#i really do need to knock over some machinery on my way out. unplug some shit.

[happyendingsong]

last week of work

[antiques-for-geeks]

Game Review : Space Raiders

Sinclair ZX81 / Sinclair Research/Psion/Mikro-Gen / 1982 / Originally £3.95

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the golden age of cover art.

Good artists borrow, great artists steal. A comment that is often associated with the late Steve Jobs about his appropriating the GUI concept from Xerox PARC in the 1980s. It’s not an unromantic ideal - the young upstart company taking a technology from another, bigger organisation that had gold on its hands but didn’t know it.

Except Steve Jobs didn’t come up with the quote. He said as much in Triumph of the Nerds when interviewed. He didn’t claim to be the father of the modern GUI either; he just happened to see the potential of putting a low(er)-cost computer in the hands of the public that had a GUI.

The early days of the computing revolution were a kleptomaniac’s dream; intellectual property was respected, however it was done very much in a homage sense, rather than a paying-a-licencing-fee-and-doing-an-official-conversion sense.

Bedroom coders everywhere were getting in on the action, developing home versions of popular arcade titles, safe in the knowledge that Atari, Taito or Namco would not send the lawyers after them. After all, this was the early 1980s. Most of the time these companies didn’t know the kids were making these clones in the first place.

So, enter Space Raiders published by Sinclair Research. No prizes for guessing which arcade machine is being ripped-off here. It seems rather pointless to go through the gameplay; it’s so famous after 40 years of public consciousness that going through the mechanics of the game would seem a waste of time.

Let battle commence!

This version does not deviate too far from the golden formula. Some features are missing, like the bonus saucer craft that you can shoot. That said, alien ships come down the screen, and you with your moving gun must defend. Clear the screen and it continues. Over and over and over until they finally manage to land or you lose all of your lives.

Or get bored and unplug the computer.

Or stand up, knock the desk causing the memory expansion on your ZX81 to wiggle and the machine to promptly crash.

So, with the game being so ubiquitous, it’s difficult to stand out without ‘ruining’ the pure Space Invaders experience. Also, at the time there was little need to; this game would come at a time when recreating the arcade was impossible on home machinery - the Atari 2600 might have been the reference hardware for the home in the US, but even that could not hope to live up to the experience you’d get shoving small change into arcade machines. Though you could get some distance to replicating the feel by turning the lights off, have your younger brother spit out his half-eaten sweets on the floor near the machine to make the carpet nice and sticky and get your Mum to shout at you “This is a cafe, not a change machine. If you want change for those bloody machines you’ll have to buy something you little prick. They should bring back conscription. You’d learn some proper respect!” each time you ventured from the gloom into the kitchen.

Your shot is the upper case I, the alien bomb is the *. Interestingly neither you nor your foe can fire again until the projectiles hit their mark or whizz off the screen.

While released by Sinclair in 1982, the game is actually the older Space Invaders coded by Mikro-Gen in 1981. That release had the usual (for the time) monochrome packaging and was not available on shop shelves as games would come to be. The Sinclair release sees the title packaged with another, Bomber, a Blitz variant on the B-side of the cassette. Sinclair seemed to have worked with Psion (later of Organiser fame), who developed the ZX Spectrum version of Space Raiders to bring a similar game to the ZX81 at the same time. Shame that Psion did little more than just recycle an old title.

Buying it today

There are two versions - the ZX81 and Spectrum. The covers are more or less identical, so it’d be easy to get the two mixed up if you were not too careful.

The Spectrum version seems to be the more prevalent on auction sites. The ZX81 version reviewed here was not produced in as great numbers and so commands a higher price. Prices do vary from £10 to £50 depending on condition and how gullible the seller thinks people are. Expect to be able to get it for the lower end of these two figures at the present time.

Note that there is a cartridge version for the Spectrum. These are quite rare and can cost around the £60 mark. If you end up with that, well done. Now you just need to find a ZX Interface 2 so you can play it.

Commentariat

Tim : I’m going to be straight with you. This was the first game that I ever played, so my opinion of the game is really tinted. Back when I first got my ZX81, I absolutely loved it and played it for hours and hours. One particularly epic game was played at the end of the day with the prospect of bed-time looming. I made it count, going further than ever before; my parents, failing to understand the seismic nature of what they had just seen, sent me to bed instead of cracking open the champagne.

Playing it again, I can’t pretend it’s not a disappointment; it certainly isn’t how I remember it, but in these situations, it never is...

Graphically it’s not impressive, even for the ZX81; the coders could really have got more out of the hardware especially as game requires a 16k expansion in order to play the game. That said, it certainly plays well enough. It is harder than other Space Invaders clones out there, but it kind of has to be to ensure you get your money’s worth, which probably says more about the higher quality of the opposition than anything else.

The hardness kept me coming back for more when I first had it, but given that it was this, Bomber or the ICL “Fun to Learn” educational series tape that my folks had bought me in the vain hope I’d learn geography from the computer, it was an easy market to please. Now, it can grip me enough to play it, but the longevity isn’t there.

So is there much to recommend it today? Sadly no. A trip down memory lane, but not a particularly good one.

Pop : Ah, gaming on the ZX81… a tricky proposition on the painful and unresponsive keyboard. If you’ve never experienced it, try to imagine using the buttons on your microwave to play your PS4. Luckily this game of space invaders can be enjoyed at a slow pace! I can’t honestly remember if it was this or another invaders clone I played back in the day, but it’s barely passable fodder for the ‘81. Space Invaders is already a simple game, so leaving out stuff like the saucer is and the invaders speeding up as they get fewer is criminal. At least the bunkers are all present and correct. Still, I’d have happily played this back in may games-starved youth. If you’re going to (re)visit the machine today, check out something like 3D Defender or even better 3D Monster Maze...

Meat : Really, have we reached the bottom of the barrel this quickly? In some ways I jest, but really you’d only want to play this for nostalgia’s sake. Given that it needs a 16k expansion to run, I’d want to have something far better than this. Even for the time. It’s not that the aliens don’t traverse the screen properly sometimes. It’s not the missing saucer bonus alien. It’s not the absence of sound (which I can forgive - you can’t magic up sound from a machine with no ability to generate it). It’s not the lack of bitmap graphics. It’s just that in 16k you’d expect them to do something half decent. Like redefine a character set. For heaven’s sake, they could squeeze a game of chess into 1k at the same time, so I expect better here.

There is so little recommend this today. A couple of goes and the fun is exhausted. Unless you are a collector, save your money and head for better titles on the machine. If you really must have a Space Invaders clone from the era, try Avenger for the Vic 20. Hell, even the dull Atari 2600 Space Invaders cart is better than this.

Score card

Presentation 6/10

At a time when a photocopied inlay with a dour pencil drawing was the norm, the cover was incredibly stylish and smart. Seriously, look at it!

Originality 2/10

Sadly it can’t score highly here. Even in 1982 Space Invaders clones were ‘me too’ products.

Graphics 2/10

Uses the inbuilt graphics character set - plenty of scope (and memory) to do something else, even without a bitmap display.

Hookability 7/10

Plays well and draws you in quickly and effectively.

Sound N/A

The ZX81 has no sound output so unsurprisingly, neither does the game.

Lastability 3/10

While it hooks you in, at the end of the day it’s still ‘just’ Space Invaders. While tough, the missing features means there isn’t the depth to bring you back too often.

Value for Money 5/10

Will give you a fair amount of fun, even with its’ drawbacks. Plus there is a second game - Bomber - on side B.

Overall 4/10

You will get some fun out of it on your ZX81 but if you’re emulating, it’s not really worth the effort, sadly. Nostalgia will only get you so far. If you must play Space Invaders on a ZX81, try QS Invaders.

[pointy-kitty]

We Can Make It

A Wreck It Ralph Fanfiction from five years ago

Chapter Seven

Upon returning home and holing up in her basement once again, the rest of the day was nearly painful to stay awake for. She yawned, stumbled, grumbled, tripped, tumbled, and all around silently cursed Turbo for making her stay up all night. On any other day, being nocturnal would have been a breeze for her, but she desperately needed to finish a chore that she had been putting off. Her idea to construct an incinerator for her unwanted creations did not go unforgotten. Dealing with pyrotechnics, machinery, and potentially (literally) explosive artwork while deprived of sleep was not something she particularly thought safe.

However, rubbing her eyes, she shrugged. Making a decent incinerator in this state would just chalk up to be a bigger accomplishment, and any failures would be expected. Her expectations were low and yet she knew that she was going to beat them.

The task proved far more difficult than she had even anticipated. She began by literally painting a hole in the floor and following it down a fair ways, constructing a decently sized chamber that was just large enough for her to hop in. This part was easy enough for her, if confusing and time-consuming, dealing with dimensions and proportions and tricks of the eye. Manufacturing rows of fire spouts hot enough to incinerate anything she could imagine, though, stuck a wrench in her plans.  

After several bouts of singed eyebrows, patting out clothing fires, ash stains, fried hair, painful burns, and coughing fits later, she was just about ready to give up. It was a stupid idea in the first place, she told herself. But she would not let herself stop when there was one last shot to be made.  

Her final prototype was practically a geyser. She sat on the far end of the chamber, button in hand, finger trembling in anticipation of heat and pain. It was an absolute fact in her mind that no matter what safety precautions she took, she would end up losing a few hundred hairs anyway. Squeezing her eyes shut, flinching into the corner, she brought her finger down on the button.  

One might have sworn that a volcanic eruption occurred in that underground chamber. Every bit of air was choked out of the space by a vicious, hungry heat, and the very core of existence seemed to glow a molten gold. Make-It screeched and almost instantly found herself on her back, her code firing and her vision flashing, until she could not move anymore. She could not breathe. She barely felt like she could manage to exist.  

And yet, strangely enough, a tiny funeral drone played in her head, and on the last note, she was back on her feet.  

Her entire world was disturbingly balanced and sensation-free. The fire still raged angrily around her, but she did not feel any of it.

“What the cuss..?” She looked at her hands and found that they were flickering in and out of visibility, along with the rest of her body. She was blinking like a strobe light, and the time between each blink was quickly decreasing. How ominous.

She was instantly aware of when the blinking stopped, as she repeated her horrific death sequence just as it did. Her heart stopped, lay stagnant, then burst awake again and knocked her to her feet, sending her into another series of blinks.

Cursing loudly in panic, she darted for the hole that she had painted on her way down and clawed her way back up while she still sensed herself flickering. She just barely managed to make it out before fully returning to tangibility. Coughing, spluttering, panting, her heart hammering a stabbing pain against her ribs, she paused and rolled onto her back.

That was the first time that she had lost a life.  

As she watched her suite fill with billows of black smoke, she swore again as she realized that she left the power button in the chamber. She rolled onto her belly and pushed her face firmly into the floor. Slipping back in, she made bets with herself over how many more lives she would lose before finally getting this stupid idea turned off and destroyed.  

The result ended up being five.

Once the crisis was finally averted, once she had turned off the spouting flames and constructed a huge fan to blow the sharp smoke out of the in and out chutes, she found herself lying on her back and staring at the ceiling. It was remarkable, she thought, how often she ended up in that position after an experiment.

“Welp,” she breathed, “no incinerator.”

Her heart leapt so hard that she thought she might lose another life when she heard her cousin’s voice.

“Mavy? Are you okay down there? Why is there so much smoke…?”

“AAHHAAAHAHA,” she masked her scream as laughter. “NOTHING. JUST. UH, BARBECUE.”

She could practically hear his disbelieving expression. “Mavy, cuz, I know the smell of a good barbecue and that’s not it.”

“I’m a bad cook.”

“No you’re not, I know that. Just what could you be cooking that would make so much smoke, anyway? You’d have to be roasting yourself a whole herd of cattle.”

“Uhh,” she scratched at the floor, biting her lip. “No, I’m just roasting myself.”

“…Alright, Mavy, I’m coming down.”  

She did not bother lifting herself from the floor when he dropped down. This was how he usually found her, anyway. Upon stepping inside, he immediately coughed and screwed up his face, waving his hat around.  

“Oh my land, what happened down here? And tell me the truth, missy.”

“I incinerated myself, that’s what happened,” she moaned. “And I lost, like, a billion lives. I’ve never done that before.”

“Lost a billion lives? Well, neither have I.”

She shot him an exasperated look. “I’m not joking, cuz. I’ve never died before. I was just trying to build an incinerator–…”

“Incinerator!?” Felix looked as if he were punched in the gut. “Mavy, are you out of your mind?!”

Make-It flinched and tried to sink into the floor. Her cousin rarely raised his voice, but when he did, it scared the absolute excrement out of her.

He continued, “An incinerator in this small of a console? Mavy, that would choke us all out! It’d put a haze over the whole game and Litwak would think we were glitching. And then, cuz, we would be unplugged and lose our homes! An incinerator?! Why?!”

“Uh,” she raised her hand, “I—”

“No, no, Mavy, just tell me where this thing is. I need to fix the land around it right now, before anything else can produce more smoke.”

She pointed to the corner with her raised hand.

He peered over with concrete determination, his hammer in hand, and disappeared down the hole. Several musical dings echoed from within. Make-It rubbed her hand against her forehead, trying to estimate just how deep she was in proverbial dog droppings.  

Her cousin appeared after hardly a minute, having completely refilled the hole. Though she refused to look at him, she could see his stance out of the corner of her eye. He was erect, arms folded, tapping his shoe expectantly.

“Well, Mavy?”

“Who’s Mavy?”

“Mavy.”

She gulped. “See all this junk everywhere? The stuff that you can barely walk around my living space due to? Well… I needed to get rid of it, so I figured…”

“Oh my land…” he shook his head. “That’s what we have a dump for, cuz.”

She licked her lips. “I’m not welcome in the kingdom of Dump.”

“I’m sure Ralph doesn’t mind, Mavy. And don’t you worry about him, okay? I know it seems like he’s always woken up on the wrong side of the bed, but he won’t hurt you. That’s not what he’s there for.”

A frown tugged her lips down. “I just didn’t want to bother anybody…”

“Pardon me, Mavy… but isn’t that what you’re programmed to do?”

She flinched. He had sounded entirely sincere, not the slightest bit sarcastic or spiteful, but his words still left an exit wound. “Yeah,” she breathed. “Yeah, it is.”

He sighed, crouching next to her. “I’m sorry for raising my voice, Mavy. But that was far too close. You can’t just go and make something that’s going to affect the entire game like that. It’s irresponsible.”

“This is my mess,” she continued, trying very hard to keep her voice steady, “and my junk. I thought I was being responsible by taking care of it myself. I thought it was right. I know it wasn’t. I’m sorry.” She stood and kicked a torn canvas onto the out-chute platform, watching it disappear with the spring.

“Mavy, please,” he rose, approaching her. “Don’t be like this. It’s not your fault, you didn’t know.”

“You JUST said that it was irresponsible, didn’t you?” She snapped, whirling around, instantly feeling a dreadful acid in her belly when she saw his stricken face. “I tried, I really did.” She punted another hunk of junk onto the spring. “I know that I’m programmed to make a mess. Not to wreck things like Ralph, but to take something good and make it stupid. You know, that must be why they call me Make-It! The only thing I ever manage to do is MAKE a huge problem!”

“Mavy—”

“I know what my code is. I love my pranks and my ruckus and my fun. But what I’ve done lately has NOT been fun. Just—Augh!” She filled her arms with piles of junk and tossed them into the out-chute. A frenzy seemed to stir in her body as she stomped her way around the room, picking up any useless object she could reach and hurling it at the spring. Felix had to duck several times to avoid taking a face full of junk.

“I’m fun, I’m crafty, I’m clever, sure! That’s what it says on my package! Then you open me up and you find heaping mounds of reckless, rash, and IRRESPONSIBLE!” She spun and let a broken jet pack fly into the shaft. “And what’s this? The willpower that you were promised isn’t there! How can you possibly enjoy a little cuss of a tricky prankster without a fine helping of WILLPOWER!?”

Felix looked absolutely horrified and at a loss. He tried interrupting her, grabbing her, finding some way to slow her down, but nothing helped. “Please, Mavy, I didn’t mean it, what I said—”

“No, you’re right! I’m coded to be a burden. In fact, I think the game’s better off without me today. Speaking of which, isn’t the arcade still open?”  

Speak of the quarter and it shall appear. A booming voice echoed through the console, repeating “QUARTER ALERT.” Felix startled and panicked, pulling down on the sides of his hat and clenching his teeth. He managed to spill out, “BUT YOUR GARBAGE IS STILL IN FRONT OF—” before he completely disappeared, automatically relocated for the game start.  

Overcome with emotion, frustration, and a terribly shaken heart from dying several times, Make-It simply stepped into the out-chute and spiralled out into the open, landing on top of a heaping pile of garbage. She found herself staring down a lanky teenage boy, his face riddled with acne and confusion. Her brows lowered and she frowned. Her code screamed at her to proclaim her catchphrase, but she kept her lips wound tightly shut.  

Everyone in the console was staring at her. Ralph, behind her, was just about to tell everyone his intentions with the building. Felix was beaming a terrified smile at her from across the yard. The Nicelanders watched from their windows, looking like they barely even knew who she was.

She blinked. Painting a huge sack around her garbage, pulling the draw strings tightly closed, and tugging it over her shoulder, she began to slump off screen. She paused just before she was out of view, however, to shoot another spiteful glare at the player and give him a one-fingered salute.

A gargantuan hand seized her and tossed her completely out of view hardly a moment after her finger raised. Careening through the air, firmly clutching her bag as it swung haphazardly over her, she landed with a horrible crack on the top of the brick dump. An awful twitch, a pausing heart, and a springy hop later, she was missing yet another life and flashing.  

Ralph glared at her from beside the building. He sure did have a good throwing arm.

Practically growling, she roared back at them, “WORTH IT!” A speech bubble floated peacefully out in front of the screen, baring her declaration. Ralph practically shook with rage, watching her from the corner of his eye, very obviously directing his next words at her.

“I’M GONNA WRECK IT!”

Wasting no more time, he scaled the building immediately, punching away her speech bubble and shoving his fists through the bricks. The gamer looked dazed and void of any intelligent thought. After watching Ralph do his damage for a moment, though, he shrugged and played as if nothing had happened.  

What a simple creature.

Make-It was done hanging around in her own game. She did not want to spend another minute of the day around the consequences of her mistakes and hurt feelings. She would avoid it for as long as she could. Stroking her usual jets onto her feet, she fired herself into the train tunnel and clear through to Game Central Station.  

Just as she passed through her game’s gate, however, she felt a grid pass over her skin and heard the impossibly bored voice of the surge protector.  

“Name,” he deadpanned.  

At the speed she was going, slowing down for a security check was not something she really found appealing. Shaking her head, she zipped away and zoomed through the Turbo-Time gate.  

The shrieks of the fan NPCs could be heard halfway through the entrance tunnel. A groan rumbled in her throat as the sound grew louder and louder, finally nearly deafening as she rocketed through the open space of the practice track. Everyone’s attention was focused on the maze. Tall green hedges had sprouted from the previously barren stretch and swirling clouds of dust ripped out from between them.

She sighed. Watching Turbo race while she was not trying to mess him up sounded like a good time, but she did not want to risk the gamers getting a glimpse of her and causing even more of a wreck than she had made for herself. The trouble was hers. She did not want to spread it to her only semi-friend.  

With an uncharacteristically plain turn, she made a bee line for Turbo’s mansion, shoved his bedroom window open, and let herself topple in with the momentum as she killed the fire in her shoes. She rolled across his blankets, over the hood of the car-bed, across the floor, and flopped to a gentle stop as she ended up upside-down against the couch. Her feet bounced limply off the cushions as she observed the currently uninhabited room.  

Almost everything was as she left it. The table had been pushed up against the wall, the plates all clean and stacked. The Cuss Trophy sat prettily in its new home, not having had the time to even collect a speck of dust. Even the bed was consistent in its inconsistency. Just a massive nest within a ridiculous racing car bed.  

Make-It’s body ached and trembled as she righted herself and stood. Her blood felt unnaturally thick and difficult to pulse through her body. One shaky foot dropped forward, followed by another, and another, until finally she collapsed on the car bed and wormed her way into the mess of sheets. As much as all the linens smelled like a sweaty racer, she felt oddly safe balled up, completely hidden away from the great big world of mistakes waiting to happen.  

Lying still, alone, the memories of the day crept upon her. She almost ruined everyone’s lives with a stupid incinerator. Her own cousin had asked her if she was programmed to be a bother. She had made such a ruckus that was not even funny. It was just rude, childish, and uncalled for.  

And, of course, she could not forget how she had died nearly a dozen times.

There was no reason to be upset, she told herself. Everyone has a temper tantrum sometimes, and every game character goes through that first death…

Yet, despite herself, her sinuses began to tingle and her eyes to sting. Her lungs filled with a quick, vibrating, uncomfortable breath. She grasped at the blankets, absent-mindedly reaching out for someone, anyone. But no one was there, and no one offered any words of comfort. Only the obnoxious screams of the fans in the bleachers reached her.

As moisture began to spill over her eyes, she tried to convince herself that it was better this way. Better to cry alone so that no one could see her weakness. But her whole body shook with solitude, desperation, a horrid, deeply rooted pain that she was not ready to face on her own.  

Somewhere in the midst of her weeping, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

She became aware of her consciousness by the restless clanking of plates rattling. The lampshades rocked and squeaked tiredly. The bathroom door shook in its hinges. The entire room was pulsing with rippling sound.  

Make-It sniffed, groggily pushing the covers off her head, accidentally taking her hat with them. She drew in a deep breath and rubbed her face, the salt from her tears caked on her skin scratching uncomfortably. Unearthly loud music was muffled through the floorboards, but its sound waves carried just as strongly through everything they could reach. Her teeth practically chattered with the beat.

With a groan, she pulled the covers back over her head, spluttering and rolling when her hat landed on her face. Turbo must have been having that party that he thought so highly of. Yet another deep groan pushed its way through her chest when she remembered that she had told Turbo she was coming to said party. She was in no shape to be in that environment, mentally or physically. Being killed so many times had left her feeling a tiny bit feverish.  

She drew in a long, slow sigh. The last thing she wanted was to mess things up with a friend that she had only just made peace with. Being so low already, though, she somewhat doubted that anything she did could make her feel worse.  

Turbo would just have to wait. She would attend one of his parties when she was fully loaded and healthy. Anyway, she was doing him a favor by not showing up as such a wreck and bringing down the spirits.  

Pushing her face down into the plush of the mattress and clamping a pillow over her head, she managed to pick up where she had left off in her nap.

Her next awakening was not quite as gentle as her previous. The mattress bounced and her heart jumped up with it as a stinging breath nearly popped her lungs. Unintelligible grumbling and humming wafted around behind her as the whole bed was jostled.  

Fantastic. She had not woken up in time to get out of bed and collect herself for a suitable explanation as to why she never showed up at his party. Pressing her lips together and accepting her fate, she simply waited for him to notice that there was an unnaturally large lump in his covers.  

His humming, grumbling, and shuffling paused. She could definitely feel his eyes on her, and she was almost ashamed of how she found it hard not to chuckle. He must have done such an obvious double-take when he realized something was off.  

A finger poked her in the back. Then a hand rested on her arm, patted up and down, and pulled back.  

“What the actual cussing…” he breathed roughly, his lisp heavy. He must have been drinking.

She could sense him flinch away when she rolled over, and when she peeked her eyes out of the folds, she saw him leaning away, hand raised defensively, his yellow eyes wide and shining in the lamplight. He was not in his usual racing suit, but rather, a white wife-beater and red shorts. The alarm in his gaze instantly vanished when he realized it was her, and he lowered his hand to squint at her.

“Have you been hiding up here all night?”

“…Is it morning already?”

He sniffed. “Sort of. Can’t be long after midnight. But still,” he lifted the blanket on her head to get a better look at her, “what’re you doing?”

Her eyes fell and she did not answer.

“…Well, I thought you weren’t gonna show up. Kind of a let-down, toots. You missed one heck of a party.”  

She did not speak.

“…My memory might be a bit off since I’m fairly… decently… rather buzzed, but by now you’d have usually got at least a few smart remarks in and tried to piss me off somehow. You sick? Got a virus?” He pushed his fingers through his hair absent-mindedly. “Contagious?”

“Mm,” she shook her head. “I… messed up.”

“That’s a surprise,” he spluttered through his drunken lisp and yelped when Make-It punched him in the side.  

“I’m not joking around here,” she muttered flatly. “And don’t treat me like I’m born to be a screw-up!”

He blinked slowly. “…It was a joke, toots. I dunno, but you know, you’re the biggest joker I know…” He paused. “I just said ‘know’ too many times…”

Make-It’s mouth twitched. “You’re still funny as all Hell when you’re drunk. But… I’m sorry, I’m just really… not Turbo-tastic right now.”

“Well… that’s a tragedy,” he stared blankly into the room, genuinely stricken (probably partially due to the alcohol). “What could bring a little rocket cuss like you down?”

Swallowing, heaving a heavy sigh, she explained quickly, “I tried to build an incinerator and I killed myself, like, five times during its construction and I had never died before, I mean, how would I get killed just painting things? I-I just—Anyway, Felix found out and—and he said that I could have gotten us all unplugged, and he said—He said that – He didn’t mean it but – he said that I was programmed to be a b-bother and a nuisance–…” She held her breath, squeezing her eyes shut, trying desperately not to let herself cry again.  

Looking at Turbo was not something she wanted to do. Whatever expression he was making, whether it comforting or indifferent, would just stir her up even more. He was silent and still, though, listening.

“And… And a quarter was put in, but I was being such a baby and—I was getting so emotional and throwing a fit and I threw all my junk out into the open and—And the gamer saw me, and I messed up, and I – I flipped him off, the gamer…”

Turbo snorted.

Despite herself, Make-It choked out a laugh. “Well… yeah, that felt pretty good… But—But then Ralph grabbed me and threw me, and I… I lost another life… And I just couldn’t take it so I—I came here…” She gripped the sheets and took a long, unsteady breath. “I came here to run and hide from my responsibility because I’m a weak, selfish, useless, reckless, irresponsible waste of CODE!” She slammed her fist down against the mattress and it bounced back with surprising force. “Everything that I try to make just—Any time I try to do something right, something not a complete waste of time, I just… I just FAIL.”  

Her face plopped down against the sheets. A broken, defeated whisper squeaked out of her, “I had nowhere else to go…”

Turbo was completely silent for so long that Make-It might have thought he was not even there. Her breath hitched painfully and the dreaded tears returned as she curled into a tight ball, completely ashamed of being alive at all.

“Well,” Turbo finally spoke, and the bed shifted a bit as he stood, “it’s late, I’m drunk, and Hell if I’m putting in all the effort to kick you out.”  

Make-It cautiously raised her head to watch him crack his back and reach for the lamp, clicking the room into a soft and solemn darkness. He crossed to the table, taking up one of the glasses and stepping into the bathroom to fill it with water.  

“What are you doing..?”

He paused and managed a half-glance over his shoulder. “Aren’t you spending the night?”

“…Why would..?”

“You said you’ve got nowhere else to go. Maybe if I were sober and more in my right mind, I’d kick you out, because I’ll have you know that I don’t enjoy having my face used as a notepad.”

She smiled slightly. “I’m not really sorry for that…”

“I know.” He walked back to the bed, placed the water on the bedside table, and put his hands on his waist, looking at her and pursing his lips. “I hope you understand just how lucky you are, toots. That’s one magnificent bed, and not one I’d lend out so easily.”  

Her eyebrows raised and she sniffed. “You’re letting me use your bed for the night? The entire thing? …But you could easily fit seven people in here!”

“Didn’t I say you’re lucky? …Water’s there if you need it.” He grabbed one of his pillows and one of the many blankets, trekking over to the couch to flop himself down as a heap of puffy linens and scruffy hair.  

Make-It frowned. She never meant to kick him out of his bed, as sweet of a deal as it was. The bed really was something special. She could not remember any other piece of furniture being so comfortable. But it was Turbo’s, and it was not her place to deny him use of it.  

“No, Turbo, I’ll sleep on the couch,” she sat up, her head suddenly spinning. “It’s… It’s your bed, and I’m just a guest, and not even a welcome or pleasant one.”

“Don’t get up, toots. I don’t feel sober enough to get back up, myself.”

Exhaling softly, she leaned back against the head of the bed (which was really the spoiler of the car). “You don’t owe me any favors, you know. I’m doing YOU favors to pay you back for ME messing up. You’re just making this circle of favors that doesn’t make a sour lick of sense.”

His shoulders shrugged beneath his thick blanket and he rolled to face away from her. “Cuss logic.”

She blinked a few times, a grateful smile slowly creeping onto her face. Sliding back down with a comfortable, relaxing sigh, she called over to him, “Thanks, sourheart.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Another one of those immovable grins settled into her lips as she snuggled herself up in the blankets. Who would have thought that such a big, jerky screw up would have led to her making such a good friend? Her heart purred and rippled into a wonderfully pleasant warmth.

Just as her eyes began to droop, the sudden honk of a car horn scared the living daylights out of her and she cursed just as loudly as Turbo did across the room.  

“’The cuss was that!?”

He groaned. “My doorbell…”

“…DID YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT SO ANNOYING!?”

“I DON’T GET A LOT OF VISITORS!”

“Well,” she looked to the elevator, then to him, “are you going to answer it?”

He grimaced. “It could be one of the blue guys…”

“Do they often ring doorbells?”

“I’m not sure they know what a doorbell is.”

“Well, then!” She gestured to the elevator.

Turbo frowned harshly at the metallic doors, pausing for nearly a minute. “…No.” He flopped back down and pulled the blankets over his face. “Not tonight.”

Make-It blinked, peering around the room. She breathed steadily, trying to recover from the horrible shock that woke her.  

When she thought she had calmed down, the horn rang through the room again, prompting another chorus of swears from the two. Turbo flung the blanket off of himself and stomped over to the elevator, cussing all the way.  

“Should I come?” Make-It suggested.

“Ngh,” he flinched, glancing back at her. “No. Stay.” He pointed down with his finger purposefully.  

She shrugged. “Fine with me…”

His swearing could still be heard as he lowered down the elevator shaft.  

Make-It twiddled her thumbs. There was no way that she could sit back and relax wondering who was at the door. Shakily, she stood and wandered into the bathroom. The color scheme was not surprising at all, the tiles being red and any porcelain being stark white. It was a long room, much bigger than necessary for one person, and at the far end, there was a single window that overlooked the side of the building with the garage.  

“Why didn’t he just look through here…?” She shook her head, but promptly remembered that he was still drunk. Finding this an acceptable answer, she opened the window as quietly as she could and leaned out to take a look at the culprit. When she saw who it was, she nearly toppled out.

Felix was standing in the glow of the spotlights, holding his hat against his belly and rocking back on his heels and toes. He glanced around nervously, appearing almost impatient, and definitely tired.  

“Oh sweet mother midi, please don’t let him look up…” she breathed, leaning back just enough so that she could still see the exchange that was about to take place.  

Not two minutes later, the whining groan of the garage opening echoed through the otherwise silent console. Felix froze on the spot, watching the door lift and looking at the person inside. Make-It could practically hear Turbo’s scowl.  

“Good evening, sir,” Felix greeted him as politely as ever.

“It’s MORNING,” Turbo growled.

“…Is it morning already..?”

“Yes,” Turbo informed him flatly.

“I’m sorry,” Felix scuffed the concrete with his shoe. “I didn’t realize it had been that long. I was trying to knock for a while, but…” He cleared his throat. “I think you had some music playing and it drowned me out.”

There was the audible glare again.

“It sounded pretty groovy,” Felix nodded and grinned awkwardly, clearing his throat. “…It took me a little while to find that doorbell…”

“What do you want, Fix-It?”

“Oh, right, sorry about that. I’m looking for my cousin, Make-It Mavis… Have you met her?”

“…Briefly.”

“Oh, okay, good,” he nodded. “Have you… seen her around here today?”

“Is she lost?”

“No! Well, hmm, kind of..?” He sighed. “She got real upset and ran off into Game Central Station. When I came to look for her when the arcade closed, the surge protector told me that she flew in here…”

“Really,” Turbo sounded supremely unimpressed. “What do you need her for?”

Felix blinked. “She’s family, Turbo. I just need to know that she’s okay, and take her home to have a talk with her about what happened today.”

“Hmm,” Turbo hummed. “Well, I’ve seen her today. She’s fine. A little dopey but otherwise fine.”

“Oh, thank Heaven,” Felix grinned. “Is she inside? She really needs to come home.”

“Why?”

“…Well… she just does. As we all know, there’s no place like home. And after what happened today, well… She and I need to talk some more. And she needs to feel like she’s safe at home.”

Make-It winced a bit. He was talking about her like she was a toddler lost in a shopping mall. “I’m almost as old as you are, cuz, I can take care of myself,” she whispered through gritted teeth.

Turbo took a moment to reply. “She’s fine,” he informed him very matter-of-factly, “but she won’t be coming ‘home’ tonight.”

“Wh–… Is she sick?”

“She’s fine,” he repeated coldly.  

“Then…” Felix gestured with his hands, “…why isn’t she coming home tonight?”

“She needs a vacation.”

“…O-Okay… Is she inside, though? Could I, maybe, speak with her for a minute or two?”

Turbo paused. “No.”

Felix rocked on his heels, glancing around. “Uhh… was that… ‘no’ to her being there, or ‘no’ to me talking to her..?”

“No,” he repeated.  

Felix frowned. “Uh…”

“Look, Fix-It, you’re a good guy. Literally. But you’re paving yourself a road to Hell with bricks of good intentions. You mean well. But your methods are terrible.”

Her cousin froze, his face a mix of confusion and an indignant glare. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re treating her too much like a lady. She’s not a lady,” the click of a button and the grating squeal of the garage door closing made his last words nearly impossible to hear, but she just barely managed to hear them. “She’s a person.”

Felix stood staring at the closed door for just about as long as Make-It stood frozen at the window, jaw agape. She was not entirely sure what had just happened, but her mind had gone completely blank, her insides practically turning to jelly.  

Her cousin put his hat back on, stood in thought for a moment, and then began his trek back over to the train station, a slow and contemplative tempo in his steps.  

The dull sigh of the elevator rising cracked a whip at Make-It’s heels and she hastily threw herself back into the bed, tangled herself up in the blankets, and made to look like she was just waking up to reach for her water. The doors slid open and a very tired, tipsy racer stepped out, practically tripping over the arm of the couch to face plant into the cushions. He moaned deeply.

“Who was it? Not the blue guys, I trust?”

Turbo waved her off, speaking a muffled couch-face language. “I took care of it.”

“Mm,” she nodded. “Okay. …Hey, Turbo?”

“Shut up and go to sleep,” he practically pleaded.

“Sourheart,” she muttered, casting a softly rueful smile in his direction. With a sigh, he turned his head from the cushions to peer at her with one eye.

Blinking slowly, twiddling her thumbs under the sheets, she tried to find some clever way of getting her point across. Her mind was still wiped clean, however, and each time she drew a blank, Turbo just looked even more tired.  

She cleared her throat. “Could you come here for a sec?”

His eye widened as if she had just asked him to walk the plank. “Oh, God, why are you making me stand up..?”

“Get your tipsy bits over here, mister.”

He put every ounce of energy he could muster into the heartiest groan that she had ever heard, and got to his feet, stumbling over to the side of the bed. He paused and stared at her expectantly, slouching more and more as her grin became more and more impish.  

His arms spread out slightly. “What?”

She held her hand out to him, hoping desperately that he would take the hint and that she would not have to elaborate. He watched her hand as if it were about to speak to him.  

“No, really, what?”

Her hand dropped with a sigh. “Come here.”

“I am here.”

“Oh, God,” she reached over to grab hold of his wrist and tug him down onto the mess of blankets. He yelped slightly, losing all reason to protest as soon as he felt the softness of his bed once again.  

“I just… I need some company tonight, okay? I don’t usually… Well, I never spend nights with anybody.”

Turbo blinked and managed to glance up at her. “…I can roll with this,” he shrugged, shifting around and curling himself around in the nest. He rolled and wiggled his shoulders back against a pillow, letting out a long, relieved sigh. “But can we please go to sleep now?”

She grinned. “Absolutely,” she purred, and wasted no time in draping herself over his side, pushing her nose up against his neck, locking her knee with his. He watched her, perplexed, but said nothing. Biting his lip slightly, his arm twitched awkwardly and wrapped itself over her shoulders. His fingers squeezed her arm the tiniest bit.

Smiling, trying not to laugh out of giddy happiness, she closed her eyes and let her head fall on his chest. An incredibly warm, fluttery sigh slipped through her lips. “Thanks, Turbo.”

His chest rose and fell slowly, and he mumbled something barely audible into her hat.  

Make-It could feel herself peacefully slipping into slumber. “Hm?”

“Thanks, Mavis.”

[kenpaisworkshop]

Cyber-Sin: “Ruins”

Subject: @sinquest AU “Cyber-Sin”

Characters: Cyber!Ken’pai, Cyber!Armonia ( @tehcomicsans ), Cyber!Warlock ( @tomis-jb )

He was already in. It was almost too easy.

The monitor dimly lit his messy apartment, digitally-created shadows flickering on the far wall behind his chair. The rain had let up for a moment, but its moisture caused a thin mist over the streets below, illuminated by disparate sources of neon.

Ken'pai tilted his head at an angle from side-to-side, cracking his neck before rolling his shoulders as he settled in to his work. His Spex blinked in the upper-right corner of his vision, as he pressed a small button set into the black plate prosthetic over the top of his skull. A small microphone an speaker icon appeared.

“Did you get it?” A female voice rang in his ears.

“Yeah,” Ken answered, “looks like your source was right, ARM. I barely had to do anything to get past security. They really don’t have their shit together, huh?”

“Well, they’re a smaller company, but I’ve been hearing they’re planning something huge.”

A few holographic windows appeared, shedding a gentle cyan light on the lizard-man’s scales. “Well…sure, but what exactly could a wastewater treatment company like BIOSERV have up their sleeve? I thought their focus was on decontamination of pollutants.”

“That’s what we have to find out, Gray. I wouldn’t call for your help if I wasn’t concerned. Besides, BIOSERV handles at least 80% of the sewage treatment for the city, which means…”

“…That it could affect the water supply? I mean…it’s a stretch but I guess I understand. I’ll check it out and keep you posted.”

“Got it. Keep the channel open okay?”

“Got it ARM.”

A male voice called over the comm. “Hey Gray! If you get any trouble, abort immediately and we’ll try for a closer, more on-site connection, alright?”

“Hey Warlock. Yeah, I’ll be careful, but it really doesn’t seem like there’s too much security to worry about. Hell, if it’s this easy I’d say we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Yeah, you’ll figure it out, just keep in touch. Talk it out if you want input.”

“Gotcha.”

Clawed fingers clacked against the keyboard as several windows popped up at once, showing several different PC setups around the BIOSERV offices. A smaller holographic window popped up in the corner, showing Ken’s system specs, including power usage, temperature, CPU and RAM usage, bandwidth allotment, and process numbers. He moved the window over to the lower left of the main screen and pressed the panel that said “diagnostic scan,” the same button slowly filling up with a percentage displayed below it.

[8% – SECURE]

He finally managed to find his way into the higher-up’s computer systems, opening up messages immediately and scanning the pinned messages for anything of note.

“…Nothing really going on,” he said aloud.

Many of them were more personal. Emails from loved ones asking when they’d be home for dinner, school referrals for their children, and the like. He decided against his better judgement to check the other, less-important messages just in case. This was perhaps the most boring part of the job, just reading the minutia of day-to-day office interactions of people he would most likely never, ever meet.

[19% – SECURE]

“Found one that might be interesting. Let’s see…”

He dragged the scroll bar to the center of the message to get a clear view.

[26% – SECURE]

“'Client has requested to postpone deployment of NEWAgent,’ that’s N, E,W, Agent, all one word. ‘Client wishes to have enough time to prepare machinery for upgrades that would be compatible with NEWAgent, as they have been met with setbacks.'”

“Okay,” ARM pondered, “I’m going to run a search for NEWAgent and BIOSERV, see what I can come up with…huh. That’s interesting.”

“What?”

“BIOSERV is working with Nanodyne on something. It was a small blurb in the news.”

“Nanodyne…where Magus works?” Tomis queried.

“Yeah. They wouldn’t be…using nanotech in the drinking water, would they?”

Ken shrugged, although neither of them could see it. “Well, they might use it to clean the water? Maybe they’re just using it because they found a way to make it work better than their normal biological agents?”

“Maybe, but…what about that NEWAgent and the 'client’s’ machinery? The need for compatibility would imply that there’s nanotech involved, since they’d have to match OS systems,” ARM reminded.

“Hmm…lemme root around a bit more.”

[35% – SECURE]

He dug deeper into the office system’s root files, pulling up a few diagnostics that he couldn’t exactly make sense of, but he guessed were for wastewater filtration and treatment, since they had obvious tells of water input and output vectors.

“Wait…Gray,” ARM said.

“Yeah?”

“BIOSERV…is primarily a wastewater treatment facility, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Wastewater treatment isn’t usually for drinking water and sewage, although they do a bit of that. A different company, contracted by the city handles the most of the sewage. Wastewater treatment is for water that wouldn’t be for drinking, like…irrigation, or…”

Ken tilted his head. “…or industrial use. The machines and their need for compatibility…”

“This is just a theory, but…what if they were about to put something in the water that would…not be compatible?”

“Then the factory would cease to function while the two different OS’s battle it out. It’d be a mess, probably take weeks, if not months to rectify. And even then…”

His eyes flashed open in realization.

“ARM…this is industrial sabotage!”

Something blinked. Ken didn’t notice.

[34% – SECURE]

“Gray, if you can, try to find out who that client is. Sabotage on this scale wouldn’t just take a company down, it could very well offset the economy if it’s serious enough. We need to know who stands to gain from this.”

“Got it.”

He closed a few of the extra windows hovering around the screen. They took a second to close down, but finally did. But he noticed.

“…ARM. I think I should pull out…but I’m gonna look a bit more.”

“You’re sure?”

“…Just a hunch.”

He ran a cross-search of the word “client” in the system’s messaging protocols, also pulling up phone records and voicemail transcriptions. His system began to lurch a little from the strain.

[34% – SECURE]

He blinked. He noticed something odd in how long it was taking to open each individual file. Each was just a few milliseconds longer than the last, but for someone like Ken, it was an eternity.

Something was wrong.

“ARM. I’m getting out now. I think I’ve been zapped.”

“What?! How?!”

“I dunno, but…”

He pressed his process kill-switch, ending each and every window all at once. He glanced down at the lower-left window that showed his diagnostic scan.

[34% – SECURE]

It was frozen.

No…something was changing. The power output was rising beyond his system’s usual usage, far beyond anything that should be possible. The CPU temperature was beginning to climb.

“ARM! Disconnect from my system right now!”

“I already did. Gray! What’s going on?!”

“Kill the comm chatter! I’ve been–”

“Gray!” Tomis shouted, “Gray! Stay there! I’m on my way!”

“Warlock! Kill your comm! If you don’t, you mi–”

Static hissed in his ear as he pulled the Spex off his face, forcing them to disconnect. He frantically dug into his computer’s root, before noticing a small icon that had been created on his desktop.

A text file.

The filename was “NAUGHTY NAUGHTY”.

Somebody was definitely in here. He opened the text file. There was only one sentence.

“Got you in 30 seconds.”

Even a basic hacker knew what that meant. A trace program was underway, and once it was completed, SecuWatch would be battering down his apartment door.

Ken began a head count of the seconds as he took action. His CPU’s temperature climbed into the triple digits, as the power supply in his computer began to crackle and whine. Ken had no other choice but to grab the large plugs in the wall. Once he did, a massive spark of electricity arced between him and the computer itself.

He howled in pain as he kept pulling, despite being electrocuted. The implant in his right arm was dampening the intensity of the shock, but it still ran down his leg to ground itself into the floor. Finally digging deep, he managed to unplug his system completely, the shock finally subsiding as he collapsed on the ground.

Electricity cracked and popped in a loud, violent flash before everything fell dark and silent. The surge had managed to knock out the power for his entire apartment, only illuminated by the neon signs outside. A small, flickering light from his computer’s hardware told him that his opponent had won, and the damage had already been dealt, as the sound of flames crackled and smoke began to waft out.

He crawled over to the kitchen and grabbed the fire extinguisher, crawling back toward his system and spraying the powdery substance all over, knowing just how much more damage he was doing to his system.

He was essentially committing digital suicide.

When it was all said and done, he angrily threw the extinguisher as hard as he could, hearing it bounce off of the kitchen counter and clamoring to the floor.

And then…he just sat there.

He didn’t know just how much time had passed. He sat in the gloom of his powerless apartment for what felt like days, even though it had more than likely been about an hour. Everything he’d worked so hard for was gone. His system was a wreck. His mind filled with hatred and a terrible desire to end BIOSERV with a terrible passion.

A buzzing sound flared up for a moment, telling Ken that his apartment’s power had been restored. Whatever happened must’ve been enough to blow out the transformer. Funny, he thought, I thought I got into this to help people, and here I managed to blow out the power for the whole building. Maybe even the block. What’s the point?

He didn’t even bother to turn the lights back on. He just sat there, facing the window and looking at the streets below. Everybody down there had a purpose. Everybody was a cog in some great machine, and he thought that by defying that, he’d had a higher function in the world.

And now here he was, alone in the dark.

Some purpose.

His Spex, now laying on the floor, blinked open, the cyan lenses becoming the only remaining light in his apartment. It was a text message from Tomis.

“Knock Knock.”

Ken snapped the Spex back onto the bridge of his nose, still not moving from his position. He sent the cursor to his apartment security controls and unlocked the door.

“It’s open!” he called.

A human stepped into the apartment. He had short, dark hair that swept off to one side, accompanied by a thin mustache. His attire was pretty standard, Black slacks and shoes, a dark shirt underneath a rather form-fitting leather jacket.

He saw the lizard-man seated on the floor and clicked the apartment lights on, then took stock of the damage.

“Oh…Ken…”

Tomis walked over to the computer station and picked up some of the powder, rubbing it between his fingers and identifying it immediately. The fire extinguisher laying on the kitchen floor only served to solidify what he already knew.

“…What happened?”

Ken growled. “I was fucking careless is what happened! Of course the security was too fucking lax, it was a goddamn trap! They knew that somebody would be investigating this, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say one of Mona’s sources set us up.”

“Alright, alright, calm down, Scales,” Tomis comforted, placing a hand on Ken’s shoulder before sitting down next to him. “We’re gonna figure out who did this, and we’re going to make them pay.”

“Yeah we fucking are. We’re going to make them fucking suffer for this.”

Tomis had never seen Ken so riled up before. “Hold on, okay, first off, you’ve gotta relax. You’re not going to accomplish anything if you run off half-cocked. We have to be careful and thorough. We can hit these guys, but we have to know what we’re up against. The more we know, the harder we can hit 'em.”

“…you’re right,” Ken sighed.

“Now c'mon. We can pick up the pieces later, let’s get something to eat, take your mind off things for a bit.”

“I…”

“…My treat?”

Ken'pai huffed. “I’m…not hungry.”

“Ken, if you don’t come with me, right now, I’ll choke you out and carry you.”

The lizard-man knew that the human was more than capable enough of following through on that threat. He gave a nod. “Alright, just…”

“Just what?”

“I just…want to sit here…for a moment.”

“Okay.”

Tomis shifted into a more comfortable seating position, wrapping his arm around Ken'pai’s back. The reptile leaned his head over, resting it on the human’s shoulder.

“It’s bullshit,” Ken said.

“Yeah. Total bullshit,” Tomis agreed, squeezing a bit tighter as the two sat in the ruins of Ken’s life.

Author’s note: I had this story in my head for a month, but when @tomis-jb had his computer problems, I thought it was a bit too…coincidental and shelved the idea for later.

[methane-skies-and-zone-runners]

Bulletproof Heart

Summary:

Adrenaline and Lithium were just trying to survive the desert, nothing unusual about that right? Wrong.

"It's going to work, Adrenaline. Trust me."

"We've been at this for hours Lithium...It's clearly not going to work.."

Lithium huffed and wiped his hands on his black skinny jeans, fixing Adrenaline with the best bitch-face he could muster up.

Adrenaline ran a hand through her pink, blue, and red streaked hair, putting her other hand on her hip. "Dude....." She whined, looking at the car that they had been working on for quite some time. "Let's face it, we gotta leave this here. we do have alternate means of transportation." she reminded.

"What? No! We've had this car since forever! We aren't giving up on her!" Lithium popped the hood and checked out the engine for any problems.

He let out a small growl and sighed. "We probably need a jump-start..."

She sighed as well. "You're kidding... There are no cars round to jump this piece of junk!" Adrenaline pointed out in a matter-of-fact tone.

Lithium knocked around with the engine a bit and then suddenly there was music coming from the radio, one of their old cassette tapes. "Aha! I told you baby wants to work."

She rolled her hazel eyes at her companion. "Yep..." Adrenaline started grinning at the song, bopping her head to the beat while Lithium was attempting to fix their vehicle.

He heard something in the distance, but paid no mind to it as he was gently rubbing the side of their Chevy Impala. "Come on baby..." He mumbled. "Help me out man..." Lithium looked at Adrenaline momentarily.

"Dude, I was an artist. I can barely fix anything to do with machinery"

"Stop being a little bitch and help me over here"

"Jerk."

The two burst out in a fit of unrestrained giggles, shaking their heads at each other.

Adrenaline hopped off of the roof of the car, looking around the rocky, desert terrain. She crouched next to Lithium and began to quietly sing along to the song that was blasting from the car stereo, "light em up up up, light em up up up, light em up up up, I'm on fire!"

After at least a minute more the song had ended and been replaced with a much older tune, Welcome To The Black Parade, and the two gaped at each other.

"Dude, I totally forgot this song was on here!"

And with that the two got to work on the car again, singing along and all together making fools of themselves.

They were starting to get somewhere when Lithium's head shot up. He could hear another engine rumbling in the distance.

He stood and looked around, spotting a white vehicle that he didn't recognize. "Adrenaline, there's another car coming up..." His voice was lacking the joy it held moments before.

Adrenaline got up and wiped her hands on a rag watching as Lithium wiped his off on his jeans. She looked around a bit and then spotted it as well, taking a slightly defensive position.

Lithium followed that reaction, and got ready for a fight as well, hand shooting down to hold onto his black and white gun.

The white vehicle rolled to a sudden stop a few feet away from the two in the gas station, because that was what this run down building had been before BL/ind.

He pushed the other behind himself protectively and pulled his gun out of the holster on his hip as the people in the other vehicle piled out.

Adrenaline placed a hand on her own gun, looking around them for possible escape routes in case this didn't go well.

The other people pulled out their own guns cautiously and stared at Lithium and Adrenaline.

"Who the hell are you?" Lithium demanded.

The red head of the opposing group furrowed his brow and took a step closer. "Who are you... And what are you doing here?" He cocked an eyebrow at them, ignoring the question.

"I'm Lithium Starlight...." He kept his eyes locked on the man in front of him. "This..." He gestured toward the female behind him with a tilt of his head. "Is Adrenaline Revolution."

He chose not to answer the second question, deciding they didn't matter enough to know.

The red head in the navy blue leather jacket raised his gun, the action being quickly mimicked by his friends.

The one with slicked back blonde hair with dark brown roots looked between the two and met eyes with Adrenaline, grip on his gun slacking a little.

His dark blue eyes darkened noticeably when he spotted the blond looking at Adrenaline, and he clenched his jaw and fists, squeezing his gun tight.

The lot of them glared at each other for a while before the multicolor haired female  cleared her throat quietly and leaned forward to whisper in Lithium's ear, "Maybe they could help us fix the car?" She let her eyes flicker to them.

Lithium's eyes widened dramatically. "What the hell woman, are you mad?! No one is gonna touch baby!"

She shied back a little in surprise. "Come on, you said it yourself: "we probably need a jump-start."" She reminded, attempting to make the bitch-face.

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever." He brought his attention back to the four men. "Okay, look... Adrenaline here wants to know if y'all can give baby a jump-start."

Adrenaline elbowed him.

"Okay, sorry.. We. We want to know if you can give baby a jump-start."

The red head gave a curt nod and looked to his friends who nodded in response. "If you tell us what you're doing."

"Only if you tell us your names."

"Deal."

Lithium grinned broadly, surveying the area for Dracs and then placing his hands on his hips.

The red head chewed on his lower lip and sighed. "You can call me Party Poison." He gave them both a small, crooked smile, putting his gun away.

The one with lengthy black hair, wearing an army styled green vest gave them barely an upward glance, lowering his green laser gun. "Fun Ghoul."

Adrenaline observed them each carefully, giving Lithium a calm look as if saying, "Dude, put the gun away."

Lithium obliged, watching his friend do the same before refocusing.

"Kobra Kid." The blond said, having already put the gun he was holding away. He kept his brown eyes on the two in front of him.

"I'm Jet Star." The one with the afro introduced himself, twirling his gun in his hand then tucking it in the holster on his side.

Lithium gave out an appreciative hum and looked back at Adrenaline who's eyes were locked on Kobra's. He rolled his own eyes and looked at Party Poison. "We are rebelling against BL/ind, I assume you're doing the same since you are "The Fabulous Killjoys."" He said, finally recognising them from a wanted poster he had seen back in Battery City.

Fun Ghoul let out a small chuckle. "You can't be serious... Two people by themselves can't possibly beat ALL of the S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W unit, AND BL/ind."

"Fun is right, that's suicide." Party and Kobra shared matching looks of agreement.

Lithium Starlight shrugged and looked at them seriously. "We would die for a good cause."

"Okay, well anyway!" Adrenaline Revolution intervened. "So are you gonna jump-start our car, or what?" She raised an eyebrow at them.

Jet Star brought his attention to her and then towards the impala. "Do you guys have jumper cables?"

Without a word Lithium handed them over after digging them out of the trunk.

Jet gave them to Fun who opened the hood of their car, connecting the cables.

Kobra walked over to Adrenaline who in turn gave him a curious look.

Poison looked toward Lithium as the other man pushed up the sleeves of his dusty black leather jacket, hooking the cables up to the impala before getting in and starting the car.

Fun looked over. "Al-right, go."

Jet hopped into the Killjoy's vehicle, revving the engine which caused the impala to rumble back to life.

"Oh my god, listen to her purr. Baby is back!"

Adrenaline, who was currently trying to avoid Kobra's awkward small talk, gave her friend a thumbs up. "That's fantastic! We can actually drive around again!"

Party unplugged the jumper cables and folded them back up, tossing them carefully into the impala's trunk and shutting it.

Fun wiped his now dusty hands off on his jeans and shut the hood of the white car.

"Thanks for the help boys, me and my sister over here, better get moving. So.... So long, and goodnight."

Party Poison broke out into a hearty laugh. "Did you just reference a song off of our old record?"

He blushed a light pink. "Your old record?" His head was tilted to the side, eyes squinting a little.

"Yeah, our old record. We thought they destroyed them all..." Kobra piped up from beside Adrenaline.

Adrenaline gaped at them. "Oh my fucking God...."

"Language!" Lithium exclaimed in almost a girly shout.

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

"Um...." Fun Ghoul began, drawing attention to himself. "I don't mean to intrude, but we seem to have a little problem in the form of an Exterminator..." He gestured to a spot behind them.

And all at once everyone had their guns out, practically in a race to see who could take the enemy down first.

In the end the honor of exterminating the exterminator went to Adrenaline who got him straight in the head.

"Damn.." Kobra muttered, clearly awe struck and impressed from behind Lithium.

"Don't even think about it buddy...." Lithium warned, flashing him an almost murderous glance.

From beside him Party and Ghoul snickered, earning punches in the arm from Kobra Kid.

Adrenaline, oblivious as ever to the situation, pulled an elastic from her wrist and tied her hair up in an adorable, messy ponytail. "We could all work together." She said suddenly.

"Work together? Us?" Party and Lithium asked in an accidental unison.

"That's actually a really smart idea... More people means more of a chance." Jet Star piped up from his place behind the lot of them.

Fun and Kobra nodded.

Lithium made a whining noise and pouted a little. "But people..."

"Child."

"Hey, I'm older than you!"

"Not by much!"

"So is this an agreement? Are we working together?" Jet inquired, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned coolly against their white Trans-am.

"Yes." Adrenaline answered, ignoring Lithium's annoyed groan and the glare shot her way by Party.

"Great!"