SwatKats: The Gathering #2:
SwatKangs: The Gathering
by: P.I.Hackle

O.K.  This is the second story, some time has elapsed since the first
one, so it's happened, and we're past it now.  This SHOULD NOT be
combined into a single text file with the first story.  Part Three
will be written by Jade F. Callan (if I'm lucky), date of release is
unknown.


In Part One:

	Jake and Chance found out they were wizards, and met 3 others:
Mark, the white wizard, Sauraman (the pastmaster), the green wizard,
and Sidney, the Black Wizard.  Mark attacked Chance, and Jake
overreacted a bit, planned of course, and retaliated by dealing quite
a bit of damage to mark, who put Jake on trial, and was temporarily
acquitted.

Life Counts:
mark-13
sauraman-4
sidney-20
chance-20
jake-20

--This story uses cards from the Editions, the Arabian Nights, and
the Antiquties expansions.-

Magic: The Gathering, and all it's sub-stuff belongs to wizards of
the coast, you knw the drill.

This one goes out to Don Redmond for being so perverted that he
actually got Ryan Kelley to swear himself off of sex.

This one also goes out to Jade F. Callan for writing the next part of
this.

The third and final dedication goes out to Davros, who was recently
downsized, along with 219 other employees of fIRST dATA rESOURCES,
and has been able to, with luck at time of publication, recover and
find another job.  STOP CORPORATE CRIME!!!!!

Remember: To know this story, you gotta know magic.  For info, go to
Wizards of the Coast's web page at:

http://www.wizards.com

also, this story is a prologue-type story to the Doctor Who episode
"Paradise Towers".  I recommend that you watch it first, as it does a
better job of setting up the characters, and telling a cool story
better than I do.  All you need to know is that this is kind of
clockwork orange-ish, (even though I've never seen or read clockwork
orange, it's just in the roots for the doctor who episode)

thanx to the bbc for quality on doctor who, maybe now I can actually
get to the story.  Remember: read planet of the cheetah people first.
Then you get some of the references to it like right below:


I wanted to do more with Jake in regenrated form, but due to
requests, I returned Jake to original form.  In this story, it's a
parallel universe, and Jake didn't Un-Regenerate.


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\/\/\
Chapter One
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\/\/\

	A long time ago, there was a building.  In the building lived
young people, old people, and one person inbetween.  One day, they
had some visiotrs, and the story went something like this:


	"Hey Jake!"

	"Hey Chance, what's up?"

	"Not a lot.  We gotta fix the deputy mayor's car again, but
nothing out of the ordinary."

	"Yeah, I'm beginning to think she breaks it on purpose."

	"Probably."

	"Yeah.  Oh, by the way, I figured out how to search for card
caches."

	"You did?  How?"

	"Simple.  I took the magical energy readings off the cards, and
programmed them into the computer to find similar feedbacks."

	"Cool.  Find one yet?"

	"Not yet.  I just started it this morning."

	"Huh.  Let's go work on some cars, and check back on it again
later."

	"Sounds good to me."

	The two mechanics worked all day, checking up on the computer
periodically, and finding out that nothing much was happening, and
that the seach sphere went off of the kat world, and out into outer
space.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/\
Chapter Two
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\/\/\


	In the building, a robot was going through the halls.  Its
sensors picked up a girl.  The girl had spiked yellow hair, and was
clad in yellow.  She was brave enough that when the machine killed
her, she didn't scream.  She was a kang.

	Also in the building were quite a few semi-senile old ladies.
Everyday, they would have tea and cakes, and go about their business
talking to the neighbors, etc.

	This building had many more things inside of it, including
whacko-jacko hotel employees, vicious cleaners, and one of the
universe's greatest evils hidden inside the basement.  The building
was named Paradise Towers, and on Jake Clawson's computer screen, it
just flashed up as a location of a cache of cards.

	Jake eventually looked over at the computer screen.  He saw the
numbers coming in, and called for chance to get there.

	"Cool.  So how do we get it?"

	"What do you mean?"

	"How do we get to where the cards are?  They're in OUTER SPACE,
remember?"

	"No problem.  The computer should be able to teleport us there.
I've been doing an amazing amount of work on it."

	"THE COMPUTER?!?!  TELEPORT!?!?!  Now way.  Uh-uh.  I am NOT
letting that bin of bolts take me through time and space, only to
have it be unable to bring us back.

	"Oh come on chance, don't be a wuss.  I can set it so that we can
have it lock on to our DNA, and bring us back by remote control."

	"So we can trigger our own return if something goes wrong?"

	"Exactly."

	"OK, but I'm still not totally sure about this."

	"Believe me, everything is going to be all right."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/\
Chapter Three-Kangpin
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\/\/\

	"Remember the kang.  Her colour was yellow.  She was brave, bold,
and best kang she could be."

	The blue kangs were having a memorial ceremony for their fallen
enemy comrad.  They continued to chant as they walked around a
symbolic fire, draped with yellow cloth.   As they brought the
ceremony to a close, they went off.  A portal then opened, and Jake
fell through, straight into the middle of the kangs.

	"Who are you?" The kang inquired, blade to Jake's throat."

	"Jake Clawson.  And why the devil should you care?"

	"I think he's a spy.  A spy for the red kangs."

	"Red Kangs?  What the hell's going on here?"

	"He claims ignorance, yet he is a stranger and yet he is clad in
blue.  Let us return him to the brainquarters."

	"What are brainquarters...?"

	"Take him."

	The blue kangs grabbed Jake, and he quickly kicked down the ones
in front of him, turning around to do the same to the ones in back.
As he did, he dis and relocated his shoulder, allowing him to bring
his then tied hands around from his back to his front.  As he brought
them around, he conked a kang on the head, allowing him to be able to
escape.  He took off like a shock.

	In a different area of the building, a similar event was
happening with Chance and the Red Kangs.  However, when he tried to
escape from them, they caught him and brought him down, taking him to
their place of home, their brainquarters.

{A note on my part: The brainquarters are where the kangs live, plan,
etc.  each colour of kang has their own brainquarters.  There are 3
colours: red, blue, and yellow.  There is one yellow kang left, and
we don't see her here, and she dies in the beginning of paradise
towers.  Just letting you know.}

	The brainquarters were very similar to a military barracks: rows
of bunks, stuff in foot lockers and strewn about.  Chance felt
worried for his life, yet the surroundings were very familiar in
their own way.

	Jake was racing through the halls.  Eventually he realized he was
safe and stopped.  He rested against a wall, and used a claw to cut
the ropes that tied his paws together.  He heard someone coming, and
hid in a side hallway.  He hit his head on something, but the person
was getting too close for him to do anything about it.  The person
was in a stiff uniform gray uniform, including a hat that was gray
too, except for the brim, and his boots which were both polished
shiny black.  Jake thought of the enforcers, and thought "This guy is
too much of a bozo to know any better", however he still hid in the
wings.

	"Caretaker #349.  Caretaker #349.  Reported death in corridor
Alpha-673. Investigating, out."

	"This is 349.  Understood.  Out."

	The man walked away, and Jake was safe.  He found out what he hit
his head on: A box.  On the box was a picture of a sword, and a
message.  The box read: Beware...Dangerous times lie within the
Arabian Nights.

	Jake opened the box, and found cars inside.  He pushed a button
on his keychain, and disappeared, to wind up in the salvage yard back
home.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/\
Chapter Four-Chance and Company
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\/\/\

	In the brainquarters, Chance was being grilled, and his brain was
fried.  He remembered the recall that Jake had given him, and figured
that it would be able to get him home and out of this mess.  He
pushed the button with all his might, sending the button and holder
into various pieces.  He was now stranded in a strange place, with
lots of strange young women.

	Meanwhile, Jake set his new set of cards down, and checked out
the computer.  It still showed a set of cards at paradise towers.  He
also noticed that Chance wasn't available for retrieval anymore.
Realizing that Chance probably needed a ton of help, Jake grabbed his
retriever, and set off to rescue his pal.

	Back in the towers, the red kangs were asleep, and Chance saw his
opportunity to escape.  Running for the elevator door, he wished he
had Jake's flexibility, and proceeded to get in the elevator and
escape.

	Jake landed and found himself near a large quantity of red kangs.
One of them pointed a knife at Jake's temple, and nearly stuck it
straight through.

	"Look, Sisters-Another One!  It looks like this one belongs to
the blue kangs.  Maybe we should return him-In a box!"

	"Whoah, Easy, now.  I don't want to hurt you..." said Jake,
trying to slowly step away and not get killed trying to escape.

	"This one's more of a target, sisters."  A red kang snuck behind
him, and Jake was boxed in.  There was only one direction he could
go: Up.

	He jumped, and was able to get his claws in the ceiling.  Using
his SWATKat wizard ablilities, he grabbed one of his new cards and
summoned up a Serendib Djinn {a 5/6 flying creature}, a distraction
that fortunately worked, as he spidered his way across the room and
escaped the area, pulling the djinn into the card, and taking off,
running through the halls with a kang scouting party behind him.

	Chance, meanwhile, was going up and down for various legnths in
the elevator, and he was getting kind of  nauseated along the way.
The elevator stopped, and he took advantage of the situation to get
out.  The display read 'basement' and Chance walked forward, being
very careful of where he went.  He wished Jake was with him, because
Jake always had the cool gadgets and stuff needed to get out of any
kind of sticky situation.  Chance kept walking, and soon heard a
deep, low, growl, and went back to the topsy turvy elevator.  With
any luck, he would run into

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/\
Chapter Five-Jake, Tea, and the spewing devil
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\/\/\

	Jake went through the halls and managed to elude the kangs.  He
used his teleporter control to summon up a backpack, which was filled
with tools and a bunch of cans of nitro-9, for which he was grateful
that ace had taught him how to make when she was there fighting the
daleks.  He went on for a while and ran across a couple of old
ladies.

	"Hello.  Can we help you?  Perhaps you'd like a cup of tea."

	"Thank you, but now, I've got to find my friend."

	"Nonsense.  Come in.  come in."

	Jake went in, and was directed to sit down, which he did, and
they gave him a cup of strong sweet tea, and an ultra-fattening
chocolate cream cake.  He thanked them, and they had a nice
conversation:

	'So, what brings you to our area of the building?  We don't get
many visitors here." Said the first lady.

	"I was running from a group of kangs."

	"Oh, they're nasty girls.  You'd never see THEM coming in and
sitting down for tea." Said the second lady.

	"yes, well.  I must thank you for your hospitality, but I realy
do need to go find my friend."

	"nonsense.  It's far too dangerous out there to go looking for
someone.  Stay here."

	"I'm afraid I can't do that..."

	Jake began backing towards the door, and the ladies started
coming in towards him.  All of a sudden, someone shot the door down.

	"Are these old ladies bothering you?"

	"Not really."

	"Are you bothering these old ladies?"

	"no...who the hell are you?"

	"I'm pex, protector of paradise towers."

	"Pex, really.  That's the fourth door you've broken this week.
It's really getting to be a bother."

	"Sorry."

	Jake took advantage of the moment to say "thanks for tea, I'll be
back some other time."

	"Bye..." the old ladies said, knowing he'd be back.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/\
Chapter Six-Running the whole place down
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\/\/\


	Chance started racing through the halls. Huffing and puffing, he
was in pursuit by a giant cleaning robot, and found something in the
hall that he could use: a vending machine.  Punching it, he got a can
of fizzy lemonade, and the machine said "share and enjoy", and he
knew that he could.  He lifted the machine and threw it at the robot,
hitting the target exactly.  The robot pierced the machine and cans
of drink, and in effect, sparking and getting rusted, and eventually
blowing up.  Cans of soda and coins were thrown everywhere.  One of
the cans he noticed didn't have soda in it.  It was clear, and held
cards.  The can had a message:  

In a time, magical items were common.  Now many have been lost, and
the time has come to return  to the time of the antiquities.

	Chance was now in a rush to get out:  he had the cards, now where
the hell was Jake?

	The answer to Chance's question, although he didn't know it, was
that Jake had run into some caretakers, and was now trying
unsuccessfully to flee.  Remembering the backpack he was carrying, he
grabbed a can of nitro-9.  Armed, he decided that he might not be
able to run far enough away.  He prepped the nitro for use.  All of a
sudden, Jake realized that he had reached a dead end.  There was an
elevator behind him, and Jake pushed the call button.  He heard the
gears grinding, and as the caretakers come closer, he heard the
elevator getting nearer and nearer to his destination.  Soon enough,
though, he was trapped.

	"You're coming with us." Said one of the caretakers.

	"I don't think so," said Jake, clutching the can of nitro-9 in
front of him, "not unless you want to be arguing with a can of
deodorant that registers nine on the richter scale."

	"You're bluffing."

	At that time, the elevator opened, and at exactly the same time,
Jake threw the can of nitro-9 at the caretakers, stepping in.  The
caretakers shot at jake, and as they almost hit him, pex came running
up.  The doors closed just as the nitro-9 went off.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/\
Chapter Seven-Abi's Chapter
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\/\/\


	Ring.  Ring.  Ring.  "you've reached the Megakat City Salvage
yard and garage.  We're not in right now, so please leave your name,
location, and phone number that we can reach you at, and we'll give
you a tow as soon as possible.  Thanks, bye."


	"Hi, Jake?  It's abi.  Call me when you get back, we need to talk
and plan and stuff.  You have my phone number, talk to me when you
get back, bye."

	"where the heck is he?" wondered abi.  "nothing is going on, no
evil supervillain is attacking, nothing.  I guess I shouldn't be so
paranoid.  He's probably just out on a towing call, or getting some
stuff at the store.  It's not like he can be in outer space or
something, can he?"

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\/\/\
Chapter Eight-yes he can
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\/\/\


	In the elevator, Jake was worried that he might actually have
hurt someone with that nitro.  And didn't someone run up just as it
was going off?  Jake dismissed the thought as paranoia, and carried
on without further ado.

	Near the area of Jake, Chance heard the nitro going off, and knew
that it was jake's handiwork.  He was getting close.  The hunt was
on!

	The elevator stopped, and as  jake walked aroung and hid a lot,
he saw that the place was crawling with caretakers.  All the
caretakers went to the side, and a cleaner came after them.  Jake
took advantage of the situaition, and grabbed a card.

	"BRONZING POT!  {this is a card that I made up.  It's a mono
artifact, sacrifice to make target creature become a wall.  All
abilities are lost, power becomes zero}

	Jake threw the card at the cleaner, which became a mass of
bronze, and stopped moving. Although he saved himself and many other
people, it alerted many of the caretakers to his position.

	"You're coming with us!" said one of the caretakers, as he
grabbed Jake's arms, and another one gave Jake a sedative, which
didn't work as well as they thought, as Jake was pumped so full of
adrenaline that when you added in his partial time-lordedness, that
it essentially failed to work.  Grabbing something out of his bag, he
found his magic baseball bat, and used it to hit a caretaker on the
head.  Using some nitro-9 to his advantage, he set a can on short
fuse, and rolled it into the middle of the room, and taking the
elevator down.  As the elevator reached the bottom, Jake counted
"2...1..."  and the can exploded, collapsing the floor above him.
This forced the caretakers down to his level, where ost of them said
that they wouldn't go down there. The problem was that they were
brainwashed into following a little gray rulebook, and the book said
follow all suspects and problems, and when the chief cartaker showed
up, down the hole in the floor they went.  By that time, however,
Jake had already left the floor and was far away.

	Back in his office, the chief caretaker was angry at the news of
Jake's escape.

	"Well, I don't care if he DID blow up another floor, I want you
to FIND HIM!"

	Jake rounded a corner and saw an old lady there.  She grabbed him
into the apartment, and shouted to her roommate "Look who's come
back!"

	"Jake." They both said.  This time, though, Jake threw all
chivalry and formalities out the window, and tapped the woman's hand
that was holding on to him with the baseball bat, and bolted out the
door, escaping off into more halls, never to be seen by them again.

	As Chance turned the corner, Jake turned at the other end of the
hall.  They reached each other, and Jake pushed the button on his
recall, to find out it wouldn't work.

	"What the hell?  It worked before."

	"The author wants you to perform some mindless violence in a
useless scene that he's venting his anger through."

	"Oh.  OK."

	With that, a cleaning robot appeared, and Jake took advantage of
the oppurtunity to get some Nitro-9 and blast it off the face of the
planet, which he did.  The roar and the flames of the explosion told
him that he had some good nitro.  He heard people stepping...he found
tED tURNER, the guy from aCE bOOKS that turned DJ Clawson's novel
down, the guy from fIRST dATA rESOURCES that fired Davros, and the
author's algebra and former english teachers.  Jake saw the pure evil
in them, and grabbed the bat with glee.  He screamed loudly, and hit
the algebra teacher first, causing death and severe injuries.  After
that, he took a stand against corporate crime, and beat the guy from
fDR to a pulp.  Then it was aCE bOOK's turn, and the guy died
painfully by having his skull broken, and his brains scattered over
the floor.  tED shuddered, and stepped back.  Jake threw some nitro-9
at tED who promptly grabbed it and said "I'm good enough to play on
my atlanta braves."  Jake smiled, and the nitro blew tED up.  Within
seconds, the english teacher got blown up too, as Jake left a nitro-9
wrapped up in a paper about the scarlet letter for her {ghastly
novel.  NEVER READ THAT BOOK}.  The two flashed back to the salvage
yard.  At the same time as they arrived home, a blue box with a
flashing light on top appeared.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/\
Chapter Nine-Back in the yard
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\/\/\

	Jake and Chance got home, cards in paws, and were ready for
sleep.  Jake checked the answering machine, and got Abi's message.
He called her back immediately.

	"Yes?  I know.  Trust me, you don't want to know.  I know that,
but you still don't want to knw.  Abi, I'm very tired right now, I
really don't want to get into this.  YES, I AM aware that the wedding
is only a few months away.  I KNOW that your parents are
paranoid-psycho-bible banging nuts.  I'm fully aware of that.
Look-We'll deal with this later.  ABI!  PLEASE!  I've been in outer
space for the last 17 hours, fighting demonic cleaning machines and
running away from punk gangs, and I'm really tired.  Look-We'll deal
with this in the morning, OK?  Yes?  I love you too.  Bye."

	"So how is she?"

	"Tired, but crazy. Her parents have laid claim to planning the
whole wedding.  I have to go with her tomorrow to get them out of
doing so.  Remind me to make some more nitro-9 in the morning, I have
a feeling I'll need it.  Maybe we can just sedate them for a few
months...or keep them in rubber rooms and straight jackets for a
while or something."

	"Yeah.  G'night."

	"G'night."

END

To find out what happens in Paradise Towers after this story, watch
the Doctor Who episode "Paradise Towers".  I think it's out on home
video.  Either that, or bug the BBC, PBS, or whatever would show
Doctor Who where you live to air it.

To find out what happens next in this serial, be sure to get part 3:
Myths and Fairy tales, written by Jade F. Callan.  Part 4 will be
written by Nicholas Ball.  I'll be back for part 5.

Credits:

Written by: P.I.Hackle
SWATKats created by: The Tremblay Brothers
Magic: The Gathering created by: Richard Garfield, Wizards of the
Coast
Paradise Towers created by: I forgot, look it up in a doctor who
episode guide
Edited by: djclawson
email me at: pihackle@hotmail.com
email dj at: djclawson@garden.net

Stay demented everybody, see you in whenever,
P.I.hackle