The Failure Files of Dr. Viper
By AJ Siytangco and Tim Wehrer

Oh, yeah, Authors' Note: Everyone we allude to here is a kat too.
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	"Tediusss." Dr. Viper mumbled when he woke from his bed.  He was
talking, of course, of his plan to rid himself of the SwatKats.  He
had just stolen katalysts 192, 193 and 196 last night, plus 194, 195
and 197 the night before.  He rose from his bed, which was a thick
patch of moss and mutated slimy plants of his own making, and
surveyed his lab.
	He was in an old abandoned library building in the slums of
Megakat City.  It was the section of the city which was closed of
when a great fire occured months ago. Almost the entire block was
consumed.  No one ever returned preferring instead to start new
lives.  Some books still survived and were scattered aroud the room.
	It suited Viper just dandy, the feel of decadence, the smell of
overflowing sewers and rotting garbage.  It was all he  really ever
wanted to turn the entire city into.
	But the SwatKats always got in the way.  
	He looked out the window to gaze on the trash and filth in the
street.  Instead he heard a roar of a jet that made him turn his gaze
upward.  It was the Turbokat.  No doubt the Swatkats were on their
routine patrol.
	Viper approached his closet and grabbed some chemicals with his
hands and tail.  He went over to his makeshift work table and set
them down, his mind already spinning with countless ideas.
	"What I need are some asisssstantssss." He mumbled to himself out
of irritation from the time needed to make good his plans.  Then it
hit him, and he slapped hit forehead.  "Of course! Assssistantssss!
Why didn't I think of that before?"
	He rememberd when he was still the lowly assistant Purvis working
for Dr. Zyme at Megakat Biochemical Labs, and realized how important
assistants were.  Zyme would never have developed the viper mutagen
without his help.
	He looked around for something to use.  What would make a worthy
assistant?  He really didn't have much of a variety to choose from.
He had his plants, but the last time they didn't turn out so well.
Then he had the cockroaches.  The building he was in was a virtual
Shangri-La for cockroaches.  He could also use a rat or two from the
sewers.  
	No, a plant would do well enough.
	He left the building and worked his way to the botanical garden
at the end of the street.  Once there he saw it was the same story as
the rest of the block. Partially burned walls, a completely absent
ceiling, and hardly a plant remaining.  Except, he found, one lone
bonsai plant.  
	He exited the building and walked toward the manhole.  It was
without a cover, so he slithered in and went around.  His eyes
adjusted to the darkness almost instantly, the smell giving him a
natural high.  He spotted his new monster a few meters away and
bounded toward it.  He caught it in one clean swipe.
	The rat was squirming in his grasp as he emerged from the sewers
and entered the library.  He dropped the rat in a jar and proceded to
mix the necessary chemicals.
	"Soon, little one..." He said, "I only need the proper cerebral
enhancement formula and in a matter of hours you will have the
pleasure of being my latest creation."  A drop a green fluid here, a
dab of an orange fluid there, and just a pinch of powdered katalyst
100, which he always kept stock of.
	He opened the jar a little and poured in his concoction, the rat
inside licking and slurping it hungrily.  "Yesss.  Drink up my filthy
friend.  drink up..."  He closed the jar and went back to the closet
for some breakfast.  He looked in and was a bit dismayed.  "That's
the problem of living in a city infested with kats.  Nothing to steal
but tuna fish."  He took out a can anyway and opened it.

	
	After breakfast he still had about two hours to go before the rat
would emerge a killing machine.  He usually made them savage,
mindless beasts but today he figured on making one actually capable
with keeping up with the Swatkats by giving his creature some brains.
	He took a test tube and flled it with katalyst 196.  He swirled
it aroud a bit, admiring it.  He then filled a beaker half-way with
another reddish fluid.  He mixed the two and swirled the resulting
formula again.  He heated it on top of his stolen bunsen burner for a
few minutes then poured it directly on the bonsai plant.  "You will
soon be my new assistant, and help me destroy the Swatkats. Ha! Ha!
Ha! Ha!"
	He stopped himself from laughing too much and began to mix his
new formula.  This one would take a while to finish, so he got
started.  Before he knew it it was lunchtime, and he suffered through
another can on tuna.
	Being bored out of his wits and tired from laughing so many
times, Dr. Viper slipped off to sleep while his formula cooled down.
He woke to see the glass jar broken, and the rat, though still asleep
from the formula, already six feet long and growing.  It's
proportions had also changed, becomming, more but not quite,
kat-like.
	"Alas, poor Yorick.  I knew him, Horatio."  Viper heard from
behind him.  It had the moderation and feeling of a true and
passionate actor.  He looked around but saw no one. 
	Then he heared it again, this time with even more feeling. "Alas
poor Yorick.  I knew him, Horatio.  A fellow of infinite jest."  He
turned and almost had a stroke from what he saw.  The bonsai plant,
standing regally in it's pot, an empty can of tuna held up in one of
it's branches.  
	"What are you doing!?" Viper screamed at the top of his lungs.
The bonsai, startled, turned toward viper.  It had grown deep-set,
expressive eyes and a mouth. 
	"May I ask what it is exactly you mean?" it said cordially.
	"What are you doing!?" Viper repeated.
	"I am practicing my Shakespear, dear sir."
	Viper could only scream again.
	"My, my.  It seems that someone is rather touchy today.  And of
very few words."
	"I made you to be my assistant!  Why in the world are you reading
Shakespear!?" Viper's eyes were wide.
	"Why not?" The bonsai plant's nonchalant, nature was irritating
to Viper. "Shakespear is one of our worlds greatest writers.  It is
only fitting that I perform his plays.  Is there a problem?"
	"Yes!"
	"Oh? Perhaps  Samuel Beckett then.  Or maybe an Andrew Loyd
Webber musical?  *ahem* Oh, What a circus! Oh What a show!"
	"No! No! No!" Viper was furious.
	"No?" The bonsai expanded what would pass as a chest, "Camelot!
Camelot!  In far of France I hear you call! Camelot! Camelot! To you
alone I give my all! I know in my..."
	"Stop it!"
	"I know it's not Webber, but it's a wonderful play."
	"You're supposed to be assissssting me in my plans to destroy the
Swatkats!  Not auditioning for a lead role!"
	"And who, pray tell, are these Swatakats?"
	"They're the ones who are always foiling my plans to take over
Megakat city!"  Viper raised his arms and stared at the bonsai, who
bent back a bit.
	"Oh, no sir, not me.  These branches aren't for lab work.  These
branches are for the stage!"
	Viper dropped his arms and lowered his head in a pose of failure.
He gathered himself and brought his eyes centimeters from the
bonsai's.  "You will help me." He emphasized "will."
	"I will not, dear sir."
	Just as Viper raised his hand he caught the rat stir out of the
corner of his eye.  He looked it's way and the rat was getting up.
It was terrifying.  It stood almost seven feet tall.  It's claws were
razor sharp and at least five inches long.  It's fangs were pearl
white and sparkled.  And to top it all of, he had the look of a
drunkard in his round, unfocused eyes.
	Viper realized something was wrong and approached his would be
Hunter-killer.  The rat burped a burp so incredibly foul that Viper
staggered back supressing a gag reflex.  He stumbled back to the
table where the bonsai stood.
	"It's drunk!" Viper declared.
	"Big surprise." The bonsai was sarcastic.
	"What could have happened?  Where could I have gone wrong?"
	"Maybe you should've taken a left turn at Albacorquey."  
	Viper ignored his irritating visitor and produced a syringe.
"I'll draw some blood.  Maybe this condition is treatable." He
cautiously approached the rat and stuck the needle in.  It was so
drunk it didn't even notice.
	When Viper was done he placed the blood in a petrie dish and
proceded to run some tests.  The rat had colappsed on the floor and
the Bonsai was reciting lines from Henry V.
	"Curses!" Viper said, interrupting the bonsai.  "This creature
produces it's own alcohol.  It's perpetually drunk!  It's useless to
me!"  He tossed the petrie dish.  The bonsai dodged it.
	"I wish my horse had the speed of your tounge." It quoted
Benedict from 'Much Ado About Nothing'.
	"Shut up!"  The day wasn't going as planned. I'm going out for
some more specimenssss.  You stay here.  And when I get back, I want
to see you assisting!"  With that he stormed out of the buildig.
	The bonsai stared at him then fell into thought when Viper was
out of sight.  He glanced at the formula Viper was letting cool and
developed a gleam in his eye.


	Viper was not happy, not at all.  Normally he'd have a reason to
laugh, but he hadn't laughed since he left the lab a half-hour ago.
He returned to the botanical garden to look for some more specimens.
No such luck.  He decided to swing over to Megakat Fisheries to find
something to experiment on.  No luck there either, all the boats were
out to capitalize on a sudden increase of tuna, which were usually in
low numbers this time of year.
	As luck would have it on his way back he came across a novelty
pet store.  He was practically invisible in the darkness of the alley
where the back door of the shop was.  Once inside he silently
slithered about.  The owner was outside talking to someone.  He moved
quickly and noislessly.  He poured a few drops of  clear liquid on a
school of ppirranahs and seconds later the pirranahs sank to the
bottom of the aquarium one by one.  Viper swiped one and slithered
back out.  The owner came in, and stared in confusion at the
seemingly dead pirranahs.  If it were any other fish he would've just
plucked them out and thrown them a way but he wasn't taking any
chanes with a fish that can strip a skeleton in about five minutes.
He went to his counter to call the vet.
	Using the sewer system, Viper made it back to his lab in minutes.
There was no traffic in a sewer.  He walked into the door of the
library and immediately looked for the bonsai.
	"Back! Back, foul hellspawn!" The bonsai raised it's branches to
Viper as if to push him away.  Viper would've told it to shut up but
it wouldn't have obeyed anyway.  
	"Watch it." He just warned.  
	"I do say, still touchy?"
	Viper ignored it.  The rat was still on the floor, drunk as ever.
Viper let down his latest haul on the table and looked at the formula
he let cool.   
	He poured the formula into a jar and then dumped in his newly
acquired pirranah into it.  Then he tore of a handfull of his mutated
moss and tossed it in as well.  The mixture began to froth and bubble
until finally he couldn't see through it anymore.
	The high pitched note came as no surprise to him.  Surely it was
the bonsai. The acapella that followed was a surprise.  This time he
was almost sure he would have a coronary.  He turned around anyway,
and sure enough, it wasn't just the bonsai on the table. Beside it
were half-a-dozen little mushrooms, singing a verse from the Marriage
of Figaro.
	Viper clutched his chest.
	"How do you like my new singing group?" The bonsai asked moving
his branches like a conductor.  "I whipped up another batch of that
stuff you made to make me.  I absorbed everything through my roots so
I know what that gunk you poured on me was made of."
	Viper hurled a beaker toward the bonsai but it evaded again.  The
mushrooms were quiet now, huddled in fear near the bonsai.  
	"Now that was totally uncalled for.  If you didn't like the song,
all you needed to do was say so.  These fellows are very versatile.
They can do Senatra as well." 
	Viper needed to lie down and so he did.  A few minutes later, the
bubbling jar exploded, spewing slippery liquid and glass all around.
Where it once stood was an odd looking creature.  Not quite a plant
and not quite a fish, it had features of both.  It moved around on
it's roots, using them as legs.  It had leaves which it used as arms,
and right in the middle of its flower was a mouth filed with teeth.
It had the same hue of a red belly pirranah. 
	"What are you looking at?" It snapped at Viper.
	"Your magnificent!" Viper exclaimed, moving closer to inspect the
latest product of his tinkering.  
	"Magnificent?  Me, magnificet?  I'm a mess.  I don't know what
the heck I am.  How can you say I'm magnificent?"
	Viper had the gut feeling that this one wasn't going to go any
better than his previous attempts at concocting monsters for his
plans.
	"Come now, " The bonsai hopped over to the pirranah plant.  "I
know you must be feeling down and out, being the only one of your
kind and all.  But you must realize there are a great many things in
this world which can help make you happy.  Care to join my singing
group?"
	"Singing group?  No.  Music always shifts from one trend to
another.  It'll all be useless in three months."
	"No, no, no, dear boy." The bonsai shook his trunk.  "We'll be
doing classical peices.  Music which has stood the test of time!  You
are a barritone, correct?  We are in need of a barritone."
	"At thisss rate I'll never be able to take over the city..."
Viper told himself under his breath, but loud enough to be caught by
the pirranah plant.
	"Take over the city?" it said, "Why bother.  In a few hundred
years it'll all crumble to dust anyway."  Viper didn't bother to
reply to that remark.  There was no use reasoning with things with
that kind of flawed logic.  He turned around and headed out the door.
It would be night soon, maybe he could find another place to hole up
for a while.  Maybe his experiments will turn out better in the
morning.


	"Whatcha watchin, Jake?" Chance asked as he tossed a can of milk
to his buddy sprawled out on the couch.  
	"David Litterbin.  You should come see this, he's got some great
guests."  Jake turned up the volume as Chance took his place beside
him.
	"Tell us about your group." David Litterbin requested his guest.
The bonsai smiled and answered cordially, his branches revealing his
prim and propper manner.
	"You see, Dave," It said, "We're a singing group.  We've already
signed a contract with Loudkat records for a five album deal."
	Chance flipped the switch to go to his favorite cartoon.  "That
Litterbin has gotten stranger and stranger ever since he guested that
crook Ringtail."  He upped the volume.
	"Yeah." Jake got up to get a slice of pizza from the fridge. "But
his ratings have never been higher."