I do not own the Biker mice, and I do not know it anyone else has the name Choke, if you do I didn’t realise.

By ceryst

One night, if you happened to be looking in the right direction, you would have seen a moving object out in the black of space. The small blob of light sped past Orion’s Belt, and for only a second became a fourth notch on his belt of three stars. Had you looked closer with the naked eye you would have noticed the purple tinge, had you looked with a telescope you have noticed that the satellite took on the appearance of a ship. But few people took any notice, to them it was another low orbiting satellite.

Could they have BEEN more wrong?

‘YEEEEEEEEEHAAA, what do you think of the view sweetheart? Good huh, oh and I’m talking about the window view. We already know that I’m a sight to see.’

Vinnie draped his arm around Charley’s shoulders and directed her to the large front view screen. Charley rolled her eyes then contented herself by starring out into space. This is what she had always wanted to do, see Earth from space, even if it had to be in a Plutarkian ship.

‘It’s so beautiful, it’s just a shame about that white splotch over there.’ Charley raised her hand and pointed a finger out to space. Vinnie followed the finger, but he could not see anything.

‘What ARE you two looking at?’ Throttle placed himself behind Charley and looked down her extended arm and followed her finger out into space.

‘She says that there’s a white blob out there, but I just can’t see it. But don’t worry Charley-girl, if it bothers you, I’ll get rid of it.’ Vinnie puffed out his chest and flashed a bright smile showing every tooth that he happened to own.

‘Oh my, it just doubled in size.’ Charley looked expectantly at Throttle.

At first Throttle just stared out, his eyebrows knotted together in thought. Then, just as Vinnie moved closer, Throttle saw the white splurge.

‘Hey Charley, this splotch of yours, does it happen to have the biggest head that you have ever seen?’

‘Why, yes it does.’

‘And it has a halo around it, with the words ‘stop here to see the world’s largest ego"

‘Yes, yes, you can see it’

Vinnie stepped forward and continued to stare out into space, he was now more determined than ever to see what this white blob was, since it seemed to be stealing his thunder. Just as he was about to complain to the other two about there not being anything out there he noticed something. Starring right back at him was a white form, starring back at him was, a reflection of himself. He turned on the other two and watched their faces crack into smiles, that was followed by laughter.

‘What’s going in here?’ Modo stepped up to the small gathering and studied the different sets of faces, one set trying not to bust a gut laughing, and the other, shooting poisoned arrows from his eyes.

‘Well, Charley here had Vinnie thinking that …’ Throttle straightened up and looked wide eyed at Modo ‘Bro., if you’re here, then who may I ask is flying the ship?’

‘Autopilot Bro.’

‘Yes, but you do remember that when we checked over the ship we discovered that there was no autopilot.’

The floor beneath them suddenly disappeared as the ship dropped violently; everyone’s heads came in sharp contact with the roof, which had no more than a few moments ago been above them. When they had caught up with this new speed they dropped back onto the floor, Vinnie was up instantly and ran to the controls. Charley crouched on the floor holding her stomach trying to stop it from returning to the roof, ‘I’ve always wanted to lose my appetite, but this is pushing it.’ Modo scrambled over to the second set of flight controls, and Throttle lent back on the bulkhead watching everything going on, wondering at his hair ‘Hey, my hairs not in my eyes, OK stop that now, what’s happening?’

The ship slowly started to level out and reduce in speed as its thrusters equalized with the force of gravitational pull. Vinnie pressed more buttons and the ship began to climb out of the strong gravity pull towards the waiting depths of space.

‘Opps’ voiced Modo after everyone had sorted themselves out ‘Guess the autopilot had a break.’

‘Never mind, we’ve not been in a ship for ages, and just to top it all off this is an alien ship.’ Throttle stood up and moved towards the controls. ‘We’d better get back, we don’t yet know all of the damage sustained when we PICKED it up from Limburger Tower.’

‘Yeah, I think Throttle’s right, I still need to check all the ignition sequences and fine tune all the wires.’

*

‘These laser burns are really starting to bug me, what is so wrong about them?’ Vinnie moved in closer to the shell of the ship and ran his hand over the blackened hull.

‘You mean that they are Plutarkian, on a Plutarkian ship.’ Throttle joined Vinnie and waited for the return answer.

‘Your right, only Plutarkian battlecrusiers leave scorch marks like these. Guess the fishes finally realised that they are scum, and tried to blow themselves out of the sky.’

Modo looked over at the other two mice while continuously rubbing his bike; the shine from the chrome was beginning to out do the sun. He shook his head ‘why are they so worried? That is just one less ship to worry about on Mars.’

Charley came stumbling out of the ship with a mass of twisted wires in her arms; she dumped them in a pile and pulled her hair from eyes.

‘All done, this ship is ship shape and ready to fly, all it needs is a good lick of paint. You know I found nothing inside to indicate that it was filled with Plutarkians, the airs clean and the quarters are empty. The only personal object that I found was this, it was buried inside one of the broken consoles.’

Charley opened her hand to show the object. All the mice crowded around her. It was a petit necklace of silver with a pendent; it was of a simple design but in great detail. A coil of silver rope hung from the thin chain, holding the silver rope onto the chain were two, small, and dainty golden hands.

‘That’s interesting.’ With that Vinnie and Modo turned away, they were not too worried about jewelry. Only Throttle continued to stare at the chain, he then quickly spun on his heels and stared at his bros.

‘We’ve missed a big part of this puzzle, what if a mouse stole the ship to try and escape?’

Vinnie immediately jumped onto his bike and punched the air with his fist. ‘It’s tail whipping time, I’m going to bake me a fish and cheese sandwich.’

Charley sprinted up to Vinnie but was only rewarded with a face full of dust and fumes, she was too late, he had already gone.

‘You OK Charley-ma’am?’ Modo pulled out a cloth and handed it to the blackened Charley, ‘you know how excited that boy gets.’ Charley thanked Modo and rubbed the cloth down her face, when she removed the cloth the garage was empty.

*

‘What is this important information that you had to relate to me, couldn’t you see that I was preoccupied.’ Limburger stepped out from behind his desk shoving a magazine into the top desk draw. He then glared at his crooked counterpart and tapped his foot on the floor. ‘Well?’

‘That mouse that was shot down a few days ago, well I think that it may be related to someone that we know. You see it has similar strains of DNA to one of the biker mice.’

Limburger almost managed to haul his bulk off the ground as he started at the news. This could be extremely advantageous, but on the other hand when they found out it could mean the end of his building. He was pondering what his next move could be when he heard the distinct sound of three bikes heading up his building walls. ‘Oh well’ he thought, I knew that they would be coming sooner or later, ‘I think its time to pretend to know more than I do’

Suddenly two bikes came crashing through the main glass window; Throttle and Modo came to a screeching stop a few metres away from Limburger.

‘We’ve come to pick up an extra part of the package from the ship. And don’t try to deny it, we know that you have a mouse around here somewhere, and we intend to collect.’

Modo stared at Throttle and wondered at his cold voice, he also wondered at the way that his bros. fists were continuously clenching and unclenching on his bike handlebars.

*

In the meantime Vinnie was having a whale of a time, he was carting around the whole building blowing holes in every wall that he could see. ‘Oh, if only there were girls around to see how truly cool I am.’ Any goons that happened to try and stop the white blur only fueled its ego, he could not be stopped, he was invincible. Finally Vinnie decided that it was time to cut to the chase and do some serious searching, he headed towards the bowels of the tower, to where he knew there were small cells.

Vinnie smashed through the wall and took down all the guards with the falling rubble. ‘How boring, if there were girls down here they wouldn’t be too impressed.’

‘Well there are no girls, and I will only be truly impressed if you can get my tail out of this hell hole.’

Vinnie turned towards the new voice and saw a brown male mouse with tan brown hair sitting in one of the nearby cells. With a flick of his wrist Vinnie pulled out a flare and melted the cell bars, the mouse then shot over to Vinnie and hopped onto the bike.

‘Thanks, I’m now impressed’

‘You ain’t seen nothing yet. Hold on ‘cos we’re out of here.’ Vinnie pulled into a 180-degree turn and exited through a hole beside the original. His new passenger was holding on for dear life, ‘Why do I have to be rescued by a nutball?’

*

‘Listen you slimy salamander, I do not have all day. You tell me where that mouse is or I’ll do something that you may not soon forget.’ Throttle let go of Limburger’s throat and watched him fall to a puddle on the ground at his feet. Modo pulled up beside Throttle and dragged him away from Limburger.

‘He’s no use to us if he’s dead.’

Throttle shook off Modo’s grip and sat back down on his bike. Suddenly the communications sparked into life. ‘Hey bros. guess what yours truly found? It’s time to book Bros. ‘cos I got a lady back home to impress with my heroics.’

Throttle kicked his bike into life and went screeching out the window without looking back, Modo stared at Limburger, ‘You were lucky this time Limburger.’ With that he shot out the window after Throttle. He had never seen his bro. so angry before, something had annoyed him this time.

*

Throttle slammed his brakes on only metres before the Last Chance’s back wall; he threw himself off his bike and ran into the kitchen. When there he surveyed the surroundings, his gaze landed on the rescued mouse.

‘Hey you got back fast, I’ve only just arrived.’ Vinnie patted the young mouse on the back then looked over at the bikes. ‘Where’s Modo? Wasn’t he with you.’ All turned when a flustered Modo entered the garage.

‘My God Throttle, where was the fire?’ Modo slumped down in a chair and picked up a nearby bottle of root beer. When he had taken a long draught he turned and stared at the new comer. ‘What’s your name then?’

The mouse continued to watch Throttle’s every move while saying, ‘Choke, my names Choke.’

‘That’s an interesting name, did you have problems swallowing food when you were young?’ Vinnie grabbed his sides and rocked with laughter, he got a smack around his head by Modo in return.

‘Yes, well our parents did have a vulgar sense of humor, I mean Throttle AND Choke.’

Vinnie stopped laughing immediately and blushed; Modo lent over and whispered in his ear ‘put your foot in it that time didn’t you.’

‘How did you know…Oh the necklace, you knew that it belonged to your brother Choke.’

Throttle nodded at Charley and pulled out the silver and gold necklace, he gave it a fleeting glance before handing it back to Choke. Choke broke out into a huge grin, he settled back and started talking, and he asked anything and everything.

‘…and then this huge ship shot at me, I lost all control and crashed down on this planet. I don’t remember anything more than that.’

Vinnie nudged Modo and whispered in his ear, ‘this crashing on alien planets must be in the blood.’

After everyone had spilt their guts about their life history Choke stood up and asked for the shower. ‘You must remember that I have been living in a space ship for the last while.’ Charley showed him the way. When he left everyone let out a sigh.

‘Man, I don’t ever remember him being so talkative, I mean I knew that he could talk the hind leg off a donkey, but this is ridiculous.’

‘Yeah, he has one mouth on him, he must have been saving it up for when he had someone to talk to. Did anyone ever say anything about your names, its odd to have brothers with names like that.’ Vinnie stared at Throttle, he had to answer.

‘Well, the worst was my dad, Choke and I always played together, so my dad would keep saying ‘Choke your being Throttled to death, and Throttle your being Choked to death.’ It drove us round the bend.’

With that Throttle stood up and walked over to his bike, he picked up a nearby screwdriver and studied it before using it to tighten some of the loose screws around his bike. Modo moved over to his bike and continued to polish the areas that he had missed previously, Throttle chuckled ‘Modo, if you rub anymore you’ll rub a hole through.’

*

‘So you used to do a lot with Throttle when you were young?’ Charley asked the new comer as she lent forward on her elbows.

‘Well, yeah, I guess, lots of the time he was, um, incapacitated. But when he was fine we played a lot.’

Charley gave Choke a quizzical stare, ‘what do you mean incapacitated?’

Choke shrugged his shoulders, ‘Oh, nothing.’

Modo walked into the kitchen after finishing his bike, Throttle still sat with his finding more and more things to tinker with. Modo had long ago given up trying to get him to talk with Choke some more.

‘Throttle’s being an old man today, not being very sociable.’ Vinnie once more began to have hysterics over his own joke, this ended suddenly when he felt a hand slap him hard across the face. He leapt backwards and stared coldly at Choke.

‘Nobody, and I mean nobody talks about my brother that way.’ Choke continued to follow Vinnie’s movements, he was waiting for the attack.

Modo quickly jumped in and laid a hand on Choke’s shoulder, ‘no one meant any harm my little friend, this is just how we talk to each other.’

Choke relaxed then apologized to Vinnie for his rash behavior, ‘Sorry, I just hate it when people talk about Throttle, after everything he did for me.’

Everyone sat back down, Charley cast a glance at Throttle to see if he had noticed anything, but he hadn’t. ‘Why don’t you tell us what’s on your mind, what did Throttle do for you?’

Choke sighed; he looked at his brother fussing around his bike before turning to the others. In a low voice he said ‘I can do better than tell you, I can show you parts of my memory, then you will be able to see the whole picture, literally.’

He took Charley’s and Vinnie’s hands, Modo also took their hands. The Last Chance disappeared to be replaced by a house sitting out beneath a red sky, the view then melted away to show a young mouse playing in a small room. The mouse was obviously Throttle at around eight years old, the scene continued, every now and then arms and legs appeared in the view, they were looking at a memory through Choke’s eyes. Suddenly the mood changed, a loud shouting was heard, Throttle looked towards the door and then moved towards Choke, ‘don’t worry, everything will be fine, I’m sure that he will ignore us.’

The noise of a door was heard being thrown open, Choke turned to look at the tall and well-built figure standing in the doorway. ‘What do you think that you are doing?’ No one said anything. Choke was then lifted off the ground and shaken violently, ‘I asked you a question’ the mouse was yelling. Choke fell to the ground when Throttle grabbed hold of the mouse’s leg; ‘We were just playing dad, just playing.’ Through Choke’s eyes everyone saw Throttle being hauled off the ground and slapped so sharply in the face that a thin line of blood began to run down his nose. ‘And who asked you? No one did, get lost.’ Throttle was thrown across the room and smashed his head into one of the bookcases. The mouse then moved towards Choke, but before he could reach out and grab him Choke was pushed out of the way by Throttle. The mouse roared and slammed his fist into Throttle’s stomach, Throttle crumpled to the floor but kept staring at Choke, ‘get out now, go.’ The scene was lost as Choke turned and ran. Then he turned back and Throttle’s predicament could be viewed. His father grabbed a fist full of his hair and banged his son’s head into a nearby table, all the while he yelled at the top of his lungs, ‘Why did I have to have you for a son? All you do is look after people, your worthless brother is nothing, yet you still protect him.’

The large mouse finished slamming Throttle’s head into the table and started to smash his right arm instead with the bottle of rum he had been carrying. Finally the bottle broke, glass flew all over. Throttle cried out as large pieces cut into his elbow, he gingerly started to remove them but was cut short when he was knocked over backwards. By now his fingers and most of his forearms and chin were covered in blood, slowly he began to pick himself up. Choke must have then whimpered because his father turned to him, ‘Ah there you are you little s***.’ He strode over to him and lifted Choke up by his collar.

Choke started to cry out.

‘Let him go, let him go!’ Throttle banged into his fathers legs causing him once more to drop Choke, when Choke was upright he ran, Throttle close behind. In front were some stone stairs, very steep, Choke ran down them and then looked back up them. Their father had caught Throttle and thrown him into the wall, Throttle fell and tried to right himself. He was hauled off the ground and his back forced into the wall, he was slowly slid down the wall until his feet touched the ground. When he was let go of Throttle tried to run away, but his father kicked him in the knees, he tripped over and went crashing down the stone steps. His forward motion was only stopped by the wall at the end of the staircase. Choke ran up to his brother only to see bones protruding from his right elbow, blood was smeared down the stairs and pooling around Throttle’s wounds. His tail was bent in the wrong direction showing more damage. Choke looked up to his father at the top of the stairs, ‘Get the stairs cleaned up, and then phone the clinic; tell them that there’s been another accident.’ With that he turned and left.

The picture began to fade and the kitchen at the Last Chance came into focus.

‘There you have it, now you know why I feel so strongly for my brother. He never let our father hurt me. We had our different problems, mine was mental since I knew that it was my fault that Throttle got hurt so badly. Throttle’s was physical since his body was broken at least twice a month. When he broke his right elbow he was forced to use his left, that’s why he’s pretty good with his left and right hand.’

Modo and Charley simply stared at Choke, this was new to them, they had had no idea about this past.

‘Well your father was a real pain in the tail wasn’t he.’ Vinnie laughed nervously and started to look around the room using sharp jerks.

*

‘What is going on in here? You all look as miserable as sin, I wasn’t gone that long was I?’

Everyone jumped when Throttle started to speak; they hadn’t noticed him come in. Throttle walked over to the fridge to pick up a drink, on his way back Vinnie bumped into him. ‘Whoa, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to bump you.’ Throttle just stared at the babbling Vinnie with a crooked smile.

‘It’s all right Vinnie, I’m not going to break on you. I’ve been through more than a simple bumping in my time.’

At this everyone coughed gently and started to fidget with whatever they could find, Throttle ignored them and sat down, ‘so, what have you all been talking about?’

*

Later that night Vinnie stole over to Throttle, he was alone since Charley, Modo and Choke were trying to find beds for everyone. For one of the first times in his life Vinnie was not quite sure how to handle the situation, he only hoped that Throttle would understand and find the question and the answer for him.

‘Um, bro.’

Throttle twisted around so that he could get a good look at his bro. ‘What’s up?’

‘Choke showed us something tonight, something that has me worried. Well not worried exactly, just curious. Not even curious, more like…’

‘Spit it out Vinnie, just tell me what Choke showed you.’

‘He told us about your father, and…’ Vinnie’s voice died away and he looked down at his boots. Throttle was at a loss for words, Vinnie looked so lost which was not like him at all. Throttle’s leadership and friendship role came instantly into play: find out what is wrong and solve it.

‘What about my father? Tell me Vinnie.’

‘How did you manage to always bring yourself to get in the way? You can’t have been more than eight, yet Choke says that you never let your father touch him.’

Throttle smiled, this was easier than he thought it would have been.

‘That’s simple Vinnie, he was my brother and I wanted to protect him, I did what I thought necessary to keep him out of harms way. You would have done the same, like now, you would never let anything hurt Charley.’

Vinnie looked up at his bro. and smiled showing every one of his white teeth for the second time that day.

‘What ever happened to your father?’

‘Um, he, well, you see…’ what could he say that wouldn’t sound so bad? ‘…he was captured by the plutarkian’s I don’t know any more.’

Throttle bumped his shoulder into Vinnie’s chest and sent him sprawling backwards. ‘We’re too young to be worrying about this right now.’

‘Just one more question.’ Said Vinnie as he picked himself off the floor, ‘Would you do that now?’

Throttle turned back to him, ‘Of course I would, I’d do it for anyone I cared about.’ With that he left the room to help the others.

‘That’s what I was afraid of.’ Voiced Vinnie to no one in particular ‘If he could bare that much back then, then he’d kill himself today.’

ceryst

To be concluded…(maybe)