The dust storm hit hard.

Immediately upon entering it, the car was jerked to the left.

"Keep it steady!" Jet Star yelled, grabbing hold of the passenger door and the side of his seat.

"I'm trying!" Fun Ghoul yelled, visibly fighting the wheel to try and get the vehicle back on course.

Gerard slid in his seat, ending up against the door. He angeled himself so that his back was against the corner where the door and backseat connected. He gripped the headrest of Fun Ghoul's seat while patting around the top of the backseat to find a place for his hand to latch onto.

Through the storm behind the car, Gerard could see the other cars struggling. They fought to keep a semi-straight path, but the wind was beating them off course.

"We have to turn back!" Jet Star yelled, "We can't make it through this!"

"No!"

Gerard was surprised by his voice. Part of him agreed with Jet Star, but a bigger part of him felt defiant to walk away from what they had started. He gulped as Jet Star shot him a fearful look.

"We can break through." He somehow continued with a steady tone, "Fun Ghoul, punch the gas pedal!"

"What the hell do you think I've been doing!?" Fun Ghoul yelled as he leaned closer to the steering wheel.

Gerard met Jet Star's gaze. "How thick do you think this storm is?"

"What?"

"How thick?" Gerard repeated, "It's the barrier around Battery City. How long do we have to fight it?"

The car lurched to the side, sending Rebel sliding across the seat. Gerard caught her in his arm, holding her unconscious frame tightly. The wind was getting stronger.

"I don't know!" Jet Star exclaimed. He looked out every window in panic. "No one ever comes through here! Or, if they do, they never come back!"

"Korse makes it through." Gerard countered, feeling a sly grin form on his face, "We can too."

Rebel gasped against Gerard's chest. She pushed herself upright, locking her wide eyes with Gerard's. "Where am I?"

"Car in the middle of a storm, sweetheart, keep up!" Fun Ghoul yelled from the front.

Rebel kept her eyes locked with Gerard's. "What are you up to, Party?" She whispered so softly that it was almost hard to hear her through the storm.

"Why were you out in the desert?" He countered, finding himself unable to break the hold her eyes had on his own. Rebel's eyes were a different color than Lyn-Z's eyes. They were a lighter shade of... What color were Lyn-Z's eyes?

"Does it matter?" She asked.

Before Gerard could comment, the wind violently struck the car. Rebel fell on top of Gerard as Fun Ghoul swore loudly at the wheel.

"I don't know how much longer the car can take this, Party!"

"Sir," Jet Star turned fearfully to face Gerard again, "We need to turn back!"

"We can't!" Gerard yelled, "We need to get into Battery City!"

"Battery City!?" Rebel shot upright. Her eyes were wide with curiosity rather than fear. "What business does a Killjoy have there?"

"Answers." Gerard said, sternly. He was growing tired of everyone's questions. He was tired of the storm. He was tired of being in this fictional hellscape he had created.

He wanted to be home. He wanted to go back to hanging out with Ryan and everyone else after school. He wanted to be back in the grassy quad on campus, listening to Frank absentmindedly plucking at his guitar strings while Gerard drew, or Dallon started singing, or Lyn-Z would bring bubbles out of nowhere...

Days that were already numbered with graduation coming. If he could ever get out of this world to see his graduation.

He tried to picture the scene from just a day before Brendon's party. The way everyone sat in the sand... How Silent carefully wrapped a wound on Gasoline Threat's hand and Ghosted fiddled with her hearing aid...

Wait. No.

Gerard shut his eyes. That wasn't right. That wasn't a real memory. They didn't have sand at school. Not before the Killjoys formed... NO! There never was sand...

Gerard cried out as a sharp pain shot through the size of his head.

"Party?" A delicate touch pressed against his cheek. It felt soothing... Until Rebel added in a whisper, "Battery City isn't better living."

Gerard forced his eyes open. Rebel was right in front of him, but something was off. The way she looked at him was strange. Her eyes were far away and her body seemed frozen. It was as if the message she spoke wasn't her own.

Gerard shook his head. "I don't want better living." He spoke through his teeth, ignoring the shouting coming from the front seat. His message was directed at Rebel, or whoever was speaking through her. "I want to go home."

"HOLD ON!"

There was no time to react between Fun Ghoul's warning and the gust of wind that sucker punched the car next. Gerard was sent flying forward into Rebel as the car was flipped. It was hard to tell how many times it went, or how far it went until it stopped but, the next thing Gerard knew, he was staring up at a dark gray sky.

Gerard blinked a few times, trying to register what had just happened. They were in the storm. They were rolling. Now... He patted the ground beneath him, feeling something fairly solid with dustings of what was probably sand on top of it. A road?

Slowly, Gerard moved to push himself up from the ground. His body wasn't sore. He didn't feel like he had been in an accident... Though he wasn't sure what that would feel like. He'd never been in a real accident beyond a fender bender during his first driving test.

Once he was sitting upright, he felt something trickle down the sides of his face. He lifted his hand to swipe whatever it was away, but he stopped himself. In the direction he was facing, three cars were positioned in the sand. The first car had its wheels up in the air. The second car rested on its side with huge, spider-webbed cracks invading the windshield. The last car was totaled, looking faintly like the car Fun Ghoul had been driving just before the storm blew them away. It was dented and crushed in too many places to count.

Gerard blinked at the vehicles. One. Two. Three.

Three cars, but no passengers in the sand. Gerard turned his head to the side. The storm was gone. He was going to turn back towards the vehicles, but something behind him caught his eye. Tall silhouettes.

He turned further to be greeted by tall, dark buildings. They varried from industrial to office-like. They stick out of the ground as if they had grown into place rather than been constructed. The road Gerard was on made a straight path into the scene ahead. The sand was ending, giving way to the cement that surrounded the tall structures ahead. They were almost cartoonish in a way... It took a moment for Gerard to realize why.

This city. This was his city. Battery City.

They had made it.

Battery City, and whatever Better Living had in store was dead ahead.