Wolf's Pack

Wolf’s meeting with the Deathbats concluded more than an hour after he had decided for them all that they would help with the rescue attempt in Battery City.
In that time at least ten different plans had been suggested and dismissed, until it was finally decided that the only way to get into and out of the City – and hopefully alive – would be underground.
Unfortunately, the limited number of possible plans left no room for error, or for a backup plan more complicated than to be ready to use force if necessary; and it was very likely that it would be necessary, for BLInd agents, especially the exterminators that would be everywhere in the city, did not give up.

The thought followed Luna and Shadow like an ominous black cloud as they left Wolf and the other killjoys, when they had planned all they could for the time being.
They walked in silence to the infirmary to relay the news to Missy, each lost in their own thoughts of fear mixed with determined vengeance.
Luna was thinking of her own family that she had lost so long ago; although her father had only died in the Helium wars as he tried to save his patients’ lives, and her mother had perished tragically in the Great Fires, Luna still felt that this mission would be a kind of payback to BLInd, retribution for the losses that she and so many others had suffered at their hands, or because of them.

It was only when they reached the room where Missy lay, awake now, and furiously unaware of everything that was going on, that Luna shook her head and brought herself back into the present.
“What’s going on?” Missy asked immediately, looking healthier for her recuperative sleep.
“We’ve got visitors,” Shadow began, and Luna sat back, letting him explain to both her and Missy. “Y’know the Deathbats?” he said quietly, conspiratorially; Missy nodded. “Well M., Syn and Zacky have all arrived – apparently there was a huge raid,” he paused, taking a breath, and he didn’t have to say that it had been exterminators, for it showed in his honest face. “The Rev got ghosted, and Johnny Christ’s been taken by the S.C.A.R.E.C.R.O.W. So now M. wants to go get him back, and Wolf’s decided we’re going with them – revenge for Bella and all,” he added more quietly when he had finished.

Missy was staring, open-mouthed, between Luna and Shadow, the idea of a raid on BLInd’s own headquarters seeming incredible, even though it was what most killjoys in general planned to do one day.
“So…” she said finally, animated now that she had forgotten her injuries for the time being and sat up in the bed, “when’s this happening? And you,” she aimed her other question at Luna, who supplied the new name that Shadow had given her, “Myst, then – by the way, has anyone told you that’s a really hard name to abbreviate? Anyway, will I be better by the time all this is planned? ‘Cause there’s no way I’m staying here while you go off on this big adventure…”

She finally trailed off, her excited energy fading a little as a twinge of pain shot through her leg, and allowed Luna and Shadow to answer her frenzied questions.
“We’ll be hitting them in a week or two,” Shadow said first, and Luna nodded. “All things going to plan, of course – I mean, we’ll need to know how to get into the city through the tunnels, for one, and we need to know enough to get out… I for one don’t want to end up like the Fabulous Killjoys, brave though they were,”

Luna smirked at the determined tilt of his head, remembering the story that even she, who hadn’t been associated with any killjoys before, had heard many times.
Apparently, the four men who set off the rebellion against BLInd – for good enough reasons, she felt – had spent their final mission trying to rescue a young girl who had been kidnapped by BLInd because she had been raised by killjoys. The story goes that they had actually got her out; but each and every one of them had died in the process, an idea not so absurd now that she knew BLInd and the killjoys better.

Remembering the tale, she felt a pang of sadness go through her at the complete sacrifice that those men, and hundreds of others since then – most recently the Rev and the unknown Bella – had given fighting for the cause of freedom.
A tug at her arm interrupted her thoughts, though, and she focussed to find Missy tugging at her sleeve, her somewhat impatient demeanour showing through in her wide eyes as she asked again.
“Will I be able to run and fight by then, though?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be up by then,” Luna nodded, “even if you’re not completely healed. As long as you give it another day or two in bed, that is.”
Missy rolled her eyes, and, with a groan, dropped back onto the pillows beneath her.
Now that the pain had lessened, she wanted more than ever to be able to get out of her bed, and told the other two in no uncertain terms.

“Y’know,” she growled, half-seriously, when she had finished being dramatic. “I wasn’t called Miss Murder for nothing – if I have to stay here for too much longer, I might just remember how to assassinate someone in their sleep…”
Shadow and Luna both laughed, and a minute later Missy joined in; though she did truly hate being cooped up in bed for days, she wouldn’t pass up the luxury of having a laugh with her best friend and this new girl, who didn’t seem half bad.