Biker Mice From Mars - Somewhere I Belong

Sherlock Holmes And The Mighty Martians

With a groan, Charley fell into the chair and closed her eyes.
Vinnie wasn't kidding when he told her he wanted to train her.
Every muscle in her body, and that included the ones she didn't know even existed, was sore, making it feel as if her body was on fire.
Kind of like having a fever without the fever.
The good news was that, despite her natural-born clumsiness, she was making some serious progress, but not even that made her feel better right now.
Never had she known that muscle pain could make one feel so miserable, but she knew now.
Heaving a sigh, she opened her green eyes and looked around the garage with a heavy heart.
Business was booming, which was beneficial for the wallet, sure.
Unfortunately, Pux was on a two-week holiday with her mother, which meant that all the work now landed on Charley's very sore shoulders and for some reason, she had a hard time staying on schedule.
Which was odd, because before she hired Pux for the weekends, she had no trouble whatsoever running the garage on her own.
Perhaps that was because she was just so tired all the time.
Or maybe she was just spoiled due to Pux's good help.
But okay.
If she had to be completely honest, she didn't only miss Pux for her excellent assistance.
Despite her intense character, Charley actually enjoyed being in the presence of the sassy young girl with bouncing blonde curls and without her, it was just way too quiet here.

Clenching her teeth, Charley reached out to the small bottle of water standing across the table, and when she finally had it in her hands, she fell back in the chair with a grunt.
"Jesus Christ", she cursed quietly to herself as she struggled with the cap, for even her fingers were in this constant state of agonizing cramp.
If she had known beforehand that Vinnie was like the drillmaster from hell, she would never have signed up for this shit, then again, her knight in shining fur didn't exactly do half measures so she wasn't sure why it surprised her that much.
After what felt like a lifetime, she finally managed to get the cap off, only to throw it away in some sort of childish attempt to vent some of her agitation.
An action that came with consequences, for she almost pulled a muscle in her arm and a sharp pain shot all the way up to her neck, making her squint.
"Goddammit, I'm gonna kill him", she murmured, massaging her neck in the hope it would ease the pain a bit, but didn't.
Of course it didn't.
Nothing could save this day.
It was doomed, all because of this killing muscle pain.
As she lowered her hand, she took a sip from the cold water and closed her eyes again, trying very hard to relax, if only for a few minutes before she had to go back to work again.

Four weeks had passed since that night Vinnie had taken her on a Mind Walk in the treehouse, and things were going surprisingly well, actually.
Never had she thought that she would be able to adjust to a life filled with aliens and the associated war this easily, but she did.
It felt good to be part of something, especially when that something included a very sexy and sweet creature with fur as white as snow.
The fact that this same creature had saved her from her solitude was a very nice addition to all this.
Despite Vinnie's earlier reluctance, he had done everything within his power to make this all work, to make her a real asset for the team.
The same applied to Throttle and Modo, and she couldn't be more grateful.
Although they didn't allow her to join them in the real fight, they did let her work on their respective rides on a regular basis, which was enough, for now.
Working on alien bikes was simultaneously like a dream coming true and challenging, but it was mostly the challenge that made it so much fun.
She really needed to use her brain instead of just working on automatic pilot, like she was used to after years of experience, and it was like a breath of fresh air.

O'Neill had proven to be trustworthy so far, though Charley could tell that both the mice and the detective were still slightly aloof towards each other.
She guessed she couldn't really blame them, considering their history and line of work, but despite that, their teamwork was simply exquisite.
Shortly after him finding out that the vigilantes he had been hunting were in fact aliens, O'Neill had suggested involving Chicago's law enforcement, knowing perfectly well that it wasn't realistic to run an operation as big as taking down a world-domination-seeking alien who had its roots clawed so deep in the city behind his boss's back.
The Martians, especially Throttle, had been reluctant at first, mostly because they didn't want any more people to find out what was really going on in the Windy City.
Eventually, they had come to an agreement.
The mice would cooperate and collaborate with the local police IF they stayed completely anonymouse, and that included Limburger.
To secure their secret identity, they would only work directly with O'Neill and no one else.
And yes, Throttle had literally said anonymouse, which was cute, really.