The fabulous Killjoys: After SING

“This is La Division Segunda Oportunidad, which is Spanish for The Second Chance Division,” Pandora said, dropping her grip on Party Poison’s hand. “I started it when I was ten as a way to destroy the Better Living Industry, by giving people a second chance to fight the enemy.”
“By bringing them back to life?” Party Poison asked as he walked on Pandora’s left side, his hands in his pockets.
“Some of them we resurrect, if their wounds are easy enough to heal,” she answered and made a left when the hallway split into three separate lanes. “Though most of us were simply captured by BL/I and rescued. Although, one thing that isn’t different for both methods is that they have to change their entire identity, so that way they can’t be reeled into BL/I, and their hollow promises.”
“Even I would have to do that?” he asked, looking at Pandora while he walked.
“You mean you haven’t looked at yourself recently,” Pandora asked, looking straight at Party Poison, “Your looks are already changing, you just can’t feel it right away.”
“What?” Party Poison asked, slightly shocked. Pandora shook her head, sighing deeply as she fished in one of the pockets of her ripped denim jeans for something. After a moment, she pulled out a black and blood red compact mirror and handed it to Party Poison.
“Here, take a look for yourself.” He opened up the compact, expecting to see the face he usually saw whenever he looked in a mirror, but this time it was different. The light brown eyes that he grew up with in his head were now a pale red, almost like watered-down blood. His scarlet hair was slightly longer and a darker shade of red, almost black. There was a faint white line climbing down over his left eye, and his skin tone was paler, which made the scar stand out even more.
“What,” he started to ask, gently tracing the lower half of the scar, “Was this from the meds?”
“No, the medications were to regenerate and to heal any wounds.”
“Then, how is this happening?”
“I’m doing it,” Pandora replied plainly, turning to enter a grayish-brown door on the right of her, Party Poison following like a persistent stalker.
“How?” Party Poison asked, slamming the compact closed with his right hand.
“It’s a family trait,” Pandora answered, snatching the compact out of his hand. “For many generations, my family was famous for their ability to change appearances, control minds, as well as other parts of the body, and scramble memories in others without even blinking an eye. Although when my uncle joined BL/I, he killed everyone in my family except for me.” The two passed through the door, which led to a stone staircase.
“Why is that?”
“You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” she replied walking up the steps, taking two at a time.
“You said that you’d explain everything,” he replied, following her closely up the stairs, “And in order to know everything, I need to ask.”
“Fair enough,” Pandora replied, reaching the top of the stairs and gliding through the door that led out of the stairwell, “He kept me alive because I used my power to keep my life, while the rest of my family stood around like a bunch of idiots and let him kill them.” She continued walking over to the other end of the dark room, where there was a ladder standing strong and proud, and started climbing up the ladder, one rung at a time. She continued up the ladder until there was a thick wall of dirt packed above the ladder, but that only stopped her for a moment. She pushed hard on the center of the dirt pile and it all moved up with ease, revealing a crack of light in the dark room. She kept pushing and soon enough the whole pile of dirt flopped onto the land above them, the light now pouring in through the square hole.
“What the,” Party Poison started, flinching from the sudden excess of light.
“Here we are,” Pandora simply stated as she climbed out of the hole and into the middle of an empty room, which appeared quite spacious, “Finally got out of the Medical Wing.”
“The one room was the Medical Wing?”
“The whole downstairs was the Medical Wing, now please continue following me as you have been,” Pandora answered as she walked towards a door in the far corner. Party Poison followed, listening as Pandora explained in detail about the formation of The Second Chance Division. Though after a minute of listening to the explanations of the division, Pandora asked a question.
“So how did you die?”
“Huh?” Party Poison asked, a little shocked that after all this time she spent talking she finally decided to ask a personal question.
“How did you die?,” she asked again. “I mean, I know it’s none of my business, but I was just curious, and I really wanted to stop acting like a historian that rants about pointless things.”
“How did I die,” Party Poison repeated, suddenly remembering that he had once died in order to come here, “My team and I were rescuing one of our members when we got ambushed. It was in their HQ, so it shouldn’t have been so shocking that we got ambushed, but in the end I let my guard down for one second and the Boss shot me, point blank.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Pandora replied, lowering her head slightly, “I didn’t mean to bring up anything that might have caused any grief, especially when you find out.”
“Find out what?” At that moment, the hallway that the two were walking down suddenly opened up, revealing what looked like a mix between an art studio, a computer lab, and a house’s den. There were art supplies, computers, and random living objects clumped up with other objects they belonged with. In the far corner of the large room was a small cluster of couches and chairs huddled around an old radio. There was a girl huddled in front of the radio, fiddling with the knobs on the radio, short brown hair on her head, like Alix’s.
“Dez, here’s the new recruit,” Pandora said, shoving her hands deep in her pockets. The girl stood up and turned to face the two, her silvery-gray eyes slightly shining at the sound of a new person.
“Alright, you want me to cover the basics with him?” she asked, wiping her hands on her gray, spray-painted BL/I t-shirt as she started towards Party Poison and Pandora’s direction.
“That’d be greatly appreciated, and if you want I can try to find Dr. Death-Defying on there for you,” Pandora answered, taking a step forward.
“Good luck,” Dez said sarcastically, “He must not be sending out today, cause not even I can find him on there.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Pandora replied, already walking towards the radio.
“Well, you go have fun with that,” Dez said as she stopped walking right in front of Party Poison, her eyes gleaming happily, like a child’s eyes would on Christmas day, “Anyways, would you follow me please, and we’ll get this all sorted out.”
“Alright,” Party Poison said skeptically, now following Dez towards what looked like a workbench with random chairs scattered around it, papers and blueprints covering the original surface.
“Pull up a seat,” Dez said, waving her hand, signaling to any of the nearby chairs, grabbing the chair closest to her and pulling it up to the cluttered workbench. “Um, hold on a sec,” she said as she started digging through the piles of papers, until she came across a small black memo pad. By the time she had stumbled across this, Party Poison had already brought a chair over and was sitting, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.
“Alright, so what do you want your name to be?” Dez asked, finally settling down with a pen and the memo pad open to a blank page.
“What do you mean by that?” Party Poison asked, slightly confused.
“Your new name, we need it in case you ever get identified or caught by BL/I goons.”
“He doesn’t know that part yet,” Pandora hollered over her shoulder as she fiddled with the radio knobs, trying to find Dr. D.
“Know what part?” Party Poison said, starting to feel a little irritated.
“He doesn’t? Then he may get pissed when he finds out,” Dez replied, her body turned so as to speak to Pandora, who had found Dr. D, “Hey, you found Dr. Death-Defying.”
“Hey,” Party Poison yelled, rising up so fast that he tipped his chair back, making it fall to the floor with a clatter, “What fucking part don’t I know?”
“Do you want me to tell him?” Dez asked, Pandora now up and standing next to the table.
“No, I’ll do it,” Pandora said, a sigh mixed in with her answer, “But can you sit down first, Party Poison?” After a moment of contemplation, he reluctantly picked his chair back up and sat down.
“Party Poison,” Dez said, clearly entering a mode you would see with a businessman, “Will that be your new name?”
“No,” Pandora answered, not even giving Party Poison time to think, “That’s his old name.”
“Why do I need a new name?” he asked again.
“Because the person with the name Party Poison is dead,” Dez answered, her stare cold as ice, “And in order for this division to remain a secret until the time that we make our move, the world can’t know about who we use to be.”
“The world can’t know,” he started to repeat, a growing pang of fear gripping his stomach, “Wait, does that mean I can’t see the kid again?”
“The kid?” Dez asked, clearly confused.
“You can’t see anyone you use to know until it’s time,” Pandora said, putting a reassuring hand on Party Poison’s shoulder, trying to make a comforting gesture. “And even then, they can’t know who you are, or were.”
“But,” he stammered, rising up to his feet and brushing off Pandora’s hand, backing up towards the radio, “But they would have to, I mean, I know things about them that not even a few other members would know about.” Then he heard it. Dr. Death-Defying was doing his newscast when he announced it.
“Bad news from the ZONES Tumbleweeds, it looks like Jet Star and the Kobra Kid had a clap with an Exterminator that went all Costa Rica and uh, got themselves ghosted, dusted out on Route Guano. So it’s time to hit the redline and upthrust the volume out there. Keep your boots tight, keep your gun close, and die with your mask on if you’ve got to. Here, is the traffic,” Dr. D kept going on with his broadcast, but Party Poison wasn’t listening anymore.
Got themselves ghosted, dusted out on Route Guano. The phrase kept replaying over and over in Party Poison’s head, not even believing what he had just heard. But, if he says that, then everyone else’ll think the whole team’s dead. He knew quite well that whenever Death-Defying was talking about the Killjoys as a group, he would say both Jet Star’s and Kobra Kid’s names instead of saying each persons’ separate names. Dez and Pandora looked at each other, a worried look in Dez’s eyes. Pandora looked away to stare at Party Poison, who looked like a living statue. Cautiously, she took a step towards Party Poison.
“Look, Party Poison,” Pandora said, taking another cautious step, “They already think you’re dead. If you go back there now, the BL/I boss is going to go ballistic, and this whole division would’ve been made for nothing.” There was an eerie stillness that followed, which was finally ended with Party Poison sighing, his shoulders slumping in slight defeat.
“Vengeance,” Party Poison finally said, taking a step back towards the table, “I want my new name to be Vengeance.”
“All right then,” Dez said as she scribbled the name down in her memo pad, “Now we’re starting to make progress.”
“Good,” Pandora said, her eyes starting to brighten a little, “I’ll go let everyone know of the new recruit, and if Dez could help Vengeance here with his wardrobe and lodgings, that would be greatly appreciated.”
“No problem,” Dez replied, her right hand turning into a thumbs-up, “I got it all under control.”
“Thanks, I’ll see you all later,” Pandora took one last look at Party Poison, then turned on her heels, and left the room.