#iceboom

His loyal jiangshi was nowhere in sight. With the rest of his army in ruins, had they managed to destroy her as well? Could that untidy rabble truly destroy a creature like his faithful Chinese vampire? There was no trace that his undead assistant had ever been there at all; not a bloodstain or scrap of cloth or even the feather from her cap. Now frantic, he tossed the Monster’s severed leg aside and began digging through the wreckage with both hands, metal bits going flying.

“Don’t worry, lovey, I’ll find you!”

The Witch drifted forward and cast him into shadow, primly adjusting her hat and dodging a piece of zomnic scrap that went hurtling by her. “Calm down, Dr. Junkenstein. Mei-Ling is…Well, she’s still alive in a sense of the word. Although I fear she’s had a bit of a complication that I’m unable to assist with.”

“Wot? Then where is she?” Junkenstein breathed out, then scoffed. So Mei was still ‘alive’, at least. But he had a hard time imagining anything beyond the scope of the Witch’s power. He himself had just been violently risen from the dead again, an occurence that was starting to become all too familiar. “Er, whaddaya mean, even you can’t help her? What complication can’t you fix?”

The Witch cleared her throat, perhaps a little awkward for the first time that the Doctor had ever seen. Her lips pursed, gaze darting almost imperceptibly while he busied himself with replacing his goggles. The comforting shield of blue glass settled over his vision once more, turning about with his hands on his bony hips. For once, he was the one doing the confronting, as the Witch busied herself with the sudden need to inspect her broomstick.

“I have helped her to the best of my ability, but it seems that we have hit a…shall we say, impasse?” she said. “It’s all a rather silly matter, really. And she’s terribly embarrassed about the whole thing, so we’d appreciate you stepping in and taking care of this quickly. I’ll take care of the rest of your servants in the meanwhile. Mei-Ling, dear, you can come out.”

There was still no answer, and Dr. Junkenstein frowned as he peered into the darkness past the Witch’s unearthly glow. “Aw, Mei. Where are you, my l’il pudding pie? There’s naught to worry over now, the magnificent Dr. Junkenstein, the Master of Life and Death himself—” He paused at the Witch’s warning cough. “Er, the Doctor is in, and you know there’s no reason at all to be sheepish. No secrets here. You and I’ve been through so much alrea—”

Something moved in the shadows. A very small hunched figure, seeming smaller than ever, shuffled out of the night. Like a very shy vampiric schoolgirl on her first day, Mei took small little hops forward, scooting slightly to the side to hide behind the Witch’s grandeur. Despite the violent battled beforehand, she seemed to be in relatively good shape. There was a splash or two of blood on her robes, marring the white crane on her chest. One of her slippers had torn and would need to be mended. A visible cut had ruined the cuff of her sleeves, and her hat was missing…although the missing hat was easily explained.

Mei was sporting a severed stump of a neck, and her head was completely gone. Cold, blue-tinted meat was all that was left, with the white vertebrae of bone and the tubes of the esophagus stuck within, their edges too clean to have been anything than the swift single cut of a very sharp blade.

Dr. Junkenstein frowned, rubbing his stubbled chin. “Aw, pookie bear, is that the problem! Nothing to be ashamed of, darl, we’ve all lost our heads now and again. Which way did it go? Who did that to you, anyway? Oh, they’re gonna be in for it now! You just tell me who’s the perpetrator, I’ll show them a thing or two about a thing or two! So, first let’s just find that pretty little skull of yours before we…Hm?”

What was left of the jiangshi’s corpse seemed very upset about the matter indeed, hunching down behind the Witch again. When questioned on her head’s whereabouts, she waved both metallic claws and started making very strange gestures. But with no way to verbalize, she was left to an elaborate game of charades, and the doctor could only squint at her in growing consternation. After a moment, she smacked one fist into the other and held up her taloned fingers.

“Hmmm,” the doctor mused aloud, squinting behind his goggles. “Okay, two words. First word. Okay. Big. Giant. Tall. No, movement? Forward, up…Over. Over!” He cackled in delight as Mei gave him the thumbs up. “Okay second word. Shape. Triangle. Wave. Slope. Mountain. Mountain! Right, right, over the mountain.”

She waved her confirmation and pointed towards a large and rocky peak just outside the castle’s territory, then began gesturing again.

“Squeakies. Bats. Spooky, dark, in the dark. Oh! Right you are, darling! I see, they’re on the other side of that mountain, just outside the mouth of a cave with a bat population, on a rather narrow ledge with a crumbled pile of landslide boulders on one side.” He nodded, then turned and started walking. “All right, let’s go!”

The Witch gave him a startled look. “You got all that from charades?”

“You didn’t? Thought she made it pretty obvious,” he scoffed. “Can’t forget, when I first found her, we spent weeks together with her unable to speak even a lick of the language. And don’t tell them I told you this, but my Monster and Scarecrow have never exactly been much for scintillating conversation either, if you catch my drift. So I spent months and months in that tower, perfecting my beautiful creations and perfecting the art of supernatural language interpretation because none of them could talk to me!”

The Witch slowly lifted one brow. “Dr. Junkenstein, yet again I find myself simultaneously impressed and depressed by your personage.”

The good doctor only busied himself with fussing over his headless jiangshi, puckering his lips and leaning down to plant a kiss right on the ice-cold meat of her open neck. “Not to worry, smoochie. The Good Lady and I aren’t going to let my most ghoulish girl go without her parts for too long. Now a stray foot or arm is one thing, got plenty of replacements for those. But well, awfully hard to replace a head, and yours is the prettiest head in the world. Plus all the things we use it for, ehehehe…” His pale cheeks lit up pink at the thought.

The decapitated corpse placed both claws over her heart as if touched by his words, then waved abashedly at him in a ‘Oh, you!’ sort of gesture before wrapping herself up in his gangly embrace.

Unable to entirely hide her disgust this time, the Witch sighed and rubbed two fingers against her temples. “This would all be so much easier if I could simply resurrect you myself, Mei-Ling. But as it stands, your standing with death was made long before we met. Oh, and Doctor? This is really more of a quick recovery sort of thing. Please simply get the skull back and try not to cause trouble. I…have my eye on the one who did this to her. And I do not want him badly harmed.”

“Like hell!” The doctor’s temper flared, even while Mei tugged fretfully at his sleeve. “Resurrect the rest of my minions and I’ll reactivate the zomnics! I’ll turn our whole damned army after this bloke!”

“Mind your tone, Dr. Junkenstein,” the Witch replied coldly, and something seemed to curdle inside the man’s veins. His scrawny body shrunk and hunched down once more, still clutching covetously at his headless companion. She adjusted her skirts to smoothly lower and sit upon her hovering broom, narrowing her gaze at him. “I shall be tending to the remains of our cohorts. You are tasked with simply finding Miss Zhou’s missing head and bringing it back, with no harm coming to the perpetrator. Are my instructions clear?”

“Y-yes ma’am. Lady Ma’am. But…why wouldn’t—”

“Are. My instructions. Clear.”

“…Yes Ma’am.”

***

He was eager to leave the Witch to her duties, hurrying out of the dark castle grounds with Mei’s corpse hopping in step just behind him. She had always been more quiet and polite than him, but now her utter silence was unnerving. He really did miss her having a mouth…for lots of reasons, really, but if he thought too much about it, he’d get distracted. Best to stick to the task at hand. Limping forward along the muddy kingdom paths, they soon left the destruction behind them.

“I’m still not entirely clear on the physics at work here, darl. Can tell you’re able to see and hear me despite having no eyes or ears attached at the moment, but are you really sure you’re up for this? Er, we could always just ask for the Witch of the Wilds to bring back the Summoner. Now she’s not exactly the nicest, I know, but we could ask to have her teleport us right up to—” He tilted his white-tufted head as the jiangshi made more silent gestures, before he gasped and placed a gloved hand to his chest.

“Well! You don’t have to get so snitty, my dear. I know this is the most urgent of matters, but there’s no need to lose your head—” A black claw whapped him in the arm and he cackled aloud. Snagging her hand with his own, he lifted it upward and placed a few smacking wet kisses to the backs of her knuckles. “No, no, no, just a joke! Just lightening the mood! Just give us a laugh- Er…or a nod- Er…Wait.”

Mei waved both hands, gestured, slapped him in the other arm, and gestured again. But her admonishment seemed to be a playful one, headless or no. Especially when she made several more signs with her curled talons, then grasped onto the front of his labcoat, sliding a hand inside and then down his narrow chest.

Junkenstein gasped. “A reward? Mei! Blimey! You’re lucky the others aren’t around to hear you say all that. You’re a naughty girl, aren’t you? You know how the Witch feels about the PDA. But uh, I mean, we do kinda need your head to…Agghck!” His shriek faded into a reedy giggle as her claws slid a little lower, cheeks going from pink to neon red. “W-well! You know that just returning my lovely assistant’s head to her is plenty reward enough. But maybe, you know, since you’re already offering? Yeah, all right! That puts a pep in my step! C’mon!”

The jiangshi did not need to be told twice. She withdrew wordlessly from his skinny body and followed after him, with Dr. Junkenstein fussing and grumbling as he started looking for quicker paths up the towering black escarpment above them. His attempts to climb were a rather pathetic affair, his peg leg screeching against the rock and his flimsy build doing him no favors. Mei waited patiently to at least let him make the effort, before she outstretched her arms and hopped forward once more.

She scooped him up as one would a damsel in distress, claws hooking under his knees and back. He might have even swooned a little, as the headless corpse of a woman lifted him up and bent her knees…and her movements went from hopping to leaping. She bounded with an agility that she rarely showed openly, the scientist rattling against her chest and clinging onto her as up and up they went. Little pebbles went scattering away from her soft slippers, ricocheting off of boulders and scaling the cliffside as the jiangshi was finally boosted up by an unnatural whirl of white mist. With an artistic little spin, she landed with a soft noise amongst the debris of the struggling pines attached to the perilous mountainside.

Unfortunately, the decapitation had affected her a little more than her body was willing to admit. She landed gracefully, even posing with her charge in both arms…and then promptly tilted straight over with a rattling crash when she tried to take a step forward. Trying to navigate the world without her eyes and ears really attached was not the easiest. Like a felled tree, she just tilted right over and the doctor went with her, his shriek muffled as he landed on top of her in a spray of pine needles and dirt.

Dr. Junkenstein pulled his head out of her bosom, one eye opening warily behind his goggles. Groaning, he staggered upright as his assistant helpfully ushered him up again, swaying to one side and jamming his peg into the dirt. “Ooooh, hold on. Hold on. Too fast, just got resurrected here…Brrp. Okay. Nooot gonna chunder…Oh hell—” He bent double, making gagging noises while Mei apologetically patted him on the back. “Hggh. Hggghhh!”

Luckily, he hadn’t eaten anything on his freshly reformed stomach for him to vomit. The nausea soon passed, and he wiped at his chin and looked around blearily as the two found themselves on the other side of the mountain. The doctor composed himself as best he could, smoothing out his labcoat, and tilted his tufted head as he lowered into his favorite creeping hunch.

“You hear something, sweetie? Think that’s them?”

She did not respond, only hopping after her master as he crept along the dark rocks. Junkenstein soon spotted the faint glow of a campfire, and the shadowy figures lurking around it. Just as his jiangshi had ‘said’, the group of mercenaries and allies had made their camp at the mouth of a cave in the steep hillside. Junkenstein kept his distance, even though anger and hatred rankled inside his ribcage as he spied his hated foes that had just finished killing him and stealing his poor girl’s precious head. He was close enough that he could recognize a few of them; the Alchemist, the Gunslinger, the Swordsman, the Archer… Where the rest had gone, he couldn’t say. He was already outnumbered— and if the others were nearby, massively so.

Mei tugged urgently at his sleeve.

He waved her off and squinted, adjusting his goggles. “I know, it’s not looking good. Too many. Others might be close by, too. And she expects me not to blast them sky high? Really, why would the Witch make this a bloody stealth operation? She knows I’m no good for those!”

Another pull at his coat.

“Why wouldn’t she have sent the Reaper or even that useless Scarecrow for stealthy nonsense…Unless it was a trick and she wanted me to blow up this stealth operation? She’s always been a tricky one. This might be another one of her cunning plans, do you think? Like, maybe she was so adamant about not killing whoever stole your head, because she knew I was going to kill whoever stole your head. I mean, it’s not like I can do anything less. After what they did to you?”

There was a soft movement at his side, though he barely noticed.

He dug through his lab coat, pulling out handfuls of bombs and scrap. “I see it now! I’m onto her game! It’s actually a brilliant plan because it’s such a bad plan! Ohohoho, I’ve got it this time, that’s the rub. So it’s decided, then. We blow up this whole stealth mission, kill everyone as revenge, and then find your head! Nobody steals my pookie pie’s head! Except me! Because that’s different in a much more foreplay sort of way! Dunno which one took it, but we’re gonna find out real quick, we are. The Witch can sort through the piles afterward. Okay, Mei. You go in soft, and then I’m gonna go in real loud. You ready, darl?”

A finger tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned. “Darl…?”

A metallic face peered down to look at him, the metallic joints of its tentacled face clicking very softly below the slitted green gaze, glowing brightly in the shadow of its hood. Orbs bearing strange symbols floated around them. Its pointed fingertip withdrew from where it had politely hailed him, curling by its broken manacles. It was an omnic he had glimpsed only briefly, the ‘Monk’ that the Witch had reacted rather strangely to. And now it was poking him.

“Darkness and shadows be upon you,” the Monk said.

The noise that Dr. Junkenstein made next was not the most dignified one, and he had made a lot of undignified noises. But luckily for him, the ensuing sounds of explosions were quick to cover it up. He flung out both arms, detonating the bombs he’d been sorting through. White and yellow light exploded in a spray of heat and metal, catching both the Monk and the doctor in the blast and sending them both hurtling away from each other as they were flung upward.

To his credit, Junkenstein was very well-versed in explosives. He recovered mid-air, already pulling more mines and his grenade gun from the void of his labcoat. With a scream that was half laugh and half warcry, he sent volley after volley raining down upon the startled group of adventurers. He caught both the Archer and the Gunslinger unawares, engulfing them in a series of blasts as their little drinking session was interrupted in the harshest way. The Swordsman was swifter, pulling his blade in a hiss of steel…but not swift enough, forced into a fire-covered retreat as he leapt away.

Beneath the blue glass of his goggles, Junkenstein’s wild eyes darted to and fro amongst the chaos. Which one of them had Mei’s head? It wasn’t immediately clear. Probably best he just kill them all as planned, then. They deserved it for beheading his girl, killing him, and his Monster, and even Scarecrow. They deserved it for laughing at him. They deserved it for kicking dirt in his face all these years.They deserved it for—

A dart sang through the air, sinking into his chest even as his grenade launcher lifted for another round. His limbs suddenly went limp, body unresponsive as the last of his bombs went bouncing along the ground, sending more caustic smoke and dust into the air. Even through the haze, he saw her…The Alchemist stood with her arm raised and her face grim, her wrist-launcher now emptied of the dart that had buried itself into him.

With another crash, he fell into a twisted heap of tangled limbs and mechanical parts, twitching madly as he tried to force himself to move. He managed to snarl, lips curling around bared teeth, drool practically foaming with his efforts. Oh, the curses he longed to spit at them, but he was unable to do anything but utter a distressed wheeze.

The clanking of weaponry all around him belied his situation to be a dire one. As a group they advanced, no doubt ready to send him to his death yet again. He scraped a glove in the dust and waited for the hail of bullets, blades, and arrows to take him: his mission failed.

There was a whooshing noise as a purple blur hurtled through the air, clipping the Alchemist right off her feet and sending her spinning into the darkness beyond the campfire. Mei landed with more of a stumble than usual, her headless body scrambling to Junkenstein’s aid. Placing her body between him and the mercenaries, she swung both claws in a silent warning.

“Fffhgh mmn nnnnn,” Junkenstein slurred from the dirt, helpfully translating her threat.

“All right, this is getting outta hand,” the Gunslinger grumbled, raising a hand over his weapon’s hammer. “Ain’t we killed y’all enough for one night? We better get paid extra for this bull.”

“What could possibly have possessed you to even attempt to follow us?” the Archer sneered. “You’re both weakened…and one of you is not even whole.”

The Swordsman said nothing, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the decapitated jiangshi.

The doctor was finally starting to twitch back to life behind her, dragging himself up to one knee and reaching for his grenade gun. Mei signed something, desperately swerving back and forth in front of the downed scientist to keep their foes at a distance. He lifted his head, frowning severely as he watched her urgent game of charades.

“What do you mean you don’t want to fight, schmooples? They got what’s yours! And I’ll take it back from—” He started to reach for his mines, but jolted back a moment later when another wave of nausea and exhaustion overtook him all at once. It was different from the dart, and when he looked up he saw its source. A single shining orb hovered around him, shining with a sinister looking rune that seemed to drain his energy with a poisonous purple glow. “What the hell! Damnit, lay off!”

“Let us all take a calming breath,” the Monk said, hovering in from the darkness. “I believe there has been a misunderstanding. Perhaps if we allow them to explain.”

“Mish mumkin!” The Alchemist joined his side, holding her ribs and looking none too pleased. “I am not entirely sure what explanations we can expect from a madman and a headless vampire.”

Mei waved hurriedly, hopping in the Monk’s direction, and then hopping right back again when the Swordsman advanced upon her with his sword still drawn. He positioned himself in front of his master just as she had positioned herself in front of hers, his blade held at the ready.

“I have already relieved you of your head once tonight, little leech. Rest assured, I will relieve you of your other parts as well if you—”

The Swordsman was not able to finish his threat. Mei was already moving but not towards him, slamming both hands into the Doctor’s chest to keep him back as he tried to lunge forward. Such was his anger that even the jiangshi was faced with a struggle to hold him at bay, her slippers sliding in the dirt as he surged against her efforts. His voice rose once more into demented screeching.

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO HURT MY LOVELY ASSISTANT?! YOU TOOK HER HEAD, THEN I’LL TAKE YOURS! I’LL BLOODY GO YA! I’LL—”

The Alchemist narrowed her eye at him, catching his gaze and very pointedly loading another dart into place. “Dr. Junkenstein, you’ve been given a rare chance. Have sense for once in your life…lives…and make use of this time. If not for yourself, then to at least translate whatever this poor creature is trying to say.”

The Archer curled his lip. “A waste of our time. Whatever excuse this lunatic and his vampire has concocted to attack us, it matters not. We should do away with them both.”

“I believe that the Doctor is of the genuine belief that we have taken something important,” the eerie omnic Monk said, folding his spindly fingers where he hovered nearby. “I cannot condone dispatching him…this time. While his methods remain enigmatic at best, this time his motive seems to be a pure one.”

Dr. Junkenstein grit his teeth and snarled, but wrapped one arm around Mei and halted in his struggles to get past her. The other snapped up to point viciously in the Swordsman’s direction. “You got a lot of nerve! Now it’s one thing to kill a gentle and innocent girl like my assistant. But stealing from her is entirely another!”

The Swordsman only seemed more baffled and angry than before. “What are you babbling about? I feel no shame in dispatching your vampire, but I have stolen nothing!”

“Explain this then!” The Doctor gestured to the jiangshi’s extremely missing cranium. “Where is it! Stealing a lady’s head while she’s still using it, that’s absolutely low!”

“What? Why should I know where her head went?” The other man scoffed, but slid his blade back into its sheath in another frustrated motion, if only to gesticulate in an equally affronted way. Their pointing grew more aggressive over the campfire separating them. “Likely it fell into your moat or into a ditch during the battle. Go look for it there and cease troubling us.”

The Gunslinger opened his mouth, then shut it again. The Archer gave him a strange look, then turned back to where the Swordsman and the Doctor were still trading barbs.

“Liar! I know you’ve got it! She says it’s here!” Junkenstein looked down to Mei, who made an affirmative motion.

“Then she is wrong! I said I do not have it!”

The Monk tilted his head to the side, tentacled face writhing in subtle consternation. “My student speaks truly. It is not in our possession. Perhaps the jiangshi is mistaken somehow? Though…It is strange that she has not yet been able to find it.”

“She’s gonna find it when you lot finally give it up! Can’t even believe this. I expected better of you.”

“And I expected nothing from you. I say again, we do not have it!”

The Alchemist knitted her brows. “I am reluctant to even say this, but this seems to have been a simple misunderstanding. As a gesture of good faith, perhaps we can simply let you leave to search elsewhere? We are honorable people and have taken nothing from you—”

The Gunslinger coughed loudly, his gaze swerving skyward. All eyes moved to him, and the argument abruptly stopped. Somewhere out in the darkness, an owl hooted just to interrupt the sudden silence.

The Alchemist slowly lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, cursing softly. “Please tell me you did not.”

The Gunslinger pasted a leery smile on his face, chewing down on his cigar. Lifting both hands in a placating motion, he sidled backward and away from the fire. “So, listen…”

“Please tell me you did not.”

“Well Ma’am, you know how these things go,” he wheedled, leaning down to his bulging supply pack. “I figured, we went to a whole lot of trouble for a pretty damn paltry reward from His Lordship, all things considered. Now I ain’t entirely sure what to make of all these particular…Monsters, and Pumpkinheads, Dragons, Scarecrows—”

“Yeah, well. Not much to make of the Scarecrow, frankly,” Junkenstein snorted, then grumbled when Mei slapped his arm again.

“Uh, so, ya see. I was moseying along after the bloodshed and all, and I thought I saw somethin’ in the bushes there. And I thought to myself,” He unstrapped something inside his pack, holding up a round burlap-bound bundle. “Er, well I thought to myself, I might know some folks who would pay a pretty penny or two for a bona fide trophy from a real Chinese vampire, and she was already dead and all so I thought maybe…”

The straps and burlap fell away, draping open. Mei’s missing head sat like a heavy stone in his palm, her eyes opening and blinking owlishly in the sudden firelight. She brightened visibly at the sight of her body nearby, fanged jaws opening and closing. She mouthed silent words, noiseless except for the faintest little mute gasps from an open throat that was no longer attached to any vocal chords. Her body released its grip upon the Doctor, lifting both arms and starting to hop forward to reclaim her missing piece.

The Gunslinger winced away when Mei’s head screwed her lips to the side and glared up at him. “To be fair, Missy, I didn’t know your head was still gonna be all…alive and whatnot. It didn’t respond when I picked it up or anything, or I never woulda assumed— I mean, all the other vampires I killed before, never had this particular problem.”

The Archer haughtily ran a hand through his hair, nose in the air. “Perhaps if you had actually read a book in your life and done studies on how Eastern vampires actually differentiate from their inferior garlic-fearing counterparts? I have killed more than enough of them to know.”

The Gunslinger bristled, turning upon his fellow mercenary. “Then you should know there’s a lot more to my vampire-hunting than garlic. Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to brag when your Eastern vamps are afraid of duck eggs and rice. Eggs and rice! Maybe we didn’t even need the Swordsman’s blade, and I could have just chucked a to-go bag at her!”

Junkenstein uttered a shrill giggle from the other side of the camp. “Oh you don’t even know, mates! One time I tried to make her this stew—” He faltered again as Mei slanted her gaze at him. “Uh, nothing. Never mind. Now could you stop flirtin’ long enough to give my jiangshi her head back! Cretins.”

“W-we weren’t…uh…”

Mei snatched her head out of the stuttering Gunslinger’s grasp, hugging it covetously to her own chest in triumph before bounding back towards her Doctor. He flung open his long arms with a grin and she leapt into them, and he cackled and swung her in a circle before leaning down to kiss the top of her head as she lifted it up to him. He beamed down at her as she gently settled her head back into place, straightening it upon the stump of her neck. He only seemed more charmed by her than before. “There she is! Talk about a true beaut.”

The others watched with the usual disgusted curiosity that Junkenstein was so used to, although the Alchemist chanced a small smile.

“In a way it’s actually sort of sweet, how they—”

Dr. Junkenstein pulled a long needle and coarse thread out from his coat, roughly jamming it into the jiangshi’s cold flesh and pushing it harshly through the layers of meat and muscle beneath. Grinning maniacally, he tittered another shrieking laugh as he pulled it taut and began very aggressively sewing the two pieces of her throat back together. Meanwhile, the little vampire flailed and uttered horrid strangled gurgling noises as her head was forcibly strung back into place.

The Alchemist sighed. “Never mind.”

“Don’t listen to them. You look- Hrrrngh!” He pulled the string tight, the stitches sinking deep. “Amazing! There we are, that should help it heal all the faster. How do you feel, darl?”

Mei adjusted her head several times, rubbing at her throat. Her first attempts at words were useless little whistling noises like a distressed guinea pig, but as she finally seemed to line up which tubes went where inside her neck, and she managed a few more hoarse whispers in her native tongue before trying to speak. “C-can you hear me? Hello? Oh! It worked! Thank you, Doctor!”

“The most lovely assistant in all the world! What would I do without you? That’s all right, no answer needed, don’t you strain that pretty voice too hard.” His expression lit up all the more, fussing at the thread end and tying it off. He stepped back and caressed her hair and adjusted the spell paper on her forehead, leaning down over her to plant another kiss to the end of her nose. “Good to have you back proper.”

She uttered an adorable squeak and smiled up at him, dimples just below the dots painted on her cheeks. “It’s such a relief to be able to talk again.”

“Too right! Now, let’s finish blowing up these prats before we head back—!” He reached back to his coat, this time for his gun. But the rattle of weaponry all around him gave him pause, as did the jiangshi’s claws as she grabbed onto his arm to stop him.

“W-wait! It was just a mistake, that’s all. I’m sure none of them meant it. I was still stunned, and even the cowboy man probably just wasn’t thinking.”

The Archer smirked around his bow. “Not an uncommon occurance.”

“All right, I’m just about tired of you steamin’ my beans—”

Both the Doctor and The Gunslinger looked ready to ignite another battle that Mei was not at all prepared for. Her fanged smile wavered, and she clutched onto the lunatic scientist a little tighter, tugging at his arm to urge him back the way they came from. “Listen, it’s been a very long night for everybody, hasn’t it? And…And there’s such a lot of work we need to do back at your lab. And the…you know?”

Dr. Junkenstein was still trying to catch the eye of the Swordsman, who was pointedly not looking back at him. “But that one, the one the Witch was on about. He cut ya up!”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been cut up. And I’m fine now, see? I have my head back. Why don’t we head home! For…you know?”

“But…Huh?”

“Your reward?” She fluttered her eyelashes up at him. She tried what she hoped was a salacious whisper, but with her ragged throat it came out a little croakier than she’d hoped. Still, she tried. “You know? For being so, so good. At helping me.”

Realization hit him like a thunderbolt. His sallow skin went pink and almost as clammy as his vampire as he started to sweat, face twisting into a very particular and stupid grin. Puffing out his bony chest, he pointed at the group of baffled adventurers before him.

“You’re lucky, that’s what you all are. My girl has a soft and tender heart and…oh yeah, soft and tender everything, er…Uh, you’re all pardoned this one time! And only because you gave her back her head without too much trouble. Although you two,” He pointed to the glaring Archer and Gunslinger. “You two piss me right off. But not as much as the guy with the sword. And you,” He shifted to the Monk floating peacefully nearby. “You give me the skeevies, and you got no idea how hard that is to do. And the old lady, you…Well, you’re actually sort of scary too.”

“Charmed.”

He swallowed throatily, twitching. “We’re pissing off. And don’t you dare steal any of my creatures’ parts again, you don’t even appreciate them. Not like I’m gonna appreciate them. Ehehehe.” There was a unified groan from the mercenaries, but Junkenstein ignored them. Looping an arm about the much shorter woman beside him, he turned and began hobbling off towards the darkness. “Anyhow! Damn you all! Blow you all to hell next time, toodle-oo!”

“Have a good night, Dr. Junkenstein,” The Alchemist replied calmly, over the murmuring of the others.

Nobody moved to stop them, and the adventurers watched the strange pair gallavant away together. Once more, the night grew quiet save for the crackle of the campfire and the hush of the insects. Peace returned, and eventually conversation slowly returned after an uneasy silence. But the Doctor and his companion seemed to be gone, having found the strange prize they had pursued.

The Gunslinger chewed on his cigar and merely shook his head. “And they say I’m the oddity…”

The Swordsman said something about more firewood, skulking off into the forest. But he did not bend to scavenge wood from the forest floor, only finding a shadowed place in the already shadowed night. The darkness there could be just as comforting as the cheerful glow of the campfire. He was not the only one who found it to be so. A presence joined him there in the blackness, heralded by no footsteps, gliding through the void.

“My Student,” the Monk said. “What troubles you?”

“Nothing. Merely…the lunatic’s shrieking left me irritable. And I dislike the way the foul little jiangshi looked upon me.”

“The jiangshi was quite polite, considering the state of things.”

“The Doctor, then.”

“…Is it the Doctor’s presence that bothered you, or his words?”

“The man is so addled he can barely string them together. It is nothing.”

“It is not how the Doctor spoke, my Student. It is the truth of what he said. Her gaze has found that which is within you. Do you still carry such thoughts of vengeance and regret? Hers is an old and powerful magic, and she will come to offer you all that you—”

“Then I will deny her.”

“…Will you?”

The Swordsman was silent, gaze downward. After several long moments his head lifted, eyes glinting red even with no light to catch them. He turned away from the Monk, and stepped deeper into the forest.

“We still need to gather firewood.”

“Of course. I shall help you, my Student.”

They moved together into the dark.

***

Elsewhere in the dark, the jiangshi and a rather bedraggled Doctor Junkenstein finally returned to the outer fortifications of the castle. Half-ruined walls and crumbled stone towers were half sunken or in the process of sinking into the muck. The occasional flickering torch lit up the gloom, but the castle and the villages remained locked away and all was silent. The Doctor groaned, pausing to sit on the remains of a low wall, pounding pebbles out of his boot before thrusting it back upon his foot.

“Ooooh my dog is barking. Long walk back, even with you helping me down the steep bits. Not to complain, mind, it’s nothing compared to your troubles! How is everything? Head all right? Stitches holding? Are you sure we shouldn’t go back there and blow them to smithereens?”

“No, I’m sure. We got what we wanted, right? And I think the Witch wants something else from them and we shouldn’t cause her too much trouble. Especially after she was so nice enough as to resurrect you first so you could help me? Although it did take me a little bit to try and get across to her that I wanted you.“

His hairless brows lifted. “My little dumpling! You were the one to ask for me back?”

“Of course. I was so embarrassed when I woke up. Nobody’s ever stolen my entire head before, and I couldn’t even talk to her. She wanted to send the Reaper with me at first, but I said no thank you. Just you. She can understand my language, but…I don’t even need language with you. Nobody can understand me like you can.”

“Got real good at that, just like I said.”

“Plus, you’re a lot more fun than anyone else here. And…” She leaned down to loom over him for once, lips parting to reveal a fanged smile. “You taste a lot better, too.”

The Doctor’s face went heated again. “Aaaha…aaha-ha-ha-ha!” His gloved fingers immediately started groping at the high collar of his labcoat, fumbling with the snaps. He swallowed audibly, the lump in his throat bobbing up and down, and he saw the jiangshi’s keen gaze follow it. Licking at his chapped lips, he tugged the snap free and tilted his head to the side, baring the sweat-dampened pillar of his neck. “W-well! Speaking of! I know what’ll heal that mild case of decapitation quicker than stitches. Hot and fresh, right here!”

The little vampire practically purred, even as she slowly traced one curved claw to his neck, feeling the pulse thundering just below the surface of the straining flesh. “But Doctor…Aren’t you forgetting about your reward? Just for you?”

“P-part of it! This can be part of it!” he practically barked aloud, leaning into her touch. “After all, doesn’t my lovely assistant have to be in tip-top condition before she can assist me?!”

“I should have considered that. I guess…I really should be at my best for you? You make a good point, Doctor.” The very tip of her claw curled a little at the word, scratching at the skin and threatening to break through.

That was not the only thing threatening to break through. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was his love of horrible puns or how the jiangshi was teasing him or a combination of the two, but an erection was already forming a hard lump beneath his coat where he sat. He tried to drag her down on top of it, but she only giggled coyly and pulled away from him. Groaning, he pulled at her robes to tug her back, but she deftly avoided his grasp, hopping several steps towards the darkness of a ruined stairway tower.

Dr. Junkenstein practically somersaulted in his haste to follow, staggering upright and stumbling as he limped after her. She giggled, still just out of reach as she dodged his seeking hands, leaping into the yawning shadows of the tower’s arched doorway. Her laughter echoed around the cold stone walls left to rot so long ago, ringing strangely from the tower’s dark and empty bowels, and anyone else might have thought it eerie. The Doctor did not think so, only redoubling his efforts to chase her.

Something hit him as he ducked into the gloom, where the light was barely enough to see. Just as he was nearly going to trip upon a collapsed section of the stone, the little purple blur hurtled out of the shadows, snatching him up by the front of his coat and dragging him several steps with no effort. His back hit the wall and it nearly knocked the breath from his fragile ribs, but it only made his grin grow wider and his trousers grow tighter.

“My good Doctor…” she whispered in a voice he couldn’t even describe, and her grip on him could have crushed his bones and he wouldn’t have even cared.

“Mmmeiiieiingnh…” he tried to whisper her name as well, but it came out as an embarrassing gurgling moan when her lips pressed to his.

Up on the very tips of her slippered toes, the jiangshi kissed him. Her lips were cold but that hardly mattered, the tip of her spell paper tickling his cheek as she tilted her head. She also smelled a little like burlap, probably from her head being so rudely shoved into a bag for so long, but that hardly mattered either. At least she had her head back to even kiss him with…and to do other things as well.

Cool lips finally pulled away from his, and he choked down air where he’d been forgetting to breathe again. Claws caressed at the side of his face, undeterred by the scratch of his stubble, a five-o-clock shadow just as permanent as the dark circles under his eyes. Instead she scraped a kiss to the side of his jaw, adorable little nose urging his chin upward.

With utterly no hesitation he bared his throat again, and waited. He waited and waited for the bite, but it didn’t come. Instead she playfully tucked her head underneath his chin and just sat there, completely ignoring his irked little growls and whimpers of impatience. She leaned into his chest, still pinning him firmly with his back to the wall, her deft talons dragging up his chest to start plucking at the snap buttons of his labcoat. One by one they snapped open, her hand traveling lower and lower until they reached the belt strung around his scrawny waist. He practically vibrated in helpless excitement, fumbling to help her. But she batted away his attempts, taking her sweet time as buckles clicked and leather hissed through the straps. After a moment, the belt fell down around his legs with a clatter, and his labcoat fluttered down after it.

“Dr. Junkenstein, is something the matter?” she asked, far too innocently.

“Nnngh!” He realized that he was whining aloud and grabbing at her, and he couldn’t help it: his hips and then the rest of him surged forward towards her, stopped only by her grip pinning him to the wall. She giggled again at his misfortune, pressing her chest more firmly against his, but finally had some semblance of mercy as her other hand drifted down, finally gracing the straining bulge in his trousers.

He exhaled noisily as her fingers tickled across him, sliding the gentle pressure of her palm up and down. He grimaced and sweat even at the lightest touch, eyes rolling back beneath his goggles when he felt her unbutton his pants, the downward motion of the zipper seeming to last forever before he was at last freed. No matter how his ears pinkened, his cock was utterly shameless as it sprang loose of its confines, bobbing upward into the night’s chill and into her waiting hand.

His noises echoed strangely around the damp stone walls, little grunts and sighs as she worked him, his breathing already heavy save for when it hitched occasionally at a particularly good one. Eventually his noises were joined by the sounds of wet flesh, when she licked a pool of saliva into her palm to slick his path through. His gloved hand occasionally clawed at her robes, his metal one already sunk so deep into the wall for hold that the rock was threatening to crack. He panted into her hair, hips shifting as her wrist jerked steadily and tirelessly.

“Mmmh! Darl, darl, darl…Please! M-my…” His voice was hoarse, raspy with effort.

“Shhh, Doctor…Let me assist you…”

The pressure built quickly, leaving him slumped against the wall while her tongue lathed at his throat, finding the a pulsing vein and placing her lips there. But still she waited, with the good Doctor writhing under her care, with the patience of one who was not moved by his pleading, focused instead on the precise moment to best strike. And it would be coming soon, as his cock twitched in her hand and his spine ground into the wall and his breathing rasped once, twice—

Her fangs pierced his flesh, opening the vein against her lips. Hot red spurted against her tongue just as hot white coated her palm, turning sticky as she gave him a few final strokes, coaxing out the last drops: even though she knew he barely felt it, not compared to where she sucked on his neck, his body held upright only by her own strength. He was mouthing words, likely nonsense, and his eyes were so far back in their sockets that only the whites were showing, lost to everything in the world except this.

She measured out their pleasures slowly and carefully, pulling his blood and his essence out of his body and into hers. He tasted like unused potential and painful anger and unbridled curiosity, like electricity, as if she had placed the tip of her tongue against a still-hot wire. She liked it: a flavor unlike any she’d had before, before meeting him. His blood always ran too hot, and she took some of his heat as her own…her body radiating warmth where there had been none, skin flushing with new life.

But she knew when to stop, no matter how he begged for more. She wrenched her hungry mouth away from his neck, two thin trickles of red oozing down before she lapped them upward, licking and kissing scarlet-stained lips at the opened wound until it had closed. With the tender care she always gave him, the boneless Doctor was gently eased down onto a nearby pile of rubble where she had thoughtfully spread his labcoat, sitting slumped backward while he shuddered back to life.

“H-hell’s bells…” He awoke to his jiangshi sitting by his feet, arms folded atop his knees, where his trousers had been loosely pulled up around his thighs with her head resting on them. Large, dark eyes swerved up to him as he gasped, and she smiled up at him. He managed a weak grin in reply, head spinning. “Ooooh, that’s my dove. Was afraid you’d…gone? Or…was I?”

“Just stay a moment, Doctor. I’m here.”

“Ah…Yes, good. Just a moment to reflect, is all.” They sat together in the dark, until the haze had cleared and he had control over his faculties again…or at least, as much control as he usually had over those pesky faculties of his. He sighed aloud, shivering as the sweat started to dry on his brow. But the night’s chill was staved off at least a little, when the warmth of her arms wrapped around his waist, nuzzling into his skinny belly. There was still a fleck or two of dried blood by her lip, and it looked most fetching. He always did look good on her.

Sighing happily, he flopped back against the rock. “Does wonders for the mind and the body, all of that. And you’re looking grouse! Knew that blood would help.”

The jiangshi tightened her grip in another fond squeeze, kissing at his belly. “You were right again, Doctor.”

Another grin pulled his lips taut across teeth almost as sharp and shiny as his vampire’s. “Ah! What can I say, lovey? I’m an educated man and you just happen to be one of my favorite subjects.”

“But what about a repeated measures study? It’s just, now I feel so warm and…wouldn’t it just be wasted if we went back to the others and it simply wore off before I could share it? Maybe we have time for just a little more reward? Shall I check your schedule for you, Doctor Junkenstein?”

Mei could barely finish the sentence before he was trying to sit up straight again, jostling her head atop his thighs. “I checked! I checked, schedule’s cleared! Busy man, but I penciled you in. What sort of Doctor would I be if I couldn’t make time for further study, ay?”

“Very generous, Doctor.”

With an unnatural lightness, she rose from the floor and slid easily onto his lap, right into his open arms. They kissed again, but this time her lips were soft and warm with the borrowed life now surging through her. Were it not for the gruesome stitches in her neck, she might as well have been a human woman nestled atop him. But Mei was better than any human woman, better than all the humans in all the world. If it had been up to him, he would have killed them, killed them all, and left nothing but ashes and destruction: a world for his toys and his army and her. Then it would just be him and his jiangshi for the rest of eternity, with him gifting her his blood and her biting him, scratching him, telling him he was good—

The daydreams of bloodshed coupled with her subtle grinding was starting to reawaken him proper. Slyly angling his mechanical arm down her side and groping at her thigh, he pulled her down in a slow rhythm against his front. Dragging his tongue against her jaw and back to her lips, he rasped against her kisses. “Lovely, lovely…Yes, make it warm for me, my lovely.”

He growled when she pulled away, but leaned back when he felt her touches go lower. Her lips moved down his chin, his neck, across the bruises on his chest, his midriff… And then it was warm, all right. He was very well familiar with the eastern vampire’s tongue, how long and wet they could be when fully unwound, but with his absent-minded tendencies it was always a delightful reminder when she used it on him. It coiled about him like a serpent, delicate but strong, pulling his cock from up against his body and up against her open lips.

She kissed it a greeting, slathering that tongue up and down his length while her soft lips circled around the flared tip. Junkenstein was again left a panting mess in no time, leaning back to get a better view of her even though his nerves screamed to grab and take her. Slick with saliva, her tongue squeezed wetly around each inch of him, flesh bulging a little each time she tightened its hold, rivulets of spittle squelching as they dribbled down to his sack and stained the coat beneath him.

For a while he was content to watch her work, but never for too long. Eventually the urge grew too strong, and he reached out to take a hold of the top of her hair, pushing her downward. She moved easily with the motion, her lips opening fully, tongue withdrawing only to guide him into the heat of her mouth. Large, dark eyes gleamed up at him, watching how his expressions twitched madly while he tried to focus.

Warm. Blissful, wet, warm…Lovely! Lovely!

His hand remained draped atop her head, enjoying the leisurely start of a nice hot blowie. She closed and sealed her mouth around the tip of him, sucking gently before pushing him the rest of the way in. She was just as good at this as everything else she did, tongue playing along with soft sucking and the occasional exciting scrape of her teeth. Knelt between his gangly legs, the jiangshi sucked on his member just as expertly as she had sucked on his neck, occasionally toying with that wonderful tongue of hers.

Junkenstein’s tongue was nowhere near as impressive, lolling from his open mouth as he uttered another rattling groan. Chalk up another point for his jiangshi, but she really was superior to a human lady in every way. With no need for air and no need for food as such, she had no concept of things such as choking or gag reflex. Handy, that.

It didn’t mean he couldn’t try. His grip tightened atop her head, no longer resting but actively pushing her down. It urged her deeper, deeper, until her nose was mashed into his pelvis and he was nudging past her tongue, knocking against the back of her throat while she lapped at the sensitive underside of his shaft. And when she swallowed…even through her wounded throat, it squeezed hot and wet and tight and perfect, perfect!

He seized onto both her pigtails and let his dark urges rage. His hips pounded forward, pulling her until there was no more room at all— into her throat, again and again and again. There was no reprieve and no pause, her glasses knocked onto the ground with a clatter as she gripped nigh-painfully onto the insides of his thighs. She welcomed him on every brutal thrust, as he panted and snarled and bent over his undead companion covetously. Alternating between petting the back of her head and yanking on her braids, he groaned praise over the obscene sounds of his cock in her mouth.

“Y-you like it? You like it? It’s good? It’s so good! Yes?” It was simultaneously a demand, a question, and begging desperation: pausing only for half a heartbeat as he stared wild-eyed down at her.

She smiled and nodded, and swallowed him again, and he nearly died for the third or fourth time that night.

“Yes?! Yes yes, YES!”

***

The sounds they made were almost unnatural, together in the darkness of that ruined kingdom. The sounds were so unnatural, in fact, that they did not notice another unnatural sound come upon them. There was a low hiss, something foul and sibilant on a sudden breeze, as the swirling fog was displaced by a darker mist.

The Reaper heard the squawking of that damned irritating Doctor, no doubt busy with some toy or other. There was still work to be done, and the Lady had sent him hence. He would collect the scientist and his vampiric assistant, and they would begin to plan for the next time. Another night full of bloodshed and darkness, never ending and never enough to satisfy any of them: not even the strange human who had cast his lot in with monsters such as them.

“Doctor Junkenstein?”

There was no answer, only more noises from the debris of a tower nearby. It sounded violent. Perhaps one of the adventurers yet lived, and the Doctor was fighting for his pathetic life within? The Reaper would turn the tides, then, and finally finish this—

He solidified, yellow eyes and grinning mouth alight within the enchanted pumpkin that served as his head. Full sight returned to his senses. And he wished it had not.

Junkenstein was once again violating his vampiric servant, frenzied with lust. The jiangshi was knelt between his open legs, stroking up and down his legs while he facefucked her with not an ounce of mercy. Terrible noises were uttered from both their mouths, though his involved much creative cursing and she had no words at all. Neither of them noticed his presence until the Reaper bellowed in surprise and disgust from nearby.

“BY ALL LEVELS OF HELL, DR. JUNKENSTEIN.”

“AAAHH!”

Everyone involved either screamed, or tried to scream through an extremely full mouth. Reaper reeled back, dropping his guns to try and shield his eyes. Dr. Junkenstein fell backward against the stone, while Mei scrambled backward in the other direction. There was a loud ripping noise, and the stitches around her head and neck were popped and pulled apart, scraps of twine hanging loose from her decapitated head once more. Her body collapsed back onto the ground without its anchor, and alarmingly and silently groped at the empty top of her neck. Junkenstein was left holding her loose head, blinking at each other in shock.

Dr. Junkenstein turned with surprising ferocity upon this new interloper, teeth bared and insults at the ready. But he paused when he saw the Reaper already cringing back, still trying to shield himself from the sight of them.

“A little privacy, mate?! I’m in the middle of an extensive study session, here!”

Mei’s head rolled its eyes towards the Reaper helplessly, then opened her mouth a little wider while her body pulled itself to sit upright again nearby. For a moment it seemed that she was trying to decide on being mortified or not. But when Junkenstein only adjusted his grip on her head and continued thrusting, her lips tilted into a cheeky grin and she only wrapped her tongue around him to make him groan all the harder.

The Reaper made a noise of revulsion, his lower half dissolving back into mist as he beat a hasty retreat. “PDA, you two! You know what the Lady said about the PDA! This goes so beyond the rules of Public Displays of Affection, you’ll be sorry y—Auuugh!”

Emboldened, the mad Doctor only moaned in response and actually stood up as he continued driving into the head still attached to his lap, making a mocking display of it. The exhibition of it only heated his blood further, and the jiangshi uttered a muffled laugh even while her headless body sat back and shrugged in a ‘what are you going to do?’ sort of manner.

The Reaper was vanquished, fleeing with a fading roar as he vanished back into the gloom.

Cackling madly to himself, Dr. Junkenstein finally pulled Mei’s head off of him long enough to grin down at her apologetically, features still flushed and glistening with sweat. “Sorry about those stitches, loveykins. I’ll get the better thread for—Oh!”

Mei’s body offered him a little thumbs up, then scooted closer upon her knees. Down by his still-erect cock, Mei fluttered her eyelashes, then stretched her mouth wide open, bidding him welcome. The good Doctor’s expression slacked in surprise, then softened in genuine affection, then grew manic and grinning once again while he took her invitation…and slammed himself home once again.

He could die happy like this. Maybe he would get lucky and he would die like this. He’d die again and again, over and over. They both would, and he’d be happy so long as she was with him. So long as they were together, it would never end. He could think of nothing better.

Except that was when he heard a distant rumble, the rattle of truck tires on flattened dirt trod. He straightened up to full alert like a meerkat, beanpole form standing straight up and staring very hard in that direction, turning his head to point one ear towards it. Roadhog took notice, and listened too. And he must have heard it as well, as he grunted and laboriously hauled his immense weight up off the ground, rolling his shoulders and drawing his scrap gun.

“Get ready, Roadie! Looks like they were just late after all!” Junkrat was already off like a shot, clambering up onto the collapsed boulders that gave him a better vantage point.

Lifting the binoculars, he peered down from the ridge. Sure enough, he saw three lorries headed down the canyon road, right towards their little camp. Perfect, perfect. And he saw five…no, six armed guards. He flailed both hands to get Hog’s attention, holding up his fingers to signal their number. Hog also held up his fingers, seven of them, and Junkrat looked down and saw he was signaling the wrong number again. He quickly changed it to six and waved again. Six. Six guards.

Six guards, three or four drivers. Easily doable.

Junkrat waited until they hit the main drag, and counted down until the moment they would be under the loose canyon scree where his mines had been planted, to bring the whole thing down behind them and pen them in. Then he and Hog would move in to tie up the smart ones, shoot the stupid ones, and take whatever needed taking. The thought practically sent him vibrating with excitement.

They were almost in range now. Show time. Fucking finally. A little late, but finally.

3….2…1…

BOOM.

***

Hog busied himself with mopping away the blood splatters all over his front, taking in another long hit off the hogdrogen canisters through his mask. Junkrat was tending to one of the holes. Pulse bullets, not regular type. Pulse rounds sheared through flesh easier than regular ones, but at least that meant there wasn’t any shrapnel to pick out. So they could just wrap and go, to be tended to later. Which worked for him, as he ripped off a length of bandage with his teeth and tied it in a quick knot around Hog’s wounded bicep. His mate would be fine, time to see to the spoils.

He leapt over one of their carcasses, smiling easily as he approached where the drivers had been stripped of their weapons and bound together. At least these ones had had the good sense to surrender and make things easier for them. Unfortunately, one of them still seemed to be a bit mouthy for Junkrat, threatening them about how the Queen and the Suit would be after them, make them pay, they’d seen their faces, yadda yadda. So Rat had shoved a Hog’s-blood-covered bandage in his mouth and taped it in there to stifle him. The gagging noises from their friend had shut the other ones up right quick. Whatever worked.

The first vehicle, an old battered blue ute, mostly held standard issue supplies; food, water, gas, all useful things. And now that they had the keys, it would be useful to load up and drive off. The second vehicle had just held the caravan guards, and Hog had made short work of them. But the third one? He opened it up and dragged out bags of credits and coins, hooting and laughing the whole way. And that had just been laying around in the back seat.

“Roadie! S’paydirt! What did I tell you! I told you this was a score, that’s what I told you! Hang on, bet they have even better stuff in the backsies!”

Snatching the keys from where they had been hanging in the old ignition, he giggled madly to himself as he limped back to the boot of the car, slid it home, and clicked it to unlock. It swung upward, and Junkrat looked inside and then froze. For a moment he stayed very, very still, then he practically shrieked and slammed it shut again. He looked positively rattled, eyes bulging and face going a bit pale, and he clenched both hands atop the lid before he whirled about.

“Uh! Roadhog! I think we got a problem!”

Roadhog grumbled from where he was still tending to his wounds. “Then deal with it.”

“Uh! Okay, lemme just…uh, shit! Hold on! Lemme check again!”

He swung the trunk open again, but the ‘problem’ was still there. She was still laying very much unconscious in her enclosed space in the back. A woman, completely naked except for a rough blanket thrown over her lower half, with the faint blue shimmer of a climate control field around her to keep her from sweltering to death in the heat. The coolness blew over him like a wave as he stood with both grimy hands resting on the bumper, staring at her in wonder.

Dark hair draped over most of her features, which he guessed to be Asian of some sort, but the rest of her was pale and soft and she had all her limbs. Her little bow-shaped lips were pursed and her breath was slow, a pair of glasses near her hands, which were both bound with zip-ties. Her arms bore bruises where fingers had grabbed her too roughly.

Shit. Well, when The Suit had been delivering ‘something special’, he really was delivering something special. You didn’t get ladies like this out in Junkertown. And Rat knew that a lady of this sort, being ‘imported’ in such a way for that Big Boss man…Well, the intentions were probably of the ill kind. Shit. Shit shit shit. He wasn’t sure even what he’d been expecting from this caravan as far as riches went, but lady captives had definitely not been among them.

He spurred himself into action, leaning in and turning her over onto her back. He tried not to look at her tits, really, tried to be a gentleman. But well, they were so big and they were THERE…Just a glance didn’t hurt, even if it made him swallow too wetly as he leaned down and positioned one ear over her lips. He could hear her breathing, luckily, felt it cool against his burning cheek. She smelled like sweat and vanilla, being this close to her. But she was breathing steadily and she didn’t seem hurt. Other than the bruises, they’d probably been pretty careful with her. High-priced commodity, this one.

He had to know. He just had to. They hadn’t, had they? They better fucking not have. He had to check.

Pulling away the rough blanket from atop her, he grabbed her by the hip and jammed his mechanical hand between her thighs, peeling them apart. Freshly shaved and fucking perfumed, probably to order. But everything looked normal and pink instead of red or puffy or abused. He pulled her apart just a little to be sure, but all seemed well, nethers-wise. They hadn’t. Not yet. So he tucked her legs carefully back onto the floor and covered her up again.

And even though she hadn’t been roughed up too bad, all things considered, he suddenly got angry. Very, very angry. Whirling about, he pulled his grenade launcher and clacked a new round into the slot, stalking over towards the cowering group of tied prisoners.

“Who the FUCK was drivin’ that one!” He uttered such a rattling bellow that even Roadhog looked up, was the younger junker pointed one arm straight out towards the opened back of the last car. “Speak the hell up! Who was in charge of that one!”

One of the men, bound next to blood-bandage-gag, timidly lifted a hand. He was an older bald man, soft-featured, not a junker. He didn’t speak, but looked a mixture of nervous, fearful, and guilty.

Junkrat snarled, hobbling forward and grabbing him up by the collar of his nice dress-shirt, dragging him across the dirt and throwing him face-down in front of Roadhog. Lowering into a squat in front of him, Rat watched impassively as the man spat out a mouthful of dust, coughing. Baldy looked up with no small amount of trepidation as a pair of golden eyes stared him down.

“Got any idea what was in the boot there, mate?” Rat said, too casually

The man’s eyes darted to the car and then back again. Silence.

“So ya knew, eh? Knew what you was deliverin’? Well, that’s no good, is it? Whole lot of ya knew?”

No answer.

“Huh! Well, enough of that. Was going to leave you out for the searchers before but…Think I’ll leave you out for the dingos instead. Don’t think it’ll be any loss for the rest of us, eh? Roadie, get rid of him. I’ll take care of our other little friends.” Rat turned back towards the little group of now-struggling, protesting men.

Roadhog lifted a brow. This wasn’t like his employer’s usual tactics. But he wasn’t being paid to ask questions, and there was something in Junkrat’s mannerisms that belied a level of anger he wasn’t used to seeing from the boy. Even though he still wore his smile and he still joked around about the casual order of all-out murder, there was an edge to his lips and his teeth were too tightly clenched, and there was fire behind those strange eyes of his.

But sometimes orders were just orders, and Hog couldn’t particularly think of a good reason to disobey.

He loomed slowly above the cowering bald man in the dirt, and lifted his gun.

***

Roadhog looked down at the unconscious woman and was silent. Then again, silence was not unusual for him. He just stared down at her and said nothing, likely lost in thought. After a very, very long while, he drew back again and uttered a low, “…Hm.”

Rat paced back and forth behind him, gnawing at what was left of his fingernails. There was still a shred on the middle finger he hadn’t chewed down to the quick. His eyes kept flickering to the girl, to Hog, and then back again. “What do we do with her?”

Hog shrugged.

Rat continued talking, turning and pacing back the other way. “Fockin’ hell, mate, wasn’t expecting this t’be the special delivery they mentioned. You know what she’s for, Roadie! You know! Poor bird, can’t leave her here for them t’find!”

“…Hm.”

“We could pack her up! Drive her off to one of the suit cities. Uh…dump her off somewhere safe, let the law deal with her. Unless they’re in on it too. Bet it was those fuckin’ easties or crow eaters what did it to her. Shit…Didn’t even ask where they’d come from. Should’ve asked which city they snagged her in. And now we can’t! Because you killed ‘em all, you great cunt!” He turned and punched Hog in the side of his vest, which the larger man barely felt. “Arright, arright, arright, lemme think. Let’s just…Well, we can’t well hang about here, can we? There’ll be searchers before the evening’s in. Shove aside, I’m taking her.”

Shouldering his way in beside his silent standover man, Rat wedged both hands in under her unconscious form and hefted her up, cradling her in a bridal carry as her limbs and head flopped uselessly, blanket nearly sliding off her. He couldn’t help a flush coming up to heat his ears, his fingers curling in against impossibly plush flesh as he held her to his chest. “…Fuck me, she’s soft as all. No wonder they wanted her, eh? Really pretty too, don’t you think? Don’t make ‘em like this out here, do they?”

Hog did not answer.

Rat carried her off to the ute, easing open the passenger door and setting her limp body into the seat, rather tenderly buckling her in. Smoothing the hair back from her face so it wasn’t stuck on her lip, he draped the blanket over her before closing her in and starting back towards the driver’s side. Roadhog was blocking his way, and Junkrat lifted a brow expectantly.

The larger man shook his masked head with a low grunt. “She’s not our problem. Don’t get attached.”

“Piss off, mate. Not leavin’ her here. She’s too soft. Poor dove, wouldn’t last a night out, and it’d be even worse if that Big Boss sends someone out and finds her. So…uh, I’ll figure out what t’do. Until then, I’m keeping her. Maybe when she wakes up, she can tell us what happened to her. Maybe even tell us a way to get her back home. Chinese, I think. Yeah, definitely Chinese.”

“How can you tell?”

“Well just look at her!” He gestured to the slumped woman in the truck like it should have been obvious.

“…Hm.”

“Don’t give me that shite, Hog. I found her, she’s mine. Fair’s fair, finders keepers, all that. Don’t forget who’s the brains in this little outfit we have here. Although you’re not getting 50% of her! I see those thoughts oozing around in that thick skull of yours, getting ideas. Rack off! This is a top score and she’s all mine! Take your half out of the rest of it!” He spread his long arms on the truck behind him, as if to shield her.

Hog merely uttered an unimpressed snort, hiking up his sagging overalls and adjusting a bandage over his bloodied arm. Still sore, he had no interest in humoring one of Rat’s moods, nor his obsession with his new pet. Slamming his gun back into his holster, he turned and galumphed over to his chopper, settling onto its seat as it groaned under his immense weight. “Not my problem.”

“Damn right it’s not! Now let’s scarper before anyone else comes up on this mess.”

At least that, they could agree on. Rat waited until Hog’s bike had roared to life, heading out of the ruined canyon and the massacre they were leaving behind. Throwing himself into the driver’s seat, Rat paused to stroke the unknown woman’s face, leaving a smear of dirt and crusted blood on her cheek. “Not to worry, lovely! We’ll get this all sorted out in the end. Get you home, get you cleaned up and fed. No need to thank me yet, heh! Well, not that I’d say no to a thank-you of any sort from you, of course.”

The stolen ute cranked up and he began steering it after the distant speck of Roadhog’s bike, still jabbering away to his newest silent companion.

“Just lucky I reached you first, before any of those drongos got their filthy mitts on you. Now me, I’m a proper gent. Um…Well, I mean, I might have had a peek or two at your bits. I won’t deny that. But only to be sure you was all right. You know, that they hadn’t laid hand or anything else on you yet. They would’ve, you know. Degenerates, that’s what they are. Poor darl, probably havin’ fretful dreams as we speak. Well Junkrat’s got you now! Heh. Won’t you be surprised when you wake up, see how safe y’are. I’m a bloody goddamn hero, is what I am!”

***

***

***

Mei awoke with a horrible throbbing pain in her head and a churning in her gut. Everything ached and just peeling her eyelids apart was a monumental effort. Where was she? And where had she been? That conference in Sydney about the Australian Environment Efforts…She’d cut herself off after a responsible two drinks, had gathered her papers, made plans to meet her cohorts for breakfast the next morning, and then had started the walk back to her hotel. After that…

It got fuzzy and strange after that. She vaguely remembered that she had been followed. She’d tried to duck into a convenience store and found it locked and closed. So she’d gone for her phone, to call for help…and then someone else had hit her from the side, grabbed her up, shattered the screen. She’d tried to fight them, biting and kicking. But at a rather squat 5’3, and feeling more dwarfed than ever in a land where people grew into giants for lack of anything better to do with themselves, she’d been overpowered quickly. There’d been a sting in her side, and then…nothing.

How long had she been out? And where was she now? She vaguely hoped that it all been some hideous dream, that maybe she’d had too many drinks after all, and all this had been false memories and drunken mistakes.

But no. When she came to, she was laying sprawled on a filthy stained mattress on a dirty wooden floor. It hurt to move but she tried, and there was a rattling clanking sound when she did so. Barely managing to tuck her chin in, she tried to focus her bleary eyes downward, to where a length of chain and a makeshift shackle was clamped around her ankle. And she was apparently wearing…a sports jersey? If she squinted very hard, she could make out ‘Adelaide Strikers’ on the front.

With a great effort, she managed to pull herself up onto her elbows with a little moan, and saw that her glasses were laying just beside the mattress nearby. Sluggishly snatching them and pushing them on, the blurry world became slightly less blurry. She was in a very small house or structure of some sort, though it was also possibly a garbage dump. There was trash and scrap metal everywhere, though it had been piled haphazardly where it had been moved away from the raggedy couch on the other side of the room. A TV was on, though on mute, with some sort of sports playing. Across the trailer, a makeshift kitchen was empty save for a buzzing fly around the sink, scattered with discarded coffee mugs.

No place she recognized. And it was definitely not a good place to be held captive. Not that there was ANY place good to be held captive. At least her attackers had left her something for her raging thirst. A mug full of water sat nearby, and though she was suspicious of its contents, she was simply too thirsty to deny it. Grabbing it up with weak hands, she downed it in several gulps and felt her poor dehydrated mouth come back to life.

Wherever she was, she needed to get out. As she stretched movement back into her aching muscles, she sat up and examined her shackled ankle, grabbing the chain and pulling until it was taut. Problem being, her chain wasn’t very long. She couldn’t reach the kitchen or the sharp scrap metal on the other side of the trailer. She had her mattress and her cup, and she could reach the ramshackle coffee table (though it held nothing but an empty mug and a remote, it looked hastily cleaned), and the smelly couch.

The windows had been drawn up and boarded, but daylight was streaming in through all the cracks and holes all over the filthy building, so it must have been near sun’s zenith. No telling where they had brought her, whoever ‘they’ were. But maybe if she could just get the shackle off, she could make an escape and find someone to help her. She hoped.

But no matter how she pried and wriggled, the shackle was too strong and the chain too thick. She had read about people who, in fits of desperation, had broken their own limbs or cut off hands and feet in order to escape such shackles. But even the thought made her feel sick to her stomach, and she resigned herself to finding another way out. She tried wriggling across the filthy floor, stretching the chain to its very limit so she could try and reach one of the scrap piles, to find a loose tool or something sharp. But the chain just didn’t reach that far. It only led to about halfway across the trailer, and everything had been piled up around the dingy kitchen, out of her grasp.

Somewhere outside, there was the sound of a door slamming.

Mei skittered across the floor and returned to her mattress, curling back atop it. Going fetal, she pulled her blanket back up to her chin and pretended to be asleep, just as the trailer door creaked open and someone entered. Their gait was strange, a weird k-thump, k-thump, like a limp. Whoever it was, they headed to the kitchen and began rattling around, ripping paper and rattling cups. Mei listened, still curled in on herself, and chanced a very small peek.

A man. A strange man, tall and skinny, with a peg leg and ratty shorts and wild blond hair. He faced away from her, puttering with a coffeemaker and humming tunelessly and cheerfully to herself. Mei shut her eyes again and tucked her chin as more cups and glasses rattled, scrunching her eyes shut tight.

K-thump, k-thump. His uneven gait started towards her, until it stopped just in front of her mattress.

A shrill, heavily Australian voice rasped above her. “Oi! You awake yet, darl?”

Then there was a hand, heavy and cold and metal, placing itself against her shoulder, and something incredibly foul-smelling was shoved up under her nostrils. Her next inhale burned, and she couldn’t help herself as she began sputtering and coughing. So much for pretending to be asleep. There was nothing to do but finally face her captor, lifting her head and staring wide-eyed and wary.

His lips split apart into a too-wide grin, and she saw the gleam of false golden teeth. He was sunburned and freckled, smeared with ash and soot, and parts of his blond hair had been singed black. And at least half of him had been so violently mangled that he bore prosthetic limbs, so crude as to be homemade. Made out of junk. A junker.

“There she is! Smellin’ salts, eh? Had some chems laying around, made ‘em meself!” He puffed up a bit, looking proud of the fact. “Might have gone a touch strong on the ammonia chloride, judging by that noise you made. Not to worry, put in two more bits of sodium carbonate, at least a knuckle’s worth. Maybe peppermint oil to make it a little easier on the palate, yeah? You get knocked out, you get woken up again, but there’s peppermint, so it’s like waking up to Christmas-”

She stared at the jabbering figure looming above her. Ammonia? Peppermint? Christmas? Was this man not entirely there or did he simply not notice that she was a rather terrified woman who was literally shackled to a wall? So she interrupted him, clenching both hands into her disgusting mattress.

“Who are you? Where am I?” Those were the two most important questions to ask. She also thought of adding ‘Will you hurt me?’ to that, but didn’t want to even bring the idea into his mind.

He blinked, then looked almost sheepish, slapping a gloved hand over his face. “Riiiiight, right! Listen to me, off on a tear again! You’re probably wondering ‘Who’s my handsome savior here’? Well wonder no more, lovely! The one and only Junkrat, at your service!”

“Junkrat?” she echoed, mystified. Junkrat. What a name.

“And your cozy boudoir here just happens t’be in my very own home! Feast your eyes, eh?” He gestured around at the junk and squalor all around them. “Might not be five star accommodations, but it’s got everything we need. No worries, you’re safe here.”

She shifted as she sat up atop her mattress, and there was an answering rattle by her foot. She looked down at it, then back to the grinning man. “You’ve…chained me to the wall,” she said, a bit of accusation in her tone.

“Of course!” he answered cheerfully. “Like I said, keepin’ you safe! Can’t have you going walkabout on your own, wandering into something dangerous or getting seen by someone who’s looking for you. What if you woke up and I wasn’t here for you and then you tried to leave? Perish the thought!”

Her heart dropped. So they were looking for her, and was the prisoner of some maniac junker in a shoddy trailer in the middle of who knows where. The filthy man even seemed to be so proud of himself. How utterly despicable.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, guarded.

He blinked down at her. “Want? Oh, not to worry, I ain’t like the others. They’re dead. Killed ‘em all to a man, we did.”

She went pale. The others? Her friends back at the convention, maybe? The other scientists who had been with her? She wasn’t sure who he meant, but he was looking at her like he expected praise. Praise, for being a murderer. She was facing a murderer. She would need to choose her words carefully.

And there were other important matters to tend to. Namely…well, it was embarrassing, but nature was calling. Nature was starting to shout, actually, and she needed a bathroom. Soon. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep, but her need was urgent. Hopefully her captor would allow her that much? So even though she loathed needing to draw attention to herself, she lifted a rasping voice and hated how feeble it sounded.

“This is a lot to take in. And…I…I need to use a restroom? Please?”

Still smiling, he nodded. “Oh! Of course, sweetness! You’ve been asleep for over a day, and who knows for how long afore that. Bet you gotta piss like a racehorse, eh?” He cackled to himself, not noticing her scowl at his crude words. He fumbled about in his pockets, finally coming up with a key, before he lifted up and limped past her to the wall, clicking something with the locks that unlocked her chain from the wall. With a jerk of his head, he motioned for her to follow him, hobbling over towards the door. “The dunny’s out back. Right this way, ma’dam.”

She stood slowly on shaking legs, trying to pull the the sports jersey down a low as possible where it was riding up over her thighs. The chain rattled ominously, dragging behind her as she went to follow. The door yawned wide, and she stepped out into the impossibly bright yellow of the Australian Outback’s high noon, shielding her face with one arm as she winced her eyes shut.

The smiling junker went to take her lifted hand, but she yanked it out of his grasp, drawing away. He just looked confused at that, pinching his brows and his grin faltering for a moment, but shrugged one bony shoulder and started to lead her off. She paused out in the scorching flat yard, looking around for some kind of landmark. And there indeed was a landmark. An enormous ruin, surrounded by scattered settlements rose up in the distance, a husk of a civilization in the otherwise desolate wasteland. Junkertown. It had to be. She’d only heard of the place, but it must have been Junkertown.

It looked so far away from…here. Wherever here was. It seemed to be some kind of ruined farm, with the skeleton of a windmill creaking away in the slight breeze, red dust skittering past her feet. Past Junkrat’s trailer, a farmhouse, barricaded with wood and metal, stood tall but crumbling. There were noises from inside, the banging of metal on metal.

Junkrat was back by her side, ushering her forward. “That’s just my best mate. I uh…I suggest we don’t bother him. He’s been in a mood since I brought you here. How about we save introductions for later!”

So she had more than one captor to deal with. This situation was getting worse and worse.

“Dunny’s right back here. Know it’s not the prettiest…but well, ya know! Literal shithouse, and all!” He shrugged amiably, still grinning. “Bleached it and everything, what with lady company about. Got ya some paper in there, no big deal!” He puffed up again, and gave her another of those little looks like she was supposed to praise him. Praise him, for having toilet paper.

Then again, this was a murderous junker who had kidnapped her and chained her to a wall. Maybe it was best to be polite.

“Th-thanks?”

He brightened immediately, slicking back his ridiculous hair and straightening up from his slouch until he positively towered over her. “Yeah! No big thing! Heh! Haven’t had lady company in…uh, well, let’s not talk about that! Just thrilled to bits and bonkers that you’re here, eh? Oh, right! Right! Bet you gotta piss fierce. Right in there!”

He gestured to a crude metal structure with a little dome roof, an Australian ‘dunny’ outhouse. Warily, still dragging her chain, she approached it. The reek of a sun-baked rotten toilet assailed her nostrils, and the chemicals that were trying to cover up that reek were even worse. She gave the junker a wary glance but he just smiled and lifted one hand limply in a little ‘shoo, shoo’ sort of motion. So she screeched open the door and went inside, trying not to gag.

Hiking her flimsy sports jersey, she sat. Smell aside, at least there was some relief to be had. And privacy. And maybe a few moments to gather her thoughts.

She’d been captured by this mad junker and at least one other, his ‘mate’. He’d killed people and been proud of it. He’d taken her far away from the city, to the very outskirts of far-away Junkertown, a hostile territory. He must have stripped her down and had shoved her in this ridiculous shirt, and her lack of panties had not escaped her notice. That certainly did not bode well.

And all she had was…a length of chain and some toilet paper.

“Well lookit who’s up yet again!” he said, almost mockingly friendly still. “Just in time for a tucker! Bet you’re hungry, eh love? Haven’t had anything in you since the back of that car, I wager.”

She didn’t answer, merely squinting at him. Back of what car? Perhaps he’d shoved her into the back of a car in order to get her here? She had no memory of anything after getting cornered on that side street. And she was ragingly hungry and thirsty. Not that she’d admit it to him.

“Still pissy, eh?” he grinned at her silence, snickering under his breath with clear glee. “Kinda thought a roll in the dirt might stir up an appetite. Then the whole chain fiasco. Didn’t take you for the slap and tickle sort, but I guess you like it a bit rough.”

Mei turned her head and stared at the floor, tucking her face into her knees. She definitely did not want this Junkrat going down that trail of thought. But he took no notice of her chagrin and kept on talking.

“Heh! Silent treatment! That’s tough tits for you, love, because I jabber on enough for ten people. How about some din-dins?” He paused, but received no answer. “No? Nothing? Guess I’ll just make meself a big Hog-sized plate of eggs and hash all for my lonesome, then!” The junker was already tying on an absolutely filthy grease-stained apron that read KISS THE COOK in much-faded letters, though it looked like he’d purposefully scrubbed away part of an O so it read KISS THE COCK instead. Ugh. Typical. And disgusting.

She remained curled in her corner, watching him balefully as he set up what looked to be a camp stove and pan. Her heart did seize a little when he picked up a rather large knife, but he didn’t even turn her way. She couldn’t see everything the strange man was doing, his beanpole form with his back to her blocking some of whatever he was chopping up on the counter. And throughout it all, just like he said, he talked.

“Now you and I, sweetness, we’re going to have a chat about hospitality. Because I’ll be damned but you’ve gone and pissed all over mine. But you know what, not even that mad at ya. Just scared. Weren’t you, darl? Moved too fast when you woke up, s’my fault really. Probably your head’s all fucked from how I found ya.” He continued chopping, rough enough that she saw flecks of something or other flying into the air. “So I’m gonna be the decent bloke here and let you know that bygones are just bygones! Pretty gallant for someone you just near on ganked with a chain, don’t you think? But really, don’t try to make another attempt at that because Roadie’s in one of his moods, and someone usually dies when he’s in one of his moods. And you’re too cute to get splattered. Oi! How d’you like your eggies!”

Mei stared at him from over the tops of her knees and maintained her shield of silence.

Junkrat sighed wearily. “Nothing? I see how it is. Well guess what, Sullen Sally, you being a little snit about things isn’t improving the situation here. And you just lost dinner fork privileges, by the by! Yeh, I see how you’re looking at me, thinking you’re going to fork ol’ Jamison in the back. Well I’m onto you. It’s spoons for you from here on in.”

He hummed tunelessly to himself as he began piling things into the frying pan, sparking up the camp stove. And soon she recognized the scent of cooking onions and potatoes, the vapors instilling a hunger in her that had only been kept at bay by fear. If Junkrat was right, it really had been days since she’d last eaten, and she was feeling it. And while her junker captor bobbed to some unheard beat and kept cooking, she found herself not really caring what it was that he was making, if he just gave her some.

Unfortunately, her silence earlier (probably combined with trying to kill him before that) had not done much for his good will. As she watched, he piled an enormous portion of hash and eggs onto a plastic tray instead of a plate. Frankly, she was surprised he didn’t eat out of a trough. And instead of offering her any, he took his tray and ambled over to his couch, setting it on his lap as he picked up a fork and promptly began shoveling piles of food into his jaws as he watched her.

Mei glanced up very briefly to his wild golden eyes, then back down to the tray of hash. She was literally salivating now, and swallowed thickly a few times as she tried not to let it drool out of her mouth. Junkrat only smirked even harder when he noticed, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he really did intend to taunt or starve her for her transgressions. He couldn’t be trusted, after all.

He speared a chunk of potato on his fork and pointed it at her. “I can see you’re hungry. Well, I offered you some! S’wrong? S’not poison, see? You don’t like eggs, maybe? What do you like? If you tell me, I’ll get it for you. But you gotta talk to me, pet. How about we start with your name, and then you tell me what you’ll eat.”

She warily bit her lip, but her snarling stomach was too strong to ignore. And he might as well know the name of the lady he had abducted. So she drew herself up a little and kept her eyes on the tray of hash. “Mei-Ling Zhou…Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou.”

His bushy eyebrows shot up. “No foolin’? A doctor! Maybe my luck is changing, I snagged a doctor! Listen, doc, think you could take a look at me? Have enough aches and pains to fill a list. And I got this weird lump on my-”

“Not that kind of doctor!” She held up both hands quickly, warding off any more talk about his lumps. “Not a medical doctor.”

Rat wrinkled his nose in disappointment, then shrugged. “Eh! What use is a doctor who can’t do doctor things? All right, Mei-Ling Zhou. Mei-Ling. Mei. That’s a pretty name.” He turned his crooked smile upon her, clearing his throat and trying a little too hard to be suave. “Pretty name for a pretty lady.”

She half-lidded her eyes at him in reply.

He merely took another huge bite of his dinner, chewing noisily and speaking around a jaw full of food. “Still pissed at you, mind. Gonna have bleedin’ blues and purples all over my neck for a week and my voice is cracking all over, worse than usual. And you trying to kill me in a shithouse? Hell of a location to take someone out. Insult to injury, that is. You know, Miss Mei, I gotta say I rather expected a little more gratitude on your end. ”

Gratitude! He expected gratitude from her! She could feel her hackles rising at the very thought, but she was still very much aware of her situation- chained to a wall and half-naked. She couldn’t risk angering him. So she swallowed and kept her voice soft. “Sorry? I was…scared.”

“Aw, sweetness!” Rat’s gaze softened, going positively gooey in their centers, and his maniac grin almost became a regular one. “See! I knew it! S’not your fault, you just didn’t know what was what, just like I said. Well not to worry. You’re completely safe here with me! I’ve made sure of it. Come on, dry your eyes. Give us a smile!”

She did not give him any sort of smile. “Junkrat? You said your name was Junkrat. Please…you have to let me go.”

He scrunched his face to one side again, spearing another hunk of sausage and shoving it in his gnashing maw. “Sorry, love. I already told you, can’t just let you go off on a lark. Not around here. There’s too much danger around here for wanderin’ guests. And not with folks out looking for you. I shudder t’think of the consequences! You arready saw one of our security measures? Well, they’re for good reason. I know what they’re like. But I’ll keep those louts away from you if it’s the last bleedin’ thing I do.”

“What if…What if you just let them find me? What if you just let me go, and they found me, and I didn’t tell anyone that you took me! Nobody has to get hurt, if you just let them find me safe.” She turned upon him with pleading eyes, pulling her blanket closer around her. It was a long shot, but if the police were searching for her, maybe she could convince the junker to free her in return for clemency.

It didn’t surprise her when he denied her request. What did surprise her was his confusion over it. His brows knitted up and he stared at her as if she was the one who was crazy. “The fuck? Are you bloody mad, love? You want me to let them find you?”

“Of course I do! Why wouldn’t I!”

He set the tray down, still out of her reach. Seemingly baffled, he rose and began pacing uneasily, smoothing back his soot-stiff blond hair. “Well this is…Arright, I see how it is! During our little scuffle, I must have whomped your head a bit. That’s all. Rattled your brains about, and now you’re spitting nonsense. Because you’d have to be mad to want that.”

“There’s nothing mad about it. And I promise you, I won’t tell them that you’re involved. You and your friend, you’ll go completely free. We can just…go our separate ways. Nobody gets hurt, and I can go back with them. Everything can still work out if you just let me go.”

He lunged at her so suddenly that she recoiled, slamming her back into the rough wooden wall. The lanky junker loomed over her, gaze skeptical as he brought his face uncomfortably close to hers. So close that she could smell the eggs and hash he’d just been eating. She almost would have kissed him for a taste of it, if she hadn’t been trying to lean as far away from his person as possible.

Rat stared very intently into her eyes through her glasses, then frowned. “Huh. Was seeing if you got wonky pupils.Ya know. Brain damage. Maybe a little concussion. Don’t fret, lovely, I’ve had plenty of concussions and I turned out just fine! Because that’s what you probably have is brain damage, talkin’ like that.”

“I’m not…concussed. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now please, just let me go!”

He still looked baffled. Still eying her, he shook his head, doubt clear. “You honestly want me to return you to them? Are you having a go at me, Mei? Or is this…Wait, is this some sort of suit rich-lady sex thing?”

“S-sex thing?!”

“Like…get yourself ‘kidnapped’ by junkers? And then they rough you up a bit? Like you have this bad boy fantasy? Or is this like…a cuckold thing? You and your hubby set this up?”

“Husband? Fantasy? What on earth does that even mean! W-why would anyone, why do you think I would…No! What are you talking about!”

Junkrat merely looked confused and even a bit put out. “Because…Look, if this is just some weird fetish you got, this kind of changes how everything went down. And…wow, fuck am I ever in trouble if that’s the case! But I mean…uh, if you really want some junker action sex fantasy here, I’m just saying, if you want that, I’m always available t- OW!”

***

She’d hit him. The bloody crazy not-doctor lady had just hauled off and slugged him. It didn’t hurt, really, not like when she’d choked him out and had the leverage to do so. From down there, she was just too small and soft and there was no power behind it. But she’d clearly meant it to hurt, so he humored her and yelped a bit, falling back right onto his arse.

This Mei-Ling Zhou, who was a doctor but not the right type of one, was even cuter when she was mad. And lucky him, but she seemed to be constantly mad. Even now she was glaring at him, full offense taken.

“How dare you! How can you treat this as a joke!”

He snorted and scooted away from her. “Touchy, touchy! I’m not the one who wants to go running off into…that kind of particular situation! And they say I’m touched in the head. You? You got problems, darl.”

“You’re the one keeping me chained to a wall! After…After what you tried to do to me!”

He threw up both hands. “For the bloody record, I did not! I was trying to gently persuade you not to go runnin’ off into a fuckin’ minefield! So yes, I had to jump on you, but only a little. You know, after I tried calling out to you, but couldn’t. On account of you stranglin’ me to a half death in a goddamn shithouse! And don’t think I forgot that absolutely spot-on nut shot you gave me. Fockin’ hell, I’m going to be singing soprano for weeks.”

“I was trying to stop you from hurting me! Just let me go!”

“I’m not hurting you! For the last time, I am not the junker what was going to hurt you!” he couldn’t help the snarl creeping into his voice, even if it hurt his throat and made her cower. “I know that you rich doctor lady types think all junkers are the same, but it’s not the case. Here. I know your brain’s rattled, so I’ll make this easy to remember for us both. Me, Junkrat. Me good. Good junker. Junkers out there? Baaaad junkers. Me keep you here for your own safety. Ya bloomin’ nutcase, ya.”

“You’re not funny!” she snapped, though she still shrank away from him.

“I happen t’think I’m hilarious!” he answered primly, putting his nose in the air and placing a hand to his bony chest. “Look, darl. This is all getting off on the wrong foot. And that’s bad news for me, because I only got one! Ha!” He shrieked a laugh, but she merely looked unimpressed. Tough crowd. “But look. I promise you, even though I dunno what your weird deal is, I’m not gonna let you come to harm. Never. I tried to tell you, the only reason I put on your cuff there was to keep you from wandering out into danger. And right the damn moment I took it off you, you wandered out into danger…Well, it’s clearly going to stay on a little longer until we hash a few things out. Oh, right, I still got that hash left…”

She eyed him carefully, clearly distrustful. “But…You can take it off me soon, right? And you don’t want to hurt me? Or do…anything bad, to me?”

“Swear it! Upon my very life.” He straightened up to his massive height, slapping a hand over his heart. “I won’t hurt ya, and you and me, we can figure this out. And I’ll make it comfy for you as long as you’re here, until we figure what’s what. Promise.”

Mei was silent for a long while, rubbing up and down her arm and not looking at him. He offered her his best smile, the constrained one that looked a little less boom-crazy. She didn’t smile back, but she did finally look back at him. Even though he knew his promise still wasn’t worth too much to a scared and clearly confused woman, she seemed a bit less outright terrified of him.

“Can I…please have something to eat?” she finally asked, wrapping her arms around her stomach rather meekly. “And drink? Please?”

He brightened, holding up a finger for her to wait before he went scrambling back to the sofa, with its tray of eggs and hash. He didn’t have the fine china she was probably used to eating off of, being a fake doctor and all, but it would have to do. Heaving the coffee table over in front of her mattress with a screech against the wood floor, he juggled the food tray up in one hand and brought it slamming down in front of her.

She swallowed hungrily, but was still looking up at him in a very expectant manner. Oh right! Ladies didn’t eat with their hands like he usually did. Holding up two fingers, trying to signal her to wait even longer, he went limping back into his kitchen, sorting through his cabinets and completely forgetting where everything was in the process. She’d lost sharp cutlery privileges, but he still needed to find a spoon, after he’d used the last batch of metal spoons as connecting rods for that one bomb one time back in-

He slammed open a cupboard and found it crammed full of cans of preserved peaches, the shelf below crowded with beans. Ah, two of his favorite things. Maybe she would want some, but later. He did manage to find a wooden stirring spoon in with a collection of tinfoil and rubber bands. And he’d have to try and remember where those were, for the next time he needed them. He probably wouldn’t remember. What was he going to remember, again?

Hobbling back the few steps across his humble home, he set down the too-large spoon and a new mug of water on the table before her, then reeled back, clasping his hands and waiting expectantly. And lucky him, but the lady did still have her manners. She looked a bit confused at the gigantic spoon, but picked it up anyway as she shuffled herself closer to her meal, looking up at him with a little “…Thanks.”

“Any time! Any time, love! You just have a bite to eat, and then we’ll talk about…everything else, I guess? I mean, you can’t honestly expect me to just let you go wandering off to…ugh. The others. I’d be an irresponsible host. Can’t have that.”

“What others? You mean that masked man?” She had an awkward time with her oversized utensil, but after a few wary bites, she became a whirling dervish of spoons and eggs and potato bits, shoveling it into her jaws almost as eagerly and rudely as he had. Poor thing.

He smiled dreamily as he watched her stuff her face, bits of egg falling out of her lip. She really was a cutie. “Roadhog? Nah. Look, I know he’s pretty fearsome. But underneath that gruff, blood-spattered exterior is…” His eyes drifted apart slightly, trailing off. “Huh. No, I guess he’s pretty much himself. Well they don’t call him the one-man apocalypse for nothing. But he’s my best mate and one hell of a standover man in these parts. I didn’t hire him on for nothing, you know. He won’t be hurting you, so long as you just don’t get in his way. And while you’re safe in here, you won’t! Easy peasy!”

His eyes swerved away from her meal, easily distracted as ever, to the television still playing off to the side. The sports had finished a while ago, and now it was some sort of news show. A skirt-clad woman with large breasts and a larger smile was showing off the weather for the next week. Not surprisingly it was hot, hot, and more hot.

Mei spooned up the last of the eggs, though she seemed strangely hesitant about the sausage. She looked at it with a knitted brow, bit her lip, looked at it again…and then finally scooped it up and ate it too. Junkrat tilted his head at her.

“Not to your liking, darl? I can make ‘em even crispier next time. Got a nice new blowtorch, even, can put it to good use!”

“Erm…No thank you. I normally don’t eat meat, is all. But…I was really hungry. Thank you?”

He practically wiggled at even the most basic gratitude. “Yeah yeah yeah! Whatever you need, darl! I’ll get it for you!”

“But shouldn’t we talk about me going home? You said you’re not going to hurt me but…I don’t belong here. Why did you even bring me to this place?” She hugged herself, and he couldn’t help it as his eyes darted to the way the thin jersey clung to the sudden bulge of her chest.

No no no. Eyes up, Junkrat. Eyes up. He cleared his throat and forced his gaze back up. “Because it’s the safest place in the Outback, love. Not like I could take you back to wherever it is you came from until I know where that is! And even then, you’re a long travel from any of the coastal cities.” His eyes darted again when he saw his words only upset her further. “But we’ll get you there! We just got to lay low for a bit while they’re combing around for you. The one you were meant for, he is not happy. Went through a lot of trouble to rescue you, after all.”

She gave him a strange look. “Rescue me?”

“Yeah! When I rescued you from those other junkers!”

“…Other junkers? What do you mean-”

He didn’t hear the rest of what she said, because suddenly there were two of her. For a moment he thought maybe his brain had crossed wires again. That happened sometimes. But no, there were definitely two Meis. The jersey-clad Mei in front of him, who still had a bit of egg stuck on her chin…and another Mei on the television behind her.

“Hold up! Hold the phone! Shhh! Shut!” He snapped his fingers loudly, then made a zipping motion near her mouth, which seemed to startle her into silence. Blindly groping around him, he grasped her spoon and pointed it at the tv, before throwing it away and replacing it with the remote, slamming the audio on. Mei turned to follow his gaze, both of them looking to the news program.

A female voice was narrating. “-environmentalist expert from Xi’an, China, visiting for the Australian Environment Efforts summit in Sydney. Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou was reported as a missing persons by her summit cohorts nearly four days ago. Foul play is suspected, and the police are currently following up on several leads. If anyone has any information on Dr. Zhou’s whereabouts-” More pictures of Mei flashed across the scene. “They are encouraged to bring it to the attention of the authorities. A substantial reward has been offered for-”

The words ‘reward’ and a series of numbers popped up at the bottom of Mei’s last known photo. A very nice set of numbers. A very generous set of numbers. All for rescuing someone that he had already rescued. This little not-doctor sitting half-nude on top of the mattress beside him was apparently worth serious coin. Enough coin to get a man’s attention, for sure.

The missing persons report ended and the news went on. Mei herself seemed rather dumbfounded, slowly turning to give Junkrat another very wary look. Her apprehension was back, posture tense as if she was not entirely certain how he was going to react.