A/N: Hey everyone. I know it's been taking me long times to updated between chapters but I'm a poor college kid now so looking for a job and actually having a social life is at the top of my list…that… and Doctor Who…but that's beside the point. But just letting you know now. I'll update when I can. Just check back once a week or so. Also your reviews determine weather or not I feel like updating. I had literally one on DesRow last chapter and made me feel like a crappy writer so I didn't feel like updating I'm not trying to sound bitchy but when I get no reviews it lets me know I'm doing a bad job and I know these stories are getting a little too complex to follow. So…yeah…sad authornote, sorry. It's been rough.

Chains jangled above Victory's head. She could hear them in the foggy blackness of her mind. She blinked her eyes open letting bursts of light in but her vision was blurry. She'd been drugged there was no doubt about that. She felt a strange feeling in her arms. She tried to reach her hand to her pounding head but realized her hands weren't at her side. She tried to lift her head up but her weak neck let it drop back unpleasantly. Her arms and body were suspended in the air. An IV needle was in her elbow but it wasn't connected to anything. The rubber tube was clamped shut to keep her from bleeding. She lifted her head forward only to let it drop on her chest. She was defiantly drugged. Her head pounded and her arms and legs ached but she really felt no pain. Instead it was a strange pulling sensation and a pressure in her brain. She coughed trying to clear drainage from her throat only to hear a vast echo. She was in some place big, very big. She noticed movement to her left.

Twisting her body she saw Frank just waking up. He was in the same chained position as her. Behind him Ray stood with his arms up and his head drooped. Victory quickly looked to her right. Gerard hung with his head down and arms up like the rest of them. Mikey was on the other side of him.

She tried to speak but her throat was so dry. She forced herself to swallow hard.

Frank looked up to her coughing.

"V-Victery…wah happened?" He was scared she could tell. He looked around assessing the situation.

"Cherri!" His raspy voice tried to shout. "Where are Cherri and the girls!"

Victory swallowed again.

"I...I don't know?" her voice was beginning to clear up. Ray and Gerard began waking up.

"Victory?" Gerard turned to her clearing his throat.

What ever drugs they had given them were beginning to wear off quickly. Victory's arms were beginning to feel the ache of how long they had been held up.

"Where are we?" Ray asked shaking his head.

"What the hell…" Mikey lifted his head.

Gerard took a deep breath.

"Everybody stay calm. Try not to panic."

Victory winced in pain as her arms trembled. A tear dropped down her sweaty dirt covered face.

"Where are the girls!" Mikey said thrashing around.

"Calm down!" Gerard shouted. "I'm sure they're ok. We need to stay calm and figure this all out."

"God, my arms are killing me!" Ray said shifting in his chains. "We must have been like this for days!"

"Don't you dare complain Gigan-tor!" Frank shouted. Everyone looked at his feet to see him at least half a foot off the ground.

"It's not my fault you're so short." Ray said casually. Frank started swinging.

"Come over here and say that big guy! I'll bite your damn legs off!" his legs cut short as a chain around his ankles ripped him back.

"CUT IT OUT!" Victory snapped. "God your still like teenagers!" she said rolling her eyes.

"Victory quit moving." Gerard ordered. She instantly stopped.

"There's something black around your neck. She looked down and felt a cold metal collar around her neck. Why hadn't she noticed that before?

"What is it?" She asked trying to see.

"I don't know." Gerard said calmly. "But we all have them."

"What the hell is going on?" Mikey screamed.

Suddenly a large sound echoed through the walls like metal grinding on metal. Apart from the florescent lights above their heads the rest of where they were was pitch black. About twenty feet in front of them a large rectangle of light opened. The hour glass silhouette of a thin woman emerged. She stepped into the light fully illuminating her. She was a little shorter than Gerard. Her face was covered in a dirty gas mask. Her sandy blond hair frizzed out at every angle. She was in a large Victorian-era black dress. Her pale thin hands sat at her sides where the dress puffed out. They could hear her breathing heavily through the mask. From behind her two girls stepped up beside her. They had black hair and painted on black masks across their eyes. They looked of Asian decent and had black marching band like vests on. They had matching lacy skirts and tall thick leather boots. They stood identically straight with their arms behind their backs as if they were soldiers. Their painted faces were expressionless.

The gas masked woman stepped towards Victory.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Gerard screamed.

The painted girl to his right screamed something at him in another language and pointed a device at him.

A shock of pain shot through his head.

Victory screamed but stopped when the painted girl pointed the remote at her as a warning.

The masked woman approached Victory like a vulture eyeing up its prey. She tilted her head like a bird as well. It twitched inhumanly. She spread her arms out as she circled Victory and then Gerard curiously. She finally took a step back and put her arms back to her side.

"What do you want with us?" Victory asked with no emotion. Her bottom jaw twitched from nerves and she swallowed what fear she had.

The masked woman reached up and removed the head gear. The face under the mask made all of them cringe. Her skin was paper white. Her cheek bones stuck out and her cheeks sucked in pulling her skin tight. Her lips were crackled and gray. Her neck looked like she was constantly sucking it in. But nothing compared to her eyes. Round them were dark nearly black circles. They were sunken in making her head almost look like a skull. But her actual eyes disturbed them. They were dead. Not like blind dead but gray and glazed over. They were old eyes. Behind them stood no life, no light. It was like literally looking into the eyes of a dead person.

"Mother…Your mask..." The painted girl to the left said reaching forward. The shell of a woman looked down to her left with out actually looking at the girl.

"It's alright Rage." She said in a whispered voice. It sounded like someone was choking her.

Rage took a step back and put her hand at her side.

The woman turned to the other girl.

"Wrath, let their chains down."

Wrath nodded and walked to the wall. She pressed a button and everyone dropped. A mix of relief and pain washed over their bodies. They all fell to their knees.

"Where is my wife!" Frank shouted as he tried to lunge forward. Wrath pressed the button causing him to collapse on the ground.

"I'd stop trying to fight back if I were you." The woman said standing over them. "It's not electricity you feel shocking the back of your neck, its small doses of poison. It burns your flesh. Keep it up and none of this will be any fun."

"Why are you doing this?" Victory said calmly. "If you plan on poisoning us why bother with these games?"

The woman smiled and took Victory's chin into her bony fingers.

"You are a smart one Victory. I'll give you that."

She let out a sigh and circled the chains around Victory and Gerard with her hands.

"Our dear sweet Romeo and Juliet. The forbidden lovers. Here you are all grown up." She turned to face the two of them. "These are the sharpest lives you live and yet…you have learned nothing."

"What are you talking about?" Victory raised her voice now. "What are you people?"

This caught the woman's attention. She stopped circling them for a beat and then stepped in front of Rage and Wrath. She turned to face them.

"There's a place in the dark where the animals go. You can take off your skin in the cannibal glow. Juliet loves the beat and the lust it commands. Drop the dagger and lather the blood on your hands, Romeo."

"STOP SPEAKING IN RHYMES!" Gerard screamed. Wrath pressed the button again causing Gerard to drop.

"Allow me to explain." The woman rasped and began circling the five of them.

"I am Mother War. These are my daughters, whom I've had to raise in hiding thanks to you!" she circled around Mikey but was looking at Gerard.

"When BL/ind was at it's peak any and everyone could simply be who they wanted, at a price of course but that was no concern of mine." She bent down in front of Victory.

"You could have whatever you wanted." She gripped Victory by the jaw. "If you wanted your cheek bones higher, a simple surgery. Not all of us are as blessed as you with looks." The woman spat and pushed Victory's head back.

"I was Korse's number one client." She said walking back to her daughters. "I had my cheek bones altered, my eye's were whatever color I wanted! My jaw, my nose, my ears, all sculpted to perfection. I even had my vocal cords altered to have the perfect singing voice." Her voice rasped.

Mother War gripped Gerard by the throat.

"And then you came along. Destroying BL/ind and making it into…a music production company!" She said gripping tighter. The team fussed as he gasped for air. Her long nails dug into his neck causing five thin half moon blood marks. She let go and stood up.

"When you and your comrades started the war people like me couldn't keep up with our surgeries maintenance! The whole factory was shut down and then you brain washed the daughter of Beloved Korse into believing your filth and lies! Our cheeks began to sink in, voices destroyed, lives crushed. We were outcast by your Killjoys. That's how they got their name wasn't it?" She got in Gerard's face. "Your people took pleasure destroying our happy lives!"

"I didn't choose the name!" Gerard argued. Mother War glared deeper into his eyes.

"But you still held the title." She stood back up.

"We had to go into hiding from shame and ridicule. People threw rocks and fire at my children and drove us to the edge of the dessert giving us horrible names."

"Astro Zombies…" Mikey whispered under his breath. Mother War's head snapped towards him. She lunged at him.

"YOU WILL NOT SAY THAT NAME IN MY PRESENCE!" She screamed wildly making her voice sound like some demonic creature. She pulled a large steam punk looking gun from her ankle and fired it into Mikey's leg.

They all screamed for him but their voices were drowned out by the echoes of his cries. He fell over limp shaking in pain. Victory reached for Gerard to keep him from attacking and getting poisoned again. She covered his mouth as he screamed every name under the sun at Mother War.

Mother War stood gaining her composure. She began breathing heavily.

"Mother, your mask." Rage said in a small voice. Mother War nodded and put her mask back on.

"After the pollution of your war the air is toxic to my weak lungs." She wheezed through the mask. "It has claimed many lives of my people." She stood silent for a few minutes trying to catch her breath.

"I understand kidnapping us." Victory said sympathetically. "But what about the others? Where are our friends, our children?"

Mother War turned to her.

"It isn't enough just killing you as an example. Others will fight. Your children are safe because they are innocents to this war. That much you have done right. However all Killjoys must be eradicated. Any involved in this will perish. And that includes the young adults that followed you."

Everyone's head snapped up.

"Young adults?" Gerard and Frank said together. Wrath smiled.

"A tall tan girl and a bald boy were found outside your studio. They open fired on our people and were deemed Killjoy. We have them with the others now." Wrath licked her lips hungrily.

"Boomer!" they all said together.

"What ever their names are they will be dead shortly after I am done with you." Mother War began to walk away.

"Wrath, Rage, give them enough nutrients to last the night." She said and left the large room. The girls nodded and proceeded to get IV's from the wall. They plugged them into everyone silently. Rage rolled Mikey on his side and pulled his arm to where she could reach. He winced in pain as she rolled him back. They hung the IV's on the chain and then left the room. The second the door shut Gerard went for Mikey.

"Are you ok?" He asked kneeling down. Tears rolled down Mikey's cheeks from the pain as he held his thigh.

He nodded.

"The shot cauterized the wound." He said through his teeth.

"Leave it unwrapped." Ray shouted down to them. "The air needs to get to it. Covering it up will only increase infection."

"He needs to elevate it." Victory said taking her IV down and carrying it with her. "Mikey I need you to lay back and I'm going to wrap you leg around the chain a little so it's above your heart." He nodded and laid back.

"This is fucking crazy!" Frank shouted pulling himself up.

"If you think about it through their eyes…It's not all that crazy…" Victory said softly. They all stopped and looked at her.

"Don't get me wrong they are all fucking nuts! But, to have your whole life built around one thing, even if it's a bad thing and then when a whole world changes and suddenly you're the outcast….I'm sure it messed a lot of them up." She stood up and sat beside Gerard.

"Leave it to Sunshine to pity the freaks!" Frank said sitting back down.

"I think…we're all…forgetting something." Mikey said between wincing in pain. They all turned. "The kids are all innocent until they fight right? And you've got eight kids wondering where their leaders are and four of those eight are military Killjoys. Ten out of ten says they're on their way here right now."

"Oh god…" Victory gasped.

A/N: there's you Astro Zombie back story for ya! Hope you liked it. R&R