Acid Angel and the Fabulous Killjoys

I walked out of Dr. D's office. Try not to kill Party Poison. Pft. I'll play nice if he does. I took in my surroundings. The place was ridiculously dirty, but I guess that couldn't be helped. The desert was insane and water was hard to come by, so cleaning fell by the wayside. There was a long counter with old kitchen equipment and various broken weapons littered on it and behind it. The one with the afro was trying to light the ancient gas stove. He had some food spread out next to it. My stomach growled like a hungry monster. I moved on to the front of the place. The entire front wall was windows, but they were covered with grime, so the fading afternoon light barely came through. Old lights hung from the ceiling over each booth. The seats were covered in cracked red leather. I saw Party Poison and the really short one working on some ray guns at the farthest booth. The tall, honey-blonde was nowhere to be seen. Party Poison eyed me angrily. He scowled so hard he bared his teeth. I winked at him, just to piss him off. Afro-boy looked over at me and smiled. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Acid Angel. Yours?"

"Man, that's a kick ass name. I'm Jet Star. The short one over there is Fun Ghoul. I think you already know Party, and Kobra Kid is waking Kid up for dinner. Fuck, yes!" he suddenly exclaimed, finally lighting the old stove.

"Who's Kid?" I asked, settling down on one of the old bar stools in front of the counter. I put my backpack on the floor next to me. Jet Star seemed nice. He was very calm. Less poisonous than Party, anyway. Every muscle in my body was still taught, like a loaded gun, ready to explode. There was no way I could relax until I got a definite feel about this place.

"Missile Kid is...my daughter. I know Dr. D asked you to stay because of her, thank you," he said as he turned to face me. I was taken aback. "I just talked to him about finding a girl to join us, then you showed up." He smiled. I tried to smile back.

"Well...I've got no solid transportation and I'm out of supplies. It was either stay or eventually get ghosted. I'm not a mother," I informed him. He winced at my brutal honesty. I couldn't remember how to talk to people normally. I usually just screamed during scrapes what to do and people listened. I didn't have to make polite conversation. "Also, he told me the Killjoys are starting to organize. I figure I should join up considering I have a bit of experience."

"Still...thank you," he said. "Hey, Kid, how're you feeling?" He scooped up a small girl into his arms. She had a halo of dark dirty blonde curls around her head and browned skin. She was skinny, from life in the desert, most likely, but I could tell she was full of life.

"Great, Jet. What's for dinner?" she asked him, planting a kiss on his dirty cheek. "Beans again?! You've gotta be kidding me..." She shook her head. She spotted me then, and hopped down from Jet Star's arms. She made her way around the counter and jumped up on the stool next to me. "I'm Missile Kid, but all these guys just call me Kid. What's your name?" she asked, straightforwardly sticking her small hand out to me. I shook it. I liked her already.

"I'm Acid Angel. It's nice to meet you, Missile Kid," I said to her.

"Your hair is awesome! I wish Jet would let me dye mine!" she exclaimed, looking at her father from the corner of her eye. I suppressed a laugh.

"Thank you." Jet Star set a bowl of brown mush down in front of me. It smelled wonderful, but Missile Kid wrinkled her nose at hers.

"I'm tired of beans," she said. "Woah..." I was shoveling the brown mess into my mouth without chewing the previous bite. I looked up to find five pairs of eyes staring at me. The tall skinny one had appeared.

"I haven't eaten in two days. Shoot me," I said angrily. I spent the rest of the meal in silence. Missile Kid remained next to me while the rest of them talked and laughed in a booth behind us. "I'll clean up," I said to no one.

"Use those paper towels over there and use as little water as possible," Party said without looking at me. Fun Ghoul brought four bowls to me, smiling. I wiped out the bowls carefully with the paper towels and a tiny bit of water. "God, you wasted a shit ton of water!" Party exclaimed, snarling at me. I wiped my hands off with a clean corner of the paper towel.

"Excuse me?" I stalked toward him. He backed up. I glared at him. "I just cleaned up after you motherfuckers, even though I don't know you at all and you want to come at me about using too much water?" My eyes were slits. My boots made loud clacks against the old tile floor, the spurs jingling in a sinister way. I wasn't about to take shit from some guy who thought he was better than me.

"Yeah. There isn't enough fucking water to begin with and you would've been better off to just take a fucking bubble bath in it!" he yelled. The other guys looked a little frightened and Missile Kid was out of view.

"Don't mess with me, Party," I spat. I didn't know what it was about this kid that made me want to kill him with my bare hands but damn it, he pissed me off. I was probably just exhausted, but whatever.

"Or what? You think you could go up against some Dracs and not need my help?" he asked. I let out a cold laugh.

"It's you who'd be needing my help, Party." I felt the fight go out of me. I was just too exhausted. He wasn't worth it. Not on my first night here - besides, there was always tomorrow.

I refused to sleep with the place completely unprotected, even though Fun and Jet insisted that we were safe here. I tried to be nice and explain that since I wasn't used to it, I just couldn't feel comfortable. I settled into a booth right by the door. I had my ray gun on the table, easily accessible, and my backpack lay unzipped not far from the gun. Right before I fell asleep, Party came out, looked at me, and went back into the back.

The next morning, I woke up to some clattering. Jet was doing something over by the stove, food, I presumed. "Morning," I said to let him know I was awake.

"Morning, Acid. Hey, Kid, sleep okay?" he asked her, ruffling her hair. She hugged him around the waist, nodding, and then came to sit with me.

"Hey," I said. I decided I'd go through my backpack. Since I was going to be here for a while, I wouldn't need to carry quite so much. I pulled boxes of ammo out first, the bullets clinking together. Then I pulled out my pistol. The weight of it felt good in my hand, the cool metal sliding against the calluses on my palms. I laid it on the table and reached back into my backpack.

"What's that?" Missile Kid asked, wide-eyed. I grabbed her tiny brown hand before she touched it. I shot a worried look to Jet. "Is it an old model ray gun?" she asked, sounding excited. He nodded to me and gestured to go outside.

I got up, still holding her hand and picked up the gun. "C'mon, Kid, I'm going to show you." She walked beside me silently. I led her to the side of the building, where some cacti were growing. "You know how when one of the guys gets shot, it's not so bad? Like, they bleed a little and are sore for a while but they get better?" She nodded at me, still looking excited. "Well, this is different. This gun is old - really old. Something comes out when you fire it, understand? Here, I'm going to show you." I dropped her hand and strode forward a few steps. "You stay right there, okay?" I raised my right arm and stared down the cactus thirty feet away. I fired and she screamed. I locked the safety and stuck the gun in my back pocket. I went over to Missile Kid, who was covering her ears and staring at me. "Come with me." I took her hand. I showed her the hole in the cactus. "You see that?"

"Yes," she said. She stuck her hand out and touched it. "It's hot, like a ray gun wound."

I knelt in front of her. She stared into my eyes, her grey eyes piercing me. I was sixteen again.

"We all are faced with choices in our lives. What will yours be?" the man in the suit asked me. I had tears running down my face. I'd just lost my father and found out a dark secret he'd kept from me my entire life. I felt lost. I blinked my tears back. I could either join this man and leave everything I'd ever known, or I could leave everything I'd ever known and live a lie. I would not live a lie like my father had been forced to. I tore myself from my thoughts. "I'm coming with you."

I blinked. That hadn't happened in a very long time. "Missile Kid, I want you to promise me something." She nodded. "I will teach you to shoot a ray gun as soon as Jet Star lets me, but promise me that you will never touch this." I held the gun up between us. "It's dangerous. Maybe one day I will teach you, when you're a lot older. But please, Kid, don't ever touch it. I don't care what anyone says. Never touch it."

"I won't, Acid, I promise," she said, placing her dusty hand on my shoulder.

"What the fuck is going on out here?!" Party Poison came running around the corner. "I wake up to fucking gun fire? What the hell are you doing, Acid? She's a little girl." He came at me, his gun pointed at me. He reached us and yanked Baby behind him. He proceeded to press his gun to my head. I stood slowly.

"I'm teaching her. She saw me take this out of my bag. Jet told me to come out here and show her. It is easier for her to understand when she sees why she can't touch it than me just telling her no. She understands now, don't you, Kid?" I was surprisingly calm.

"Yeah, Party, that thing's scary," she said, nodding up at him.

"I don't fucking care. Those things can explode. You could have killed yourself and her, and then where would we be?" he hissed in my face.

"Party, I'm trained. I know how this thing works better than anyone you have ever met," I said calmly. I was roiling on the inside. How dare he doubt me? How dare he doubt my expertise?

"Whatever, Acid. Get the fuck back in the diner," he gestured wildly. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"What did you just say to me?" That was it. He had no reason to be this way to me. Maybe I'd embarrassed him when I first got here, but to come right out and say that I didn't know what I was talking about was too much. And to be so angry when the kid's dad told me it was okay was ridiculous. "Kid, go back in the diner."

"But Acid-"

"No 'buts'. Back in the diner." She scampered away. She was probably going to have them all out here in thirty seconds, but I only needed twenty. "Don't you ever tell me I don't know what I'm talking about." I brought the butt of the gun smashing into the side of his head and I followed with a kick in the side. He fell to the ground. "Get up," I growled. He stood; he was almost foaming at the mouth with anger. I crouched. "You want to see just what I know how to do?" I asked him. He came at me, trying to punch me in the stomach, but I grabbed him by the wrist. "You shouldn't hit girls, Party Poison." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Baby leading Jet Star and the others over to us. I wrenched his arm behind his back, his fingers brushing that cherry hair. I had a knee in his crotch, and the knife I'd hidden between my breasts was pressed against his throat. I could feel his chest heaving under my arm. My lips were next to his ear. "You never know which one is going to know how to kick your ass."

"God, don't kill me, Acid. Shit, please don't kill me," he whispered.

"Don't give me that shit, Party. I'd never kill a Killjoy. But don't you dare doubt me. The fucking American government never did. Don't you dare." I let him go.

"What do you mean, 'the American government never did?'" he asked. I could see his hands shaking, just like my own, except his were from fear and mine were from anger.

"None of your damn business." I headed back into the diner. I didn't trust myself not to castrate him right there. I didn't say a word to anyone as I passed. I slammed back into the diner and marched my five-foot-three ass back to Steve's office. The door was closed, and normally, I would knock but I slammed it open. He was in the middle of a broadcast. He saw me, and smoothly transitioned to a song. Something old, by The Who.

"Shut the door. Tell me what happened," he instructed softly. I told him what happened with Missile Kid and the gun, emphasizing the part where Jet Star told me to go show her, rather than just tell her to keep away from it.

"I can't stay here if that piece of shit is going to be attacking my every move. I never did shit to him." At this point, I was whining, but I didn't care. That flashback to the day that I met Dr. Death Defying had shaken me up first, and then the fight with Party Poison had me pissed off. Freaked out and angry was not a good combination for me.

"Don't whine, Luciana." Ah, there it was. It was the fatherly, you're in a little bit of trouble tone, and combined with the full name. "Missile Kid is Jet Star's daughter, but every single one of those guys out there treats her like she's his kid too. But he shouldn't have come out there and gotten in your face about it. I can talk to him if you want."

"No. It just pissed me off that he said I didn't know what I was talking about." I rubbed my arms absentmindedly. I hated trying to fit in. I hadn't fit in anywhere since my dad died.

"Luce, he doesn't have any idea about who you used to be. Luciana Elletra Aster means nothing to him. It means nothing to most people, as it should. However, you are going to have to tell them about yourself at some point. They know I was high up in the CIA. At this point, I know they've picked up on the fact that we know each other. It probably won't take them too much longer to figure out from where. Why don't you just tell them?" He fiddled with his radio equipment, changing the song to an old My Chemical Romance song, Our Lady of Sorrows. One of my favorites.

I rolled my eyes at him. "I'm here to help organize the Killjoys and to help Jet Star with Missile Kid now that she's getting old enough to need a grown girl around. I'm not looking for friends." I rubbed sand off of my leg. It was true. I didn't need friends. Everyone I'd ever cared about was dead.

"It's your decision, Luce. I'm just saying, it'd be a lot easier." He gave me the same look my father used to give me. That "I know that you know that I'm right" look that men seem to do so well.

"Fine. I'll go tell them right now."