I have wanted to do this one from the moment I decided to start this little series, although it took me a while to decide exactly what I was going to do with it. I knew the starting point, but not the end, but now having written it I realise there really was only one way to go. In the original episode this moment is, I feel, the closest we ever see the mice come to facing their own mortality. Whether or not you agree, this is my take on it.

I suppose I should once again declare I do not own these lovely furry mice, as sad as that may make me.

And to all of you who love them as much as I, and to all of you fantastic writers bringing them to life, I hope you are enjoying my stories as much as I enjoy yours.

Alternative Endings: When things go horribly wrong

7. Lake Michi-gone

Until this point he had been almost certain everything would be ok. It hadn't mattered that they were under nearly 20 feet of the murky lake water. They nearly always managed to figure a way out of a tight jam like this... and if they didn't then they normally had only to wait a while and help would come. Usually in the form of one particular female mechanic.

It had even not occurred to him that today there would be a problem. Everything about a Martian biker's kit was designed to handle just about anything life and enemies could throw at them. Being under water was no exception. Their laser pistols were able to function even when submerged, as were their bikes. Well, just the rockets anyway, and for a short burst only. Combustion needs oxygen, but one quirk in the bike's design accommodated a small air pocket in the fuel chamber. Just enough to ignite the jets, but not much more. Another handy air space happened to reside in the most important piece of their motor-biking accessories. Martian bike helmets came equipped with their own air supply, allowing brief periods of high altitude, deep space, or even underwater combat.

So as far as he was concerned, it was a good thing that today they each had their helmets on and the visors drawn over. It was quite unusual for that idiot henchman of Limburger's to actually be able to fire a cannon without some sort of mishap... let alone aim it well enough to hit its target. That anchor-weighted chain within the barrel had ricocheted perfectly off the large rock opposite, winding back around the three bikers in its path. It really was a lucky shot. For Greasepit, anyway.

The anchor had pulled the unsuspecting mice and their motorcycles downwards, until they were completely submerged in the cool, dark water. It wasn't long before they came to a rest at the bottom. They hadn't gone too deep, but with their arms pinned and their engines stalled, the three of them had drifted helplessly to the silty bed, and sat there wondering what to do about it.

The grey mouse hadn't worried. Despite the predicament, the leader of their trio reminded them that they at least had time to think.

"No need to panic bros, Martian bike helmets are loaded with sweet factory-fresh air." The tan-furred mouse beside him was just stating the obvious; all three had used their helmets in space plenty of times before. But as leader of the group it was his responsibility to keep a clear head and think things through. And Modo was thankful for it. Whilst well endowed with size and strength, he lacked the skill his younger bro had to think clearly under pressure.

The grey mouse shifted on his seat, but there was no way he could free himself nor reach the button for his jets. "Ungh, my arm cannon's pinned, can't...reach..."

"Easy big fella, don't hurt yourself. We got time, let me think..." Throttle appeared to be on the verge of coming up with an idea.

The third of the sunken mice for once had nothing to say, and concentrated his efforts on trying to wriggle free of their bindings. Modo eyed that white-furred mouse on his other side with wonder. The energy the smallest of his friends had seemed to never end, but he doubted that the frantic struggles would really do him any good. "Bro you're going to run out of air if you carry on like that..."

Vinnie pulled a tongue at him, and completely ignored the older mouse's warning. "How much time you think we got Throttle? Enough for Charley-girl to find us?"

"Hopefully we won't need her... we just have to..."

Whatever his tan-furred bro was about to suggest was lost in a cloud of bubbles and gargled surprise.

"What the-?"

Now was the point when he knew things were not going to be ok. Someone had just pressed the side of his helmet, and the protective visor shielding his face from the hostile environment outside had vanished. His two bros had received the same treatment, and from what he could make out they had barely had chance to take a breath first.

Their Martian eyes were not well-adapted for underwater vision, nor was his bionic replacement, but Modo could also distinguish a large shape standing in front of them. A man-shaped form, clothed in purple.

Limburger..! But how...?

"Ah yes... I thought so." Not only could the odious oppressor breathe down here, but he could talk too.

"Don't look so surprised, rodents, I am after all a Plutarkian, a fish that is - when it suits me anyway." The scaly villain grinned with pleasant satisfaction. He had long suspected those helmets had more to them than ordinary models... and now he had just proven his suspicions right. "You three misguided mammals however... Did anyone even bother to teach you how to swim? I do believe such lessons would be a real scarcity on that desert rock you call home."

With a gleeful glance at the imperilled threesome trapped on the lake bed, the pisciform alien pulled off his human mask, revealing several rows of beating gills. "Can't beat evolution, my dear doomed dormice... now kindly sit here long enough to die, and leave me free to get on with being a criminal mastermind."

It turned out that Plutarkians were also excellent swimmers... probably because they had vast quantities of stolen water to practice in.

Modo watched the foul-smelling flounder as he glided away through the depths (quite gracefully too, considering how obese he had become), before turning to his two friends. Their cheeks were full of the last breath they had taken, but it didn't seem like they would be able to hold it much longer.

Have to get out of here... have to save my bros...

Despite the larger capacity of his lungs, the grey mouse was starting to struggle for oxygen. His attempts to free himself were draining the precious gas from his blood stream, replacing it with the carbon dioxide he so desperately needed to expel. He allowed a few bubbles to escape his nose and mouth, but the urge to blow it all out and take in a deep gasp was almost overwhelming.

Bros... hold on... just hold on a little longer...

He could see the two smaller-lunged mice were fading fast. Bubbles were rising from their own mouths as they failed to contain the gases within them. Both looked confused... scared... they had no concept of what it meant to drown. Neither of them had been alive before most of the larger lakes and ponds on Mars had been drained. And Limburger was right to assume they had never learned to swim. Not even in all the time spent on this planet, this blue planet, where two thirds of the surface is covered by water... and they had never admitted to their human friend they had no idea what to do in it.

Modo had heard somewhere that this was the most peaceful way to die. That it wasn't painful... that you could see your whole life flash before you, before your brain finally ran out of that one vital molecule and your lungs bathed in the suffocating liquid. The irony was that there was plenty of oxygen in the water... just no way for them to access it. It was the one ability the Plutarkians had that the mouse even remotely envied.

No... no... bros hang on... I'll get us out... hang on...

He couldn't even see them anymore. His head was fuzzy, his vision clouded. The vessels in his temple throbbed as his heart pounded away, fighting to draw more oxygen from the depleted, sac-filled organs in his chest. His brain was sending urgent signals to his ribs, begging them to contract, pestering them for life.

Oh Moma... I never thought you would live to see your son die like this.

Would anyone even find them down here in the muddy depths? Would Charley arrive in the nick of time and pull them free, or had something... or someone... prevented her discovery of them?

It's too late... can't hold any more...

The erupting effervescence from the mouse was so forceful it reached the surface of the lake in a boiling froth. His exhausted ribcage could do nothing to prevent the incoming tide flowing beneath as it finally relaxed, and for a brief moment Modo was dimly aware of the freezing chill numbing him from within.

I'm sorry bros... i'm so sorry...

Blackness replaced the flash of images in his mind; his last thoughts being for the ones he loved, the ones he lost... and the ones he was now leaving behind.

Is someone there..? Wait... wait! I can't see you..!

The whispers were louder, but he still couldn't find the source. He was on Mars, and the red desert sands were pressing through his clawed toes; their soft grains cascading over his velvet digits and collecting underneath their fleshy pads... It felt so good... so real... the memory was so real... Was it a memory?

More whispers... calling to him. Someone was calling his name.

Where are you..? Wait for me, don't go!

He was running in the lifeless wasteland, trying to reach the ones who beckoned him with their voices. Every time he thought he found them there was only emptiness... and the only foot prints in the rusty substrate were his own.

Where were his clothes? It was cold in the Martian deserts... they wouldn't leave him out there naked, surely?

Bros... is that you?

The light was fading again, taking the whispers away with the setting sun, leaving him once again in the cold and dark...

Lub-dup.

The freezing chill invading him, the oppressive enclosing silence...

A soft double-beat...

His friends, he couldn't see them anymore... Bros...where are you..? Don't leave me here alone...

Followed by a steady note...a stream of notes...

A bright light burning through the dark, a single point. Is this it..? Is this...?

"Modo... Modo can you hear me?"

That sound... he recognised that sound... and that voice...

The light eclipsed his pupil once again. It contracted smoothly in response, a reflex, an encouraging sign.

"It's ok Modo... you're ok, you're all ok..."

That soothing, feminine voice. He could feel something touching him... a cold palm gripping his flesh hand. He squeezed back. She grasped him harder.

The beeping was clearer now. Every tinny tone matched the rhythm of his pulse. Steady, continuous... Alive. He tried to lift himself, but felt as if his body were infused with molten lead. He could detect the sharp metal of the canula in his wrist; the plastic tubing in his mouth. In his throat, helping him to breathe. Breathing for him whilst his flooded lungs rested from their struggle. Another sensation; the catheter in his lower parts, relieving him of his needs. It didn't hurt. But something else did.

The memory came back to him in a rush of images and emotions. The mouse strained against the tubes and wires, frantically searching, desperately hoping...

"It's alright Modo, they're here... they're ok... you're all ok now."

Charley's gentle fingers guided his face to his left. Beside him were the prone forms of his two bros, each adorned with the same myriad of life-saving equipment as he. Their monitors joined the chorus of quiet blips indicating they too were alive, that somehow they had also made it from the lake. But how... we were drowned... we were... dead?

His body was telling him to rest now. His single garnet eye was closing, shutting out the bright light of the make-shift intensive care ward; whilst his ears muffled out the beeping of the heart monitors, and the clicking of the life support machines. Charley's face swam in a haze, and then her voice dimmed... becoming once more just a whisper in the darkness.

"I can't believe it's gone. It's really gone." Modo stood at the shore of the lake, bewildered by the sight before him. His two bros huddled at his side were equally taken aback. There was no lake anymore. There was no water... just a deep ravine filled with silt and mounds of rubbish, and other such things that had come to rest on the stagnant bed. Dead fish and other marooned aquatic life were starting to rot, and the smell from all this waste, all this death, was as nauseating as the reality of what had happened.

Whatever Limburger had wanted that much water for they couldn't imagine. All Plutarkians were driven by the desire to steal whatever they had already wasted of their own resources. A haul of this scale though was beyond the understanding of the three mice. The loathsome fish had taken most of Mars' water before they were even born.

"The sick thing is, bros, if he hadn't taken it... we wouldn't be standing here right now." Throttle hugged his jacket closer to his tan-furred body. This was the first time Charley had let them out for some fresh air, and his body hadn't made the adjustment just yet. But it wasn't just the cold that made him wish for comfort; it was the terrible price of Limburger's greed, and the sinking realisation that that greed had eventually saved their lives.

"I bet old blubber lips didn't think of that when he drained the lake... can't wait to see his face when we show up to kick his butt." The white mouse gestured rudely in the vague direction of the fish's tower. Vinnie would have already had it burned to the ground if it wasn't for the auburn-haired woman insisting they needed to rest. Not that he had minded all that much. He had always fancied a game of 'doctors and nurses' with the lady mechanic. Besides she had been there to pull them from the brink of death, and he owed her some respect for that in the very least.

The three mice stood there for a while longer, contemplating. The chill wind forced them closer together, and the shared feeling of loss and guilt allowed them to seek the warmth from each other without embarrassment. The gentle grey mouse wrapped his long arms around his two smaller bros, drawing them in close, permitting them a brief moment to grieve with him. Something had died on the lake bed that day, and whilst it may not have been him and his two friends, ultimately there was an overwhelming sadness inside them. For knowing that they had lived. And that they had failed.