Megakat Superconductors was a highrise in the mid-town district of Megakat City. One of the city's highly specialized research and development centers. It had so many it was often joked that outside of the Enforcers, such facilities employed more people than anywhere else. Tonight, though, the building was empty except for building security. Everyone else had gone home.
A tough-looking kat with a mustache dressed in the dark blue uniform of Megakat Superconductors' private security strode through the halls with a serious look on his face. He was alert. Vigilant. This was his building, even though he didn't actually own it. To him, it was his domain. After all, he was responsible for guarding it, and he took his job very seriously.
Unlike the guards at some other research centers. Including some Enforcer ones, he thought sardonically.
He entered a back storage area for supplies used by the facility. His destination was a triple-locked red door marked "Top Secret." Pausing, he looked around. Everything seemed to be on the up and up. Which was a good thing. Unlike many guys who took such jobs, he wasn't exactly hankerin' for some action. If anyone broke in it would mean he and his fellow guards had failed at their job, even if they repelled the burglars.
As he moved towards the red door to ensure it was secure, he was suddenly surrounded. Six kats leaped in from seemingly nowhere.
Uncharacteristically, the guard was caught by surprise and yelped in fear. But he recovered quickly. Who were these guys? They were lithe, almost simian-looking, dressed entirely in dark purple, almost black tactical compression garments except for their tails, which had light purple fur. Even their heads were covered, their identities concealed by red goggles with green lenses and grilled masks over their mouths and noses. Apart from the fact they were creepy, the way they stood stooped over and seemed to have arms that were longer than their legs, adding to their monkey-like appearance, all the guard could tell about them was that they were all male.
After taking stock of his opponents, he reached for his sidearm, a laser pistol. He had barely gotten it out of its holster when the intruders attacked, one of the monkey-like creeps - none of whom had spoken a word or so much as uttered a sound - kicked the gun away. Another delivered a vicious punch to the guard's midsection. The big kat doubled over in agony. Another socked him across the jaw, knocking his hat off.
The first kat, the one who kicked the laser pistol away, then roundhouse kicked the guard. He went flying. The guard sailed into a stack of heavy looking shipping crates which collapsed on top of him. He knew nothing more.
~*~
The intruders watched the guard disappear beneath the toppling crates, with only his limp right hand left sticking free, and paid him no more mind. To a one, they were fanatics who'd given up their individuality and freedom to do what they wanted and agreed to serve what they considered a greater cause. They were genetically augmented to some degree which accounted for their odd posture, longer arms and enhanced strength despite how skinny they were. And like the guard they'd just defeated, they took their jobs very, very seriously.
The six approached the big red door with three locks. Directed by the leader, one took out a trio of triangular bombs and attached one to each of the locks, then the group ran to a safe distance as they began beeping rapidly.
Boom!
The door was blown inwards and the villains rushed into the Top Secret room beyond at a signal from their leader. They still hadn’t spoken or made a single sound.
~*~
The guard stirred. He was still alive. He couldn’t manage to get the boxes off of himself, however, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d remain conscious. His hand raised and reached desperately for a button on the wall marked "Alarm." It falls down limply before managing to do so, however. He groaned.
~*~
The Black Widow was parked on the roof. It was a strange-looking vehicle, a large transport vehicle with segmented, tentacular spider-like legs ending in funnel-shaped apertures. The rear boarding ramp is down. Standing alongside are a gaggle of chittering Creeplings, the other, more commonly used minions of the evil mastermind behind the break-in.
The kommando-kats - as their master called them - emerged from the stairwell door. To a man, they were carrying medium-sized but very heavy wooden crates, each marked with a lightning bolt symbol. These they’d taken from the Top Secret room in the building’s storage area. They scurried up the Black Widow's boarding ramp silently, like a line of purplish-black-uniformed ants.
A shadowy figure emerged into view inside.
Dark Kat. The SWAT Kats’ self-proclaimed arch-enemy and the number one greatest threat to the safety of Megakat City. A true master villain if ever there was one. He was enormous. One of the tallest kats in Megakat City, in fact. His deceptively smallish head contained a diabolically clever criminal brain with a sadistic streak a mile wide, and he was cloaked in darkness, covered up almost entirely by gray robes draped in red-trimmed black, with a hood over his head, almost, but not quite, concealing his hideous, skull-like face with blazing yellow eyes that shone like the glowing hot lava of a live volcano and a sharp-toothed mouth like that of a Halloween Jack O’ Lantern.
Besides being tall and bulky, his hands and feet were enormous; he went barefoot because his notoriety and unusual appearance meant having specially cobbled shoes made was a risk he was unprepared to take, but gold, diamond-encrusted rings adorned his clawed fingers, including the one holding the cane he carried, not because he needed it but because he considered himself stylish and liked the finer, more expensive things in life. Especially if they were things that didn’t belong to him and which he stole and did so often.
He watched his underlings filing in.
“With this superconductive wire, the first phase of my plan is in motion,” he declared to no one in particular. The kind of man who liked the sound of his admittedly booming and impressively threatening voice, he often spoke aloud, either to himself or to those who couldn’t answer back in intelligible English. Like the Creeplings. Or those who chose not to speak at all. Like the kommando-kats. “Soon I'll have all the power I need to reduce Megakat City to rubble.”
Soon, Dark Kat City would at last be a reality!
~*~
The guard stirred again. He had to alert someone. He made another try for the alarm button, and this time he succeeded. It made a satisfying "click" and then his hand fell limply back down into its original position.
The button began blinking red, on and off.
He then fell deeper and deeper back into the darkness of unconsciousness, knowing that even if he never woke up again, the Enforcers would be aware of the robbery. Someone would stop the thieves he’d failed to. Maybe he hadn’t completely failed at his job, after all, he thought as he blacked out again.
~*~
An enormous backlit map of Megakat City bathed the darkened central control center of Enforcer Headquarters in a greenish glow. The overhead lights were out. Over by the bank of monitors serving as the dispatch center, a lone dispatcher wearing a headset mic sat working the graveyard shift.
He glances up from his "I Hate Mondays" coffee mug to see a red dot blinking on and off on the huge map looming above him. He saw that the light indicated an incident of some kind at Megakat Superconductors. He set the mug aside and tapped his mic on.
“Chopper 1! Chopper 1! Red alert!”
~*~
An Enforcer chopper flew along on patrol. The dispatcher’s voice filtered through the radio, alerting the two serious-looking pilots. “I repeat, red alert! The two Enforcers were jerked into alertness by his voice. “Silent alarm at Megakat Superconductors! Investigate!”
“Roger that!” said the first pilot, the one actually doing the flying. He spoke with a slight British accent, suggesting he wasn’t from Megakat City or even that country, though his co-pilot had never bothered asking him where he was from. It never struck him as important as long as the guy flew straight. “Chopper 1 on its way!” the British pilot continued.
The chopper zoomed forward rapidly. The Enforcer vehicle approached Megakat Superconductors, and one of the pilots activated its spotlight. It bathed the Black Widow in harsh brightness, although since the Enforcers were approaching from the vehicle’s front, they couldn’t see Dark Kat and his Creeplings standing at the back, just inside the open rear entrance.
Dark Kat was surprised but not alarmed. His Creeplings, however, went berserk, screeching in wild panic. “Don't worry, my Creeplings!” the tall, black-robed villain boomed. “Nothing can stop us now!”
As the last kommando-kat filed in, Dark Kat pressed a button. The boarding ramp swung up and closed with a metallic bang. A moment later, the vessel roared to thrumming life and began lifting up off the rooftop.
The approaching helicopter kept a respectful distance. “Halt!” yelled the first pilot over the loudspeaker. “You're under arrest!”
Dark Kat ignored him. He often ignored Enforcers, regardless of their accents. They were annoying gnats. No, flies, he thought smugly, considering his new spider-shaped ship. The Black Widow finished lifting off and zoomed away, the spider legs trailing limply behind it like jellyfish tentacles.
Without missing a beat, the Enforcer craft pursued, firing with its side guns, but it quickly became apparent that the spider craft was going to escape. The British-accented Enforcer pilot scowled and pounds his fist on the control panel in frustration. “No way to catch him!” he growled.
~*~
Not far away, the Turbokat zoomed along on patrol. Aboard were the SWAT Kats, the city’s sometimes popular, sometimes controversial vigilante heroes. T-Bone frowned as he listened to the radio, illegally tuned in to the Enforcers’ emergency band,as the British-accented voice filtered through the speaker. “He's too fast!”
Those Enforcer clowns always seemed to give up too easily, he thought.
Sitting in back, Razor grinned, eager to kick some tail. “But not too fast for us, huh, T-Bone?”
“Only one way to find out! Hang on!” T-Bone pushed the throttle forward. In seconds, the Turbokat was flying past Megakat Superconductors as, down below, Enforcer cruisers with flashing roof lights drove up to the building. “And you thought tonight was gonna be a slow night!”
The Turbokat overtook and flew past the pursuing Enforcer chopper. The two guys inside turned and glared at the SWAT Kats. Or so they assumed. Both kats had their reflective helmet visors down, obscuring their eyes, but they were frowning. Trying to show there were no hard feelings, T-Bone offered a friendly wave and didn’t get one in return. Typical Enforcers, thought T-Bone. Way too serious. No wonder he and Razor never fit in with them.
He flew on and quickly gained on the vehicle the chopper had been chasing. T-Bone made a face at the thing’s design. He had a strong distaste for bugs. “Whoever this guy is, he's got a thing for spiders,” he observed. “Yuck!”
Razor just chuckled and began pushing buttons, trying to target the fleeing villain's craft.
In the Black Widow up ahead, Dark Kat was seated in the front control area which served as the flight deck, which was dominated by an enormous seat that was one part plush office chair and several parts demonic crimson throne. This area was dimly lit by low purplish lighting, as was the entire interior of the vehicle. The villain frowned as an alarm went off and the lighting turned from purple to red. The attendant Creeplings chittered nervously. On a small monitor placed ahead of and slightly below Dark Kat's seat, he saw an image of the Turbokat as seen from a rear camera on the spider craft.
“The SWAT Kats!” he cried in surprise and annoyance. There were fewer people in Megakat City, perhaps the entire world, he hated and who were capable of genuinely making him lose what little temper he had.
Although the Creeplings were once again extremely agitated, shrieking and scampering around, and even the kommando-kats, lingering behind Dark Kat's seat in the huge vessel's rear cargo area, looked a little uneasy (despite their faces being masked, their boss could tell by their postures that they were getting worried), Dark Kat himself was merely annoyed.
“How irritating,” he said after calming down. His temper, in addition to being short, was nothing if not mercurial. “As usual, sticking their noses in where they don't belong.” Soothingly to the Creeplings, he said, “A minor setback easily remedied.”
Between his legs was a large thick metal steering stick with a huge handle that had two buttons on top of it, one off white, the other red. This, Dark Kat had been holding and he now pushed it forwards gently. The Black Widow shot forward with the Turbokat in hot pursuit.
The Enforcer chopper continued following although it was lagging behind.
In the jet, Razor tried to line up a shot on the spider craft as Dark Kat dove down towards the riverfront. T-Bone was right on his tail. “Stay on him, T-Bone!” Razor said.
“He won't shake this tail!” his partner assured him.
The vehicle the SWAT Kats didn’t know was called the Black Widow zoomed down low over the Megakat River. The full moon was brilliantly reflected in the water as the two aircraft flew along. Up ahead, a train trestle spanned the river. The spider craft flew low between the water and the underside of the trestle with the Turbokat right behind as a high-tech bullet train shot along the tracks up above them.
Blinking, the engineer glanced out his window as the chase flew by beneath him. In back, various passengers on a late-night commute rushed to the windows and looked out, many of them exclaiming. These included a young couple, obviously together, to the point one might assume they were married but they were merely dating. The young man was compact-looking but athletic, with short black hair. The young woman, his girlfriend, had very angular features and long, straight reddish hair.
“What was that?” asked one of the other passengers.
“Look!” cried another. “The SWAT Kats!”
“Hey, yeah, it is the SWAT Kats!” said a third passenger.
“I wonder who they're chasing?”
As they watched, they saw the Enforcer chopper come in from above the train car's window frame, having elected to go above the trestle rather than under it. The young couple among the crowd of babbling passengers looked at one another significantly and they narrowed their eyes. They and they alone recognized not just the Turbokat but the spider craft as well. And they and they alone said nothing in exclamation.
The train finished whipping past, the Enforcer chopper reflected in the mirror-like shine of the windows. Up ahead, the Turbokat was closing the distance rapidly. Razor continued pressing buttons. In a bid to evade his pursuers, Dark Kat flew up and away from the river and over the tops of buildings towards a particularly tall skyscraper. The Black Widow flew around the tall building in a corkscrew maneuver which finished at the top. However, T-Bone matched his enemy perfectly, never once losing sight of him. The spider craft then continued on over the increasingly lower and lower rooftops. This area was on the outskirts of the city and was almost entirely industrial and had more than a few abandoned buildings.
~*~
At the next train station, the young couple got off and hurried down the steps, hailing a cab, despite the concerned engineer warning them that this was a bad part of town. They ignored him. The engineer let them go without further comment. They could take care of themselves, he thought. They looked mean enough, he’d decided from the glimpses he’d gotten of them getting on earlier and just now getting off.
~*~
The wooden warehouse was old and looked like it had seen better days a century or two ago. It sagged and looks close to falling down under its own weight, abandoned so long ago there was no signage on it of note. As the Black Widow neared it, an elderly couple out walking passed by the weed-filled old parking lot. They were both wearing jogging outfits consisting of hoodies and sweatpants. They paused in their walk and glanced up as the huge shadow of the spider vehicle fell over them.
In the Turbokat, Razor squinted into his targeting scope. He had their enemy in his sights now!
Closeup on Razor's targeting scope. He's got Dark Kat in his sights now! “Just a little closer…” His instruments beeped. “I'm on him! Octopus Missiles... deployed!”
Whoosh! Two Octopus Missiles launched forward and flew straight and true towards Dark Kat's vehicle. In the villain's cockpit, alarms were going off. The Creeplings were having a conniption. Dark Kat gripped his steering stick tightly as he flew low over the old warehouse, feeling the first very annoying tingles of worry creeping up his spine.
A skilled pilot in his own right, Dark Kat waited until the last moment and then jerked the stick up.
The descending Octopus Missiles just barely missed the Black Widow's engines and slammed into the roof, punching two holes through the rotten wood. Blam! They hit the floor and the sides of the structure exploded outward violently, and then the whole thing collapsed in a big heap of rotten wood planking and rusted metal, sending up a huge cloud of dust which the Turbokat zoomed through.
“Crud! Missed 'im!” growled Razor.
The Black Widow zoomed over the low roofs with his enemies in hot pursuit. Behind the Turbokat, though, the Enforcer chopper suddenly exited the chase, veering to the right, back towards the now destroyed old warehouse. Its pilots had just gotten some distressing news.
The SWAT Kats didn’t notice, however, least of all Razor. He would momentarily, however. “Luckily I got more where those came from!” He once more targeted the spider craft. “Locked…” he began, thumb hovering over the firing button, “...loaded... depl–”
He was cut off as a familiar British-accented voice came through the radio. One of the pilots in the Enforcer chopper, which Razor and T-Bone suddenly realized wasn’t involved in the chase anymore. “This is Chopper 1!” said the Enforcer’s voice. We need paramedics in Sector 12! We’ve got civilian casualties in a collapsed warehouse!”
Razor looked startled. T-Bone frowned and turned to glance back at his friend.
“Casualties?” cried Razor.
“Doesn’t sound good, buddy,” T-Bone said grimly.
In the Black Widow, Dark Kat was confused. “Something's wrong. Why aren't they firing?”
Deciding not to squander this opportunity to escape before his Black Widow was fully prepared to face not only the Enforcers but also the SWAT Kats, he jerked the steering mechanism forward. He dove down.
Back in the Turbokat, by the time T-Bone turned back around, their prey was already gone; he could see nothing but the nighttime Megakat City skyline as far as the eye can see. “Where'd that creepy spider thing go? Cripes, we lost 'im!”
Razor’s mind was elsewhere. A little distantly, he said, “Maybe we should double back to that abandoned warehouse. I guess it wasn't so abandoned…”
T-Bone didn’t argue. Besides, no point in continuing to partake in a chase that everyone else had just left. The Turbokat whipped around and the SWAT Kats headed back the way they came.
~*~
At the destroyed warehouse, emergency services had arrived, along with the Enforcers. There were several ambulances as a fire truck and a veritable army of Enforcer cruisers, their lights flashing. Enforcer crime scene techs combed through the gutted remains of the destroyed building. They were overseen by Felina Feral. The young couple from the train lingered in a crowd of onlookers nearby, separated from the property by Enforcer do-not-cross crime scene barriers and scowling Enforcer sergeants.
The Kat's Eye News van drove up and parked. Reporter Ann Gora got out along with her cameraman, Jonny K., who aimed his video camera at Ann. “We’re rollin’, Ann.”
“This is Ann Gora of Kat’s Eye News, live from the site of a spectacular disaster,” the reporter said into the microphone she carried. She glanced at something and saw an elderly couple being carried past on stretchers by paramedics. They appeared to be in quite a lot of pain. Ann rushed over and, not wanting to seem like an ambulance chaser - that was more Inside Megakat City’s thing - she made sure to gently and sympathetically speak to them, trying the old woman first. “We're with the victims of the accident,” she said to any potential viewers. Then she asked the woman, “Can you tell us what happened?”
She could only groan in pain. Her husband piped up, sitting up as best he could despite his pain. “We was just passin' by on our evening walk when the SWAT Kats flew by chasin' some kinda weird spider thing and then boom!” he said. “The whole place dropped down on us!”
He fell back onto the stretcher with a gasp, unable to continue. That had evidently taken a lot out of him. The paramedics carried the couple past where Commander Feral stood with Sergeant Talon. The two watched the first responders go by with their burden, scowling angrily.
Ann rushed over and stuck her microphone in Feral's face. Feral eyed the thing like he wanted to bite it… and the hand holding it. “Commander Feral, have the Enforcers determined how this accident occurred?” Ann asked.
Feral was boiling mad. “This was no accident!” he declared. “It was the work of those two irresponsible hotshots, the SWAT Kats!”
Ann blinked at this accusation. She’d assumed by now Feral had learned to think better of the SWAT Kats. Clearly, she’d thought wrong. Behind her, Felina also observed her uncle and superior officer’s behavior, over supervising the crime scene techs. She frowned, disliking her uncle’s almost always baseless hatred of the vigilantes.
As the Turbokat neared the scene, T-Bone and Razor were listening in to the news broadcast. Razor was horrified at the Enforcer Commander’s words. “But... it was an accident!”
Back down on the ground by the destroyed warehouse, Ann carefully pressed, “Surely you're not suggesting that the SWAT Kats intended to hurt innocent civilians?”
Amazingly, Feral conceded that it might’ve been an accident. But this only seemed to make him angrier. “Accident or not, the SWAT Kats are responsible! They're dangerous vigilantes! A menace to society, accountable to no one!”
Sergeant Talon nodded along in agreement like a robot.
The young couple were standing in the crowd behind him and Feral. Walking over, Felina rolled her eyes. The duo hopped the barrier and rushed over, shoving past the other sergeants who were keeping the crowd back.
“We witnessed the whole thing!” the young man said.
Talon moved to stop them but Feral waved him off. “Let them speak!”
Talon growled but relented, backing away. The young man continued, talking fast. “The SWAT Kats are the ones who blew up that building!”
“What?” Felina finally spoke up. “Was it an accident?”
“No!” said the guy’s girlfriend emphatically. “They did it on purpose! Long after that spider guy had passed by!”
“Yeah, I think they did it for fun!” her boyfriend agreed.
In the Turbokat, the SWAT Kats were very confused. “What's that guy talkin' about...?” asked T-Bone.
Nearly speechless, Razor managed, “I dunno!”
Down below, Felina looked astounded. Commander Feral, however, was beyond enraged. He balled his huge hands up into fists. “I always knew it! I knew it! Those reckless hotshots!” As the Turbokat roared by overhead, he turned to shake a fist up at it. “There they are now, returning to the scene of their crime!” Jonny turned his camera thataway.
“Maybe we should g-go down and explain…” Razor suggested weakly.
“Why bother?” grumbled T-Bone. “Feral doesn't exactly look like he's in a listenin' mood. Besides, with those eyewitnesses, we're already guilty in his eyes.”
The jet turned and flew off.
“You can run but you can't hide, SWAT Kats!” Feral shouted after them. The young couple smirked, which went unnoticed by everyone. Feral growled and turned to talk directly into Jonny's camera, now aimed back down at him. “If it's the last thing I do, I swear to bring the SWAT Kats to justice!”
