Couldn't duck them, nowhere to run. Chiana looks franticly all around, but she's trapped in this lot, no exit save back up the alley whence she came. Her heart thunders painfully in her chest, the cold air burning her lungs as she desperately gasps for breath. Her body is in pain, within and without. No time. No time. The motley gang wields their chains, clattering them about the walls and paving and refuse receptacles as they advance down the alley. They shout their cryptic talk.

She looks up at the moons in the black sky with wet eyes: oh who is going to look after her Nerri now she failed them?

No, no, CAN NOT fail.

No use hiding in a vehicle, lots of all kinds, but can't break in and start one in time. Long shot: run around them. She can out run them. Must. Faster. Lighter. More desperate.

She leads them well in, between vehicles, between waste receptacles.

A break: she gives it all she's got. A chain grabs her body painfully. She fights. Then backs suddenly to drop it off.

It almost works. The toughie pulls her in: "Ey little trelk you wanna put up somethin I don kill ya now eh? Pay up comon", he fishes for something of value on her as others hold her. The toothless lady on her left glares an evil smile. She knows one horror she will be tortured with before she finally dies. Beyond what they already inflicted before she fought herself free. They further tear her clothes in the rough search.

Another wraps a chain around her neck and chokes her as he pulls her forcibly to him. "Whip 'er wit' the chains", he rules, "strip da skinny li'le slut down".

Next second he has a hole through his own head and falls to the ground. All spin to find the shooter. One still holds her by the chains. The shooter shows himself in aiming for the one holding her. Even if she didn't know it was he, as it is the only person who would try to save her life, that naive clumsiness could only be Nerri.

Even as the man is shot and falls, releasing her chains, she feels no relief, only agonizing pain within: Nerri, she'd rather have died than see him hurt.

Nerri runs over to the passenger door of an enormous construction vehicle, shooting out the lock. Her arms still bound by chains, she kicks both nearby punks aiming for him from behind, one with each leg, taking a nasty spill onto her back. It hurts, but she forces her dazed self back up, taking the chance to scramble to the vehicle. He unlatches the driver door, and she climbs up the three steps to get in, just grazed by a shot.

The gang is growing, she notes with alarm as she sits inside and shuts and locks the door. "Gimme the gun Nerri", she orders deeply but unsteadily.

"No sister, you can't shoot them all and I think I'd better-"

"Shut the frell up you Zeltic's arse! And give me the gun!" she yells, an instant before the window is blown out. She looks down as a drop of her blue gell blood drips from somewhere under her hair on the left. Her jaw sets as she looks at him with wide eyes blazing.

He hands her the gun.

A chain wraps around her forearm and threatens to pull her out. She instead pulls on it: hopelessly overpowered. But Nerri catches on just in time to reach over and pull it, hard enough between them to smack him unconscious right into the door. They pull the chains in.

She shoots the panel under the control wheel, then the nearest punk, then hands the gun to him. "And don't miss too many times. We only had enough to secure a half charge of Lutra Oil."

"Half charge?" he nearly whines, "sis we could need this, we do now! We-"

"-do you think getting that was easy!? Now watch the frelling gang you Crimolean piss-" she abruptly pulls his head down, reaching across to shield him as a front window is blown out. They look into each other's wide eyes as the gang begins pounding the vehicle.

"Great timing", he finds words to proclaim.

She blinks. "Yeah. Uh, c-cover me, sweet".

He sets to, only noting moments later what she's up to when the motor fires up.

His eyes widen on his stone sober blank face as he does the math. The smallest Nebari girl he's ever seen. His sister. Grinning evilly behind the wheel of the biggest truck he's ever seen.

He's petrified.

With a manic cackle/giggle she hits the accelerator, plowing into, then over, the tiny transport vehicle before them, taking out all three punks before the truck.

"S-s-sis no no you c-can't drive this thing y-you-" he tries talking even as she jerks the reverse lever into place and accelerates back into the gang. "Ah no- no-nono! Oh! AH-" he articulates as he bounces about, the vehicle flattening the lot and a few garbage receptacle bins. The carnage convinces the others to flee. Her face drops to rest on the rim of the control wheel.

"H-h-a-almost got it up that time", he tilts his head and blinks.

She lifts her head tensely and looks to him with obsessed eyes: "Yeah." She looks straight ahead: "They almost killed my Ner-", her shouting drowned out as she shifts into forwards and guns the accelerator. The vehicle zeros in on a group running towards the alley, cutting them off and herding them towards garbage receptacle bins.

Nerri leans out of the broken window to stare in horror at the punk staring in horror back at him over his shoulder, both yelling as they run him into the bin.

"Sit down!" she yells at him. He nearly flies out, bounced about as the vehicle runs over a row of them, smashing through the building wall beside them.

"Sit the frell down! Sit! This microt! I'm not going to tell you again!" She double takes at him, reaches over and pulls him back to his seat by the pants. And ends up with a fistful of the back of his pants. Her lips tighten to a tiny circle as she stares furiously at it.

"Stop! Stop! V-vehicles ahead! Sis!" he's pleading as she steers over a few vehicles to turn around in pursuit of the toothless bitch who ran that-a way. She glances at his partly bare gray arse, glances at a blunt but hot piece of metal that flew in, and makes the appropriate connection.

"YEEEEEOOOOOOW!". He sits at once, feeling himself for damage.

"Don't make me tell you again!" she tremblingly furiously orders, paying little mind to correcting in the path of her target - now heading for the hole in the building wall.

He feels the door: maybe it'll open from the inside if he fights with it...

She sniffs in and leans forwards intently as she plows straight into the building.

He stops screaming when he realizes they're still living, and looks about.

Aliens of every description flee from the gambling hall as they plow straight through the building. Toothless is history, but he looks to the demon, formerly his sister, who, despite some bleeding evident on her bared shoulders and most of her chest, and a dusting of powdered building concrete with the odd tiny piece of building and vehicle material, sits up forwards and straight to see over the front of the oversized vehicle, lit up with wicked glee as she spies a row of tables and machines.

He dives under the bench seat as the material and aliens fly.

Finally it ends with a crash against the far wall.

She is still giggling.

"Did you see that bartender? I thought he was going to- ... Nerri? Nerri! Luv! Wh-where-"

He hazards out after the debris stops raining down.

She leans up to his face: "You look pale. Are you okay? Wh-they, they didn't get you did they?"

"Uh. No... no."

A signal of a police shrieks out.

"Frell! Maybe you better stay under there", she decides, slamming it into reverse.

Chapter Two

It finally dies and crashes into a ditch along a deserted trail.

"Frell!" she declares, getting out. He gets out onto wobbling legs and stumbles up to her. She looks into the smoking engine compartment. "C-can we fix it?"

"Sis..."

"Yeah. It's dren". She pushes over, gets a first aid kit from a toolbox and tears the bench seat off, handing it to him.

Chapter Three

Under the wide tree, they sit on the bench seat as he finishes applying the cleaner to the last of the chain crimp wounds on her neck, thankful for the direct light of the early morning sun. It shines in her dulled, gray-blue-shot eyes, as she wearily looks to him and wearily, subtly smiles. Gaunt and filthy or not, she looks so beautiful.

And so sweet it's hard for him to think she's the same being that took them on her righteous rampage.

She melts into his embrace, settling her head into his lap.

"Huber hath no fury like my sister pissed off", he calmly decides.

She smiles into his stomach.

"I'm hungry", he absently sighs.

"Yeah", she sighs in agreement. "We should be getting on", she sits up with weary effort.

"Now?" he mumbles.

"Now. Come on, we've got to get to a spaceport, and there can't be one near here. We've sat here for arns".

"Yeah, I can't believe I saw you sitting in one place for arns, either".

She makes a sarcastic flash of a smile "Yeah um, very funny. C'mon."

Chapter Four

Safely removed from the road, they trudge along the baking hills and farms through the 30 arn day of this world.

"Frell this planet."

"Yeah."

"You okay, Ner?"

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

"No."

"Yeah."

Then she halts in her tracks. He follows her gaze. In the distance, by a small building, a large vehicle sits.

She bolts forward.

He bolts backwards.

She catches him by the back of his jacket and pulls him around: "Wrong way! Let's borrow a lift to a port and blast the drazz outta here!"

"... Right!" he agrees: bolting to beat her to the driver's door.

He beats her, opens the door and steps up, only to find her already behind the wheel.

"Aaaaah!" he declares.

"Shut the frell up, pup, an' get your arse in here", she pulls him in over her lap, swatting said area on the way over her lap, then leans forwards under the wheel and sets to wiring.

"N-n-now sis, r-r-remember the last one, s-s-s-slow a-and easy."

"What? You think I'm going to get us into a wreck?", she asks, a bit wryly incredulous.

He puts his face nearly up to hers and follows a tilt, "We just made it out of one, sis. We don't need to get caught".

She follows his tilt, blinks as she registers a sympathetic understanding, and softly smiles: "Don't worry", she kisses his forehead... and smirks, "They won't catch us".