"Breathing. Regular. EKG. Stable. Pupillary light reflex…" The Doctor took a little flashlight out of his breast pocket. He opened one of Dudley´s eyes by pulling his eyelids apart with his fingers and lighted his eyeball. The pupil became immediately smaller. "Good, you are not brain-dead, Mr. Puppy. That is a really good sign." The Doctor stepped away from the bed in which Dudley lay and noted something on the clipboard he held in his hand.

Dudley was laid finally after a nine hour emergency surgery in a hospital bed. He was patched up as good as the surgeons were able to do but it was still unsure if Dudley would wake up again. His injuries were just too serious and he lost a lot of blood in the short time he lay under the tons of debris.

"Actually you should not be alive anymore. It is a miracle…" The Doctor left the room and walked out in the hallway. A nervous, tired and tensed Kitty Katswell sat on a chair beside the door and waited for something to happen. "Doctor!" she said surprised. "What´s going on? How is he?"

"And you are…?"
"Kitty Katswell! I´m his partner!"
"Partner? You mean wife or fiancée?"

"No!" replied Kitty who was getting angrier because the Doctor held back information. "I´m his partner at T.U.F.F.!"
"Hm… I am not allowed…" the Doctor stopped as he realized that Kitty would beat him up if he would finish the sentence like he wanted to finish it so he changed his mind.

"Not to tell you that, hehe… Well, Mr. Puppy is alive but even if his vital signs are stable now I am still not sure if he will wake up again. His brain was damaged pretty bad. And let us not speak about his left arm. Anyway, even if he survives and wakes up he would maybe severely dependent."

The massage hit Kitty like a hammer. She sat back down on her chair and stared at the ground. A coma! That was almost the same as being dead just worse for everyone around. If somebody dies the people around that person are able to accept that but if the person is in a coma the people get feed with this bittersweet false hope.

Kitty already had no more false hope, her grandpa once fell into a coma and even if she the doctors said that he won´t wake up she always had this hope. On the day he died she swore to herself that she won´t go through this again if someone close to her falls in a coma. Right now, she just felt guilty about that. What if she was faster or if she hadn´t stumbled or if she and Keswick pulled harder …would Dudley be still okay then?

"I would appreciate that you will not tell anyone that I divulged this piece of information to you? I cannot risk it to get sued again… It would be the seventh time… this month" Said the Doctor nervously grinning and disappeared like a ninja in a white coat in the hallways of the hospital.

"Hey K..K..Kitty." said Keswick who came from the same direction in which the ninja doc went away. "How i..i..is he?"
"The Doctor says that he is in a coma… he will maybe never wake up."
"Damn!" shouted Keswick angry. "I kind of s..s..see that coming. I mean as the house collapsed…"

Kitty began to cry what cut Keswick short.
"It´s my fault! I was an idiot and stumbled! If I were faster…"
"Kitty, n..n..no! It wasn´t your fault! It´s the fault of the one who m..m..made the earthquake!"
"What do you mean with made?" sobbed Kitty.

"An earthquake is a phenomena which o..o..occur on big areas. But they are not s..s..so local. Someone had g..g..generated it!"
"Who!" asked Kitty. Her guilt and sadness turned suddenly into anger.
"I don´t k..k..know. But I suspect one of the usual suspects. The chameleon, Dr. Rabies and Madam Catastrophe or the good old Snaptrap. Maybe you ask one of t..t..them."

"No matter who I´ll find the one who killed Dudley!"
"He isn´t dead K..K..Kitty! He still has a chance! Don´t give him up!" corrected Keswick.
"I know but I will avenge him. No matter what it cost."

"What do you mean with a..a..avenge?! And I say it a..a..again isn´t dead!" repeated Keswick who already had a bad suspicion about what Kitty would do. But she was already on her way out of the hospital. Kitty wanted to let them pay for every drop of blood Dudley lost and would let them suffer like Dudley suffered.

"A coma would be too nice for them!" she thought and already planned what she would do with the culprit in her mind. As Kitty jumped into the T.U.F.F. mobile she kicked the gas like it had hurt Dudley. Her plan was to get through the list of villains Keswick enumerated.
Her first aim was the chameleon's house. But she needed to collect some stuff first. You can´t avenge someone without good preparation.

Usually all villains of Petropolis were mostly harmless. For example they were pretty easy to find, all villains are findable in the phonebook or in the yellow pages in the category evil villains. Except the chameleon who was also findable in the category 'pest control'. They never did more than some simple scams or robberies and of course they never harmed someone.

Kitty began with her time as a T.U.F.F. agent to believe that the villains didn´t even want to harm someone... except you try to prevent them from their crimes. But an assassination? Very untypical. What made the deed even more terrible. Snaptrap who was meanwhile in the D.O.O.M HQ suspected nothing.

He sat on the big table in the main-hall and watched Larry who fought desperately against the sharks in the shark-tank, still thinking that he just destroyed the house.
"Sharks, sharks, sharks!" he cheered the sharks on.

"Boss! Boss!" Shouted Ollie, the british opossum and Snaptraps right hand, with a newspaper in his hand. "Look!" Snaptrap grabbed it and read through the main-article. 'Earthquake destroyed T.U.F.F. agent´s house. On person deadly hurt.' Snaptrap almost spit the coffee out which he always drank while he watched Larry fighting. "Deadly hurt?! Who?"

"If the correctness of my sources is still given. What I suppose. It is Dudley Puppy himself."
"Oh damn… oh no…"
"That is not even the worst piece of news." Added Ollie with his strong british accent.
"What could be worse than that?" screamed Snaptrap intimidated.

"Well. Agent Katswell is bloody angry about that…" Ollie was interrupted because Snaptrap just fainted. The connection of the words Katswell and angry was enough to scare him to death.

Never make a woman angry. That was a life lesson the Chameleon should now learn even if it wasn´t the chameleon who made Kitty angry. Nevertheless she already parked the car in front of his house.
"Here we are!" Kitty got out of the car and walked to the door of the rock shaped house. Instead of knocking at the door she just kicked the door in.

In the house the Chameleon sat on his couch and looked shocked at the door that flew in his direction. He wasn´t able to dodge the door so it hit him right into the face. "Aww…" he moaned and held his hands against his nose which was bleeding heavily. "My nose!"

"Your nose won´t be the only thing that will hurt." She grabbed him by the color and lifted him up with one hand.
Kitty was really strong even she doesn´t looked like that.
"Hey, I done nothing! You can´t arrest me!"

"I´m not her to arrest you." She said with an evil smile and put out a knife which she led slowly but determinedly towards the Chameleon's throat.
"Please, don´t kill me." He cried. Kitty wasn´t moved by his tears. No, instead of showing some empathy she rammed the knife into his left leg and spun it around. The Chameleon screamed terribly in pain.
"That depends on if you did it or not! If you did it, this will be just a little foretaste of what I will do to you!"

"I have no idea what you´re talking about!"
"Don´t lie to me!" she shouted and gave his other leg the same treatment. Warm blood ran down her hands. She pulled the knife out of the wound and pressed it on his throat but now harder than before. If she pressed the knife a little harder into the skin of the chameleon it would rip and the blood would splash towards Kitty. Because that is what happens is you cut a carotid artery.

"You destroyed the Puppy´s house, yesterday! You sent Dudley into that coma! Admit it!"
"What no! I did nothing. I have an alibi! I robbed a jewelry store! Look there!" He pointed at a pile of gems lying in the corner of his house. "Let me go!" Kitty threw the Chameleon into the same corner and cleaned the blade of her knife with a tissue.

"Damn Katwell, what was that?!" shouted the Chameleon angry.
"Hey, I won´t kill you but that doesn't mean that I will not hurt you. So you better answer my questions! Who destroyed the Puppy´s house?"

"I have no idea, but maybe I could tell you something…"
"Speak!" ordered Kitty sternly and kicked against the chameleon´s leg, right on the spot where she had rammed the knife in.
"Awww, shit! Doctor Rabies built some kind of… aww… earthquake machine lately. I wanted to buy it for the evil shopping channel. That´s all!" he panted weakly.

"Why should I believe that?"
"Do you have another choice? You better ask him! I can´t tell you more."

Kitty turned away from the chameleon and walked without any more word out of the door. The last thing she heard was the chameleon shouting after her.
"Hey Katswell, a word of advice. Next time, ask first before you torture someone!"