"Toxic!" I hear Party yell, waking me up. "Are you up yet?"
"Well now I am!" I yell back. "Thanks for that! I could've used an extra few minutes of sleep!" None of us went to sleep until at least three in the morning, due to the fact that we stayed up celebrating that I was finally apart of a team. Or they at least considered me apart of theirs. I, however, was still a bit unsure about this whole thing, but I figured I had to stick with them since Party and I were starting to get closer.
I sluggishly pull off my blanket and roll out of bed, still slightly pissed at Party for making me get up at seven in the morning. Honestly, how does he think I can properly function with less than four hours of sleep? And more importantly, how is he already up and running? I curse under my breath as I get out of bed and stand up. I forgot I twisted my ankle. It hurts like hell.
Once I change into a new set of clothes, I head into the diner, hitting Party on the back of the head on my way in. "Hey!" he exclaims, rubbing where I hit him. "What was that for?"
"Getting me up this early. Why?" I grab a can of Power Pup and sit in a booth next to Ghoul.
"Well Dr. D wanted a debrief on the raid yesterday because it went well and now BL is mad." Kobra informs me.
"So you and I are leaving in 5, and the boys are going to cruise the zones." Party says, and I'm still half-asleep.
"So why did Dr. D want me? I would think he would've trusted Kobra or Jet more," I wonder aloud to Party as we drive to Dr. Death's base.
"I don't know. He just radioed in to us that he wanted a debrief, and said he wanted to 'catch up' with you,"
Wonderful. That doesn't sound intimidating at all. I turn up the radio and the two of us start singing along to Mad Gear and Missile Kid with the top off and the wind blowing through our hair.
We pull up to Dr. D's base and head into the underground basement of the old warehouse. I've only been to the base once, and it hasn't changed much. A large room with multicolored spray painted walls and the signature Killjoy spider decorated the walls, with comfy red couches on one side on the room, and then Dr. D's "radio broadcast" equipment on the other side, which consisted of various screens and cameras, along with a few microphones and a pile of old CDs.
Dr. Death-Defying came into the room, with a smile on his face. "Party! It's a pleasure to see you again! How have you been?" he said excitedly, making it obvious that he and Party had a good relationship. "Oh, and the infamous Toxic Torrent! It's always great to see you!" He says with a forced smile, and forced civility as well.
Dr. Death-Defying and I had a strange relationship, to say the least. I wasn't officially apart of his ranks, but I still received missions from him. I was a bit of an 'honorary Killjoy' in his opinion, and we certainly had our differences. He felt that I needed to be apart of a team, and I of course was having no part of that. Dr. D also was convinced that I was a rebellious girl (which I'm not denying) who had no common sense. Yeah, I had a few reckless missions in the past, which resulted in Blood Beam having to mend my broken body on more than one occasion, but I killed tons of dracs in the process, so there wasn't any harm in my opinion. So, we didn't see eye to eye on many things, but tried to maintain a working professional and civil relationship.
Party must've sensed the tension in the air and sent me a glance that said we'll talk later.
"So," Dr. Death-Defying begins, "that raid you guys went on, how did it go? And how did Toxic Torrent end up with you?"
I leave the explaining to Party, and he begins to debrief him on how well the raid went, including our exploding of the stock warehouse. I smile, we wrecked havoc in Battery City, and it was wonderful.
"Any casualties?" Dr. D asks.
"Well Toxic here twisted her ankle pretty badly, but other than that we were very lucky," Party explains.
"Very good. How did she end up with the four of you?"
"I helped them on a mission a few weeks ago, and we've just stuck together since," I retort.
"Ah, I see. You've taken my advice! Well, maybe they can help you, Toxic! I'm very glad that you've finally found someone to trust. Maybe you can stop being so rebellious and actually save lives for once, instead of always putting others in danger."
I flip Dr. Death off and walk out of the room. "I'll meet you in the car," I mutter to Party as I walk out.
I throw open the driver seat of the trans-am and slide into the seat, turning on the radio. That meeting went better than I expected.
Five minutes later, Party slips into the passenger seat, an annoyed look on his face. "Care to tell me what that was about?"
"Let's just say the beloved Dr. Death-Defying and I have a long history," I say, not sure if I wanted to get into more of my past at the moment.
Party opened his mouth as if he were about to ask me, but I cut him off. "I hate him, he hates me. The end."
"But why?"
I looked at Party, and he gave me puppy dog eyes. "Oh no. I used to have a little sister. Those don't work on me anymore."
"I just want to know why you hate each other, Toxic."
I sigh. What's one more thing he knows about me? Party Poison already knows more about me than anyone else, might as well tell him the whole thing. I can trust him. Right?
"Back when I was with Blood Beam, we went on a mission into Battery City. It was a big raid for the two of us, and we gathered enough supplies to last us for months. But of course, as always, dracs were right on our trail. We had been able to kill most of them, but there were still a few stragglers chasing us.
We were able to make it outside of the city fence, and back to our base, and had lost the dracs on our way out. Or so we thought, at least.
For the next few days, everything was normal. But about a week later, we were ambushed on our way to Dr. D's. The dracs had apparently never lost us, but had been staking us out, seeing where we would go, and they got S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W involved too," I explain, referencing to S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W. They were a subdivision of Better Living, and were basically Korse's right-hand men. I had always described them as dracs on some serious steroids; they were crazy dangerous, and hard to beat.
"Woah," Party Poison interrupts. "You had S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W on your tail, and won? I mean, I've had run-ins with them, but that's serious! You are freakin' hard-core, Toxic Torrent,"
I laugh at his excitement, and continue my story. "It was a huge firefight, and we did win. But it was right outside of Dr. D's base, and he was concerned that they had found him. He had to relocate, and blamed us for 'leading them to him.' We were kicked out of his official ranks, and we were considered honorary Killjoys of a sort. We still received missions from him and all that, but we weren't in his ranks, and he blamed us for being careless and stupid, delinquents and unworthy.
I honestly don't care about all of that though, I never really liked him. I think he blew the whole thing way out of proportion. But yeah, that's why we hate each other..."
Party's mouth literally drops at the end, and it takes all I have not to laugh at the sight.
"You're kidding me?"
"Nope."
"I always thought he was the nicest person. He kind of took me and Kobra under his wing right after the fires until we found Jet and Ghoul. I can't believe he would do that. I'm sorry, Toxic. That's horrible." He says, and he looks truly saddened that the man he trusted is a cruel pig.
"Eh, it's no big deal. Sorry to ruin your image of him."
"No, no I'm glad you trusted me to tell me. I guess nobody is who they seem." He explains, a faraway look in his eye.
"That's the thing about the wasteland out here. Nobody is who they seem. You can't trust anybody. I just want someone to be completely honest with me for once. Someone to trust, and who trusts me. I just want someone to believe in. Someone to rely on," I rant, and then realize I probably sound like I'm whining. Great. Party will probably think that and dump me on the side of the road. Good going, Toxic.
But instead, he looks at me, and his eyes bore into mine through his mask. "Can I be that person?" he asks. "Toxic, you deserve so much, and I know I'm not that great, but I will not let you down. Please, just trust me."
He outstretches his hand, palm up, towards me in an offering of peace and trust. I hesitate to take it, but eventually intertwine our fingers and nod. "Yes. But only if I can be the only hope for you, because you're the only hope for me."
A/N: Haha did you catch my reference? I think I'm hilarious! But anyway, thank you so much for reading Detonators, and I hope you are all enjoying it.
So I think I might start doing a song of the day sort of thing, just because why not. So today's song is *Drum roll*.... A Twist in My Story by Secondhand Serenade! So yeah. Anyway, I hope you are having a great day, and the next chapter is going to be really important and I think you'll like it, so keep an eye out!
~S