Rating: Rated for M for adults, mostly to keep the prudes from freaking on me. No sex, just some mild swearing and shall we say, "controversial topics", discussed in later chapters. Oh yeah, and violence. There's a lot of that.
Disclaimer and…uh, Claimer I guess!
Anything you recognize, example the bros or Charley, belongs to whichever lucky devil owns the BMFM. Anything, place or personage that you don't recognize, for instance Arrow the Rat, it's a safe bet that I own it/there/them. With that said I would like to quote another famous rodent: "Everybody neat and pretty? Okay then, on with the show!"
The two women sat in silence for many moments, nether one wanting to break the spell of calm they had fought so hard to achieve. It had taken hours to get the guys to leave the Last Chance and return to the scoreboard for some well deserved rest.
Vinnie had to be practically dragged off by his bros, Throttle and Modo were excited to have their old friend back, but they had nothing on their youngest team member's enthusiasm. Which only confirmed what Charley always suspected, the torch Vinnie carried for her newsiest guest had only dwindled, never completely gone out.
"So," the blue eyed mechanic smiled, pushing away her jealously in the hopes of not making a bad situation worse. "I'll start supper. How about soup and tea? Something light, until your stomach recovers from that slop the Plutarkians have been giving you." she stood and gently squeezed the Martian woman's boney shoulder as she past her on the way to the utensil cupboard.
Harley smiled faintly from her place at the kitchen table, her eyes were blue too, and somehow still managed to sparkle a little despite her hardships. Even when Charley had first lade eyes on her; scrawny, her once long mane hacked short, covered in dirt and blood from the mistreatment she had suffered all those years, a person would have to be blind not to see the glimmer of beauty that still lay beneath.
'I never stood a chance with him.' Charlene realized and then mentally kicked herself for her momentary self pity.
"Sounds great. Wish I could help but I'm still kind of unsteady. I think I'll go lay down, is that okay with you?" the look she shot the other woman was so uncertain, tired and almost pleading. Any resentment or envy within the lovely mechanic quickly melted away as her strong protective instincts kicked in.
"Of course." Charley helped her to stand and escorted the golden furred mouse to the living room couch, resisting the urge to scoop up her thin guest and just carry her. The way Harley wobbled on her feet made Charley want to cry, and she hated herself for every negative feeling she had ever felt towards this, the "other woman". She partially gave in and looped an arm around Harley's waist, actually managing to make it look like a gesture of friendship so as not to wound the Martian woman's pride. Harley had smiled at her weakly and returned the gesture, seemingly oblivious to any thoughts of pity.
"After supper I'll help you upstairs and I'll sleep down here. I don't think you want to clamber up the latter in your condition just to come back down again in half an hour." Charley said as she introduced Harley to her well worn leather upholstered couch. She snagged a croustade blanket (that the boys would never find out she had made herself, least she have to pummel them into painful oblivion to stop the Susie-homemaker jokes) from off the recliner and gently draped it over the mousette's legs.
"Take your bed?" Harley blinked and shook her head "Oh no, I couldn't. Charlene, you've already done so much for me."
"Don't worry about it." She shrugged "The guys do it all the time, whenever they're hurt too badly to make it back to the field." she gently pushed Harley down and flashed her a smirk that would do Vinnie proud. "I insist. Now catch some Z's biker babe, I got a meal to fix."
*** *** *** ***
Harley sighed, closed her eyes and savored the feel of the soft pillows beneath her. Back on Mars, whenever she became over tired, she'd have a hard time falling to sleep. The Martian woman had no delusions that this time would be any different but she'd be damned if she was going to attempt moving anytime soon.
The day had started out like so many before it, with a rude but effective awakening supplied by the rats who the Plutarkians hired as cheep guards. Harley snarled at the thought of Arrow, the brunhilda of a brown and white marked female who ran cellblock S-3-85.
Tall and muscle-bound, covered in scars, piercing and tacky tattoos, Harley had mistaken Arrow for a male when she fist laid eyes on her. But then the rat had turned around and there was no doubt as to her gender.
"Double Dee's are a waste on something that ugly." a reddish furred male Martian, who was standing next to her at the time, had said. Harley couldn't help an amused snort at the memory.
After receiving her daily kick from Arrow, Harley had been corralled with the others into the cafeteria for a quick round of what pasted for breakfast. Which was followed by an even quicker dunking in the ice cold showers, given no time to dry off before throwing on their clothes again and rushing out into the shipping bay. She had forced herself to stare forward. If an individual didn't get dressed fast enough, they were made to work naked for the entire day, and why worsen their humiliation by gawking? She figured.
Role call went by without anyone playing hero for once, a fact she was grateful for. On any given morning a single inmate might decide it was worth attempting a spontaneous and fatal bout for freedom, and on worse days entire groups of mice would end up dead after their improvised weapons proved unworthy of the task set to them.
Then came the worst part of the day, the part she couldn't stand to the point where she literally had to bite her fists to keep from protesting and ending up dead herself. The time when the new inmates came in.
This time was different however. For the first time since all five hundred and six of them had been secretly shipped to Earth, to aid in Lawrence Limburger's excavation of the beautiful planet's resources, some of the new slaves weren't mice. Hell, they weren't even Martian.
Harley had seen a human before, sometimes their Television broadcasts would somehow end up interrupting Martian transmissions back when she was a small child. She remembered how her father swore because the big race, her mother was participating in on the other side of the planet, was interrupted by a show called "She-Ra: Princess of Power".
Personally she had enjoyed the program but hadn't dared mention that to her relatives at the time, and certainly she never dreamed she would one day end up in a great rebellion of her own.
But this was the first time Harley had seen a human in person. To be brutally honest, her first reaction was a mixture of pity and revulsion. Their skin was as exposed as newborns, no fur at all! Teeth and claws totally blunt and worthless, and such small ears. How could they hear anything?
No wonder they were always hollering at each other during the Television programs, they had to be nearly deaf. And possibly worse of all, no tail. How they managed to stay standing, without a tail for balance, baffled Harley especially in the case of the females who were all front with no counter balance.
They were shivering far more visibly than their Martian counterparts, causing the lovely medic to subconsciously stroke the fur on her own arms. Arrow bumped into her on purpose, as she waded through the crowd towards the newbies, chuckling at the way Harley could do nothing more than glare at her helplessly.
Slowly the obscenely large she-rat stalked the line of new arrivals, looking each individual up and down with meticulous care. Harley noticed a young woman trying to shove a male child behind her, a little ways down from Arrow's current location, and prayed that she had been the only one to catch the sudden movement.
That prayer went unheeded by every deity in the Martians impressive pantheon, maybe they were hard of hearing too. 'That would explain a lot.' Harley growled to herself.
Arrow's claws shot out as swift and true as her namesake and snagged the fair haired child by his shirt collar causing the toddler to squeal with fear and make a useless attempt to cling to his caretaker. The female human practically tried to climb over Arrow to get to her charge, pleading shamelessly the entire time, the rats just laughed all the more.
There was a burly, handsome male with light brown hair standing within arms reach of the spectacle. Harley stood on her tip-toes and spotted a tattoo on his bicep. It was the image of some sort of large bird of prey perched atop a globe with an anchor incorporated into it. Just barely old enough to recall when Mars had oceans, the golden furred mousette remembered that anchors often symbolized the strength and stability of individuals involved in the nautical armed forces. His demeanor was calm, almost serene, and Harley knew what was going to happen next. The man was the same as Stoker, a warrior born and trained. This was the calm before the sudden eruption into action.
Sure as the sunrise the man couldn't help himself. He lunged at the she-rat in an effort to pry the boy free and despite performing various impressive offensive maneuvers, sheer strength won out. Though in his defense, it was widely known that Arrow cheated by using steroids. The human soldier received a broken jaw from Arrow's kick and before he could retaliate five grown male rats laid into him with strikes from weapons known as Black Jacks and common brass knuckles. If the soldier could have looked into his immediate future, he would have counted himself lucky that's all they were doing to him. He was in for worse.
Arrow waited patiently as the males had their fun. She looked like a proud mother as she witnessed the out and out massacre. When the males stepped back, painting from excursion and smiling like idiots, Arrow leaned down and gripped the man by his belt. she unceremoniously dragged him along with the crying child still securely in her grasp.
This would work into the Plutarkians agenda perfectly, nothing demoralized newbies' more than witnessing the slaughter of a child and a would-be-hero. It got the message across hard and fast, and the message was this:
Don't bother, trying not to give us reason to kill you. We don't need a reason anyhow.
What happen next was unspeakable. It turned out that the Plutarkians had a distant relative, of sorts, who was native to the warmer climates of Earth. The humans called them Piranha and properly starved the vicious beasts could strip the flesh off a grown Martian in less then three minutes.
Harley plugged her ears and hummed a lullaby her mother used to sing to her back when the universe was still sane. It did little to drown out the child's final yelp of terror as Arrow flung him into the frothing tank or the man's resigned grown as he gave in to cruel reality. The remaining humans had gasped on mass but still possessed enough good sense not to shout or act upon their anger. Apparently humans learned quickly.
Searching the receding crowd, as the Earthlings were herded away to be collared and processed, Harley spotted the woman who had tried to save the child. She actually couldn't be called a woman, not yet anyway. Now that the ex-medic had time to really look at her the human female appeared to be just a child herself, barely into her teens with a petite frame and a long sheet of jet black hair.
Her large hazel eyes were staring blankly at the crimson tank. He mouth worked up and down but no sounds came out, it was as though her mind couldn't comprehend what had just transpired. Then suddenly, horror gripped her features, her tiny body seemed to collapse in on itself and she fell to her knees, repeating a name at the top of her lungs over and over again between her sobs.
"Toby! Toby!"
'She's lost it.' Harley realized 'After everything she's been through, being kidnapped, finding out that other species exist, that her planet is doomed, this must have been the final straw.' That meant only one thing. Harley swallow hard, even though her mouth was completely dry.
Crazy people made lousy slaves and even worse servants, the Plutarkians had no use for dead weight and had left specific instructions as to the proper disposal procedure. Harley's work detail was slowly being marched towards their transport unit and for once she wished they were doing double-time. At this rate they'd never get on the ship in time to avoid it, she was going to witness her third murder of the day. Despite her promise to herself, Harley still flinched as the shot rung out across the shipping bay and echoed several times.
"Damn it Scavenger!" Arrow bitched loudly with her hands balled into fists on her hips. She had a remarkably feminine voice and it always was a shock to the senses to hear it. The sound simply did not go with her appearance at all. "How many times do I gotta tell ya, ya flippin' genius. Take the scum outside BEFORE you off them." the chocolate and vanilla furred rodent turned abruptly and snarled over her shoulder as she made to leave, "You do realize that you're gonna be the one to clean that up, right?"
That's when salvation came ridding in on three of the most beautiful bikes Harley ever had the privilege to be associated with. As usual the trio of Freedom Fighters( plus one ridding behind Vinnie, surprisingly enough) made their own entrance by blasting through a solid steel wall. Confusion erupted around her as the Rats broke out of their shock and grabbed any weapon within arms reach. Some even grabbed hostages to use as shields.
Harley was already half way up the ramp, no closer to the ship than she was to the ground, and a huge black furred rat with red eyes and a ragged right ear was roughly shoving whoever he could onto the transport. Her body made the decision for her before her mind could protest. Mustering strength she had no clue still dwelled within her, the golden furred mousette coiled her leg muscles and leapt to the cement floor.
Harley's landing was hard and completely without grace but that didn't matter. She had to get up! This was the closest to freedom she had been in… 'Sweet Mars, I've lost track of time. I have no idea how long I've been away. Will they even recognize me?'
A loud thud sounded just behind her and Harley turned, reluctantly, for fear of what might meet her blue gaze. Sure enough, it was the mammoth black rat, grinning with the usual evil intent only this individual had the added charm of drooling.
'Not now! I can't die now, I'm so close, I survived so much damn it!' Suddenly, all the pent up frustration and anger came boiling to the surface. Harley had never believed her patience when they spoke of out of body experiences in the past, she had simply pretended to believe them and keep her thoughts on the subject to herself the way a good healer should, but at that moment when fury gripped her so completely… she became a believer.
Upon reflection, Harley could say that the experience was best described as the true Harley simply stepping aside and a superhero had taken control of the handlebars. So great was her desperate need to live, that the once gentle medic all but physically transformed into a Martian Amazon. She was aware of herself using her medical training to more effectively harm her opponent, she knew just where to strike to best break bones, the location of pressure points best left alone, and the whereabouts of vital organs deep within their fleshy fortification.
As one enemy fell, another streaked in to take his place. One after another, rats succumbed to the result of the bassist of all instincts, the will to survive. As Harley fought she was unaware of her own heaving chest and burning lungs. She simply focused her efforts on reaching whichever of the three all too familiar individuals was closest to her at any given moment.
It all seemed like some endless nightmare, opponent after opponent, with no end in sight until finally, a gentle hand covered in gray fur stilled her beating fists. Slowly she turned to face this unexpected arrival and was rewarded when a familiar voice said in a bewildered tone,
"Oh Mama, you got to be kidding me… Harley? Girl, is that…"
"Modo?" she had squeaked and suddenly felt very dizzy. Luckily, the much taller Martian was kind enough to help her to stand and continued to support her as he shouted over to his bros to come see who he had found. Apparently the battle had ended while Harley was still hypnotized by her own rage.
Vinnie had started in on her almost immediately, once he realized who she was. He let out one of those wild whoops of his and pumped his fist in the air just like she remembered seeing him do a million times before. Next thing she knew he was already off his bike, he actually let Sweetheart fall over! She remembered hearing the bike growling it's engine in shock and the shout of surprise that must have been Charlene also tumbling to the ground.
In the blink of an eye the white mouse was across the death camp's docking bay, hugging her in such a manner that she'd swear he was going to break her remaining good ribs. That was, until Charlene had caught up to him and smacked him on the back of his helmet.
Harley smiled to herself. 'I like this person.' she had thought at the time and was now glad to find, having gotten to know Charlene a little better in a scant few hours, that it was true.
Modo's reaction was the exact opposite of his bro's. As always he conducted himself as a gentle mouse, calm and soft spoken. He had checked her out to make sure Vinnie hadn't harmed her in his excitement and the lovely mousette was proud to see the gray giant remembered all the first aid she had taught him.
As her mind drifted back to the present Harley remembered that she was still dieing to ask Modo about his family. His famous Mama, his sister and her twins, especially Rimfire. Rimfire's developing crush was just one more irritant that the war had thrown her way but all things considered she still loved the kid, in a big sister sort of way, and she wanted to know he was alright.
'I'll ask Modo later. Don't think ether of us could take it right now, if the answer was a worse case scenario. Besides, I don't know how to work a human communiqué device.' she frowned in sudden realization 'Or what one even looks like, for that matter.'
Somewhere in her exhaustion she filed away the image of Modo helping Charlene onto Lil' Hoss as they got ready to return home. Where they dating or was the big fellah just being nice? Seeing's how Vinnie took it upon himself to give Harley Charlene's place on his bike, the latter was more likely. She hoped Charlene wasn't mad. Okay, to be more specific, she hoped the mechanic wasn't mad at her. After all, Vinnie was the one who broke the 'Bros before Hos' rule.
'Not that Charlene would be any happier being called a bro as I would being referred to as a ho.' Harley chuckled to herself and made a mental note not to do that again. Her ribs didn't like it.
When Throttle had first seen her he had smiled at like he was pleased but wasn't sure if he should believe his eyes or not. Given his optical status, maybe he couldn't. 'When I'm back to at least sixty-percent I'll give the guys a physical. We'll see if life on Earth has done any subtle damage they may not have noticed yet.' a muscle spasm in her back, near where her tail joined her body, made her violently arch her body and hiss in a gasp through her teeth. 'Okay, at least eighty-percent.'
Charlene came running into the room, still holding a wooden spoon which dripped a delicious smelling liquid on the floor, as she rushed to her guest's side.
Harley marveled at the thought of a planet which still had the luxury of using wood for such common household items. How long had it been since the last trees on Mars had been strategically hidden in the secret garden? She lazily glanced around the room, noting that several pieces of furniture were also wooden, and were those books on that shelf? Oh how she missed reading out of a real book instead of a glowing screen. Maybe Charlene would teach her to read human, lend her a few tomes… but no. she couldn't ask, not after everything else her fellow woman had already done for her, and was planning to continue doing until she was better, and Mars only knew how long that would take.
"Harley? Harley! Can you hear me? Oh come on lady, don't do this to me, they can't lose you after just getting you back."
Charlene sounded deeply concerned for some reason, then Harley realized that she had let her overtired mind wander for so long she had ignored her host's inquiries about her health.
"I'm okay, sorry to have worried you like that." or at least that's what she had tried to say. It came out more like, "…kay…rry…orri….hat." then everything went black.
End of Chapter One
Author's Notes: Couple of hidden tidbits I wanted to share, some you may have guessed already and others you have no way of knowing (I hope).
1) Harley's cell block code is actually my birth date. S-3-85, S meaning September. It was ether that or I could've gone with the date Godzilla was invented. For some reason those are the first things to come to mind whenever I need a sequence of numbers and/or letters.
2) For those of you too young to remember She-Ra: Princess of Power, it's a real cartoon. Go look it up, you won't regret it, she's every bit as cool as her twin brother He-man. (How's that for a shameless plug? Eat your heart out Jay Leno.)
3) This isn't a hidden treasure so-to-speak, I just wasn't sure if I was clear enough, the man who tries to save the child is supposed to be a Marine. I decided to make him a member of the Corps with all due respect intended. My cousin Michael is an ex-marine but I'll admit it, my love for the Marine Corps definitely began when I got hooked on NCIS. Agent Gibbs is one hot Grandpa… He makes me think of a human version of Stoker.
4) I got to the part where I needed to describe the human girl and her little brother and I thought, "Damn. Now I gotta name the kid."
For reasons that escape even me, I heard Jennifer Connelly's voice shouting "Toby!" like she did in the movie Labyrinth, in my head.
"Okay," I said to myself "His name's Toby and they bear a creepy resemblance to the kids from Labyrinth. May Jim Henson's ghost forgive me."
That's all for now, see you in chapter two!
