The TurboKat, high above the city, made its rounds along each sector, searching for any possible cause for the weather anomaly that was currently plaguing the city. That wasn't even the bad part; it was getting worse. At one time, the jet's external sensors read the temperature as twenty-one degrees. That was only an hour ago. Razor's face looked grim as he announced the temperature yet again.
"It's dropped five more degrees out there. If we don't get something soon, T-Bone, we'll freeze our tails off, and so will Lioness and Ghost."
The tom in question looked behind him and said, "Well this is why we're all bundled up like this, right? They can handle it down there. Besides, they've got good eyes on 'em; something's gonna turn up sooner or later." At least, he hoped so. If it got any colder, they'd have to fight out here. He knew what'd happen then; it would only be a matter of time before they had to get somewhere warm. Sure, he and Razor, and even Lioness were trained for extreme environments.
'But Ghost… she's the unknown factor in this. What's gonna happen if it gets colder and she's nowhere near prepared?'
He didn't want to know.
But of course, before long, the whereabouts of a lead turned up, and all thanks to the she-kat that T-Bone was just thinking about.
"We've got a hit, buddy," Razor said excitedly. "Gun store just got cleaned out, without the silent alarm going off. Our ground team is in pursuit of a truck that's supposedly holding the goods. I got tracers on both SnowKats, and I've already gotten a lock on their signals!"
T-Bone grinned. 'That's my queen.' "Awesome; we're in pursuit. Get those weapons ready, Razor – we might be going in hot after all!"
The engines roared as the TurboKat headed towards the exact location of the modified snowmobiles that were on the ground, and as the tracker showed, they were hauling ass. It appeared that the two she-kats had indeed caught a scent after all…
Kanto the Slayer presents
A SWAT Kats Fanfiction
SWAT Kats: Endgame
Rex drove as if there were nothing wrong with his vehicle. After all, no one saw them or knew what was going on; at least not yet. It wasn't marked, which wasn't all that bad. At least no one saw it as suspicious or anything. Besides, without that alarm tripped, who would care?
'Beautiful thing about this is,' he thought, 'Those SWAT Kats won't dare to respond. They won't come out unless those retards that call themselves cops are in trouble.'
The tom that was in the passenger's side of the cab was not as calm. One could tell by the way he looked into the side mirror every five minutes. It was a shame that thing had a limited field of view; otherwise he would be able to confirm or deny his fears a bit sooner. But he was stopped when the tom next to him said, "Would you quit doing that, you moron? No one's onto us."
The poor kat tried to calm down. "I just have a bad feeling about all this, boss…" He didn't dare call him by his name; hell, the guy hadn't been given a name to call, so he called the tom in the parka boss. It seemed fitting, since he was the one with the plans.
Rex smirked confidently and said, "Even if there is something wrong, there's always a contingency plan. I suggest you sit there and stay quiet for now, otherwise someone WILL notice something's up, and then we'll catch all sorts of hell." Not like that mattered; nothing mattered anymore. He had enough of this power, whatever it was, to freeze this city over twice if he wanted to. As soon as he learned to take full hold of it, it would be a snap.
'All these other rags, they can go to hell after that. So can this city.'
The other rags he was talking about were in the back, and with plenty of hardware to use later. Most of them however didn't know the first thing about shooting a gun, and the few that did were hesitant about doing so. They would learn soon enough, though. That was, if they were alive or still free by the time this was over.
It would be a few minutes later though that most of them would wish they had learned before raiding the weapons locker of that gun shop.
Behind the truck and closing fast was the pair of SnowKats, snowmobiles turned into mobile assault platforms. While they weren't exactly bristling with weapons, they were well-equipped enough for their riders to defend themselves when it came to it. Draped in black, blue, red and yellow, much like the several other vehicles like them, the SnowKats were in pursuit of this truck and anyone inside.
The riders were clad in navy blue winter coats, complete with hoods and black leather gloves. The masks over their eyes marked them as surely as the red kat's head on either shoulder of their coats – these were SWAT Kats. The sound of their engines couldn't be heard over the much larger engine of the truck, which helped a bit when it came to concealment.
The two she-kats, for she-kats they were, rode side by side, doing nothing for now but following the truck. While the one on the left had cream colored fur, the one on the left looked as if she had been out at the beach for a while, sporting a tan. Their names, respectfully, were Ghost and Lioness.
It was long assumed by those that did not know any better that there were only two SWAT Kats in existence, but that assumption, at least by this one thief and his new cohorts, was about to change.
"We're taking them at the next light," Ghost said into her helmet-integrated radio, "Get ready."
Lioness said nothing, simply narrowed her eyes and waited for the truck to stop. She thumbed the switch to activate the weapons, eagerly hoping that whoever this kat was, he or she would put up something of a struggle. If that weren't the case, then… well, it'd be boring.
Soon enough, the truck did stop at a red light, but the sound of the engines behind it was heard much easier. They didn't care; they wanted the driver to know he was being followed, and even if they didn't, it would have happened sooner or later. As they approached and slowed down, still behind the truck, Ghost felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Something was wrong…
And then as soon as she thought that, the truck began speeding off through the intersection while there was still a red light. The cars that were passing through were bound to ram into it. 'He's awful desperate not to get caught,' Ghost thought as she watched the truck begin to head into traffic… and then her eyes widened as the cars froze in place almost instantly, seconds before they rammed into it!
Lioness didn't need any other reason to gun her engines, even as the imminent pileup began to happen. They had to get through, now! Ghost quickly followed, cars crashing around her and almost into her, which almost made her hit the switch for the emergency thrusters. But they both made it through without them and immediately resumed pursuit, now certain that whoever was driving, or maybe someone inside the back of the truck, was responsible for this weather.
"T-Bone, Razor, do you copy? We have confirmation that the one behind this freak snow storm is in that truck we're following! If you can hear this message, home in on our signal and pursue immediately," Ghost said as she armed her weapons. They would have to stop that vehicle at all costs before it got to where it was going.
She quickly lowered her helmet's visor, which brought up the usual heads-up display in a matter of mere moments. An aiming sight appeared as she armed the rockets, hoping to take the back wheels out and slow the truck down. Of course before she could do that… the back opened and revealed several kats in worn clothing, most of them armed with automatic rifles and sub machine guns.
'Guess we found the thieves, too.'
Of course, they subsequently found out that many of them were a bit reckless in their operation of the guns, and a bunch of them didn't even know that they had the safeties on. "Who the hell are these guys?" Lioness said as she locked onto three of them. "Doesn't matter, they're going to the Enforcer lockup when we're done with 'em. Take out the tires; I'll keep them from putting an accidental hole in us or someone else!"
With that, she fired a rocket, that wasn't all that harmful since there turned out to be a net installed in it. More than three kats were snagged in that, but not enough to stop the random fields of fire. To be honest, it was more dangerous for bullets to go everywhere than be focused all in one direction. Apparently, only a handful knew that, because three or four of them were firing straight at the SnowKats with controlled bursts.
The truck took a left turn and the snowmobiles followed suit, the two she-kats at the controls with their Glovatrix shields now deployed. After all, at least some of them knew how to shoot and had decent aim. The two of them quickly moved to the sides of the truck, going for the tires…
…When Ghost was suddenly visited upon by a bolt of ice blue light. She barely ducked underneath it, but even the tips of her ears felt the unnatural amount of energy behind it. Well that was nice; she had almost become an ice statue. "Right, well now you're about to have a bad day, whoever the hell you are," she muttered as she drove closer to the driver's side of the truck. Another blue bolt came towards her and she ducked again, this time a scant few seconds earlier due to the fact that she saw the hand come out of the window first. With that, she reached the front and immediately switched her Glovatrix to attack mode, causing the shield to fold back into place as she aimed the barrels toward the driver.
"You missed your chance to come quietly," was all she said before she fired shots of tar into the truck. The driver, who was wearing an orange parka and a black mask over his mouth, leaned back just enough for them to pass mere inches in front of his face, but the tom in the passenger's side wasn't so lucky and caught one right in the face.
The driver took a sharp left turn, trying to knock Ghost off of the road. He would have succeeded if she hadn't turned the engines as far as they could turn, which barely got her in front of the truck. Of course on the other side, Lioness was busy trying to puncture those wheels… but was being shot at from behind, forcing her to defend herself by keeping those that shot at her from poking their guns where they should not.
'Where are you guys at?' she brooded to herself. 'We kinda have our hands full here!'
Ghost, meanwhile, had a big truck breathing down her neck full of a bunch of rag tag kats who were more dangerous than someone who actually knew what they were doing. She was definitely mirroring Lioness' thoughts right now, only out loud and in her radio. "Hey guys, a little help would do right now! Where are you?"
Fortunately for her, her radio echoed, "Look above you!"
For a brief moment, she did… and lo and behold, the black bird of death known as the TurboKat had arrived. She then looked behind her and her eyes widened as the vehicle seemed to be closer than she had first thought. "Damn it, this is not a good day!" She suddenly found it a very, very good time to use those emergency thrusters, and did so without hesitation. "Lioness, haul ass," she said into her radio as her SnowKat suddenly accelerated ahead.
"You don't have to tell me twice; I just saw our toms overhead." She hit her emergency thrusters as well, attempting to catch up to Ghost as quickly as she could. Fortunately for her, she was out of the range of those shooting at her faster than one could blink, which left plenty of room for the TurboKat to engage that truck.
Speaking of the TurboKat, it had circled around to make a pass at the back of the truck. "So this guy even has his own army," Razor commented as he zoomed in to take a closer look with the jet's external camera. "Well they look like they got conscripted right off the street, literally. Just a bunch of homeless kats with guns, it seems."
"Then it should be easy," T-Bone said as he brought the TurboKat in closer, "As long as we don't hit any other cars while we're at it."
And, he thought to himself, as long as they didn't have any anti-tank or anti-air with them. He doubted that a gun store had that kind of firepower, but one had to cover every angle. The big tom got in as close as he could, and Razor began training his in-visor sights on the group that was carrying all the hardware. "Sorry for leaving such a mess," he said before firing the Cement Machine Gun. Quick-drying cement sprayed from the six-barrel Gatling gun, and hit right on target, covering most, if not all of those kats.
Those that weren't hit with that short burst returned fire, but it was mostly useless against the jet. T-Bone grinned and said, "Yeah, like that'll work." He sped up and rocketed past the truck so he could get in front of it and finish this nonsense.
Sadly, it wouldn't be that easy.
The TurboKat sliced right in the air and stopped in front of the truck, hovering in mid-air like an ominous specter. The two kats in the cockpit looked ominous as well, even with their winter gear on. "I wouldn't move if I were you," T-Bone said through the loudspeaker. "We're gonna end this before it gets worse. Get out of the truck, Frosty."
The truck's engine revved in challenge for it had indeed stopped, seeing as it was at one would call a very big obstacle. But it seemed that whoever was in there was not coming along quietly. It revved again, as if it were going to move any time soon, and Razor said, "I don't think he's gonna get out. Matter of fact, it looks like he's more prone to ram us than anything."
"Then there's not much choice, is there? See if you can't take that engine out, buddy." Of course, the big tom was ready to put the engines to work if he had to. Razor, without saying much, began readying a Megavolt Missile. "This should do the trick. I'm locked on…"
And that's when things went wrong. A bolt of ice blue came from the driver's side window, and all at once, Razor couldn't fire his weapons. A harsh alarm sounded, and as Razor checked the status of the jet, he grimaced. "Shit, weapons bay's frozen shut!" Two more bolts came at them, ramming into various parts of the TurboKat. T-Bone immediately fired his engines, and the aircraft shot upwards, avoiding any further shots… except one lucky one.
Another alarm sounded. Razor checked again, and his eyes widened. "The bastard took out our right intake; it's jammed with ice!" Subsequently, the right engine quietly cut out, with the fans still moving. They had two more, which meant they could still fly, but…
"If this keeps up, we won't be in the air," T-Bone said as he began executing evasive maneuvers. Razor's radar picked up movement from the truck again, this time behind them. "I figured something like this would happen," the slim tom muttered as they were now the ones being hunted. "We need to ditch this guy before he turns us into kat-sicles! Put those other engines on maximum burn, T-Bone!"
"You don't have to tell me twice," the big kat said as he throttled up. The remaining two engines lit up, and the TurboKat, even with one engine down, still gained an impressive lead.
Meanwhile, on the ground, the truck was being chased once again by Ghost and Lioness. "This time," The brunette said with her eyes narrowed angrily, "We're not just taking that truck out."
Ghost silently agreed; no one tried to run her over and got away with it. Still, she didn't want to kill anyone; she just wanted whoever was driving to stop what they were doing. Sure, she would if it came down to it, but she didn't want to. With that said, she trained the sights of the chain gun onto one of the rear wheels, and before anyone had the chance to fire at her, she opened up.
The cab of that truck was rocked as the back two tires were blown clean out. "Dammit, they finally got us." He knew he couldn't drive with that kind of damage, and at this rate the back two wheels would grind against the icy road, slowing him down even further. There was only one way to get out of this.
Well, there was more than one way, but he didn't want to take the more extreme measures yet.
The she-kats below suddenly saw white, and a whole lot of it. On instinct, they stopped the sleds and tightened up the straps on their hoods. Oh, this was nowhere near good… and where the hell did the blizzard come from? Of course, it didn't take long to answer that question; it came from that kat in the orange parka and the black mask over his mouth.
But who knew he had this much control?
The TurboKat wasn't faring too well either. "Shit, I can't see an inch in front of my face like this! I'm taking her up, Razor!" As he did so, T-Bone knew perfectly well that they were letting this kat and whoever was left of his cronies get away, but it would be useless to follow them in this sudden snow storm. Fifteen thousand feet later, they were clear of the storm. "We can't keep on going like this," Razor said glumly. "We gotta pull back for now and find out what's with this kat."
T-Bone looked behind him and said, "What about Lioness and Ghost? They're still down there!"
Razor nodded and said with a grimace, "Yeah, I noticed. But we can't attempt a search and rescue with all that powder flying around." Then he smiled and added, "But I believe in those two; they'll be able to take it. Besides, I didn't just build those snowmobiles in a day; they can take whatever this freak can throw at them as well."
T-Bone turned to face forward again and said, "I sure as hell hope you're right. It'd suck if we lost them at this point." In more ways than one, to be sure, but he didn't say that out loud. He didn't have to.
Of course, what was expected to happen on the ground was happening. The driver of the truck got out, cursing vehemently to himself. To think that such a good plan would be ruined this early. He just hoped he had enough kats left back there to continue on. As he looked though, he found himself somewhat relieved.
"Let's go, you pathetic excuses for soldiers! This run is over; take what you can carry and follow me!" If he got away with at least something, it would be turned from a rout to a small tactical loss. Besides, he had more men left than expected. Those that were stuck to the floor would be taken in by the Enforcers sooner or later, but he didn't much care. He wanted people to know he was around anyway.
They began gathering what they could and proceeded to make their escape under the cover of the instantaneous blizzard. Of course, he couldn't leave without taunting his adversaries. Knowing that his two pursuers were still buried underneath the ever-growing pile of snow, he shouted, "Hear me, SWAT Kats! I'm only going to say this once; this is only a taste of what I can do to you, this city, and everyone in it! You want it to stop? Should you survive this, you bring Mayor Manx, Deputy Mayor Briggs, and that worthless Commander Feral to me! If you don't, I'll bury this city under a blizzard the likes of which even God has never seen!"
With that, and something akin to maniacal laughter, he began heading back towards his makeshift base, the rest of his army in tow. He had made them retreat and stopped them in their tracks; that was enough for now. Sure, he didn't expect there to be four of them now, but that was of little consequence. Next time, he'd kill them for sure, and that would be regardless of whether they met his demands or not.
As soon as he was well and gone, the blizzard died down quietly and slowly. Two piles of snow that looked much like grave markers were what covered Lioness and Ghost, and it was unlikely that they had heard what was said. Even if they had, there was one rule that a SWAT Kat followed above all others: never surrender.
A head suddenly rose from the pile to the left, and another rose from the one to the right. Two figures emerged from the snow, and they both looked pissed off. As they both brushed the snow off of their coats, Lioness said, "Damn it, he got some in my boots! I'm going to turn him into my own personal scratching post the next time I see him."
Ghost said nothing, simply looking towards the truck. She noticed that a few of the kats were still lying there, probably hit with the Cement Machine Gun. Sure they were immobile, but they were still alive. "At least we won't leave empty-handed," she said with a wry smile as she pointed towards the back of the truck.
She got off of her SnowKat and began heading towards the cab. "Call for a pickup of these suspects, Lioness; I'm gonna take a look around and see if there's anything we can learn about our walking natural disaster."
Of course, in order to do that, they'd need access to the Enforcer Biotech Lab. Dr. Conway had access to all that equipment, including DNA testing gear. The problem was that Feral would have little chance of letting them in. The solution of course was both simple, and complicated: talk to Dr. Conway himself. They'd done so before, and now he was one of the two kats in the city who could find out who was behind this.
'But we'd have to get in first, and then we'd have to present a sample of some sort. The second one shouldn't be a problem, but the first… they've probably tightened their defenses by now.'
Not that it would be impossible to get in, just that it would be a pain. Time was not on their side here.
The first place that Ghost looked was the most obvious; the driver's side of the cab. Immediately, she found what she was looking for. Amidst the snow that had been forced into the truck, she found several hairs. The question was whose were they? Well that didn't matter; they would find out soon enough. She managed to get enough of them for some viable evidence, and then heard the sound of sirens behind her.
'I'm surprised they got here this fast,' she thought to herself. But then, she was met with a surprise; it was a KatGuard helicopter equipped with the siren systems that were usually found on an Enforcer cruiser. She shrugged and said, "Better them than the real thing, I guess."
The suspects still had the stolen firearms in hand, which no longer made them suspects. This meant that the mercenaries would get paid yet again. Everyone won something in this, it seemed. As the helicopter flew off to dump the precious cargo at Enforcer headquarters, Ghost walked towards Lioness and presented the hairs she had collected. "We have to get these into Enforcer HQ as well; someone there can find out who is behind this."
Lioness raised an eyebrow and said, "And how did you plan on getting in there, exactly?"
Ghost grimaced and said, "The hard way."
Lioness smirked and said, "Like we need to do it like that. Use your head, please; I know you can."
The answer was so obvious; Ghost was shocked that she didn't think of it sooner. Still, the reason that she didn't think of it sooner came to her as soon as she realized what Lioness was getting at. "I don't want to get him involved in this any more than we have to. He's our liaison, and nothing else."
Lioness almost pouted. "He said that he'd help any way he could, right? Well this is a way to help. If we can get this evidence into the Biotech Lab without causing a riot while doing so, Feral will stay out of our hair and we get the full story at the same time."
Ghost had to concede that point to her friend. They didn't need Commander Feral sticking his nose into this. But she still had doubts. "If he gets caught, I wouldn't feel right about it for a while. He's a nice tom and I don't want to see him in trouble."
Lioness nodded and said, "Neither do I, but I'm sure he'd agree that this is the best way if he were here."
Ghost sighed and said, "All right, let's go for it. Call Benny up as soon as we get back to base and tell him to meet up at the garage." They were risking a lot by doing this; he was a sharp kat, and if he saw anything that made him suspicious, the four of them would be in for it. "For now, we have a whole different problem: how are we going to get these back to base?"
Lioness grinned and said, "Awww, there's always a way to do things. You just have to be creative."
One could almost see a sweat drop forming along Ghost's forehead. 'Okay, just as long as those creative methods don't get things broken.'
T-Bone and Razor had long since entered the hangar and began repair work; they were both planning on returning to the downtown area and pick up the other two members of their team. "Great, so now we've got the cause for this weather pinned down, and we've found out that he's annoying as all hell," T-Bone said as he attempted to clear the right intake.
Razor nodded and said, "On top of that, we don't know where he's hiding at; we just ran into him. We didn't even get a chance to put a tracer on him or any of his flunkies." He sighed and added, "This just might get worse before it gets better, but since when is that new?" He was busy scraping the ice off of the weapons bay as he spoke. "Remind me to get some kind of anti-freeze coating for the jet, if there even is such a thing."
T-Bone shrugged. "Meh, I wouldn't worry too much about that. I'm sure someone will have thought of that by now." He took off his helmet and said, "We just have to get this ice off and get back in the air before things get really ugly. I don't want the Enforcers to jump into this with so little manpower."
Razor laughed and replied, "Like that's ever stopped Feral!"
Of course, that was the point when the launch bay opened, and the two toms seemed to perk their ears. "I told you," Razor said with a smirk. T-Bone rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, just don't let it get to your head, buddy." But of course, he was happy they were back as well.
The two SnowKats rolled in, with two tired and cold-looking she-kats on the back. T-Bone stopped what he was doing and walked over towards Ghost. "You two are late," he said teasingly.
The silver-haired she-kat smiled and said, "I know. We had to go out and pick up a few things." She held up a small bag filled with the hairs she had gathered earlier. "Like this, for example. If we can find out who these belong to, we'll be one step closer to finding out how to stop him." That was assuming that it was someone they had faced before. If not, they may have a new set of problems to deal with all the same.
Razor shrugged and said, "Evidence, huh? Well we don't have the equipment to do a DNA test or anything like that. The Enforcers do, but it isn't going to be easy-"
"Yeah, I know," Ghost cut in, already knowing what he was going to say. "But we don't necessarily have to go in. Someone else could do it for us."
T-Bone and Razor immediately got the gist of what she was saying. "You sure that'll be okay?" the big tom asked as he looked towards Lioness. "If something goes wrong, it's on us."
The brunette nodded. "If there were anything that I would call a sure-fire, foolproof plan, this would be it. Besides, have I ever steered you wrong before?"
With that, she changed out of her gear and made an important phone call to a good friend.
Chapter 54: Whiteout (Part 3) – City of Ice
Well, there goes another one. Phew, this one took a long time to execute, huh? But still, it was worth it to provide you guys with yet another installment of excitement and adventure. Whether you guys liked it or not has yet to be seen, but I liked writing it. In any event, job sucks because it takes away from writing. Heck, the same could be said about all of life, but one has to get out of the house sometime.
Anyways, let me know how it was. Yeah, for those who wanted an RA, my apologies. I'm trying to put these chapters in the most consumable, bite-sized bits I can. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm not thankful; on the contrary. I'm happy you guys are even taking time out to look at my stuff, and thankful for all my readers.
I'm going to take a rest now.
Hasta la vista, see ya when I see ya.
