JellyFaun

Just A Dream It had to have been the weirdest dream she'd ever had. It started with stereotypical profiling and ended in the back of a cop car. There had been gunshots over something at the construction site. As the way dreams go, she could not remember why...It was something about being followed and being profiled and having guns going off. But she had a knife and Messiah had a gun and the officer had nothing. His backup was ordered away and he was pushed into the trunk of his own cruiser. The trunk was a void, and the cop lay dying inside it. He yelled and screamed from the void and they drove the cruiser, light ablaze, back into the city to find him. It was like chasing a memory, or a ghost. They pulled up to Pillbox and the officer, a little obedient friend, climbed back into the void of the trunk. And there he remained, a prisoner of the trunk that ate souls. Driving around in their skull masks, several people shouted "What the fuck!?" as they were pulled over. A cruel trick, but one Charlie remembered laughing at. They took the cop car round to the farms, to go pick, because that was a funny idea. As the LSPD car trundled over the bridge, she was positive she saw people scatter from their places at the weed plants. And then another officer pulled up, curious about his friend. The gun turned on him and she held her knife to the man's throat. His belongings thrown, he was forced into the back of the car with the knife at his throat. Charlie liked how the colour rushed from his cheeks and felt she'd never had so much fun in the back of a cop car. Ten cars were on them now. They barreled down the highway, and she watched Messiah let go of the wheel, open the door, and bounce across the highway behind them. She could have run. She could have continued the chase. But her loyalty outweighed her adrenaline and she ran to his side with her hands up. As the ambulance wheeled up for her friend, the gods themselves appeared and slowly with a handwave, the dream slipped from her conscious. She woke up behind the wheel of a car about to be chopped in a dingy alley, blinking rapidly. She really needed to stop smoking so much.

Neutral They had pulled up six or seven deep, 6-7 had. Guns pointed at her friend and her own temple, Charlie couldn't help but feel it was a little pathetic, against two unarmed women. She stupidly stated this, and it seemed to fan the fires of their temper. She slid to her knees next to the pretty southern belle already in such a position, while taunts and jeers filled her ears from all sides. Pathetic. She felt pathetic and thought they were too. A hand gripped her short hair and yanked it back, a blade sharp and clean sawing through her tresses at the roots, leaving a shower of white to fall from her skull. That didn't seem necessary, but she had called them pathetic and she supposed that was what pathetic people did. She couldn't stop herself from telling them again how pathetic she thought they were. The first bullet in her leg made her yelp, and the exit wound began to stain her pants with red blotches. She steeled herself. She'd been through worse pain. She couldn't think of it right now but she was sure she'd been through worse. "Say one more word and I will put three bullets in your head." Came through her ears from far away as her senses swam. She took a breath and refocused. Deal with the pain later. The words they said were so disrespectful and she couldn't help herself. She opened her mouth again and again a bullet pegged her in the leg. This one did not come out the other side though. "You. Take this bike and get out. If you come back for Charlie, we'll kill you." She saw Mary protest. "Get out of here, Mary." "I will not-" "This is a direct order. Leave." Mary's back headlights turned into red smears as the people around her chortled. "There's a convoy heading to Braddock. Let's go check it out." The cars pulled away. The guns pulled away with them. She waited a long time, blood gushing off her leg, and put a hand to her now smooth head, looking at the shambles of her pride around her. She'd gotten Mary in danger. She'd come out looking humiliated. Her pants were tie-dye red. It was pathetic. Hobbling down the road, adrenaline still covering pain like a beany she forced onto her bald head, she felt her senses leaving her slowly. A passing carhad two people laughing at her and she stumbled. She put a cellphone to her ear. She had to tell someone. Jackie was the only person in her mind at that moment and thank god she had the number on speed dial as she'd never manage to punch the numbers with her shaking hands. She explained what happened as the world turned blurry. "Lab...fair play...Neutral. Don't let...Can you smile for me?" Her words were so far away. She was in the back of a car and there was blood everywhere. Where had that come from? Where was Mary? May had a gun to her head and it was all Charlie's fault. Where was Mary? Where did this blood come from? Why was there so much... Mary was beside her. She was hugging her. Something about a blown up motorcycle. 6-7 had hurt her. They did this to Mary's bike. Her bike. She'd bought the bike. She had to save Mary. Mary was here. When did Damien get here? Where was 6-7? Why was she on the highway? She had to get plants for Chase. Why was her head so cold? She had to...Hands pushed a gauze pad to the bullet that didn't leave her leg. Blackness swam. Mary faded out of view. She was in the back seat of the car again and they were pulling into Pillbox. They had to save Mary. How could she be neutral with people who had hurt Mary?

Chop Shop Promotion "We're going to hold down North. You guys can pick here and we'll be up there. You don't step on our toes, we don't step on yours." That had been the agreement. Charlie liked it when the gangs agreed on things. It made it much more peaceful. The ride to North was uneventful but the car was full. Too full! Some members were with other cars and bikes. As they cased North, they saw a peculiar site! Two cars and three men down in the valley under the train tracks. Dressed in bright red, Charlie only needed to guess that it was a thorn in the side known as The Folks. A girl drove up beside them on the tracks. A girl with a pretty motorcycle and face. "Those your boys?" "No. I don't know who they are." The conversation might have continued, when Ghost was seen on the back of a Royal's bike. Chase gave chase and the girl was forgotten. Then there was some worry of loyalty in the guise of a misunderstanding. Charlie did not doubt the accused but knew it looked bad. But it was resolved quickly. The car turned back to North, to see what was going on. The weed was all picked and the girl on the bike was dying. An ambulance with its lights flashing hovered nearby as an emergency worker was doing chest compressions. She had been fine not ten minutes before. Charlie guessed she'd driven the cliff into the lion's den and been blown away. But she hadn't seen her go. "She's with us now. We'll sort this out for her." Charlie thought it was pretty petty that a whole gang of thugs picked on one innocent girl like that. She didn't see the bike anywhere and visions of the girl trying to fight off a bunch of thugs swam in her mind, making her ill. The car drove after the ambulance with its full capacity, eagerly sputtering smoke as it lead a full charge in hopes of providing comfort and justice. The girl, however, was comatose as they arrived at the hospital. Charlie hoped she'd make it. But then a curious sight beheld her eyes. The members of the gang who had been picking at Braddack were waiting on the sidewalk, looking distant. They had no recollection of how they got there. That meant the gang who had attacked the girl might be out for more blood. The car floored it all the way to Braddack farm, calling in for backup as best it could. The green fields were a mess of abandoned cars, dead bodies and dropped plants. A pretty red car sat snugly in the barn, a bike huddled close by and at the gate was a blue-black smart car. Charlie picked up the radio from a woman in red and pressed it to her ear. She listened intently. "We'll come back in a few minutes and get them." She hurriedly told the others, and then began to pick her fill, all the while nervously watching the road. After all the weed was pulled up, it was time for the magic touch. Charlie had a way with lockpicks and had picked up three by chance not a few hours earlier. First came the little blue-black car. It opened in one try. The red car was next and it took two. The praise from her superiors made Charlie beam. An assembly of six cars filed out of the farm. They were going to meet someone named Drain at a place that scrapped cars. Charlie was almost sad that the one she drove, the sharp looking red and white car, was going there. It was a nice little ride even if it did fishtail a lot. But she'd rather have the money than a pack of angry gang members chasing her forever. They pulled into the creepy back alley and met with the man in a red mask. He seemed friendly, and not at all what she pictured when she heard about the Irish. As the car disassembled, Messiah and Gojira called to her. "Charlie. Unmask and stand right in front of me and Messiah." She undid the mask, worried that she was in trouble. What had she done wrong? She'd opened the locks in just a few tries, she'd picked the weed, she'd even arranged a meeting earlier in the night. But she felt this was a serious matter, as she'd never been called up like that before. "Look. Messiah and I had a talk the other day, alright? The only thing that kinda stopped us from keeping you officially with us was making sure you had enough time in the city. You've been with us basically the entire time you've been in the fucking city, which is crazy. You've never had any fucking chance to do anything legal. The only thing you've done is illegal shit. Everybody here can vouch for you. Everybody trusts you with their fucking life, including myself, including Messiah." She felt her heart flutter in her chest, cheeks turning a soft shade of pink. "Well, uh, Donut is our fucking mascot." She felt the rat wriggle in her pocket. "And uh...Messiah, if you want to do the honours..." Her eyes turned to the other man before her. "Alright. Well, hereby, no further ado, we would like to promote Donut to the role of saviour." Charlie's soul left her body. She stared, her eyes half lidding. "But you guys are a package deal. If we put Donut as saviour, I guess we gotta put you as a saviour as well." She laughed. "I whole heartedly accept. As does Donut." "You are hereby no longer an initiate. You are actually in Salvation. And you will be able to move up the ranks a lot faster than you fucking think. So congratulations. We're starting to push people that fucking deserve it. You're one of the most deserving members that I've seen." "Thank you all so much. I really look forward to it!" Charlie rasped, humbled and exhilarated and relieved to not be in trouble. "Hell yeah. Great work." The sound of applause from family and supporters drowned out the grinding as the cars fell to pieces.

Fallen Leaves. The smell of the pot growing in unkempt little rows tickled at Charlie's nostrils as she plucked another leaf. It was one of her favourite passtimes, for certain. But tonight was special. Tonight her family was with her! Often she left the city, taking her trusty knife and bike, to go to farms she could not remember the names of. She called them the hole in the wall, the one with the boats, and the one owned by their friends. She went alone when her family was busy, or absent. To her, she felt it was the most useful thing she could provide. She was a crooked shot, a little bit nervous and a terrible driver. None of these things mattered when she was alone because none of them would get her family killed. And the nerves came hand in hand in the form of sharp ears and eyes. But she had no nervousness about her tonight. Her family was with her! Not the whole family, but Gojira and T, a close friend and her lover respectively. The sun was bright, the air was warm and the pot smelled good. The only downside was Gojira had decided to wear his santa mask again, and it sort of creeped her out. "Alright. I think that's all of it!" Charlie called out as she plucked the last stalk by the low picket fence. "Good. Let's head to Sealabs." Charlie was excited because she remembered which one Sealabs was without prompting. It had a pretty lighthouse she liked to admire, big boats and a small bridge leading into it she affectionately named "The Fever Pass." Crossing it lead to animalistic behaviour, bloodshed and theft, as though infected by a disease. Cross the bridge, cross into madness. If you were anyone besides Salvation, of course. The party clambered into the car and comfortably set off out of the farm, briefcases stuffed with green that turned into white which turned back into green. Leafs of plants into leafs of money seemed like a fair trade. A little rat head poked out of Charlie's pocket and scrambled up onto her lap. Donut liked the smell of the weed too as he rubbed his pointed face into Charlie's hand, rolling to and fro eagerly on her lap with sashays of his long tail. "Hello, my sweet." Her voice whispered from softly painted lips. She began to invent new stories to tell about Donut. Maybe he'd sail the Atlantic in a rowboat, or maybe he'd shot up fifty pigs while escaping prison, or maybe- "What the fuck." Gojira's voice jarred her a little from her thoughts and she looked around to see what was the matter. They had reached the mouth of The Fever Pass and the ocean glittered like a thousand stars, to highlight a corpse laying on the gravel by the side of the road. The car stopped. She jumped out with her comrades. A bike, just like her own, puttered on the shoulder next to a purple dune-buggy sort of machine. Charlie didn't bother learning the names of cars, and unlike the names of farms, she probably never would. Two bodies lay splayed, tattered through with bullet holes and exit wounds. "I don't like this." Gojira's voice came from far away as Charlie stared at the girl with purple hair and a green mask, an arm laid over her face, as though to shield her eyes from her fate. "Its Kat." She thought she heard, but the white noise in her head was loud then, almost fuzzy, drowning out reality for a moment. She watched as Gojira went into the bushes, cursing under his breath. "Its LNF." Charlie had heard this name before. She did not know who was in LNF, or their standing with Salvation, but Gojira sounded very upset. A cellphone was to his ear before Charlie even had time to ask these things. "Yeah. We found your cars and a bunch of your guys up at Sealabs. Yeah. No, we're not going to chop them. We will meet you in Paleto." He hung up. "And that is how you have good gang relations." He said, smiling as he began to expertly pick the locks to the cars. Once they were opened, and Charlie noticed it was in one try which impressed her, she chuckled as Gojira popped the trunk and began to rummage around inside. "Well, some briefcases full of weed. How interesting. Well, waste not, right? We're not gunna chop their cars but that doesn't mean we're leaving empty handed. 'Yeah sorry, we found them empty.'" Charlie wondered if they would believe that, but had no time to think more on the matter. "Charlie, you take that Bifta. T, you follow." Gojira called as he got on the bike, kickstarting it. "Okay but...go slow. You know I'm a terrible driver." It was never a boring night in Salvation.

Rat Life is hard when you're a rat. First, there's the whole size thing. You're no bigger than a banana, and there's often the trouble of being trodden upon, being too small to climb annoying ledges yet too big to squeeze into tight hiding holes. The knotholes and chinks that the smaller mice of the world can squeeze into are useless when you're looking for cover with a cat in pursuit. And the lofty roost of the table, where another type of fat cat dines on more food than they should ever have, is no use to a starving belly when it's out of grasp. Second is the whole being disposable thing. Humans are heartless about rats because we are a surplus item. Our mothers breed twelve littermates at once, six times a year, and we're ready to breed at ten weeks. One breeding pair of rats could create over seventy two babies and taking into account the breeding rates for those babies, we are not exactly a rare commodity. And when there is an infinite resource that's alive, weak, insignificant and easy to kill, humans tent to exploit it. Just look at the going rate of green turtle eggs, beef patties and circus animals. My kin are stuffed into medical labs, dog and cock fighting circles, minefields, cosmetic research facilities, pet food and even the butcher's in foreign lands. It's a very lucky rat that ends up in a pet shop window without a predator in the tank. What's the life of one measly little rat when there are thousands more, right? The third and worst thing, in my opinion, is the whole stigma against us. Humans exploit us at every angle for our meat, our use in progressing the medical field and so on, but they don't treat us with respect or even dignity. Most hear the word Rat and wrinkle their nose, like we are something dirty or plagued, eager to bite their babies and drop our waste in their meals. They don't take the time to consider how rats were driven to the sewers or why we wander around their homes like it used to be a field. They blame us for the black plague and don't thank us for advancing science to a point where many diseases are no longer a threat. They see us as a scourge in the war, stealing rations and spreading filth but don't see us as heroes for seeking land mines so they don't have to be obliterated. They see us as hideous but think of themselves as beautiful when it is our bodies that brought them that lipstick. But not all people are like that. Charlie isn't. In fact, I think when Charlie entered the pet store and bypassed the dogs and cats and set her eyes upon me, she saw something in me. She saw a creature that society might not know they needed, one that only wanted to help and be loved. She saw a creature that was very meek, but still wanted to be acknowledged for its contributions. She saw a creature that could be exploited, frowned upon, have its nose wrinkled at, but it still tried its best for the good of all humanity. In me, she saw herself. In me, she saw Salvation. She carried me out in her pocket and called me Donut.