(Oh my God! Two positive reviews in the first five hours that this is up?! *squeal*. . . Ahem. *stone face* Right, moving on. My effervescent thanks to Theivius Authorius for writing that wonderfully encouraging review, and that goes ditto for everyone who has reviewed, followed, and faved this so far. Seeing this kind of response has made staying up until 4 A.M. on a church Sunday finishing that first chapter SO worth it. Anyways, I hope you like this next installment. Disclaimer: SWAT Kats belongs to Hanna-Barbera. I only own the plot and the OC's. A'ight then, read on.)
By A Thread
Chapter 2: On the Other Side
*Megakat City*
Streetlights combated the thick shadows that tried to engulf the city. It was cool, and humidity filled the air with a light mist that formed halos around each light source. A clock tower in the heart of the city chimed eleven times beneath the rumble of thunder. Right after the bells quieted, the sound of three supersonic engines pierced the thick air as the sleek machine they powered flew over the buildings.
The black jet screamed through the night sky. Its red markings were visible even in the pitch black of the stormy dark, and its afterburners blazed pale blue. Great bolts of lightning forked through the thick clouds like magnesium flares, threatening to blind the two kats inside. Besides the sound of the engine, it was mostly silent in the cockpit until the cinnamon tom in back spoke up.
"It looks like we're in for another boomer tonight, T-Bone." The tom was dressed in a blue flight suit with a red harness. He also sported black fingerless gloves as well as a blue-and-red flight helmet. A black bandana covered his head and hid the upper half of his face.
The creamy, brown-striped tabby in front turned around to look at his gunner. "Yeah, I think you might be right, Razor. It's sure been one active monsoon season," he replied. The pilot was dressed similarly to Razor, except his flight suit had black lapels and short sleeves that showed off his striped, muscular arms.
They flew through the dark in quiet for a moment until something blipped on the radar. "Hey, T-Bone," Razor said, "I'm picking up some weird energy readings on the south side of the city, near the edge of Megakat City National Park."
"We're there," the pilot replied, banking the jet to the left and gunning the engine. "Can you tell what it is from here?"
Razor scanned his readings before answering cautiously, "I could be wrong, but it looks an awful lot like one of the Pastmaster's time vortexes."
"Crud!" T-Bone groaned. "In that case, buddy, I really hope you're wrong."
"That makes two of us, Hotshot," Razor mumbled.
The two toms had just reached the outskirts of the city when the storm finally opened up. Rain blanketed the cockpit, making it almost impossible for the burly tabby to see. "Have you still got a lock on that signal, Razor?" asked T-Bone.
Razor had kept an eye on the radar, and the blip was still showing clearly. "It should be right up-" he began. In that instant, the blip disappeared. "Wait—what happened?!" the gunner exclaimed. "It's gone!"
"Gone?" T-Bone put the jet's VTOL engines in hover mode and turned to look incredulously at his partner. "How can it be gone? I thought you had a clear lock on it, Sureshot."
Razor grimaced. "I did, and it should be right there in front of us," he growled, pointing forward for emphasis.
T-Bone spared a forward glance at the empty space in front of them before commenting drily, "This reminds of that time we almost wound up rescuing a bunch of bats instead of that reporter, Ann Gora."
Razor bristled a bit at the jab. "Maybe so, but this wasn't just a big heat signature. This was a powerful energy fluctuation across multiple wavelengths! My radar doesn't lie," he said a little defensively.
T-Bone barely noticed Razor's tone and asked, "Well, is your radar picking up anything else we need to check out here? Or can we head back to the hangar?"
Razor let go of his annoyance and checked the readout in front of him. "Well, there's nothing left of the first blip, but I'm picking up some faint readings down on the ground."
"I can't land the Turbokat in those trees," T-Bone informed him, referring to the jet by its name. "And you're not going down on the winch, not with this weather." Despite the Turbokat's steady hover, the wind was still whipping the rain hard against the cockpit and made it difficult to see.
The cinnamon tom replied, "And we can't use the dimensional radar, either. I don't want to risk it getting hit by lightning again."
T-Bone shuddered. "Yeah, once was enough. Let's not push it," the pilot groaned.
"Roger," Razor said, nodding his head. "In any case, whatever's down there isn't moving, and I'm not picking up any life-signs. I'll drop a locator beacon for now."
T-Bone gave a cocky smile. "Affirmative. First thing tomorrow, we'll come back for a closer look."
"Copy that." Razor dropped the activated beacon, and the two vigilantes took off once more to return to their secret hangar.
A faint heat signature flickered onto the radar screen. Razor caught it from the corner of his eye, but it went out before he could get a proper look at it. The tom shook his head and thought, Probably just a small animal.
The cinnamon tom had a niggling suspicion and almost wanted to ask to turn back, but he knew that T-Bone's earlier assessment was right. There was no way to safely investigate the site in this weather. So, Razor decided to let the issue rest until tomorrow when they came back. It would do neither of them any good to speculate tonight.
Whatever it was I picked up on the radar, we'll deal with it, the gunner reassured himself.
The very first thing Sarah became aware of when she came to was a splitting headache.
Groaning aloud, she kept her eyes closed and gritted her teeth against the pain. It was like someone had successfully driven an ice-pick right between her eyes. She was too warm and sweating into her clothes under the layers of shielding in the environment suit. Everything about her body felt . . . weird.
A wave of nausea hit Sarah and prompted her to seek fresh oxygen. Her hands felt partially numb, but she managed to wrap them around her head covering and slip it off along with the empty oxygen mask. After tossing that aside and rolling onto her back, Sarah unzipped her suit and just lay there breathing slowly. Many smells were making their way to her nose, but she didn't bother naming them. Sarah just took a moment to appreciate the fact that she was alive.
Once she got the nausea under control, Sarah tried opening her eyes. She winced as the light nearly blinded her, so she kept them narrowed to slits until her vision could adjust. Sounds were starting to register as well, such as the chirping of birds and the buzzing of insects.
But the headache really was making things difficult. Ugh. Either I hit my head, or falling through that vortex has caused me permanent brain damage.
Sarah scoffed at the thought and felt her ear flick in annoyance. Hold the phone! she thought in alarm, all fogginess abruptly gone from her head. My ear flicked? Since when does my ear move like that?
Sarah raised her hand to brush it against the side of her head, and to her consternation her ear was not where it should be. All she felt there was fur.
Another noise from nearby made her ear flick again, allowing her to locate it closer to the top of her head. Sarah curiously ran her fingers over the fuzzy, triangular appendage. At that moment, she also noticed that she could only feel four fingers.
Sarah forced her eyes fully open, blinking against the blurry lights, and held her hands out in front of her face. When they finally came into focus, she gasped.
The gloves she had been wearing had been ripped away at some point, revealing that her hands only had three fingers and a thumb. It was like her pinky had disappeared. To top it off, her hands were also covered in fur! Her fingers were orange-gold while the main part of her hand was a dark coffee brown. The tips of her fingers and the palm of her hand had soft black pads like an animal's paw.
Sarah stared at her hands for a moment. They were damp for some reason, and drops of moisture clung to the fur like dew on grass. "What the—" She cut off her sentence when she felt the way her mouth moved.
Putting her hands to her face, Sarah took stock of her new metamorphosis. Her whole jaw felt so much longer. Her nose could probably be considered a muzzle now, and the sensitive whiskers on either side of it twitched when she touched them. The freakiest part had to be the teeth, though. When Sarah ran her flat, rough tongue over her teeth, she could hardly believe that she had actual fangs sticking out from her upper and lower jaws. They were maybe an inch long, thin, and needle sharp.
"What the hell happened to me?" Sarah asked herself. She cast her eyes around looking for any clues and noticed that she was in a wooded area. There were dapples of orange-gold light seeping through the leafy canopy above.
As she tried to sit up, Sarah finally noticed something attached to her lower back. She quickly freed her torso from the badly torn environment suit. Whatever had been bunched up against her rear end came free and seemed to move of its own volition. Sarah could feel it as it swung behind her and thought disbelievingly, Oh, dear God, don't tell me I grew a tail, too! She dared a look over her shoulder and saw the long, smooth, striped tail swishing back and forth. She could feel the light impact it made as it thumped against the ground.
Out of curiosity, Sarah tried to control the tail, but this quickly proved considerably more difficult than she would have thought. She had no idea how to keep it still. Even when she caught the end of it with her hand, it slipped out of her grasp as if it were playing with her. Sarah realized how ridiculous it was to be sitting here in another dimension literally chasing her tail. She chuckled quietly and gave up on controlling her tail for now. At least the hole it had made in her leather pants wasn't large enough to reveal anything.
Sighing in resignation, the young engineer started to stand up but was forced back down to the ground when a sharp twinge of pain came from her feet. When she looked down at them, Sarah threw up her hands and snorted as if to say, 'Of course.'
Sticking out from gaping holes in her running sneakers were three large, orange-gold toes also tipped with curved black claws. The rest of her feet were being squeezed to death by what remained of her footwear, so she impatiently yanked them off.
Sarah rose unsteadily to her feet while her headache continued to pound steadily behind her eyes. She rubbed them briefly with the heels of her hands and started to walk towards the tiny clearing just a few feet ahead.
When she reached it, Sarah gasped at the sight before her. The robotic arm—or what was left of it—lay in pieces in a crater at the opposite edge of the ten-foot oval clearing. The probe was lying just a few feet away from it. Sarah picked her way towards the latter, being mindful of any metal fragments that might cut her, and kneeled down to look at it. While the robotic arm was clearly beyond repair, there was the possibility that something could be salvaged from the probe.
But, as soon as she turned the probe over in her hands, it became clear that was a fool's errand. The unfortunate probe's steel cage had buckled in, allowing something to shear off a good-sized chunk of the processing center. Sarah could see the badly damaged chip among the exposed guts of the probe. Almost every wire she could see was blackened, leading her to believe that the probe's main chip had short-circuited itself after sustaining damage. Shorted-out wires could be difficult, but corrupted data was next to impossible to fix without proper equipment.
Sarah sighed heavily and unceremoniously dropped the now-useless probe. She shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her enlarged nose, trying to alleviate her pounding headache. Just as Sarah opened them again, she noticed something she hadn't before.
A small red-and-blue object lay just at the edge of the clearing. There was a small green LED light blinking on top. It looked like a beacon of some sort, but Sarah wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.
It took a moment for her aching brain to catch up. But when it did, Sarah leapt to the conclusion that someone else had already been here and planned to return. I need to get out of here, she thought immediately. The urge to simply be away had come on quite strongly, and at the moment, Sarah's head and gut were both in agreement. She looked around for a way out and saw the multitude of trees surrounding the clearing. The idea of climbing one and using the height advantage to get her bearings popped into Sarah's thoughts.
She picked out a tall tree at the edge of the grassy clearing. Grabbing the first branch in reach, she hauled herself up and started to climb. Her claws had an immediate effect, digging into the tree bark and giving her a more secure foothold. It was an odd sensation, but not an uncomfortable one. The claws in her fingers instinctively came out as she reached for the next branch. They were longer than her toe-claws, but just as sharp. Sarah looks at them and flexes her fingers experimentally. They retract and extend with no effort and barely a sound. The young engineer smirked to herself then continued on her climb.
After a surprisingly short amount of time, Sarah reached a place above the tree line where she could see for miles around. A beam of light directly to her left caused Sarah to cry out and forced her to shield her eyes while her headache took vengeance on the front of her brain. Once the pounding was reduced again, Sarah lowered her hand to look around. When she did, she almost managed to forget about her headache and everything else with it.
The bright yellow sun was set low on the horizon and had turned the sky a beautiful shade of gold with fiery bands of orange and pink sweeping towards the opposite horizon. The puffy clouds in the sky had turned a shade of grayish-blue and were lined with a bright rosy pink where the sun's rays touched it. As Sarah's gaze traveled away from the gilded scene, it settled on several rectangles of reflected gold not too far away.
Her eyes widened as she realized she was staring at the outline of a city! Numerous skyscrapers dotted the space above the treeline. One building in particular stood above them all like a sentinel tower. And judging by their size, they couldn't be more than a mile or two away. There was a brisk wind blowing towards the city, but even so she could make out the muffled sounds of traffic and sirens.
Sarah looked back towards the sun. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to calculate how much time she had before sunset, but then she realized it was just as likely to be sunrise at this point. Snorting at the slowness of her brain, Sarah thought out her options thoroughly this time.
Only two viable ones presented themselves. She could stay where she was and wait for whoever placed that beacon to come back and find her, but that ran the risk of bringing up some very complicated questions that Sarah wasn't sure she was even capable of answering. Not to mention, there was the risk of being imprisoned, interrogated, and possibly institutionalized. Sarah was 100% certain that she would be dealing with an advanced sentient race in this dimension. Whether or not they would be sympathetic to her plight was a whole other can of worms.
Her second option was to make a run for the city and civilization at the risk of encountering anything else that was dangerous in the woods. Sarah thought about it for a moment and realized that her only sensible choice was to run for it. She had a deep feeling in her gut that she would be in this place for a long time, and she needed to get the lay of the land.
So, with her mind made up, Sarah climbed back down to the ground and began a steady jog in the direction of the city. With any luck, it would bring her some small measure of salvation.
T-Bone held the Turbokat steady as Razor descended towards the beacon on the winch cable. It was currently 7:10 AM, and both toms were already thinking of what may have transpired while they waited for last night's weather to clear.
As he was reeled beneath the canopy, Razor immediately spotted evidence of the activity he had spotted on his radar. In the tiny clearing where he had placed the locator beacon was what appeared to be a smashed-up machine of some kind. Once his feet touched the ground, Razor went a little closer to investigate. As he picked his way through the debris, the lithe tom was able to determine that he was looking at the remains of a large robotic arm. Nearby lay a badly done-in spherical object encased in its own metallic exoskeleton.
Razor reached up to hit the button on his helmet radio. "T-Bone, do you copy?"
"Loud and clear, partner. See anything down there?"
"Affirmative," Razor stated. "There's a badly damaged robotic arm as well as something I'm not sure how to identify yet."
T-Bone asked, "Do you want to take it back to the hangar and see if you can try to get anything from this stuff?"
"I think it's our best option for finding out what we're dealing with."
The pilot nodded to himself and said, "Roger. Lowering magnetic claw."
The magnetic claw they had built extended down from the jet and locked onto the largest portion of the robotic arm. As T-Bone began to lift it into the bomb bay of the jet, Razor went over the sphere and tucked it under his arm. Just as he was about to grab onto the cable that had lowered him, the tom spotted something on the ground.
There were faint footprints in the dirt of the clearing. The tracks led from the clearing to someplace ahead. Razor contacted T-Bone on his radio. "Heads up, pal. I've got tracks down here."
T-Bone was immediately on alert. "What kind of tracks, Razor?"
"Definitely a kat. They were barefoot," he said as he squatted down to look more closely, "and they were here very recently. An hour ago at most." Razor let his eyes travel towards the edge of the clearing where the tracks originated from. As he got up, he followed the tracks until he saw the pile of torn fabric a few feet into the trees. Next to it lay a full-face hood that housed an oxygen mask, and Razor also saw a pair of white sport sneakers with their toes shredded.
Razor reached up for his radio again. "Bad news, T-Bone. It looks like Megakat City's got an unexpected guest."
T-Bone cursed under his breath, then asked, "You're sure there was just one?"
Razor picked up the fabric with his free hand. It was very thick and coated in plastic, and he realized it must have been a hazmat suit. "Yeah, I'm sure. And, judging by the condition of this protective suit, they had a pretty rough ride." He released the remains of the suit and glanced again at the oxygen mask and shoes.
"Where do you think they might have gone, in either case?" There was an edge of concern in T-Bone's voice for both their visitor and any other kats they might come into contact with.
Razor looked at the tracks again and replied, "Well, as far as I can tell, our visitor took off in a hurry towards the city. At least, that would be the intelligent thing to do," he added as an afterthought.
"Right, but it's going to be tough to keep a lookout for something that may look like any other kat, though." T-Bone didn't sound particularly optimistic.
Razor was silent for a minute then tried to reassure his partner. "The best we can do is keep our eyes peeled, buddy. Something's bound to pop up sooner or later."
T-Bone snorted. "Yeah, sure. What's one more strange needle in this freaky haystack?" he said sarcastically.
Once Razor was back in the cockpit with the sphere tucked away in the bomb bay, the two masked toms made their way towards the city. Razor kept scanning his radar the whole way, trying to pick up anything that may have been traveling towards the city. Nothing blipped until they got to the suburbs, but it was still early on a Saturday morning. Katizens generally stayed home on weekends.
With a sigh, Razor conceded to the fact that they wouldn't find anything regarding their visitor for a while yet. He would have to take his own advice and keep his eyes peeled.
With any luck, we'll find who and what we're looking for, the gunner thought.
(*whew* Okay, that was chapter 2. Not a whole lot of action, but I'm trying to set the stage for the next part. I will try to update at least once a month, but I'm not promising anything. Chapters will come when they are completed and no sooner. I hate doing anything halfway. Anyways, please review, fav, follow, or any combination thereof. Your thoughts are appreciated and considered.)