I don't want to be a killjoy

Do It Again

The first thing I notice about Show Pony is he's loud. Definitely not a man for a stealth mission. Second thing I notice is he's on roller skates.

"Lucifer here told me you're almost off the pills."

"Im not the fucking devil!" Fun Ghoul yells. I flinch but try to keep a neutral expression, like always.

"Anyway, how are you?"

"None of your business."

"Damn alright no need to get mean!" Show Pony puts his hands up in surrender jokingly.

I sit in silence, trying to ignore my headache while the five talk. How the hell am I gonna get out of here? Making a break for it wont work. If I can get them to trust me though... that could work.

"Hey Crow Boy, we gotta go on patrol." Party Poison says.

"Stop calling me that."

"You coming Pony?" he asks, completely disregarding what I said.

"You know it."

All of them, except Kobra Kid, head out. Good, if I can just get him to uncuff me I can get out of here. There's only one of him and there's no way he runs as fast as Party Poison.

"Why are you so dead set on helping me?"

"Like I said, you know stuff."

"If that was the case you'd just torture the info out of me and call it a day."

"Well we can always do that I guess. But that's fucked up."

"If it works it works."

He just stares at me for a second. "Are you... advocating for us to torture you?"

"I'm just saying. That's what I would do."

He sits there with his mouth hanging open for a second, still staring at me. "Wow I got a long way to go."

"Huh?"

"Well I'm turning you into a killjoy right? You gotta like... fuckin get some empathy bro."

"That's stupid. Empathy a weakness."

"It's part of being like.. A person. We won't get far if we all only look out for ourselves." he shrugs.

"Better life industries do look after other people. That's our thing."

"What about when you got someone like me?" he asks. "Someone who likes to step out of line and likes a little chaos?"

"You're trying to destroy everything we've worked for."

"No, I'm trying to help people. I dunno... living isn't what you're doing in battery city."

"You confuse me."

"How?"

"You say you wanna help people, but out here people like you die every day and all time. Not even from just us. From getting sick, accidents, hell even your own infighting. Isn't it better to be safe? To live as long as you can?"

"Like i said, living isn't what you're doing in battery city. I'll show you what living really is." he uncuffs the one from around the table leg and quickly reattaches it to his own wrist. "You ready to see something cool?"

"I don't seem to have much of a choice."

"If you dont wanna see something cool your loss I guess. I won't make you."

"Fine."

He grabs my hand and pulls me with him outside.

"Ok, so you gotta be ready to run." he grabs something about the size of the barrel of a gun and lights a fuse, before running, pulling me with him. Then he comes to a stop and turns to look back. I do too and watch as it shoots something into the air, then a loud boom makes me jump as whatever it was explodes into red. It happens a few more times and Kobra turns to me, smiling. "Ghouls gonna be pissed I used that without him but what'd you think? I fuckin love fireworks."

I glance at him for a second and then back at the smoke in the air. Woah.

"Do it again." I ordered him.

"You're bossy huh? We can do it again tonight, it looks even better in the dark."

I give him a dirty look and he winks at me.

"Let's get back inside. Ghoul's gonna be pissed about the fireworks and party's gonna be pissed I brought you outside."

-----------------------------

"Hey Kid! We're back!"

"We're in here!" Kobra Kid yells back and puts down the pen he was using to draw on my arm. That snaps me back to being fully awake, having had been dozing off a little.

"Why isn't he sitting where we left him." Party Poison asks.

"Because we're hanging out."

"Well we're going out tonight, if you wanna bring him you gotta watch him close."

"Oh yay!" he gets to his feet, pulling me with him. "You're gonna have an awesome time."