Disclaimer: I don't own anything but Blade and Angel

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but Blade and Angel. Nope, nothin, nada, zip.

Setting: The Last Chance Garage

Rated: Pg13/R

By Jcdracon

Copyright Jcdracon 2001 All Rights Reserved

The Blade and Angel Saga: Chapter two

Inside the Last Chance Garage two female forms sat, waiting tensely as they drank coffee and spoke in hushed tones.

"We shouldn't have left." The human woman said, " What if something happened to them?"

The young female mouse across from her glanced up from her steaming mug and smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, B wont let anything bad happen to them."

"Did you see how many goons Limburger had there?" The red hared woman demanded, raking her fingers through her hair in aggravation.

"Blade can handle it," The young mouse said, her unusual blue eyes shinning with hero worship, "Blade can handle anything."

Charley turned and studied her companion. She was quite young only about eighteen or nineteen and small by mouse standards, about 5'3. With a slender, petite body that was covered in soft dove/gray fur. She had a single pair of silver studs in her ears rather than the multiple piercings most mice sported and a silver heart pendant around her neck. Her hair was the palest of golds and seemed to glow like a halo in the bright lights of the kitchen, adding to the air of innocence projected by wide eyes the color of a summer's sky. She truly suited her name, Angel.

Which made Charley incredibly curios about her friendship and loyalty to the other mouse Blade. The two seemed so different; Blade had seemed cold and detached while Angel was warm and concerned. She thought Blade had been dressed in dark shadowy colors while Angel was dressed in a pair of light blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a leather vest and boots in a light brown color.

She wished the guys would get back soon. Closing her eyes she silently prayed that Angel's faith in this Blade person wasn't misplaced.

A gentle hand settled on her arm, startling her. "Don't worry, Blade said she'd protect them. She's good at that."

Human and mouse smiled at each other and settled back to wait.

Later that night:

Charley rushed to open the garage door at the sound of four motorcycles roaring down the street, screeching to a halt inside.

She took one look at Throttle's riderless bike and the limp form slumped against Modo before taking charge. Motioning for the big mouse to carry their injured friend to the sofa so she could take care of him.

Meanwhile Angel's attention was centered fully on the tall dark female rider. Who parked her black and green bike beside the younger mouse's silver and pale blue one and dismounted. She gasped and turned even paler as her friend's leather jacket gaped open, revealing the large, dark bloodstains covering the green shirt underneath.

Blade removed her helmet and noticing her companion's reaction arched an eyebrow and said "Don't worry, its not my blood." Before stepping passed her to check on the injured mouse.

"How is he?"

Charley looked up and replied in a worried voice, "The shot didn't hit anything vital but he's lost a lot of blood."

Blade nodded slightly and knelt beside the human woman to help causing Charley to ask "Are you sure? It's not pretty."

Not bothering to look up the Martian simply replied "I've seen worse." Before going to work.

It was early mourning when Throttle finally came around, his weak groan alerting everyone to his return to consciousness. " Ugh, what hit me?"

"Karbunckle's latest creation, how do you feel?" Charley asked.

"Well enough to get some answers." He said staring at the two female mice.

They glanced at each other before Blade stepped forward and said "It's a long story, I suggest we all sit down."

Sitting in a circle Charley and the mice settled in to listen while Blade appeared to gather her thoughts, giving Throttle a moment to study her. She seemed perfectly composed even with them all staring at her, cold expressionless mask in place, an ice queen. She seemed to be the exact opposite of Angel who's every thought and emotion showed up on her face. The differences went even farther than that he thought as he took in her physical characteristics as well.

She was tall, 5'9 at least and while Angel was slender, Blade was absolutely gaunt, just sleek muscle and bone. Her eyes were hallowed out and he was willing to bet that under her bloody shirt you would be able to see every rib outlined. While Angel was pretty in a conventional way Blade had striking features that had the potential of becoming exotically beautiful. Her fur was a dark red/brown color and her hair was black as a plutarcian's nonexistent heart. It was tightly pulled back in a braid that reached her waist instead of loose and just below shoulder length like her friend's. And while the paler mouse had soft, trusting blue eyes, her intelligent green eyes were as hard and cold as the emeralds they resembled. In her ears two pairs of gold studs gleamed, a single gold hoop hung in the cuff of her left ear.

Even their clothing and bikes seemed to clash, while Angel wore light colors and clothing that seemed almost new Blade was dressed almost entirely in black, from the bandana at her throat and her worn, faded jeans to her leather jacket and boots. The only color was her green shirt, the green trim on her jacket and the brown fingerless glove on her right hand. Her jeans were faded and both knees were blown out. Angel's bike was similar to his only smaller and more delicate, Blade's was as sleeker version of Vinnie's. All in all it was difficult to picture them in the same room together, let alone as the friends they seemed to be.

Blade exhaled slowly, and her mouth turned up in an almost smile. " Sorry, I'm not quite sure where to begin."

"The beginning's usually a good place." Vinnie smirked.

"The beginning huh." She said. " I guess it started six years ago, six years, it seems like a life time ago. It was right before the plutarians first officially started their invasion of mars and the plutarcian scientists figured they'd take some test subjects for experiments."

"What kind of experiments?"

"New weaponry, torture techniques, viruses and diseases, they wanted us wiped out and weren't afraid of using biological warfare to do it. Or in my and Angel's cases testing a formula that would act as a bioinhancer."

"Bioinhancer?"

"Yeah, basically it soups up your whole genetic structure, makes you faster, stronger, improves your senses and increases your learning and memorization capabilities. The queen mother of all steroids."

"But why would they want to make something that improves mice?" Charley asked, confused.

"Once they had gotten it to work on mice they figured they could adapt it to work on their own people. We were kept so doped up it would have been easy to get rid of us once they had it perfected."

"There's one thing I don't get, Ma'am." Modo mentioned. "You couldn't have been much older than kids. How come no one noticed when you disapeared?" Mice were very protective of their young.

"Ah, that was the beauty of it." She said. "We were all street kids, we all were either orphans or had families who wouldn't give a rat's tail if we dropped off the face of mars. Who was gonna notice sixteen less street kids in a place like Garnet City?"

"Sixteen, but what… what happened to the others?" Charley asked hesitantly.

"Death." If her voice had been cool before it was absolutely frigid now, but her eyes seemed to burn with green flames.

No one said anything for awhile. Throttle then broke the silence. "How did you escape?"

"A human, Dr. Robin Summers came to work for Limburger. She didn't know what she was working on, just that she'd be allowed to work with first rate equipment on some truly unique specimens for more money than she'd ever seen in her life. She could hardly have said no and with the drugs we were on she had no idea we were intelligent. That is until the goon whose job it was to inject us with the sedatives forgot one day. I guess you could say we owe you since it was one of your attacks that made it slip his mind. Well Doc Summers came back to lab because she'd forgotten her purse and imagine her surprise to find her specimens carrying on a conversation with each other.

"After that it was all just a matter of time, she replaced the sedatives with water and we acted drugged whenever anyone was around. After a few months we knew every inch of the building down in the labs. Robin quit her job and after a certain amount of time had passed we got out of our cage with the spare key she'd slipped us, the right mixture of chemicals in the lab caused the explosion that totaled the building.

We've been staying with Robin for the last month, learning about this planet. But it was only matter of time before the Big Cheese figured out that a) we didn't die in the explosion and b) we weren't hiding with you. We couldn't endanger Robin that way after all she'd done for us so we tracked you all down."

"Why us?" The tan mouse asked.

"You ever heard the expression the enemy of my enemy is my friend? We're willing to fight with you guys, if you'll have us."

"Sure we'll take you, truth is we could use every fighter we can get."

"They could stay here," Charley offered, "It'll be a little crowded, but considering what that last few years have been like I think it'll work. Come on I'll show you to the guest rooms." She got up and headed up stairs with the others following.

"So sweetheart," Vinnie said cosying up to Blade "since we're gonna be working together…"

He didn't have a chance to finish as she whipped around, grabbing him by the bandana, lifting him of his feet and slamming him into the wall.

"Let's just get something straight right from the start." She snarled at him, "Do NOT under any circumstances call me sweetheart. EVER!" she then released him and followed the others upstairs. Leaving a very shaken white mouse to follow behind.

Like it? Hate it? Lemme know at wlnessman@home.com