drifted off. It looked like anyone who had successfully been infected with this WEB experiment was doomed to die.
Tiger didn't respond and he knew his friend was thinking the same thing about Disco Bitch who laid unconscious behind them on the gurney. Agent Alpaca almost didn't bother looking for her file but on a hunch he kept looking. Tiger was merely staring now, through the computer and not reading any of the words that popped up on the screen.
After all of the struggling and hell we went through to get here she's doomed to die anyway? How can this be? There's no cure? Nothing? Tiger was lost. Without Disco Bitch he wasn't sure what he was going to do. He wasn't sure he was strong enough to watch her go through what Kobra Kid had gone through only to die despite their efforts to nurse him back to health.
"Wait, wait hold on just one second." Agent Alpaca continued reading. "Newest experiment proved more difficult than the last but was at least able to carry the infection properly." Alpaca noted this change of wording to be very important. Infection was no longer an experiment, but implied there could be a cure and that the experiment itself had been perfected rather than just having been tested.
"What?" Tiger finally acknowledged that Agent Alpaca was speaking still. Maybe there was still some kind of hope if what he said was true. They both seemed unaware of the woman behind them stirring on the table. She blinked her eyes open, not recognizing her surroundings. She heard voices and instead of moving decided just to listen. Her mind was mixed up and she couldn't remember what had happened to her. The last thing she could recall was lying on the floor of her cell and praying that she'd get to say goodbye to Tiger Beatdown before she'd lost every sense of herself.
"Because she interrupted the process and managed to escape halfway through her procedure she built up an immunity to the illness that eventually killed Kobra Kid it looks like… they solved that issue on accident, I guess." Agent Alpaca read on. "So it's possible that she's going to survive through the duration of the infection which seems like a temporary thing. It doesn't look like they designed any cure but rather designed the infection so that it would fade out on its own and leave the carrier incapable of continuing onward instead of having to deal with them risking exposure by returning to Better Living Industries."
"So she could live through this?" Tiger Beatdown's heart swelled with hope. I will do anything to get her through this, anything!
"Hold on, let me finish reading before you jump to conclusions." Agent Alpaca continued on. Disco Bitch's mind reeled. If she could get through this hell raging through her body then maybe she had a chance at a real life beyond what had happened to her. She was still confused though, what had happened and why could she now suddenly hear and think properly? "The madness that Kobra Kid suffered was supposed to be temporary and to further convince the Killjoys being deceived that he was only ill and not brainwashed. That would've worked if he hadn't snapped out of it. This looks like though…" Alpaca stopped talking as he continued reading and looked away from Tiger Beatdown who was staring at him in the hope of hearing something positive about the condition of the woman he loved.
"What? What does it look like Agent Alpaca? Tell me." Tiger Beatdown needed to know what he'd found, whether it was good or bad. Please, give me some good news. Give me some hope.
"The insanity that took over Kobra Kid has been redesigned to continue instead of fade. Sanity should never return to Disco Bitch properly, only worsen. She'll slip into a madness from which she cannot escape, the jump in fever and hormones causing this will cause seizures and eventually… her brain won't be able to take it anymore. She'll essentially overheat and… be brain dead until her body stops working." Alpaca finished. "Tiger I'm sorry." Tiger Beatdown didn't answer just closed his eyes and tried to think of something he could say. There had to be a way they could find a cure for this infection. He would sit and study her for the rest of her days until he could find something to cure the illness riddling her body. Disco stared at the ceiling, mouth slightly agape as she contemplated her fate.
"Come into my parlor…" A hollow voice followed by the sound of cranking pistons and hissing steam met their ears. Agent Alpaca furrowed his brow and muttered a long string of curses before turning in his chair. "Said the spider to the fly." Widow returned to the room, blood dripping from her lips, pieces of some unfortunate meal still stuck between the gears of her mechanical body.
"I hope you're well enough to fight." Agent Alpaca got up from his chair and reached for his gun. "I can't handle this bitch by myself."
Venom had originally intended to wait for the others before he break into Central Command in the center of the City but when he'd seen Death-iNation going in for back up at some apartment building he'd decided to go there himself instead of wait. He figured if he could lay the groundwork for their grand entrance then it would be easier for them to fight their way to the computers. On his way to headquarters he spotted the militia of Dracs marching through the City toward the Eastern entrance. The Killjoys in the zones sure had one hell of a fight on their hands by the looks of the group marching onward. Led by Korse it seemed, they were checking their weapons before marching through the tunnel into the first zone. By the time the sun was in the sky, he knew the army would be nearing the camp out in the third zone.
Venom pulled one of the straggling Dracs into the shadows of the nearest buildings in the City and instantly snapped his neck which was a much harder task than he'd thought it would be, given how many times he'd seen it done by other people. Getting all of that muscle tissue and nerve fibers to twist and snap had been a task and he'd nearly been overtaken in the process but had prevailed in the end. The man slumped to the ground in a heap. Killing hadn't gotten any easier for Vengeful Venom than it had been when he'd killed the Drac for information near the perimeter of the City. Making the sign of the cross over him, Venom knelt down and searched the Drac for anything that could be useful.
Pulling the Halloween-like vampire mask off of the man now on the ground, he'd pulled it on over his own head after wiping the inside of it in hopes of making it more sanitary. Wearing this mask again was something he never thought he'd have to do again but it was a means to an end. Using the mask against his enemy wasn't playing dress up like one of them again, it was a means to an end, an attempt for him to bring down the whole company from the inside. At least that's what Vengeful Venom kept telling himself.
He knew how to act like a Drac, how to talk like a Drac so he figured perhaps sneaking into the building he could last a bit longer unnoticed if he at least looked like a Drac. Covering the crossed out barcode on his neck had been the best idea he could come up with and the mask provided that and additional anonymity for him. Sneaking in through the front door had been about the craftiest thing he'd ever done. There had been armed security guards on each side of the door and initially when he'd entered he'd been promptly grabbed and questioned. Luckily he'd managed to fake a story about having been sent by the Scarecrow to speak to someone about the oncoming storm in the distance.
The guards weren't as smart as he remembered, and he had been surprised the excuse worked but the more he thought about it, the more he realized how clever the excuse had been. The weather was a huge concern for the Dracs, and it was entirely possible that in their plans they hadn't figured that the skies could unleash hell upon them. So, feeling far cleverer than before he'd entered the building, Vengeful Venom continued down the hall unnoticed. He knew it wouldn't last very long but if he could take out a few Draculoid guards along his path then he knew he would help Death-iNation and Fire Frenzy when they came, which he hoped would be soon. If he ran into the man while Frenzy was with him then at least she could vouch for him and hopefully he wouldn't get killed by the very people he was trying to help.
Hurrying through the maze of halls he was only stopped twice by guards and disposed of the Dracs in the most efficient way he could think of, slitting their throats and hiding them behind closed doors once he had been sure that no one was in the rooms he'd used. He'd locked the doors on the way out, just to delay their bodies being found. Aware that he would be caught soon enough and his luck wouldn't hold out much longer, he started to move faster through the halls.
There were countless rooms filled with cubicles and computers but he guessed that they would only be handling the commercial end of things so he continued on his search through the building. In the furthest reaches of the first floor he stopped suddenly upon hearing footsteps heading down the hallway toward him. For some reason he knew he wasn't going to be as lucky as he had been during prior moments he'd experienced. Sneaking into the room nearest him he left the door open a crack and listened to the conversation the passing Better Living Industries employees were having, hoping to remain unseen.
"The silent alarms were set off in the entrance three minutes ago. We have reports of several intruders. Three it looks like." A cold female voice was instructing the man she was walking with.
"What should we do?" The man responded in an equally cold voice. "All of our best men are with the army we sent out into the zones! We only have a small handful of security in this building… We're not equipped for intruders."
"It's only three intruders! Our small army of twenty we've left here to take care of security can take them out no problem. Not to mention our backups that we have here just in case… If they get past those twenty by the off chance they actually have any skill whatsoever… then we can release them and though it could be a messy result, the problem will be exterminated." The woman scoffed, clearly doubting the ability of anyone to break into their building. Vengeful Venom felt a sick sense of pride that he'd made it so far into the building given the circumstances. Deciding to ignore the rest of the passing conversation, Vengeful Venom turned to observe the room he'd snuck into and widened his eyes in shock at what he found.
Behind him were three large test tubes, the same ones he'd seen when he was younger. They were labeled Instigator, Obliterator, and Destroyer in faded lettering along a plaque bolted to the base of each tube. Approaching them slowly Venom felt suddenly paranoid that maybe the three were in the room waiting for him, having observed him while he'd been spying on the conversation of the Better Living Industries employees had been having out in the hallway. He doubted they were the type to hide though.
He touched the glass of Instigator's test tube and felt the guilt in the pit of his stomach again thinking of how they had changed over the years. They had seemed so innocent when he'd first seen them covered in wires and attached to tubes inside of these crystal prisons but now he knew what they had become and knew the only way they could be set free is if they were murdered. There was very little of what they had once been left within them. Whatever Better Living Industries had done to them, it was irreversible.
"But why would Better Living Industries keep these around?" Vengeful Venom furrowed his brow in thought. The tubes and computers that had been monitoring them seemed to be in pristine condition regardless of their age. If the experiments were up and running on their own then why did they have to keep the tubes they'd been developed in? Maybe there was something in these computers that would help him destroy what had become of the three orphaned children he'd doomed so many years ago.
If there was nothing on the computers of use to him he would still destroy the test tubes and the initial testing set up. Maybe by doing so he'd be able to prevent any other children from being manipulated into the monsters he'd met in his prison not too long ago. His body reminded him of the pain he'd suffered at the hands of Obliterator and he pushed it to the back of his mind. Only a little bit longer. Soon enough I can go back to the Killjoys and heal up. Jet-Star will take good care of me, I just need to do this here and help out that Death-iNation fellow and Fire Frenzy. That's more important than any wound.
Turning back to the door, Vengeful Venom locked it to buy himself some more time and sat in front of the computers there. He was unsure what sorts of sensors Better Living had connected to their technology but was hoping that the other intruders in the building would at least be able to keep security off of his back long enough for him to get something accomplished.
The moment he touched the keyboard loud sirens went off overhead, as if to belittle his assumption.
"Intruder alert." A speaker in the center of the room echoed a cold female voice, similar to the one he'd heard in the hallway earlier.
Vengeful Venom wasn't sure if he'd triggered it but he continued tapping away at the keyboard, refusing to give up just because of some alarm though it had rattled his nerves enough to make his hands tremble.
"Intruder alert." The voice overhead repeated.
Vengeful Venom felt the urge to run, just as he had felt years ago when he'd been escaping the experiments for the first time. It was terrifying to think he could be back in those labs, blood being drained for experiments. Shaking off the fear he continued at the keyboard, moving onward. He wasn't going to run with his tail between his legs again.
"All security personnel to the front entrance. Intruder alert."
Whoever had triggered the alarm, it hadn't been him.