Guidance

Author: Hey, glad you're enjoying the story so far. I cannot thank you all enough for being so supportive of this story, it REALLY means a lot to me. Anyways I just wanted to mention that for those of you who read my DBZ stories: "Wings of Blood" and "Tears of a Forgotten tomorrow", you'll recognize a special character in here. It's the "silver suit" man. This guy is a character you will see in MANY of my fan fictions to come, he's going to pop up a lot. Anyway, that's all I wanted to say, just giving you a heads up. Bye for now, enjoy!

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"Oh Rita" Runt said with a heavy sigh.

The small, sweet, silver colored feline was stinging into Runt's mind like a bumblebee, striking him with fond memories and times spent with Rita. Runt frowned as he sniffed a cold, water soaked bone that was covered with muck, dirt, and hundreds of ants munching all around it.

"I miss Rita, definitely, definitely miss her" Runt said.

HONK!

A speeding car suddenly rushed by Runt, he grunted as it ran over a puddle and sent gushing amounts of ice-cold water lined with globs of dirt over his soft brown fur. Runt whimpered and shook the icy water drops off. The once cheerful dog was now reduced to tear filled whimpers, lost and lonely without a friend in the world. Runt looked up at the stars and sniffled.

"Gee Rita; I sure hope those new doggies are taking good care of you. Definitely, definitely hope so" Runt said.

You've got your dumb friends;
I know what they say…
They tell you I'm difficult,
But so are they
But they don't know me…
Do they even know you?
All the things you hide from me…
All the things that you do

you were all the things I thought I knew…
And I thought we could be.

You were everything, everything,
that I wanted.
We were meant to be, supposed to be,
but we lost it.
All the memories so close to me
just fade away…
All this time you were pretending…
So much for my happy ending.

Rita's shaking legs continued to squirm and tremble, her small body seemed to weigh like a thousand pounds now, or maybe her muscles have become too weak to even stand up now. The cat winced as another freshly made cut stung deeply into her bruised paws. Rita's jasmine eyes closed back against the approaching tears, she took a big gulp and held it back.

"Now I know what road kill feels like (winces) inside and out" Rita weakly said.

The poor, heartbroken and bone broken cat was lost in a world of darkness and pain. Where am I to go now, she thought? Her so-called friends abandoned her, and Rita knew Runt would never take her in.

No……not after……those horrible things she said to him……simply horrible.

"Ugh, feels like my body's made of jello or something, I can barely take two steps without hobbling like an old geezer. Maybe it's for the best. I deserve to be dumped in the gutter after what I did to Runt, I'm no better than those stinking Scarlet angels" Rita sighed.

Rita's blurry, scarred eyes blinked into a bewildering daze as she saw a bench up ahead on the street corner. The bench was empty. The small cat wobbled her aching muscles towards that bench; her half snapped gray tail twitching weakly as Rita approached it. Suddenly Rita spotted a pair of shoes and pants near the sidewalk, and it looked like someone was in them.

"Oh don't tell me" Rita groaned.

The tiny feline annoyingly looked up and groaned as she saw a human sitting on the bench. Rita angrily rubbed her face and yanked on her tiny ears, this was the last thing Rita wanted to deal with tonight. The small cat groaned and slumped down near the human's shoes, her green eyes bitterly staring at the ground.

"Just peachy, this is JUST what I need. It's bad enough my body's been used for a punching bag and all my friends have dumped me, now I gotta sit here and watch some stinking human take my resting spot. Why not just hit me with a lightning bolt and send me to kitty heaven while you're at it God?" Rita snarled.

"God would never do anything like that to anyone my friend, and excuse me, but I'll have you know I'm quite clean and stink free" the human said.

"AHHHHH" Rita screamed.

The gray cat nearly jumped out of her skin and fur. Rita gasped and leapt towards the back of a nearby lamppost; her sulking mood seemed to disappear as she got up and backed away from the human so incredibly fast. The white fur on Rita's chest started sinking up and down, faster and faster, her jade eyes bulged out like a pair of basketballs. The man smiled at the small cat.

"YOU HEARD ME? Holy hair balls, I must be out of my noodle, I thought I just heard a human say he understood what I said" Rita gasped.

"I did" the man repeated.

"EEP" Rita turned deathly pale.

The cat tightly clutched her paws around the lamppost; her fur was shaking as if she had worms crawling under her skin. The man returned his gaze to the stars and sat there in silence. As Rita started to calm down, her eyes suddenly realized that she had seen this human before. The man was tall, clean, kind looking, hair was sharp and spiky, dark blue color, and he wore suit seemingly made entirely out of shiny silver. Rita gasped as she remembered him.

"Jumping Animaniacas, your that human who gave Runt the donuts. I saw you in the park and the alleyway a couple nights ago" Rita said.

"That is correct. My name is Taron and it's a pleasure to finally meet you Rita" Taron said.

"Back the tuna boat up pal, you've got some questions to answer. First off how do you know my name and more importantly, how come you and I understand each other?" Rita asked.

Taron smiled "I suppose you might say I'm not your ordinary human being. Matter of fact, I'm not ordinary at all, I come from a rather unique corporate background and it allows me some……shall we say unusual perks. It's a rather important profession".

Rita blinked "Corporate? You mean your job? How does your job explain how you can understand me, what the heck kind of gig do you work for?".

The mysterious, smiling silver man gently raised a hand and pointed a finger towards the sky. Rita's emerald colored orbs looked upwards and at first stared in total confusion. The tiny feline had no idea why this wacko was pointing up to the sky, she thought he must be crazy, maybe that's why he understood her. Suddenly Rita then realized what he meant by pointing into the sky. Rita gasped and gently cupped her cut paws over her gasping jaws.

"You're a……you're a……you mean you're from……you work for……that guy?" Rita squeaked.

"Basically, I'm a liaison and I usually come down for very big, top level cases. But this is my day off and I'd thought I'd help cheer you up. I mean after all, we've been watching you for some time now (winks) it's what we do up there" Taron said.

Rita's face nearly turned blue, she can't believe what she was hearing. Had she gone mad, was this guy truly what he said he was, did he REALLY come from that place? The small cat sighed and simply shrugged as she just realized it really didn't matter at this point. Rita's life was in such a pitiful state that as amazing as this discovery was, it's not gonna do a lick of good to her. Rita groaned and slumped onto the bench next to Taron, sulking her paws across her cheeks.

"Lots of luck pal; I've made such a mess of things I don't even think a miracle could save my back stabbing rear end now. Not like I deserve a rescue anyway" Rita said.

"Everyone deserves a second chance Rita, everyone" Taron said.

The small cat simply laughed and then winced, a stinging shot of pain jerking up her scar laced back.

"Wouldn't you want Runt to give you a second chance?" Taron asked curiously.

"Of course I would, I'd give my left pinky just to see that big lug's goofy face again. But it's not gonna happen, I was such a creep to that poor guy, I can't believe I was suckered in by those back stabbing alley cats" Rita groaned.

"If Runt's opinion of you is so important then why didn't you listen to him before?" Taron asked.

"For someone who's supposed to be watching us from up on cloud 9, you sure don't know Runt very well. If you did you wouldn't be asking me that" Rita said, smirking.

"Meaning?" Taron asked blankly.

"Ugh, because as nice a guy Runt is, he's still a blockhead. He's missing a few marbles upstairs and it ends up getting our tails in a sling on more than one occasion. I mean come on, the guy doesn't even know a cat from a dog" Rita said.

"Does that really matter?" Taron asked.

"Well of course it matters fancy pants, when you got your life on the line every night and your survival depends solely on a slobbering, bubble brain partner who thought a mad scientist trying to slice open his head was a nice lady" Rita said, crossing her gray furry arms.

"So then it wasn't just his incompetence that convinced you to eject him from your partnership, it was your continued survival" Taron said firmly.

"Sigh, well sort of. I mean I've always been used to Runt being a little……slow but lately it's been happening more often and one can't really afford to risk much when your living on the streets and scrounging for scraps for dinner. I hated the way it turned out with me and Runt but in the end I was too scared of starving to death to risk anymore food hunts with him" Rita sulked.

"Rita, there's nothing wrong with being a survivalist. When people are put under pressure they can do erratic things, things they never would have done if it weren't for the pressure being put on them, but I must be honest when I say you weren't in any real kind of danger" Taron said.

Upon hearing those words, Rita growled and stood up on her shaking, aching paws; outraged this silver suited person was telling her what was considered "life threatening" and what wasn't. Taron blinked as Rita pressed against his nose with her soft white paw finger.

"Now hold the phone there pal, you've got some nerve telling me how to live my life. I'm sick of going to sleep with an empty stomach night after night and I made a decision based on where I felt my life was going. Things were in the toilet for me and that's a fact jack, starving to death is starving to death no matter how you paint it and that's as good a reason as any other to take drastic measures" Rita snapped.

"But you still would have had Runt" Taron stated.

"So what? Runt is still a goof up and his goofs were costing us meal tickets, we'd have been skin and bones within a week if we kept up the pace we were going in" Rita said.

"But you still would have had Runt" Taron repeated.

"GRRR! I CAN'T live like that, don't you understand? I've been chewed up and spat out by this world enough times to know that I don't want to put up with it anymore. Those angels were my only ticket out. If I stayed with Runt, I would have slept in thunderstorms, chewed on mangled fish bones, run my tail off trying to escape knife-wielding humans, and put my life on the line trying to find a home where I'd have to play suck up to some stinking human 24/7" Rita screamed.

"But……you still would have had Runt" Taron said, yet again.

Filled with aggravating frustration, Rita's anger had boiled in her tiny veins so strongly she could barely see straight. The small cat snarled and simply collapsed face down onto the creaking wood of the street bench. Rita let out a whimpering meow, totally confused and irritated to the point she didn't even want to look at this smart mouthed mystery man.

"Does it really bother you that much? Runt being slow I mean. Does his mentality really make that much of a negative impact on you Rita?" Taron calmly asked.

"I'm sorry pal but it's just something that ends up being more of a burden then a blessing. I know it's not Runt's fault he's the way he is, but it does make me think twice about trusting him" Rita sadly replied.

The silver suited human laughed softly.

"That's quite funny actually, because the way I see it Runt is the most trustworthy creature I've ever known" Taron said, smiling.

"And just how do you figure that, tall, dark and sparkly?" Rita asked as she raised a curious eye.

Taron replied "Because he's pure, he's absolutely pure Rita. The Scarlet angels were planning on betraying you from the moment they laid eyes on you, it was amusing and fun to them. Runt derives pleasure from no such act, THAT is why you can trust him. Runt doesn't thrive on greed, money, power, status, or to be competitive, he thrives on love, he is driven by love itself! Think about it Rita. He doesn't sneak behind your back, he doesn't try to trick you or lie to you, and he doesn't want to prove he's better then you, he doesn't even want to be better then you.

The only thing that matters to Runt is love, the love he has for life……and for you. Your friendship with him is something Runt wouldn't trade for anything in existence".

Rita's eyes widened like shiny, sparkling diamond gems, her little green orbs twirling with absolute wonder. In all the years Rita has spent riding, running, and scavenging about with Runt, she never EVER thought of him that way. She thought no one could know him better than she did and Taron just told her things she never even dreamed possible with someone like Runt.

"I……I just……holy meow……I never even thought to look at it that way. Man……oh man, oh man, oh man. Runt. I didn't think that was even possible of Runt" Rita gasped.

"That……is why you left him" Taron said, nodding.

"You really are one of them, aren't you?" Rita cryptically asked.

"Ha, it doesn't take some holy messenger to see what you've been missing out on Rita. You may be the smarter of the two, but in some ways, a lot of ways, Runt will always be the strongest" Taron proclaimed.

Silence settled in and not a word passed between the 2 beings, their shadows remaining still as graves on the pale, moonlit sidewalk of the street behind them. Taron sighed as he gently brushed his hands onto his silver sparkling pant legs before starting to walk away. Rita gasped as she saw he was leaving and desperately clung one of her sliced up paws to one of Taron's arms.

"Wait" Rita pleaded.

Taron curiously turned his dark blue haired head and looked down at Rita.

"If you really are who you say you are, then, can you tell me what's going to happen to me and to Runt? You know, our future and stuff?" Rita asked.

The mysterious man laughed and gently patted Rita's paw off his arm, the cat sulked as she had a feeling where he was going with this. Taron stared his purple eyes softly into Rita's green eyes.

"I'm afraid that would be cheating my furry little friend. I'm sorry but I cannot tell you your future, your fate is what you make of it, not what some magic man tells you in the middle of the night" Taron said.

"Well, it was worth a try" Rita sulked.

"I'm afraid I must leave Rita, I hope you've learned something from our conversation. Before I leave though I just wanted to apologize one last time" Taron said.

"Apologize? What are you talking about, apologize for what?" Rita blinked as she asked.

"For what's about to happen to you" Taron said.

Before Rita could even ask what he meant by that, the small cat's eyes nearly jumped out of their sockets as Taron's feet and legs started to vanish in a sea of twinkling sparkles. Rita screamed and leapt off of the bench towards Taron only to grab at nothing but air. The terrified tiny cat looked up to the angelic man and cried out his name, asking him one last thing before he vanished into the night.

"WAIT, WAIT, please Taron tell me, what's about to happen to me, WHAT?" Rita cried out.

"Fate" Taron's voice boomed.

In the blink of a trembling eye, Taron was gone and poor confused little Rita was left to wonder what that strange man meant by fate.

CHINK!

A loud sound from behind suddenly chilled the spine in Rita's silver little body, it sounded like metal striking concrete. Rita's neck fur stood on end as she became paralyzed with fear. The tiny cat closed her eyes and crossed her paw fingers, praying in her mind that when she turned around, she wouldn't see who she thought was behind her. Rita slowly turned around and gasped.

"Pretty, bitty, kitty" Crazy Ivan cackled.

That maniacal, black bearded, twisted, monster of a homeless man was back, he had somehow escaped the police and was clutching a shimmering meat cleaver in his right hand. Ivan smirked towards Rita and clopped his worn down shoes closer to the frightened cat. Rita swallowed hard.

"Not again" Rita squeaked.

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To be continued……