The Tale of Johnny and Jenny

“Gun!” She grunted at them, ignoring every injury as best as she could and pulling herself into a slumped upright position.

“What?” Party Poison asked, busy with preparing himself for the oncoming attack. Neither of the men was paying her very much attention now.

“Ray gun? Need a ray gun!” She looked around her frantically. “You have to have something I can kill with in all this shit back here!”

She spotted a plain white vending machine ray gun sat under a communication device in the foot well. Breathing through the pain she managed to hook it out with her good arm. As she powered it up, she saw it had one bar of battery left, barely enough to kill 3 Dracs. Cursing she used it to push around some more junk looking for a battery pack or another gun.

“Why do you have everything from cans of Power Pup, to designer sunglasses and yet you don’t have a battery charger?!” She grumbled out loud as she became more and more frustrated by the lack of defensive weaponry available to her.

“Oh for God’s sake...” Kobra Kid rolled his eyes and lunged for her ray gun and hastily recharged it before putting it back into her hand. “Are you any good with knives? There’s a couple in the seat pocket behind me.” He added and pulled his helmet on.

Good Time hissed as she transferred the ray gun to her fucked up hand and fished out a large hunting knife, a butterfly knife and a couple of throwing stars. She caught her finger on the hunting knife, a good sign it was sharp enough to do some damage, and gritted her teeth. What’s a few more drops of blood when she was already basically dead.

“Right, the plan is: we drive. We run. But we cannot lead them to the others. So Kobra the usual evasive tactics. I’ll take out as many as I can, and you,” Party Poison pulled his yellow mask over his eyes and turned to look at her intently, “Stay down, stay quiet, stay alive.”

She wasn’t going to argue with that. She tucked the hunting knife down the side of her boot, the butterfly knife in the remains of her pocket and rested the throwing stars in her broken hand. As an afterthought she pulled the bandanna Party Poison had used when he rescued her and tied it over her nose and mouth as a make shift mask. Doctor Death Defying always had one rule: Die with your mask on if you have to. It was undignified for a Killjoy not to.

“How far away are they?” She asked breathlessly. Kobra Kid was back at the wheel, concentrating hard on the rear view mirrors, taking the pace up a notch and setting the chase truly in motion but she could definitely hear the sounds of company approaching.

“Half a mile and catching up - fast. I hate how quick they can move,” Party Poison frowned as he stared into the side view mirror steadily. Something about his demeanour had steeled itself for a fight, “They’re coming for you.” He turned to look at her and something ferocious was building up behind his eyes. His lips were drawn tightly and he was tapping the barrel of his ray gun lightly against his knee cap like an anxious twitch.

“I’m not going without a fight,” She stuck out her chin defiantly, despite her crumpled position in the car, “I’m sorry you’re involved. Thank you for helping me. I’m glad I’m not alone.”

“I’m not letting you die.” He looked away, his attention drawn back to the approaching monsters. His words reverberated through Good Time and she let out a small puff of air that she hadn’t realised she was holding. Kobra Kid said nothing but stepped down on the gas pedal and floored it, the car flying across the desert like gravity couldn’t hold them down.

Kobra Kid made the final announcement, “We have incoming.” And each of the Killjoys tensed in anticipation. “Five Draculoids on motorcycles, and one Exterminator with a
entourage of approximate 4 S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W agents.”

“Rodger that, Kobra Kid” Party Poison confirmed, all business now that the attack was imminent. He called out the Killjoy battle cry, “Do it loud, Motherfuckers!” and was then hanging out of the car aiming his laser pistol at the bastards.

***
Good Time didn’t know how long it took them to lose or kill all of the Draculoids but she had never been so frustrated by a fight since the first time she ever got her ass handed to her. She was a warrior. Hiding in the back of a car and not helping save their lives was a new experience for her – and not one she had any intention of repeating.

Without being able to see what was going on around her, she relied on her other senses to inform her about their current situation, and what the other two Killjoys were communicating in the midst of the battle.

Kobra Kid was in charge of the evasive driving, and he was remarkable. He looped them around and around in circles positioning Party Poison in good shooting range to tackle their enemy without much prompting from the other Killjoy. They had clearly been fighting with each other for a long time, the just knew what the other needed and were so precise it was almost beautiful to bear witness to, despite feeling incredibly left out. At one point, Kobra Kid used the car to confused two of the Dracs on motorcycles to the point where they ghosted each other and collided in a dramatic explosion that decimated one S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W agent’s legs. Party Poison followed it through and ghosted the agent swiftly and took out two more.

Reeling from the fight, out of breath and wide eyed from adrenalin, Kobra stopped the car in the centre of all the destruction. It was so quiet, just the sound of the engine ticking over in the background.

“That was...” She croaked in disbelief.

“It isn’t our first rodeo.” Party Poison grinned tightly at her and holstered his ray gun, flinching from a laser burn that had just nicked his wrist enough to splatter blood down his arm. “We really need to get you back to base, now. How are you feeling? Can you stay awake for the rest of the journey? We’re going back to Zone-“

“MOVE YOUR HEAD!” She screamed and didn’t hesitate with a throwing star aiming directly at Party Poison. It found its target dead in the centre of the Exterminators forehead. Party Poison had moved in just enough time, but a few strands of luminous red hair floated down to his shoulder from where they’d been sliced off by the weapon.

“We will find you, Maaaaaaaaaaa-“ The Exterminator’s eyes rolled back mid sentence and it jerked backwards and sparks flew from the left ear before crumpling to the ground and bursting into flames next to the car.

The two men in the front seats were speechless. Party Poison was staring at her with wide, disbelieving eyes and Kobra looked flummoxed.
“Will you put a couple of laser beams in him, please,” She asked in a tiny voice. “I want him really dead this time...”

Dumbly, Party Poison obliged quickly and turned back to her with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Thanks.” He eventually exhaled. She just nodded slightly and lay back down trying to breathe the pain of movement away. “Right, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Kobra revved the engine and they took off into the sunset in silence with the radio blasting away and Party Poison watching Good Time like a hawk, keeping her awake.