AUTHOR'S NOTE: I would like to begin by saying that my computer has it out to drive me insane. I am now starting over the entire chapter that I was working on. I'm not doing this because I want to, but because half-way though my comp decided that what I was doing wasn't important enough for it's time and sent an error report, booting me out of Word. Now, normally events like this cause me to swear at my computer and then quit whatever it was I was doing. The first I have done already. (Hey, you try losing three pages of un-saved work and see how you feel.) I will not, however do the second. I am re-starting my story from the beginning and I do not plan to give up until I have reach the end of this chapter.

Alright. Sorry about the venting, but it had to be done. This story will be written if it kills me and it just might…..

Anyway, to the story!……again!

PS: There's one inside joke hidden in this chapter for people who know the show well, it's nothing big, but it'll make those who catch it feel good about themselves.

DISCLAIMER I do not own SWAT Kats. Characters used without permission.

Episode 1

It was about four in the afternoon on a Tuesday. The day had crawled by slowly with no noteworthy events to speak of. The easy, laid back feel of the day was a pleasant one and a very welcome change to the community. Everything would have been perfect if not for one simple thing; it was hot! You could fry an egg on the sidewalks of Megakat City with no problem, though you probably wouldn't want to eat it. It was one of those days where you could see the heat and taste it in the air, that's how bad it was.

The temperature that morning was 93 and had climbed up to 95 now. That might not seem like much of a change until you took into count the fact that Megakat was nothing but pavement, blacktop, and steel and the heat reflected off always made the temperature feel about twenty degrees higher then what it really was in the summer. What made it worse of all was that fact that no cooling winds could make it into the city from all of the skyscrapers, especially street level. With all of that added up you were in for a lot of misery.

Things were a little better over by the junkyard out the outskirts of Megakat City, but not by much. They had the breeze over here since they were away from the city by a few good miles, but all of the steel and metal in the lot just made things miserable again. Also, it didn't help wearing a fur coat 24-7. It made a guy regret being a kat on days like today.

Jake Clawson was currently attempting to beat the heat in his own way; by working. He was currently laying on the ground of the junkyard's garage with the door all the way up wearing only shorts and a workout t-shirt. A small, rotating fan with faded blue ribbons blowing by his side, but neither the clothes or the fan were doing any good. He was still sweating like crazy. Jake did his best to not think about, but you can only ignore nature for so long before it got to you.

Above him was his item of distraction. It was a beauty of a motorcycle that arrived in with the weekly load of junk parts about a week and a half ago, give or take. It was brought in after it's owner had gotten into a bad cycling accident. The rider will be fine in about a month, but the crash had scared the kat strait. He never wanted to ride again so he had the bike taken away. Because of it's condition the cycle went to the city's scrap yard and into Jake's eager hands. It was beat up pretty bad and several pieces where missing or just too wrecked to even think about salvaging, however Jake knew that he could make this kitten purr again.

He had spent all of his spare time with the bike fixing it up, digging through the piles of forgotten junk in the yard, and adding his own little improvements into the mix. His best friend and co-worker, Chance Furlong, had joked time and time again that if he loved that bike so much, he should just marry it. Every time Jake would just laugh and say that marriage would only cause Chance to lose one damn good mechanic.

Truth be told he was a good mechanic. While he would never go so far as to say that he was genius, he did have a natural knack for anything mechanical. There was nothing that passed through Jake's paws that he couldn't repair, re-build, improve, or any mixture of the three. He loved building and creating, and not just because he could, but because with everything he worked on, no matter how small, a piece of his heart and soul went into the machinery. In a way, he cared for his works like they were his own children, but it was the cycle that had really caught him. Mostly, Jake thought, because everything that went through the shop was worked on by both Chance and himself, but this was different. Chance had offered his help with the motorcycle many times, but Jake always said no, that he wanted to do it alone, and that would be then the marriage comments would begin. Jake didn't care though; this was his project and his alone and that made was what he had really loved about it; the fact that everything he did to that bike would be his.

Jake thought that if his buddy ever knew how he thought about the stuff he worked on, Chance would never let him hear the end of it. However, these were thoughts that he kept to himself. He would never speak of that out loud, not even to Chance despite the fact that they were best friends and have been for so long. It was his way of belief that defined him for who he was, it made him unique.

A rounded bolt fell from the engine Jake was working and hit the poured stone floor. It bounced once, landed in it's curved end and started to roll away. Jake caught it in his left paw before it got to the point where he would have to get up and chase after it. He sat up from the floor and dusted off his back and tail, looking down at the little piece of machinery in his paw, turning it over and over in between his fingers. Maybe he was giving himself a little too much credit by thinking like he had. He was a very simple guy when you got down to it, nothing deep or poetic about him like you'd see in TV or the comics Chance loved so much. Jake had no dark past or horrible buried memories, nothing like that. By no means did that mean everything had gone perfect for him. Jake had his bad days like any other kat, but if that was the case then why does he live that double life? If he had no reason to fight, then why fight? If the answer was 'because it's the right thing to do' then he was pretty lame.

There was your reason that he worked so often. When he worked, he didn't have to think. His mind stayed focused on what he was doing anything else. He didn't have to worry about tomorrow, or about himself, nor would have to regret every mistake he had ever made. Jake was a smart kat, but intelligence was a double edged sword. The only time he wasn't second guessing himself was when he was inside one of his inventions. It was there that he knew that everything was right and perfect. It was there he felt safe. However now he sat on the floor of the garage, playing with a small bolt and losing himself in his thoughts, despite his best efforts otherwise. He remembered back the events that made him the kat he was today:

His name was Jacob Christopher Clawson. He had lived a very textbook life with nothing very out of the ordinary. The one thing that made him stand out was the fact that he was the kitten prodigy of material arts. He was the kat that had every mechanical and technical college fighting over him when he graduated from high school. There had been tons of offers from all over, but the one that really caught his eye was not a college, but the Enforcers. They were they top policing force in the world and they wanted him for their fighter squadron. Now it was extremely rare for anyone to be personally invited into the Enforcers, and rarer still for the elite branch that the fighter squadron was. Jake and taken all of two seconds before he agreed and signed up. The honor of being an Enforcer was great, but it was the chance to put his mind to some real use that got him going on the idea.

Jake had taken a written test and passed with flying colors, but had just gotten by on the physical test by the skin of his teeth. Within a few days he had his uniform and was a official member of the fighter squadron. His time in the Enforcers gave him two things: The first was the discovery of his natural talent for building and using weaponry (missiles especially) and the second was his friendship Chance.

Chance Furlong was the best pilot that the Enforcers had to offer. He was brave, strong, and took to the sky like a bird. They had been teamed up by Commander Ulysses Feral himself and with Chance's flying and Jake's dead aim, they became a team second to none. It was all the time the spent alone in the choppers that started the friendship. When you spend that much time on patrol just flying over the city, waiting for something to happen you begin to talk. They discovered that they had a lot in common despite the fact that they were two completely different kats. And it was up there that that had had jokingly made up their own nick-names. Chance had been T-Bone and he had been Razor. They both got a good laugh out of that.

It was on a normal day while Chance (T-Bone) and himself (Razor) where flying around the city on patrol talking about comics and cartoons when a call came in over the radio. One of the city's greatest kat threats, a villain known only as Dark Kat, was going to bomb Enforcer headquarters. The entire Enforcers squadron had been called out to stop Dark Kat at any costs. However, the maniac proved to skilled for most of the squadron, leaving only the copter Chance and Jake were in as well as Commander Feral himself.

Jake managed to get a lock on Dark Kat's ship and scored a direct hit on it's weapons system before any damage could be done to the building. Just they were ready to deliver a final blow when Feral move in ahead of them. He commanded that Chance pull his fighter back so that he could finish Dark Kat off. This cause an ego heated debate between Chance and Feral. Finally sick of arguing with one of his own men, the commander pressed forward for the kill. Chanced refused to give-up and both of their coppers collided in mid-air. Feral's ship made it fine enough, but the guidance system on their copter was trashed. With no choice left, Jake and Chance bailed out and could only watch as their ship crashed and destroy Enforcer's HQ. Luckily, the building had been evaluated before hand, but the structural damage was immense. The worst part was that Dark Kat escaped during the chaos.

Back on the ground Chance and Feral's argument only increased. Complete blame was placed on both of their heads for both the destruction and Dark Kat's escape. As punishment, they were both kicked out of the Enforcers and had to work in the city's military junkyard until every cent of damaged was paid off. With the salary they were given, it was going to take a very long time. Skip ahead and here they still were; working for the city.

Jake stood up from the ground and placed the bolt on the floor with the rest of his tools. He was just to overheated and distracted to give the bike the attention that it deserved. He would have to come back to it later. From the garage he moved into the inside of the shop that he and Chance had converted into a living area. Jake went strait for the fridge and pulled out a can of milk sitting in the front. When he closed the door he saw the huge grease mark left on the handle. His hands were cover in the stuff. Jake sighed and moved to the sink, turning it on with his upper arm. He washed his hands clean as well as the fridge and the can. Jake opened the milk and went to the couch. Plopping down and taking a huge gulp of cold milk, he felt for the remote and started flipping through the handful of channels they could get on the old set.

If Chance were he the TV would already be on. It was always on when Chance was around even if he wasn't watching. However he had left about an hour ago to pick up a broken down car way on the other side of the city. Looking at the clock he'd probably be back in a few minutes now that Jake thought about it. Jake found a sci-fi movie that looked promising and dropped the remote on the other side of the couch, but it wasn't long till he was thinking again.

Not even being kicked out of the Enforcers had ended their hero days as Feral thought it would. It had actually made the feelings stronger. They both had caught the fly-boy bug and like hell they were going to leave it be. Only a few short minutes after their 'punishment' had began Jake had found several scrap pieces of Enforcer copter equipment.

"Hey." Jake had said. "There's enough military salvage to build our own jet."

"And do what?" Chance, still angry, shot back.

"Get back into the air and get back at Dark Kat, and all the other criminal scum who reared their ugly faces into Megakat City. Only this time we do it our way."

Using parts from the junkyard Jake and Chance (who proved to be a pretty good mechanic himself) had built their own jet, painted it and called it the Turbokat (Chances' idea, for the record). From there came Jake's weapon skills and he build and installed the missies for their ship. Not being able to wait a second longer, they took it out for a spin. The Turbokat flew like a dream. While they were out they even put the missiles to good use, stopping and capturing a gang of thieves the Enforcers were having no luck capturing. Jake had made the crack that he felt like a superhero and Chance took off with it from there.

Using a sketch pad Chance drew out about seven pages worth of ideas for costumes. Jake had laughed and asked why they needed to dress up like it was Halloween. Without missing a beat Chance explained that all superheroes needed costumes from who they really were in the dark, away from their enemies.

"Chance," He said. "We don't have any enemies"

"Then what do you call Feral?" He shot back, sketching out another idea.

"Good point." Jake agreed.

The last sketch had been the best with the black bandana mask over their heads, the pilot jumpsuits and matching helmets. The best part were the gloves that would hold their close quarters weapons. With the costumes made all they needed as a name and it wasn't long before T-bone and Razor had dubbed themselves the SWAT Kats.

Since that day they had been protecting the city from the villains that threaten it. This had become their lives. So far, no one has ever guessed who the SWAT Kats are, though Feral still hates their guts for showing his Enforcers up every time there was trouble, just as much as he hated Jake and Chance. He had been happy with his life, but lately he had had thoughts. He began to wonder about his life and himself. Questions that he couldn't ignore kept coming into his mind and he wasn't happy with that. Not one bit.

Back from there garage can the sound of an engine rolling in and then cutting out followed by two blasts of the horn and Chances' voice.

"Hey, buddy!" He called. "I'm ganna need your help with this car. The insides are banged up pretty good!"

"Yeah!" Jake called from where he sat. "Coming."

He flipped off the TV and set his warming canned milk back in the fridge. He looked out over the small living area with it's workout equipment, TV, couch, freezer, and phone. That was the phone that buzzed every time there was trouble. The voice on the other end of the line was always that of Deputy Mayer Callie Briggs. From there it was a short run to the lockers that held their outfit and then to the Turbokat. That was they way it had been for a long time. That was the way it had been……

There was another horn burst from the garage.

"Jake? You still breathing in there, buddy?"

Jake shook his head as if to clear it.

"On my way, Chance."

He raced off for the garage, not allowing himself to focus on anything else but the work ahead, knowing full well that he could only keep himself busy for so long.

TO BE CONTINUED