Over the period of the next few weeks several things happened.

1) The little one was named Throttle Thornboy.

2) Her fighting lessons had started.

The first lesson had been shooting a military issue gun that had belonged to Modo's father before he had died. The lession started easily enough, after all, all Throttle had to do was shoot at a target.

She'd hit it several times then got distracted by a sand lizard which had gotten too close and was now crawling up her leg. Then everything went straight to hell. Throttle let out a frightened scream and started shooting at the little lizard and by the time Modo had gotten the gun away from her they had both been near hysterical. She because of the lizard that had frightened her so.

And Modo because he had thought that they would both be done in by her random shooting.

Needless to say he refused to let her shoot his father's gun again. And when asked by his mother why, all Modo could do was look thoroughly terrified and mutter something about needing to go do some random chore that didn't really need to be done.

3) She had started to go to school with them.

And because Modo tended to worry about her, he'd made the habit of sticking abnormally close to her, she had been dubbed Modo's lady. Which had caused many a school yard scuffle between Modo, Vinny and others stupid enough to say such a suggestive thing to Modo's face.

4) And four, Throttle's after school lessons were going so well after a mere week that she could now out think (which wasn't all that hard if you observed the simple minded little tyke) and out manuever Vinny.

Modo clapped his hands together as soon as Throttle had Vinny down on the ground in a choke hold and smiled as she automatically let Vinny go and jumped back as he got to his feet growling in irritation. "Hey! How come I have to be the sparring partner for him?" Vinny asked in an irked tone. Already sick of being manhandled by a frigging girl.

The fact that said girl was his new sister/brother didn't make things any easier on him either. He kept getting confused. Was she a girl? A boy? A hermaphrodite? Modo and Mom had explained that Throttle was special, but that was about all he'd understood of their explanation about her-er him-er whatever.

Modo walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder, earning a glare from the pink eyed boy as he chuckled and said. "Because I can't train her. She needs someone her own size to work with and you just happen to be right for the job."

"Or maybe those dipsticks at school are right and she's your special lady." Vinny muttered and yelped as he suddenly felt his brother grab him by the shirt and toss him high into the air. Vinny landed on his back several feet away, gasping for breath as Modo called out in an overly chipper tone.

"Whoops. Sorry about that little man. Muscle spasm."

Vinny blinked his eyes several times and coughed as he rolled over onto his side, winching slightly at how much it hurt to move. Muscle spasm my furry butt. Vinny thought. As Modo turned his attention to Throttle and showed her a particularly vicious looking choke hold and then let her go and bent down to tell her that the hold was only to be used when she was in dire straits otherwise she would end up ripping someone's head off.

Once he was done he told Vinny in an authoritive tone to run into the house and grab the three of them some drinks since they had been at it for a while.

It was on the tip of Vinny's tongue to tell his older brother to go fuck himself but he was worried about what he'd do to him if he did. If he would actually throw him for muttering about the nature of his relationship with Throttle then there was no telling what Modo might do to him if he told him to go fuck himself.

Muttering under his breath about 'stupid brothers' and 'damned little sisters' Vinny slowly got to his feet and stuffed his small hands into his pants pockets and walked off before Modo could pick up a rock and chuck it at his head. Leaving the five foot three, twelve year old boy with their new sibling.

Modo waited until Vinny was gone before looking down at Throttle and gently laid a hand on one of her slender shoulders. "Don't pay any attention to him Throttle. He's just mad cause you can get the best of him-" Modo said softly as he shifted his hand from her shoulder to her mid back length hair which had been tied back at her nape for today's lessons. "I think that your doing rather well for someone with no basic grasp of hand to hand and other things."

Throttle looked up at him with an oddly blank expression and Modo wondered what she was thinking at that moment. She stared at him for several heartbeats then dropped her head and looked down at her feet and kicked at the ground a few times as his hand fell away from her.

It had been almost four weeks since she had come to this place and in that time she had started to assimilate and become one of the martian species.

Her face and ears and even her body had slowly begun to shape itself into something more mouse-like in form while she learned their culture, and lived among them. So far the military had left them alone. But she didn't think that would last long considering that her two siblings, Modo and Vinny were both very distinctive in both mind and appearance.

She doubted it would be much longer before the military came to the house looking for her.

A vivid image of blood red flames and bodies laying in various positions around her, flashed through her mind and she made a strained sound and dropped down to a squat and clutched her head.

The action didn't go unnoticed by Modo though he made no immediate move get close to her or ask her if she was okay. Whatever was bothering her was something that he couldn't help her with until she came to him specifically and asked for his help. But that didn't mean that he couldn't watch. And worry about her well being in the mean time.

"When Vinny comes back we'll take a small break then resume lessons." Modo said as he caught sight of Vinny comeing back towards them. Throttle's ears flattened back against her head a little as she slowly dropped her hands away from her head and stubbornly pushed the memory that she'd been recalling, aside somewhere in the back of her mind for closer examination later on, and slowly got back up.