Standing atop a twenty story skyscraper, he looked down at the city below, now coated in sheets of the ice that gently drifted downward from the heavens. He did not hold any sympathy for this place; it was full of what he despised the most. There were kats down there that were better off than he was; they had food, shelter, money. They had lives to live. He didn't have much of one; not really. He did hard time in prison before this point, and this was the second time he had managed to escape from one.
'Of course,' he thought, 'this time is different.'
He had almost turned the entirety of the city into his own personal playground before, but now there was more than just rampaging around like a maniac on his mind. He had managed to get past the patrols of Enforcers somehow; he didn't know what exactly was going on over there, but that place would be a target of his sooner or later.
But his first thought was that he needed backup. He couldn't do all this cool stuff and not have men to lead. After all, he was still only one kat.
'I'll have to hit the streets sooner or later; go for the poor, the homeless. I'll have to comb the underground as well. Try to see if there are any who are looking for some dirty business.'
With that thought, he began heading back towards the nearby elevator that would take him back downwards. Those inside the building that got in his way met an unfortunate fate as he stormed through. There were workers frozen to their desks, security guards that were now living ice statues. The whole of the building, save for the elevator, the doors, and all its working components, was completely and totally ice blue.
As the elevator slowly headed down to the bottom floor, the kat took off the hood of his parka and removed the mask that covered the lower half of his face. Once he was finished, the kat stood there, basking in the warmth for a few moments. Sure he couldn't feel the cold, but he still preferred being indoors.
The sound of the chime signaled the end of the ride and he stepped out of the elevator, his boots crunching along the ice rink that was the first floor lobby. As he took a look around at his handiwork, he laughed menacingly. "Never thought it'd be so easy," he said as he walked through the front doors, replacing his hood and mask before doing so.
Though no one knew it yet, Rex Shard was back in town.
Kanto the Slayer presents
A SWAT Kats Fanfiction
SWAT Kats: Endgame
"As temperatures drop to thirty-two degrees, local residents are suddenly breaking out their winter garb. While there is little explanation yet as to the mysterious circumstances, some are taking the bizarre weather quite well. One might even say they had expected it…"
Ann Gora was dressed in winter wear as well, but she was most certainly still on the job. The cameras showed children playing in the streets and having snowball fights, as if they didn't really care why the weather had changed. Still, to the four who were watching the news, it wasn't really that much fun.
The door to the lounge was closed tight with the bottom weather-sealed, and even then they had blankets around their shoulders. It was the first time in several months that they had to have this kind of protection against the elements with them, but Chance and Jake were glad they had it now.
"Concerns about the change in climate have not gone unnoticed by the Enforcers, however. Commander Ulysses Feral issued a statement that they would be working around the clock to discover the cause behind this unnatural weather and bring it to a close. Whether that is possible or not remains to be seen at this time. From downtown MegaKat City, this is Ann Gora, Kat's Eye News."
Chance picked up the remote for the TV and pressed the mute button. "I don't like to rag on those guys, especially with how much they lost, but they're not gonna be able to do it. There're gonna be a lot of kats out there who will try to take advantage of the cold to do a little 'early shopping'. With Feral's numbers, he's not gonna be able to handle it all on his lonesome, however much he wants to."
Jake raised an eyebrow and said, "You're thinking there are gonna be a lot of five finger discounts around, don't you?"
Chance nodded. "It's only logical."
Callie smiled and said, "More paid work for us, then."
Chance shook his head. "Negative."
That comment made them all look towards him with more than slight puzzlement. The big tom expected this and began explaining. "He's going to use any means available to try and keep us out of the running, and that includes actually trying to do it himself with what little forces he has left. But that's only if he gets desperate. So the first thing he'll do…"
Felina, realizing where this was headed, finished the explanation for him. "…Is one of the last things he wants to do. He's going to hire KatGuard."
Chance nodded. "I'm betting it's going to be their job to keep the stores from being cleaned out. It's a sound tactical decision, for him. But it leaves us out of any kind of cash. He probably expects us to do something about it anyway, though."
Callie's ears lowered a bit as she said, "Well what are we supposed to do, sit around and do nothing?"
Chance smirked. "Hell no we're not. We just can't stop ten robberies at once. What we do," he said as he stood up from the couch, "Is get out there and find out what caused this freak snow storm."
Jake raised an eyebrow and said, "We don't even know the first place to look, Chance."
Chance looked behind him and replied, "We sure as hell aren't going to find out by sitting around. Suit up; we got wheels up in five minutes."
That got everyone moving. Jake took the time to turn the television off before heading down with the others. Flight suits were donned; Glovatrixes were strapped on just in case they were needed, and within seconds, they were indeed the SWAT Kats. There was one additional element to the whole thing, though. One couldn't call the SWAT Kats unprepared. Each team member put on a winter coat, the same dark blue color as the flight suits, and the same red kat's head on the shoulders. A pair of leather gloves completed the preparations.
Jake and Chance immediately headed towards the TurboKat after they were finished gearing up, with Felina taking the StealthKat… or at least, she tried to. "Hang on," Razor said as he saw Lioness go for her elevator. He jogged back towards her and Ghost and said, "We're gonna need more than one kat on the ground today."
Lioness raised an eyebrow. "Don't you need more air power, just in case they have a few surprises that we didn't expect?"
Razor shook his head. "Nah, we're good for now. Whoever caused this isn't going to be stealing jets or choppers right away. We have to catch him before he does, though; otherwise, we are gonna need that air power." He began heading back towards the TurboKat, but not before finishing what he was saying. "There's a pair of SnowKats down there in the hangar; they work the same way as the SandKat. Those emergency thrusters should do you some good for quick getaways, and the front's been equipped with a pair of mini-rocket launchers and a chain gun. Think you guys can handle that?"
Their answer was cut short by T-Bone shouting, "Razor, let's move! This guy isn't gonna wait for us!"
With that, he sprinted off towards the TurboKat and the two she-kats headed towards their vehicles. "They actually managed to mount a chain gun in these things?" Ghost asked as she walked towards the snowmobiles. Lioness shrugged and said, "Don't know about that, but I do see the rockets. These are the ones, all right."
As they both got on, the silver-haired she-kat quickly familiarized herself with the controls just as the TurboKat prepared to fire up its engines. Of course, she accidentally pressed one of the buttons for the weapon controls located on the right hand side, and lo and behold, the front of the SnowKat opened up to reveal a chain gun, chambered in rifle caliber.
"What is it that Razor can't do, exactly?" Callie said in amazement.
"Fly," Lioness said simply. "And that's why he needs T-Bone. I haven't seen a pilot as skilled or as crazy as he is."
Ghost smirked and said, "Except for you?"
Lioness chuckled and said, "Come on, let's go get us a bad guy."
Several black cars were patrolling the streets this day, each vehicle carrying two equally black-clad mercenaries with winter coats and gloves on. They had sophisticated electronics installed in each one, with the red, blue, and amber lights of a normal police car. But then again, these were not normal police.
No, normal police would not be armed with sub machine guns and assault rifles. Duty pistols were not the order of the day here. Body armor was concealable underneath the layers of clothing; no one expected anything heavier than small arms, and just in case someone had the big guns, they had a unit that could take those kinds of situations.
These were not Enforcers, but mercenaries from KatGuard, and although they weren't hired to fight a war, they certainly were ready for one. For now though, things were relatively quiet. Of course, they were expected to start out that way, but one could never be too careful. Naturally, some of the new kats were getting restless.
"This is Bengal in Zone Two; no problems so far." Reggie was one of those kats, and he was starting to get a bit annoyed about the lack of action. It was, after all, his first official deployment. Sure, no one expected the cold weather overnight, but it was what they had trained for. But at the same time, he felt nice and warm in this car… and it had only been about three hours since being sent out.
He sighed and began pulling out from the curb he had been parked at, the studded tires of the black sedan that he drove digging into the snow and ice. Sitting beside him was a she-kat just about his age named Frida. She looked over at him and asked, "You should look a bit less bored. At least we're getting paid, even if it turns out to be for absolutely nothing. Our job isn't exactly to stop robberies, but to-"
Reggie finished the sentence that he was expecting to hear. "…To provide a visible presence, a deterrent from anyone trying to do something stupid. I know." He sighed again and said, "Patrol work isn't my thing, though. I'd rather be on the Tactical Unit than just driving around like this."
She chuckled and said, "Like I haven't noticed that. Cheer up; at least we don't have to wear that heavy armor that slows a kat down."
He smirked and said, "No argument here."
The sound of breaking glass was heard from some distance away, which made Reggie and Frida turn their heads towards the noise. "Quiet this tin can down, Bengal," the young she-kat whispered, "I think we might be getting some work in today after all."
Slowly, they rounded the corner where they heard the noise and heard something else as well: the sound of a burglar alarm. Reggie cut the engine and slowly reached for the door handle. Frida quietly opened her own door and stepped out, readying an MP5. As stated before, duty pistols weren't in the equipment list of these guys, considering that they could be facing just about anything.
Reggie stepped out of his own door, a UMP slung across his own left shoulder. The two approached the building as stealthily as they could, and as they neared it, Reggie pointed down a nearby alley, signaling that he was going to try and enter in through the delivery entrance. Frida nodded and the two of them split up, with her taking the front door… or as the case was when she was close enough, the front window. They hadn't bothered with the door.
As Reggie headed down the alley, he clicked his radio and whispered, "This is Bengal in Zone Two, we have a tripped alarm at a hardware store, requesting an additional unit to head towards our position, over."
The radio replied in his ear piece a few seconds later, making him feel very fortunate that he had turned the volume down. "Copy that Zone Two, alarm has been confirmed. Nearby units are en route; hold position until they get there."
Reggie gritted his teeth, and yet replied as normally as he could, "Understood, holding position." But of course, he was too far gone to do that now. Besides, once their reinforcements got there, it would probably be too late. They had to take care of this now, while they still could.
He switched frequencies on his radio and began speaking again. "Frida, what's it look like up there?"
She was prone on her stomach underneath the store's window when she heard her radio. Getting up just enough to peek over the pane of the broken glass, she quickly lowered herself again and continued crawling forward. "I count three at the front. I don't think that they're the ones that broke the window in; they're just lookouts."
Reggie nodded and said as he peeked around the corner of the building that led towards the delivery door, "No one at the back so far…" and when he was finished peeking, he said, "Yeah, no one back here. I'll take this way. Whatever you're doing, stop and wait for my green light."
Frida halted where she was underneath the window and lay perfectly still. If her heart weren't beating a thousand times per minute before, it certainly was now. She was going for the door, but now realized that it would have been a mistake to do so. The already open window was just as good of an entry point, and besides, if she took the door she'd just get flanked.
Reggie wasn't about to go doing anything stupid either. This wasn't like the training exercises; these were kats who probably had real guns, and even if they didn't there were ten tons of sharp objects in a hardware store. This wasn't the time to go in loud like he would have done before he had been schooled in the real way to fight.
Fortunately for him, he had a few tools to get things done. 'If I had this earlier in my life, I wonder how many times I would have avoided being shot at,' he thought to himself as he withdrew a lock pick kit from his gear belt. "I'm in position," He whispered into his radio as he started breaking in, setting the tension wrench and lifting all the pins, just in case something stupid happened.
A series of soft clicks was heard as he slowly pulled the pick out, having to slide it back in a few times until he heard one. Within seconds, the wrench turned with a frightening ease as the lock gave way. He smirked and said softly without activating his radio, "That's one…"
Reggie slid the wrench out of the deadbolt and made for the door knob lock, which he did the same way. This time he got lucky as all five pins slid into position. With that, he put the tools away and quietly opened the door, lifting the UMP to shoulder level as he did so. "Frida, I'm in; go for it."
She took a deep breath and rolled over, fishing a flash bang from her duty vest. She wasn't about to be careful about pulling the pin on it; they were about to get noisy anyway. Immediately after, she tossed the noisemaker inside and covered her ears.
"What was that?" One of the kats inside said, making the other two turn and look in the direction of whatever had made that noise on the ground.
What happened in the next second was the desired effect. The flash bang went off, and the three kats that acted as lookouts were stunned and had a quite painful ringing in their ears. Still, one of them did manage to yell, "Cops! We got cops out here!"
'Shit,' Frida cursed silently as she sprang up from her hiding place and hopped through the window, her body a flurry of motion as she proceeded to disable the would-be robbers from doing anything else but walk around dazed. As she put them onto the tiled floor, they were handily handcuffed and whatever weapons they had on them were confiscated. Of course, none of them had a gun on them, just knives. Then again, that didn't mean that no one else did, nor did that make them any less dangerous.
"The three up front are neutralized; I'm heading towards your position," she said into her radio, no longer feeling the need to whisper.
"Negative," Reggie said as he scoured the back of the store, "Stay there until reinforcements arrive; then you can come back here. I got these last few guys."
Or at least, he thought he did. A split second after he had rounded a corner from the isle he was walking down, he had to take cover back behind the shelf. A hammer was sent flying at him and buried itself into the wall that his back would have been facing. It missed him by inches.
'Shit! That was too close…'
Reggie yelled out from behind his improvised cover, "Well that's a nice way to say hello! Now I'll have to throw something back at you!"
He pulled out a smoke grenade and pulled the pin on it before tossing the damn thing around his cover. Within seconds, a cloud of voluminous smoke filled the place where they were located, and even though it wasn't toxic, it made it damn hard for anyone to see anything.
As the smoke dispensed, Reggie began to circle around the other side, trying to move as quickly as he could to catch them from behind. He got close enough to hear one of them say, "Fuck this, we gotta get the hell out of here!"
And then, he struck.
Rounding the corner, Reggie shoved one of the poor bastards into the other two, causing them all to stumble and topple over. He leveled his gun at the three of them and said smugly, "Picked the wrong morning, guys. I wouldn't move if I were you."
He heard the sirens of another car outside and said, "Let's take a walk, shall we? Get up, you greedy bastards."
Frida headed towards Reggie with two other kats, and the four of them escorted the six criminals outside to their cars. Reggie hopped into the driver's seat again and said, "That wasn't so bad… could have been worse. I could have a hammer through my forehead right now, did you know that?"
Frida grimaced and said, "That was the last thing I wanted to know, Bengal. Let's just turn these guys in; there's probably going to be more of these later on."
He nodded and said, "The Captain is expecting as such." Then, with a grin he added, "Just another day at the office!"
His heavy orange winter coat, formerly a part of his prisoner's uniform, made him obvious against the dreary grey sky and the frozen streets piled with snow. The black arctic gloves on his hands were a dead giveaway as well as he walked along the alleyways, looking for kats that were out in the cold. Living in boxes, garbage dumps, whatever makeshift lean-tos they could conjure up.
He said the same thing over and over again to each homeless and destitute kat he passed: "Follow me if you want a new life."
You would think that one sentence would not have roused people out of their somewhat comfortable and yet uncomfortable positions to walk in the snow, but it did. By the time he had found a building in which to say his piece, somewhere that he and his new companions would not be interrupted, he had quite a following.
The black cloth mask that covered the lower half of his face was never taken off during any of this. He needed to put a bit of shock and awe into these kats, and hiding his face was part of it. The hood over his head completed the look and hid the rest of him effectively well.
Once he was inside the warehouse, which was somewhat warmer than it was outside, they were all quite relieved to be out of the cold… but they wouldn't be relieved for long. Stomping one foot down as soon as he was in the middle of the warehouse caused a five foot high pillar of ice to rise up from beneath him, taking him upwards in view of whoever wanted to listen.
After what he had just done, they all listened intently.
"I promised you," he began, "A new life. I meant that, every word. But of course, like everything else in this city, you're gonna have to work for it. Then again, none of you have jobs, shelter, and any way to get that kind of security. Other people have that, right?"
A murmur of agreement spread through the crowd that was gathered.
He nodded and said, "I don't think they deserve it. The ones who need that security are out there on the streets, you kats and your kittens. But no one cares; no one wants to help or give anything, especially not those in the top ranks of society." His eyes narrowed as he said, "You know something? I say we take what's ours."
"And how are we gonna do that?" one kat called out to him. "Just who are you, anyways?"
One couldn't see the sinister smile underneath that black mask of his, but it was there. "I'm someone who feels your pain. Who knows what it's like to have nothing at all, not even respect. If you want any of your respect back, you'll follow me. Or you could always live in the dregs of society forever… it's your choice."
Silently, everyone pondered this for a few moments, which made Rex wonder if he were getting through to any of them. Then the tom that had spoken out against him earlier said, "Fine, what do we have to do."
The criminal smirked underneath his mask. 'Good, there goes the first part,' he thought. 'Now it's time for some logistics.'
Of course, what he meant by that was it was time to break stuff and "procure" supplies. He had quite a bit of work for his new force to accomplish, but they needed the gear to get it done. And he knew the perfect place to start first.
"Keep the queens and kittens here," he said from his frozen pedestal. He knew it would cut his forces in half, but he didn't want to lose the momentum he had just gained. "Before you she-kats say anything, just remember that someone's gotta stay here and take care of them. I don't doubt any of your abilities."
As the toms walked out of the warehouse and into the cold again, it wasn't too difficult to see that none of them liked it. Rex didn't care. It was their decision to follow him. Fortunately for them, he found something that would get them to their destination a bit faster: a transport truck.
"Pile in, now. We're going on a road trip."
They did, and eventually they happened upon the destination that Rex was driving them to, a gun shop. 'First things first,' he thought, 'we need weapons to get the goods. It's a time-honored rule that no one likes being shot. Of course,' he added to himself with a smirk, 'I don't need one.'
"Wait for me here," he said after he parked outside, just a few meters away from the shop. "Someone take the wheel and head towards the front door as soon as I come back out."
With that said, Rex walked inside, mask and hood still on. Fortunately for him, the shop was open, even with all the snow and ice around. "Can I help you with something?" the tom at the front counter asked as the door bell chimed.
Shard looked around for a moment, examining the many items that were there. Yeah, this would be enough for all of his guys out there. He looked towards the tom and said, "No… you can't." He extended his right hand, and within the next split second, the kat before him was turned to ice with a blast of light blue. He didn't even have enough time to hit the silent alarm, which of course was what Rex planned to do; hit him before he could warn anyone else that they were there.
'We still have to move quickly,' he said to himself as he moved back outside, 'A big truck parked in front of a gun shop would have anyone checking to see what's going on.'
The next part wouldn't be so quiet, which was fine with him. He wanted certain individuals to know he was in town anyway.
As soon as the truck stopped, he said, "Get in there and load up with as much as you can carry, including ammo. Also, which one of you knows how to shoot?"
Two kats raised their hands and said they used to be in the military before losing their livelihoods. Rex nodded and said, "All right, from this point on you two are in charge of training. I want every kat that can walk and has two arms in this group ready for a raid as soon as possible."
They nodded grimly and headed into the store. Rex turned his back on what they were doing and smirked beneath his mask. 'And now for stage two.'
"Tell me again why we're doing this, T-Bone?" Razor asked as he sat in his usual seat in the TurboKat.
T-Bone grinned and replied, "'Cause we've never tested this baby in cold weather before. Besides, you know what happens when cold air hits an engine." As if to demonstrate, T-Bone throttled up and the happy whine of the engines were heard as they indeed took in that thicker, colder air. The two toms sunk back in their seats as the jet leapt forward like an excited kitten.
Razor nodded and said, "Well even if I didn't, that just told me. But seriously, aren't we supposed to be looking for the guy that's doing this? He could be doing something even worse down there if we don't get moving."
T-Bone looked back at his WSO and said, "We don't have enough information yet. I've been keeping the emergency band on and all I've gotten are the usual reports of robberies, a few traffic violations, but nothing else. Whoever this kat is, he's certainly keeping quiet for now." He looked forward again and said, "That's what our girls on the ground are for."
Razor sighed and said, "Fine, but it's getting a little dull up here. Almost makes me want to buzz Feral's control tower."
T-Bone laughed and said, "Don't worry, buddy; they'll find something for us to smash. Count on it."
Of course, things were much the same on the ground. The modified snowmobiles tore across the ice and snow that covered the streets, both she-kats tuning in to the same broadcast frequency only to find nothing out of the ordinary. Of course, Lioness had one more source she could turn to, but he was only to call her when things got hectic.
Right now, it just seemed like another day at the office for all involved, KatGuard or no.
"Something doesn't smell right about all this," Ghost said as they continued their patrol along the streets. "It's too normal for a day like this; we have a lot of attempted break-ins as expected, but nothing to warrant a lot of concern."
Lioness replied with, "Maybe that's a good thing. We should probably count ourselves lucky that we haven't had to do anything about this yet. It was a good idea on Commander Feral's part to hire those contractors; they're certainly doing a good job at not killing anyone outright just yet and are making good progress with keeping the storefronts safe."
Ghost nodded, still worried about something that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She figured that she would know when she saw it though, and with that she didn't say much of anything else. It was then that she noticed the emergency thruster switch and grinned. "Wanna try these out?"
Lioness looked towards her with a raised eyebrow, confused as to what her friend was getting at, when she noticed what one of the silver-haired she-kat's thumbs were toying with. "Thought those were for emergencies?"
Ghost shrugged and said, "I know that. But come on, don't you at least want to see if they work?"
Lioness placed a thumb on the same switch and said, "To hell with it. I was getting bored anyways."
They seemed to hit their individual switches at the same time, and immediately they heard the sound of the turbines from the emergency thrusters firing up. Essentially, they were miniature jet engines and worked the same way. And as soon as the fans reached their intended operating speed (which didn't take long), the SnowKats launched forward, a bright blue cone of heat coming right out the back.
Ghost had the silliest grin on her face as she and her friend raced along the snow, keeping in mind that they would more than likely run into something unusual much faster this way. "This is awesome," she shouted as they let the engines do their thing, moving down the street faster than any of the cars on the road, as few as there were today.
Attempting to turn, of course, caused a bit of a problem… they weren't called emergency thrusters for nothing. "Shit, damn thing won't respond," Lioness cursed through clenched teeth as she tried to steer. Ghost gritted her teeth as well and said, "Cut 'em!"
They did, easing off of the throttle at the same time. They slid on the ice for a bit before finally coming to a stop, and Lioness said, "Knew that was a bad idea."
Ghost shook her head and said as she looked towards Lioness, "No, it wasn't. We know why they're called 'emergency' thrusters now: they only go one way and that's about it. We can still use that to our advantage."
Lioness smirked and said, "Ever the optimist, huh? You sure have changed from back then."
Ghost laughed before looking forward again, only to realize that there was a big white truck driving away from a building. She didn't think of it as anything special for now and began driving forward again… but the closer she got, the more she noticed that something was very, very wrong.
"Lioness," she said as she stopped in front of the building, "Check it out."
The brunette stopped as well and checked the door, as well as the sign above it. "A gun shop…" She checked the windows and her eyes widened. "Holy shit… someone cleaned this place out!"
Ghost nodded. "Yeah, and they did it without having the alarm tripped or any windows broken at that." She opened the door and gasped at what she saw. It was the store clerk, and he was frozen solid. Lioness stepped in after her and frowned distastefully. "Well, that's how they did it. Poor bastard didn't have time to hit any alarms at all."
Ghost immediately headed outside and hopped onto her SnowKat. "Then it looks like we have a lead." She fired up her engine and said, "Follow that truck!"
Chapter 53: Whiteout (Part 2) – Cold Reception
All right, another edible chapter in less than five thousand words. Um… skip that, less than six thousand. No matter, though. I'm just busy a-writin' away here, counting down the days until this one is finished. It might take a while, but it will be done, I assure you. In the meantime, hope you guys are doing all right. I figure I would take out the RA here as well, because there's not much to be said that hasn't been said already.
That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate you guys. I just need to focus on the important stuff here, such as work.
Speaking of work, I need to work on my other stories. Go read 'em if you have the courage/time/boredom factor. With that, I take my leave as always. See you next chapter!
Hasta la vista, see ya when I see ya.
