Chapter 1 - The New Guy

The sun peeked over the Junkyard and into the bedroom window. The light hit Chance right in the eyes and woke him up. The burly kat leaned up and stretched his arms, looking over to see Jake still fast asleep. A sound outside alerted the big kat, and he crept over to the window. He couldn’t believe what he saw. An enforcer police car and just driven into the junkyard and to the front of the shop.

What the? big kat thought. What are the enforcers doing here?

Chance walked over and quickly put on some jeans and a t-shirt. He then walked to his roommate and shook him till he woke.

“Uhh. I’m up, I’m up,” Jake said with a tired voice. “What. Is the city under attack again?”

“No, the enforcers just pulled up.”

“What!!” Jake said in surprise. “What do they want?”

“I don’t know,” Chance replied.

“You think they found out or something?”

“Only one way to find out. Hurry and get dressed. I’ll go check.”

With that, the big kat went down the stairs and into the shop.

There stood an enforcer officer and another kat behind him. The kat was young, roughly 19 or so. He had red fur with black stripes on his arms and was wearing jeans and a black shirt. In his hands was a large, black suitcase. He kept looking down and didn’t even bother to look when Chance came into the room.

“Can I help you?” Chance said with a yawn.

The enforcer saluted. “We have your new room mate here,” pointing to the kat.

“Roommate?”

“Yes sir, he’s here to pay his dept to the enforcers.”

“What debt?”

“He has recently done a serious amount of damage to the headquarters. I doubt you two could have done as bad as he did,” the enforcer said with a mocking smile.

“Ok, what’s his name?”

“He’s name is Tai Crimclaw. As I said, he will be staying here and fixing broken equipment to help pay for the damages.”

“Why here?”

“Where else are we going to dump trash like you guys?” the enforcer sneered. He looked down at his watch. “Sorry, I have to go. Make sure he works to the bone. I don’t think he will even be able to pay half the damages before he bites the big one.”

And with that, the enforcer left. Leaving Chance and the silent kat.

“ Jerk,” Chance said under his breath. He looked at the kat that hadn’t taken his eyes off the floor during the whole conversation. He walked up to him and stuck out his hand. “Hey, I’m Chance,” the burly kat said with a smile.

Tai looked up for a sec, Chance being able to see a lot of sadness in his eyes. The kat turned his eyes back to the floor.

“Hi,” he said in a soft tone.

Just then, Jake descended the stairs and saw Chance and Tai. “Hey, who’s this?” Jake said in a friendly voice.

“He’s some kat the enforcers just dropped off. They said his name’s Tai or something,” Chance replied.

“Why’d they put him here?”

“I don’t know, something about doing damage to their headquarters and working it off.”

“Wait, I saw that on the news yesterday. Half of the enforcer base was blown up.”

“Half of it! How did that happen?”

“I don’t know; there was some kind of explosion.”

“And, he did it!” Chance replied, pointing at Tai. “No wonder the guy said he’d never be able to pay it.”

“I DIDN’T MEAN TO, OK!!!!!” Tai’s voice boomed, startling the two.

“I.. I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Tai said as he started to shake. “It was an, an accident.”

“How did it..” Jake was cut off by the sound of the siren.

Chance and Jake both looked up, then at each other. Leaning over, Chance began to whisper, “Great, now what do we do?”

“We’ve gotta get rid of the kid.”

“Leave it to me,” Chance said with a suspicious smile. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his wallet and some money. Turning back to the red kat, “Hey Tai. We are kinda running out of food. Could you go to the store and get us some tuna?”

“And bread,” Jake added

“And milk,” Chance finished off, handing Tai the money.

Tai hesitated, but took the money. He set his bag to the side and exited the shop.

“Jeez, what’s with that kid?” Chance said after being sure Tai couldn’t hear.

“He’s probably having a hard time adjusting to this,” Jake replied as he went to answer the phone.

“What is it, Miss Briggs?” Jake said

“Razor, there has been a robbery at the old antique store.

Razor’s eyes started to widen. “You don’t mean…”

“Yes, Madkat is gone.”

With this, Jake dropped the phone and stared to the ground.

Chance walked over, curious. “What’s up?”

Jake turned his head, with a worried look on his face.

“Madkat’s escaped.”

Chance’s eyes shot wide and stared at Jake. He then picked up the phone and said, “We’ll go check the place out, Miss Briggs.”

“Ok, good luck guys.”

Chance hung up the phone and turned to Jake. “Come on, buddy, we gotta go before furball comes back.”

Jake looked at him. “You’re right, let’s go.”

They both ran down to the hangar and left.

Outside, Tai was walking down the sidewalk when a loud booming sound rocketed over him. He looked up to see a red and black jet fly over his head.

Probably another enforcer practice run, Tai thought.

He looked back down at the sidewalk. Thinking about his new friends.

I didn’t really make a good impression, he thought. I’ve never been good with meeting new people. You know, I think I’ll do something nice for them, he thought while looking at the money Chance gave him for groceries.

He then began to dig into his pockets and pulled out the money from his last paycheck. Looking to his left, he saw the fish market was still open. Hmm. Hehehe, he thought with a sinister smile.