"Well, what do you think?"
The Astro Creeps stood at the edge of the property line. Now that it had gotten warmer, construction had begun on the Farmhouse. It was a seed planted by the Dark Man. Daedalus was skeptical of why, but couldn't deny that it was a good idea. There was no real reason not to rebuild what they had here. He scanned the Creeps. There were three of them now, besides Daedalus.
Three?
Daedalus blinked, as if the outsider had just appeared from thin air. And perhaps she had.
"I guess it--"
"Uh, wait a second, who are you?"
Daedalus cut Tempest off, and Tempest glared at him, quite annoyed with his lack of manners. Koznar looked at the girl without interest, then over to Daedalus questioningly. Daedalus was convinced now that either she wasn't there at all, or she had been there with the Creeps from Day One, and he was just having an aneurysm.
"I am whoever you want me to be, little man."
"Little? Man?"
She giggled, her grin curling at the corners of her mouth, revealing dimples in her cheeks. If she weren't standing with the Astro Creeps, she would have been considered a normal, beautiful blonde girl. She could still be considered beautiful. Definitely couldn't be normal though.
Daedalus observed that she was wearing a light blue and white blouse... skirt... thing. Like Alice in Wonderland. She had long legs that had tattoos. Her arms were covered in tattoos as well. From a distance, one might think she was Lucy Wylde, but taller. And a little more gifted in the chest area, he might say.
What he didn't know, and what Tempest didn't know, was that she was sent by the Dark Man to tell Koznar's ancestry. She was an oracle and a siren, a wound and a weapon, the fracture and the fist.
"My name is Human."
She said it mockingly. Tempest flinched.
"Relax," she said, giggling. "I'm an Astro Creep, just like you."
"You're not like us."
"No. You're not."
She wasn't, either. Yet, she was.
She was Jenny Greenteeth. She was the woman from Room Two-Seventeen.
"Just, let me help you."
"Help us what?"
Daedalus looked annoyed now. He, Tempest, and Koznar all turned and stared at her. She shrugged, and made a motion to the Farmhouse... or what once was the Farmhouse. Now it was only a cleaned up pile of rubble. The framework hadn't even begun yet.
"Help you with this. Don't you want your Drive-In back?"
"Well, yes. But, then, what are you going to do when it's finished?"
She giggled and slapped Daedalus on the shoulder, a little more forcefully than he expected. He stumbled off balance for a moment, before getting back on two feet.
"Why, live here of course! What do you think this is, a charity? You think I'm going to go back into the cracks of reality with Chernobyl?"
She shook her head, denying the thought. The Creeps were startled by the name. And it showed.
"No, I'll never go back there. Besides, this is where I belong. And if you don't know that yet, you will."
"Pardon me, ma'am, but we don't even know your name. Let alone whether you're one of us."
She winked at Koznar, and smiled a slow, mischievous smile. A devil's smile.
"Pardon me, sir, but you've made offers to Johnny fucking Bonecrusher to join the Astro Creeps. It isn't a difficult club to get into. Y'all aren't picky."
Daedalus considered this.
"Okay. Good point."
"Maybe y'all are just surprised that someone finally took you up on your offer and joined up."
"Okay, we get it. So what are your intentions then?"
Her face brightened. Her smile grew wide. She was actually a very beautiful woman.
"You know when Tiffany finds the Good Guy doll that housed the soul of Charles Lee Ray? And she stitched it back together and brought it back to life?"
"Yes?"
"The Astro Creeps are my Charles Lee Ray. And the Farmhouse is my Good Guy doll. Get it?"
She laughed, her head tilting back as she cackled like a witch. After a few seconds, Tempest couldn't help but join in. And then Daedalus. Koznar watched on in horror.
Holy shit, this is the broad that fucked me while she let me see my past fate in the Bermuda Triangle. I'm a thing that should not be. But, mostly: this is the broad that fucked me.
*****
Static.
Click.
“There’s no earthly way of knowing…”
Giggle.
“Which direction we are going…”
A picture of Seb fills the screen. Another giggle follows.
“There’s no knowing where we’re rowing…”
The picture disappears. The sound of paper being torn forcefully in the dark. A single shadow of a flame dances against a cinder block wall.
“Or which way the river’s flowing…”
Dirty fingernails hold up a new picture, this one of Incendium’s Gabriel Baal and Eden Morgan.
“Is it raining? Is it snowing?”
Like the picture of Seb, this one also disappears into the shadows. The sound of Tempest tearing it can be heard.
“Is a hurricane a-blowing?”
He giggles again, but stifles it almost immediately, gasping as if startled.
“Not a speck of light is showing…”
Another picture fills the screen. It’s Montague Cervantes, smirking in black and white.
“So the danger must be growing…”
He whispers cautiously. Like someone’s in there, searching for him… hunting him. Abruptly, he pulls this picture down and tears it. He growls, and now his own face fills the screen. Or, that is, his masked face.
"You know why I'm such a threat to any given Coalition member's status, at any given time?"
He snickers like a small child holding his child's secret.
"It's because no one knows which direction I'm going. One week, I may be lashing out at the Magician. The next, I may be venturing down the path towards the Arsonist. Maybe after that I choose to assist, or observe, Incendium. But, I'm always there. Living there, in the minds of the Coalition."
He bows his head, almost as if he intends to pray. Off camera, however, he's picking at a hangnail on his thumb.
"For seventeen months, I've been soaked in lime... I've lost my face, peeled away by the steel burning embers of the Towering Inferno... I've vomited a world of agony and truth into the warped, misguided minds of the Coalition's sheep... I've even been buried alive... all in the name of Chaos."
He speaks calmly, though obviously holding back the urge to be not so calm.
"For seventeen months, Chaos was my name. It's a name that many try to duplicate, but only few can validate. The two faces of chaos that the Coalition tries to shove down the throats of its viewers are domesticated, tamed, animals. I mean that, with all due respect, of course. Scathing insults on Twitter, by the way. Your keyboards must have been sizzling this weekend! I imagine the two of you had to ice down your fingertips as you snapped your arms patting yourselves on the back."
He giggles again, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, then gazes up into the camera lens. Behind him, multi-colored lights flash across a cinder block wall that seems to curve as it rises. He is, in some way or another, inside a tunnel.
"Again, I don't mean that disrespectfully. I, like any of you, am just trying to get my piece of the pie. So when I say that Dr. Baal deals in Twitter insults, while I deal in napalm and true, unbiased chaos, you know that I mean that with respect. As you issue your meaningless challenges to some malibu middle class barbie piece of shit, looking past me as you all always do, the winds of the Coalition are beginning to shift. But you're so consumed with yourself, and you're so engulfed inside your own ego, that you've lost the ability to see me coming up behind you before it's too late."
He shrugs, an insane little laugh escaping him.
"Or maybe I've just got a screw loose, or two. Or maybe three or four of 'em."
He begins rocking back and forth, quietly murmuring to himself. His neck cranes to one side and then the other. As if he's looking for an audience, or a voice.
"You see, I know already how you're going to treat me, Dr. Baal. It's the same way you've treated me since we offered our allegiance to you. You've been using me as a tool, a weapon, only speaking to me when it's convenient for you. You're the boy in my science class, Kooper Malloy, who conveniently only spoke to me when he needed something from me.
"'Hey, Entrag--uh... Hey you! Give me the answers to the lesson today! Come on, man, be cool. You're a helluva guy, you know it?' But what did my good buddy Kooper Malloy do to me when some JC wannabe shoved me against a locker right in front of him? He turned, and pretended it didn't happen. And if I asked him why he didn't stand up for me? You know, because good buddies and allies are supposed to do such things, you know what he said to me? 'Well, that issue doesn't concern me. It has nothing to do with me. Why do you want to drag me into those things?' It doesn't seem quite fair, does it? Or maybe to you, it does."
He shakes his head, reliving his one-sided friendship with Kooper Malloy. He scratches at his mask absently. He sniffles, wiping his nose with the back of his hand again.
"It doesn't concern you?"
He shakes his head again.
"It's about to concern you, Kooper Malloy."
He sighs and seems to go into a trance. When he finally comes out of it, his eyes sparkle cheerfully.
"Are the fires of hell... a glowing?"
He giggles, glancing around the green light turning to blue, turning to violet, turning to red.
"Is the grisly reaper mowing?"
He begins to nod vigorously in agreement. His eyes shift from side to side wildly in their sockets.
"Yes! The danger must be growing! For the rowers keep on rowing! And they're certainly not showing... any signs... that they are slowing! STOP!"
He glares into the lens that separates him from his audience.
"Don't go far, Hide Yamazaki... I've got a bone to pick with you, and your grave robbing manager. My last significant memory of the two of us being in the same scene together showed you using me as a weapon, too. Yes, you bullied me and used me as a means to get a Co-op victory. There wasn't any teamwork used at all on your part. It was all about you, wasn't it? You, and your fat bastard mouthpiece. So, we've got two Kooper Malloys in our match, yeah? Two identical twins. Two High Society members. The beautiful people. A class that I wouldn't know anything about. But, why would I ever want to know anything about that class?"
Inching closer to the lens, his bubble gum skin on his face can be seen quite clearly. Burns. Very serious burns.
"Still a better class than the one Centurion resides."
He spits in disgust.
"You're in a class I know I'll never belong, and I would never want to belong. When you step foot into my world, Centurion, leave your political jokes at the door. In my world, there are no gods, no laws. The Astro Creeps are not forced to stay between the lines like your kind are. We are free. We are boundless. The integrity of the world is desecrated by men like you. It's being held back by men like you."
He looks down again, picking at his hang nails.
"For seventeen months, Chaos was my name. Regardless of what happens this Monday, I'll be coming back to reclaim my place, Lucy Wylde. I'll be coming back, eventually, to take the Chaos Championship from you. Chaos is the lifestyle that I breathe. It's the lifestyle that I consume. You merely look at it as a stepping stone for some meaningless selfish internal achievement. And when I come back for it, you're going to feel it. And you're going to fear it."
He giggles and backs away from the camera.
"There's no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going..."
Static.
Click.