TITLE:  A LIFE’S MISSION

AUTHOR:  Ricochet

EMAIL:  SeanBeanCrazy@hotmail.com

 

**THIS FAN FICTION IS DEDICATED TO ALL OF THOSE WHO LOST LOVED ONES IN THE SEPTEMBER 11^th ATTACK. ALSO, TO THE FIREFIGHTERS, POLICE FIGHTERS, AND PARAMEDICS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES AS WELL TRYING TO SAVE OTHERS. GOD BLESS AMERICA!! **

 

 

            A bright light from the morning’s sun entered through the barred window, making Rob shut his eyes tighter.   He knew once again it was morning, and, once again, he was still in his enforcer cell. Rob sat up and stretched his arms and looked around.  He still wore the same clothes, the same pair of blue jeans and red old shirt that he had worn ever since he was captured by the enforcers. Fortunately for him, they believed as long as he didn’t have his surge coat that he would be harm and no risk at all to stay at Enforcer Headquarters.  He dreaded wearing those prison pinstripes that criminals like Dr. Viper and them had to wear whenever they were captured and taking off to Alkatraz.  Though he wouldn’t mind to be considered dangerous. Rob sneered to himself as he heard the statement over and over again in his head as Feral proclaimed that Hard Drive was no real danger without his surge coat.  Rob shook his head with disgrace and then leaned back against his cell wall; this place was so boring to him.

“Damn, SWAT Kats,” he muttered under his breath. “They have no clue how much I needed that gold from the train.  They always have to interfere! They do not have a clue on how much it takes to get around in this world.  I needed that gold to at least have a life in this city besides this mess!” he groaned. 

He looked around his cell, the same dark bare walls that he always faced when he was sitting on his cot.  His fur was all rough and matted now, not smooth since he really hadn’t had a chance to clean himself up.  Rob was really starting to let himself go.  Feral had disgraced him even more by ordering him to go see the Enforcer Psychiatrist.

He closed his eyes and thought of the day when Feral said that to him through his cell bars.

 

**Feral held some pink papers up to the cell bars, “Hard Drive! I decided to have you see the Enforcer Psychiatrist.”

            Rob, or Hard Drive, looked up from his cell and looked over at Commander Feral, who was standing there proudly with the papers against his cell. “Why? I am not a nutcase, Feral. You don’t see me going around and trying to blow up the city, now do you? I am not a nutcase!”

            “Well, it’s standard procedure to have all the low life psychos in this place see him, city’s orders,” Feral said as he turned and started to walk down the hall.

            With immense rage, Hard Drive shot up from his cot and walked over to the cell door, his hands gripping the bars. “I am not a psycho! I am a criminal just like everyone else in this city who you hate and fear!”

            Feral chuckled loudly and turned back only to say, “No, Hard Drive. Criminals are at Alcatraz - they are actually dangerous! You, my friend, are a psycho who uses electricity to try to get what you want from life.” Feral turned back and walked out the door.

Hard Drive let out a tremendous scream of rage as he gripped the cell bars. How badly he wanted to kill Feral for even saying those words to him. He wasn’t any good doing well in life and now he was a psycho for trying to do bad in order to get what he needed to stay alive. His eyes filled up with tears from his anger.

            Hard Drive remembered telling the psychiatrist about his life and how badly he wanted to be a big name in the city like Dark Kat to strike fear in the people, to be rich and powerful.

“How can you be something you’re not?” Hard Drive said as he looked up at the old gray kat who was his psychiatrist, his eyes being reflected from the gray tom’s glasses. 

            “Well, what are you now?” the gray tom asked him.

            “I am nothing,” Hard Drive said sadly. ***

 

            Rob opened his eyes once again from the memory and looked up at the ceiling. His ears perked when he heard two fatal screams coming from the end of the hall where the  two enforcer guards were usually posted. Rob got up slowly, wondering if he should really look down the hall to see what was going on. Then, he heard feet coming towards him, not really huge feet, but they sounded like small scamperings.  Then, he recognized it. The distinct sound of Dark Kat’s creeplings.  They were chattering amongst one another as they made their way to his cell.

 Hard Drive knew that they were coming to get him; Dark Kat always broke him out of prison in order to do his bidding. But yet, he trusted Dark Kat.  Unlike Dark Kat’s alliance with Viper and Metallikats, Dark Kat always seemed to trust Hard Drive back because he knew Hard Drive wouldn’t do anything against him. Dark Kat also knew that Hard Drive was afraid of him. Before, Dark Kat had given him back his surge coat, knowing that Hard Drive could strike him down any moment, but Dark Kat feared nothing. When Hard Drive was with Dark Kat, he felt invincible. But still, Rob knew that he could not get involved again.  Right now, he didn’t want to go out and start doing his bidding once again.  Hard Drive wanted to lay low for awhile.  How could he possibly say no to Dark Kat?

The creeplings stopped at his cell. Hard Drive laid his eyes upon them and saw that in their little claws they had his surge coat.  Rob smiled; how badly he wanted that coat back.  Then, he would surely be just as dangerous as anyone else.  The creeplings opened his cell door and motioned him to follow them.

Rob shook his head to himself as he followed them into an open-air duct of the ventilation system, which led him down into the basement part of the building.  It was nothing more than pipes. The basement was so eerie and cold to him.  He heard air popping from the pipes.  The creeplings kept chattering as they lifted up a manhole from the floor.

Rob shook his head and thought to himself, “Here we go again.”

He jumped down the manhole, which led to the sewer system and into the dark sewer tunnels where he knew he would meet up with Dark Kat. 

            As Hard Drive followed the creeplings down the darkness of the sewer passages, he saw his surge coat in their paws.  How close he was to getting that.  He didn’t need Dark Kat to be powerful.  He wanted to show the city that he was just as dangerous as the rest of them. Besides, he was very high tech and totally computer literate.

He decided to go for it and take his coat. He pushed the creepling who was carrying the coat.  The other creepling turned around and started to chatter loudly in anger as it flew towards Hard Drive, its mouth opened wide exposing its incredibly sharp incisors.  Hard Drive hit the creepling right in the face, making it fall to the ground unconscious.  He smiled to himself and walked over to retrieve his coat.

Suddenly, a shot was fired right near where his coat was.  He turned around and came face to face with Dark Kat, who was holding a smoking gun in his right hand. Dark Kat really didn’t seem to appear angry at all; his face had a cool looking smile on it.  “That was very brave. I liked that,” he said soothingly to Hard Drive. He reached down and picked up Hard Drive’s coat.  “Now, this is very familiar, don’t you think? I broke you out of prison and I have your coat, the one thing you desire badly. I bet you even know what I want from you.”

            “Yah, Dark Kat, I do…,” Hard Drive replied, fear entering his voice once again. Dark Kat could almost taste his fear.  

            “I have an important task for you.  You can get me into places where I can’t go with your electrical capabilities. I know you get a real charge out of zipping through wires.”  Dark Kat chuckled at his own joke.

            Hard Drive said nothing and looked at Dark Kat.  “What do you want me to do?”

            “Be patient.  I need you to gain me access into Puma Dyne tonight by 10 o’ clock,” Dark Kat said.

            “By 10?! Dark Kat, come on - even I am not that crazy! That place’s totally secure outside and inside their security systems.  It’s 7pm now! It would take at least two hours to wire myself into their mainframe, then you have to gain by-pass entries. I mean, all of the binary and ASCII codes I would have to deal with. Those people there are smart, smarter than the enforcers. That three hour deadline is absurd!” Hard Drive replied.

            “In my experience, people are at their best when facing unreasonable deadlines,” Dark Kat stated, running his claw tip around Hard Drive’s coat.

            “What if the SWAT Kats show up? I mean, as long as I’ll take to get in there, they will certainly catch on or something, maybe even the enforcers,” Hard Drive said, his eyes laying upon his coat.

            “I hired two ex-enforcers for the job. They are basically pilots for hire, and they are certainly a match for the SWAT Kats, maybe even better. They are Z.O.E. and Hemisphere. They are the best. I wouldn’t worry about the enforcers or the SWAT Kats. So, are you with me on this, Hard Drive?,” Dark Kat asked, holding out his coat teasingly.

            Hard Drive nodded with glee as he grabbed the coat from Dark Kat and put it on. He felt the electrical surges from the coat entering all through his body, feeding him.  He had missed it so much. Happiness was once again brought into his life. 

 

 

            That night around 8pm, the two dark, black vans pulled up near the base of Puma Dyne.  Dark Kat made sure that they would stay clear of the perimeter till Hard Drive had cleared the system to avoid any security entanglements. 

Hard Drive charged up into an electrical surge and zipped into the telephone wire that crossed over into Puma Dyne, moving as fast as the electrical current could move.  He started to hack into the front security codes, turning off any surrounding perimeter security systems such as cameras, laser trips or alarm buttons.  Hard Drive made sure the coast was clear in his room.  He unsurged himself and appeared in his normal kat form in the room, looking at the security monitors. His heart was racing fast, knowing in less than an hour he would betray Dark Kat and probably be on his hit list for a while.  He spoke into the microphone earpiece.  “You’re clear.”

            “Good,” Dark Kat’s voice came from the other side.  Dark Kat turned to his two ninjas.  “Go on!”

Without saying a word back, the two ninjas started to run across the field, cutting the fence to make a hole for them.  Then, they ran inside to the building. Up ahead, they saw an enforcer who was walking around making his rounds. 

            The enforcer spotted them and went for his gun. “Hey, hold it right there!”

The first ninja took out his pair of sais and threw one at the enforcer, knocking the gun out of his hand with one quick movement.  The other ninja threw a pointed piranha ninja star which embedded itself in the enforcer’s neck, slitting his throat.  The enforcer fell on the ground a pool of blood near his body. 

Dark Kat walked behind the ninjas, passing the bloody corpse.  A smile slid across his purple face.  One by one, Dark Kat walked past the dead enforcers who were lying around his path like they were actually moving away from where he was walking.  Then, up ahead, he saw the huge steel door that led into the room, which supposedly held the Ultra Mega Detonator. 

            Hard Drive went to the control panel located on the right side of the door; it had a number pad on it going from 1-10, indicating that it required some kind of code to get into it. Hard Drive chuckled at it and pointed his finger straight at the panel.  At that very instant, a small electrical charge shot from his finger down into the panel, making it short circuit.

With a loud clanging noise, the door opened, exposing the room inside like an undiscovered tomb. Hard Drive walked right in and looked around.

 “No cameras,” he said to Dark Kat.

Dark Kat walked in after him.  The room contained about a hundred small steel mailbox-like compartments, each one numbered. Hard Drive’s eyes looked wide and he turned back to Dark Kat, knowing if they went through each one it would take a lot more time, more time than he really wanted to take.  How he dreaded to be arrested again.

“What’s the number?”

            Dark Kat looked at him, without one worried look on his face.  “1993,” Dark Kat said. “According to my insider.”

Hard Drive looked at him puzzled, who the heck was Dark Kat’s insider?

            “That was a bad year,” he commented on the number that Dark Kat gave him.  He started to look through the compartment, trying to find the number.  Then, he saw it.

Dark Kat walked over and moved him aside a little and took his hand and pulled the steel metal drawer out with his bare hand and placed it on the ground.

            “Find it,” he said.

Hard Drive was amazed at how cool Dark Kat was acting as he knelt down beside the compartment and started to sift through the stuff inside.  He found papers and documents about the Ultra Mega but yet still nothing. 

            “I-It’s not here,” Hard Drive stumbled as he started to panic as he quickly moved his hand through the stuff.

            “It’s there,” Dark Kat said back coolly as he watched Hard Drive.

            “It’s not here!” Hard Drive said back again, his tension rising.

            “It’s there!” Dark Kat replied back more sternly.

            Hard Drive suddenly found a small vial glass tube inside which was the detonator. He knew that the detonator was absolutely harmless without being connected to an explosive properly and knew Dark Kat knew how to do that best.  He looked up and saw Dark Kat’s eyes glistening like a young kat’s on Christmas Day.  Hard Drive opened up the vial tube and held the detonator in his hand.  He glanced up and saw Dark Kat looking up away from him and out of the door for any intruders. 

That’s when Hard Drive made the switch.  He placed the detonator quickly into his pocket and handed Dark Kat a small black cloth bag, which supposedly held the detonator but really held a small red marble.

Dark Kat snatched the bag from Hard Drive’s hands completely unaware of the swap.

Suddenly, they heard the alarm blaring.  Hard Drive’s heart began to race, and he looked up at Dark Kat as he stood back up. Dark Kat’s face changed from happy to sad. 

“Their best response time is ten minutes; they’ll be late.” He walked out of the door, and he and Hard Drive ran out of Puma Dyne as fast as they could towards their getaway vans.  “Let’s go!” Dark Kat ordered Z.O.E. as they hopped into the black van.

Hard Drive got into the side of the van, which held him and the two ninjas. Both black vans squealed off and got onto the main road from Puma Dyne heading away.  At the fork in the road, the van that held Dark Kat went left and the one that held Hard Drive went right as planned.  Dark Kat’s van passed the enforcers.  Since their van’s windows were darkly tinted they had no clue that they were the perpetrators. 

            Dark Kat smiled back as he took the small black cloth bag from his cloak.  He untied it quickly and held it above his other hand face down.  He shook it gently, but a small red marble fell onto his hand instead.  Dark Kat’s heart almost stopped, his eyes wide with fear. Did Hard Drive actually have the courage to betray him? 

“Wait. Go-go back..,” Dark Kat said, his voice actually shaking.  He gripped the red marble tightly in his hand.

             Z.O.E. looked at Dark Kat as though he thought Dark Kat was losing his mind.  Going back would be crazy.  What if they got caught or something? What exactly was Dark Kat thinking?

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

            Z.O.E. was an ex enforcer, a pilot actually. He was around the age of 28.  He knew exactly all of the enforcer techniques and basically outsmarted all of them on all of his hits that he did for people.  He was good in the air, on the land and in the sea. A computer genius, an excellent weapons maker and a sharpshooter.  He had golden colored fur and was around the height of 5’11’’ with green eyes. He wore a black mask that covered just his eyes.  His flight suit was all black, including black boots and black gloves. His flight suit had a dark red swirl in it also, as well as the helmet he wore when he flew.  His plane resembled the Mig-31 Foxhound; it was red and black striped all the way.  He claimed to be the best pilot out of the enforcers.  His partner was Hemisphere, a rookie. Hemisphere never went into the enforcers, but he was Z.O.E.’s little brother.  He was just 16, around the size of 5’6.’’ He resembled his brother a lot.  His fur was slightly lighter and he had brown eyes instead.  His flight suit was all black too except that he had green stripes on it, which were kind of bright.  His brother’s jet was a 2-kat fighter so he mostly stayed in the back because he was kind of rusty on flying still, but he could shoot pretty well.  But, he still had so much to learn. 

            Fortunately for them, Dark Kat had a homing device placed on the van that carried Hard Drive and, with a little tracking, they were able to locate it moving towards the south part of the city.

That following day, Dark Kat sent Z.O.E. and Hemisphere after the missing van and after his detonator.  Z.O.E. anticipated where the van was going by the tracking device and parked on the side of the street, waiting for the van to come over to them.  He knew their ETA was in five minutes.  He and his brother started to load up their MP-5K’s, which were automatic machine guns. 

Z.O.E. looked over at his brother.  “Watch your tail, Sean.  Move sure and fast,” he said, looking at his brother.

            “You told me that already.”  Hemisphere looked at him, looking kind of annoyed, he didn’t understand why his brother kept acting like his father to him.

            “Well, I am telling you again. This won’t be like anything you have done before, little brother,” Z.O.E. replied as he smiled a little, causing Hemisphere to smile back at him.  Z.O.E. looked back up out of his front window and saw the other dark van coming their way down the street. “Target is coming.”

Hemisphere cocked his gun. 

With one quick movement, Z.O.E. steered the van sharply in front of Hard Drive’s van, causing the van to stop. Hemisphere and Z.O.E. got out quickly, ignoring the fact that people were watching them. They shot the two ninjas in the front of the van, killing them and breaking the windshield, their round of bullets going straight into the ninjas’ bodies, blood going everywhere.

Hard Drive let out a scream of fear as he leaped behind the front seats in the back of the van, locking the doors.  He started to panic.

            On his way back to the hangar on the Cyclotron, Razor looked up ahead and saw an intersection filled with cars. He could hear people screaming in fear.  He drove up as far as he could and saw two unknown masked kats that appeared to be wearing some kind of flight suits shooting at a black van with submachine guns.  Razor saw the one kat that was wearing red and black go to the side of the van, shouting and yelling as he tried to open the door, Razor started to push his way through crowds of people trying to get there.

            Z.O.E. started to yank on the door handle of the van, trying to get inside to get to Hard Drive.  He knew that this was taking too long; he thought this mission would be quick, but this time spent was becoming very dangerous to him and his brother.

“Open the fucking door!” he yelled at Hard Drive as he hit his fist on the door.

Razor pounced on him, slamming Z.O.E.’s body into the side of the van.

Z.O.E., taken by complete surprise, hit the van metal door hard….groaning as he felt unconsciousness creeping in on him.  Razor let Z.O.E. fall to the ground, then he heard a shot fired near him and looked up and saw the other masked kat shooting at him.  With one quick movement, Razor retrieved Z.O.E.’s gun and, when Hemisphere rose up to take a shot at Razor, Razor gave him a surprise and shot him first. 

Hemisphere’s body fell near Z.O.E..  Z.O.E. looked up and saw his brother lying on the ground, oblivious to what just happen, his head pounding, he could barely keep his eyes open.  Razor held his gun at Z.O.E.  He could hear the sound of enforcer cars approaching. 

Z.O.E. looked over and saw his little brother laying there, facing him.  He lifted his head up to look up.  As much as it hurt, his heart was aching more, fearing the worst. 

“Sean?” He moved up on his side to face his attacker, his whole body aching from the impact.  He looked up and saw the SWAT Kat, Razor, staring back at him, the gun aimed at him.

The sound of enforcer sirens was getting closer to him now as Felina’s car pulled up along with another. Two enforcers ran up to Razor and held their guns at him.

“Drop your weapon, SWAT Kat,” one said to him. 

Razor put down the gun, knowing that his prisoner wasn’t going anywhere.

One enforcer walked over to where Z.O.E. was and started to handcuff his hands.  Z.O.E. looked desperately upon his brother now.  He started to breathe hard as he saw the other enforcer grab Hemisphere’s limping hands. 

“Help him,” he said. To his horror as the enforcer lifted up his brother a little to handcuff his hands, there was a pool of blood under him.

 

            Felina was riding in the back of the enforcer van, sitting on the little metal bench between the door and the cell that held the unknown kat.  She shook her head; she was so puzzled at this attack. They had found Hard Drive in the other van, cowering like a kitten. They had placed him in an enforcer car to take him back to Enforcer Headquarters.  The stolen Puma Dyne Ultra Mega Detonator had been found on him. But, who was this new kat? Why the flight suit and mask? Was he supposed to be another SWAT Kat now? But, if he was good, why was Razor attacking him? Was Razor just as confused as she was and did it on impulse?  She stared at the unknown kat, who was staring blankly at nothing. He had the grimmest expression on his face and it was so solid like stone.  Clearly, he was upset at something and he hadn’t said a word since the incident. 

“Look, since you won’t tell us who you are, I will wait till we get to Enforcer Headquarters to unmask you. I can’t help you if you won’t speak to me,” Felina said, but yet her prisoner said nothing. 

She turned to look away from him and groaned as she leaned her head back against the van’s wall. The van stopped, and the enforcer driver said on the intercom system that they were crossing the MegaKat Bridge and it was raised up to let a ship pass so they would be there for a few minutes. Suddenly, they heard a big explosion outside.

Felina looked back at her prisoner, who was looking back at her.  Then, she heard a knock on the van door.  She looked out the window and saw Dark Kat’s hideous face looking back. Dark Kat was holding the bridge keeper at his side with his gun pointed at his head.

“Open the door or I will kill him,” Dark Kat said angrily.

Felina’s partner Samuel, who was sitting across from her, looked at her. “What are we going to do?” he asked in a terrified voice.

            “We open the doors,” Felina said grimly.

            “But-,” Sam protested, fearing for his life.

            “But what? Wait till they kill him and then open the door?” Felina replied as she looked at Sam.  She knew something was going on and something very horrible was going on. She opened the door for Dark Kat.

Sam, who was a rookie and grew up in a city outside of MegaKat, really hadn’t seen Dark Kat in person before.  Out of complete fear, he shouted “Just who the hell are you?!”

Dark Kat said nothing as he aimed his gun at Sam and shot him.  Then, he looked at Felina. “Open his door!”

Felina did as she was told saying nothing. 

Dark Kat looked at Felina and smiled “We may have use with you - come with me.” He quickly grabbed her and dragged her with him to his small speed boat that he stole.

Z.O.E. jumped in with him, and they fled down stream towards the abandoned dock harbor.  There, they got to Dark Kat’s Fear Ship and escaped into the air.

 

            Fifteen minutes after his encounter with the new kat, Razor finally reached the hangar.  He parked the cyclotron and got off. He started to walk towards his locker when he saw Chance coming down the ladder with a huge grin on his face.

“Hey, buddy, I saw the news! Great job, Razor!”

            “Eh, not so great. I mean something about that look that guy gave me.  Kind of spooky,” Razor replied as he threw his helmet into his locker.    

            “But, buddy, you found the detonator! I mean I heard it got into Dark Kat’s hands, but we got it back just in time. No telling what he could have done with it,” Chance said as he looked at Jake, still smiling.

            Jake sighed again and shook his head, untying his bandanna as he put it in his locker. He looked back at Chance with his brown eyes. 

“Chance, this whole mess doesn’t look right. I mean, the pieces do not really make sense.  First, Dark Kat somehow manages to get Hard Drive out of prison again. Then, Hard Drive is able to go straight into Puma Dyne’s security systems, gets around them and gets their new dangerous Ultra Mega Detonator.  Which we all know is for Dark Crud. Then, two  unknown masked flight suited tomkats shoot up Hard Drive’s van killing two of Dark Crud’s ninjas.”

            “One unknown kat, buddy. Remember you killed one?” Chance smirked.

            Jake gave Chance a mean look. “Like I really WANTED to.  Still, who the heck are these two  unknown kats? Are they supposed to be us or something now?” Jake sighed as he leaned against his locker door.  “What if they were really good or something?”

 

The following morning, Commander Ulysses Feral’s blue enforcer cruiser pulled up at Felina’s apartment. Felina had called her uncle around 9pm that night, saying that they had a shooting down in the south MegaKat and she had one suspect in custody in an enforcer van on route to Enforcer Headquarters.  But, that morning when he got to headquarters, he was alerted that she never did arrive and the van was found at MegaKat bridge earlier that morning with two enforcers dead.  Felina and the prisoner were gone. 

Feral walked up the flight of stairs to the 2^nd floor.  Her apartment number was 214.  He walked to the door and knocked on the door.

“Felina, are you home?”

No one came. He sighed and sifted through his keys.  Luckily for him, she had given him a spare key to her apartment, and he took the key and unlocked the door and walked in. No one was there. There was no evidence that anyone had been home, no sign of struggle. He knew now he had to call Enforcer Headquarters and report her missing.  He sprinted over to her cordless black phone and picked it up, but, to his surprise, there was no dial tone.  His heart was already beating fast. 

“There’s no dial tone. Someone is on the line,” he grumbled to himself. “Get off of the phone’ this is an emergency!” he screamed into the receiver.

            “Yah, I know,” a familiar voice said over the other end.  It was Dark Kat.

            Feral’s face almost turned white, his eyes became wide.  “Dark Kat, you mega-low!”

            “What’s your worst fear, Feral?” Dark Kat said, smiling as he looked down at Felina who was sitting near him tied and gagged.  He held his gun at her head, the barrel of the gun running through her dark black hair. 

            “Let her go! If you dare hurt her I’ll-,” Feral growled, his other hand balling up into a fist.

            “You’ll do what? You were about to say something personal I think,” Dark Kat said as he smiled and walked over to where Z.O.E. was sitting in front of a huge monitor panel. On the panel were small video images of what seemed to be from Felina’s apartment, each room, and enforcer headquarters.  Dark Kat could see Feral standing there in the middle of Felina’s living room talking on the phone with him.

            “Let her go, Dark Kat!” Feral screamed again, his temper soaring.

            “You do not make demands - you listen to me,” Dark Kat said angrily. “I don’t want to have to hurt her.”

            Feral’s voice softened with that.  “Look, if you need money.”

            Dark Kat scoffed. “Oh, please. Everyone needs money. That’s why they call it money. You know what I want, Commander. I want that six digit code to get into Puma Dyne.  I want that detonator!”

            Feral’s eyes widened. He knew that if Dark Kat got his claws on that detonator, the city was in grave danger, but, yet again, he didn’t’ want to lose his niece even though its regulation not to negotiate with criminals and the city was more important than any enforcer life or one life. 

“Dark Kat please-,” Feral choked.

            “Look, it is dangerous, I know. But, you have family obligations. You have one hour.  I do not want anyone looking for her. It’s hopeless to find her.  Do not tell anyone what you are doing.  Do not even go on the level of calling the SWAT Kats.  You must obey me.  Because those are the rules.  There’s no percentage on breaking those rules.  Tell me you understand,” Dark Kat said through the phone as he walked back over to Felina.

            “Yes,” Feral said softly.

            “Good. I can see you, I can hear you. Wherever you go, you will be followed.  I will call you in one hour,” Dark Kat said and, with that, he hung up the phone.

He looked over at his monitors and saw Feral racing out of the door to get in his car to leave. Dark Kat watched with a smirk on his face and looked over at Z.O.E. 

“That, my friend, is legalism. Having someone to do what you want by threat. So, Z.O.E. what made you a criminal?”

            Z.O.E. looked over at Dark Kat. His whole appearance was different now since his brother Sean was gone.  He shrugged his shoulders and looked at Dark Kat. “What made you a criminal?”

            “Nothing made me a criminal, I am a criminal,” Dark Kat replied with a smile as he looked over at Felina. He got up and walked over to Felina, tracing his long, black claw down the side of her face.

            Felina let out a muffled growl from her gag and started to squirm a little, which made Dark Kat chuckle. 

“Awfully pretty to be related to Feral, don’t you think Z.O.E.?” 

Z.O.E. said nothing and stared blankly at the wall.  Dark Kat knew what he was staring at. On the wall was a picture of the SWAT Kats that Dark Kat had retrieved from the newspaper about a year ago. 

“I bet your prison cell at Alkatraz would have been nicer than this. You know, a word of gratitude might be in order for actually saving your tail from being captured?” Dark Kat walked over to Z.O.E., his face now changing into a frown.  He knew exactly what Z.O.E. wanted.  “Hard Drive is back in their hands now and I am not daring to get him out again.  So, let’s just rest for awhile and be patient.  Soon, I will have my code to get my detonator, then the city will crumble before us.”

            Z.O.E. got up and walked from the monitors. “I don’t feel like resting. Lying around here like some tourist.  This is just a waste of time.”

“There’s laying about and there’s laying low. There’s a difference, you know?”

Dark Kat looked at him, his patience starting to falter. He knew if Z.O.E. went out for a while, trying to find the SWAT Kat Razor, any enforcer would spot him and go after him again, and he needed Z.O.E. to help him take down the SWAT Kats if they would try to stop him. 

            Z.O.E. sighed and looked at Dark Kat. “Is there?”

            “It’s the SWAT Kats and the enforcers who should be worrying right now about just laying around. This time, they won’t be so lucky. With you at my side, no one can stop me from getting Dark Kat City. I am building an army of ninjas to cause chaos among the city, but we can’t just go out and cause havoc right now.”

            “That’s not what I am thinking of,” Z.O.E. replied.

Dark Kat could see the anger and sadness in the kat’s green eyes.

            “I know that, Patrick. But, what that SWAT Kat done cannot be undone. So, you should stop thinking about it,” Dark Kat said soothingly, placing a paw on Patrick’s shoulder.

            “I can’t,” Patrick replied and shrugged it off.  He walked back over to the counter to get his gun. He loaded up his gun with a brand new magazine and started to walk towards the door.

Dark Kat grabbed his arm.

            “Look I’ll let you go for your brother, but that’s it,” Dark Kat said sternly.

Z.O.E. said nothing and walked out the door.

“We have work to do and it’s not to find that SWAT Kat right now.”

 

            About fifteen minutes later, Commander Feral made a quick stop at Enforcer Headquarters.  He had gotten a call on the way to Puma Dyne from the enforcer technician who was doing an autopsy on the kat that was shot by Razor. He walked into the morgue section of Enforcer Headquarters.  It was only 40 degrees in there; he could feel death all around him.  He hated going into this place. He walked into the lab and saw the enforcer technician wearing surgical clothing from his head down.

“Good job, lieutenant. Report,” Feral said sternly as always.  He looked over and noticed that Deputy Mayor Briggs and Lt. Steele were also there, but he didn’t have the time to question Callie on why she was there.  He had to get that code to get Felina back safely, even though he didn’t trust Dark Kat. 

            “According to the dental examinations and DNA samples, I traced him to Sean Klawster,” the lieutenant replied.

Feral looked at him’ the last name Klawster seemed familiar.

            “Klawster…Klawster. You mean the enforcer that was here for awhile and just disappeared from the unit altogether?” he asked.

            “Well, sir, I thought of that too, and I did a background check. That was Patrick Klawster.  This is his younger brother,” the lieutenant said as he handed Feral the print out sheets of the background check.

            Callie snatched the papers from Feral’s paws to look at it closely.  “Do you think the other kat that escaped is Patrick?”

            Feral didn’t say anything at all to her comment. “Well, thank you, lieutenant.” He walked out of the door and raced down the hall to go back to his car.  He looked at his watch and saw that he only had about twenty minutes left!

            Callie watched Feral, puzzled; he never acted this way before.  Why was he in such a hurry? Her thought was broken when she saw T-Bone and Razor walk through the morgue doors into the room.

“Aw, geez, Razor, this place stinks!” T-Bone complained as he walked in.  He looked over at Callie standing there smiling at them.  Steele, on the other hand, wasn’t very happy to see them.  Actually, he looked kind of nervous seeing them.

            “Hey, Miss Briggs. What’s up?” Razor said, smiling as he walked over, his eyes not really focusing on the corpse laying on the table.

            “Well we figured out about those two mysterious kats that shot up that van with Hard Drive in it that you saw the other night,” Callie said as she handed him the papers. She pointed over to the table. “There’s the kat you shot; his name is Sean Klawster.”

            Razor looked over and a look of horror went over his face; the kat was young. “Aww..geez, he’s so young,” he said sadly as his ears drooped.

            “Yeah, looks like barely 18 if that. Why would someone so young be involved in this mess?” T-Bone replied.

            “Well, the other kat…,” Callie said as she took a deep breath and exhaled.  She was afraid of telling Razor the next part. “The other one is Patrick Klawster. He was an enforcer many years ago but disappeared. There’s nothing on him except for this one hit. The kat is a ghost.”

            Razor’s and T-Bone’s eyes went wide when they heard the name Patrick Klawster.

“Patrick?!” Razor said.

            “Yah, do you know him?”  Callie looked over at Razor, confused.

            “Well..um..no not really. Just heard the story th-that he disappeared from the enforcers,” Razor replied quickly, knowing he was lying straight through his teeth. He and T-Bone knew Patrick all too well. Well, he and Chance did. Patrick was an enforcer around the same time they were.  He was the only pilot in the enforcers that could take down Chance Furlong, and his parents were killed many years ago before that. 

            “Razor, Sean was Patrick’s brother,” Callie said as she looked at Razor sadly, making Razor’s ears droop.

            “I killed his brother,” he replied sadly as he looked down.

 T-Bone looked at Razor, sensing the same danger that they were in now.

            Lt. Steele heard his cell phone ringing. “Excuse me for one minute,” he said politely as he stepped out of the lab and darted around the corner.

            “Hello?” he asked.

            “What are they doing there?!” a voice boomed over the other line.

            “I-I don’t know. The Deputy Mayor must have called them,” Steele replied, shaking a little.

            Razor walked out of the lab for a moment to get away from the smell of the lab; it made him feel so sick to his stomach, and he knew he would skip dinner for that day.  He heard T-Bone and Callie still talking.  His ears perked when he heard Lt. Steele talking kind of desperately on the cell phone. He knew it really wasn’t any of his business, but it intrigued him.  He quietly snuck up to the corner and could hear Steele clearly on the phone. 

“I know, Dark Kat, I know.  I’ll get them out of there. Yah, Feral left for Puma Dyne already; he looked scared. Good thing I told you that Felina called me last night to say she had your friend. Right, be there one hour, Katvenya.  Bye,” he said as he hung up the phone. 

Razor heard the entire thing, Steele was working with Dark Kat! He growled out as he pounced on Steele, knocking him to the floor.

            “Hey what’s the big idea?!” Steele demanded. “Get off of me before I arrest you, SWAT Kat!”

            “You should be the one to talk about being arrested,” Razor retorted as he pinned down Steele’s hands. “I heard you, you lousy mega low! Setting up Feral that way!

            “Like they’ll believe you, SWAT Kat! Help, someone!” Steele screamed out.

            T-Bone heard Steele’s cries for help and rushed out of the lab and looked to where the cries for help were coming from. He saw Razor’s body on top of Steele’s holding him down angrily.

“Razor?!! What the heck are you doing?!” T-Bone asked as he raced over to Razor.

            “He’s working with Dark Crud - I heard him!” Razor said.

They heard a bunch of enforcers racing down the hall.  T-Bone knew they would never believe Razor right now since Steele was an enforcer.  Not without some kind of proof, and Razor just hearing it on the phone wouldn’t do anything.

 

            Z.O.E. landed the jet about a mile away from Puma Dyne.  Since it was winter season, it was already starting to get dark. He raced up and hid behind some bushes when he heard Feral’s cruiser drive off onto the main road, tires squealing.  Z.O.E. looked at his watch and saw that it was about three minutes before the deadline.  Fortunately for him, he had gotten there just in time to place a microphone device on Feral’s car so that way he could hear what was going on. He decided he wanted that detonator before Dark Kat could get his paws on it. He wanted to be the one to take down the city.  He wanted vengeance for his brother.  He placed the microphone earpiece in his ear and walked back, then stood there trying to listen to what was going on.

            The phone rang in Feral’s car; he knew it was Dark Kat calling him. 

“Cutting it rather close?” Dark Kat asked.

            “I have what you need,” Feral said with no feeling.

            “Good. I am listening,” Dark Kat said.

            “I am going to give it to you in person,” Feral said as he drove towards the docks of MegaKat Bay. 

            “No time,” Dark Kat said as he smiled as he walked over to Felina.

            “No choice,” Feral said sternly as he gripped the phone tighter.

            “You’re being brave again, Commander. That’s the best way to get your niece killed. Other than missing the deadline, which is only two and half minutes away,” Dark Kat replied coolly.  He was getting tired of playing this game with Feral.

“Listen I know you want that detonator really bad, so you will meet me at the docks,” Feral said sternly and hung up the phone.

            Dark Kat looked at the phone that was off the hook now and growled.  He walked over to Felina. “Up!!” he boomed as he grabbed her arm and dragged her with him.  He got in his Fear Ship and took off towards the docks.

            Meanwhile, the SWAT Kats were on their way to the hangar.

“T-Bone, something has to be going on that we are not aware of,” Razor said.

 

Feral walked around the docks.  I was getting darker by the minute - he just wished this would hurry up. He walked around the warehouses, trying to find Dark Kat.

“Come on, where are you?” he grumbled to himself.

            “Commander Feral!” a voice called to him. He looked back and saw Dark Kat walking towards him with no one else. “You’re a committed man.”

            “I want to see her,” Feral said sternly, showing no fear as he walked towards Dark Kat.

            “Yeah, I think you do,” Dark Kat replied as he stepped back and motioned for his three ninjas to walk up, two of them were holding Felina by her hands.

            “Uncle!” Felina cried out.

            “It’s okay, Felina. I have what he wants,” Feral said almost like a father.

            “Where’s my number?” Dark Kat as he stood back in Feral’s way now, closer than ever.

            “Let her go first,” Feral said, trying to push his luck.

            “Where is it?!” Dark Kat screamed.

            “Let her go and I’ll give it to you!” Feral screamed back.  He knew Dark Kat would probably just shoot them anyways and he at least didn’t want Felina to die.

Dark Kat growled and slapped Feral across the face, making him fall to the ground from the force.  Feral, wiped his mouth with his paw.  He felt blood on his hand.

“We talked about bravery today,” Dark Kat said, looking disappointed at him. He then noticed Feral’s handgun in his pocket. “That’ll do you no good.” He snatched the gun from Feral’s pocket and held it in front of him. He chuckled a little and said, “You need not to use these.”

            Little did they know that Z.O.E. could hear the entire conversation in his earpiece as he stood near Puma Dyne, waiting to get the code.

Dark Kat put the gun in his cloak and then pulled Feral back up.  “Now, Commander.  Tell me the code to get my detonator back.,” Dark Kat said.

            “Yes, Dark Kat. But, please let go of Felina first,” Feral said with fear in his voice.  He didn’t want Felina to die.

            “I am getting tired of playing games. Tell me my number!!” Dark Kat screamed into Feral’s face, aiming his gun right at Feral’s head.

            Felina cried out. “Uncle!”

            “Alright! Alright! I’ll tell you!” Feral screamed out, his whole body shaking, his heart pounding.

            Z.O.E. smiled to himself. “Here we go. Magnificent.”

            “The code is,” Feral started.

Suddenly, the two ninjas that were holding Felina cried out as they fell to the ground, their legs wrapped up with small spider missiles. 

Dark Kat looked over and then looked back, seeing the SWAT Kats rushing in. Dark Kat let out a growl and ordered his other ninjas, who were standing there.

            “Take care of them!” he growled through rage as he raced back towards his Fear Ship, his ninjas running towards the SWAT Kats.

            “Nice to see us, Feral?” Razor smirked as he aimed his glov-a-trix at the rushing ninjas and fired some more missiles at them.

            T-Bone rushed towards the ninjas, delivering powerful blows to their bodies as he fought his way through to get to Felina. Felina smiled at him.

“Thanks, T-Bone.”

 

            Thrusting his engines to Mach 5, Z.O.E. made it to Katvenya in five minutes. He landed outside near the satellite tower.  Like the TurboKat, Z.O.E.’s jet had VTOL engines, which made it able to have a vertical landing. 

Dark Kat’s bunker was about a quarter mile away from the satellite tower. Z.O.E. groaned when he opened the canopy to feel the chilling winds ripping through his fur.  He knew a snowstorm was probably approaching. 

Katvenya was about twenty miles away from the northern part of MegaKat.  The whole place was nothing but snow with frequent snowstorms and huge temperature drops.  It seemed like it went on forever. Z.O.E. didn’t even know why Dark Kat chose such a place for the hideout.  He thought that Dark Kat figured that no one would dare look for them here.  

He pulled out his snowsuit, which was a full body suit that was gray and well insulated to keep the frozen temperatures from giving him frostbite.  Dark Kat’s ninjas wore this protective clothing a lot since most of them were mainly outside in this mess, Instead of calling them ninjas, Dark Kat preferred them to be Katvenya Special Forces.  Once he put the body suit on, he put on the protective face cover which was gray and well insulated too. It also had goggles to keep the wind and snow from his eyes and a breathing respirator in it to keep him from breathing in the harmful chilling winds which could do serious damage to his lungs. 

Once dressed, he climbed out of the cockpit and rushed inside the satellite; he just hoped that the snowstorm didn’t freeze his engines.    Once inside, he walked towards the computer monitor and booted it up.  He knew the only way to get the detonator was to get Dark Kat’s insider, which was Lieutenant Commander Steele, to get it for him.  All he had to do was unlock the systems.  He called Steele up on his cell phone.

            Steele was in his car heading towards his house when the cell phone rang. He groaned and picked it up.

“Hello?”

            “Hey, Steele. This time I need you,” Z.O.E. said as he logged into the system. He inserted the Puma Dyne disk file that he got from Steele into the CPU. 

            “Aww, what do you want from me now? I gave you that disk.  Shouldn’t you be able to get in there?” Steele groaned. He knew now where this was going. That SWAT Kat, Razor, already caught him; he really didn’t want to get himself deeper in trouble. 

            “Yes, but I won’t be able to get into Puma Dyne. I am going to unlock the security system to that door, and I want you to get the detonator for me,” Z.O.E. said as he started to upload the security panel from the disk.

            “Me? How am I possibly going to get in there?” Steele almost choked as he stopped his car on the side of the road and turned back around and headed back towards Puma Dyne.

            About twenty minutes had passed and Feral was hugging Felina tightly.  The SWAT Kats stood there to watch the reunion.

“I am so glad I have you back, Felina,” Feral said, smiling as he finally released her from his embrace.  “My brother would have killed me if I had lost you.”

            Felina smiled back. “Thanks, Uncle.” She turned her attention to the SWAT Kats, smiling at them also. “Thanks, guys.”

            “Hey, no problem,” T-Bone replied.

            “I am just glad that Dark Kat didn’t get his paws on that detonator,” Razor said as he walked over to the TurboKat and jumped back into the cockpit.  He turned on the enforcer radio as he waited on T-Bone. His ears perked when he heard a desperate call coming in.  “Hey, Feral, get your radio quick!”

            T-Bone looked over at Razor. “What is it, buddy?”

            Razor shrugged his shoulders as he listened to it. The enforcer on the other end was from Puma Dyne. 

“Commander Feral - come in please!”

            Feral turned on his radio in his cruiser and answered it. “Yes, go ahead.”

Felina rushed over to his side.

            “Commander, someone has hacked into our security system.  They changed the password.  We can’t get into the vault to where the detonator is!” the enforcer cried out desperately. 

They could tell the fear in his voice.  They all knew now someone had changed the password so that only that person could get into the vault.

            “I want that place heavily guarded until we get there,” Feral said. He looked over at Felina. “Do you think that psycho Hard Drive again managed to escape?”

            “I don’t think so, Uncle. Wouldn’t it be some sort of power surge instead of actually hacking?”“ Felina asked.

            “Felina, take my car back to headquarters! Check on Hard Drive - make sure his cell is guarded.  We don’t want that electrical lowlife to escape again,” he said as he tossed Felina her keys.  “I’ll go to Puma Dyne.”

            “Hey, Commander, it’s a long walk to Puma Dyne,” T-Bone commented as he walked towards the TurboKat, where Razor was waiting on him.

            “I am not getting a ride from you two hoodlums!” Feral said stubbornly.

            “Uncle, come on - we don’t have much time!” Felina said as she walked over to the cruiser and got in it.

            “Fine,” Feral groaned as he walked towards the TurboKat and got in it, resting in the bomb bay. “Just don’t drop me.”

 

            The TurboKat’s engines screamed through the night like banshees as the black jet flew in the night sky towards Puma Dyne.  Once reaching their destination, T-Bone put the engines on VTOL and landed the TurboKat outside.  Within minutes, they were able to get into Puma Dyne by Feral and made their way to where the security monitor was to get into the vault which contained the Ultra Mega Detonator. 

Razor plopped down in the chair in front of the terminal and looked at the screen. On the screen he saw the prompt, which was for the command to obtain the password and commands from the user, but something very strange was going on. He saw the asterisks where the enforcer who kept up with this vault had put in his code to get to the detonator, but then he saw an error on the screen saying it was invalid.  Then, under that line were lines of nothing but 0’s and 1’s.

“Holy Crud, it’s binary!” Razor groaned.

The pattern of 1’s and 0’s were all different.

            “It’s what?” Feral asked.

            “Binary…whoever hacked in here not only changed the code but they changed the code to binary. You see, each one of these lines represents one number,” Razor said as he looked at the screen of digits.

            “Oh, shit,” Feral grumbled. “There’s no way we can get through this! Do you think Hard Drive did this?”

            “No, Feral.  Judging by these digits, it was hacked on here….not electronically, and the hacker is probably still on here,” Razor said.

T-Bone just looked at him.  “Can you figure it out, buddy?,” T-Bone said as he looked at the screen with Razor, but to him this was a different foreign language.  Only Razor dealt with computer programming.  T-Bone was not really into that stuff.

            “I could try….it shouldn’t be too bad…just depends on the base and whether or not the person then changed that number into ASCII, which would make a letter,” Razor grumbled.

In his head he was trying to figure out who would do this. He knew Dark Kat was a genius, but Dark Kat was more into bombs and explosives.  This had nothing to do with that.  This was very complex stuff, and Hard Drive would have done this electronically. 

            Meanwhile, Z.O.E. was sitting behind the monitors at Katvenya, seeing Razor typing in codes to try to bust through the binary.  He chuckled a little.  Steele stood at his side.  He knew he had to leave there soon, before Dark Kat got back… He tapped his flight suit at his chest where the small detonator fitted in his inside pocket.

            Razor knew that someone had to be online to do this coding that was blocking him from accessing the codes, and the only person left would be Z.O.E.. He looked at T-Bone.

“T-Bone, we have to get to Katvenya quickly - we can get the drop on him.”

            Feral overhead Razor’s comment and his face went white. “What are you two doing?!”

            Razor and T-Bone got up and started to rush to the door. Razor turned around and tossed Feral one of their communicators. He had written down the binary digits on a piece of paper.

“Feral, keep this. I’ll talk to you in the jet.  You have to trust me on this.  I’ll talk you through the coding.”

            Feral grumbled as he sat down where Razor was and looked at the screen.

            Razor and T-Bone hopped in their jet and, once again, the TurboKat was soaring in the skies.  Since Katvenya was far away as it was, Razor knew using all of the engines would still take a bit too long.

“T-Bone, engage the speed of heat!” Razor said as he strapped on his oxygen mask.

            “Roger that, buddy,” T-Bone said as he strapped on his oxygen mask and pushed the speed of heat button on his control panel.

Within seconds, four more extra engines popped out, and the TurboKat flew faster, making a loud sonic boom behind them. Razor started to breathe harder, feeling the g’s pushing against him, his body pushing further against the seat.

            “Don’t worry, Commander. Here’s your crash course in binary,” Razor smirked. By doing quick division in his head he found the three numbers that the binary codes represented. “You ready?”

            “Go ahead,” Feral grumbled.  He hated how the SWAT Kats were always the ones out there in the glory while he was stuck behind.  No wonder they always got the credit and never him.

            “Type the numbers 90, 79, 69.  I just hope the psycho used base 2,” Razor said as he heard the engines disengaging.  He looked out of the cockpit and saw the Siberian place of Katvenya approaching.  He used the x-ray scanner to see what kind of buildings were around this place.

Feral typed in the numbers and got back the message that the code was incorrect. “It’s not right.”

            Razor’s eyes widened and he let out a small growl.  “Geez, I hope he didn’t use a different base.” He looked at the numbers and tried to think of what letters the numbers would be for ASCII.  He let himself smile a little when he found out that they were the letters ‘Z,O,E,’.

“Okay, Feral, type in the letters Z, O,E,.”

            Feral looked kind of dumbfounded. “Oh come on, SWAT Kat. Do you really think he would do that?”

            “Just try it!” Razor said as he felt the engines being put into VTOL mode as the jet landed outside in the snow near the satellite tower. 

            Feral typed in the letters and heard the click of the vault opening.

 “Holy Kats! It worked!” he proclaimed as he rushed over to the door, waiting for the door to open. The door was pressurized and steam was blowing through the holes of the door on the top. Once the door was open, he walked in, but, to his horror, he saw the detonator was gone.  “It’s gone!”

            “What?! Crud!” T-Bone proclaimed  He then jumped out of the TurboKat.

            “Let’s go, T-Bone,” Razor said as he jumped out to join his partner. “SWAT Kats, out.” He turned off the communicator for awhile. 

            T-Bone shivered. “Geez, it’s cold!”

            “Yeah, let’s not stick around here for awhile. The x-ray scanner picked up the satellite tower here and a bunker over there.  Go check out the bunker.  I’ll check out this tower.”

            “Roger. Be careful, buddy, ”T-Bone said.

 

            Z.O.E. looked at his watch and knew he had to leave now before Dark Kat came back. He got up and started to talk towards the door.  

Steele got up and started to chase after him. “What about me? They will trace me to getting that detonator for you - I will have nothing now. I can’t go back! Let me help you! I-I can fire a gun,” Steele said quickly.

Z.O.E. stopped and looked at him, raising an eyebrow.  Even though Steele was in the enforcers, he wasn’t the enforcer type.  There was no way he would be any good to him militaristically.  He tossed Steele his MP-5 to see what Steele could do.

Steele took the gun and aimed it at a picture on the wall and looked through the eyepiece at the barrel of the gun, but, when he pulled the trigger, nothing happened.  He looked at the gun, wondering what could be going on.

Z.O.E. sighed and shook his head disappointedly and snatched the gun from his hand and took the safety off of it.  Then, he pointed the barrel at Steele’s feet and started to shoot all around Steele, making him almost jump up on the ceiling.  He then stopped and looked at him sadly with remorse. 

“Sorry, Steele.”

He then aimed the gun at Steele and shot, killing him instantly, blood spurting everywhere from his face.  Steele’s body dropped to the floor, dead.

Suddenly, a beeping noise came from the monitor. Z.O.E. raced over and saw by his security camera that the SWAT Kat Razor was in the satellite communications tower, heading his way.

Patrick felt his blood boil, even though he totally hated the SWAT Kat Razor. He already could tell who they were.  The attack that Razor made on him earlier was the attack that a lot of times during enforcer training Jake Clawson would pull on him.

He closed his eyes and remembered those days. During the enforcer times, he and Jake were best buds.  They grew up together and knew everything about each other. They shared everything. But, Patrick started to let life get him down.  He become more daredevil and crazier than T-Bone or Chance was.  Patrick’s parents were killed many years before he joined the enforcers.  They were killed in an airplane crash when Patrick was only 10, but the effects of their deaths started on him when he was 18 and in the enforcers.  He started to swear a lot, smoke, and he didn’t really care about anything. He became very hateful and violent towards people and his temper began to quicken. Jake started to stay away from him and soon became the friend of Chance Furlong. Chance Furlong treated Jake better and he and Jake became crewmembers for their plane.  Chance was another hotshot pilot, which angered Patrick even more. 

One evening while the enforcers were doing a raid, Commander Feral had sent Patrick in as a spy.  Later on, he wasn’t discovered and Dark Kat told them that he killed Patrick. Soon, the enforcers were after Dark Kat, then Dark Kat took off to drop his bomb on Enforcer Headquarters - the same day that Chance and Jake were kicked off the squadron. 

Patrick had actually joined sides with Dark Kat, but pretended to be dead and missing for several years.  Later on, during the rest of the years, he helped construct Dark Kat’s devices but stayed in the shadows to remain hidden.  A lot of times whenever Dark Kat got in trouble and was captured, Z.O.E. had remained free, but his loyalty to Dark Kat never faltered for he knew he could get the money and power he needed and the technological skills from Dark Kat. 

He decided to surprise and get the drop on Razor. He walked into the next room from the control room.

            Minutes later, Razor walked into the control room and looked around. He saw Steele’s bloody dead body on the ground, and he could tell by the blood that it was fresh. He raised up his glov-a-trix and looked around, his tail twitching.  He was on the alert, his breathing quickened. 

“Hello, Jake,” a voice said as it walked towards him from the other room.

Razor turned and saw Z.O.E. walking out of the room.

            This time when Z.O.E. walked out, he had his bandanna off, showing his true identity, which was Patrick Klawster.   Patrick decided to show Razor who he was and to show Razor he knew who he was, but he knew he wasn’t going to say anything. It wouldn’t matter; he wasn’t going to be that low and tell everyone.  It wasn’t him. 

            Razor’s eyes widened and he looked at Patrick. “Patrick.”

            “Back from the dead. No longer just a name at Enforcer Headquarters,” he replied to Razor.

Razor stood in awe at Patrick. He couldn’t believe it!  After all of these years, he was still alive and probably helping Dark Kat construct all the materials that they went against. 

“What’s the matter, Razor? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?”

            “Why?” Razor finally managed to ask.

            Patrick chuckled a little.  “Hilarious question. Particularly from you.  Did you ever ask why? Why we toppled all of those criminals, only to come home ‘Well done. Good job, but sorry, everything you risked your life and limb for has changed.’”

            “It was the job we chose,” Razor said plainly, balling his hands up into fists.

            “Of course you’d say that,” Patrick spat.  “The SWAT Kats, loyal to the city, defenders of the so-called faith.” 

Razor growled and aimed his glov-a-trix at Patrick. 

“Aw, please, Razor. Put it away. It’s insulting to think that I haven’t anticipated your every move. You know since we DID work together before you picked up that low life, Chance.”

            “I trusted you, Patrick,” Razor said sadly.  It hurt him so bad that his long time ago life friend was now his enemy.

            “Trust? What a quaint idea,” replied Patrick. “Turning your backs on me, leaving me in the building to spy on my own.  You enforcers left me to die there and you know it.”

            “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” Razor retorted.

            “No. You were supposed to die for me,” Patrick replied.  He chuckled again. “Oh, by the way, I did think of asking you to join my little scheme. But, somehow I knew Jake Clawson’s loyalty was always to the city, never to his friend.”

            Razor laughed.  He had just about had enough of this. He was deeply wounded by the fact that his best friend was now his enemy and would have to probably kill him. 

“You know you lowlifes are all the same - you are no different from Hard Drive, Dark Kat, or any other scum in this city.”

            Patrick growled and balled his hands into fists. “What was that?”

            “I said you’re fucked in the head, Patrick!” Razor screamed, his rage burning.

            “Awfully proud of yourself, aren’t you, Razor?  You stuck your nose in to where it didn’t belong and now you killed my baby brother!” Patrick screamed as he cocked his gun and fired at Razor. Razor dove out of the way behind some desks.  Patrick kept firing until his magazine ended and then took off running.

 

            Meanwhile, T-Bone had reached the bunker door.  He looked at the panel and decided to press his luck.  He pushed the door open button.  Suddenly, an alarm started to blare.

“Whoa, that’s not good,” he commented as he took off running.  When he reached the TurboKat, he jumped in and fired up the engines. Razor was just then getting out of the tower. “Get your tail in here now, Razor!”

            Razor jumped in and the cockpit slid over them. “What’s going on, T-Bone?”

            “I pushed the wrong button,” T-Bone said as he fired up the engines.

            Razor looked out and saw about five artic clothed kats running their way from each side of them. “Hurry up, buddy. We’ve got company.” His ears perked when he heard a jet taking off and looked behind him and saw a red and black Mig-31 Foxhound looking jet taking off.

            T-Bone noticed it too as the jet passed, heading high into sky.  He lifted the TurboKat into the air and took off.

“Hey, buddy, there’s our buddy Z.O.E.,” he said with a smile. “Shall we go chase him?”

            “Eh, T-Bone. That’s Patrick Klawster,” Razor said sadly as he fixed his hands on his weapons stick.

            “Patrick? You sure? I thought he was dead.  I mean, I heard them say something about him before at the morgue but I mean it’s him..,” T-Bone said.  “Want me to chase after him, buddy?”

            Suddenly, the Fear Ship came out of cloudbank heading their way. 

“Holy Kats, it’s Dark Kat!” Razor exclaimed.

            Dark Kat also looked surprised to see them.  

“What are they doing here?!”

He fired a missile at them but T-Bone did a barrel roll, letting the missile just miss under their wing. 

 

            Darkness filled the night as a storm approached, thunder already being heard throughout the city.  Jake and Chance were back in the garage getting ready for bed. They decided a good night’s rest would help them better tomorrow.

Jake was walking around, still wearing his mechanic coveralls.  Chance was wearing his coveralls too.  He was just walking up the stairs to go to bed, and he saw Jake pacing around his room.

He sighed and shook his head and walked over to Jake’s room.  “Jake, stop doing that, buddy,” he said softly.

            “Chance, this entire mess did make sense, but now it doesn’t.  But, I mean, we found the insider who gave the whereabouts of Felina Feral and Z.O.E. to Dark Kat. But now, Steele is dead and Dark Kat was missing for a while.  The detonator was gone and obviously Dark Kat doesn’t have it. Z.O.E. has it, but he left when Dark Kat was coming back. It was like he was not working with Dark Kat anymore, but doesn’t Dark Kat want the detonator? This is just getting too confusing on who we should fight first.  They are both dangerous,” Jake said as he plopped down on his bed.

            “Well, buddy, I know you are more worried about Patrick then anything else. Dark Kat never really scared you. We all know that he has the capability to build bombs, but we have always stopped him.  It’s not like he tries to put them anywhere.  All he does is try to drop them because he knows the impact will cause more damage.  But, Z.O.E. is really scaring you.  Look, buddy, things happen. You did kill his younger brother, but he shouldn’t have gotten him involved in the first place, and we had no clue as to why they were shooting up Hard Drive’s van.  Because Hard Drive helped Dark Kat get the detonator.  But, I also know, buddy, that Patrick was your friend before me.” Chance walked over and sat beside Jake.  “Patrick was a good person…  I know, you used to tell me about him.  But, his life changed.  What he does is his decision; he chose to become bad and turn against us.  He was your friend, now he is your enemy and you will kill him.  We both know that. But, I also know facing him is like facing me.” Chance sighed sadly and looked down at the ground. “If I should ever turn bad, I would want you to kill me or turn me in just like I want you to now.”

            Jake sighed and shook his head. “You know I can’t do it, Chance…”

            Chance smiled a little and then said. “The SWAT Kat Razor facing the ultimate enemy. The kat that knows him best, his old friend Patrick.” He chuckled a little when he took note that Jake had smiled too and scuffed his hair a little and stood up. “Goodnight, buddy.”

            Jake smiled back. “Goodnight, Chance.”

            Suddenly, thunder boomed throughout the entire garage, and then the lights went out.

“Aww, great. Storm’s knocked out the power,” Chance said as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his flashlight.  “I am going down to the hangar to check out the breaker box.”

            “Alright, Chance,” Jake said as he watched Chance walk downstairs, the light from his flashlight disappearing from his view. Jake sighed and grabbed the flashlight from his nightstand.  He walked over to his window and looked out. He noticed that the house down the street from the salvage yard still had its lights on. 

“What the heck?” Jake knew that the electricity branched off from the main street and fed to the houses on this road so the house next door would have had the same power as they would have.  Jake’s eyes grew wide. “Ch-chance?”

            Z.O.E., meanwhile, walked quietly into the lobby part of the garage.  He had his MP5 in one hand and night vision goggles on his head.  The whole scenery of the garage now was in total green.  He looked around, his finger resting on the trigger.  He quieted his breathing as he walked inside, his feet barely touching the ground.  His ears perked when he heard someone coming behind him.  He turned around and saw Chance walking right towards him, and Chance noticed him too.

“What the heck?,” he asked, totally surprised by this attack after all this was on their soil. 

Z.O.E. pulled the trigger and shot Chance in the arm, but the force of the blast from the gun threw Chance against the wall. Chance let out a groan as he slid down the wall, his head throbbing from his contact with the wall and his arm throbbing as blood rolled down the sleeves of his coveralls. 

Z.O.E. turned his attention back to the garage and looked around, knowing right now Chance was indisposed of.  He glanced around and then started to quietly creep up the stairs.

Jake heard the gunfire from Z.O.E. when he shot Chance, his breathing now becoming faster. He panicked and knew upstairs, here away from the hangar, he was completely helpless.  He heard the stairs creaking and knew someone was very slowly coming up the stairs. He looked around and then stood behind the outer part of the wall that separated the closet from the doorway to his bathroom.  He held the flashlight tightly in his hand, knowing that was the only thing close enough to a weapon that he had up here. 

Z.O.E reached the 2^nd floor and looked around, glancing closely at each room, getting closer to Jake’s room.

            “Come on, Jake. Show yourself,” he said softly to himself as he looked around.  He quietly stepped inside Jake’s room. 

Jake tried to slow down his breathing, knowing that Z.O.E. would hear it.

Z.O.E. stepped closer to the wall which Jake was hiding behind.

            Chance held his head and shook it.  His arm was throbbing in pain, and he gripped his arm with his right hand, feeling the blood going on his hand. He looked around and saw no trace of Z.O.E.; he knew Jake was in grave danger.

“Jake!” he cried.

            Both Jake and Z.O.E. heard Chance’s cry. Z.O.E. turned around for a brief moment, being distracted from Chance’s cry. 

That’s when Jake made his move. He leaped out from his hiding spot and turned on the flashlight, aiming right at Z.O.E.’s face. The light caused the entire screen of the night vision goggles to go completely bright green; it was so bright that it hurt his eyes.

He cried out and held his other hand in front of his eyes, trying to block the light. With his other hand, he frantically shot around, hoping he would hit Jake in the process.

Jake leaped back behind the wall again for safety as he heard the bullets hitting his closet and window. Glass breaking everywhere, Jake covered his face with his hands, trying to prevent the glass shards from hitting his face. Once the firing stopped, Jake leaped back out and tackled Z.O.E..

Z.O.E. took off his night vision goggles and started gripping Jake’s hands to prevent him from throwing any punches.  He then kicked Jake hard in the chest. The impact was so deep that it knocked the breath out of Jake.

Jake’s eyes went wide when he felt it hard to breathe.  He began to feel so sick to his stomach.

Z.O.E. then hit him really hard in the face, causing Jake to fly off him and into his bedroom wall.

Jake let out a small cry as he hit against the wall.  He slid down, barely conscious.

Z.O.E. stood back up and walked over to Jake and picked him up the collar of his coveralls. “You will pay for killing my brother!!” he screamed in rage as he threw Jake on the floor and tackled him. He placed his paws on Jake’s neck squeezing it.

 Jake coughed and gagged trying to breathe he felt no air getting in him.  He squirmed frantically, trying to get away from Z.O.E.’s deadly grip. 

            Chance heard the struggle upstairs and forced himself to get up no matter how badly the pain from his arm hurt or his head. He looked over and untwisted the wooden stick from the broom that was resting near the couch.  He walked upstairs and saw Z.O.E. on top of Jake, strangling him.  He could hear Jake coughing but resisting less.  Chance cried out as he hit Z.O.E. hard as he could on the back with the stick.

Z.O.E. cried out and fell down on the ground.

Chance jumped on top of him and snatched the MP5 that was lying on the ground and aimed it at Z.O.E.’s head. “You leave him alone, you bastard,” he said through his clenched teeth in a low tone. 

Jake coughed as he sat back up, his hands rubbing his neck. He looked over and saw Chance now on top of Z.O.E.’s back, holding the gun to his head.  Z.O.E. laid there, not moving.  He was slowing down his breathing as he looked up at Jake, the fire still burning. 

Chance’s anger was still raging as well for Z.O.E.’s attack on Jake.  Chance kept the barrel of the gun right at Z.O.E.’s temple of his head.  “Are you sure?”

            Jake’s eyes were wide now by this scene. “Chance, don’t!” He got up and walked over to Z.O.E.

Chance picked Z.O.E. up and slammed him against the wall, making him sit up against it. He kept the gun aimed at him. 

“Listen, Patrick. You know damn well that you and Dark Kat got your brother killed. Dark Kat doesn’t care about any of you.  He just wants what he wants, and he just wants destruction.  You brought your brother into this with you,” Jake said.

Z.O.E. started to growl with rage, breathing harder when Jake mentioned his brother.  “You leave my brother alone!” he screamed. He started to get up to attack again, but Chance slammed him against the wall again.

            “Your brother is gone, Patrick. And you know we can’t hurt him anymore,” Jake said looking at Patrick. He knew that Patrick went through a lot with the lost of parents and now his brother.  “I know you have been through a lot but so have I. The enforcers let us both down.”

            “Listen, Patrick,” Chance spoke as his rage started to cool down. “Dark Kat doesn’t care who he kills to get what he wants. But ,trust me, being with him is not going to make your life better. Look, right now, the enforcers are after your head.  Your brother is dead because of him. You know Dark Kat doesn’t really care. As soon as he is done with those who help him to get what he wants, he’ll kill them because he doesn’t need them. Soon after you give him that detonator he needs and help him to take over the city, then he’ll be done with you.”

            “Just let me go!” Patrick screamed.  His head was spinning.  He didn’t know what to do. What Chance and Jake were saying was becoming true to him, but still the fire for the loss of his brother was still burning.  After all, Jake had killed Sean. 

            Jake sighed and looked at their captive. He knew if they let Patrick go, he would probably go after him again. “Chance, let him go,” he said.  He just hoped that he was right this time.

            Chance’s eyes grew wide; he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Jake, are you sure?”

            “Let him go, Chance,” Jake said, looking right into Chance’s eyes.

Chance could tell that Jake was being quite serious about this and, somehow, he trusted Jake’s decision.  Chance got up and pulled Patrick up and then stood there, his hand on the trigger ready for Patrick’s attack.

 

            With his feet numb from the painfully cold weather, Z.O.E. trudged through the snow at Katvenya on his way to Dark Kat’s bunker. He had parked his jet near the satellite again.  He didn’t mind walking.  He really didn’t want to just walk into the bunker, and he wanted to think about this first. He had decided to just get out altogether. He wouldn’t mention the detonator to Dark Kat and just tell him that he was out of the deal now and he was leaving. Then, Dark Kat would be the SWAT Kats’ problem, not his.

The guilt of having his brother Sean join Dark Kat was the biggest mistake of his life, and he knew it.  Sean was always a good kid compared to Patrick. Patrick had struggled through school and took up smoking, became depressed a lot since his parents died.  He felt like there was no way out and joining Dark Kat would change his life. Well, unfortunately, it did change his life but not in the direction that he wanted it to go. 

Sean was planning on going to college after high school, but Patrick begged him to come with him and work with Dark Kat. Sean, admiring his older brother and loving him so much, dropped the college idea and left high school altogether, disappearing from the city. 

Tears were coming down Z.O.E.’s face and, as he walked towards the bunker, they were freezing.  He walked inside the bunker and noticed that the two guards who were usually at the door weren’t there anymore.  He started to hold his breath as he quietly started to walk towards the main glass door, which led into the main room of the bunker, but what he saw he didn’t like. He saw at least twelve ninjas standing there completely armed with submachine guns, handguns, some still had their katana swords with them.  In front of them stood Dark Kat.

Z.O.E. stood as close as he could to the wall; he didn’t like where this was going.   He pressed himself even closer, hoping Dark Kat wouldn’t catch him spying on him. 

“Today, MegaKat will learn my true power. Tonight, MegaKat will crumble and Dark Kat City will rise. With the SWAT Kats out of the way, there will be no way to stop me,” Dark Kat spoke as he looked happily among his army.  “My bomb will desecrate the city and you, my men, will come in and wipe out the city like locusts.” He laughed after saying that. 

Z.O.E.’s eyes went with wide with terror.  He knew that Dark Kat wanted to drop the bomb on top of the largest skyscraper in the city, by doing so the impact would be tremendous and the largest skyscraper was the MegaKat Trade Towers. The impact on these 2 twin skyscrapers would be huge by their height and the explosion would knock out the other causing a double chain reaction.

            Suddenly, Z.O.E. heard a gun click behind him. He looked back and saw two Katvenyan special forces behind him, holding AK-47 Machine guns, one pointed at his head. Z.O.E. sighed and held his hands up and started to walk forward, towards the glass door. The glass door, which was an automatic one, slid open, allowing him and the Special Forces to enter.

Dark Kat turned his attention to the new arrival and smiled.  He walked up towards Z.O.E. and stood in front of him. His huge mountainous form towered over Z.O.E.

“Where have you been?” he asked in a low voice, an angry tone entering.

            “Uh, no where,” Z.O.E. replied, fear entering his voice. He had never been this close to Dark Kat, and he didn’t like the odds of the situation that he had put himself in.

            “You’re lying to me and you’re hiding something from me as well, “Dark Kat growled as he retracted his claw and placed right near Z.O.E.’s throat.  He looked right into his eyes, seeing the fear of them.  He smiled as he traced his hand down the side of Z.O.E.’s body and into the pocket of his flight suit.  There he retrieved the detonator and held it in his hand.

Z.O.E.’s face was white as a ghost; he knew what would happen now.  He gulped, trying to swallow in the fear.  

Dark Kat surprisingly started to smile instead of frown now. He looked at Z.O.E. as he stepped back and chuckled a little. “Either you brought me the perfect gift, Z.O.E., or you made me a very unhappy kat.”

            Dark Kat was the one who sent him to kill the SWAT Kats, even though he didn’t know where the SWAT Kats lived or who they were, he really didn’t care. He just knew that Z.O.E. knew where they were and that he would let him keep that secret as long as he killed them. 

“His partner got him before I could,” Z.O.E. quickly stated.

            “You mean that SWAT Kat Razor, that you wanted you to take a revenge upon is alive?” Dark Kat looked at Z.O.E. suspiciously.  Earlier, all he heard was to kill Razor Now, since he gave Patrick the opportunity in doing so, he didn’t kill him and he wasn’t really mad anymore.

            “He escaped,” Z.O.E. said.

            “Good for him, bad for you,” Dark Kat said again, the frown reappearing on his face.  He looked at the detonator that he held in his hands and smiled evilly back at Z.O.E.  “Was this really worth it?”

            “What?” Z.O.E. asked, fear creeping in his voice again.

            “Your life,” Dark Kat said in a low tone. He figured that Z.O.E. would probably steal the detonator from him just like Hard Drive attempted to get back for his brother. Dark Kat also knew that Z.O.E.’s mission was to get back for his brother, not to even help him anymore to destroy the city.

            “Absolutely,” Z.O.E. said through clenched teeth. 

            Dark Kat shook his head and looked at one of the Katvenya Special Forces who was standing beside him. “Take care of him,” he said softly to him.

The Katvenyan nodded and pulled out his gun.

 Z.O.E. saw him doing and quickly grabbed one of the swords from one of the ninjas who was standing near him and knocked the gun out of the Katvenyan’s hand.

One of the other Katvenyan’s stepped forward to stop the fight, but Dark Kat moved his hand in front of him to stop him. “Whoa,” he said.

            The Katvenyan growled angrily and hit Z.O.E. hard in the face, knocking him down to the ground. Z.O.E. was on all fours on the ground, trying to get back up that’s when the Katvenyan kicked him swiftly on the underside of his stomach. Z.O.E. groaned out in pain and started to cough. 

Dark Kat chuckled and watched, loving the fight between them. 

Z.O.E. threw a kick at the Katvenyan, but he grabbed his leg, so Z.O.E. dropped down low to the ground with his leg still in his hand and kicked the Katvenyan in the face with the other foot causing him to fall down on the ground, blood all over his face from the blow.  The Katvenyan growled in rage and wiped the blood from his face.  Seeing it on his hand, he got back up and grabbed Z.O.E. by the back of his flight suit and threw him hard against the desk, causing the desk to collapse and his body slamming on the floor hard.  Z.O.E. laid there motionless. 

Dark Kat watched, very impressed. 

As soon as the Katvenya Special Forces soldier was right over him, Z.O.E. growled out and kicked him in the stomach, making him double over. Then, with one swift movement, he hit him in the face again.  He then grabbed the sword that was laying on the ground that he had picked up earlier and aimed it right at the fallen Katvenyan’s neck. He growled out as he put the blade so close to the kat’s neck, being able to slit his throat any minute, but he stopped, his chest heaving. He was breathing so hard. He knew that this wasn’t him.

            Dark Kat took out his small handgun in his cloak and cocked it.  Then, he pointed the gun towards Z.O.E.’s direction.

Z.O.E. turned around and looked at him.

Dark Kat shot, but he was actually aiming at the fallen Katvenyan. Three bullets burst through his chest, causing blood to spurt out from the open wounds as his dead body collapsed on the ground. 

Z.O.E.’s eyes went wide; he couldn’t believe what he just saw.

Dark Kat walked towards him and aimed the gun at Z.O.E.’s head now. “You’re not like me, Patrick. I would have killed the kat who killed my brother. I would have killed Razor.”

            Z.O.E. looked at him angrily. “He wasn’t the one who got him killed. Are you sure I am not like you?” He growled and, surprisingly, pounced on Dark Kat, knocking the gun from his hand.  He was in a rage; he knew that Dark Kat was the one who got Sean killed. He started to punch Dark Kat repeatedly on the face, blood spurting from his broken nose. “You killed him!”

            “Don’t blow the mission now, boy,” Dark Kat hissed as he looked up at Z.O.E., blood all over his mouth.

            “That’s not my mission!” Z.O.E. screamed as he went for Dark Kat’s gun, but Dark Kat’s special forces grabbed him off Dark Kat and held him.  Z.O.E. struggled violently, trying to get away.

 

            “Commander, Feral! Come here quick! We picked up a large blip on the radar!” an enforcer radar operator shouted over the intercom at Enforcer Headquarters.

Feral got up quickly from his desk and raced down the hall and up two flights up stairs to the Radar Control Room. He then saw the enforcer looking at the radar, a huge blip appeared on it.

            “What do you think it is, Sergeant?” Feral asked as he looked at the screen with horror.

            “I don’t know, sir.  It’s not one of our fighter crafts - it’s too big,” the enforcer replied.

            “Maybe a commercial jet?” Feral asked, hoping that it would be it.

            “No, sir. This is bigger,” the enforcer replied in horror.

            Feral walked over and pressed the intercom button on the speaker panel. “This is Commander Feral. We are on a code red. I want all jets to scramble into the air right now! This is not a drill!”

            “Uh-sir, c-come here-here,” the enforcer stuttered.

Feral looked over and dropped the intercom speaker.

            On the radar, the huge blip had now divided and it was several small blips, probably around eleven of them. “It’s an air raid! Sergeant, get the stations ready!” Feral said as he raced out of the room and up to the airstrip.

            Jake and Chance were awakened that morning around 5am about ten minutes later by the air raid siren coming from the city.

Jake rubbed his head. “What the heck is that?”

 

            The TurboKat was racing across the morning sky, making its way to Enforcer Headquarters.  Razor was scanning the enforcer band; he didn’t like what he was hearing on the band.  He heard the voices of enforcers screaming in pain and then explosions.  Then, he heard Feral telling some enforcers to get the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor to safety.

“What the heck is going on?!” Razor asked; it felt like a nightmare.

            “Whatever it is, buddy, it’s heading this way,” T-Bone added as he looked at his radar screen and saw eleven small blips about two miles away.  Then, he saw them dead ahead.  “Razor, you got a lock-on, buddy?” T-Bone asked.

            Razor looked down at his radar screen.  The screen kept flickering back on and off.  “Crud, they must be jamming us! T-Bone, we are flying blind here!” Razor cried as he started to hit the screen with his fist.

            “I guess we will have to fly with a blind eye then, buddy,” T-Bone said as he put his hand on the throttle and boosted the engines a little.

            “Buddy, it’s a dead end!” Razor cried.  Now he knew this time T-Bone was crazy.

            “Then so be it,” T-Bone cried as he engaged the aircraft ahead of him.

The migs were all painted nothing but black, which made it even harder for the SWAT Kats to see.  They resembled  Mig 29-Fulcrums, very agile aircrafts.

Suddenly, alarms started to blare frantically inside the cockpit of the TurboKat.

            “T-Bone, we’ve been locked on… Missile fired!!” Razor screamed, he knew this mission was suicidal. 

            “Taking evasive actions! Hang on buddy!” T-Bone screamed as he banked their jet hard to right and down, then he thrusted upwards to do a scissors maneuver to get from their bandits.  

They successfully avoided the incoming missile, which exploded right behind them, but shards of the explosive missile hit their tail end, tearing some parts of the jet. 

One mig started to fire his guns at the TurboKat, hitting their right wing.

Razor looked over and heard the TurboKat slump down a little.

 

            Meanwhile, in the bunker in Katvenya, Z.O.E. sat in a corner in a small room with a guard standing right near the door in the room.  His hands were bound tightly with metal chains and locks and he knew the guard at the door probably had the key to them.  He squirmed with the chains. 

“Almost got them.”

            The guard’s ears perked when he overheard Z.O.E. muttering to himself and walked over to where he was.

“Hey, don’t do that!”

He stood there and fiddled with the chains to make sure they weren’t loose.

That’s when Z.O.E. took the opportunity.  He bashed his head hard against the guard’s, making the guard fall unconscious.

 

            The TurboKat banked downwards once again to avoid the bullets from the mig that was on their six.

“T-Bone, we can’t shake him!” Razor cried. 

            “I know! I know! ” T-Bone said.  The jet shook violently as the bullets hit the jet. The jet was coming apart almost.  He just prayed that he wouldn’t get a dead stick.  Pieces of the back canopy started to explode as the bullets hit it. One bullet strayed and hit Razor in the back of his right shoulder, making him cry out loudly in pain.

            “Ahh!! Chance!!” Razor cried out as he felt the bullet lodge in his right shoulder, the force of the impact made Razor’s body fly forward to hit his head on the console.  The blow made him become unconscious. His body laid limp in the back seat of the jet now. Some of his blood was on the console and seat.

            T-Bone heard Razor’s cry.

“Razor!”

He looked behind him and saw Razor sitting there unconscious.  The seatbelt was the only thing that kept Razor from falling over.  He saw blotches of blood on the seat.

“Aw, crud. My RIO is out like a blown engine. There’s no way I can possibly fight against them now.”

            Suddenly, the jet behind them exploded into a fireball as it flew down into MegaKat Bay.

“Then, maybe you need some help,” a familiar voice said over the radio as a red and black striped Mig-31 jet flew past him.

            T-Bone let a smile go across his face. “Glad to see you finally working on our side.”

            “Hey, you got your radar back. Now, give me some back up. We have to stop Dark Kat,” Z.O.E. said as he made the jet climb and go into a cloudbank, making it disappear from T-Bone’s visual.

            “Better said than done,” T-Bone grumbled as he checked back and saw Razor still knocked out. “Come on, buddy. Wake up.”

            Z.O.E.’s jet now reappeared from the cloudbank behind the Fear Ship. He started to fire his plane’s machines guns at the Fear Ship, hitting some of the wings.

“What the-?” Dark Kat said as he felt the violent shock of his jet being hit.

            “Remember me?” Z.O.E. said as he fired again, making the Fear Ship turn hard right off course to dodge his attack.  Suddenly, he heard rapid machine gun fire behind him, and his plane started to pull downwards.  He looked behind him and saw two black jets behind him fire rapidly. “Crud! Stabilizers are gone!”

            “I think not,” Dark Kat said back to Z.O.E. as he saw his jet begin starting to plummet. 

            “T-Bone, I may a need a ride,” Z.O.E. said to T-Bone.  Then. he pushed the eject button, making him eject from his plane. 

            Dark Kat laughed. “All too easy.” He saw the MegaKat City skyline appearing up ahead.

            With the help of his parachute, Z.O.E. landed on the docks of MegaKat bay, right when the TurboKat landed to pick him up. Z.O.E. got behind Razor’s body and held him. He saw the wound in his shoulder.

 “T-Bone, he’s going to need medical attention,” he commented as he felt the jet lifting back into the air towards the Fear Ship.

            “One crisis at a time,” T-Bone said as he saw the Fear Ship about five miles away against the skyline. “Do you know what’s he going to hit?”

            “Yah, the trade towers,” Z.O.E. said sadly. “He knows the impact from the collapses of the two tallest skyscrapers in the city could take out most of the city, including City Hall and Enforcer Headquarters.”

            “Crud! All those people in those towers…. They won’t know what’s going to happen,” T-Bone said sadly, his ears drooping.

            “Yah, that’s why you have to get me up to the Fear Ship, close enough to get me on board that craft,” Z.O.E. said.

            “What?! Are you crazy? Dark Kat will kill you!” T-Bone replied as he thrusted the jet faster, nearing the Fear Ship.

            “What else do you want to do? Let him kill all the people compared to one person?” Z.O.E. said.

            T-Bone sighed and knew that this was the only way.  “You’re beginning to sound like Razor, you know?” He flew into a cloudbank and reappeared right over the Fear Ship.  “Right on target.”

            Z.O.E. unhooked Razor’s oxygen mask and strapped it to the spare oxygen tube in his flight suit and put the mask on his face. He also took Razor’s glov-a-trix.

“Here goes nothing. Open the bomb bay doors and lower closer to the jet.”

            T-Bone decreased the throttle and put the TurboKat about five feet above the Fear Ship, knowing if Dark Kat did anything drastic like suddenly pull his jet upwards, they were gonners.

            When the doors opened, Z.O.E. took a deep breath and jumped on top of the Fear Ship, digging his claws into the metal and knowing the strong wind could blow him off easily. Time was very critical.  He used the laser in the glov-a-trix to cut a hole in the ship, allowing him just enough room to get in. Once inside, he took out his radio.

“T-Bone, do you copy?”

            “Yah, I am here,” T-Bone said as he maneuvered the jet right behind the Fear Ship.  He saw the Trade towers approaching.

            “Good. Now listen.  I want you to fire everything you have against the Fear Ship. Do not worry about the other migs,” Z.O.E. said.

            “Are you crazy? You’re still aboard,” T-Bone said.  His eyes grew wide.

            “Just do it, damnit!,” Z.O.E. cried. “Out.”

He turned off the radio, knowing he didn’t have time to argue. He walked closely towards the cockpit door.

            T-Bone aimed his sights on the Fear Ship, locking it in. The beeping noise from the radar screen indicated that his missiles were in range. His thumb resting on the trigger button, he said,  “Now I know what you go through, buddy,” T-Bone said as he looked back. 

            Z.O.E. looked in the cockpit and saw Dark Kat behind the stick.

Dark Kat heard Z.O.E. approaching and put the jet on autopilot. He turned around, surprising Z.O.E., and attacked him, letting out a vicious growl. 

T-Bone fired two old plain missiles hitting the jet’s rear. The plane jolted a little from the impact.

Dark Kat’s eyes went wide. He threw Z.O.E. off of him and ran to his radio.

“Get my six clear!”

            “Roger,” one of his pilots replied.

            T-Bone looked behind him and saw five of Dark Kat’s jets coming right behind him. “Ugn….,” he said. He knew he was in serious trouble now.

            Dark Kat then looked up and saw the Trade Towers right there on path. “You’re too late, Z.O.E. I am in firing position.”

            “No!” Z.O.E. screamed as he jumped on Dark Kat’s back, knocking him away from the controls. 

            “Attention, enforcers. I need serious back up! Do you copy?!” T-Bone said as he broke away from the Fear Ship to evade any attacks from the jets.
            “Attention, SWAT Kat. This is Commander Feral.  Break away from the migs. I repeat, break away from the migs. We have them now,” Commander Feral said.

            T-Bone looked back and saw at least three enforcer squadrons of five planes each were right behind the migs engaging them. 

“Rock ‘n’ roll!” T-Bone shouted with a smile as he turned the jet back to 12’o clock to get on Dark Kat’s tail again.  He heard Razor groaning in the back.

            “Ugh, my body and head hurts,” Razor groaned as he started to waken. “T-T-Bone, what’s going on?”

            “Just hang on, buddy,” T-Bone said. “Z.O.E.’s on Dark Kat’s ship. He needs us to shoot it down.”

            Razor’s eyes went wide. “With him still on it.”

            The Fear Ship was heading off course now, back to the bay.

“Razor, shoot it down!” T-Bone said as he saw the Fear Ship moving out of the bay again towards the city.

            Dark Kat got up from Z.O.E. again and reset his course for the city. He then took out his handgun and pushed it against Z.O.E.’s head. He was enraged with this interference.  The enforcers were joining up now, and his migs were being shot down.

“Forget this fucking mission! You say hi to your brother for me!”

Z.O.E. looked at Dark Kat angrily.  He closed his eyes, waiting for the shot to come.

            Razor fired at least eight turbo blades towards the Fear Ship’s wings. “May God forgive me,” Razor said sadly. 

The turbo blades hit the wings, clipping them, causing the Fear Ship to start to plummet towards the bay.

            The sudden plummet made Dark Kat fall away from Z.O.E. into the control panel. The force of the plane’s plummet caused Dark Kat to be pinned downwards.

 Z.O.E. pushed his claws into the floor, trying to climb upwards.  The plane hit the water going deep into the bay. Z.O.E. heard the water rushing. His eyes went wide.  He looked back at Dark Kat, who was just getting up.  He smiled at him.

“I hope you can swim, Dark Kat.”

            Dark Kat’s face was more white than purple now when he saw the rushing water pouring in through the door.  Within minutes, the whole cockpit was flooded, making Dark Kat and Z.O.E. completely underwater.

Z.O.E. started to swim upwards, trying to get to the cockpit. He started to try to kick it with his foot. But, it wouldn’t budge.  He knew he couldn’t stand much longer underwater. He closed his eyes and said, “Here I come, brother.”

But then, he looked up and saw the hole that he had made earlier.  He swam upwards and got through it, pushing upwards with his arms, trying to get up above the surface. As soon as he reached the surface, he let out a huge breath, sucking in the air.

Suddenly, he felt a large grip on his leg and was pulled back into the water again by Dark Kat.  Z.O.E. squirmed, trying to get away from Dark Kat’s grip. He pushed his way back up to the surface, gulping for air once again.

Dark Kat rose up with him to the surface, coughing hard, trying to get the bay water out of his body.  He picked Z.O.E. up by the chest and then slammed his head against the other kat’s, making Z.O.E. totally unconscious. Then, Dark Kat started to swim away.

T-Bone saw the struggle in the water and flew the TurboKat over.  Using the grappling hook, he picked up Z.O.E.’s unconscious body and pulled him inside the jet to a place of safety.  He landed the jet on the docks of the harbor.

Z.O.E. coughed, regaining consciousness once again and looked around. T-Bone helped him out of the TurboKat, and then he got Razor.

An ambulance pulled up near them a little later, and paramedics helped Razor with his wound. 

T-Bone smiled at Z.O.E. “How you feeling?”

            “I feel better,” Z.O.E. smiled.

            “Thank you,” T-Bone said.  He watched the paramedics put Razor in the ambulance to take him to the hospital to treat his bullet wound. “I better go with him. You going to be okay?”

 

            Felina had given Z.O.E. a ride to the MegaKat graveyard; there about the 4^th burial lot, next to a huge white cross statue, was the gravesite of Sean Klawster. Felina stayed in the car to give Z.O.E. his privacy.

As Z.O.E. approached his brother’s grave, he removed his mask.  Tears were already pouring down his cheeks.  He looked down at the grave.

“Well, brother.  I feel so bad; this whole mess was my fault. I shouldn’t have forced you into joining me in the mission with Dark Kat. You know it wasn’t any good but your love for me that made you stay by my side like a true brother.  I miss you, Sean.  I just hope that you forgive me, little bro.  One day I will be able to be with you again. But not yet, not yet,” Patrick smiled. 

As he wiped the tears from his eye, he looked up into the morning sky and smiled a little.  He knew now that there was hope for him.  He walked back towards Felina’s car, leaving his mask on the gravestone.