Note: The characters and situations created in this story do belong to me (thanks to the

Yet Another Note; Unlike the Disclaimer, However, Has Some Actual Significance: All my previous stories have taken place in the past; specifically, in the early and middle years of the Plutarkian War. Biker Mice ON Mars was set shortly before, during, and after the Biker Mice (Throttle, Modo, Vinnie, and Bingo) joined the Freedom Fighters, while New Years' Resolutions took place shortly thereafter and also several years before that, as it told the tale of how the Freedom Fighters were first created (in other words, a flashback story).

This new story (the one you're reading right now) takes place several years (I don't know just how many, exactly; it's been a long time since I kept an accurate timeline) after the end of New Years' Resolutions. Thinking in terms of the television series, this story takes place after "Once Upon a Time On Mars", but only the flashback stuff (this is getting pretty confusing, isn't it?). The mice have crashed on Earth, and have taken on Limburger, etc. They haven't been in the windy city quite a year yet. So basically, whatever happens here basically could've happened during Season 1. I hope that helped! Actually, now I'm kind of hoping that you haven't all turned away in fear. Enjoy!

***

Okay! Now that that's all out of the way, heeeeeeeeere's:

By Stoker1439

Copyright December 1998

"I see a bad moon risin'/'

I see trouble on the way."

-Credence Clearwater Revival

"You turn the tap dance into your crusade."

"Life is study!"

-Kintaro Oe, Goldenboy

According to folklore, Halloween has long been viewed as the one night of the year when the power of all things evil increases a hundred fold. A day when superstition becomes fact without dispute. Of course, it meant much more to our ancient ancestors than it does now. The Celtics (excluding Larry Bird) held that All Hallow’s Eve was when the souls of the dead were free to travel the Earth, so their priests and priestesses lit huge bonfires to lure home the spirits of loved ones and scare away evil phantoms. Or at least, that's what the archaeologists say. In actuality, these ancient ones were actually lighting the fires to get ready for the big barbecues to celebrate the Feast of All Saints the next day. The meaning got twisted somewhere along the line.

Other Halloween festivities are similarly cheerful. In Mexico, the holiday is known as the Day of the Dead. Curiously, this has nothing to do with Jerry Garcia, which may or may not be a bad thing, considering how you feel about that particular band. South of the border citizens munch on loaves of bread in the shape of skulls, or suck on personalized candy skulls. Morbid as that sounds, it's actually one of the most cheerful holidays of the Mexican calendar. Must be something in the water. One old All Hallow's Eve custom that has (perhaps fortunately) fallen into obscurity is jumping over lighted candles to predict the future. The most frequent prediction, it can be inferred, was that the leaper would quickly find himself in the hot seat.

Disregarding this, however, Halloween is still pretty spooky. There's something creepy about the last day of October, and there always will be. Oh, it's easy for us sophisticated modern types to tell ourselves Halloween is nothing more than a pointless celebration with no real significance. It has no real religious importance (although certain extremely stringent pious types try to make it out as a pagan devil-worship kinda thing). And it's hard to take any holiday in which you invite people to "smell your feet" seriously. Then, as one grows older, and stops picking out costumes and going to score candy from the locals, Halloween loses whatever charm and gravity it once had. We give thanks at Thanksgiving, celebrate love on Valentine's Day, family on Christmas, but what on Halloween? It becomes a silly, pointless little holiday. Hell, even less significant than other holidays! You don't get a day off school or work for it, and for crud's sake, you don't even get presents! What kind of holiday is that? If it wasn't marked on the calendar, Halloween would simply pass you by, and you'd never even notice.

And yet…

And yet, the season does naturally lend itself toward the grim festivities we've imposed upon it. You couldn't ask for a better setting. Indeed, the job of every good horror writer is to recreate in some form that familiar scene which that which sets our nerves on edge every October 31^st. Black skies without a guiding star, or with a moon so big and round that it just has to bring out werewolves. Cutting autumn winds that come shooting out of nowhere and slash naked necks with their ethereal fingers, daring the unwary to turn and see if it was just the wind or the slender blade of a knife. The trees hang bare of their leaves, tall brown skeletons reaching up to the sky, as if in prayer to some pagan god. Their aforementioned leaves litter the ground. Mummified and changed from summer's lively green to the dead hues of autumn, they crackle and crunch underfoot, giving the illusion as one walks over them that someone (or something) is following just behind.

Or is it an illusion? Dum Dum Dum!
As if all this weren't enough, we try to improve on nature by adding our own fearful elements to the holiday. Glowing pumpkins on people's porches that leer at you out of crude orange faces, just a step above being faceless horrors. Black cats and ghosts decorate homes, decorations that lose their humor and charm once the last porch light goes out. Stuffed zombies set up in yards, faux corpses hanging from trees; Halloween brings out the strangely morbid side in people. It's as if when the last barrier between summer and winter is crossed, a far more dangerous one is as well. Like the line between fantasy and reality has been erased (or smudged by a careless hand, at least), and beings from one side can enter the other. If a vampire was ever to appear at the foot of one's bed, then it feels as if Halloween will be the night. If a werewolf was ever to rip out your throat, then you keep the silver bullets closest on October 31st. No normal, totally logical person can honestly say they can make it the entire way through Halloween night without looking nervously over their shoulder at least once.

Of course, now, as opposed to the terror of evil spirits sucking out our souls or something, it’s the fear of those greasy punks from down the street soaping our car's windows, buuuuuut....

***

Klaus Black, despite being a logical humanoid wolf, had no fear whatsoever of Halloween. He didn't have a car to be soaped, for one. And why be afraid when you yourself are what people fear? They simply don't come much more evil than him (all the major demons included). It had taken a Hell of a lot of wickedness on Black's part to get where he was today. You didn't get to be Master of the White Wizards Guild just for good attendance! You had to be one mean-ass son of a bitch, and then some! Granted, Klaus didn't torture the souls of the damned personally, and he wasn't allowed to rain down death from above himself anymore, but that was what came with a management position like this. He supervised those guys now, so it was still technically him that was terrorizing the populace of the universe, even if said populace wasn't aware of it. Besides, all the really sick and twisted ideas came from him. So who (or what) was there for him to be afraid of?

Truth be told, Black rather liked Halloween. His power didn’t increase, as near as he could tell, and neither did it decrease, but that didn't really matter. It was a sentimental sort of favoritism. You could be evil any day of the year, of course, but some days were better than others, and more fun, too. For example, everyone was too busy thinking about love on February 14^th for you to do anything really fantastically evil and feel appreciated. Everyone was too freakin' happy. Arrange for the slaughter of an entire ethnic group, and it'd be pushed to page 2 by a story on how Valentine and chocolate sales for the month of February have gone up. Hmph! Barely worth the effort! And more ordinary days, like January 27^th, well, they were out, too. There just wasn't any reason, any significance. And if there was one thing Klaus Black liked, it was a day with special significance. Evil loves significance. Now, if it was the day that was personally bad for a person, like the anniversary of a love one's death, well then, arrangements could be made.

But October 31^st was a great day to be evil! People all over Earth expected malfeasance--no, they wanted it! They celebrated it, invited it into their homes! People deliberately went out of their way to scare themselves, to horrify those they loved, and the really great part was that they had been doing it for centuries! Unsuspecting children were playing with ouija boards, daring to speak with the souls of the dead and then becoming surprised when they opened up inter-dimensional gates to let evil spirits through! Ha ha ha! Whatta riot! Oh, and of course, satanic cults made some of their biggest sacrifices of the entire year on Halloween. MMM! The buffet was always astounding. And there was always the off-chance that somebody would go Section Eight and start carving up babysitters. The fun just never stopped! Hell, Halloween was one day when Black could take it easy! His work was being done for him! All he had to do was sit back and enjoy the show, just adding his own special influence when the situation called for it. The only day when he felt more dread and fear coming from Earth was the day income taxes were due.

So the leader of the White Wizards’ Guild was feeling understandably cheerful on the morning of October 31^st. This was his special day to enjoy being the most evil son of a bitch in the universe; it was almost like his birthday! He was humming a happy little tune. There was a skip in his step, except for the insignificant little fact that he wasn’t actually walking. He just sort of levitated his way through his fortress (tucked deep within another dimension, in case you were curious), a content smile on his face, as he made his way to his throne room, white cape billowing elegantly behind him.

"You look happy this morning, Master Black," one of his midget troll butlers (which are arguably the best kind of troll butlers, as you can rest drinks on their heads) told him as he followed his chief into the room.

"And why shouldn’t I?" Black asked, grinning rakishly.

He planted his heels firmly on the ground and leapt into the air. Black went up, up, up, and never came down. When he reached the top of his jump, he simply began floating, to the very top the room. He flew, silent except for the flapping of his cape and the tinkling of his clothing's buckles, until he was within a foot of the ceiling. There the wolf paused beneath a round skylight that revealed a turbulent red sky overhead. He watched the bloody clouds eddy and roll past and smiled serenely.

The skylight Black peered through was what let in the majority of the room's light. There were torches placed periodically around the walls, between the large hand-made tapestries and paintings that speckled them, but they provided little illumination. Black liked his rooms dark (and flatly refused the notion of electric lights), but he also liked to be able to find his way through them without tripping. It was hard to inspire fear and respect in your subordinates when you kept falling over end-tables. The skylight was a compromise, letting in a soft glow that made the room negotiable but allowed it to keep its mysterious air.

The light, of course, was red. It was what gave the clouds their strange color. A red sun. Gorgeous. And so warm, so comforting. Reassuring. It was in this glow that Black hung suspended, his snow white hair turned pink, and his black fur blood red.

He gets off on this kind of thing, in case you couldn't tell.

For a moment, Black floated there, dreaming old dreams and thinking old thoughts, adrift. There was so little time for contemplation, so little time, and so much to be considered!

How long had it been now? A millennium--no, two. Two millennium. No, no, no, wait, it was millennia. Two millennia. Gotta watch your grammar, or teacher will give you a rap across the knuckles with her ruler.

Two millennia. Ye gods. Over two thousand years at this same task and still no truly substantial progress. So much work, and all for nothing! Blood, sweat, and tears. Arranged in ascending order, that would be tears, sweat, and blood.

Black licked his lips unconsciously. Mmmm. Hot, steamy, salty blood. It was probably the one positive thing about all this. He certainly hadn't gone hungry since accepting the mission. In an ever-changing, utterly inconsistent world, one thing was certain; attempting to bring about the end of Creation was gooooooood eatin'!

Of course, a wolf couldn't get by on blood alone (although there were merits to just such a lifestyle). So there was the goal. The justification of existence. But…..but what if all the stories had been exaggerated? What if? What if it wasn't really as sweet as they said it had been? Then it had all been in vain. Two thousand wasted years. An impossibly small amount of time, of course, but still…it irked Black endlessly that he had never actually seen what he was fighting for, what he was so desperate to win. If only he could catch a glimpse of it, so he could be sure.

Silly boy, Black chided himself, smiling. You've got your "glimpse," right above you. The clouds. This sun. Their "gift" to keep you motivated. Heh. Or maybe to drive you insane with desire. I certainly wouldn't put it past them.

The clouds. Yes, the clouds were a gift. The whorls and spirals above, spinning, twisting, untwisting, smooshing together, pulling apart, like strands of crimson cotton candy, could be mesmerizing. That wasn't why they were there. They were there to give Black, who had only ever heard stories, a hint of what he had missed. God, they were gorgeous. And that pure sun. They had been the loveliest sight Black had ever laid eyes on when he first caught a glimpse of them. Then Razl had told the young wolf--for Black had been quite young then--that for all their beauty, they were but a pale imitation of what he, Razl, had seen when he had still been in the Big Three's good graces. Even if the old demon had been lying through his teeth--which, of course, was not at all out of the question, as Razl was a peerless prevaricator--there was no reason to doubt the validity of the mission. It was all worth it. Or rather, it would be all worth it, in the end.

Black blew his bangs out of his eyes like a frustrated teenager. The end had better come soon.

He smiled, warmed by the thought.

The wolf turned his head slightly, as if the buzz of a fly had caught his ear. The butler, Black observed, was still standing below, picking his nose and waiting on his master.

"Today," the wolf concluded loudly as he dropped to the floor, a polite hint to stop the nose-mining, "we have important business to attend to. Well, I do, anyway. You're just the butler. Today, I shall test the mettle of the one who can prevent Armageddon."

The curious (not to mention slightly insulted) troll raised an eyebrow and asked, "Bruce Willis?"

Black tucked his chin in hand and mumbled thoughtfully, "Well, if you're talking about the movie, then I guess so, if he had backed out of his contract at the last second. But he didn't, the movie was a success, and in any case, it doesn't matter. I'm talking about the Holy Knight Azrael."

"Ohhhh, her. Okay."

The lupine demon ordered his servant away, then settled comfortably into his throne. He adjusted his cape carefully across the seat's plush red velvet surface, so that its split sides fell around his full, bushy tail. Yes, okay. That'd do it.

"Hohma Orb!" he shouted, with giddy enthusiasm. "Appear!"

A pinprick of light appeared in the darkness. It grew quickly into a large, purple sphere about the size of a bowling ball (but without the holes). The surface was pulled strangely out of shape, as if just beneath the sphere's surface, something was trying to push its way out.

Something alive.

Finally, it settled and assumed the form of a crystal ball, clear as glass and smooth as silk. It hung suspended on the air, as if waiting for some sort of signal to do whatever it is the lot of small, hovering crystal balls to do.

Black beckoned to the ball with one blunt finger.

At first, the orb refused to move. It simply floated pompously in the same spot. Why should it come to him? Why couldn't he come to it?

The wolf sighed. Even on the best of days, the Hohma Orb was still a jerk.

"Come now," Black said softly, with an irritated sneer. "Don't be stubborn. We've both got work to do, and we'll get nowhere if you choose to be this way. The masters dislike it when we fall behind. So let's cooperate, shall we?"

The orb considered this, then slowly began to move forward, until it was just a foot from the wolf's face. It didn't want to arouse the anger of the masters anymore than Black did. It was frightening that they were in agreement for once.

Smiling, Black passed one square hand over the ball. As he did, its clear surface was replaced by the face of a young orange-furred mouse. Bright red-orange hair fell across her cobalt eyes in a spiky coiffure. As if to mimic her hair cut, the fur at her cheeks curled slightly under in a pair of tufts. She was laughing at something, something that was just out of the orb's view. Must've been pretty good, though, judging by the size of her grin. After she took a long drink of root beer, her face abruptly disappeared beneath a copy of the Clerks holiday special.

Black's grin grew wider, longer, until his face was one huge, grinning row of teeth. It looked as though both sides of his mouth were going to meet at the back of his head. Thankfully, they didn't, as it would probably result in the top half of his melon falling off.

Slowly, he began to chuckle, until his laughter rang through the entire room.

"Stupid girl!" he whispered, fighting hiccups. "Flitting away her little life on comic books!" Black paused for a moment, trying to catch his breath. But given all that was on the line, all that rested on those young shoulders, the wolf suddenly found her choice of reading material even more ridiculous.

"Comic books!" he cried, wiping away a tear. "My God! You don’t come from a very studious lot, but comic books? You should be studying the apocrypha, or the Dead Sea scrolls, or--or--or something! Instead you're wasting your time on pointless, absurd fiction! Christ! When time is growing so short! I still find it hard to believe--"

Suddenly, with a flickering flash of light, the image in the ball disappeared, replaced by its normal clear surface. It flew closer, within bare inches of Black's eyes, right over his snout. A hazy new image began to fill its face.

"What--is--what is this?" the wolf asked, his chuckles starting to disappear. No longer was he sitting back casually, with little more than casual interest in what he saw before him. Now he was sitting bolt upright.

For as fickle and contrary as the Hohma Orb could be, it could not change the image it displayed of its own volition, even if it wanted to. Given their wonderful relationship, Black had a feeling that it would have done that a lot if given the chance. But no. That handy-dandy little viewer was made to respond to Black's commands. To Black's commands. His commands. It would--could--do nothing without his decree.

Black sunk back slightly in his chair. His ears flattened against his hair, as if trying to push their way through clear to his skull and hide. Who knew? Maybe they were. Probably a good idea at the moment. The smile disappeared from his face, the mirth chased out of his eyes. His nails dug thin ruts in the wooden arms of his throne, little wooden shavings curling up under them. If the Guild-master wasn't genuinely frightened, then at the very least, he was unnerved. For while there were few in Creation who were stronger, darker creatures than he, they did exist, and it appeared that they were sending him a message. A reprimand.

Finally, the surface settled, and a new image filled the sphere.

The casual observer might not have noticed much of a change in the orb's subject. It was still a young, female mouse, in her teens, with orange fur, orange-red hair, and blue eyes. She was just as thin as the previous mouse, although a little more muscular. A longhaired Bingo, it seemed. Extremely longer haired, and a few years older, perhaps. There was definitely a relation between the two of them. They could have passed as twins.

Almost. There was something darker about this girl, something young Bingo did not yet posses. A faint black halo that hung on her otherwise mirthful countenance. Instead of the comic book that Black found so hilarious and out of place for a member of her family, this girl held in her hands a much dog-eared copy of The Idylls of the King circa 1932. Of course, Black would've chewed her out for that--more pointless fiction--but at least she had a few cryptic texts and astrology books lying nearby. That was a plus. At least she was studying.

Behind the book, Black could make out her eyes. While they were still laughing, smiling ones, there was a strange storminess to them. Something in the shape of her cheekbones suggested lupine descent, and the sharpness of her canines (she was gnawing on a pencil) seemed to confirm it.

Affidavvit, Black realized, eyes growing wide. Seven Hells.

He reach a hand slowly toward the orb, as if to stroke her face.

Before the wolf could even finish his thought, the image changed, once again without prompting.

This time, its mists parted to reveal an attractive older mouse. This one was clearly not Bingo, and there was no way they could be mistaken for one another (unless the viewer was completely and totally blind, in which case they wouldn't really be a viewer, would they?). She was drop-dead gorgeous (her well-endowed chest was proof enough she wasn't Bingo); long-legged, silver-furred, eyes like newly-cut topaz (inset with rubies), with a gray mane of hair spilling and spreading like a cape across the back of her long red coat. Or was it a dress? Black had never had been sure, and he had never thought to ask, not in time. Not that she would've answered with anything other than the Inferno Sword right between his eyes.

Or perhaps between his legs, something she had threatened him with before.

I always loved your spunk, Auld, he thought to himself, smiling.

But where Black saw spunk in this mouse was hard to tell. Her face was stern and set. Rock hard. For a doctor, she seemed to have a pitifully small supply of compassion. She looked as if she hadn't laughed in years. And if the bit about the eyes being the window to the soul is true, then these ones revealed little more than a dark shadowy pit made all the darker by the knowledge of how cheerful and happy she had once been. Black's own fault, he knew that. It had been him, and no one else, that had made her that way.

……

Well, maybe Abrahams, but that was pretty much under Black's discretion, so he didn't count. Abrahams was a wiener. No, it was all his fault. So what? Should he apologize? Too late for that now, even if he wanted to.

Much to Black's regret.

Auld……

The ball began to glow once again, as if to show him another face, but Black waved it away dismissively.

"I know, I know," he said impatiently, as if a child being scolded. "Musn’t underestimate my opponents, particularly those of the Ritziantanto line. They're always full of the most delightful suprises. Affidavvit taught me that." He poked a finger beneath his collar and rubbed a small scar that ran a jagged course along his collarbone.

"And Auld hammered it home."

Rising to his feet and brushing some invisible dust from his pants (an old gesture to refocus his mind), he strode across the room and cried, "Well, I shan’t underestimate this Azrael ever again! Tonight, we shall see what she is made of!"

The orb flashed white.

"Oh, yes," Black said quickly. "You can go."

The orb disappeared. "Good riddance," the wolf mumbled once it was out of earshot. He paced a bit, then said, "Let me see. First, I'll need my assistant."

Klaus threw an arm in the air. A bright arc of light trailed from his fingers as he traced the shape of an oval above him. It re-formed as a bright silver circle, and flashed twice.

Out of this glowing hoop fell a tall, thin, blue-skinned Plutarkian (yes, there are a few thin ones) clothed in his scampy skivvies (a black g-string with the words, "Give me some sugar" printed on them in short red letters) and very little else.

"Good morning, Ichabod!" Black said cheerfully. "You slept well?"

Still half-asleep, Ichabod Colby wiped the slime from the corner of one eye and murmured, "Mom? Izzat you?"
Black slapped him across the face and laughed.

"Not quite."

That woke him up in a hurry.
"M-M-M-Master Black!" Colby shouted, jumping to his feet and standing stock still, as if for a military review. "I--I--I--"

He saw Black's strange smile and was instantly struck by the realization that, except for the underwear, he was naked. Bad enough, but on top of that, they were women's g-string underwear.

Colby groaned inwardly. It was going to be one of those days, wasn't it?

"I’m not wearing pants, am I?" he asked sadly, a cerulean blush coming over his cheeks.
"Not yet, but that’s easily fixed," his lupine sponsor replied.
Klaus snapped his fingers.

One of the tapestries hanging on the wall suddenly unhooked itself, then flew like a gigantic magic carpet to where Colby stood. Before the fish could get his bearings or even think of being frightened, the hanging swaddled itself around him several times, completely covering his body. Wrapped in his fabric cocoon, the young Plutarkian was on his way towards becoming the world's stinkiest butterfly.

"Vetiro!" the wolf shouted.

Suddenly, the blanket burrito burst into light. When it faded, a fully clothed Colby, wearing finery not that much less delicate or expensive-looking than Black’s own, fell to the ground. His rich velvet-booted feet slipped silently to the floor, placing him just before Black.

"Amazing," the young fish whispered, fingering his silver lapels. "How did you-"

"You like it?" Black asked, a mellow smile on his face.

"Well--" Colby began, trying to find the most tactful way to say he felt like a gay Frenchman without risking atomization.

"Not that it would matter, of course," the wolf interrupted suddenly. "What is it they say today? ‘If you don’t like the way I dress, call 1-800-EAT-SHIT’? " He chuckled at his joke.

Biting his lower lip, Colby stammered nervously (for it is to risk death to contradict Klaus), "Actually, Master Black, that’s usually restricted to driving."

"But why do people care how others dress their cars?" the wolf asked, puzzled.

"People don’t dress their cars at all, Master Black," the fish tried to explain.

"But if they don’t, then the phrase makes no sense!"

Colby sighed grandly. God, this guy was impossible! How could someone so powerful (or at least, supposedly powerful) be such a dimwit?

"You’re a little out of the loop, sir," he mumbled, shaking his head.

"Yes, I’m afraid I am," Black agreed sadly, chin in hand. "I really can’t help it. When you’re a living embodiment of evil, there are certain things that are expected of you, certain devoirs you're expected to complete by a certain time, and there's a painfully small slot on the schedule for picking up on pop culture." He sighed. "I’m still trying to catch up on my ‘Seinfeld’. I missed a few episodes when I posing as an advisor to a certain dictator of Earth's Middle East. Oh Saddam, how I love your merry antics! How did that end, anyway? Something about them ending up in jail?"

Sighing, a dejected Colby asked, "Did you wanted me for something, Master Black? I mean, if this isn't really important, I'd like to get back to bed."

Black sat down in his throne, a curious expression seated on his brow. He cocked his head to the side like a puppy and asked, "What’s the matter, Colby? You're not your usual cheerful self. Surely it’s not just because I pulled your fat ass out of bed, is it?" He snickered. "Monumental a task as that is!" Then, a bit more soberly, he added, "Are you unhappy? Why? I’ve given you everything you’ve asked for, haven’t I? You're rich, you're successful, you've got women dripping off you (although they're very often hired to drip and do other such things)--a mortal could want for nothing more!"
Colby grumbled something under his breath.

"What’s that?" Black asked, eyes narrowed. " ‘Yeah, right’, I believe you said?"

The young Plutarkian gulped.

"Don’t be so shocked, dear boy," the wolf related casually. "My ears can hear anything and everything. And it's not limited to this room, either! Why, as I recall, at eight o’clock last evening, you were having quite an animated conversation with the whore you took to bed with you. Something to do with ‘spanking’ and a……banana? No, no, wait, wait, wait. It was a cigar, yes." Black smiled. "Care to explain?"

Colby's fins flattened against his head. Dammit, was any part of his life a secret anymore?

"Neither of us was feeling particularly inspired, so we thought we'd take a look at the Starr Report and see if we could find anything interesting to try--" he began through gritted teeth.

Black sat down, then cooed, "My dear boy, if something’s troubling you--other than your obvious sexual inadequacies--don’t be afraid to tell me about it. After all, you’ve nothing to hide from me. You can't hide anything from me. I’m not saying that I care--merely that I want to know."

"Well," the Plutarkian began softly, "it's just that--"

Before the words of explanation could escape Colby's lips, Black's face suddenly grew stern, all levity gone from his demeanor. His eyes glinted like diamonds. He rose slowly to his feet, hands balled up into tight, angry fists. His tail swished back and forth angrily.

"You feel like I’ve cheated you on our deal!" Black screamed, voice intermingled with a bestial roar.

Colby nodded slightly, eyes fixed on the near wall. To his credit, in the face of Black's fury, young Colby, who is more often than not a coward, showed no sign of fear, other than his knocking knees, sweaty palms, chattering teeth, and epileptic shaking.

The wolf, by now infuriated by his minion's simple and simultaneously flippant answer, stomped over to where Colby stood. His teeth gnashed angrily, fangs stained pale pink by the skylight's red cast. His breathing had turned into deep, angry huffs. All the civility, the elegance, was gone from him. It was a lesson Colby had learned before, but here it was repeated: for all his exquisitely tailored clothing, ambition, and refined mannerisms, Black was, at heart, a wolf. An extremely nasty, bloodthirsty wolf with very large teeth whose assistants had an even nastier habit of being eaten alive after displeasing their master.

The young fish slunk back slightly, praying all the while for a devastating meteor impact, the appearance of the entire Plutarkian Armada (although he wasn't certain it would be enough), or for his master to be felled by a congenital heart failure. There was fire in Black's eyes, and not just metaphorical; Colby could see the flickering flames of Hell itself in the wolf's glare.

Suddenly, one of Black's clawed hands shot out and grabbed Colby by the front of his shirt. With no apparent effort, he lifted his apprentice slowly into the air and held him several feet off the ground.

"Now, how in the world haven’t I come through for you?" he growled, teeth flashing in the dim torchlight. His eyes seemed locked on his assistant's face, although they kept dipping back to his throat.

His tender, exposed throat.

Which was probably pretty yumm-alicious.

Colby's eyes grew huge as he tried to make his peace with this life and prayed for that heart failure RIGHT NOW.

Maybe it was seeing the fear in his young thane's eyes, or maybe he just wasn't hungry, but either way, Black slowly started to calm down. He gently lowered Colby to the floor, at which point his assistant took quite a few steps back. If the door had been open, Colby would've scooted his little blue hind-end halfway to China by the time his master opened his mouth.

"Now, I admit," Black said coolly, "it is taking a bit longer than expected to get you as high-ranking a position on Plutark as you want, but have some patience! Manipulations of this caliber do take time! And even if I hadn’t extended your lifespan, you’d still have nearly a millennium left to you to achieve all your petty little dreams anyway. Except the one about sleeping with every woman on your native planet by the time you turned twenty-one. The Almighty himself couldn't have helped you with that one."
"Well, it’s not so much that…" Colby started to say before trailing off. He had a bad feeling his mouth was going to get him into even more trouble tonight, and no matter how enraged he was inside, he wasn't about to risk a disembowelment over it. Better to just keep quiet.

"It's nothing, sir," the young fish concluded.

After a moment of silence, Black tucked his chin in hand and said, a wry smile crossing his lips, "Wait a minute. Oh, come now, Ichabod! Surely you’re not serious. You’ve had your revenge! You know that!"

For a moment, Colby was shocked. How had Black known what he had been thinking? Of course; the mind-reading. The goddamn mind-reading. But his puzzlement was quickly replaced by a red rage. Bad enough the Master had done what he had; then he mocked him! Mocked him!

Colby's hand tightened into a fist.

Here he goes again, Black thought to himself, smiling. Ah, what fools these mortals be!

"You had my revenge!" the young Plutarkian snapped, having quickly found his missing spine. "I didn’t get to kill any of them! Or maim them, or torture them, or anything else you promised me! You made me go for all that special education bullshit and snuffed them yourself!"

"Pish-posh," Black said with a shrug. "They're still dead."

"That's not the point! One of the only reasons I agreed to help you was because you said you'd give me my revenge!"

"Which I did!"

"But you were supposed to let me kill them! ME!"

"We never came to any such agreement." Black sighed, tiring of these silly games. "Look. Dead's dead, Colby. If it's really troubling you that much, I can resurrect their bodies and you can kill those, but you won't be killing them. I can't reunite flesh and spirit once the silver cord is parted. That which is uniquely them is gone. You'd simply be slaying mindless zombies. But if you really need that kind of closure--"

"IT'S NOT THAT, EITHER!"

The wolf sighed even more grandly.

"So what is it?"

"You could've at least killed them more violently! I thought a guy like you would at least kill them in some really violent way, but no! You set them up to die, but it all relied on coincidence! So my step-father starved to death in his bathroom because my mother took the key with her to get it copied and then ran off with some guy she met at the mall food court for five months! So what? He thought it was just bad luck! So Chedda died of an infection after some Martian brat cut off his hand! That's stupid! You should've appeared to them at the height of their happiness and tore them apart with your bare hands! The least you could've done was appeared to them right before they died and said something like, 'Hey, you're dying because it's the will of Ichabod Colby' or something like that, instead of making them all look like they were a run of unrelated accidents! You and your damned Machiavellian schemes!"

Klaus smiled a bit and said, "Now, be nice! Those deaths took years to set up properly! They were part of an experiment of mine concerning free will and the inherent evil in your race. They brought about their own ends, even if they didn't know it. And besides that, Mr. Machiaevelli and I were good friends. Of course, he didn’t speak to me after our book deal collapsed....

"Anyway, is there anything else, or are you about done ranting?"

"Stop mocking me!"

His voice rising to a crescendo, Colby howled finally, "And one of them is still alive! Anybody else's death I could have forgotten about--my step-father, anybody! But not those three! My revenge isn’t complete until all three of them are dead and gone!"

Black froze suddenly. Colby's words had been like a quick knee to the groin; totally unexpected and severe. Everything else--all other thoughts, concerns, and passing whimsies--disappeared. Not to say that Black has one, but his heart suddenly turned to ice. Had Colby's back not been turned, he would have seen, for the first time, an expression of fear on his master's face. Fear of what?

Of being discovered. But--but no one so dimwitted as Colby could have found out, could he? No! It was impossible!

"Did I miss one?" the wolf asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He was still careful not to let Colby see his face, however, for his nervous tics might very well have given him away. The mouth lies, but the body reveals the truth. "I doubt that. But just for the curiosity's sake, who don't you think I killed?"

Seven hells! If he gets any closer……

A small white fireball appeared suddenly in one of his palms. It danced there, a tiny contained blaze. The simplest of spells. But suprisingly power. It would be enough, he knew, to kill Colby twenty times over. Still, he hated to waste all the effort he had put into him over the last several years. God, to have to start all over again…

Colby's mouth opened. Black tensed.

"One of those mice from Ash!"

Poof!

The miniature sun disappeared, leaving no trace of its existence.

"Picky picky!" the wolf snapped, turning back to face Colby. There was a bawdy grin on his face, all his fears forgotten. Colby had no idea just how close he had come to his own demise.

"One’s still alive? Tell me, what’s the consequence? His life is over, you know that! He's washed-up, friendless, and miserable! Letting him live is better revenge. Rest assured, your position with Camembert will not be jeopardized by this 'Stoker.' "

He smiled as Colby squeezed his fist in vain, trying to come up with another point to argue. No, he didn't suspect a thing.

"Besides that, you always said you hated the other two more!" the wolf continued smugly. "The yellow one with the Cheshire cat smile who was the cause of that whole fandango in Ash, and the quiet white fur who killed your esteemed Mozzarella! Am I correct?"

"Yeah, but...." Colby grumbled. He rubbed his toe into the ground, no arguments left.

"You asked for revenge--a rather broad term that doesn't have to mean 'death'--for the three and death for those two, specifically. And neither of them is breathing anymore, are they? No!"

Black smiled a little to himself.

"So you're revenged! So quit complaining and live up to your end of the deal!" Black concluded with a proud flourish. There was something wonderfully satisfying about winning a battle when your enemy didn't even know you were fighting one.

Colby sighed and pushed his fin back sadly. He wasn't the brightest fish in the pond, but he was smart enough to know when he was licked.

Nodding, Black laughed, "That’s what I like! Humble subservience!" He put an arm around Colby's shoulder in a gesture that would have been warm and friendly coming from anybody else and walked him slowly back across the room.

"You know, I almost--almost--feel bad about all that," the wolf said in a fatherly tone. "You're a good boy, Ichabod, and I know how frustrated you mortals can get. So I’m going to make it up to you. How does a night on New Mojave sound? Fast cars, fast women, fast drugs--well, I don’t know if 'fast drugs' makes sense, exactly, but I think you get my meaning……."

Colby’s eyes glittered hopefully, all thoughts of his wasted revenge banished from his mind.

"Do you mean it?"
Black opened his palm, revealing a huge, white diamond where a moment ago there had been nothing.

"It’s yours, if you want it."

"And just where am I supposed to break that?" Colby asked with a sly smile. "The average pimp doesn’t carry two million in small bills on him."

Shrugging, the wolf closed his hand, then opened it again to reveal a double-platinum VISA (with no spending limit and an introductory rate of only 3.7% APR).

"Better?" Klaus asked.

"Much!" the Plutarkian cried, reaching for it.

"Ah ah ah!" Klaus said with a grin as he lifted the card just out of Colby’s reach. "I have a job for you first. It’s paltry, actually. Barely any physical activity at all. As a matter of fact, you won’t even get your hands dirty."

Colby crossed his arms over his chest and asked, "You want me to get a woman for you? That’s too easy. Actually, I think Gloria is still in my room. If you want, I can catch her before--"

"Get your mind out of your pants for five minutes, Ichabod," Black said firmly, face hard and cold as stone. "Your task is of a greater gravity than that."

The Hohma Orb appeared between the two of them. Black chose to activate it by thought this time (he loved to show off in front of his servants). It wasn't being quite so pert now. The masters must have told it to shape up. Whatever the reason, it was fine with Black.

It glowed brightly for a moment before revealing the image of Bingo Ritz once again. By now she had finished reading her comic and was listening to some rather loud music. Something about being "pretty fly for a white guy."

"Do you know who this is?" Black asked after a moment.

Colby squinted at the orb curiously, then murmured, "Hmmmm. Is he the one who you’re always complaining about? Azrael?"

"No."

"But then who—"

"She’s the one I’m always complaining about," Black corrected. "Azrael."

Peering into the orb again, a skeptical Colby asked, "That’s a girl? Doesn’t look it."
"You’re telling me. Yes, that’s Bingo Ritziantanto, "Ritz," Azrael, the thirteenth Holy Knight of the Order of St. Dumas, the Avenging Angel, Light of the Trinity, Yoquiero Taco Bell, Revolutionary Girl Utena, et cetera, et cetera. Titles. Dumas knows it much better than I do. At any rate, she’s the last of her line, and the only one who can stop us.

"The only one."

Colby smirked and asked, nearly laughing, "Are you sure? She’s a kid!"

"My boy," Klaus said without a hint of a smile, "do not underestimate a Ritziantanto if you want to live a long life. Heh. If you want to live at all. I've been fighting members of her family for over two thousand years. And despite her appearance, in a few decades, this one will be nearly peerless."

Peerless?

This puzzled Colby. He had never heard his master talk about anyone with such high regard before. Ever. What was so special about this girl?

He looked her over again, more carefully than the last time, wondering if he had perhaps missed some crucial detail. Hmmmm. That firewheel mark around her eye was familiar somehow, and the bolt on her right cheek was as well. He had seen those symbols before, in the halls of this very fortress, but he couldn't place them. And those cheek tufts….those were rare in mice, he knew that. The knowledge didn't help much, though. What power was hidden inside her that Black so feared?

Finally, Colby hazarded a guess.

"Is she a spell-caster? I mean, is she a mage?"

Shaking his head sadly, Black explained, "That’s part of the problem. I really don't know. You see, the identity of the thirteenth Azrael--her, Bingo--was only revealed to me a little over a year ago. Then I couldn’t locate her. Then I found her. Then she disappeared again. Now I finally found her, but I’ve only had a few months to really watch her.

"Since we're destined to do battle one of these days, I need to know the scope of her abilities. She's only fifteen, and hasn't spent any time with the Order, so I'm fairly confident that she doesn't know any magic just yet. She might have a proclivity towards it, but I rather doubt that. My main interest, then, is her physical prowess.

"But observing that has been almost as difficult as finding her in the first place. You see, according to the Hohma Orb, she lives with three very large male Biker Mice who--"

Colby started to giggle. Black, unable to restrain himself, snickered a little and chuckled, "I know, I know. It doesn’t look very wholesome, does it?"

"Menenge ´ quatre, aisle five," Colby jested, tears in his eyes.

The two chuckled for a moment, then Black continued, once again all business.

"Near as I can tell, it's not like that. It's all very platonic. Just like Friends used to be, before the ratings started to sag. So we'll see what happens. Whatever the case, exactly, the four of them are bikers, and they’re presently embroiled with a Plutarkian named Lawrence Limburger--"

Colby scowled out of reflex.

"Friend of yours?" Klaus asked, raising a sarcastic eyebrow.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Colby snapped, "Ugh! I hate him! That over-baked idiot lost Mars for us!"

"Do tell?"

"We had a Tug Transformer all set up and ready to drag the whole rotten planet back to Plutark!" the young fish fumed, tossing his arms up in the air. He always spoke with the most animated gestures. "Everything was going perfectly! The Army couldn't stop us, and we even had the Resistance in the palms of our hands!"

His eyes grew hateful.

"Then Limburger bungled it somehow! Tried to oust Stilton right in the middle of all of it! I mean, I like a power play as much as the next fish, but that guy had seriously bad timing! Ripping a planet out of its orbit isn't easy. The fish in charge has to make sure a lot of things happen at just the right time. When Limburger nabbed Stilton, everything went to Hell in a handbasket. Ugh! Bad enough the idiot couldn't carry it off--thanks to his stupid ambition, those mice won! And now he's got a cooshy job on Earth that he doesn't deserve! Meanwhile, the only chance for fish like me to get off Plutark is to learn how to repair Transporters!"

A slightly miffed Black coughed, and Colby added quickly, "Or we can ally ourselves with monstrously evil beings. Happy?"
"Very."

Colby hmph-ed, then added, "I guess no matter how stupid some fish are, they'll always get second chances."

Black mulled this over for a minute, then asked, "Does it matter? Seems to me there isn't much left on Mars that anyone could want, is there?"

Shrugging, Colby explained, "Well, we're done with it, if that's what you mean. We got pretty much everything we wanted before the High Chairman decided it was a waste of fish-power to keep troops there anymore. We got their water, all the good ores, a ton of soil, and most of the planet’s population is either dead or in slavery. All in all, all things considered, not too bad a job. Minimal loss of lives and a fairly decent take. We've sunk more into other planets for less. You know, we worked on Venus for almost three hundred years before the first backhoe touched down, but we got less there than we did on Pluto, and that place is smaller than--"

"Fascinating, Colby, fascinating," Black mumbled. "Now let’s get back on track, shall we?"

"Oh, yeah! Sure."

"Well, in any case, they’re constantly fighting this 'Limburger.' He's not so much by himself--morbidly obese and all--but he’s got alot of hired muscle, which he employs on a fairly regular basis against the mice. Now, this should give me some idea of just what she can do, and it does, to a degree. The problem is, though, when she fights, she fights with her ‘bros’, as part of a team. So I don’t know how good she is alone. And her alone is my primary concern."

Colby looked up from the orb, hands on his hips.

"You want me to fight her?"

The wolf looked at Colby honestly suprised, then nearly bust a gut laughing. Black had to lean against a wall to keep himself from falling over, and he still ended up on the floor, rolling around, laughing! Colby turned six different shades of blue, spanning the emotional gamut from pure embarrassment to rage.

"Oh, Ichabod!" Klaus laughed, slapping his knee. "You must be joking! Ha ha! Ohhh-ho-ho. Ohhh, you wouldn't stand a chance against her! Hee hee! You wouldn't stand a chance against her gym socks!"

Thanks for the vote of confidence, the young fish thought bitterly.

"Colby," Black said, wiping a tear from his eye, "I keep you around because you're a slimy little sycophant who'll do anything I tell you, not for your brawn--which, as any fool can see, you are considerably lacking in!"

Yet another compliment. Man. If I wanted abuse, I could've just stayed home with Mom.

"Anyway," Black continued, "I’ve got a very talented warrior I’ve been keeping my eye on for the last two hundred years or so, and I’ve been thinking of using him for this very assignment. I’m impressed with what I've seen of him in action, but having spent so much time watching him, I must admit I’m a little partial as well. So I want a second opinion before I send him up against her."

"Is that all I have to do?" Colby asked. "Tell you what I think of him?"

"Almost. If he’s the one, then I’m sending you both to Earth to test the girl. You’ll supervise, keep him on task, and report back to me every few hours. Capice?"
Colby nodded.

"Excellent!"

Black clapped his hands briskly, and his troll servant appeared at the door.

"Bring him in!" the wolf cried, face alight with the joy of seeing a long labor finally brought to fruition.

The troll nodded, then disappeared out the door.

"So, who is this guy?" Colby asked inquisitorial way. "Have I heard of him?"

Black sat down in his throne and motioned for Colby to stand beside him.

"Possibly. He’s one of Baytor’s boys."
"Baytor?" Colby asked, amazed. "The Baytor? He’s one of the greatest martial artists the universe has ever known! They--they say that no one's ever beaten him!"

"Just me," Black said, raising a sheepish hand. "But still, he’s not bad for a guy born without a head."

"I’ve heard it makes training with him hard, though," the young Plutarkian interjected, slightly amused.

Black nodded.

"But, if a student can learn to understand him in the absence of any verbal or facial expression, then they can surely master what he has to teach them. And this fellow that I’ve been watching has it all memorized, chapter and verse. Even Baytor’s admittedly foppish hand motions, although this chap doesn't like to use them."

Colby smirked and said, "I can’t wait to see him."
Black's ears flicked forward suddenly. He looked up, as if cued into something that Colby could neither hear nor see.

"Master? What is it?"

"He’s here."
The doors flew open. They slammed into the walls with tremendous force, leaving huge, spider-webbed cracks in them, as if they were nothing more than the most fragile of glass. One door fell from its hinges and struck the floor with a crash. A faint mist began to drift in, as usually happens when a bad guy with a quasi-mystical bent enters a room, and with it, in came a huge black figure (the aforementioned bad guy).

Colby gasped.

Black’s chosen warrior was easily ten feet tall, and was, like his sponsor, a wolf, but much, much bigger. His body, swaddled in a black jumpsuit that stretched from his neck to his toes, was of a muscularity and proportion rarely seen outside Rob Liefield's comic illustrations. He had arms like telephone poles, legs like tree trunks, and no, I’m not about to compare any other body part to a long, thick cylindrical object, you pervert. Yet his trunk was thin. While blunt-fingered, his hands still looked skillful enough to handle any weapon put into them. A short white ponytail fell from his brown-furred head to halfway down his back, where it had been gathered in a short ponytail tied with leather thong. Around his forearms were a series of small green ovals arranged in narrow bracelets, winking in the torchlight like gems. A similar ring encircled his thick neck. Except for these ovals, his clothing was devoid of any real ornamentation.

As the remaining door fell shut behind him, the wolf got down on one knee and bowed to Black and Colby, although the fish entertained no notion that he was intentionally being bowed to. Colby crossed his arms over his chest, already uncomfortable with Black's choice. There was no doubt in Colby's mind that this fellow could do the job now that he had seen him; it was just a childhood bias. Colby was never at ease around those who could turn him into tuna salad.

"Hail, sai Black," the warrior said. His voice had all the warmth of a frozen tundra.

Black smiled and said, "You may rise, my warrior."

The young wolf nodded and rose to his feet.

Did he get taller in the last two seconds, Colby wondered, or is it just my imagination? Geez! What are they feeding this guy?

With one hand, Black motioned toward his fishy familiar and said, "This is one of my favorites, Ichabod Colby. I know he smells bad, but I’m working on that."

"Sai Colby," the wolf said, offering a short bow.

Colby nodded a little, all too aware that the wolf’s eyes never left his face. Apparently, the dislike was mutual.

"Colby this is--," Black began, starting to finish the introductions. He stopped suddenly, a wicked smile on his face. It was the grin of one whose greatest merriment came from the torture of others.

He turned to his young cohort and said, "Colby, can you guess my chosen one’s name?"

The hit wolf's face sank a little. He gritted his teeth, in anticipation of pain.

"Please," he moaned, "sai Black, don’t--"

"Stop whining!" the other wolf shouted. He turned back to Colby, face calm, and said, "Go ahead and try. He’s only got one name, so don’t worry about it being first or last or anything like that. Give it a go."

Nodding, Colby looked the young assassin over thoughtfully. He took in once again the wolf's powerful build, his muscular yet strangely agile-looking body. Hmm. Brown fur, white hair. And of course, he was an assassin. This was a guy with blood on his hands.

"Well," the young fish said thoughtfully, "it's gotta be something….powerful. Strong. Guttural. Dangerous."

Black smiled, on the verge of a chuckle, and his warrior sighed.

"Thortz?" Colby asked finally.

His master shook his head no.

"Gwar?"

"Don’t I wish," the warrior sighed.

"SHUT UP!" Black snapped.

"Hmmm. What about Hrothgar? Fenris? Blath? Skrinz? Grishnez? Blicknar?"

The warrior’s shoulders slumped a little more with each progressive name. It puzzled Colby more than a little bit; why should a powerhouse like that look depressed?

Is he ashamed of his name?

Black snickered into his palm, then said, "No, no no! You’re terrible at this game, Colby!"

"Well, how about a little help?" the young fish asked, quickly becoming frustrated. "I mean, I don’t have a clue! I don’t know what planet he’s from, or what ethnic group he belongs to, or anything! I'm trying! I’m even making up names as I go!" Exasperated, he cried, "I give up. What is it?"

Clearing his throat, Black rose to his feet, walked to where the warrior stood, and put an arm on one of his shoulders. The other wolf winced at his touch.

"Colby, meet the strongest thane of Baytor, one of the most physically powerful beings in the universe, a dark warrior who has waded through the blood of conquered foes up to his knees, and incidentally, one of my many, many bastard sons.....

"Timmy."

Colby’s jaw dropped. The assassin blushed furiously and turned his eyes away.

"You’re kidding, right?" the Plutarkian asked, unable to believe his ears (or whatever it is that fish have in the absence of ears). " ‘Timmy’?"

Black shook his head "no" proudly, then leapt onto his throne.

"A very ridiculous name for one such as he, isn’t it? I think his mother thought he would be more brain than brawn. Idiot. Hmm. Her name escapes me at the moment. Ah well. Que sera, sera. In any case, yes, this huge bastion of raw strength and power, this merciless killing machine, is named ‘Timmy.’ "

Colby snickered a little. He understood now why he bore that contrite look. What a mismatch! God, had he ever really been afraid of that guy? Why?

"Shut up!" Timmy growled. "I didn’t get a choice!"

"You could’ve changed it at any given point," Colby replied, that smug look never leaving his face.

Black shook his head and explained, "He couldn’t. Baytor and I decided that my boy here needed to learn real humility were he ever to become a great warrior. The ego can't be allowed to swell too much. An inflated sense of self has been the death of many a fine fighter. So I put a curse on him. Nothing unusual there; I've put curses on many of my children. Mostly, they're power-restricting in nature. Wouldn't do to have one of them become stronger than me and usurp my throne. Timmy's is unique, though; whenever anyone asks him his name, he can not say but ‘Timmy’. Nor can he sign his name to any document except as that."

Grinning, Colby chuckled, "I’d say that’s cruel and unusual punishment."

Timmy crossed his huge arms over his huge chest and snapped, "Oh, like your name is so much better, Ichabod?" He spoke the last word with inestimable contempt.

Shrugging, Colby riposted, "Compared to yours, yes. ‘Ichabod' fits me, at least."

"I wouldn't be so quick, Colby," Black corrected, smirking. "In your own tongue, 'Ichabod' means 'conqueror', and we've all seen just how apropos that is.

"But he's right all the same, Timmy. At least the name ‘Ichabod’ reminds people of that wonderfully cheerful story about the schoolteacher who couldn’t cross the bridge fast enough. Your name, by way of literary comparison, makes people think of that crippled little boy from 'A Christmas Carol', or a third-grader who can’t keep from wetting his pants. Not very fear-inspiring, is it?"

Colby snickered again. In that instant, Timmy added Colby to the list of people he'd kill someday when he got some free time. His father was number one on the list with a bullet.

Black rose to his feet to command the attention of both his minions and said, in an appropriately commanding voice, "But, if you are successful on this mission, Timmy, then you shall have to cringe no longer! Should you succeed in slaying Azrael, I shall not only remove your curse and allow you to take a new name--I will wipe the memory of your old name from every living creature--and a few of the more powerful dead ones-- in the entire galaxy!"

Timmy gasped.

"Can I be ‘Slash’?" he asked hopefully.

Shaking his head no, Black replied, "There’s an Earth rock star by that name, though his best work is behind him."

" ‘Sting’?"

"That’s taken, too."

"Sammy Hagar?"
"Ew, yuck! Have a sense of taste, boy!"

"What about 'Flame VanWham'?"

"Okay, now you're drifting into somebody else's story," Black sighed, "and The Writer isn't about to risk copyright infringement, at least when it comes to friends."
"Dammit! What about ‘Rip’?"
Black cocked his head to the side and said, "Possibly. I’ll have one of my

servants examine a book of rock star names and see which verbs haven’t been taken.

"Of course, we haven't talked about what your punishment will be if you should return here a failure."
"I have no plans of doing that, sai Black. I'll hang myself with my own intestine before that."

"Either way, should you fail, then I shall strengthen your curse by giving you a name even worse, even less fitting than 'Timmy.' Your name shall be branded on every square inch of your body. Should you return with your tail between your legs--so to speak--you shall henceforth be known as…..'Bubbles.'"

Colby smiled as he watched the wolf nod his head in prayer to whatever god he believed in, pleading that the latter possibility should not come to pass.

"But we’re putting the cart before the horse, aren’t we?" Black said loudly. "My dear Colby still hasn’t told me whether or not he approves of you for this mission."

Timmy’s eyes narrowed. He sneered at Colby angrily.

"I don’t know," Colby said thoughtfully, well aware of just how much he was spiting the young wolf. "He sounded impressive before I found out he was named ‘Timmy’."

Black turned to his bastard son and asked, "You would not be adverse to a showing of your skill?"

Smiling, Timmy replied, "Of course not, sai Black."

"Good."

Klaus snapped his fingers, and instantly, a small army of giants (if there can be such a thing) appeared from the shadows. Each was twenty feet tall, hideously deformed, with dark, craggy skin, and eyes where eyes had no right to be. The typical fantasy ogre. They made Timmy look tiny by comparison. Simple brutes. Alone, they were freaks of nature; together, they were a calamity of bad design.

As they gazed stupidly at the young wolf, they began to lick their dirty, cold sore encrusted lips. Spittle fell from their open jaws, revealing square yellow teeth in a garish, somehow menacing smile.

"They’re hungry, Timmy," Black said, a slight smile on his face. "They haven't eaten in quite awhile."

He turned to the ogres and shouted, "KILL!"

Slowly, the ogres formed a rough semicircle (not being advanced enough to use compasses, it was the best they could do) around their target, who remained still as stone in the center. They raised their hands, and huge clubs the size of Geo Metros materialized in their fingers. This evening's menu was apparently to include a liberal portion of mashed wolf.

Then the circle began to close.

Timmy smiled.

TH-WACK!
A club swooped down and struck the ground where the lupine assassin stood. The stone parterre splintered the as if it were glass. A ring of smoke rose with it, then began to disperse slowly.

"I'll have to replace that floor," Black sighed sadly.

When the dust cleared, however, it was revealed that Timmy had not been pounded into putty. Quite the opposite. Just before the clubs had hit, the wolf had leapt several dozen feet in the air above his assailants to avoid the blow. When the ogres saw him, still rising to the apex of his jump, Timmy even went so far as to stick out his tongue at them.

The ogres howled their discontent. After all, sticking out their tongues was one of the few gestures they were articulate enough to use, and now it was being used against them! Now they didn't just want dinner; now they wanted revenge!

Timmy took no notice. While two of the ogres swung for him, he landed on the shoulder of a third. His toe claws popped through the fabric of his jumpsuit and dug into its shoulders, giving him all the balance he needed.

Colby barely saw the wolf's hand go for his sword before the ogre’s head struck the floor.

"Impressive," he murmured. He smiled a little. "Not bad, so far."

Black pointed and said, "He’s just warming up. Look sharp, my boy; you’re missing the show!"
A thunderous boom pulled Colby’s attention back to the fight. It had been the sound of three more dead ogres simultaneously falling to the ground. Already Timmy had leapt on his next victim, which he dispatched with amazing speed.

Five minutes after his entrance, the inappropriately named wolf had slain all his opponents. His blade, hands, and fangs were bright green with their thick, suprisingly chunky blood.

"Is that enough?" he asked cockily, leaning against the hilt of his sword.

Colby’s eyes grew wide.

***

As usual, Bingo Ritz was pleasantly unaware of any schemes to put an end her short life. Just as well; it probably would've depressed her if she had known. Nothing puts the kibosh to a good time like knowing someone is out to kill you. But then again, what's life without impending doom hanging over your shoulder? It was the Biker Mice credo.

So in ignorance of her imminent assassination, Bingo had quickly agreed to go with Vinnie, her nearest and dearest bro, to a local video store to pick up some movies for this evening's entertainment (their other option, pumpkin-carving, sounded boring). Although the mice were still somewhat in the dark as to what Halloween was, exactly, they were not adverse to the idea of celebrating it, particularly since it meant pigging out on hot dogs and an all-night horror movie marathon. Actually, the mice weren't averse to celebrating anything, including bank holidays, demolishing Limburger Tower, or waking up in the morning.

It was nearly eleven a.m. when the two mice left the Last Chance Garage. They raced through the streets of Chicago, engines howling as they zipped recklessly through the remainder of morning rush-hour traffic, whooping and cat-calling to each other. There was an unspoken competition between the two of them, a race, with each mouse vying for the lead. Vinnie was usually ahead--he was the more experienced rider, and had the faster bike--but Bingo could find holes in the tightest gridlock. When they finally stopped at the crosswalk at the corner of 17^th and Beaver, it was, as usual, a tie.

"You're gettin' slow, bro!" Bingo laughed. "I almost had you that time."

"You wish! " Vinnie panted with a grin that might have been mistaken for psychosis. "You just got lucky is all. If that truck hadn't overturned in my lane, no way you would've caught me."

"But you were the one who spooked the driver and made him flip!"

Vinnie rolled his eyes and sighed, "Details, details."

Bingo shrugged and smiled back as she caught her breath. There was something to be said for saying nothing.

Vinnie turned off his helmet's screen long enough to wipe the sweat of competition from his forehead. Hard to believe he could sweat at all in this weather. The chill October air struck his face. He shivered a little. The wind whisked the sweat away as if it had never been there, although Vinnie still felt compelled to clear his brow manually. As his fingers traced across the left side of his face, covered (as always) by that (goddamn) mask, he could feel the metal slipping and sliding beneath them. When he lifted them away, it reformed itself, as rigid and unyielding as if he had never touched it.

Palming his screen back on, he turned back to Bingo, who was checking the straps on her gloves.

"Hey, you wanna swing around Dog N' Suds, get somethin' to eat?"

The younger mouse shrugged and said, "Dunno. We did just finish breakfast twenty minutes ago."

Vinnie sniffed.

"Pretty paltry breakfast. Twelve dogs apiece? S'hardly a drop in the bucket. Come on, Bing-bro, I'm wastin' away here!"

Bingo raised an eyebrow and smirked. One orange-furred hand shot out and grabbed Vinnie's right arm. Before her bro could ask what she was doing, Bingo proceeded to put her hands around one of Vinnie's biceps. She couldn't force make her fingers to touch.

"Oh, yeah. I'd say you're really in danger of starvation."

Vinnie stuck his tongue out at her.

"Yes or no?"

"Mmmm, not yet. It'll only take us ten minutes or so at the store. Then we get our tails back to the Last Chance and get some munchies there. 'Kay?"

Vinnie sighed and crossed his arms behind his head. Okay, so he wasn't really hungry or anything like that. He was just bored. But the least Bingo could've done was agreed with him! After all, who was the older one here? Bingo was supposed to go along with everything Vinnie said because he had four years on her, regardless of risk to life, limb, or possible criminal prosecution!

Then again, who had asked Bingo for her opinion?

I hate irony, Vinnie thought bitterly to himself, shaking his head.

He glanced over at his younger bro. Still fooling with those gloves. Heh. Where had she gotten those, anyway? Oh yeah. New Mojave. She saw them in a shop window and had fallen in love with them. Not to mention the matching boots. She loved those boots, even if, as she often told Vinnie, they made her feet look big.

New Mojave…it's been a year now since we were there, Vinnie realized thoughtfully. We were all signed up for the big Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster Triple-X, and then we got that bogus tip that Mace was back on Mars and missed it. Hmp. I really wanted to be in that one. I was gonna smoke Throttle on that one!

Still smiling, Vinnie took a long, hard look at Bingo. She'd certainly changed since then. Well, technically, all four of them had. They were all taller, even Modo, who had already been smacking his head off of doorways before they had ever left Martian soil. And stronger, to boot. Were Vinnie not so ruled by his ego, he would have had to admit that he had been scrawny when they first set foot on New Mojave as compared to now. He would've looked like an idiot just wearing his bandoleers back them. Too skinny, not enough muscle. Now he had the body to carry it off (and what a body!)

But the change was most marked in Bingo. It wasn't just that she had a bike now--a handsome bottle green street-bike that had all the best qualities of Vinnie's own red rocket with the added advantage of a lighter frame. That was a big difference, of course; she was a Biker Mouse now in a way she simply hadn't been before.

It was that she looked so different now. So much older. Oh, sure, her hair was still in that weird spiky do it had always been in, but when the Biker Mice had first slept under the smoggy brown skies of New Mojave, Bingo had still looked like a kid. A little girl. Fourteen years old and she had still just four feet five inches tall. Short, short, short. She had still had a little bit of chubbiness in her cheeks then as well, though how she had any chubbiness anywhere after spending two years in a death camp was beyond Vinnie.

Then, a miracle. That growth spurt she had prayed for all those years finally kicked in. The rush of hormones from her pituitary gland had given her ten inches in height in less than a year. Not very tall yet (for a mouse, she was a shrimp), but maybe that was her lot in life. In addition, she now had those gangly arms and legs that mark adolescence and make it difficult for so many young people. Her hands and feet seemed too large for her body. Everything about Bingo looked out of proportion.

Especially her unfortunately flat chest.

You're growin' up, little bro, ain't ya?

"Vinnie?" Bingo asked, a slightly puzzled look on her face. "What're you looking at?" Her tone sounded as if Vinnie's casual glance had been a tad closer to a mildly perverted leer.

Snapped back to reality by his bro's question, Vinnie quickly shook his head and shouted, "Nothing, nothing!" Quickly, he added, "I hate to admit it, but that was a pretty close one!"

"I guess that means I'm gettin' better, huh?" Bingo asked, her smile not enough to hide the nervous anticipation in her eyes.

Chin in hand, Vinnie answered after a moment of thought, "Well……you're better than you were back on Mars."

Bingo smiled proudly for a millisecond. Then the grin fell from her face.

"Wait a second! I didn't have a bike back on Mars!" she reminded him crossly.

"So you can't be anything but better, right?" her white-furred bro answered with a shrug.

Bingo stuck out her tongue, and Vinnie chuckled a little. Annoying Bingo was one of his favorite hobbies. Inexpensive and fun for the whole family!

"Come on, bro!" the younger mouse entreated. "I'm serious!"

Vinnie sighed a little, but it was a warm one. Her determination was simultaneously irritating and heartwarming (kind of like Kathie Lee Gifford). Vinnie knew just how much his evaluation, his seal of approval, mattered to his little bro. Bingo wanted desperately to be a great biker. It was her chiefest goal in life to be as good as her bros, even though Vinnie had warned her for years that it was a complete and total impossibility to be as skillful as he was. True genius is born, not learned.

"Okay, okay, I'll say it," Vinnie said finally. "Yes, you're getting better. You're cornering tighter, you're not afraid like you used to be of jumping into tight spots, and when you ramped that car back there--that was pretty sweet, even by my standards. Don't think the driver appreciated it, but--"

He shrugged grandly.

"Just don't let it go to your head," Vinnie concluded, still waiting for the light to change. "There's only room for one huge ego in this town, and that's me."

Not eager to get Vinnie talking about himself again (respect for your elders can only go so far), Bingo quickly sighed, "Is this light ever gonna change?"

Vinnie, who was tapping his fingers on his bike's dash, mumbled, "If it doesn't, I'm gonna shoot it down and just say that it changed. Into a pile of junk."

"It was pretty nice of Charley-girl t’lend us her credit card, huh?"

"Yeah. Especially since somebody blew all our cash on those weird Japanese comic books."

"Bitch bitch bitch."

After a moment of silence, Vinnie suggested, "Y’know, as long as we have Charley-girl's credit card, we could skip movies all together and have us a shoppin' spree at the Bad Ass Biker Outlet." He rubbed his white-furred arms and added, "We all know how good I look in leather, and besides, I need a jacket."
Bingo’s smile widened as she asked coyly, "Cold, bro?"
The white-furred mouse sighed, a puff of foggy white breath drifting up and out of the bottom of his helmet, and grumbled, "You’d think bein’ born on a planet where it gets to negative ninety in the summer would make fall on Earth a breeze, but nooooooo."

"You shed too much in the summer, that's your problem," Bingo told him simply. "By the time winter rolls around, you've got no fur left!" She smirked a little, fingered the collar of her fatigue jacket, and said, "Now me, I'm smart enough to wear a coat, so it doesn't matter how much I shed. Mmmm. I’m so warrrrrmmmmmmm. Toasty, just like an oven!"

"Keep that up and just maybe I’ll take that jacket off your hands!"

"Like you could wear it!" the younger mouse laughed. "You’re too big, bro!"

"Ah ah ah," Vinnie corrected, waggling a finger in the younger mouse’s face. "Too muscular, Bing." He pumped one of his biceps, then repeated, "Muscular."

She shook her head and asked, "Does it hurt to have an ego that big?"

"Sometimes, yes."

HOOOONK!

The two mice started, and turned to see a pissed off truck driver behind them (in a truck; not just a truck driver standing in the road), angrily pulling the cord connected to his air horn.

HOOOONK! HOOOONK!

"What’s his problem?" Vinnie snapped angrily.

Bingo looked up and replied, slightly chagrinned, "Light changed while we were talkin’. Apparently, quite a few minutes ago. Hmm. Our conversation was getting unrealistically lengthy for one traffic light, even this close to lunch."

Vinnie hrumph-ed and said, "That guy knows nothin’ of common courtesy," as he flipped him off and turned left onto the next street, Bingo following close behind. There was more loud honking, which surprised Vinnie, until Bingo explained that she had trumped her bro by flipping the driver off with both hands.

Indignantly, the older mouse replied, "Well, I can’t be perfect all the time."

"Or even half the time."
"Keep your eyes on the road, shecky, or we’ll miss our turn," Vinnie said, pointing to a small, squat brick building on the left side of the street. "Video store’s over there."
Bingo stuck her tongue out, then turned hard to the left, cutting off a pair of buses in the process. When they beeped angrily, Vinnie raced to join Bingo and executed the Double Bird before Bingo got the chance. The younger mouse snapped that Vinnie wasn’t playing fair as they pulled into the same space side by side and parked their bikes in front of "Yeah, We’ve Got Porno In the Back" Family Video. He told her to quit her bitching, and asked if she had the list Charley had given them.

Bingo poked her hand into one of the pockets on her jacket, and after a moment of searching, pulled out a sheet of notebook paper, roughly three-quarters full of titles scratched on in pencil.

"Here ya go," she said, handing it to him.

Vinnie looked it over carefully, then muttered, "Big list. Looks like twenty or so."

"Y’think she wants us to bring ‘em all back?" Bingo asked, peeking over Vinnie’s shoulder. No small task, since Vinnie's over a foot taller than Bingo. "Or are these just suggestions?"

"Of course she wants them all! Why would she give us such a long list if she didn’t?"

"Y'know, that's the kinda logic that gets us in trouble."

"Yup."

They both grinned.

The two young mice entered the store, which was packed more tightly than a mosh pit at a Mettalica concert. People were crammed into every available cubic millimeter of space, and more were fighting to get in. Bingo was certain she could see a few people crowd surfing over the mob (and wanted very much to join them. It looked like fun!). There was barely room enough for the two mice to work their way in, let alone move about. The noise was deafening to their sharp ears, even through their helmets. They found themselves being pushed, shoved, elbowed, kneed, and, Vinnie added, slightly riled, groped. People were shouting, arguing over the last copies of scarce tapes (fistfights were breaking out storewide over the widescreen version of "Titanic"), and of course, there were the obligatory crying babies, who are shipped into any hugely obnoxious crowd scene to make it worse. Amidst all this chaos, the smell of freshly-popped popcorn wafted over the crowd like buttery perfume.

"YEOWCH!" Vinnie shouted suddenly, jumping a full foot off the ground.

"What’s wrong?" Bingo asked, struggling to find some island of sanity in the human swarm.

Vinnie picked up his tail, bent into sharp corners instead of its usual smooth curves by some inconsiderate lout, and shouted into the crowd, "Watch your stupid feet!"

Bingo, having already wrapped tail around her waist to prevent such a calamity, peeked up over the crowd and cried, "Hey! I think I see the Horror Section!"

"They've got an entire section of Pamela Lee movies?" Vinnie asked, puzzled.

"Not 'whore'! 'Horror'!"

"Oh!" Vinnie said quickly. He peered through the milling crowd. Even though he was taller than most of the people in it, their flailing limbs and bobbing heads still obscured his view. "Where?"

His younger bro pointed somewhere towards the back. Vinnie followed her finger to the rear-most section of the store (not including the porno section, which was, as the name said, in the back), to a slightly off-set group of seven shelves, over each of which hung a large plastic sign with the word

HORROR

printed in block letters on it.

It also happened to be the busiest part of the store. The rest of the shop looked almost spacious by comparison. Both mice knew they saw crowd surfers this time for sure, and Vinnie attested to seeing a trampled man being taken out by EMS workers on a stretcher.

"Shit," he mumbled, fists clenched.

"These people are pretty aggressive about their movies!" Bingo agreed, using her bony elbows and knees to knife her way through the masses of people. It was still slow going. "Man! I hope we can get back there!"

After a few minutes of steadily pushing forward, the two mice abruptly found themselves pressed up against a wall of people so thick and fiercely competitive to get to their tapes that neither of them could get through without doing somebody bodily harm (and that's not the kinda thing you do to total strangers unless they give you good reason). Vinnie tried spooking a few prospective shoppers away with his pistol, but found weapons of even larger caliber being shoved in his face.

"I didn't think it was legal to carry a concealed thermonuclear weapon in this city," he mused.

Frustrated, the white-furred mouse turned and carefully snaked his tail through the crowd, keeping it near the ground so as not to attract attention. It was as good a scheme as any he ever came up with. He came within a few feet of the tapes, but failed to so much as touch one of the prized tape boxes.

That, and a two-year old sitting on the floor bit it.

Vinnie wrapped his tail around his waist and sighed, "Well, I guess there’s only one way for either of us to get back there."

Bingo’s ears drooped inside her helmet.

"Aw, no, bro," she moaned. "Come on. There’s gotta be a better way than that!"

He shook his head no firmly.

"Nope. It's gotta be Catapult Maneuver 339."
"Couldn’t I just black hole myself over there?" she begged.

Vinnie shook his head no and said, "Bing, it’d be way too conspicuous. It's gotta be three-three-nine, that's all there is to it."

The orange-furred mouse sighed mightily and mumbled, "Okay, okay. Let's just do it and get it over with."

"Glad you see it my way," her older bro concluded cheerfully.

"I hate you."

"I know."

Vinnie grabbed Bingo firmly by the belt and the collar of her shirt, and lifted her off the ground, holding Bingo parallel to it. Assuming an athletic stance, the white-furred mouse cleared as much space as he could manage around him. Suddenly, he began whipping around, swinging Bingo like a living battering ram in a small circle, faster and faster. Bingo just sort of sighed and took her fate like a man (or a mouse, whichever you prefer).

Just when it looked as though Vinnie might use her to slam his way through the crowd, he summoned all his strength--

--and threw Bingo overtop of it.

She flew through the air like a large spitwad, and crashed with less than feline grace on the milling horde below. It swallowed her up quickly, like living quicksand, until Vinnie could no longer see her amidst the human swarm.

"You okay?" Vinnie shouted, straining to make his voice heard.

After a minute, Bingo cried back, "I think I’ve got a concussion!"

"Oh, okay! Just as long as you're alright!"

Inside the heart of the human herd, Bingo found herself being crushed more efficiently than when she had been outside it. Hands, elbows, even knees and feet, were shoved into her ruthlessly. With every passing moment, it seemed as if less and less air was available. It was getting hard to breathe, to think, to function. The press of bodies, the over-crowding--it was too much like Ash for her comfort. Far too much. The memories made Bingo shiver.

Or maybe it was just the store's whacked-out air conditioning system.

Another icy shiver shot down her back. Her stomach lurched.

Her chest began to seize up. Breathing wasn't just hard now, it was almost impossible. Bingo's battle to keep her phobia under control was a losing one. No rationality could keep her from freaking out. Her body was beyond her control. Jesus Christ, if she didn't beat it now, she was going to end up lying on the floor, hyperventilating.

That did it. Bingo's chest began to relax. Her heartbeat slowed down.

Bingo knelt on ground, like a runner in the crouch position. A determined look perched on her face. She would not fail!

Seconds later, a dozen people formerly in the Horror section found themselves tossed out by a screaming orange whirlwind hell-bent on reaching those shelves. One of them landed at Vinnie's feet.

"Poor sap," he observed thoughtfully. "Must've gotten in Bingo's way."

Bingo smiled to herself as she rested for a moment, just bare inches from the tapes, her fingers touching those hallowed shelves. Reaching the Elysian fields couldn't feel half so rewarding! And there was nothing like a good workout to kill those "spent two years in a death camp" fits. Of course, there were probably quite a few citizens lying on the floor right now who had been on the receiving end of her berzerker charge that weren't quite so thrilled that Bingo was feeling better. Oh well. You can't please everyone, and if you can't please everyone, then shouldn't you at least please yourself?

Now it was time to start hunting the titles on the list.

Unfortunately, the list was still with Vinnie, more likely than not still in his pocket. Even if Bingo could have moved back through the swarm to where her bro waited, it would've meant yet another execution of Catapult Maneuver 339, and she wasn't about to go through that again. Certainly, there was no way that he could shout the titles to her. It would be the very next thing to impossible to hear him.

So Bingo had to try and remember all the titles from memory. That was a futile exercise; as a member of the MTV generation, Bingo has difficulty remembering what happened five minutes ago. So she decided to just grab whatever titles were still in.

"Let’s see," she muttered. " ‘Scream’......that’s out. ‘Scream II’......that’s out. ‘I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream’......that’s out....... Ummmmm.......

‘Halloween’........out......... ‘Halloween II’.....out...... 'Halloween III'…..out…..'Halloween 89'…..out…..‘Halloween 1,272--Aren’t You People Sick of These Damn Movies Yet?’......out....... ‘Jack Frost’....Huh. I thought this was supposed to be a family flick. Out….. ‘April Fools’ Day........out........Geez, this isn’t even close to alphabetical order........'I Know What You Did Last Summer'…..out…..'I Don’t Really Care What You Did Last Summer--How's Them Apples?' ….out……….'I Spit on Your Grave'….out…..'I Wrote Anti-Semitic Sentiments on Your Grave'….out……'I Made Out With Your Sister on Your Grave'……out……'You Don't Even Wanna Know What I Did on Your Grave This Time'…..out…..Oooh! ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show!’ I heard this is good! I--aw shit! No copies! God dammit, isn’t anything in?"

"No luck, huh?" asked a valley-girl voice from Bingo’s right.

She turned, and saw a cheerleader, complete with varsity jacket and pale hair up in a high ponytail, standing at her side. She was rather fetching—blonde hair, blue eyes, all-American good looks—but more importantly, most of the tapes Bingo had been hunting and quite a few more were cradled in the girl’s skinny, tanning-bed brown arms.

It's the mother-load, she thought to herself, eyes riveted to the tapes. They're all there! My God! How did she get so many? Hmph. Little slut must be sleeping with the manager or something!

"Nope," she answered quickly.

Stop being jealous, Bingo chided herself. She's probably just a nice girl who got here a few minutes—better make that hours-- ahead of you.

She decided to be a little more sociable. After all, you never knew where you might find a new friend, or perhaps, a new human ally. The mice had met Charley totally by accident, after all; who was to say this perky lass wasn't another future friend?

Besides, maybe she'd give her a few of those tapes….

Bingo quickly put on her broadest smile and laughed, "Looks like my first Halloween in Chicago's gonna be a bust!"

She expected the girl to ask, "Oh, you're new here?", which would get them started on a pleasant little conversation ending in the girl inviting Bingo to her house to watch some of her tapes. Of course, Bingo hadn't put any thought into what the girl would say when she realized Bingo was an alien, but it was a nice fantasy while it lasted.

And anyway, that particular difficulty was never going to come up.

"Too bad, so sad!" the girl giggled, waving a copy of ‘Jaws XXX’ (yes, the uncut version with the nudity) under Bingo’s nose. "You gotta get here earlier than that, string bean!"

String bean?

Bingo's fist clenched unconsciously, arm tensing, as she prepared to playfully knock the uncouth young lady halfway into next week. If you had spent almost a third of your life in a group of pugnacious rebel warriors, you'd probably think that the best form of such conflict resolution was a swift punch to the chin, too.

The girl smiled a little.

Bingo sighed mentally and told herself, Okay, okay, chill out. Give her a chance. Who knows? Maybe that's just her way of endearing herself to people.

"String bean! Ha ha!" Bingo chuckled, forcing a smile. "Yeah, I guess I am kind of skinny, but—"

"You can say that again!" the cheerleader giggled. "I've got mascara wands that are thicker than those bony little legs! Are you like anorexic or something?"

Bingo's hand clenched once more.

Wearing a smile, but speaking with an edge to her voice, Bingo said, "Funny. Yeah, I do have skinny legs."

"And skinny everything else!"

"But you know, you're not exactly buff yourself," Bingo retorted quickly. "I mean, you could afford to put on a few pounds of muscle, too."

There was a moment of silence.

"Maybe."

No insult? No zinger? Is this a breakthrough?

"But I've still got a better chest than you!" the girl concluded, laughing.

Okaaaaay, Bingo concluded, reaching for one of the pistols on her hips. Obviously, we ain't gonna find new human allies at the video store.

Before Bingo succumbed to the urge to turn her new "friend" into cheer-leader chop suey, Vinnie’s voice caught her ear. Unfortunately, she could barely hear him for the noise, so she shouted back for him to repeat his message.

"I said, what’s takin’ so long?" he howled.

Sighing, Bingo popped a black hole directly underneath Vinnie’s feet. He disappeared into the floor, curiously unnoticed by the crowd, who was too concerned with getting those last minute rentals before the store closed to see someone sinking into the ground. Truth be told, they probably wouldn't have noticed the building burning down around them. Bingo did her best to ignore the cheerleader’s taunts, still trying to find at least one movie that was still in.

Another black hole appeared just above and off to Bingo’s right, from which an unsuspecting Vinnie fell out. He landed flat on his ass, a rather unceremonious entrance for the self-proclaimed baddest Martian mama-jammer in the universe.

"See?" Bingo said, winking. "It’s not that much more conspicuous, is it?"

"Warn me when you’re gonna do that!" Vinnie snapped, rubbing his butt. He rose to his feet, already being pushed and shoved by the human wave behind him, and asked, "What's the problem?"

"None of the stupid movies are in!" Bingo groused, waving at the barren shelves. "Nothing!"

Vinnie started looking over the shelves himself, confident that, where Bingo had missed one or possibly two hundred tapes, he’d find one. After all, men, being the superior sex, can always find things when women can’t. They'd come to the rescue of their poor little women-folk, and save the day. Just one of the perks of having a Y-chromosome.

After a minute of searching (all his attention span would allow), Vinnie came to the conclusion that no one, regardless of gender, could have found a tape in this section that was in, though he’d never admit it. Frustrated, he was about to turn to Bingo and suggest their afternoon would be better spent blowing up Limburger Tower when he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, the glint of a tape box in the sun.

Curiosity perked, Vinnie looked down and saw, wonder of wonders, oodles and oodles of tapes scattered across the floor! Good ones, too. And no one else had seen them yet!

"Bing!" Vinnie shouted, grabbing her shoulder. "Get your tail down here and gimme a hand!"

The two elated mice dropped quickly to their knees and began scooping up movies as quickly as humanly (or Martian-ly) possible. When they had all they could carry, using their tails as well as their hands and arms, they dashed for the checkout line.

Ten minutes later, the annoying cheerleader, who had been knocked down and knocked unconscious when Vinnie landed on her, sat up and cried, "Hey, where’d my movies go?"

However, there was no relief from the trials and tribulations of video shopping in the checkout line, which was, according to Vinnie's rather conservative estimate, at least sixty kerbillion miles long. When explaining the situation to their bros later, he and Bingo would tell them the wait was so long that children were conceived and born right there in front of them. Throttle remarked that were that the case, waiting couldn't have possibly been as boring as they said it was, since there was free entertainment ("live porno" were his exact words).

"Argh!" Vinnie moaned. "It’s gonna be midnight ‘til we get outta here! Bogus!"

Bingo’s eyes grew wide as she moaned, "I can’t hold these movies till midnight! Eleven fifty-six, maybe, but....."

They settled in for the long wait.

Twenty minutes passed.

"Okay," Vinnie sighed. "I am going to a picnic, and I’m going to bring an Australian circus midget, a blue-tailed fly, a classic Carbunklian contraption, a dearth of releveant information concerning cloning, a Frigadaire with the capacity to take over the world, a grotesquely gore-covered Glockenspiel, a highly misinformed network anchor, an insect bite that kinda looks like Quentin Tarantino, and…..Jimmy's mustache."

Bingo pulled back and slugged Vinnie in the arm.

"What was that for?" he snapped, rubbing it.

"You forgot, ‘an Ebola virus-carrying monkey," she explained.

"Damn! Knew I forgot something. Okay, your turn."

"I am going to a picnic, and I'm going to bring…"

Forty minutes later.

The two younger Biker Mice, never renowned for their patience, discovered new heights (or perhaps lows) of boredom as they stood there. With nothing better to do, Bingo stared at the ceiling, recalling the lyrics to her favorite anime videos, and Vinnie took the time to memorize everything he had never known about his fingers. Were he given a test on them afterwards, he could easily have given the location of every scar, papercut, and callus (although he was a little nervous about the essay question).

Finally, he shouted, "I have never been so damn bored in my entire life!"

Bingo stopped humming the theme from Fushigi Yuugi and added, eyes never wavering from the ceiling, "That time we spent in solitary on Plutark wasn’t half this bad!"

"Not half."

"Nope."

"Nuh-uh."

"Noooooo wayyyyy."

They paused for a minute.

"Would it be wrong to kill everyone in line ahead of us so we can get to the front a little quicker?" Vinnie asked sleepily.

"Everyone?"

"Well, the ones who aren’t little kids or handicapped or retarded or something. I guess I’d feel bad about that."

"You guess?"
"Gimme a break. I been standin’ in line for--how long?"

"Don’t know. Don’t wear a watch."

"Well, what does it say at the beginning of the section?"

"Lemme check.....Forty minutes."

"There ya go! Forty minutes! I been waitin' forty minutes in this stupid line, my arms are getting' tired, and I'm bored out of my mind!"

"Hmmmm.............Well, if you put it that way....."

One hour, twenty minutes passed.

"I don’t care how good these movies are!" Vinnie snapped suddenly. "I’m leaving!"

But Bingo tugged eagerly on one of his bandoleers excitedly and cried, "Wait, bro! Check it out! We’re almost there!"

Vinnie turned, and saw, much to his delight, that the two of them were almost at the head of the line. Just two more people to go, and then they were up!

"About time!" he laughed. "My arms are killin’ me!"

"Your arms are killin’ you, Mr. Biceps?" Bingo snapped, her own about to fall off.

With a smirk, Vinnie asked, "And who else would they be killing?"

Bingo snickered, "That's unusually urbane of you."

Vinnie was about to shout, "And what’s that supposed to mean?!??!" (his command of the English language is amazing, isn't it?), when he noticed his stomach rumbling fiercely, as if to say, "Hey, feed me now or I'm gonna rip my way out of your abdomen and find me some food while you bleed to death!"

"I’m hungry," he complained, rather understatedly.

Pointing to a shelf near the register, Bingo cried, "That we can do something about!"

"They got candy?" Vinnie asked hopefully, leaning around his tape boxes.

Nodding, Bingo said, "Here, you hold my movies and I’ll get us some."

Before her older bro could say a word, be it in protest or agreement, Bingo piled her fifteen or twenty movies on top of Vinnie’s, until the white-furred mouse could see nothing but tape boxes ahead of him.

Bingo quickly started tossing small bags of candy on top of the already huge pile. Bags of Skittles perched like cheap Beanie Babies between columns of Hershey bars ten high on copies of "Arachnophobia", "Arachnophobia II", and "The Guy from Arachnophobia Gets Counseling". Snickers filled whatever space there was between Vinnie's chest and the tapes. Sugar Daddies were shoved between the older mouse's fingers and tucked into his gloves. When it became apparent that the pile of tapes and snacks was too precarious to stack any more candy on top of (and the youngest of the Biker Mice is a Jenga! Champion, to give you some idea), Bingo began filling the crooks of Vinnie’s arms with bags of M&Ms and Gummy-Nums.

Worried about the stability of the sweet heap, Vinnie grumbled, "Bing, I think we got enough candy for one night."

"You like Sour Patch Kids?" she asked, oblivious to his complaints.

"No."

Shrugging, she slipped the box under one of Vinnie’s bandoleer straps and said, "Eh, somebody’ll eat them."
"Bing...." Vinnie moaned.

"What?" she asked, carefully using a roll of Lifesavers to balance a pack of Twizzlers jutting out of Vinnie’s bandanna.

"I like excess as much as the next mouse--probably more than the next mouse--but don’t ya think this a little much?"

She looked skeptically over the pile, then sighed, "I guess......but we better pick up a six pack of Mountain Dew on our way back, or there’s no way I’m gonna get a sugar buzz tonight."

"Oh, sure," Vinnie agreed. "Now, you wanna grab some of this stuff?"

Bingo snickered, "Why? You’ve got it."

Vinnie sighed.

After yet another ten minutes, during which time Vinnie was certain he was going to die waiting in line instead of going out in the blaze of glory he so longed for, Bingo suddenly jerked on Vinnie's arm and pulled him forward.

"We’re here, bro!" she cried happily. " It's the Promised Land! Where the milk flows like honey, and the streets are paved with gold!"

"You mean the check-out desk?" Vinnie shouted in disbelief.

"Yeah!"

Vinnie sighed grandly and let the entire pile, tapes and all, fall from his arms onto the desk. Some of the candy rolled off and fell on the floor, but at this point, he really didn't give a shit. He brushed the stuff tucked into his clothes off as well, then leaned against the desk and said dramatically, as if they had just completed a four-month ocean voyage in the belly of a ship, "God, I can't believe we made it!"

"It's been so long," Bingo agreed, a look of remorse on her face. "Do you think our bros will still remember us?"

"If they're still alive," Vinnie said somberly. "Heavy on the 'If'."

The clerk watched their melodramatics with heavy disdain (light disdain being so hard to come by since the sanctions imposed after the Gulf War). He was never a cheerful young man, and stuff like this did not improve his mood any.

The idiots always come in on my shift, he thought glumly, shaking his head.

With a sigh, he looked at the grossly huge pile of movies and snacks. Christ! There must have been thirty tapes there! And the candy! He glanced at the shelves. They were empty! Completely empty! And there was no time to restock them!

"Gee, I hope this is enough," he sneered sarcastically. The boy didn't quite have the rapier wit of Randal from Clerks, but hey, he was working on it.

Bingo looked over the pile thoughtfully, then said, "Wait a second! Something's missing!"

After a moment of contemplation, she slammed Vinnie’s head into the counter-top. Before he could say a word, Bingo gave him a sharp blow upside the helmet.

"OW!" Vinnie shouted.

A pair of red candy orbs wrapped in cellophane fell out of the bottom of Vinnie's helmet.

"There we go!" she said proudly.

"Bingo," Vinnie sighed, "you can’t keep puttin’ Atomic Fireballs in my ears."

Sticking out her tongue, Bingo retorted, "You do it to me."

"Yeah, but I’m older, so I’m allowed!"

The clerk sighed. He didn’t have any kind of social life, but he hated to think he was being kept from it by nitwits like these two.

Vinnie leaned across the counter and said casually, "It's under Charley Davdison. Her number's 555-8448."

"Sorry, pal. That's not the way it works anymore. I need your card."
"Card? We don’ need no steenking card!"

"Yeah," Bingo agreed, a slight edge to her voice. "We've gotten movies here tons of times, and we never needed a card before."

The clerk shrugged and said, "We’re under new management. A few weeks ago, the store was purchased in a corporate merger with Mega-Super-Ultra-Whammo-Conglomerated Video-Mart. Now we're part of a chain. We get the new sign and all that happy crap next week. So you gotta have a card. No card, no movies. Do you have one or not?"
Vinnie pulled Bingo aside and asked quickly, "Bing, did Charley-girl give you a card?"

Bingo shook her head no, then mumbled, "I guess she didn’t give you one?"
"Nope," the older mouse answered.

"Can we just apply for one now?" Bingo asked the clerk, putting on the cutest, most wretchedly sad face she could manage. If this didn't get his sympathy, nothing would!

"Please? We really wanna get some movies tonight!"

"Sure. Of course you can."

"But first you have to go to the end of the line so all these nice people considerate enough to have their card ready can check out. Then you have to fill out the three-page application form in triplicate. I don't have a pen, though, so you'll have to find one on your own. Then it's just another six to eight weeks until the card arrives at your home. Then you can get your movies. By then, we probably won't be this busy."

The two mice grimaced, then turned and held a second conference.

"I think we better check and see if Charley does have a card," Bingo mumbled.

Vinnie nodded, then said thoughtfully, "Ten to one says she does and just forgot to give it to us. Dammit, I hate t’run all the way back to the garage to check."
Sighing, Bingo asked in a dull monotone, "Do you want me to pop a black hole into the garage and see if Charley has one?"

Nodding, Vinnie turned to the clerk and said, "We’ll be right back."
"You're breaking my heart."

The two mice dashed quickly to the Documentary section, the single unpopulated sector of the store, where they wouldn’t be seen. As if to prove the desolation of the department, a tiny tumbleweed blew past Vinnie’s ankles on a tiny whisper of dust.

"Look for her wallet," he hissed, putting his back to Bingo so she could discreetly go about her business. "That's probably where it is, if she's got one."

Bingo nodded.

A small black hole appeared in front of her. She carefully put a hand on both sides, closed her eyes, and pushed her head through.

When she opened her eyes, Bingo was staring at a tiny, cramped little kitchen with yellow linoleum countertops. There was a stove to her left, and a table to her right, on which sat an accusing bottle of ketchup the mice had left out after breakfast.

In short, while the majority of Bingo’s body was still in "Yeah, We’ve Got Porno in the Back" Family Video (or rather, the newest link in the Mega-Super-Ultra-Whammo-Conglomerated Video-Mart chain), her head and shoulders were in the kitchen of the Last Chance Garage (proprietor: Charlene Davidson), roughly two miles away.

"Now," Bingo mumbled, looking around thoughtfully, "where's that wallet?"

She looked through the kitchen carefully. Bingo checked every possible place where a wallet might be laid, mislaid, or deliberately hidden, but found no trace of the billfold or the card. Not on the table, not on the microwave, not on top of the refrigerator, not in the fruit basket, not sitting on a chair, not in the oven, not in the sink, not pinned to the refrigerator by a magnet, not in the kitchen cupboards, not in the breadbox, not jammed into the toaster, not slipped into a bottle of root beer (Bingo treated herself to a little snack), not in the coffeemaker, not between the pages of Rolling Stone, not perched upon that bust of Pallas just above my chamber door, not on a box, not with a fox, I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I am—nowhere!

Fabulous. Now what? We gotta find the card!

Just when the young mouse was about to give up the ghost, she saw a small brown square sitting on a nearby counter, just a few feet from where she hung suspended in mid-air. After a moment of careful squinting, she discerned that it was indeed Charley’s billfold.

As if the word "Charley" monogrammed in red stitching on the top didn’t.

"Jackpot!" she laughed, reaching an arm through the hole. "How did I miss this before?"

Her fingers brushed the surface of the wallet—

"YES YES YES!"

--and pushed it just out of reach.

"Ah crap!"

Gritting her teeth, Bingo stretched out both arms, trying with all her might for that tiny piece of mummified cow, but to no avail. Every time she came close to grabbing the wallet, fingertips skimming the surface, it would somehow scoot a little further away, as if someone had connected a fishing line to it and was jerking it just out of her reach.

Given her luck so far today, that probably wasn't out of the question.

"ARGH!" she growled.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the hole, Vinnie thought to himself urgently, Come on, little bro, step it up! I think people are starting to stare!

"Hey!" the clerk shouted. "Do you have a card or not? There are other people waiting in line, pal!"

"We’re still looking!" Vinnie cried back cheerfully, silently trying to figure out whether or not to kill that annoying little jerk.

After they had their movies.

"Bingo!" he hissed into the hole. "Did you find it yet?"

Bingo peeked through on Vinnie’s side for a minute and whispered, "Almost got it!," then returned to her task.

"Come on!" she whispered through gritted teeth. The strain was evident in her voice. "Come on! Come on! Son of a bitch! Get over here!"

Suddenly, her fingers made contact. Real contact this time!

"YES!" she shouted, pulling it into her hands. "Finally!"

The young mouse ripped it open and began flipping through the cards and pictures inside. Charley, Bingo observed, had no other credit cards than the one she herself had in her pocket for safekeeping, although she did have a ton of those cards with which you buy five of something and get one free. Hmm. Bingo would have to go along with Charley to the mall next time, and see if she could bum that free soft pretzel the mechanic had coming. Lots of pictures of humans Bingo didn't know, too (no surprise there; the only human she really knew was Charley). That red-headed guy there kind of looked like Charley. Maybe they were related.

But—

But—

"THERE'S NO VIDEO CARD!" Bingo cried, flipping frantically through the wallet. "No way! There's gotta be a card in here! There's gotta be!"

BAM!

Before Bingo knew what was happening, she was yanked out of the hole by a pale and utterly un-furry hand. She hit the floor with a painful thud and a loud, "OOF!" After a moment, she pushed herself up, rubbed the arm she had landed on, and snapped, "Hey, what gives?"

"And just what," a woman rumbled from above, "did you think you were doing?"

Bingo looked up nervously.

Looming over her, arms crossed over her chest, was Charley, the mice's mechanically-gifted human pal, tapping one brown-booted foot against the kitchen’s faded yellow floor. Her half-closed eyes looked like sour green limes in the peach frame of her face. The mechanic smirked a little, as if simultaneously amused and annoyed by the youngest of the four Biker Mice. It was an expression Bingo found herself on the receiving end of more and more often these days.

"Oh, hey, Charley!" Bingo said, blushing a little. Her ears fell back a bit, like an omega wolf showing deference to the alpha. "I wasn’t expecting to see you!"

"Obviously not," Charley grumbled. "You do know that grand theft wallet is a crime in Chicago?"
Bingo looked down. There was the wallet, lying facedown and open before her.

Whoops!

"This isn't what it looks like! I wasn’t stealing it! I just wanted to see if you had a card for the video place! The wiener-schnitzel there won’t let us get movies without one!"

"Oh, yeah! I forgot to give it to you two before you left!"

She picked her wallet up off the floor and dug through it. Bingo smiled a little, relieved. Apparently, there was a card after all. If the mechanic had told her that she didn't have one at all, Bingo probably would've had to die right where she was sitting.

After a minute, Charley pulled out a laminated blue card with her name and signature on it. It had been tucked in a zippered pocket on the back, which Bingo hadn't noticed.

"Here! Guess I was so excited about getting ready for Halloween that I forgot all about it! You two be careful on your way back, okay?"

"Careful?" Bingo asked with a grin. "What's that?"

She took the card, rose to her feet, and jumped through the hole back into the store. The young mouse collided with Vinnie on her way out, knocking them both to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs.

"You get it?" Vinnie asked, rubbing his sore forehead.

Bingo hoisted the card over her head like a small plastic Excalibur and handed it to her bro.

"Charley-girl just forgot to give it to us is all."

Vinnie smiled and handed the card to the clerk proudly.

"How’s them apples?" he snapped.

The clerk passed the card through a scanner, then said, "Okay, Miss Davidson, I need to see your license or a photo ID. Ma’am."

Vinnie gulped, though not because of the clerk’s cuts.

" 'ID' ?" he asked.

"Yeah, you know, like a driver’s license?"

Bingo leaned in between them and said, chuckling nervously, "Actually, we’re friends of hers using her card. We don't have her ID."

"Fine. Then I need one of your licenses."
Vinnie shrugged and said, "Okay. Okay. Bing, give the man your license."

"Huh?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Bro, I’m not even old enough to get a permit in this state, remember? Use yours!"

"Oh, like I got one?" Vinnie laughed. "Does the phrase, 'testing centers closed because of Plutarkian War' ring a bell?"

The clerk interrupted loudly, "Look, folks, I got alot of customers today, so if you’d kindly give me a license or just go so I can finish up......I think there are a lot of other people who'd like to get their hands on a few of those tapes."

The two mice froze in the middle of their argument. Their eyes were fire.

Bingo grabbed the clerk by his shirt and pulled him within a few inches of her face. Her breath was hot in his pimple-laden face.

"Now wait just a minute!" she shouted, her face a mask of anger. "We had to fight our way to the back just to get the freakin' tapes, find the stupid card, wait over an hour in line holding the stupid things--"

"I had to wait an hour in line holding the stupid things," Vinnie corrected.

"--and now you aren’t gonna give ‘em to us?!??!?!" the younger mouse roared, voice rising to a crescendo. She pulled a fist back and prepared to deliver a haymaker first-class.

SLAP!

Vinnie quickly grabbed Bingo's fist. He pulled her over and growled, "Little bro, that is not how responsible bikers solve their problems. You know that."

Bingo glared at him.

Seconds later, the clerk went flying through the plate-glass window.

"That’s how they solve them," Vinnie concluded as they exited, movies in hand.

"I’ve got so much to learn," Bingo sighed.