Faith Is Unavailable

They knew it was coming. Ever since the Draculoid outpost had been exploded they had been expecting it. The waiting was what had been the most torturous. They knew they couldn’t make the first strike as they were not as familiar with the Zones.

So they had bided their time in their offices and cubicles strategizing and learning how to use more violent weapons than had been seen in a long time.

But the day had come. Twelve knew it when she woke up that morning. Something in her clicked telling her that today was not going to be a good day. She saw Korse asleep next to her wrapped in most of the blankets.

She got up from the bed wrapped in a sheet and went into the bathroom. Staring back at her was a disheveled looking woman with tired eyes. She pushed her hair this way and that and then poked at the bags under her eyes.

Korse woke up when the weight on the bed changed. He followed Twelve into the bathroom and kissed her shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Good Morning My Love.” He whispered in her ear.

Twelve didn’t say anything. She just stared into the mirror at the seemingly foreign couple. Who were they? Why did she look like she was about to give up on something?

Korse noticed the absence of a response and turned Twelve to look at him. She just stared at him knowing he was the man that had been in the mirror behind the strange woman.

“What is troubling you?” He asked.

“I don’t know. Something is wrong. Something ends today.” She spoke slowly.

“If anything ends today, it is the Killjoys.”

“Perhaps, but there is more. I can feel it. Today will not be a good day for me.”

“We can just stay here today if that will make you feel better.” He offered stroking her cheek and trying to look into her eyes.

She looked away at the tile floor. “No, we need to be there today. If we’re not, it will be worse.”

“Rachel.” He sighed pulling her to his chest.

“No matter what happens today, I love you.” She said yielding to him.

“I love you too, Babe.” He said for once letting a man long since forgotten slip into his speech.

Twelve smiled at the pet name and turned her face to connect her lips to his. It wasn’t often that he said words like babe, but when he did she knew he meant it. She knew he was feeling more human than he had in a while during this moment and so was she. All the power behind Better Living Industries made one feel like a god sometimes.

“We have to get ready for today.” Twelve said pulling back, her hands on his cheeks framing his face.

“I do not want to now. For once in a long time I want to stay in bed with you all day and forget my duties.”

“Where was this man all those times I had to practically tie you down to keep you here?” She smiled trying to lighten the mood.

“He was around, he just wanted to be tied up.”

“You sick bastard.” She laughed giving in and kissing him once more.

Korse let his arms drop from Twelve’s waist and he went to the shower. She followed him leaving the sheet on the bathroom floor.

The first screams rose up from down below. Twelve stood at the window in her office watching as the Rebels discovered the rumors were true, there was a bullet war that had been brewing. Bullets had gone out of style with coffins, but that was precisely why they were being used.

Korse strode into Twelve’s office to make sure she was where he wanted her to be. She looked at him over her shoulder and then returned to staring down at the few Rebels she could name and the multitudes of Draculoids and Scarecrows firing off round after round of lead at them.

“I know you want to be down there, but no bullet will ever grace your skin. I could never bear it. I could not save you if you were killed by a bullet.” Korse said touching the small of her back as he moved to stand next to her.

“I wouldn’t get hit. You know that.” Twelve said glancing sidelong at the man she loved but at the same time occasionally hated.

“I cannot risk it. You mean too much to me.”

“But you will go down there and put yourself in jeopardy. What about how I feel? What if I don’t want you down there?” Twelve argued this time turning to face him, the anger burning in her eyes.

“Rachel, you know that it is my duty to fight. I am the leader of this City.”

She looked away from him and back down. There was a flash of blond hair flying. She knew it was Silver Sands.

“I must go.” He said.

“I hope you survive this.” She said as she took a step towards him to kiss him good bye.

He put up his hand and stopped her. “You will only kiss me if you think I will die tonight.”

Twelve backed away from him and let him leave without a kiss. She knew it was the opposite of what she should have done, but she knew he wasn’t going to die tonight.

There was no sense in sitting up in her office trying to work and pretend there was nothing going on floors below her, so Twelve stood at the window looking down. She fingered the handle on the bullet laden gun in her holster. She knew that she was doing no good in her office, but she didn’t want to upset and distract Korse by showing up in the middle of the fight. She had to be a coward because of love.

Sands had slid out of the main fight and made her way through the building. She had a favor to attend to.

“Shocking that Korse would keep such a skilled fighter back.” Sands spoke sarcastically walking into the office she found 12 in just as she figured. “His office has a great view of the rebels and these drones fighting right?”

12 spun to the door with the new voice in the room and her face hardened, “The way you say that implies you don’t think it’s true.”

“I don’t princess.” She spoke easily.

12 nodded with understanding mentally prepping for what she knew was to come.

The culmination of all the tension that had thickened between them.

Sands threw a short jab with her right hand -her dominate hand- which 12 easily anticipated. Of course that was exactly what she wanted.

As 12 was busy blocking the right hand Sands was throwing a hard left hook.

12 stumbled but her fire for the fight intensified. She threw blows of her own, the first landing right across Silver Sands face.

Sands’ face whipped with the force. Her rage multiplying she turned her head back to 12 and spit the blood from her mouth onto the BL/Ind white uniform.

“Better hope that’s not the best you can do Sweetcheeks.” Sands spoke darkly wiping her mouth. “Or this won’t even be worth the effort.”

Then they were really into it. It was like an intricately choreographed dance -damn near ballet- rivaling for who would play the lead.

Both of them had waited for this moment for so long neither of them thought to reach for their guns.

Sands knocked the other woman so she was back down on the desk. Walking over thinking this was the moment she was going to permanently take the upper hand. Far too cocky.

The taller woman’s right foot hit Sands square in the chest knocking all the air from her lungs and sending her to the floor.

12 thrust herself up and straddled Sands and hammered the light haired girl with her fists. Blow after blow landing across the smaller woman’s face.

Sands wasn’t giving up yet. She forced herself to try to ignore the blows landing all across her face to open her eyes enough to see the next swing.

She caught 12 around her left wrist and the second she got the vice-like grip on her arm she started to twist with all the force left in her arsenal.

12 now knew what Korse was talking about when he’d told her he’d used some of his initial medications on Sandra. Most of the time she thought Sands ferocity was simply Sands’ insanity. Just thought it was mental relentlessness.

Any other person wouldn’t have the stamina at this point to put up a fight with any effect but here Sands was with a grip like a bear-trap.

A loud pop led to 12 letting out a small shriek.

This was something Sands had taught again and again in her “former life” to the Scarecrows. She knew how to pull every bone from it’s respective joint without using anymore than the necessary force.

12 grabbed that shoulder with her other hand out of instinct mind out of the fight for long enough.

Sands shoved the other girl off of her and rose back to her full height pulling her silver raygun from it’s holster.

Sands had her gun to 12’s head; the dark haired woman was on her knees in front of her. “My gun fires seven different shades of shit. So what’s you favorite color punk?” She asked for 12’s last words mockingly.

12 looked to Korse and said two simple words, “Erase me.”

“Sandra Jane.” Her father’s voice sternly spoke from the door. “Lower. Your. Weapon.”

Sandra laughed and turned enough to see him. “Try and make me Korse. She’ll be dead before you can do a thing.”

He raised his arm, aiming his weapon at her. “Sandra, I have let you get away with many things as my daughter but this I will absolutely not accept.”

This showed Sands the truth. “You care more about the side jumper than your own flesh and blood. I knew you were a heartless son of a bitch.”

“Sandra, I am choosing the person least likely to turn around and shoot me. I love you Sandra but I do not trust you.” She could hear the click from the old style gun as he was readying it so all he’d need to do is pull the trigger.

“‘Martyrs are hard to come by.’” She quoted him airily. “Any Killjoy that dies tonight is an honest martyr unlike the ones you built this place on.”

“Sandra, you were not meant to be a martyr. You are too strong for that. Martyrs are people too weak to live for their cause. All they can do is die for it.” He was trying to jive talk her out of her plans.

“Sometimes, Father, it takes more strength to die than it does to live.” She spoke resigning herself to those words. She turned her head back to 12 pulling the trigger.

“Rachel!” Korse cried out agonized as he fired his gun purely out of instinct.

Viktoria stood behind Korse satisfied smirk playing at her lips.

Korse felt his heart shatter, he could all but hear it too. This was the second time he lost the woman he loved but this time his eldest daughter died too, at his own hands.

He moved across the room, crouched over 12, mourning her first.

Tori sauntered in over to her sister’s corpse and knelt beside it placing her hand on her sister’s shoulder. She spoke softly knowing her father wasn’t listening. “You did well sister. I’m sorry it had to end like this but you know how much stronger father thrives when he’s drowning in torment. I couldn’t be sure that little Rachel rat would be enough but this will keep father alive for years more because of you.” She looked at her sister for a moment longer before musing to herself. “All we are is bullets.”

She turned to her father and put her hand on his shoulder pretending to console him.

Falling back to the first floor the main fight had come to a halt. Scattered about the floor were the bodies of rebel soldiers either dead or bleeding to death, bodies full of bullets.

Viktoria left the office with two bodies and her father in it. She exited the building and left a report on the front desk of the fight. She had prepared two reports in advance. One in the event that her sister lived and the other in the event that her sister died. She made sure to pin it all on the Killjoys and then she was gone.

Now she only had to fabricate a way to get the new to her sister’s beloved family. How would they react when they learn that one of their own was killed by her own father? The thought made her smile. She was down two Killjoys and only had six more and a child to go. Then the entire rebel rebellion would fall to pieces and Battery City could expand with Better Living behind it all the way.

BL/Ind won this one.

***Epilogue***

“We’ve come a long way since those days.” Dr D spoke slowly reverently. “I can’t tell ya how long it’s been but the days to come are the ones that matter. They’re to be twice as shiny as any we’ve seen in a good long while. Korse’s empire is gone it’s time for the rebels to return the home of the free back to just that. All you tumbleweeds storming the city saved the world. All you crash queens, motorbabies, zonerats, out there made sure their end wasn’t for nothing. Girl, as I’ve always known ‘er, you guys know her as Mischief Managed, led you guys to victory. She was raised by our fallen soldiers, I see them in her all the time.” The bear of a man was in his office alone, years had passed and it looked a little much more worn as did he who had white randomly scattered though his hair and even his beard. Tears almost came to him from joy, from loss, and, even with his fame and all the people he knew, loneliness. He’d lost it all in the war and then some. He’d recounted the story of his friends for all the now united people to her it. “There are moments with her where I perfectly see Party Poison in her, times where I see Silver Sands, Fun Ghoul, Kobra Kid, Jet-Star, and even crazy ass Show Pony. She is all the mischief in all of them. Now she’s going to blaze the trails in making the world whole again. The shadows are smiling on her, crying tears of pride and joy. We’ve turned a page, the Danger Days with the Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys are over this is also my final broadcast I’m not needed on the waves anymore. All I have to say is three cheers for sweet revenge.”