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"Another cocktail. Preferably with more ice."

Dark boots kicked themselves up on the plush, snowy ottoman and reclined by the roaring fire. Dim yellow light streamed in from large floor-to-ceiling windows. Bossa nova music dallied in the warm air, playing a soft collection of tunes from a shiny jukebox in the corner. The fire crackled loudly every few seconds, spraying blue embers inside the fireplace.

"Yes, sir." The man ran off, hurrying to carry out the order. "Another Bloody Mary with extra ice coming up!"

The fire sputtered, drawing the attention of the man wearing a dapper, gray v-neck with suspenders.

Even if Mither's climate was very warm, Voodoo liked having fires in his home. He liked to watch the fuel pellets curl in on themselves as the flames touched them, imploding as the heat gradually made them itchy to morph and burn. He liked the way fires ate away at everything that happened to fall inside of their clutches, leaving no room for mercy. Heat, torment, burning...it all made sense to Voodoo. 

Some people in society had to be flamethrowers, to balance creation with destruction. Some people had to burn the old, withered parts of society and start anew. 

"Here, sir." 

The purple-skinned housekeeper set a silvery tray next to V's armchair within a minute. A tall glass of maroon liquid with extra ice settled by the fire, already beading with condensation.

"Delightful." V lifted it off the tray and took a sip ever so carefully. His lips pursed in thought. "It's okay."

"Only okay sir?" The housekeeper grew crestfallen. 

"Yes. Okay." V repeated.

V wasn't difficult to please, but he definitely wasn't easy either. The same went with pleasuring him. V's orders were always so specific, always so odd, but he never explained them. Make sure the handcuffs are baby blue, or even make sure to fight with me during foreplay. And always there was this strange disappointment radiating off of V after they finished, as if it didn't live up to some expectation he so idealized in his head. 

"Can I get you anything else, sir?" 

V set the glass back on the tray, perusing the flames with something dark in his eyes. Outside, the churning motors of bikers hummed up the long driveway. V lifted his sharp chin, staring out the window to watch his men pull into the mansion's drive. Faintly, Mither's alarm siren echoed in the distance, a sorrowful, whining cry which meant some crime had been committed.

"Yes. Could you fetch me my AK, Second?"

The purple man lifted his brows, clearly surprised by the order. "Which one?"

"Bring me the AK-103. Obligatory for today's mission."

"Mission, sir?" The Second wrung out his hands. "You didn't brief me on any-"

"The AK. And the untried dart gun. I'll require them." V shot a sharp glare at his housekeeper, rising from his seat. The motorcycles outside petered to a stop. "And retrieve me another bandage. I have a prodigiously nasty cut on my interior palm, above my scaphoid..."

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"So. What number are you?"

"5224. Five thousand two hundred and fucking twenty four. I used to be 3005, though. Three thousand and fucking five. That's my shitty luck." Jimin kicked a stray stone into the river. It sunk instantly into the murky grayish surface, never to be seen again.

"Oh. What happened? How'd you drop so low in the system ranking?" Psyche strode next to Jimin and Pan down the riverside. Her reddish hair bounced against her shoulders, which were as wide as Jimin's and equally as strong. "V get to you?"

"Mhm." 

Pan, who had been clinging onto Jimin's brown coat their entire riverside journey, tugged it once in a question. 

"Who's V?"

"Voodoo. His name is Voodoo." Psyche supplied. "Only the worst man in Mither. A heartless scoundrel that only cares about himself. The same guy who assassinated my family to get his way."

Pan's face scrunched. "What does assyassnate mean?"

Jimin chuckled, ruffling the boy's mop of blackish hair. "Ah, Pan. It's what I just did to that man who was trying to take you away. To assassinate means to kill. Bye bye world, no more light. A bullet to the brain and never-ending darkness. No more life, no more food! Only the eternal burning flames of Hell, of retributive glory, of nothingness."

Psyche winced. "It's like...a long sleep."

"Oh." 

Pan still didn't seem to understand the word. But instead of asking about it more, he chose to stare at the river's gloomy, sewage-ridden surface, pointing out the occasional pop of color from surfacing trash.

Jimin turned to Psyche. "So, what number are you?"

The redhead scratched her arm. 

"I'm 217."

"What!" Jimin stopped walking. "Are you kidding me?"

"Nope." Psyche gave him a strange look. "Even though I'm an elite, V still came after my family. I don't know what he's trying to do, what grand plan he's trying to carry out in Mither, but it isn't going to work. He's making lots of enemies, both in the underground and in person. He can't get away with this, even though he's in the top ten."

"But you're at 217. Two hundred fucking seventeen! The ultimate position for fucking people. For shoving shit up their ass when you feel like it. Shit! 217? Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Language!" Psyche pointed at Pan. "Language around the innocent!"

"Language was meant to be spoken. Language was created to be said out loud."

"That language is unacceptable around little kids-"

"Says who?" Jimin crossed his arms. "Any word goes. Any word is a descriptor. Why listen to what they say we're allowed to say around people? Fucking shitty bitchass cunt in a goddamn can of fucking pussy! I say what I want!"

"Oh...kay..." Psyche lifted her eyebrows but didn't contest him again. "Say what your tongue desires. I didn't tell you I was 217 because I don't believe in the hierarchy of numeral positions. Just like you, I think they're dumber than dumb. Pointless. Don't ever kowtow for me because the government requires you to. I hope Mither's laws disintegrate..."

"I hope Mither's laws are fucking mauled, mutilated, pummeled. Torn apart by beasts. I hope their 'lawful' hearts get ripped out of their gaping, unworthy chests and their heart veins are all stringy and fucking dangling around like saggy dicks. Fucking laws."

"You sure have a way with words, Mr. Jimin Booboospeare." Psyche rolled her eyes.

"Fuck yeah I do." Jimin leaped over a few stray rocks. "I have such a way with words that I'm going to blow the judges brains out with my performance script."

Psyche turned at the mention of the performance. Her katana seemed to perk up in interest as well, carrying the sharp interest of its owner.

"What do you have in mind? For your performance. If we're to take V down, then it has to be kickass, no mediocre shit."

"Who's swearing now!" Jimin grinned, staring up at the lazy yellow sky. "But about that performance..."

"Hey!" Pan interrupted, suddenly squatting down.

Jimin and Psyche stopped, backtracking to see what the hunched purple boy was busy studying. Their footsteps were evenly matched, perambulating at an equal pace. It was an overlap of ability, a realization of skill. Jimin and Psyche were matched, equivalent in speed. They were rebellious race cars operating in the sickly wavelengths of the other cars they were up against. Around and around the racetrack, they were brutishly zooming, bumping, rubbing up against and crashing into their counterparts. Hitting, nudging, cornering the weak ones into the side of the unassertive racetrack. Going for the top gun, the number one vehicle speeding in the forefront of the line. 

They were headed to take out V's car, his nasty, bullet-speed atrocity of transportation. His-

"Motocycle." Pan lifted his head up from the ground. "Do you hear that sound? That hummin'?"

Jimin paused, letting his ears measure the environment. The familiar whine of a speed-bike caught his eardrum and bit his sensibility into action. He twisted towards the tree line, trying to gauge where the sound derived from.

"Shit. That's V." Psyche whispered, tapping her katana. A reassurance tap, a killer's reassurance tap.

"Pre-fucking-cisely, that's him. That's V." Jimin swiveled to face Pan. "But the real question is, why the hell were you staring at that dirt patch, Pan, if you heard the motorcycle? Did you manage to find your low self esteem in the dirt? Did you see that dirty gem, that cloudy self-esteem diamond reflecting off the sunlight? Glinting up a storm? Finally visible to the naked eye, huh? Did you see it?"

"Hey!" Psyche punched Jimin's arm. "Don't tease the boy. Let him speak."

"I saw the rocks movin'. No diamonds. No gems." Pan didn't seem to understand Jimin's hurtful comment. "And then I heard the motocycles. The rocks were movin' because of the motocycles."

"What a savant. He heard the motocycles. He heard Them." Jimin pursed his lips. "Thank you, dear Pan of the countryside."

"Are you always an asshole?" Psyche punched his arm again, urging them away from the approaching sound. "I mean, I'm an asshole too, but with you it's like...a whole new brand of asshole. Like AssholeMart. Or...or Asstagram. Assbook."

"Assyassnate." Pan deadpanned.

"Right." Psyche faced Jimin. "He assassinated any form of good manners he once possessed. I'm convinced he's only a shell. An asshole hermit crab sequestered in his shell of assery, never to escape except when he needs to eat or defecate."

Jimin lunged to the side, leaning his ear into the air. The humming whine of a charging motor was growing louder. The tree branches swayed with new urgency, pointing them along their escape route with leafy disdain.

"Fuck you for saying I'm an asshole. But I'm oddly flattered too! Mass assholery! I accept my position as the Asshole of this team!" 

Jimin cried into the air, reaching up towards the urine-colored clouds. He puffed out his cheeks, filling them with air. Then, he slapped one of them, allowing the air to whoosh out. It made a hollow sound, a dull slap that was supposed to resemble a primal ass-smack. Jimin cooed.

"He's not right in the head, Pan." Psyche told the boy. "But you're better off with him than the man he stole you from."

"I know." Pan mumbled, clasping his hands. A shiver passed through him. At that moment, he remembered a past atrocity, rotten and buzzing against the weak walls of his youthful mentality. The man that used to own him was a monster, worse than Jimin could ever be. "I know..."

"Ladies! Let's stop chitchatting and dancing over there and get to work, hmm?! V is coming hot and horny on his motorbike! As always! Hi-ya, V, chop your dick off, V! Like a karate master, V! Let your fat cock get stuck in the motor, V! DIE, V!"

Psyche frowned, but followed when Jimin motioned them to pick up their pace. 

"He's definitely not sane." 

Psyche grabbed Pan's hand in hers, tugging the boy along. The katana bumped against her chest good-naturedly, a reminder of safety and slices. Pan stumbled to catch up, lost in the beauty of Psyche's hardened, battle-warrior profile. He couldn't understand why a woman had such a sharp, strong jaw and distinctly focused eyes, but he was enamored. As all young boys are enamored by leadership acts of strength meant to provide safety, Pan was indubitably spell-locked by Psyche's cosmic beauty.

Jimin, on the other hand, was entirely focused on their escape route. If V was heading their way, it was likely because he found out about the crime committed. 

'Report of Mither's crime watch. Shot was heard around 3:49 PM in neighborhood H3. A 400 body was discovered on scene. Suspect was a house pod painter. Purple child stolen. Assholery involved.'

V wasn't dumb. He could figure it out, add up all the facts of the matter. He could figure out that they were in the woods nearest neighborhood H3, and he knew that Jimin was armed.

"You fucker V. What do you want from me now? Are you going to turn me into the militia? See to it that I'm put in an internment camp? Watch how I rot in jail? Shoot me? Oh, I bet you're going to give me another exploding vibrator, that's it. You like games like that, you creep. You creep."

Psyche shook her head, ducking under a smattering of pokey tree branches. 

Jimin was pretty fucked. It was clear by the violent, infected way he spoke that he digested the world's stimulating material differently than most people. It was obvious by the way his arm was always twitching, as if expecting to whip out his gun at a moment's notice. Pent-up, nervous energy radiated around him in a bluish arc. His eyes were calculating, wary, and his stance was in perpetual readiness to lash out. To kill.

Whatever V did to Jimin, it must have been positively awful to fuck the boy up this badly.

"The sound is comin' closer!" Pan yelled, goggling into the woods. "How are the motobikes gonna go through trees?"

Jimin sped up, leaping over a log. "Well, those motobikes won't be able to come in the river. That's for sure. We'll be alright!"

Psyche winced, exhaling as she dodged a stone in the knotted path. 

"Don't tell me you expect us to go in Avalon's River. We'll die of toxic waste exposure! Or worse, the rumors about the mermaids roaming the river will be true, and we'll be lured by them to our deaths! Or worse, worse! We'll be fucked by the mermaids, Booboo, and then after we orgasm our eyes will roll back into our skulls permanently. We won't be able to breathe air, we'll be transferred into mermaidism! We'll only eat rotten, gooey clams for breakfast and drink seaweed shakes for lunch. We'll breathe water, and we'll be blind, lead around by mermaids who want to use our bodies only as sex toys and nothing more..."

"Falso, one thousand percent wrong juice." Jimin shook his head. "That won't happen. Not saying I wouldn't love to be a mermaid's sex toy, cause I would, but that's beyond the fact. They don't exist. I've been in the river before, it's clean enough for a brief dunking."

"Clean enough?" Psyche followed Jimin down the edge of the trail. In the distance, the churning rumble of motorcycles seemed to curve. "What kind of bullshit is that? Clean enough sounds like something a pubescent teen would say during their first sexual experience. Oh, it's clean enough Britney, I promise I've washed my dick within the last 24 hours. I promise I don't have STDs that I know of. I promise I don't have a dirty dick. It's clean enough."

"The river is cleaner than my dick, if you want that reassurance." Jimin coughed into his arm, leaping by the riverbank. Psyche fake gagged. "Plus, the river's the last place V will expect me to go. He probably thinks I'll head back to my old cabin, the one I owned in the past. He won't expect us to be underwater. He won't even think to check under the nasty surface of the nasty river."

"Under...water?" 

Pan's eyes grew wide. He finally broke his stare with Psyche's magnificent, stoic face and gaped at the water.

Jimin elevator-eyed the purple boy and tutted.

"What, what's the shitting mad hatter?"

Psyche 'huhed?'

"Matter, I mean. Mad hatter. Matter. What the fuck is the shitting matter with you, PanPan? You afraid of water?"

The boy nodded. Psyche's thick arms dropped by her sides, and an exasperated sigh left her mouth. The motorbikes' incessant hum grew more intense near the forest's edge. Somewhere, a bird took a long shit, splatting its interior bowel movements into Avalon's River with perfunctory glamor.

"Well good news for you, chico. The river's more sludge than water! You have nothing to be afraid of!" Jimin tugged the boy closer to the gloopy waterline, motioning for Psyche to follow. "All we have to do is wade until we're knee-deep, then lay on our stomachs under the water once V's men come. After he passes, we'll be GTFG! Good to fucking go!"

"The mermaids." Psyche warned.

"The water." Pan whimpered.

"The bullshit! The excuses!" Jimin led the boy and his new flaming red-haired partner into the shallows. "We're going to jail if we can't hide from V properly. I mean, you fucking know V, Psyche. You know how completely, meticulously batshit he is. He'll try to put me in jail. And he'll probably torture you. And he'll probably use Pan as his slave, or some shit."

"As if you're treating Pan any better."

"Shut your mouth, FireGirl." Jimin stared at the bubbling river sloshing by. "And get a taste of water. Listen! The bikes, they're approaching! We have to dunk now! Dunk now! Wet, wet, wet!"

Pan shook his head, tugging backward as Jimin urged him along. His shaky purple arms jittered in a panicky motion, making his petite body totter on its nervous foundation. He was a goner, a faller! He was underwater before Jimin knew it. A resounding splash reached the two adults' ears, a sploosh of body sinking low into layered murk.

"Well. Pan decided to participate." 

"Get him!" Psyche rolled up her black sleeves, reaching into the water. "Fuckhead, what if he can't swim?"

"He who cannot swim is bound to fly...he who flies will eventually swim to the stars."

"What the shit kind of quote is that?" Psyche's arms scooped around the water frantically. Under the black jacket she wore, her muscles writhed and tensed in a shredded exhibition of her strength. 

Jimin stared. 

"It means he's going to die if he can't swim. If he can't swim in the river, he'll rise to heaven. I just made the romantic, inventive quote up myself actually, pulled it straight out of my-"

"BLEEAAHH. BLEhh...cUHhh...Clhuhh..." 

Pan emerged from the water, covered in a thin film of slop. Plastered onto his cheeks were wrappers, pasted to his face by the gluey consistency of the bubbling water. His coughs were choppy, sickly...water had definitely entered his lungs during his time under the surface.

"Oh boy. Coughs." Jimin mused, tapping his chin. Psyche coddled the boy, continuing to slap him on the back while he spat mouthfuls of grimy water out. "I know what coughs are like. Awful things, coughs. Monstrous. Coughs. And are those wrappers on your cheeks condom wrappers? Oh boy! They are are are! Can you imagine Mither's power elite couples coming here, down to the fucking river to procreate? To do the nasty? Well, at least they used protection. What does that wrapper say, extra strength? Oh, good for them, preventing STDs. STD stands for Satan's Testicular Destruction, if I remember right. Fucking pain. Pure pain, those are. Straight outta Hell."

"You fucking ass! Pan almost drowned, and you...you..." Psyche's words halted in her throat. She tilted her chin up, studying the trees. "Wait...wait a flying fucking second."

Jimin chuckled. "Look who's using my quote. Flying fucking second. You must not be able to swim, little fiery fishy-"

"Shut the fuck up, would you?" Psyche's grip tightened around Pan's body. "The motorcycles. Can you still hear them? I don't hear them anymore. I think they stopped."

Jimin's face fell from its stupid humorous smirk to a horrified embogglement. He stared at the condom wrappers in muted terror.

"Shit...shit...where did they go...oh? What's this?" Jimin reached up to his neck, confused at the sudden pinching sensation there. "Bitchass mosquitos. My blood is supreme, and the cut on my face is open, that's probably why they smelled my beautiful blood, they were attracted to perfection, because...oh...oh...what's this? Oh...fucking no!"

Jimin tore the metallic body of a dart out of his neck. Tiny baby blue feathers lazily hung out of the dart, mocking Jimin with their sparkly birdly feathery assholey existence.

"PSYCHE! PAN! RUN! RUN FOR YOUR...LIVES!"

Jimin wavered on his feet, motioning for the fiery redhead and the purple boy to flee. They were already running, running and screaming and splashing in the shallow water. In the distance, the sound of gunfire rattled the river's water, pushing up water droplets into the air. 

Using the limited amount of energy he had left, Jimin pivoted on his platform shoe and studied the tree line.

"Wh...ere...are...y-you...ass...hol...e..."

Before Jimin could find the culprit that shot the dart into his neck, he collapsed facedown into the slop of Avalon's River.

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izzizz thoughts

take care of yourself.

izz.