"Come and get me!" he yelled.
The monster snarled, a nasty, a nasty, phlegmy sound. It clenched and unclenched its huge slimy purple hands as though in indecision, but if it was actually thinking anything, it wasn't immediately apparent. Its single eye simply glared with evil stupidiy, gaping maw curled into the same openmouthed smile as always. Razor popped a wheelie, turning in place, trying to do his best to look appetizing to the beast, intending on luring it away from the train car, to get it to chase him off down the subway tunnel, away from the few remaining kats he'd gotten there in time to save.
The front tire slammed back down onto the ground as the motorcycle completed its turned and he revved the engine again. Vroom! "You're hungry, aren't you? Some dessert after a sub sandwich, you big pile of crud?!"
Hungry. Yes. Dim memories of being promised food prompted the creature into action. The bacteria monster loosed a hideous bellow and lunged forwards with arms outstretched to grab Razor, who hunched his shoulders down in preparation to spin and zoom off, when suddenly the monster's eyebrow flew up, eye going wide and bulging outwards, mouth opening wider in a pained roar as electricity shot through its body.
Razor jerked back in his seat in surprise, then realized what happened. In taking a step forward to attack him, the monster had stepped on the electrified third rail of the track. The bacteria convulsed wildly, roaring. Blinding bright flashes of light played over Razor, who shielded his face with his forearm. In the train car, the passengers ducked down, screaming.
The monster squeezed its eye shut in agony as the sparking arcs of bluish electricity crackling over its form turned it an unsightly brownish color. After a moment, the electrical discharged fizzled out, and the now brown bacteria monster stood frozen in mid-contortion, eye shut, mouth open in a silent but smiling scream. It'd been burned to nothing but a dried up husk. The unmoving form twitched and then slowly crumbled to dust before Razor's eyes.
"What the-?"
He stared uncomprehending over his forearm at at the shapeless pile of dust that used to be the monstrous germ creature, then lowered his arm and stroked his chin in thought. Electricity. Heat. Newfound hope filled him. He'd found a way to kill the creatures.
In the remaining car, the passengers and the conductor slowly poked their heads up into view one by one, in varying states of fear, confusion and relief. After a moment, they all began cheering.
"W-we're alive!" said the businessman in the fedora and bowtie.
"I've never so scared in all my life!" cried the frizzy-haired housewife.
"Thank you, SWAT Kat!" said the little boy, Zachary, being clutched happily by his father.
Razor looked over at them. "Is everyone okay in there?" he asked.
There were various shouts of response in the affirmative. Razor smiled, revving the engine again and launching himself back down the tunnel and onto the boarding platform. As he zoomed away, the passengers cheered him.
Razor flew out of the subway entrance on the Cyclotron, skidding to a stop in the street. Reaching up, he activated his helmet's comlink.
"T-Bone?" he said. "Are you there?"
Above him, the Turbokat descended. "Yeah. What happened? Where's the big pile of crud?"
Razor grinned. "French-fried to a crisp!" He frowned. "But not before it ate an entire subway train."
In the Turbokat, T-Bone grimaced in disgust. "Ugh, those poor sons a'..."
"Well... almost," said Razor. "I managed to save one car..." He glanced back at the entrance to the subway. "I saved something like a grand total of five people." Brightening a little, he turned and looked back up at the jet. "But on the bright side, I found a way to destroy these things!"
In the Turbokat, T-Bone nodded.
"Come pick me up, we gotta make a quick stop back at the hangar," said Razor. "And fast!"
"Roger."
It was time to go and see if his experimental Megavolt Missile was worth all the time he'd been putting into it...
Megakat Biochemical Labs was a large, solidly-built facility, standing some fifteen stories tall, modernistic in appearance with enormous windows and surrounded by a chain link fence with barbed wire along the top and a perimeter of large artillery cannons mounted on swivel bases.
In the main lab, chief biochemist Dr. Newton Zyme was preparing for the day's work. He was middle-aged with wavy orange hair and wore a white lab coat. He hated mornings. There was always so much to do, and a large majority of it couldn't be done until the other researchers arrived. And what a bunch of layabouts they were! Zyme thought as he fussed about in the main lab, an enormous room filled with all manner of futuristic-looking scientific equipment and machines, getting things ready for his employees to be able to do their work.
What few of them there were, anyway. Megakat Biochemical was horrendously understaffed these days. In the wake of Elrod Purvis' transformation into Dr. Viper, most of the lab's staff had elected to quit their jobs rather than come to work not knowing whether they'd be attacked by a mutated half cat, half snake mad scientist, or worse, eaten by one of the many freaks of nature he created.
So despite the building's size, it had a staff of less than 100 people, half of them security personnel. With the exception of Alvie and his friend whose name Zyme could never remember, most of the guards were the only dependable employees of the lab. Alvie and his friend tended to just sit around and eat donuts. Zyme had a feeling they would come to a bad end one day due to their inattentiveness.
Hearing the sound of an approaching helicopter, Zyme glanced up and out the window and saw a lone Enforcer chopper flying towards the building, from the direction of the new park where. The chopper flew overhead and Zyme thought it landed on the roof.
Since Dr. Viper's first appearance Zyme had mostly withdrawn from the public. He'd never had much of a social life prior to that, but, since Purvis' transformation into Viper, Zyme had become considerably less buoyant and didn't attend as many conventions or meetings, and completely threw himself into his work at the lab, even moreso than before. He wasn't even aware of the refinery bombings that had happened yesterday.
At the thought of Viper, Zyme glanced over at a small table in the far corner. Its lone occupant was an Erlenmeyer flask of water with a rose in it, with a tall glass dome barrier over it. The rose was mutated, possessing a four-fanged mouth and a lapping forked tongue. Zyme had kept the thing as a reminder of the Viper Mutagen project.
He heard the sound of the elevator dinging in the hallway, and a moment later a party of four cats came into the room. Commander Feral was leading them. Behind him were Mayor Manx, Callie Briggs and an Enforcer pilot.
"Good morning, Commander," he said as they approached.
"No time for idle chit-chat, Dr. Zyme," Feral replied, holding up a hand. "We've got serious trouble."
"Trouble?" Zyme asked. "What sort of trouble?"
Feral opened his mouth to explain when Manx walked up to Zyme suddenly, waving his arms wildly. "There's these huge purple things and they're headed right this way!"
Zyme looked confused. "Purple things? What on Earth are you talking about?"
Ignoring Manx's outburst, Feral said, "We don't know what they are. But they're big and getting bigger every minute. And worse, whenever we shoot them they split apart into more!" He scowled. "I found out that out the hard way." As though eager to change the subject, he said, "Doctor, we need your help to figure out what they are and how to kill them."
Suddenly, Manx grabbed Zyme by the front of his lab coat and shook him. "You've got to do something, Dr. Zyme!" he yelled desperately. "Before those big purple globs destroy my beautiful city!"
Feral grabbed the Mayor's shoulders and made him release the scientist. He then shooed Manx from the room. "Why don't you go out and wait in the hall, Mayor? And try to stay calm."
"Calm?" cried a terrified Manx, his voice rising. "At a time like this?! You're crazy!"
Gibbering in fear, he turned and ran from the lab, leaving the other four alone.
Zyme sighed and smoothed his lab coat out. "How soon until they get here?" he asked.
"About a minute-and-a-half!" cried Feral, pointing out the lab's enormous front windows. "Look! Here come two of them now!"
Zyme turned and looked out the huge front windows of the lab to see two huge purple-colored organisms stomping down the street, headed right for the lab! They were vaguely humanoid in shape, with arms and legs, and had enormous, black gaping-wide mouths that were... smiling? Both of the huge monsters were grinning, no, leering evilly as they approached. Those smiles gave Zyme the chills. Mustering his courage he approached the window, which ran from floor to ceiling; in fact, this entire wall of the main lab was glass, consisting of two of these huge windows.
He looked at the two monsters. They looked like giant germs! The one on the left had one huge, cycloptic eye, while the one on the right had two eyes. Never in his life had Zyme seen something so disgusting and terrifying.
Clearing his throat, he turned to Feral, Deputy Mayor Briggs, and the Enforcer pilot, saying, "They appear to be giant bacteria!"
They all frowned in disgust. Feral was impatient. "Okay, now we know what they are. But is there a way to stop them?"
Callie Briggs joined him at the window. Zyme stroked his chin, thinking. Obviously, the best way to deal with giant germs was with a large quantity of antibiotics. Luckily, the lab had a bulk supply. In fact, there was some in a few flasks on a nearby worktable, which Zyme went to, leaving Callie by herself over by the window.
"On such short notice, this is the best I can do," he said, picking up one of the flasks and holding up for the others to see. Feral in particular looked very interested, and leaned in close, eyeing the flask's contents. "It contains the most powerful antibiotics known," Zyme continued, letting Feral take it. "Hopefully, it should stop them."
"How are we going to deliver it?" asked Feral, handing the flask to his pilot as they heard the muffled explosion that signified the destruction of the second laser cannon. The other Enforcer frowned as he looked at the bubbling orange liquid, unsure of quite what to do with it.
"I have a large hypodermic needle which I think can be rigged to fire from your helicopter," Zyme said said.
Feral nodded. "Let's get to it, then. I just hope we have time!"
The three other kats watched as Zyme went and got the giant syringe off of a shelf in the back of the room.
"I can fill this with the formula. It's normally used to tranquilize large animals, but it should be able to inject the antibodies into the bacteria's system."
He placed it in Feral's open hands. The Commander looked down at it a moment. "Excellent," he said, turning to his pilot. "Prepare my chopper my at once!"
"Yes sir!" said the pilot, saluting and running off, still holding the flask. A moment later, he ran back, setting the flask back down on the table, then ran off again.
"I sure hope it works," said Callie over by the window. "Because those things are heading straight for us!"
"Don't worry, Ms. Briggs," Zyme assured her confidently, joining her by the window once more. He pointed outside. "As you can see, we're well-protected against any attack."
The lab's automated defenses swivelled around on their turrets to face the threat and opened fire. In addition, a cordon of uniformed security guards armed with laser rifles took up positions at the fence. Callie watched, hoping the blasts from the cannons didn't cause the two-eyed creature to split, idly wondering where the third monster was and whether the SWAT Kats had managed to kill it or not. Right as she wondered this, the two-eyed bacteria monster was knocked back by a blast from one of the cannons and she held her breath, but the monster didn't divide. She exhaled slowly.
The bacteria monsters stood there as the shells ripped right through their gooey bodies, doing no damage, the wounds sealing immediately afterward. The lasers fired by the guards had the same effect, passing harmlessly through the creatures' bodies. Roaring angrily, the one-eyed creature swung its fist and destroyed the cannon that had shot it. The creature with two eyes followed suit, smashing another gun beyond use.
The monsters advanced, trampling the fence underfoot. The guards backed up, firing with their laser rifles. The bacteria monsters ignored them, continuing to move inexorably forward onto the property, shrugging off the guards' fire and the bombardment from the remaining cannons. The two-eyed monster was the only one who still remembered its creator Dr. Viper's orders, and it went to the right and attacked the third cannon there while its single-eyed companion simply imitated it and went to the left and attacked a fourth cannon there. The air was filled with explosions and booming. With one mighty swipe, the one-eyed bacteria monster destroyed the third cannon.
The guards stopped firing their lasers. They looked around at one another before turning and fleeing in all directions.
Callie and Zyme watched from the window, turning to look at one another in dismay. There was an explosion as the fourth cannon was destroyed.
"Well, almost any attack..." Zyme admitted, a little nervously.
He turned and hurried away as a fifth explosion signalled another cannon's destruction. Callie, watching him go, didn't notice as a manhole popped open down on the street outside.
Dr. Viper had waited down in the sewer for the bacteria monsters to finish destroying all of the cannons that defended Megakat Biochemical. Although he correctly predicted they'd be of little use against his creations, better safe than sorry. After hearing the last explosion, he had climbed up the ladder and popped the manhole cover, peering out. The coast was clear. Katalyst 99 would be his! All of the cannons were destroyed. Knocking the cover off, Viper climbed out. He only saw two bacteria monsters. Where was the third one, the second single-eyed bacteria? Viper shrugged inwardly. Probably off somewhere else having fun, he guessed.
He had to note the irony of this particular sewer access point. Not only was it the manhole he'd used to arrive at Megakat Biochemical immediately following Purvis' resurrection and transformation into Dr. Viper, it had also provided the means for his escape after his first encounter, and first defeat, at the hands of the SWAT Kats.
He addressed the two monsters. "You two will keep wreaking havoc!" he commanded them. Would they understand? He didn't care. Not at this point. Turning, he approached the front door unmolested. "And I will raid the labsss!"
A few minutes later, Feral's chopper, rotor blades spinning, sat on the rooftop helipad as Dr. Zyme loaded the giant syringe containing the antibiotic formula, which had been modified into an ad-hoc missile, onto the side of the aircraft. Commander Feral looked on from the open side door.
Zyme stood back. "It's all loaded, Commander!"
"Good!" Feral said, turning to his pilot. "Let's go."
"Wait!" cried Mayor Manx, rushing out of the rooftop stairwell. "I'm coming, too!"
He ran across the roof and jumped into the open side of the chopper as it lifted off. He didn't quite make it. He hung there, half in and half out, kicking his legs frantically as he tried to pull himself up. The chopper lifted higher into the air.
"I don't want to be around here if this stuff doesn't work!" he was whimpering.
A disgusted Feral pulled him in the rest of the way. "You're a coward, Manx," he said.
Out of breath, Manx grinned and managed, "Maybe so. But I didn't get to be mayor for ten terms without being a wee bit cautious."
Feral grunted and pulled the door closed. As the chopper turned and flew off, Zyme walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down. Both of the bacteria monsters were just sort of standing there, milling around, not doing very much. One of them, the two-eyed one, grabbed a parked car and stuffed it into its mouth, eating it in one huge bite. Zyme then observed the creature grow in size a bit as the eaten car was added to its bulk. Swallowing nervously, he turned and went back inside.
