Feral Lizzy

Bad guy with a completely shaved head. "How about you leave the little lady with us. Since it looks like you're being rude to her. I'm sure she would enjoy our company much better. Right boys?" A few other guys all in leather jackets flank him. Most have some form of shaved hair with designs in them. Their Soleil's hoovering behind them.

"She ain't going no where with you swine." Alex defensively says. He straightens up standing infront of Lizzy. He plays out a scene of them trying to get to his bike in his head. The answer being they wouldn't make it without a fight.

"Oh think you're a tough guy? Just so you know I have been to the Tipatopia jail." The leader folds his arms. Looking for approving looks from the other members of his group.

Lizzy shakes a little with the adrenaline running through her veins. Alex standing in front of her. She hasn't met many who have gone to jail. The ones she met were very kind people though. She hopes this is their case tonight.

"Oh you poor thing going without your Soleil to wipe your butt. Let me guess, you stole some candy from a baby?" Alex provokes. 

"How did he know what the boss did?" Whispers one of the flanked men.

Blowing off some steam in a fight doesn't sound awful to Alex. But tonight his only concern is getting Lizzy out of this part of town. Safely on top of that.

"What's your problem?" Lizzy hisses to Alex. 

"If they throw the first punch I can claim self defense is my problem." He whispers back.

"What's this? Thinking you can silence her with a threat? Threats didn't work on me in jail." The thugs couldn't hear what the two were talking about but wanted to intimidate Alex if possible.

"You guys think your so big and tough but I know the jail. My buddy works there. You guys don't have your personal assistant Soleil there. Which causes a fist fight or two. Yippee." Alex's sarcastic tone aggravates the thugs.

"Well if that's what you think. Then how about we show you what you will be getting once the others find out you're in there for harassing a lady." They crack their knuckles and the flanked men start to add little cheers. 

"Now listen here." Karen hoovers infront of Alex and Lizzy. A guy with partially shaved hair swings a bat and the Soleil goes flying.

"KAREN!" Lizzy yells running to the slightly smushed bot. All the pent up anger boils up in Lizzy. 

Anger from leaving her animals behind and the words she said to her parents. Anger from her best and only friend falling for a guy that doesn't even like her and forcing him into a relationship. Anger at herself for being mean and manipulative at times. Then watching Karen crumble and not respond while laying on the cold ground. It pushed her over the edge. Her movements became ridged.

The guys freeze.

"Wait. Was that her bot?" One asks another guy.

Lizzy grabs a nearby pipe that's attached to the wall. One quick yank she she was able to pull it free. The lighting hid that it was falling off anyways but do the guys know this? No.

"You hurt her." Lizzy steps towards the guys. Adrenaline and anger assisting her. "I deal with animals that are over two thousand pounds daily. And you five might come out to a thousand. And this idiot here who was with me is probably 160 soaking wet. The math says your a little over 800 pounds short of being able to take me."

Lizzy's eyes almost glowed in the dim lighting and a snarl was dancing on her lips. She had enough of being pushed around tonight.

The thugs take a step back. Alex also has a touch of fear running through him. 

"W-we just wanted to make sure you were alright. We honestly didn't want to hurt you. We thought he was hurting you." A side guy blubbers.

"I don't want to hear it. I came out her to get a gift for someone I love and to tell her I'm sorry. Then everyone's all let's fight and now Karen is busted. I'm going to make you pay." Lizzy readies her pipe.

The thugs hit the ground bowing before her.

"We are so sorry!" They blubber on the ground. "We will pay to have your Soleil fixed!"

Lizzy remembers a remark Karen would have said. "Do not stoop low. Jail will suck. They will uninstall my little ping pong game and I will be bored." This stops Lizzy from having a swing at the groveling men at her feet.

Lizzy turns to Alex and small tear welled in her eye.

"Can you rebuild her?" She asks.

"I will." His heart sinks knowing that tear was partially his fault. 

Alex pulls out tools from his coat pockets. It doesn't surprise Lizzy that he carries tools at this point. After Alex examined Karen he gave an expensive list to the thugs. Lizzy held onto four of their five Soleils as collateral to insure they come back. She sits down beside Karen and Alex, pipe still in hand. 

The sight of Karen's smashed body doesn't sit right with Lizzy. All of the other emotions she had pent up over flowed. They started out as silent tears. Alex sees them and has no idea what to do. He wants to hug her and tell her it will be alright but after what he's done, he decides against it.

The tears turn into sobs. Lizzy realizes she does miss her parents. Then she grieves for them because they have passed. The harsh words she said to them echo in her head. She drops the pipe and covers her ears then clings to her chest. After awhile of slightly rocking she begins to calm down. 

Alex sits in silence with her. He has no idea if he should say anything or what to say for that matter. 

Taking a few breaths of the winters cold air calms her nerves down a little. Lizzy told herself it's time to be strong. She dries her tears. She takes in another deep breath to steel her nerves. The way people stay alive is by remembering and talking about them. She opens her mouth to ask Alex something. 

"Master we have returned!" The thugs kneel and present their findings.

"What?" Lizzy is a little shocked. No one has knelt before her. She grabs her pipe and stands up.

"Looks like you adopted some dogs tonight and a jail bird." Alex whispers to her on his way by. He grabs the parts from them and begins working on the Soleil.

"WHAT?!" Lizzy whips her head toward Alex.

"We talked it over. We will serve you. We acknowledge your strength. And will be grateful if you became our leader. We want to right our wrongs we committed tonight." The now apparently former leader declared.

"Right your wrongs?" Lizzy mumbles to herself. She wonders what made her strong in their eyes. She looks down at the pipe she yanked off the wall. She pieces that puzzle together.

"My name is Tiger. From left to right is Jaff, Angel, Jay and Ray. Jay and Ray are twins."

"Your offer of me being your leader is very nice but I'm going to have to decline. I'm only seventeen. There is no way I could-" Lizzy gets cut off.

"You're a minor?!" Tiger looks at the time. "It's almost past curfew for you! Men prepare to escort her home!"

"I'm not leaving til Karen is fixed." Lizzy wields the pipe for them to stay back. She sits beside Karen while Alex works his magic. Magic as in this is what he does for a living. Thanks to Bob.

"But Master." Jay says stepping forward.

"Touch me, I scream and you all go to jail." Lizzy tells them.

"Men! Stand guard we must protect her!" Tiger commands and they all dispersed through the ally.

"I'm sorry." Lizzy whispers to Alex.

"Don't apologize. At least its not too terrible of a night. You have subordinates now." He chuckles a little nervously.

"I don't really want them learning where I live..." She trails off.

"I can give you a lift home." He gives her a gentle smile. She has been through a lot tonight.

"What if they follow?" She whispers. "They don't seem harmful but I still don't need followers."

"If you hang on tight I can loose them." He whispers back.

Alex presses a sequence in Karen's body and the repaired bot begins to light up.

Lizzy prays Karen still has her memories intact. 

"Ugh." Says Karen. Her face looks at Alex "Ew. Get it away from me."

"And she's fine." Alex says flatly. Stuffing his pockets with his tools.

"Karen!" Lizzy grabs and hugs Karen to her stomach.

"Bah! Physical touch!" Karen says distastefully. "Wait. Where are the thugs? Why are we still in the ally?"

"We will fill you in later. Just know they are now on our side. Let's try to get out of here." Lizzy whispers to Karen and Alex. "How should we do this?"

"You tell them to give you some space. We get to my bike and you hang on tight." Alex whispers.

"What about Karen?" Lizzy asks.

"You really don't know what I'm capable of. I will hook onto the back of the bike just worry about getting to the bike." Karen explains.

"Alright." Lizzy says. She stands hanging onto Karen. "Karen is fixed we will be leaving now."

"Alright men let's make sure she gets home safely." Tiger says to the others.

"We don't need an escort so you guys can go home. He is good to take me home." Lizzy says following Alex's fast pace.

"We want to insure your safety!" Jaff says with a small bow.

"Please leave us alone." Lizzy says. The guys still follow. No one is around so Lizzy can't make a scene.

They make it to Alex's bike. They get on as fast as they can. She tosses the pipe toward some composting bins. The protective wear doesn't get fully equipped before Alex takes off. Lizzy hangs on while Karen gets on right behind her.

Lizzy looks around while hanging onto Alex. The guys were following them on electro bikes.

"They are following." Alex's voice cuts through the comms.

"Whoa! You can talk through these?" Lizzy says.

"Yea you can. Now Alex I'm trying to get permission to alter your bike so I can get the governor readjusted to out run these guys. Might be able to temporarily slow their bikes down. Authorities are in route."

"Like heck you would get permission. I already adjusted the governor on this just you watch. I know a few places I can cut down. Lizzy, my place is closer if you want we can wait it out there for a little while."

"Sounds good. Let's go." Lizzy says hanging on a little tighter. 

He hits the throttle and begins weaving threw side streets. Alex takes his turns sharp so he has to lean hard. Lizzy follows his movements the whole time. This makes it so they loose the guys after several turns. Alex pulls into a parking ramp. A pair of bikes fly by the entrance but Alex has his lights cut so they aren't seen.

"This ramp is attached to my apartment. Let's head inside and warm up." Alex says parking next to some other electro bikes.

"Okay." Lizzy says.

Alex shows Lizzy and Karen the way to his apartment. They head inside and he taps away at the security system. He sets it up to ping if anyone goes near his bike or near his door.

"That was.... that was so much fun!" Lizzy says still a little high from the adrenaline rush of flying through the streets. "When you were like swoosh and sliding and ahhhhh!" Lizzy can't control her excitement of that experience.

Alex watches her do a small excited dance around his livingroom. Her face is bright. "I can't believe we did that." She finally says and stops. She has a huge smile and is giggling while looking at the smirking Alex.

"This confirms it. You're an adrenaline junky." Karen says flatly.

"That would explain a lot if she was." Alex chuckles.

"It would wouldn't it." Karen agrees with Alex for the first time.

"Oh you two stop conspiring against me!" Lizzy says. "I should thank you Alex for helping out back there. Karen wouldn't be fixed without you."

"Don't thank me. She might not have been busted if I was a little more level headed back there. The way they were talking was like they were going to do awful things to you.... I couldn't stand it. I could only think of protecting you but you proved you could protect yourself for the most part... You tend to get followers of many species with ease don't you?"

"I hope they don't follow me. I prefer animals over people. Especially if the people are older and gang involved." Lizzy shivers at the thought of them still out there looking for her.

"They will loose interest soon and you can head home." Alex says. "You're safe here."

"You get over your raging hormones?" Karen asks.

He gives a small bow. "Please forgive me for that. I was acting to show Lizzy how dangerous it was out there." Alex says trying to cover up his emotions from earlier.

"Uh huh." Lizzy and Karen say looking at each other.

Alex decides its best to stay quiet instead of trying to defend himself. Lizzy starts looking around at the apartment. The big windows with a well used chair facing out lets you see the city lights. Almost everything in the place is white. There is a couch in the middle of the living room facing the built in bookshelf framing an expensive television. The bookshelf is filled with history books old and new. The tiny kitchen by the door and another two doors opposite of the bookshelf. She assumes one is a bedroom and the other the bathroom.

"This is a lot different than what I imagined it would look like." Lizzy states.

"You imagined what my place would look like?" Alex asks curiously.

"Well I didn't think of it til we were walking up to here. I imagined something dark and gloomy to match your soul." Lizzy says while reading book titles from the shelf.

"Ooo nice one." Karen giggles.

"Glad you haven't lost your humor." He chuckles. He plops down on the end of the couch. "Would you want to play a game while we wait?"

"A game?" She looks over at him funny.

"Yea." He reaches into the metal end table and pulls out gaming controllers. "I recently got a farming game. I think you might like it." 

"I can try it." She says plopping down on the opposite end of the couch. She takes off her sweatshirt. He hands her a controller.

He gets the game set up and starts a new file so she isn't completely lost. He explains how they inherent a farm and that they can run it together if they fix it up a little. Lizzy finds out you can get animals. Then she spends two hours focused on getting everything she would need to build a barn.

Alex doesn't realize the time till he looks over at Lizzy after she stopped responding to him. It's midnight and Lizzy is passed out on his couch. She is curled up on the arm rest. He saves the game.

Ping.

Alex jerks to look at the security system. He gets up and looks at the feed. It's just his neighbor next door walking past. He looks back to the sleeping Lizzy. It's late and he doesn't know if he should wake her.

"Don't bother to wake her." Karen says. "You're going to fill me in on when I was knocked out. Along with I didn't have the heart to tell Lizzy about this." Karen sets out the makeup jars on the counter. One was shattered and the one eye shadow powder were broken up.

"I will get a replacement for the shattered one. Can this one be used or no?" He holds up the eye shadow. 

"If Lizzy explains what happened, I'm sure Stacy will be forgiving." Karen says hopefully.

Karen gives Alex the info on the shattered jar and soon a bot had it delivered. In that time Alex explains why and how the men were loyal to Lizzy. Along with Lizzy grieving. Karen spent a good chunk of time asking him many questions about every detail he remembers about Lizzy crying. Which wasn't a whole lot just that she was crying and rocking at the end.

"So she might have grieved over her parents. Or the trauma of watching me get hit got to her. Arrhhggg! I wish I could have gotten scans and more details." Karen looks over to Lizzy. "Do you at least have a blanket for her? And don't fight it we are staying the night."

"Thanks I kinda picked up on that with the time and the fact she is sleeping." He states before going to his room to find a clean blanket.

He gently places the quilt his Grams made over Lizzy. She stirs lightly before rolling to her side.

"Chickens." Lizzy mumbles.

"What?" Alex leans in closer.

"Don't bother she is sleep talking." Karen states sitting on the kitchen counter.

"Alright. Well it's late. I should sleep." Alex says while leaving a small light on in the kitchen. Then the bathroom door cracked open with a nightlight. He heads to bed closing the door behind him.

"Mom... Dad...." Lizzy whispers and bites back a whimper.

"A bad dream is it?" Karen hoovers over close to observe. She is not looking forward to the day Lizzy asks what happened to her parents.