The following is a piece of fan fiction based on Biker Mice From Mars. All characters were created by Rick Ungar, original story by Tom Tataranowicz, and are not my property.

This is an AU retelling of BMFM and explores mature subject matter including death, violence, abuse, sex (con and noncon), torture, and mutilation. Reader's discretion is advised. Some character history has been altered from their original source but like I said, this is an AU.

Chapter-10

Dust began to settle on the ruins of Port Cydon. Rats and mice rummaged through the rubble looking for bodies. The dead would be buried in unmarked graves, the living would be transported to Olympia, as per the agreement made with the Martian military.

In the hours after the lighthouse fell, there was jubilation as rats and mice celebrated their final victory. Jeremy had caught up with Stoker's team. He grabbed the mouse' head and kissed both of his cheeks. Stoker, for his part let loose a torrent of enthusiasm none of his freedom fighters had never seen before or thought possible.

Vinnie and his bros embraced one another. At that moment, only the three of them existed in Vinnie's world. The world which they saved. His world began to grow around him as the residents of Port Cydon began to encircle them, patting their backs, gripping their arms, just wanting to tough the fur of the heroes who took down the Plutarkians. Slowly, the freedom fighters were ushered by the growing crowd back to plaza at the city's centre.

Carbine was there, standing atop a broken light armored vehicle. She flagged the mice over to her and the crowd made room for them. The bottles of wine that Muskat had promised were being disbursed without prejudice. The cheers of the crowd got louder. Throttle climbed up the vehicle to be with Carbine. Modo got pulled away by some female FUR aid workers. Vinnie, surrounded by thousands of people, found himself alone.

Stoker and Jeremy were each taking swigs from the same bottle of wine when Jeremy noticed Vinnie standing aimlessly in the crowd. Vinnie tried to put on a friendly smile as the rat stumbled his way towards him. When he was an arms length away from Vinnie, Jeremy reached out to the mouse' shoulders and leaned on him for support.

"I have to say," Jeremy slurred, "you guys are the baddest motorcycle mamma-jammas on mars."

"And I'm the baddest of them all," Vinnie replied.

"I just wanted to personally thank you for not dying, my friend"

Vinnie wondered if Jeremy had gotten into the celebratory wine a bit earlier than everyone else. The smell of the rat's breath was so pungent that it stung Vinnie's eyes. He laughed at the ridiculousness of the rat. "I should thank you for the tunnel not collapsing on me."

Jeremy stepped closer to Vinnie and slung his left arm around his neck; partly to embrace the mouse, and partly to maintain stability. "Everyone, everywhere on Mars is going to be celebrating. Because of you, because of what you did. I'm sorry. I'm very drunk right now. I'm trying to sober up. I need to tell you something. I can't do what you do. That's not what I needed to tell you; I just want you to know I can't do what you do. But I do need to tell you something."

Jeremy began to lean heavily onto Vinnie. Vinnie, in turn, shifted the weight in his legs and adjusted his hands to support the weight of the drunk rat. He made eye contact with Stoker and signaled with his head for his leader to come over and help him with their new friend. Stoker, who was bent over with laughter, stood up tall, took another long swig from, what was now, his own bottle of wine, and danced his way into the crowd.

"I know you don't like rats," Jeremy blurted out. "Fuck, I had some opinions on mice, but I just got tired of hating, you know?"

Vinnie smiled and nodded, but he was not in the mood for a lesson in overcoming prejudices from someone so drunk that he worried a lit match would cause the rat to explode.

"You need to talk to Muskat before you leave town. That's what I needed to tell you. Muskat wants to talk to you before you leave. Where did you even get a bike like that? I can't ride a bike. Fuck, that shit is too dangerous for me. I wanted to be an architect. I'm going to rebuild that fucking lighthouse. And I'm gonna have a statue of you right in front. Because you're a fucking hero my mouse. But yeah, I needed to tell you that Muskat wanted to talk to you before you go back to being the motorcycle mouse…"

Jeremy mustered up the constitution to stand on his own two feet and offered Vinnie a salute before stumbling backwards into the crowd. Vinnie watched in awe as the rats around Jeremy lifted him up into the air where he began to crowd surf.

"WHERE THE FUCK DID STOKER GO WITH MY WINE?" was the last thing Vinnie heard the rat say as he was carried off.

Vinnie wondered what it was the old rat wanted to talk to him about. Slowly, trying not to step on anyone's tail, he made his way to the saloon from which the bottles had been flowing out. No one seemed to pay attention to him anymore as they were caught up in their own merriment. Inside the saloon, at the same table as before, Muskat sat alone. The old rat was leaning back in his chair, smiling, listening to the celebration outside.

Muskat's ears twitched at the sound of Vinnie dragging a chair out from the table and sitting down, making enough noise to make his presence known, but not too much as to seem disrespectful to the old rat.

"I hear you wanted to see me?" asked Vinnie.

"And just who is it I'm supposed to be seeing right now?" the blind rat asked.

"I'm sorry, I-"

"Don't worry Vinnie, I'm just teasing you. I'm blind, not deaf."

There was a silent pause which Vinnie broke by clearing his throat. Muskat offered him a drink, but he turned it down. "Why aren't you drinking with the rest?" asked Vinnie.

"I had a glass, that's enough for me. There's a lot of Martians out there who all have reason to share a drink."

"And you don't?"

"The invasion is over, but Mars isn't safe. I need to find a way to stop Mars from turning into a total wasteland, how to bring our home back to life. I need to think about tomorrow, the next year, the next decade; you need to think about that as well."

Vinnie squirmed in his chair, "What do you mean by that?"

"You hate rats. You also hate Sand Raiders, which I admit, I find most of them hard to work with. They were always different from us. Stoker told you that Mars had been sold to Plutark, piece by piece, right?"

"Yeah, that we betrayed our own kind."

"I bet you think some of us more than others?"

Vinnie felt ashamed, ashamed of what he thought of the rats since coming to their city, of how he treated them. "Yeah."

"A lot of us feel the same way about others. Mice, Rats, Sand Raiders, we all had our differences, stereotyped one another. Part of the Plutarkian infiltration was to sew descent against one another, to find the prejudices that were just under the surface and use them to turn us against one another. They sold weapons to us, all of us, and technology that we could use against each other. We began fighting amongst ourselves and continued to depend on aliens to help us win an arms race. No one knew that the Plutarkians were playing all sides. Soon we weren't selling our planet for weapons; we were selling our planet for food and water.

"I hate to admit how long it took all of us to figure out what their plan was. I think I will have a drink." Muskat raised a hand and one of the attending rats brought him a glass of fortified wine in an intricately cut crystal glass. "Are you sure I cannot tempt you?"

"I'm fine," said Vinnie in a quiet voice.

"It wasn't enough for Plutarkians to turn mouse against rat and rat against rat; they had to turn rat against rat and mouse against mouse; and brother against brother."

Vinnie could tell that Muskat was getting uncomfortable. The rat sat their silently, trying to figure out the words he wanted to say to the young mouse.

"Right now, members of my militia are scouring through the rubble of the light house looking for any survivors. Anyone who was on Plutark's payroll that isn't in that pile, dead or alive, is already off planet. Including Mace."

"How do you know Mace isn't on Mars?"

"Because he told me." Muskat said bluntly. "He told me he was going to Blackrock and wanted me to go with him." Vinnie slammed his fist into the table, startling a few of Muskat's attendants, but the old rat himself was unfazed. "He told me what he did, how much money he made, how I was on the losing side. When I told him he could come with me peacefully to be surrendered to you mice or be dragged back in shackles, that's when he threw an acid bomb in my face. He was my brother Vinnie, and he left me for dead."

Tears were beginning to well up in Vinnie's eyes. He wanted to think he felt sorry for Muskat, but he was grieving for Harley. She was gone, with Mace, to some hellhole planet under Plutarkian control. Vinnie struggled to reclaim his composure. "And you want me to forget what Mace did?"

"No. You can't forget something like that. No more than I can forget that the last thing I ever saw was my own brother trying to murder me. But I can't keep lingering on that memory. I'm alive, the people who depend on me are alive, and I have to start thinking of them. That's what you need to do too. Or you'll be haunted by ghosts for the rest of your life."

Vinnie sank down low into his chair and stared off into nothingness. "Well, forgetting that is a lot harder than you make it out to be."

"I may make it seem easy to forget, but it's not. It's something I work on every day. Hell, why do you think I got this second glass? Because it tastes good? It tastes like rancid grapes. I'm struggling Vinnie, and if I can struggle through this then you can too."

Charley and Rimfire were walking the dusty path from scrap mountain back to the base. The freedom fighters had been gone for six days. In that time the young mouse and the human had kept themselves occupied by trying to organize what Charley described to Rimfire as a ticking timebomb of volatile chemicals just waiting to blast shrapnel into the air.

Rimfire, desperate to do anything that would make him feel useful, deferred to the human's expertise and proved himself to be a good little helper. Charley in turn, began to warm up to the kid. She could empathize with his desire to be respected by his heroes. He had talked her ears off while it was just the two of them. When they heard over the radio transmitter that the Plutarkians had been beaten, they celebrated together. Rimfire told Charley about growing up in Arcadias, how his grandmother and uncle were always close by, how Vinnie, Throttle and his uncle were friends since childhood. All the while he never asked Charley about her home, which she was fine with. Listening to the kid prattle on distracted her from her homesickness.

Charley was the first to spot the freedom fighter coming back to the mountain. Rimfire squinted in the direction that she pointed until they finally came into view. Their excitement grew as the mice rode nearer. Rimfire had the idea to set off signal flare like fireworks to celebrate the triumphant return. Charley found herself smiling, though she couldn't reason why, she was happy that Vinnie, Throttle, and Modo were coming back. She didn't want to dwell on whether or not she considered the mice her friends, or if their friendliness was just a matter of convenience. Either way, she missed them and now they were back.

The mice began to roll into the garage and Charley had to cover her ears to protect them from the noise. The mice cut the engines and began to dismount. They all looked a mix of high off of their win, and tired from their celebration and subsequent hangovers. Rimfire ran to his uncle to gave him a bear hug. Charley removed her hands from her ears and looked at Vinnie. He looked tired like the rest of the mice but didn't have that hang-over look. He just seemed sad. Charley's smile faded as she walked up to him.

"Tired from the party Mr. Hero?" Charley said.

Vinnie gave Charley a smile, but she would tell it was forced. "I didn't do much partying myself. I didn't feel much like partying."

"Don't feel much like partying now?"

"No." Vinnie's shoulders dropped, and his head hung low. "Honestly, I think I just want go to my room and be alone for a while."

Charley nodded her head silently and turned to look over at the other mice who were regaling Rimfire with stories of their heroism. "Would you like it if I walked with you to your room?"

Vinnie looked down at her. He stared at her face, like he was studying her for the first time. Charley didn't feel any fear or shame, she didn't feel the need to hide herself from him. She wanted him to see her, to see her sincerity.

He smiled at her again, though this time it was not forced. "Yeah, I would like that."