The sun was just beginning to rise over the city the following morning, giving the skies a blood red hue that boded ill. As the old saying went, "red sky at morning, sailor take warning."
Callie Briggs, feeling more than a little tired from having stayed up late to hold Mayor Manx's hand and walk him through writing his speech, her engine making an annoying clonking noise, drove along the two-lane blacktop leading to the Megakat City Salvage Yard, turning in and pulling up to the garage owned by Chance and Jake. The green sedan's gront end looked more than a little beaten up: scorched, missing its bumper, one headlight broken and the hood slightly crumpled. Damaged sustained during the explosion the other evening, and the reason for her visit to her friends.
She slowed and honked her horn, prompting Chance to come outside, looking a little groggy, but his expression brightened visibly when he saw who their early morning customer was, although his enthusiasm was dampened somewhat when he saw the state of the car. Cutting the motor off, Callie got out.
"Hi, Chance," she said conversationally.
"Hi..." Chance replied, staring at the mess that was the front end of the green car. He looked up at her. "What happened to your car?!" he cried, doing his best to sound shocked. He already knew, or at least he had a pretty good idea, but he had to maintain the illusion that he didn't.
"Oh, I was over at the Megakat Refinery when it exploded. A piece of debris hit it."
That'd been what Chance was afraid of, and felt instantly guilty, but then regained his composure, offering a flirtatious smile. "What were you doing way out there, Callie?" he asked.
The Deputy Mayor smiled. "Didn't you guys hear?" she gushed. "The SWAT Kats defeated Morbulus! You know, the one who was bombing all the refineries?"
"Ah..." Chance said in mock surprise, busying himself with stooping down to inspect the car.
"Yeah, we heard," said a voice from inside. "When we had a TV."
Callie turned and noticed Jake was inside the garage, with a television taken apart and spread out before him on the workbench, where he'd pulled an all-nighter attempting, without success, to repair the TV set from the ravages of Chance's wrath. The television itself, an empty shell, sat amidst all the items as he attempted to repair the damaged inner bits. Jake shot a reproachful look at Chance, who merely waved his hand at him to get him to hush and stood up, turning back to Callie.
"Anyway, I wanted you guys take a look at the engine and maybe fix it up for me," Callie said. "I don't care about it looks so much as whether it drives, and the engine started making this funny kind of pinging noise all the way back from Megakat Bay. And this morning the 'ping' turned into a 'clonk,' and, well, I wanna nip this in the bud so I'm not caught on the side of the road somewhere having to call you guys to come tow me."
"Sure thing," said Chance as Callie handed him her keys. "We'll probably have it ready in just a couple of days." He smirked as an idea crossed his mind. "Want me to give you a ride back into town in the tow truck?"
So saying, he gave the tow truck's fender an affectionate pat. No sooner were those words out of his mouth than they heard a horn honking. The long white limousine belonging to Mayor Manx pulled in and slid to a halt, the uniformed chauffeur getting out to open the door for Callie. Manx wasn't in it. Callie smiled apologetically at Chance, touched by his offer, but unable to say no to the creature comforts of a stretched luxury limo.
"No need," she said. "I AM the Deputy Mayor, after all. But thanks anyway, Chance."
Doing his best not to look disappointed and giving something that resembled a smile, Chance watched her turn and walk towards the limo. He sauntered back into the garage where Jake was, chest all puffed up. As far as he was concerned, the Deputy Mayor had all but asked him out on a date. Jake stood up from his work on TV.
"Heh," chuckled Chance, "she's crazy about me."
Callie heard that. She grinned, stopping and turning to glance back at the two. That Chance! she thought. She liked him enough, but he could be a little too overconfident at times, and in an effort to deflate his ego a little, she gave a sultry wave, not to him, but Jake, and said, "Bye, Jaaaaake," all sexy-like before continuing on to the limo.
Chance stood there as she got into the limo and drove off, eyes wide and mouth agape shock at that. "Bye Jake?" What the heck?! Jake, for his part, just smiled. The bigger kat turned and glowered at him as the limo drove off, balling up a fist as if to playfully punch Jake's shoulder, but he held back, not intent on picking a fight over something so trivial, he inquired after the dismantled television. After all, it took him a minute to get over himself, but it was obvious to Chance that Callie just said goodbye to Jake like that to make him jealous and poke a hole in the slightly overinflated balloon that was his ego. He needed that sometimes. It kept his feet firmly rooted on the ground, which he supposed even a pilot needed someones. Metaphorically, anyway.
"So, how 'bout the TV...?" he asked hopefully. He had no illusions about catching that Scaredy-Kat marathon now, but he wanted to at least be able to watch TV sometime during the next century.
"Nada," was Jake's reply after picking up and examining some random, broken bit of the appliance's innards. So saying, he threw it aside with a flick of his wrist to clatter noisily among the other TV parts. "The thing's history."
"What?!" cried Chance.
"Yeah," said Jake, "it's amazing how much damage one unopened can of milk can do!" He meant it, too. He wasn't just trying to needle his pal for breaking the thing. He really was surprised that the damage Chance and his milk can had done had really spelled total and complete doom for the faithful old TV.
"Crud," the other kat said, and repressed an urge to shove the gutted television over. Temper, Chance, he reminded himself. Calming, he said, "Well, we'll just have to get a new one!"
"With what money...?" asked Jake.
"Well-" Chance began.
"Hey, looooooovebirds!" a raspy, high-pitched and frankly whiny voice broke in.
Chance cringed. Oh no, he thought. Murray. He hated that voice. Both he and Jake turned and looked over at Murray and his brother standing there laughing at them.
"What do you guys want?" Chance asked. He usually did the talking whenever he and Jake dealt with these two. Jake preferred not to lower himself intellectually to acknowledge them most of the time. "We're buys."
"Yeah," sneered Burke, Murray's younger but much, much larger brother, "we saw ya. Flirtin' with da Deputy Mayor!" He clasped his gloved hands together and pretended to swoon, affecting a feminine high pitch to his voice. "'Oooooh, Chaaaance!'" he mocked, doing a very poor imitation of Callie Briggs indeed. "'You're so big and manly, marry me now and give me a tongue-bath, baby!'"
Murray joined in, making kissing sounds and hugging Burke's considerable belly as his annoyed brother broke character and attempted to shove him off of himself. "'Mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah!'" he intoned, pretending to . "'Yeah, baby, give the Chance-inator a big ol' smooch, babycakes!'" All things considered, he was doing a better imitation of Chance than Burke was of Callie.
Burke grumbled, "Get off! Stop it!" and shoved Murray off, where the smaller kat rolled around in the dirt laughing and squealing like a dying hyena. Jake rolled his eyes. He never understood why these two thought themselves SO funny.
Chance almost walked over and decked them. Instead, since the phrase for today was "even-tempered," lest he repeat the Great TV Incident, only this time with Murray's face, Chance merely demanded, "I said, what do you guys want? Don't you have some house to go haunt?"
After they finally stopped laughing, Murray picked himself up and dusted himself off. "We just wanted to let you two sweethearts know we was headin' off to get some scrap and we was gonna be in town. We might grab a pizza."
"A pizza for breakfast?" asked Chance.
"Donuts, then!" Murray said, throwing his hands up. "Look, that's not the point! Ya want anythin'? Besides a scrap heap sandwich, I mean?"
Burke snorted with laughter. For all their jackassery, the brothers occasionally attempted to be genuinely friendly with the two mechanics, but they couldn't do it without also injecting their usual cruelty and meanness into it. It was as though they just couldn't be completely nice to anyone, even each other. Jake politely declined the offer, as he always did. Not that he didn't appreciate the rare times when Burke and Murray were friendly. He was just concerned that the temptation to spit in their food would be too great for them to resist.
"No thanks," he said.
"Yeah, but you guys get whatever, y'know..." added Chance.
"Eh, fine!" Murray said. "Just a waste of good donuts anyway. C'mon, Burke."
The two waved goodbye and trudged off to their truck.
"Those two..." said Jake, "I just don't get them."
"Me neither," said his friend. "So..." He walked over to Callie's car and popped the hood. "Whaddaya say we give this baby a looksee?" After examining the engine for a moment, he seemed satisfied it wasn't anything he couldn't repair, and possibly even improve!
Jake noticed that look in his friend's eyes. "Chance, remember, she just wants the engine runnin' smooth again..." he gently warned him.
"Yeah, but who said it couldn't run twice as good as before?" asked Chance, shutting the hood.
"What did you have in mind?" Jake asked, already a little exasperated, knowing there was no way of averting disaster now.
"Help me get this baby into the garage and I'll show ya!"
~*~
Tom, a tall farmer, was in a field on the far side of his barn, tossing hay into the back of his pickup truck with his pitchfork, which he'd been doing since sunup.
His farm was one of the smaller ones, and abutted the marshlands which signaled the beginning of Megakat Swamp. Unlike a few of his more superstitious neighbors, Tom liked the swamp, having had an affinity for alligators, snakes and toads ever since he was a boy. Everyone else dreaded it and avoided it. He knew why and thought it was a load of nonsense.
Dr. Viper, indeed! He was supposed to be some kind of half kat, half snake undead ghoul or something. Tom the farmer had never heard such ridiculous gobbledygook in all his life! He was content to consign the ghoulish doctor to the urban legend pile and go about his business, unafraid of the swamp.
"Whew!" he said, taking a breather, "this jobs bigger'n I thought!"
In front of the barn, out of Tom's line of sight, Clementine the cow was grazing peacefully. Suddenly, a shadow fell over her. She looked up and let out a moo of fear.
Tom was about to resume work when he heard the sounds of a frantic struggle and weird, disgusting slimy sounds. Despite his growing unease, he decided he had to go investigate, especially when the mooing ceased abruptly and the schlurking noises got louder. Pitchfork in hand, he came around the side of the barn.
"What's goin' over here?!" he demanded.
He stopped, gasping as he could now see the front of the barn, and with it, the weirdest-looking creature he'd ever seen. The thing was twelve feet tall, a hulking purple mass vaguely shaped like a kat with thick legs and big, flat feet and arms terminating in hands with thick, gooey fingers.
It had what could charitably be called a head, with four blazing yellow eyes in front, all lined up in a row. Underneath that and something that passed for a nose, a great, wide, gaping black maw opened, with thick strands of purple goo connecting its upper and lower "lips." The hideous mouth was curled into the widest, evilest smile Tom had ever seen.
Clementine's tail hung from that big, grinning maw, and Tom backed away as the creature slurped the cow's tail up like a noodle. He raised his pitchfork threateningly. The thing stepped toward him anyway. He jabbed at the creature with his pitchfork to no effect.
"Stay back!" he said. "G-Get away!"
"I'll teach you not to meddle with my creation!" a voice hissed, and then Tom felt a a sudden crushing constriction around his waist. He felt himself get lifted up as if he weighed nothing whatsoever.
As he lurched and swayed in midair, he looked down to see a striped green snake tail encircling his middle. Looking over his shoulder, he gasped aloud as he beheld a green-furred kat wearing a white coat. Dr. Viper! It was true! All the stories were true!
Viper beckoned with a finger towards the purple bacteria monster that had once been Morbulus. Using his tail, he held the struggling farmer up to it.
"Nooo...!" Tom wailed, realizing his fate.
With an indifferent flick of his tail, Dr. Viper tossed Tom screaming into the hideous, grinning maw which closed over him and ate him in one gulp, pitchfork and all. Viper watched his creation eat. He loved the look of extreme satisfaction on its face. But playtime was over. He had a timetable to adhere to and there was no room for screwups. He just hoped the thing could follow directions more complicated than "go here" and "eat this."
"Now that you've had your breakfassst, it's time we went into Megakat City!" he said. The monster stared down at him, apparently without comprehending, prompting him to elaborate, "Follow me! There'll be lotsss more for you to eat there!"
Gesturing for the creature to follow, he turned and walked toward a sewage drain pipe just across the road from the farm, their ticket to getting into Megakat City unseen. The bacteria monster hesitated for a moment as if unsure or unwilling to follow, as though some of Morbulus' mind remained, enough that it didn't find obeying its master all too appealing, but the promise of more food got it moving and it finally lumbered after him.
~*~
Jake stood holding what appeared to be a slightly modified sparkplug in up to the light, one of about a dozen he and Chance had just gotten done installing into the engine of Callie Briggs' banged up car, following some more ordinary repairs and refinements. The car sat with its hood lifted up in the garage, and Chance had finished putting the last of the "turboplugs" into the engine.
"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Jake said. Not that he was confident he could persuade Chance of this. He was merely noting his objection for the record.
The turboplugs were new inventions of his, so new they were more or less untested. The idea behind them was that they'd grant extra power and longevity to any engine they were installed in. He'd been planning to install them in the Turbokat, but Chance had insisted they use them on Callie's car instead. Jake had reluctantly agreed, despite continuing to voice a token protest here and there. His reasoning? With the thing already busted from the other day, there wasn't much else they could do to the poor thing when Chance's idea inevitably failed.
"Relax!" Chance said, walking around and opening the door. He slid into the driver's seat, but left the door open so he could talk to Jake. "Callie should have extra horsepower, y'know, in case of an emergency."
Jake didn't disagree. "But these things are designed to go in jet engines!" he protested. "Who knows what they'll do to an ordinary car engine like this!"
"Jaaaaake," Chance said in that smooth way of his, leaning back in the seat with one hand carressing the steering wheel, like he was about to go cruising. "I'm a professional. I know what an engine can handle."
"I'm tellin' ya, you're gonna blow it..." Jake said, pocketing the spare plug he'd been examining, wondering why Chance couldn't get it into his head that car engines were different from jet engines.
Chance inserted the key in the ignition and fired it up. The vehicle roared to life deafeningly. "See?" Chance pointed out, feeling vindicated. "Purrs like a kitten!" He stepped on the accelerator, revving the engine powerfully. "Growls like a tiger!" he added.
But something about the noise the engine was making didn't sound quite right to Jake. He already tell the turboplugs were overloading Callie's engine even as Chance boasted about purring and growling, and, franatic to avert utter disaster, Jake grabbed the toolbox and got underneath the hood in an ultimately doomed effort to remove some of the plugs before-
BLAM!
Smoke poured in thick, noxious waves from the now completely blown out engine. Chance bit his lower lip sheepishly and after a second turned the ignition off. Getting out, he walked to Jake who slid out from under the hood, his face blackened and his fur slightly singed. The one turboplug he'd managed to remove he held smoking in his hand. It was partially melted.
"Great idea, Chance," he said with a sigh. He threw the now useless plug away. "NOW what'll we tell Callie? 'Sorry, Ms. Briggs, we know you brought your car in to get fixed but we broke it even more?'"
Waving the smoke away and coughing a bit, Chance said, "Eh, I dunno, I'll thinking of somethin'..."
Just then, they heard the blaring honk of a truck horn, followed by the "beep-beep-beep" of heavy machinery backing up. Just what they needed. Burke and Murray were back. Wiping his face off, Jake joined Chance and they went out to meet their least favorite kats in the world. Burke and Murray's filthy, noisy dump truck sat idling with its back end pointed at the garage, filled to overflowing with the junk and garbage the two had collected that morning.
Murray leaned out the driver's side door, a half-eaten donut in his hand. "Got a special delivery for ya! Hit it, Burke!"
The tipper portion of the truck then tilted back and uncermoniously dumped the gigantic pile of scrap all over the ground in front of the garage. Burke and Murray laughed as Chance and Jake walked up to stand beside the vehicle, awaiting the inevitable delivery notice. After the brothers had gotten done making fun of them again, of course.
"Man, this makes my day!" Murray said and crammed the rest of his donut into his mouth.
"Yeah," agreed Burke, visible over his brother's shoulder. It was amazing he was able to cram himself into the cab. "They come a long way from bein' pilots!"
The same old schtick. Here it came...
"A loooong way..." Murray said with his mouth full, then pointed down at the ground, "down!"
Didn't they have any original material? wondered Chance.
He laughed, then suddenly choked on the mouthful of donut, gagging, and lurched back and forth in the seat, eyes bulging. Despite hating his freaking guts, a wide-eyed Chance, on pure instinct, was about to throw open the door, drag the little jerk out and give him the Heimlich when Burke came to the rescue, thwacking Murray on the back violently with his palm, causing the shorter kat to wharf up the throat-clogging mass of chewed up donut. It splattered on the dashboard. Ick, thought Chance, and stood back, his hatred of Murray renewed now that he was okay.
"Thanks, Burke," Murray wheezed, and indifferently waved Chance and Jake away. "I'm fine, I"m fine..." He coughed a few more times and then his moment of vulnerability passed and he was back to laughing. He leaned out, handing Chance a clipboard with the delivery form on it and a pencil that could've used sharpening, it looked like. "Sign here, sucker."
Chance did so, handing the clipboard back, but emphatically snapping the pencil in two with his thumb and forefinger. Murray frowned at that but didn't rise to the bait, instead just holding up a tin cup filled with identical pencils and jangling it mockingly. A few moments later, he threw a piece of paper out to them. Their copy of the delivery form. Chance didn't catch it and let it flutter to the ground at his feet.
"Well, boys, it's been a blast, but we gotta be gettin' back out on the road," Murray said. "Gotta report in to Commander Feral about his favorite Enforcer washouts!"
"We'll tell him you sent your loooove!" Burke sneered.
"Adios, amigos!" Murray jeered and floored it, the truck speeding off, kicking up a huge cloud of dust, leaving behind a seething Chance and Jake.
As the dust cleared, Chance and Jake were left standing there amid the pile of junk their "friends" had left for them. Chance shook his head. If Burke and Murray knew he and Jake used the very same stuff they dumped on what amounted to their front lawn all the time to modify an old fighter jet into the sleek, beautiful and deadly Turbokat, they'd have coughed up a hairball.
Standing with his hands on his hips, he narrowed his eyes at the departing truck. "'This makes my daaaaaaay,'" he said, making Jake laugh by doing a surprisingly good imitation of Murray. "Those two dipsticks! That donut almost did us a favor!"
Jake smiled and gave one of his friend's brawny biceps a good-natured punch. "Riiiiight," he said, "like you would've let 'him choke to death. I saw you going for the door." He winked.
Chance just shook his head. He supposed Jake was right, and not even Murray deserved such a humiliating death as choking on a donut. Besides, if he'd died, they'd have had to deal with a grieving Burke. And that thought didn't exactly fill Chance with joy. Turning towards the junk, he hitched up his belt over his stomach and kicked a bent piece of metal, sending it whizzing through the air to clang off of an automobile engine.
He walked over and stooped down, examining the engine. To his eye, it looked perfectly good. Not new, but otherwise in working order. "Hey, Jake," he said, grabbing it and grunting with the effort of lifting it from among the junk where it lay nestled, his biceps bulging through his shirt sleeves as though they'd spring the seams. He set it down at Jake's feet. "Take a look at this," he said. "We could put this baby under Callie's hood."
"Yeah, to replace the one you just exploded."
Chance's smile turned into a frown.
"But you're right," said Jake, getting down on his hands and knees to examine the engine more closely. "It looks like it's in pretty good shape."
"Why do you think someone threw it out...?" asked Chance.
"Dunno," Jake said, rising to one knee. "Probably just got replaced with a newer model."
"And they just pitched it?" the larger feline said, affecting astonishment. "What a waste!" He kneeled down beside his friend and gave the engine an affectionate pat. "Don't worry, we got a good hood to put you under."
"Without any modifications beyond basic repair," Jake warned, glowering.
Chance just grinned sheepishly, then Jake rose and returned to the junk pile. Here, he found what looked to him like a perfectly good TV set. An older model than the one Chance had busted the other day, but otherwise in decent condition. The longer he worked in a junkyard, the more Jake became amazed and dismayed at what people threw out. Picking it up, with much less effort than Chance had with the engine, thank goodness, he turned and lifted it above his head like the one foretold in the old legends of Megalith City holding the Dragon Sword aloft in triumph after removing it from the rock. Chance glanced up from where he was kneeling and blinked as the rising sun shined brilliantly behind the appliance his friend was holding up, and blinked.
"I found our new TV!" Jake said triumphantly.
~*~
The new park was a large expanse of green grass, trees and stone walkways. It was a sight to behold, a testament to the skills of the landscapers, but Callie Briggs was too annoyed to appreciate its beauty. She hid it well. She sighed as she stood alongside Mayor Manx as he addressed a meager crowd from a podium on a raised wooden platform, a pair of gold scissors in her hands.
Behind them was an enormous object covered by a white sheet. His new statue, the centerpiece of the park. The sheet was secured by a glossy red ribbon that awaited the scissors Callie held, but first Manx had to finish his speech.
The crowd gathered before them consisted almost exclusively of bleary-eyed reporters, Callie noted. There were a few gardeners and workmen here and there, but the ordinary everyday citizens of Megakat City, the people the park was ostensibly for, were conspicuously absent. Callie blamed the fact Mayor Manx had, against all reason, chosen to schedule the unveiling of his statue so early in the morning.
She really wished she were anywhere but here. As Deputy Mayor, she had more important things to attend to, but whatever His Honor considered worth his time, he clearly thought was worth her time as well, so she grinned and suffered through Manx's murder of the speech she'd helped him write. Callie considered herself a decent speechwriter, but no matter what she gave Manx to read, he managed to screw it up. He mispronounced words, his incompetence as an orator matched only by his enthusiasm for the matter at hand.
"...and so, as Mayor of Megakat City," he said, mercifully bringing the speech to a close, "I am proud open to the public the brand-new park that bears my name!" He turned to Callie standing nearby and said, "Callie?"
This was her cue. She came forward and handed him the scissors. Grinning, he walked over to the big thing covered by the sheet and posed for one of the reporters, the short, orange-haired one, to snap a photograph of him poised to cut the ribbon. Flash! The moment immortalized for posterity, Manx snipped the ribbon and the sheet fell away to reveal the crime against art some poor sculptor had slaved away on for weeks, a huge statue of the Mayor himself some fifteen feet tall.
There was halfhearted applause from the assembled reporters. Among them, Callie could see Ann Gora and her cameraman.
"Well, now, isn't he modest," Ann Gora said dryly to another reporter, just loud enough for Callie to overhear. The other reporter stifled a chuckle. Then, putting her game face on, Ann turned towards Jonny, smiling the most convincing yet utterly insincere smile imaginable, and said into the camera, "So far, the openeing ceremony for the new Manx Municipal Park has gone well..."
~*~
Dr. Viper moved through a sewer tunnel, his tail lashing along behind him as he ambled leisurely through ankle-deep water. The bacteria monster walked along behind him, its enormous, gooey feet making squishing sounds in the fetid water, the fluorescent lights affixed to the walls casting its shadow over the scientist. It'd grown in size since eating the farmer and his cow, so that it barely fit in the tunnel despite its high ceiling.
They were nearing their destination. Viper could sense it. No one knew the sewers of Megakat City better than he. "Not long now!" he said gleefully, rubbing his hands together. "It'sss just up around-"
He stopped short as he realized he wasn't in the monster's shadow anymore. It'd stopped somewhere behind him. Turning, he saw the creature standing there staring with its four eyes up towards a manhole cover directly above them. If Viper was correct, they were directly beneath where they were building that new park. He could hear the muffled sounds of a crowd. Apparently, the bacteria monster did too.
Impatient, he snarled, "Don't ssstop now!" The bacteria monster didn't listen and reached up towards the hole. Viper was finding the creature difficult to control. He supposed it was due to what little remained of Morbulus' mind, being defiant to the end. "Lisssten to me when I'm talking to you!" he yelled, furious.
This wasn't good, he thought. This was going to delay the robbery and set Viper's schedule back by at least twenty or thirty minutes, time he couldn't afford to lose!
"Come back!" he shrieked, but it was no use. The monster sensed food nearby, and it was going for it, no matter what its creator said or did.
~*~
In the garage, Chance and Jake were under the open hood of Callie's car putting the finishing touches on the refurbished engine they'd just installed. Their "new" TV, which Jake had gotten working with a minimum of fuss, sat on the worktable nearby, showing the park dedication. Ann Gora was giving a report, but Chance wasn't paying attention to her; he was smiling at Deputy Mayor Briggs, visible on the platform behind Ann in the background.
Pausing, he lay his cheek against the palm of one hand, propping his elbow against the car. "Boy," he said, dreamily, "that Callie sure is pretty..."
Jake, annoyed that his friend had stopped working, glanced up and said, "Yeah, but she'll be pretty MAD if we don't get her car working again!"
Getting the idea, Chance sighed and resumed work as Ann Gora continued her report. "The festivities are a big success," she was saying, "helping everyone take their minds off yesterday's bombings, and also-"
She was cut off by a deep, rumbling sound, making the two look up from their work.
"What was that?" said someone on TV.
"Jonny," Ann suddenly cried, "get a shot of that!"
The view whipped around and Chance and Jake saw an enormous, lumpy purple creature with four eyes emerging from the sewer through an open manhole. There were cries of "Holy kats!" and "Run for your lives!" The camera view began retreating as the wobbly image of the monster came closer. Someone, it sounded like Callie, screamed.
"What in the heck is that?!" cried Jake, surprised.
"It's ugly, that's what!" replied Chance.
They looked at another. They knew what they had to do. Duty called, and Callie's car was going to have to wait.
"Let's hit it!" they cried together.
~*~
Absolute panic ensued in the park as the bacteria monster emerged from the sewer. Cries of "Holy kats!" and "Run for your lives!" filled the air as the reporters and assembled spectators turned and ran off in all directions. At the podium, Manx and Callie recoiled in shock as the creature seemed to be lumbering straight towards them.
"Godfrey!" cried Manx. "Callie, it's a big purple sticky thing!"
He flew off the platform in a wild leap, tumbling in the grass as he held onto his toupee. Callie jumped down after him.
"Mayor, wait!" she yelled.
But Manx wasn't listening, Getting up, grass clippings clinging to his suit, he ran as fast as his short legs would carry him towards his limousine, where the chauffeur sat behind the wheel. Callie watched him go, then turned. The orange-haired reporter with the camera who'd been photographing them earlier ran past her and positioned himself by the Manx statue. Ann and Jonny had already made themselves scarce along with most of the rest of the press. Callie thought that he was either very brave or very stupid. Suddenly realizing that she wasn't running, either, Callie ran for the limo.
The reporter stood his ground, snapping photo after photo of the monster as he backed up. Flash! Flash!! Click-click-click! The camera clicked impotently and made a whirring noise as the film rewound. The reporter lowered it in fear as the bacteria monster loomed menacingly over him. With a gasp, he took off through some nearby bushes. As soon as he was out of the monster's sight, the creature lost interest in him, as though it struggled with object permanence. Out of the corner of its left two eyes, it saw Callie, though, and turned and began lumbering after her - and the white limo in the distance. The bacteria monster walked towards the limo. As it turned, it knocked the statue of Manx over. The statue crushed the wooden platform Manx and Callie had been standing on earlier.
Callie hurried down one of the park's stone pathways towards where the limo was waiting. But the driver wasn't; even as she caught up to the huffing and puffing Manx, their chauffeur was getting out. He took one look at the bacteria monster and fled with a scream. He left the driver's side door open. Please let the keys be in the ignition, Callie begged. She grabbed Manx's suit and shoved him the front seat, climbing in after him, getting behind the wheel and closing the door. Yes! The keys were in the ignition. Callie grabbed them and turned them. Vrrroooom! The engine roared to life.
Beside her, Manx wailed. "Callie! Get me out of here!"
"I'm working on it, Mayor!" she said, shifting the vehicle into drive and stepping on the gas.
The bacteria monster came over the rise of a small hill several yards away, smiling evilly. Manx screamed all manner of terrified gibberish. In addition to her fear and being distracted by her passenger's piercing shrieks of terror, Callie was unused to driving such a big, bulky vehicle as the long stretched luxury limousine, and so she quickly lost control of the car. She hit a curb, sideswiping a fire hydrant. Water gushed into the air as Callie struggled to regain control, spinning the wheel, the limo careening straight towards the monster; exactly where she didn't want to go! She regained control and slammed on the brakes, but not in time to avoid hitting the monster. The front end hit the bacteria in the middle. It grunted in pain and doubled over the hood, but recovered quickly, and, to Callie's horror, opened its huge mouth and began to eat the car! She and Manx watched the entire front end disappearing into the smiling black hole, darkness descending over the limo interior.
She had to act quickly. "Come on, Mayor," she urged Manx, "hurry!"
Manx needed no persuasion. He was getting off this sinking ship! Fortunately for both of them, Manx's limo lacked a partition between the front seats and the back passenger area. The two climbed hurriedly into the back, then were able to throw open one of the driver's side rear doors and leap free just as the bacteria monster wolfed down the entire length of the car in two quick bites. It immediately shuddered and started doubling in size right before their eyes as the mass of the devoured limo was added to its body. Getting to their feet, the two ran off again, around the bulk of the monster, heading back the way they came. Finished growing for now, the monster turned, saw them, and immediately gave chase, the need to feed overwhelming every other thought in what little remained of Morbulus' mind; even Dr. Viper's orders to assault Megakat Biochemical Labs were forgotten for the time being as the big, purple four-eyed mutation pursued the two morsels across the park.
The Turbokat roared into view and began to circle the park. The SWAT Kats looked down at the creature.
"Eew," said T-Bone, making a face, "that thing looks nasty!"
"Yeah, and it's closing in on Callie and the Mayor!
T-Bone looks where Razor points, to see the tiny figures of Manx and Callie running away from the Bacteria across the green grass of the park.
"But that's easily taken care of!" Razor said, flipping some switches on his weapons panel.
Hearing the approaching jet, the monster turned away from Callie and the Mayor, growling up at the Turbokat. Dim memories of its former life surfaced long enough for it to hate the jet instinctively on sight. The corners of its already sinister openmouthed grin turned up more sharply as thoughts of vengeance for a humiliating defeat the previous day came tantalizingly within its reach.
Razor targeted the monster right in the middle of its ugly face, between the two sets of glaring yellow eyes and hit the button marked "Plain Old Missile."
"Eat this, slimeball!"
Whoosh! A missile with "From Razor with Love!" stenciled along its length shot out from the Turbokat and rocket towards the monster, who stood there dumbly and took the head dead on. The missile hit and exploded, creating a huge cloud of smoke. The monster was obscured from the SWAT Kats' view, but they definitely heard its bellow of pain. Yes! thought Razor. Even if he hadn't killed it, he'd definitely wounded it, given it something to think about.
"Good work, buddy!" T-Bone, leaning his arm back, palm up, for a high-five that never came.
"Oh no!" cried Razor, his illusions of having harmed their adversary suddenly shattered as the smoke cleared. "Look!"
He and T-Bone were shocked to see, instead of one wounded monster, two smaller but otherwise perfectly fine monsters now, each with two eyes instead of four. The missile's impact had only caused the original creature to split apart. Right down the middle from the looks of things.
"Huh?" cried T-Bone. "Well that's something you don't see everyday..."
Below, both bacteria monsters continued to wear those huge, stupid but malicious-looking smiles, and each ones right eye was squinted slightly as though in intense concentration. The remnants of Morbulus' mind were fragmented, and both "new" monsters were struggling to remember what it was Dr. Viper had told them. Suddenly, out of the corner of its wide open left eye, one of them spotted the fleeing Callie and Manx, and remembered chasing them, and so it resumed doing that, plodding awkwardly in their direction.
As she and Manx fled from the two-eyed monster, Callie couldn't believe it. The thing had divided like a giant amoeba! Given that the original creature's eyes had been divided evenly among two new monsters, she hoped that four was the most of these things Megakat City would have to deal with. But even four unkillable eating machines that got bigger the more they consumed could pose a serious threat to the city. At least the two newly-created monsters were the same size as the original had been before it had eaten the limo. Callie just hoped one or both of them didn't divide again.
Suddenly, a rope ladder dropped down in front of Callie, and she became aware of whirring helicopter rotors. She looked up to see an Enforcer chopper hovering in the air. Two more were flying around nearby. Rescue was rescue, Callie thought, grabbing the ladder. Suddenly, with a yelp, Manx shoved her aside and climbed up ahead of her. As she lay sprawled in the grass, with the approaching monster coming closer, Callie's anger overcame her fear. You coward! she wanted to shout at Manx. As the monster's shadow fell over her, Callie got up and climbed the ladder, grateful that the chopper had waited for her. As soon as she was on, the aircraft rose in altitude, and just in time, too; one big, gooey purple hand reached out for Callie's dangling feet. She lifted her feet up and felt and heard the "whoosh" of air as it swiped at her.
Once inside, Callie had to resist the thankfully transient urge to throw the shaking and whimpering Manx out the open side door and right down the grinning maw of the monster below them. She composed herself. Safely out of harm's way, Manx brushed his suit free of grass clippings and coughed awkwardly. He didn't apologize or even try to justify what he'd done. Callie decided to let the matter drop for now. But the time for recriminations would come later. She wasn't going to let her employer forget what he'd done.
Up front, a helmeted Commander Feral sat in the co-pilot's seat, behind the weapons controls. A stony-faced Enforcer pilot Callie didn't recognize was flying the chopper.
"Don't worry, Mr. Mayor, the Enforcers are here!" Feral assured Manx. Apparently, he hadn't seen what Manx had done.
As one, the three choppers circled around towards the monsters.
"On my order, fire on those things," Feral said into the microphone attached to his flight helmet.
T-Bone's voice suddenly came over the radio. "I don't think that's a good idea, Feral."
"Get off this frequency, you vigilantes!" growled Feral. "The Enforcers are handling this!"
"No! He's right!" Callie said, sticking her head up front between Feral and his pilot.
Looking suddenly uncertain, Feral's pilot turned and opened his mouth to say something, but he was silenced by a glare from his commanding officer.
"I give the orders around here!" Feral said, glaring first at the pilot, then at Callie, as if to make it clear his words were a reminder to her as much as to his pilot.
"No," came Manx's voice from behind them, "I do! And I say fire on those things! Kill them!"
Great minds think alike, Callie thought. But at least Feral's refusal to listen was borne from stubborn pragmatism and a desire to prove the SWAT Kats wrong. Not exactly admirable qualities, but still better than Manx's unthinking cowardice. And Manx had seen with his own eyes the first creature split when the SWAT Kats hit it! She said nothing further, and decided to let Feral find out for himself the hard way that the SWAT Kats were right.
Growling, Feral targeted the foremost of the monsters, the one that had almost gotten her and Manx, and launched a missile. It hit the bacteria dead center in the face. Good aim, if nothing else, Callie thought. There was an explosion, but it was the same results as before. The smoke cleared, and where a squinting, two-eyed purple slime creature had stood, there now stood a pair of somewhat smaller creatures with one eye apiece.
"Uh!" Feral cried in surprise.
"Told you so!" said T-Bone's voice over the radio.
Ignoring him, Feral contacted the other two choppers who were with him. "All units, return to Headquarters. Normal weapons don't work against these things."
"You've made that abundantly clear, Feral!" grumbled Manx, apparently forgetting he'd been the one who had insisted Feral fire on the creature in the first place.
If Morbulus' mind had been seriously fragmented the first time the creature divided, it was now even moreso; almost nothing that could be called intelligence, even in the most rudimentary sense, remained in the two one-eyed monsters. But something finally stirred in the mind of the remaining two-eyed one, which had been standing unmoving over by where the original division had first occurred with nothing to stimulate it and distract it. It'd been thinking, or trying to, and trying hard, and finally something surfaced, and it wasn't the earlier, transient desire for revenge against the SWAT Kats for yesterday; Megakat Biochemical Labs, go to Megakat Biochemical Labs. Yes. Megakat Biochemical Labs.
Dr. Viper poked his spiky-haired head out of the still open manhole the original creature had emerged from. He grinned. How fortunes turned on a dime! He'd been angry when the original four-eyed monster had disobeyed him, but now things were looking up. He cackled, very pleased. "What an unexpected development! I never intended for the creaturesss to divide like real bacteria cellsss! Now thossse foolsss have given me three waysss to get what I want! Hahahaha!"
With a pleased hiss, he disappeared back down into the sewer as the two-eyed monster turned and lumbered out of the park. Seeing it go, one of the smaller, less intelligent one-eyed bacteria also turned and headed off after it, more for lack of anything better to do than because of any memory of Dr. Viper's orders. The third, meanwhile, left the park another way, completely uncoordinated and with no clear goal in mind beyond finding and eating whatever it could. Nobody had seen Viper. Commander Feral's chopper turned and followed the first two, while the Turbokat flew off in pursuit of the third.
After leaving the park, the big two-eyed bacteria monster and its smaller single-eyed companion lumbered down the city street which the two-eyed creature knew led to Megakat Biochemical Labs, which, indeed, it could see growing nearer in the distance. Yes, it thought. Megakat Biochemical Labs. Go to Megakat Biochemical Labs for Dr. Viper.
Commander Feral and Callie observed from the cockpit of the helicopter as it flew along behind them, matching their speed. "The SWAT Kats can keep an eye on the third, I imagine," said Feral, the closest Callie had ever heard him come to giving the SWAT Kats anything resembling credit.
Looking ahead, she saw Megakat Biochemical at the end of the block. "They seem to be headed in the direction of Megakat Biochemical Labs!"
Feral nodded. "Then that's where we're going," he said. "If anyone knows how to stop these things, they will!"
His pilot pushed the control yoke forward and the chopper sped up, overtaking the two slow-moving monsters and heading towards the fortified building in the distance with all speed.
~*~
Meanwhile, the SWAT Kats were indeed tailing the third bacteria monster. It lumbered around a building, out of sight. T-Bone put the Turbokat into hover mode and when he rounded the corner of the building, he blinked. The monster was gone!
"Where'd he go?" he said, looking around. "How can a giant walking pile of purple slop just vanish?!"
Also looking around, Razor saw a set of stone stairs leading down. A subway entrance. Fear and dread dawned on him. The subway. It went into the subway.
"Oh no," he cried, "he went into the subway!"
~*~
A single businessman in a white suit and black fedora waited on the Katalina Station platform, briefcase in hand. He yawned. He hoped the train wasn't late. He had an early meeting to get to. Hearing movement, he turned and cried out in surprise at the sight of the grinning cycloptic horror squeezing its pliant bulk through the subway entrance. It then meandered over onto the boarding platform. The businessman dropped his briefcase and ran. The bacteria monster ignored him in favor of stepping down off the platform and entering the subway tunnel, fortunately for him... and unfortunately for the arriving train he'd been waiting for.
Denny sat bleary-eyed in the motorman's cabin of the onrushing subway train's lead car. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night. They were a few minutes behind schedule like usual. He sighed. He'd worked as a motorman driving trains for the Megakat City Transit Authority for the past three years and he hated his job. The same old tunnels, day in, day out; nothing ever exciting happened.
He glanced over his shoulder. Through the rear window of the motorman's cabin he could observe some of the early morning commuters he'd picked up, something he could afford to do because it wasn't like there was any traffic for him to pay attention to. The car he was driving was packed almost to full capacity despite the early hour. It was very nearly standing room only.
A pretty young she-kat and an elderly man with glasses, frowning as he read about yesterdays bombings in the copy of the Megakat Times he had spread open before him were some of the few who'd managed to get seats. Others, including some college types with textbooks and an office worker in a suit with a turtleneck, carrying a stack of file folders and reports, weren't as lucky, struggling to hold on to their burdens one-handed as they gripped the straps dangling from the ceiling with their free hands. Nobody was talking much. Too early for conversation before the coffee kicked in.
He observed his conductor, Bud, exit the first car and pass through into the second, then turned and focused his attention back on the tracks stretching out before him. He sighed. Yup. Nothing exciting.
The second car was almost as packed as the first. Bud went through, checking things. Pushing his way through the standing passengers, he opened the door and entered the third and final car. This one wasn't as full as the other two. In fact, other than Bud, there were only four kats; a little boy with gray fur and curiously premature white hair wearing a baseball cap who was with his father, a curly-haired she-kat with the harried look of a housewife, and a businessman with a fedora and bowtie. The housewife had an armful of groceries from some early morning shopping at a 24 hour convenience store. The businessman was reading the same paper as the old man in the first car.
Bud knew that come that afternoon, this sparsely-popular train car would be packed just as tight as the first two.
"Can we go to the toy store, dad?" Zachary, the white-haired boy in the baseball cap was asking excitedly.
His father Bernard sighed, annoyed. He had to get some things at the office where he worked. And then he had to take little Zachary to the doctor's office for a checkup. And so early on his day off, too!
"We'll see, Zack," he said, managing a smile, trying not to let his annoyance spoil his son's good mood. Zachary didn't usually like going to the doctor, so him being so cheerful was a blessing. "It'll have to wait until after we're done at Dr. Hallen's. I don't think the toy stores are open this early."
"Awww, gee," whined Zachary.
In the lead car, Denny the motorman's life suddenly got a lot less boring. As the train rounded a bend coming up to the Katalina Station platform, he saw an enormous, purple... thing with one huge, glaring yellow eye an enormous, pitch black gaping maw come into view. It was blocking the way. His eyes flew wide open.
"What in the-?! Holy kats!" he cried.
He slammed on the brakes. The train's wheels left a shower of sparks as the speeding vehicle struggled to come to a stop, squealing loudly. In Denny's car, everyone held on. The passengers holding onto the hand straps dropped everything they were holding but managed to remain standing, while the seated passengers, including the she-kat and the elderly man, went flying forward onto the floor. The people in the second car were also thrown forward violently by the sudden stop. In the third car, conductor Bud, Zachary, his father, and the other two also went flying forwards towards the front. The housewife's groceries flew everywhere.
The train, wheels sparking as it ground to a halt, slammed into the bacteria monster, knocking it back a ways, before finally stopping. This did not seem to affect the creature. Without wasting time, the bacteria grabbed the first car and lifted it, causing it to disconnect from the second car. In the motorman's cabin, Denny watched in frozen horror as the grinning mouth yawned wide and darkness engulfed the interior of the train car, and he and all of his passengers screamed as the first car disappeared into the monstrous maw with them inside of it.
In three quick bites, the entire first car of the subway train, Denny the motorman and everyone else inside with him, were totally devoured, and the bacteria monster swelled in size. It belched, and grasping, slimy hands reached for the second car, where the passengers hadn't fully recovered from the jolting stop yet.
Inside, the startled passengers got knocked about as suddenly the lights went out and the entire care interior was plunged into darkness. A brief flash of illumination as the malfunctioning ceiling lights struggled to come back on revealed to the doomed commuters the terrible sight of the roof and walls bending inwards towards them as they all pressed themselves against the floor in a vain attempt to escape. Mercifully, the lights went out again. The screams abruptly stopped, replaced by the sounds of rending metal and breaking glass as the bacteria monster ate the second train car just as quickly as it had the first.
Up top, T-Bone swung the Turbokat around to get enough momentum, flying towards the subway entrance. When they were close enough, Razor shot out on the Cyclotron, driving along the bumpy stairs which led down. He rode the Cyclotron across the deserted boarding platform and flew off the edge, landing on the track and zooming off down the tunnel. He rounded the bend just in time to see the last of the second train car vanish into the monster's mouth as it grew, swelling in size as the car, and its doomed occupants, were digested and added to its mass. Soon it would be too big for the subway tunnel to contain it!
His eyes widened in horror at what he'd just witnessed. All those people on the train. "Oh no...!"
In the final train car, Zachary screamed as Bernard held him tightly, Bud the conductor and the other two passengers gibbering and screaming they got jostled around. The car was being lifted up. The bacteria monster had picked up the last remaining car from the train and was opening wide to eat it. No, thought Razor. No, you don't! He revved his engine and went flying at it. He drove past it, getting its attention, its single eye narrowing in annoyance at this distraction. It released the train car, dropping it back onto the track where it sat tilted at an awkward angle, nearly tipped onto its side.
Inside, the four passengers and the conductor lay terrified and unmoving but alive against the nearly sideways seats as the car lurched and swayed and slowly halted, then tilted back onto its wheels, righting itself, albeit off the track. They went to the windows and looked out.
"Look, Daddy, it's one of the SWAT Kats!" cried Zachary happily.
Razor zoomed back the way he came, past the creature, which was still too close to the train car for his liking. The monster made a lazy grab for him and missed, but made no attempt to pursue. Stopping, Razor popped a wheelie and spun, gritting his teeth in white hot fury at the terrible fate of the subway commuters, determined to save this final few aboard the last car. As the Cyclotron's front tire came back down to the ground, Razor revved his engine in rage.
"Come on!" he said through clenched teeth. "Come and get me, you giant zit!"
After a moment, it took the bait, moving towards him, its huge, grinning maw open wide to devour him whole...
