Chapter One- A forgotten Cat

"Annette please just one little freebee I promise I'll pay you back!" begged Train for about the fifty-billionth time. The bar-maid sighed.

"Train, this isn't like some place you can come and grab freebees whenever you like! It's a business you know, and I'm not stinking rich. If you can't pay for food go get yourself a job."

"Aww c'mon I haven't had any milk in days! And I can't get a bounty when I'm this hungry..."

Sven looked at him sceptically. "Train, you've already had about four bottles of milk today."

"Yes, I saw you buy them." Said Eve without looking up from her enormous book titled "The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes"

There was a pause, and then Train looked round at Sven and Eve with his golden eyes looking betrayed. "Hey, you said you'd back me up!"

"Err, what, ah, no I didn't!" Sven said alarmed, but also sounding unmistakeably guilty. Why did he agree to this? Because he was starving, and there had been no bounties big enough to bother grabbing in what felt like months.

"Sven did, but I did not." said Eve in a monotone. Annette's frown grew deeper as she glared at Train and Sven. Honestly, it's just pathetic, she thought, just as Train's stomach gave a particularly loud grumble. "Well I'm not giving you any food until you pay for it, so you might as well just get off your lazy butts and earn something." Annette put out her cigarette and turned away from them, signifying that the conversation was over.

Train groaned, and muttered a little too loudly "I'm sooooo hungry..."

"At this rate, I won't be able to afford my smokes..." said Sven, a sound of dread in his voice.

"Maybe if you hadn't blurted out about the milk we would have some food..." Train said in an undertone.

"You eat too much anyway..." Sven looked over at the wall where all the posters of bounties were to check if he'd missed something. No luck. The highest bounty was still a low thousand. He sighed, lit another cigarette and turned back to his paper.

"So Princess, what's that book ya reading?" asked Train, who had finished groaning after the attempts to guilt Annette into giving them food had failed.

"It is the "Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes."" Eve replied. Although she had cut it just three months ago, her blonde hair had grown back to its trademark long length at an unusually fast rate.

"Oh cool." Said Train, at the same time thinking: Whoa, that book looks hard... Eve suddenly gasped and buried her head in the book further.

"What's up?"

"A plot twist!" said Eve excitedly, who was now reading the book very fast. Train turned to Sven, "Maybe we should just try and drag in a low pay, I'd do anything for food right now..."

"Yeah, maybe" Sven replied, getting up off the stool and walking over to the bounty wall. He reluctantly took the one worth a thousand, at the same time thinking: We're gonna need a heck of a lot more money than this if we're gonna pay off all our debts... The guy was just a petty thief, hadn't really done much other than nick a stash of wallets and a couple of computers, but what the hell, they needed the money...

"Well, I'm off to get this chicken feed..." He said unenthusiastically as he headed for the door and out the sweepers cafe

"Don't want any help then?"

"Nah, no need with a bounty this low..." Train shrugged and went back to complaining about his never ending hunger, hoping Annette would finally feel some sympathy.

No luck. Sven had spent about two hours wandering aimlessly around the busiest parts of town where the most pick-pocketing happened, but hadn't found the bounty. He sighed, and was just about to call it a day and go back to the sweepers cafe when he heard a voice behind him yelling "HEY GET OUT OF THE WAY!" and a girl with short dark brown hair that came to her chin, that was almost black but not quite, ran past him at such an astonishing speed Sven thought she could give Train a run for his money, almost knocking him over. Sven almost yelled at her to watch it, but then remembered that wouldn't be a very gentleman like thing to do. The girl, still running, looked over her shoulder to where he was standing. Her large bright-blue eyes saw he looked slightly ruffled by the way she barged past him, she yelled "Sorry!" apologetically then turned back quickly to carry on running. "What the hell was all that about?" Sven thought as she sped away from him. It was then that Sven noticed the clothes she was wearing. They were pyjamas. What? Why would someone wear pyjamas in public? They were a pale plain green and the girl was barefooted. "What the-"Sven began to think when he heard another voice behind him: "Patient one-hundred-and-sixteen get back here now!" He turned around to see a woman wearing a white coat, and looking very breathless trying to catch up with the girl. "So she's a patient in a hospital?" he thought, "Well I guess that would explain her strange choice of clothes... but why is she running?" The girl in the pyjamas looked over her shoulder in alarm, and seeing the woman yelling at her, immediately picked up her pace, if that was possible

Sven noticed that people were beginning to stare at the girl and a crowd was gathering to see what all the shouting and commotion was about.

"Can someone-can someone please-"gasped the woman Sven thought must be a doctor as she paused for breath, "someone catch her?" It looked like she had been chasing the girl for a while, and she looked completely breathless as she gasped for air. Some people started running after the girl, creating a line of people in the long street blocking the way forward. One person made a grab for her, but the girl dodged the attempt effortlessly despite the speed of the attack. "Fast reflexes huh..." Sven thought as he began to run after her too. He wasn't sure who he was rooting for, the girl or the people trying to catch her, but he wanted to find out what was going on. Another man made a grab for her, this one looking very big and burly and had a perverted look on his face that gave more than a hint that he wasn't trying to catch her to help out the doctor trying to chase her. The girl, sensing this, immediately kicked him full in the face, causing the man to fall backwards. The girl landed on her feet and made it to the line of people barricading the street and jumped in the air, did a graceful somersault over the line (causing several people to gasp) and continued running away, turning back to say (almost gleefully, Sven thought) "Later!" And then she turned a corner, and was gone. The crowd of onlookers stared at the spot where they had last seen her in awe for a few moments. "Why is she in a hospital again, exactly?" wondered Sven, thinking of the somersault she did in the air. Suddenly, someone came to their senses and yelled "Catch her!" It was another doctor, who was running towards the direction the girl had looked like she was headed. The first doctor Sven saw finally managed to regain her breath and started running too. However, most of the onlookers, apart from about five, began to disperse from the crowd, not wanting to get too involved. Sven considered the situation: "Well, the two doctors seem innocent enough; you can tell they're just worried about her health... But why is that girl even in a hospital anyway? She doesn't look like she's got anything wrong with her... unless she's a mental patient or something... or too violent to be allowed in public. She did kick that guy pretty hard, although that was self defence... Is there any point in me getting involved? Is it really any of my business?" Finally, Sven's curiosity got the better of him, and he took off after the girl, not round the corner like everybody else, but down a side street. He twisted round corners and almost knocked people over as he rushed around aimlessly, until he was running through empty alley ways. He thought he could hear light footsteps and the sound of a girl's heavy breathing over the shouts of people looking for her. Sven turned around another corner and saw the girl in the dark, shadowed street. She was leaning against the wall and beads of sweat were visible on her face. She didn't notice Sven, but quickly silenced her gasps for air when she heard footsteps coming towards her, and she looked alert and ready.

"Maybe I should ask her what's going on around here..." Sven thought, and he began to say "Hey, do you think you could tell me-"but the girl whipped round, startled. Where the heck did he come from? And why is his hair green? She quickly put her hand over his mouth and whispered urgently: "Shhh! You'll blow my cover!"

Sven, being a gentleman, did as she asked and stayed silent, although he couldn't help but feel more than a little bewildered at the situation. Suddenly the girl grabbed his hand- "Run!" She said, and then tore down the passage, pulling Sven along with her. Sven was so surprised he ran with her, wondering if maybe she was an Olympic sprinter. "Man, maybe she's faster than Train..." he wondered, hardly believing such a feat was possible.

They ran nonstop for about five minutes until they came to a halt in a less busy part of town by a fountain, Sven gasping for breath, and the girl standing still, her head cocked to one side as if she was listening for something. Satisfied that they were well away from the people looking for her, she turned to Sven and said desperately "Please you can't tell anybody you know I'm here! I've been trying to get away from them for ages, and when I tried to make a break for it someone saw and ran after me! Please don't tell them, I'll go back I promise, I just haven't left that hospital since I got there and no-one visits me or anything so I thought I'd just go outside..." The girl said this all very quickly and without taking a single breath. She quickly breathed in and said "Please you've got to promise me you won't tell anybody!"

"Err, OK I won't tell anyone." He answered,

"Swear it on your favourite food!"

"My err, what?" Asked Sven,

"If you break the promise you have to sacrifice eating your favourite food forever." The girl stated matter-of-factly.

"Err... I swear upon never drinking beer again that I won't reveal your location."

"Thank you" the girl said gratefully, and gave him an enormous smile. "Man, this girl is weird..." thought Sven. The silence passed between them and Sven stared at the girl. He decided to break it in what was probably the stupidest way ever: "Say, do you want an ice-cream?" Wait, no now I sound like a paedophile! And even if she says yes, what then? I'm just getting myself into more debts again... I know it's just an ice-cream but still... For a few moments, Sven stood awkwardly, not sure what to say next.

"Sure!"

"Huh?" Sven said, suddenly brought out from his internal panicking,

"I'd love an ice-cream!" The girl looked so immensely happy about this tiny little thing that Sven didn't have the heart to tell her he was completely broke. They went to a nearby ice-cream stall (whose owner looked at the girl, slightly baffled by her strange choice of clothes) and bought one milk-flavoured ice-cream for her and one mint for him. They sat down on the wall surrounding the fountain and began to eat.

"This is the best ice-cream ever!" said the girl, the big smile back on her face. "Is she always this happy? Come to think of it, this is kind of déjà-vu... Didn't I buy Eve an ice-cream the first time I met her?"

Then Sven remembered why he had run after her in the first place.

"Say, would you mind telling me why you're even running away from a hospital? I mean, you don't look ill or anything."

The girl stayed silent for a moment, and then said quietly "Well, you see, I sorta have amnesia."