The graffiti appeared overnight. Plastered to the sides of buildings. Scrawled on sidewalks. Even painted on the plate glass walls of the office of the most dangerous man in the world.
The same day the sun rose upon the alarming message, the draculoids at Better Living Indisutries reported an even more alarming inventory breech; a missing ray gun, several pallets of food, and the car taken from the rebels who had once attacked them.
And as the most dangerous man in the world stared out at the sunrise, the residents of Battery City gazed at the cryptic messages his windows now displayed.
Last Angel is a widow no longer.
“Angel! Angel!”
She jolted awake and fell off the cot. “What happened?” she asked.
Another Killjoy, Pyro Spark, helped her up off the floor. “You started flailing around and shouting. Guess you were having a nightmare again.”
“Oh, not another one,” she groaned.
“And you don't remember what it was about?”
She shook her head. “No. Probably something about my stay at BL/ind.” She glanced at the cot she'd been sleeping on. Her heart skipped a beat. “Where are Spencer and Leo?”
Two small boys padded into the room, followed by an older man. “We're right here,” one of them said.
“Oh, why did you get Poison up?” she asked. “Sorry about that.”
“I was up anyway,” he muttered, although his hair and pillow creases suggested otherwise.
Angel knelt down next to the two boys. “I'm sorry if I woke you up, boys. C'mon, back to bed. Good night, Poison.”
“Good night, miss Angel.” He waved and disappeared back into the shack.
As she was tucking Leo and Spenncer back into bed, Leo said, “Poison helped us come up with Killjoy names!”
“Oh? Let's hear 'em.”
“I'm Venom Velocity. Spencer's Deviant Revenge.”
“So we'll call you that from now on? All right.”
“Angel!” another man shouted, steering his wheelchair into her room. “We just heard from Cola, and it's big!”
“Huh?” she asked groggily.
“I think it involves Midnight!”
“Daddy?” Venom asked, trying and failing to jump out of bed and instead bashing his head against the man's knees.
“Midnight?” she gasped. She scrambled free of her blankets. “What have you heard?”
“BL/ind's put out an APB for your father's group's old car-- but much more importantly, someone covered the entire city in graffiti that says 'Last Angel is a widow no longer'.”
Venom and Deviant stared at one another. Angel covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh my God. Oh, my God.”
Party Poison and his daughter, Thief, appeared in the doorway. “Midnight has my Trans Am?” he demanded.
“MIDNIGHT!” Thief howled.
“Daddy's coming home!” Deviant yelled.
Angel laughed, jumped up, and hugged Doctor Death Defying, the man in the wheelchair. “I don't believe it! Midnght! That letter... it's been YEARS.”
The entire radio shack, with its sixteen occupants (including six children), was quickly awoken by shouts of his name.
Doctor D led Angel to his radio equipment and whispered, “Talk!”
“This is Last Angel,” she said in a slightly shaky voice. “Midnight Demon may have escaped Bat City and is outrunning the static! If you see the sunlight through your windshield, be sure to be on the lookout for suits! Good luck out there, Killjoys!”
Midnight stomped the gas. He'd been driving since the day before, and he wasn't sure if dracs or SCARECROWS were following him. And if he led them right to Doctor D's, where his family lived... he'd never forgive himself.
But he was free, free after five years of being forced to do everything he hated, of becoming who he had fought against.
He tossed his SCARECROW mask out of the window, then the drac. He'd stolen some confiscated Killjoy clothes roughly his size-- a button-down shirt that, upon second glance, looked like a girl's, and a pair of baggy shorts he'd tied with a belt he'd found in the back of the car. It was probably Party Poison's, seeing as it was far too large for Midnight's bony frame.
Two photos trapped under the sun visor flapped angrily in the wind. One was old and faded-- Angel's first group of Killjoys. Her father, Poison; her uncle, Kobra Kid; and their family friends, Jet Star and Fun Ghoul. The other, more recent photo was given to him by Sapphire, Angel's half-sister and his boss. Angel had her arms aroundd the shoulders of two small boys, Leo and Spencer. He'd only ever seen them in person once, and at the time, he'd been a SCARECROW and they'd been asleep. He didn't exactly count it as “meeting them”.
Angel's voice blared from the radio as he passed back into the range of the car's broken radio. “Good luck out there, Killjoys!”
He gritted his teeth as he glanced in the rear view mirror; dust was rising on the horizon. He grabbed his gun from the passenger seat, and whipped the car around to face the dracs.
“All right, kiddies,” Angel said, grabbing Venom and Deviant. “It's getting late. Bedtime.”
“Oh, but we wanna wait up!” Deviant shouted. “We want to be up when Daddy gets home!”
“No. You've already been up a lot later than you're supposed to be. You've gotta remember that your dad, no matter how I make him out to be, is human, and Bat City is really far away. He's being chased by dracs, and that can really slow someone down. He's probably going to have to drive for several days to get here. Alright? Go to bed. If he gets home beforehand, I'll get you up.”
They huffed but plodded off. “Good night, Angel,” Rush said. “I think all of us are going to turn in.”
“I think I'm going to sleep on the couch.”
“Hypocrite,” Fun Ghoul teased, throwing a pillow at her. “Stay out of the fridge. I have to make a trip to Chow Mein's soon.”
“All right, all right, Ghoul, I won't touch your precious veggie dogs,” she said, grinning. “D'ya think Midnight'll show up at night?”
“Maybe. Go to bed, silly girl.”
She grinned and jumped face-down onto the couch, covering her face with the pillow and laughing. “Good night, Fun Ghoul.”
Midnight's eyes were gradually closing. It was late-- Doctor D'd gone off the air hours ago. But he was close to home, he knew it--
“Damn!” he whispered to himself. The lights had mostly been turned out in the shack, and he'd almost driven past it. He threw on the brakes. He had to hand it to BL/ind-- they took good care of their cars. He swung up next to his old car soundlessly and killed the engine. He grabbed the keys from the Trans Am's cupholder, unlocked the front door, and let himself inside.
