Dr Elrod Purvis (no PHD) looked up from the snake poison glow of the latest strain of Catalyst X. Rather than rage, which most certainly did come later, serpentine feline features were a picture of yellow eyed confusion. The sound of combat he had become accustomed to with satisfying ease, but isolation reduced such domestic things as the sound of a hand simply hitting a door to a sudden hollow, alien, thumping. And he couldn't access the wildlife. The link, always half not there anyway, seemed…dulled. Further away as if drowned under a thin membrane.
And that was another thing. Although several bushes and rotten oaks had become mutated watchdogs to the outskirts of his twenty mile perimeter (and they didn't appear to be there either) who in God's name would be knocking on the door of an ostensibly abandoned shack built into a monstrous tree squatting in the middle of a swamp?
The sensible thing Viper knew would be to create more mutants, head further into the depths of his lair and out into the open air to dispose of the intruder in a gruesome manner before returning to delicate work with unsuitable tools. Because his mind was suddenly off balance by the bizarre act of the normal among the strange he did not do this.
He put down his tools, went to the door, and opened the small hatch that allowed a squinted look out into the fetid air. At first he wasn't sure if he was seeing anyone, or if the air had become alive and horribly gelatinous. Liquid eye brows rose and fell as if about to tell the world's funniest knock knock joke.
"Avon calling!"
The image behind the figure became crystal clear as the shape blurred away like water down a drain pipe. The light was painful and instant. The slab of rusted metal that rammed into Viper from the impact of the bolt was more unfortunately tangible. Wood and glass shattered under him, leaving him slumped like an empty sack of scales as the door bounced once off the floor and into the mass of roots at the end of the room. Which came to crawling, lashing life, wet nails sliding across Viper's skin.
"Uh, I just want you to know that despite all this, I still kind of…you know…respect you for your work. Breathtaking. All of it…uh…"
"Root."
"Alright, alright! Just…y'know."
The grip tightened, the angry hiss exploding out of Viper's throat in a squawking quack. The other speaker blurred into his vision, red and purple running together like a rotten nightmare tomato.
"Wait, wait, hold it, wait, I really gotta do this!"
Something clicked.
"Jack, this ain't the…"
"Just a minute, just a minute…"
"Jack!"
"Shut up Megs! Just a second!"
Another click. Sharper, closer. A limb alien yet familiar as his own head flexed involuntarily. The strangling veins burst at the roar of enraged pain, Viper lashing up and out of the grip, bone thin muscles bulging. The clattering false teeth gripping his tail flailed in it's manic thrashing, clinging tight like a determined mosquito.
Quakerjack stepped back, barb sharp tip coming within inches of decapitating one of his cap's bell tails. The jangling false teeth shards bounced off the floor, sounding like fine china being dropped.
"Um…oops?"
Viper's shoulders sagged, breathing slowing to a kind of hysterical breathing. A short smile spread across his bruising lower lip, the light dancing off the single showing tooth matching the sheen of his spread claws.
"I don't know who you are, but I know who'll I'll kill firsssst. Like a Phrynosssomatidae pulling the legssss off a…off a…"
The low sophisticated snarl slurred, a hand trembling like a coffee cup in an earthquake as it drifted to the grass root strands of black hair clinging to the reptilian scalp.
"Whassss..huzssss…?"
The flickering lab light illuminated Quakerjack's grin.
"Can you spell Elapide, Viperidae and Colubrid venom with a dash of horse tranquillisers?"
Viper lunged, groggy but carrying as much limp weight as a run away bowling ball. Quakerjack shielded his face at the blast of water that swatted the deranged scientist out of the air, rolling around the snake squirming mass of lithe flesh like a starved Boa Constrictor.
"Sssssswing batter, batter, batter, ssssssswing batter, batter, batter, no batter, no batter!"
Lab tables shattered under the back and forth barrage of weight and water, the Liquidator flushing gallon after gallon into his right arm, a high pressure hose worrying it's prey like a terrier. Steam billowed against the rotted plank ceiling, turning it a further greenish gold as spilt chemicals hissed and bubbled together like mating snakes. Viper stared at the ruins through a horrified swollen eye. It slowly swivelled up, hazily following the pulsing, trailing, dancing stream of green tinged red plasma streaming gently and slowly with the constant river motion around him.
The water cage bounced to the left arm, stretching up and back, swinging around and around and around…
"Let there be light!"
Megavolt would have rolled his eyes if it wouldn't have thrown off his aim. The light, smell and sound as the blast struck the soaking Viper. He smiled grimly a the jolting figure screaming in the centre of the blaze. So this was victory. Trails danced along each saturated appendage, flying into swaying bulbs, computers and smocking chemicals. And then there was the fact they were in a confined space made of wood. The smile vanished. The flames didn't start, they were just suddenly there, the heat rolling over all of them as the smoking streak slapped wetly into the crackling floor. Something was suddenly in Megavolt's lungs, bursting out in hacking coughs.
"Aaaw no…" he managed, doubling over. This was a little more familiar. Quakerjack was either crying or laughing or both, and Bushroot was running around screaming about the roots. The Liquidator looked from teammate to teammate in confusion. A watery snout sniffed acrid air, a look of realisation dawning in an Oh yeah! kind of way. A rippling chest puffed out proudly.
"Never fear, the Liquidator is here! For all your air conditioning needs, always use Liquidator brand water slides! If it's good enough for the alliance, it's good enough for you!"
Smothered moonlight glinted of flame and bursting water as a giant bolt of water punched out through a wall, twisting and swirling out of the flaming shack and towards the ravaged dirt land of the swamp. The three oxygen dependant members watched the glow of the fire, a stalking puma rearing out of the collapsing shack and pouncing from branch to rotten branch. Harsh coughing faded away in a slow wave of awe and realisation. Heads swivelled to look at each other, a glint that wasn't from the fire rising in their eyes. Quakerjack, drying an eye, raised his free hand.
"High five?"
---
"Damn it…"
"Son of a…"
"Web footed…"
"Mangy little…"
"You sure you don't want any help?" a smiling T-Bone drawled casually, free hand tapping a little sing song rhythm on the idling instrument panel.
"I said I got it…leggo of that you…"
"Stick this up your…"
As fun as listening to the drama unfolding, punching, claw and rolling around on the other end of the radio was, the pilot was getting bored. Moving the Turbokat's spotlight around to follow the conflict, which had spilled out into the street after Jake tackled the fashion police fugitive out through the door, was not how he intended to spend the rest of the night. A warning laser blast smacked the spot the caped mallard had been before the combatants broke apart, a purple cape blurring around one arm and up as dust sparked off the asphalt. Razor drew a gloveatrix covered hand across a raw feeling lip.
"Pretty good right hook. Quack Foo?"
The cape billowed like angry wings, wrapping around the nut in the hat, stiff, protective. Defensive.
"Oh you'd like to know, wouldn't you, you fruity colored fur ball clod…
Razor snarled low enough to shatter glass.
"Oh that is it…"
He could hear the smirk in the orbiting kat's voice.The jab ricochet off ancient discipline somewhere inside the enraged kat, striking grey matter and sparking inspiration. That wasn't a spiteful remark. A signal rather, a gun shot to get his attention and get him thinking. Hey, if insults almost made him make himself a moving target…
He relaxed, shrugging at the same time every bone in his body seemed to sag, as if an entire truck full of tranquillisers had been emptied into him, happy juice practically running out his ears. A smile that radiated mellow spread across his face.
"Ah, you're right. Not worth it."
He made sure to look at the duck as thought he wasn't actually looking at him.
"I mean, it's just some nut in a cape, am I right?"
"Just some…I…you piece of…"
Tight hands clasped the cape, spreading them apart as far as muscle would go, spreading the cape and limbs far apart like the world's biggest bulls eye.
"I am the terror that…"
The quick drawn Octopus Missile turned the monologue into a gurgling grunt, slamming straight into the middle of the turtle necked chest, prongs extending like striking scorpion trails. Cape rippling from the force of the impact, the masked duck vibrated slightly as he was pinned to the run down building behind him. Razor got close up, flicking the stylised flight helmet back further up his skull like the most elegant ten gallon ever.
"Anything to say before we get you out of that Victoria's Secrets reject and into some standard prison orange?"
The glare under the fedora brim was determined, defiant and decisive.
"Since you asked…"
Later, he'd put everything down to sound, because that's the last clear thing he'd remember. The far of bleating of the enforcer cruisers jarring the air, the symphony of the Turbokat engines running over him like a satisfied lover in contrast to the thumping of enforcer choppers. The light chink of the missile prongs, the thought of the fact that wasn't supposed to happen running ahead of the popping of wood where the upper left hand tip had pierced boarded window rather than solid concrete, pulled up a little more than it should for total grip on a perp, not much but all you'd need if you were really good. The fading rustle of fabric as the weapon was instantly drawn with a reflex almost as fast as neurons firing, the click of the ridiculously cumbersome thing cocking.
"Suck gas!"
The canister firing, rushing past his ear and imploding were all one and the same, the sound of his own lungs filling and refilling in spitfire bursts crashing against the sound of T-Bone's shouting and definite cursing. Light stabbed through the haze, the Turbokat roaring like an enraged lion, slashing into place like a hunting griffin. The thinning smoke confirmed the same thing as belly mounted spotlight. Nothing but an Octopus Missile, pried loose and lying in the street like a discarded puppy, three slit thin cracks embedded in the grime covered wall next to a shattered boarded up window. And approaching enforcer sirens.
Razor sighed, looking around fruitlessly as he tapped the helmet mic.
"You are never letting me forget this, are you?"
---
"Congratulations gentlemen."
Dark Kat stroked the tip of his cane with a ringed finger, eyes glowing brighter than the dancing light of the blaze on the monitor in front of him. On screen the iron funnel poking crookedly from the top of the shack collapsed out of it's framework as the rotted wood cascade into the side of the bending tree, bouncing and banging away into the orange water, ripples even making it as far as the muddy gold of the night time swamp water. The constant mist of the bogs eventually overwhelmed even the hellfire glow and raging black smoke. For all intents and purposes Dr Viper, at the very least his laboratory and base of operations, was gone. The last potential threat stripped of his resources if not his life.
A fanged lip curled at the constant whooping over the head set radio.
"Gentlemen."
It took them a few more seconds than was respectful for the latest pawns who had fallen under his coordination to settle down, far more time than suited someone of his benevolence. Most likely the five second delay between each headset (he made a not to get that checked. Lollygagging because of a slow connection between himself and the troops would only serve to push the operation back by many careful planned months) but still. Silence filled the communicator, the deep gravel foot steps voice finally reaching the overjoyed buffoons on the other side. Despite his irritation, Dark Kat had to concede they'd taken to the training remarkable quickly, the first field operation attesting to how much. They'd proven but not bloodied themselves, meaning it was time for the Megakat rite of passage.
"Now we move on to stage two."
---
The subtle landing became a flesh wet squelch, the cape flapping far too damn much and raking across the window like starved thin fingers. The manufactured smelling wind relented somewhat, flipping Darkwing Duck's cape around his shoulders as he sagged, breath rolling out of a stained turtleneck covered chest and smearing dark hotel windows with fog.
Time zone difference. Gotta be.
He felt in desperate need of coffee after days of drinking too much of it. Black as Taurus Bulba's heart, on a planet of no sugar. The feeling oozing back into his chafing muscles felt greasy, spread across his body like butter. Probably twice as fattening if not lethal. God, did no one clean in this city?
He'd had to leave the Ratcatcher concealed behind the ragged alley tarp back at the crime scene that was probably generating all sorts of paper work for one long night. It had been a long scramble from rooftops to spires, mainly because he didn't know where he was going and needed to get there in a hurry. Not dignified as befitting an idol of millions, but neither was a highway chase across the Megakat turnpike. Hopefully the security measures Launchpad had installed using insulated gauntlets would keep the custom tires and modified fuel systems where they were. Any chop shop jock wouldn't find the duck billed stunt bike an easy night's work, the security set up packed quite a punch when left running hot. He should know, he'd tried to examine it without insulated gauntlets.
He became more aware of the mechanics of entering a room through the window, a stale feeling still lingering where that grapnel thing had struck him in the chest, coupled with breathing too much smog while trying not breathe at all forcing the entire thing to boil down to basics. Find an easy target, loosen if necessary, gentle but firm movements to force space between fusing paint shavings, too tired to be bothered about the louder than preferable popping rumble as the window swung back. Now the tricky part. One foot first, then the other, sliding your weight across the sill, pushing back all your weight without forcing, slipping and tumbling like a rotorless helicopter towards cold asphalt. Left foot to floor, pushing muscle back to prevent weight creaking on surface, painful when leg muscles felt like they could be sold for a dollar our of a hotdog cart in the middle of the street, repeat with right leg.
Do not slip, throw out hands to stop yourself, and end up sprawled on your beak on a itchy hotel carpet.
Startling lights blinked on, almost having him go for the gas gun. Gosalyn's tired but unimpressed and undemanding eyes were an ice bucket, a soft pillow and a warm bath to his legs all at once.
"Rough night?"
"Aren't they all?"
She smiled wearily, absently shoving a dropping pigtail back into place.
"Think there's some painkillers at the bottom of my luggage…"
Upright, the hero of St Canard stretched like a stiff panther, a brief crack muffled by the city sounds wafting into the room. Compared to most Fearsome Five missions that was as tame as a sheep raised lion.
"No, no honey, not that bad. Just a little raw. It'll be gone by morning."
At least Morgana wasn't here. Not that he'd complain, but healing spells were the last thing he needed right now. Anything to do with Malucum McCawber really.
"There any hot water in this death trap? I swear to God this stuff is trying to moult me early."
"Ducks only moult once a year, dad."
"Exactly."
"But you already moulted."
"Yeah, but my point is…"
"Duck's actually stop moulting when we're fifteen."
"Yeah, the floor isn't really the place to be talking about this kind of thing…"
"Except for us girls, cause you guys don't have periods…"
"Are you even meant to be at that level in Biology?"
"You don't learn anything from study hall, Dad."
"Kinda worried about where you learnt that then."
"Honker."
"I don't think I want to know anymore."
"Anyway, unless you were born middle aged, you shoulda stopped moulting waaaay back in…"
"I don't know what you're going to kill first, my back or my joke."
"Oh. So what, you run into a mob of adoring fans?"
She was concerned in that kind of typical Gosalyn Pretending Not To Care way she'd developed after him coming home with broken bones and beak bleeds that weren't her responsibility became a regular feature of everyday life. He held back a chuckle as he got up properly. Aching maybe, but that would pass.
"I wish."
"You do."
"Not really, I'd like to think my fans live with better standards than this."
She gave him a frank look.
"They chose you over GizmoDuck, right?"
His smile was thin.
"Keep that up young lady and I won't take you out to Megakat park tomorrow."
Her eyes widened, crossed arms falling to her sides like chopped down trees.
"You mean that?" she whispered in an air low breath.
"Maybe." he smirked gently, beginning to undo his mask after setting his fedora on top of the TV. "Might even take you shopping to the Manx Mall."
"And scope out the city."
She was in awe, not stupefied.
"And scope out the city, but you'd get a shiny new McDuck Enterprises version of Wiffle Boy out of it. Red, Green or maybe even blue version."
She raised an experienced eye brow.
"What's the catch?"
"I don't know, bed at a reasonable hour?"
"It's midnight."
"There we go."
"Ten minutes. And I get to watch TV."
"Deal." Drake agreed, draping cloak afghan like over a sleeping Launchpad, sprawled over the couch like a sleeping puppy. The sounds of the powering up TV floated into the bathroom as he looked around for the small bag he'd smuggled in here containing…
"Bubble baths on the right." Gosalyn called over the dull click of changing channels.
He felt too raw to cringe, almost melting at the sound of hot running water filling the bath like sheets in the bed that was just right. A contented sigh was let out as all those little itches were scratched, steam with a hint of lavender inhaled, dancing down his lungs and up his tired legs as he sloshed into it. No rotting air, no grimy rooftops, no idiot jet pilots…
The volume rose outside.
"…local news now, just outside the scene where local duo, the SWAT Kats, either took on their oddest criminal yet or had a run in with a runaway Phantom Of The Opera fan…"
Giggling followed.
"Wow. Not even any powers, huh?"
Drake's grumbling sank with him into the bubbles.
---
Flesh shattered sewer water stillness, burnt and bloodied lab coat remains trailing miserably as Viper fought to rise. The sewer wall grime was almost enough to glue him upright as he slumped against it, a red green bubble drooping and inflating out of his nose in an erratic one two rhythm as his breathing came under ragged control. This, as those arrogant fools would soon learn, was why he mainly worked underground. So easy to be swallowed up by an errant sewer inlet and come up for air in miles and miles of practically unexplored tunnels and unused factory outlets. The loss of the swamp lab was regrettable, even if he had had to crash through the floor to land in his cavern lab and get dragged out by the tide, but it was hardly his only one. Hell, a few Goodwill thefts and Pumadine chemical raids and maybe it might even be salvageable. The reptilian ability to heal was also an advantage, although usually focused in his tail and even then he'd probably have to break his left hand to set it properly or he may never hold a test tube again, in which case life probably wasn't worth trying to force to evolutionary perfection.
It looked like he'd come up in the west Megakat industrial area, layers of unused floors and passages from the Mega Wars piled on top of one another beneath working generators and pipes containing running water that could be changed in amount and temperature. Hopefully hot, he would kill for a bath. Well, he'd kill for anything, but that wasn't the point.
Steeling him self for the climb in hopes of ironing out the throbbing pain in the back of his head, the mutant dug claws into ancient brick work, surface bound. Trusting rusted sewer ladders was not an option. Not since he'd personally greased them upon finding them.
The climb was tiring. The shot gun aimed at his face was startling and irritating all at once.
The duck chewing on a drum stick, weapon held at an almost jaunty bead on the mutant's head, cocked his head, looking down at the squatting form crouched on the brickwork beneath the grating leading to the surfaced. Despite the instant reptilian rage, scientific practicality had to admit it was better than cocking the gun.
"Viper, right?" the dwarf in blood red and mustard yellow asked, words chewing through ground meat.
"Who elsssse?"
"Come up. Slow."
Viper came up. Fast. The shotgun suddenly wasn't held so casually anymore. Despite the lengths of scale covered skin, the thump of metal against skull was still loud, the dust covered floor throwing up a desert cloud as the mutant landed sprawled against the wall. The blood bubble was splattered across his snout, and common sense dictated there would be more following it if he made the wrong move.
"Now, see, here I am, about to make you an offer, and you go and do something like that. I think you might have dented my gun."
Viper's good eye squished open at the sound of a clicking trigger, multiple double barrels blinking on and off in front of him.
"Nope. Don't think ya dented my gun. Wanna check for me?"
"Not…right now." Viper coughed. It'd be hell in the morning. If he made it too morning. "You had…had an offer…"
The chicken bone clattered greasily away into the shadows. Even through the haze of pain, Viper saw the blade edged smile, the gun leaned against like a diamond tipped walking stick, barrels still hovering over the floor like a waiting blood hound if needed.
"Now we're talking."
---
"How many fingers?"
"Cute…" Jake slurred, clutching the side of his unmasked face. His freed helmet emanated smugness from it's lopsided tilt atop the workbench. Even the mask would have helped.
"Hey, I'm serious!"
T-Bone's eyes were concerned beneath mask lenses, hand firm on his partner's shoulder. Light static danced minutely beneath thick glove material. A glare was shot to the purple duck billed bullet leaning on it's kickstands next to the Turbokat. A faint smoke trail smelling of heat and charred insects clung to it almost smugly.
"Told you we should have left that thing back in the alley."
"Yeah, better Feral than me."
They shared a mutual chuckle, petering out a little. Jake due to shock, T-Bone because…
"You sure about this?" he asked for the tenth time since the return to the hanger.
Despite his firm handed protest, Jake straightened up, gently brushing him away. A crack of his rolling neck, and he was back upright, relaxing in the well honed enforcer combat training manner.
"How could you not be? This thing has to belong to that Pastmaster rip off, and maybe he incorporated a, I dunno, tracking device or something. Some tech I can use to track him down."
"We're not forensics boys, Jake." Chance smiled, T-Bone's mask balled up and stuffed in the helmet clutched in his paws. Jake's return grin was wider.
"Never stopped me before. Not like I can't grab a pair of insulated gauntlets or something, maybe even insulate the gloveatrix…"
Chance shook his head.
"You have way too much time on your hands."
Despite the shock he'd received upon unloading the bike, Jake's retaliatory punch to the arm was arrow straight.
"This from the guy who spends twenty per cent of his time watching Scardy Kat."
"Into bed Clawson. We rise at oh eight hundred hours."
"What, no rivet gun gag?"
"Just try operating it with both hands twisted behind your back, wiseass."
Chance's grin was pure T-Bone.
---
"What was taken?"
Morning found Callie outside Enforcer Headquarters. Or what had been Enforcer Headquarters. Sunlight glinted off scarred silver panelling and shattered glass, the entire thing looking like a better class of Mega war wreckage. Not the best thing to be looking at after five hours of actual sleep.
"'scuse me Ms Briggs?"
The sergeant looked haggard, brown uniform a darken and thinner shade after what ever had happened last night, looked haggard. Callie wasn't entirely sympathetic. Five hours did not a patient deputy mayor make.
"The call I got this morning filled me in on the attack, not that everything for a ten mile block radius didn't. The only reason to come here other than a death wish is to grab something. A prisoner, evidence, weapons, even those prototype Blue Manx mark two parts you have hiding in the hanger, anything. The sooner I know what, the sooner I can start putting together a strategy for the mayor to avoid mass panic…and that's just for the mayor."
Felina, arms folded and leaning against a spare set of rubble, smiled knowingly at the logic the sergeant was overwhelming the possibly traumatised sergeant. A gauntleted hand was placed kindly on an enforcer emblem bearing shoulder, gently pushing him to the side where he could sit down on the remains of a squad car and think about early retirement.
"Anybody still conscious and upright is still digging through the rubble, but we know what the perps were after. The cell block and evidence room were the most heavily hit."
Callie took in the remains of the building, blonde brow raising over foggy glasses.
"What by?"
The lieutenant took a grim sip from a hip flask full of non government coffee, a must for every enforcer utility belt.
"As far as anyone knows? Jack and his bean stock."
Callie took that rather matter-of-factly. Wouldn't be the first time something out of fairy tales came to Megakat. Or nightmares.
"Dr Viper? I'd have expected more…growth, I guess."
Felina's eyes were carved from the same flint as her uncle's as she lowered the flask, teeth tightening at the feel of hot caffeine down her throat and the name.
"Definitely him, at least the method of entry was." She almost laughed at the tameness of the phrase. "Giant bean stock out of Jack's nightmares, straight from under the building to the top floor. It's just sitting there now, rotting away, but it was totally internalised. Some psycho chucking out heavy duty explosives rode the thing the entire way, but we suspect that was the diversion. As you know the meta's cells and primary evidence vault are at subbasement to ground level."
Callie nodded. She'd been the ones to approve the documents during Manx's summer golf tournament extravaganza just below practically the tax payers expense. There were miles of concrete layers below the building, the cells carved out of them and fitted with an reinforced steel shutter system for emergency use only, a precaution and inevitability when dealing with prisoners capable of buzzing through power lines or building laser cannons into their arms, even on a foundation of solid bedrock. Same for the reinforced vault that had replaced the musty series of second floor evidence lockers, and whoa betide the villain who tried to get past Smitty.
"Since the SWAT Kats pulled extra clean up duty except for Viper and Dark Kat, we only technically have one flesh and blood prisoner in lock up…or had."
"And I suspect you keep parts of two who aren't in the vault."
Felina nodded, unknowingly rubbing the butt of her stun rifle.
"And guess what's missing from the cells and most likely missing from evidence lock up."
Callie didn't even blink.
"The Metallikats and Hard Drive's suit."
---
Hard Drive fought the urge to throw up and almost failed. It wasn't just the smell, a distinctly earthy sewer feeling that clambered up his nostrils and congealed in his throat like a brick. The Metallikats had always freaked him out. Machines were beautiful things of craftsmanship, circuitry crisscrossing like a fine tapestry laced with diamond tinged panels and bolts. Kat brains, unstable ones at that, squatting in those wonderful core processors? Cringe worthy. Disgusting. Unthinkable.
And glaring at him from behind deadened infra red lenses.
"Are you sure about this doctor? As I understood it you had your own history with these lunatics."
It always did to show respect to those who would declare themselves your betters. So much easier to pry away secrets and cover your tail, in real life not just the espionage world. And the way Viper's tail almost inflated from pride was a reward in it's self. Overgrown salamander…
"Yesss…quite the history it issss. Together we almossst brought an end to the SssssWAT Katsss. If not for certain…instabilitiesss in their personalitiesss."
Nimble fingers pried and tweaked, reconnecting the metallic equivalent of a nervious system half buried in Mac Mange's neck. Like an autopsy, which was why the cyber thief had to bite down on his lower lip to keep what wanted to climb out his throat in.
NegaDuck snorted behind him, a sound like a razor blade lined grenade softly exploding inside a throat.
"Sounds like my kinda people."
"Yessss, I had noticed."
Hard Drive didn't close his eyes fast enough to quite avoid the sight of the duck's hat and cape slashing over the mutant like a maddened vulture. His heart sped up at the sound of no sound. No thump, no clang, no choking…not a single sign the duck had moved.
"Is there something you'd like to tell me Doc?"
Hard Drive slid open one super charged eye. Bone white feathers circled a rotten stick thin neck like a snake strangling a cartoon character. Yellow serpent eyes bulged and flashed like struggling neon bulbs, Viper's breath coming in hissing, rasping gasps. Pick pocket hands flexed, power humming and building like a scared bird taking flight as Hard Drive stepped back, levelling both charging hands at…he wasn't sure who, as Viper's hands snapped around NegaDuck's stranglehold, tail dancing, raising…
Something metal clicked. Stillness rolled off it in unbreathing waves, a distant running faucet giggling away somewhere unseen. Blood shot blank snake eyes flickered in spasming thought as the speed of a brain trying to push a plan out of nearly no oxygen, and deciding to take some off the pressure off. Viper's hands unwrapped. His tail lowered, still as a sleeping Alsatian. The only real meta in the room had just backed down to someone who's hat brim barely came up to his chin. Hard Drive fought back a shudder, depowering shock suit doing it instead in marathon heart rate fast jolts, as if eager to crawl back into the circuitry and hide. God, alpha male in the making was an ugly process to see.
There was no sound as NegaDuck smirked, drew back in a slow contrast to that ungodly angry speed. Something did click though. NegaDuck shook his head, eyes closed as if in patronizing awe of the killing machine in front of him, behind Viper.
"There's no ammo in there."
"Awww crud…" Mac moaned. The slammed the cannon off the side of his aching head, obliterating the reboot information flying across his sensors, an almost mortal hiss of annoyance creaking out between clammed steel teeth like a loose hydraulic pipe.
"And quit play acting doll face. I heard your joints creaking."
Molly was suddenly on her feet, Viper on the other side of the room, face down.
"The last time that scaly dork put us back together for someone else, they snapped shock collars on us."
NegaDuck's cold eyes glinted off the reflective surface of a plasma barrel, also empty but seconds away from a fairly effective club.
"Didn't think anybody'd be stoopid enough to pull the same stunt without that part."
A row of pearly whites, the only thing pure about NegaDuck, flashed like an explosion off the metal.
"Yeah, I wasn't that stooped."
Mac made a straining noise that wasn't oral, grinding off the workbench to clank to his feet.
"Hey I feel…dizzy. Heavier." He looked at something that wasn't there with inhuman straightness.
"Hey Molly, are your readouts goi'n hooky too?"
The she kat stared through NegaDuck with that same not really glare.
"Yeah…what's this copula extra pounds we suddenly gained while we was in shut down?"
"Just a little snack." NegaDuck examined his imaginary nails on a hand close enough to an clawing tiger paw to be genuine. "You know how it is, you open the pantry and all there is is a couple of tons of heavy duty shell casing, fresh plastique, a cup fulla nitro-glycerine and some old school nuclear slugs with voice activated remote detonators."
The sound of smacking lips broke the cyborg Kats horrified stare from each other to him. Hard Drive suddenly felt naked at the sound, layers of conducive circuitry and kevlar weave almost forgotten. Viper looked less like a nightmare snake and more like something small that wanted to hide under a lily pad.
"Just like momma used to make."
Cape flapping in a non existent but proud breeze, he stalked past the reactivated gangsters to lean against a wall allowing him a view of each Megakat criminal. A skilled computer jock with a megawatt fetish, a geek with a degree in nasty chemistry and a skin condition, and two fully armed almost unstoppable tin can leg breakers with street smarts and mechanical precision more violent than any tinker toy that moron Quakerjack could fart out on his best day. All in the same smog spewing, cancer corrupted, brain rotting dirt bag waste of land the mangy fur balls up top called a city.
Perfect.
"Now that I have all you knobs attention…"
He let the shadows of his hat smother out his eyes like a membrane of charcoal sketching darker than any purple black sewer shadow, perfect against the razor blade glint of his grin.
"Ever here the one about the five super criminals and the plan to take over the city?"