The alley was dark. The street lamps were too far away to pierce the deep shadows. Two pairs of eyes glowed red in the darkness. A few yards into the alley, a homeless kat slept curled up inside a cardboard box. The two creatures hissed and moved forward. Their long ears twitched, picking up the sound of the kat's breathing. Their nostrils flared, catching his scent. Long fangs dripped saliva as sharp claws clicked on the pavement.
Something caused the kat to stir. A blast of hot, putrid air hit him in the face. Groggily, he opened his eyes, just in time to see the two beasts lunge at him. He didn't even have time to scream.
The streets were empty this late at night. No-one heard the sounds of growling coming from the alley. No-one heard the sound of the tearing of flesh or the crunching of bone. In only a few minutes, there was nothing left of the kat save for a large bloody smear on the concrete and shredded scraps of blood-soaked clothing.
A beam of sunlight pierced a small hole in the ragged curtains, hitting Jake in his eyes. He groaned and rolled over. Opening his eyes, he looked at the clock. 7:23 am. Slowly, he sat up and shifted onto the edge of the bed. The slim kat stretched a moment, then got up, got dressed, and walked out of his room.
Downstairs in the garage, Jake could hear the sound of a power-drill. He knew it was Elena. Most kats needed an average of eight hours sleep. Elena needed only four. She attributed this to the Astral Stone.
He glanced around the living room. Since Elena came into their lives, the place seemed a bit cleaner than it used to be. More well kept. He didn't see Chance anywhere, but that wasn't unusual. The big tabby was prone to sleeping in.
Jake walked over to the fridge and opened the top door to the freezer. Pulling out the box of frozen sausage & egg breakfast wraps, he took one out and tossed the box back into the freezer. Closing the door, he unwrapped it while walking to the microwave oven. Jake placed the breakfast wrap on a plate, put it in, and set the timer to 2 minutes.
Below, the sound of the drill stopped. The ginger cat slumped down into a chair at the small table, waiting for his breakfast to warm up. The door to the other bedroom opened and Chance walked out. He had thrown on a pair of pants but hadn't bothered putting on a shirt yet.
"Morning. Didn't expect you up for another.."
"Where's Elena?"
Jake knew that tone in his friend's voice. "What's wrong?"
"That stone's glowing. Woke me up."
"She's downstairs."
Chance walked over to the stairs and leaned on the railing. "Elena!"
"I know!"
She was already halfway up the stairs. Chance had to jump back out of the way to avoid her running into him. She ran into the bedroom.
Jake watched her. "Hey, what's going on?"
A moment later, Elena walked back out, holding the Astral Stone in her hands. It's red and blue bands were creating a pulsating, violet glow.
The smaller tom's ears went back. "That can't be a good sign."
"Something's wrong. There's an essence, one that doesn't belong in this world."
Chance folded his arms over his bare chest. "From another world? The Shadow Relm?"
She nodded, her emerald eyes dark. "I think so." The two colors of the stone began to glow independantly, creating a soft continual light that alternated between red and blue. Elena closed her eyes, concentrating on the Stone's power.
A soft "ding" from the microwave was the only thing that broke the silence. Jake ignored his breakfast for the moment, watching Elena.
After several long moments, she finally opened her eyes with a sigh. The glowing stopped. She looked up at them and shook her head.
"All I'm seeing are flashed of red. Blood. Recent. But nothing else. It's almost as if I'm being blocked. I don't understand how that could be possible, though."
"Well, maybe there's something in the news." Jake got up and retrieved his breakfast from the microwave.
Chance walked over to the fridge and pulled out three cans of milk, one at a time. The first he threw to Elena, the second to Jake.
Elena caught the can in one hand, placing the Stone's golden chain around her neck with the other. Chance and Jake sat down on the couch while Elena leaned against the wall beside it. Chance picked up the remote and turned on the TV, switching to the news channel. They didn't see anything unusual.
Disheartened, Elena moved back towards the stairs. "I'm going to go check the computers." She then proceeded down the stairs, into the back room of the garage. From there she opened the secret hatch in the floor and climbed down the ladder.
Several minutes later, the guys heard her yelling faintly from below.
"Chance! Jake! Get down here!"
Setting their cans of milk, and Jake's plate of half-eaten breakfast, on the small coffee table, the two ran quickly downstairs, then down into the hanger below. Elena was sitting at her computer. The large monitor showed crime scene photos dated from 4:04 am thru 4:47 am that morning. Jake and Chance didn't even notice the time, stamps. They were staring at the photos themselves. Jake felt sick to his stomach and had to turn away, fighting to hold down his food. Elena explained.
"I hacked into the Enforcer crime report data base. These were taken only a few hours ago. The main report is still being written up."
Chance grimaced as he looked at the grisly photos. "Where is this?"
"Downtown. Off of Lionne Ave."
The photos showed a small alleyway. Bits of bone, flesh and viscera lay scattered among shredded clothing in a large mass of drying blood. The entire area of splatter was as wide as the alley and about thirteen feet in length.
Jake gulped, still fighting the sickness in his gut, and looked back at the photos. "What kind of person could do something like this?"
"It wasn't a 'who', Jake. But a 'what'. Felynthropes." Her voice was low and cold.
Chance looked at her in surprise. "You know what did this?"
She nodded gravely. "I've seen it before, back in the Shadow Relm. Once they were kats, but they became beasts. They live only to kill."
"How do we stop it?"
"I'm not sure. There are many different stories and legends about felynthropes, but I'm not sure which are real and which are just kitten's tales. One thing that most seem to have in common though is silver. Supposedly it harms them more strongly than anything else. Many stories claim that they're fast healers, some that they can't even be wounded at all. Except by silver. But then, there's a slight difference in the Shadow Relm and here."
"Yeah, our weaponry's a Hell of a lot better! Right, buddy? Jake? You okay?"
The smaller kat was leaning against the wall nearby, his head down. He didn't look too good. It wasn't so much the gore in the photos themselves that bothered him. It was the memories they brought back. Memories from a little over a month ago, back in the Shadow Relm. He saw the battlefield in his mind again. The dead and dying everywhere, the grass soaked in the blood of countless kats and koblins. He groaned. "Yeah, I'll be okay. I just need some air." He carefully walked back to the ladder and climbed back up to the garage above. Chance and Elena watched him go, both with worried expressions on their faces.
An hour later, Jake was finally feeling a bit better. He and Chance had resumed working on Callie's car while Elena continued searching through the Enforcer records, checking for updated reports of the crime scene. She was certain it was a felynthrope. But why couldn't she sense it? Why couldn't the Stone's power help her find it? And, more importantly, where the heck did it come from?
Callie's wasn't the only care damaged the previous day. Chance and Jake spent the vast majority of their time in the garage, and Elena helped out for most it. Thankfully there were no emergencies that required them this time. The day passed relatively smoothly.
By 7:30, they decided to finally call it a night. Chance stood up and stretched his back. "Y'know, I sure miss that healing spring of your's Elena."
"Yeah, there are times I really miss it too. Like after the other night." She gave Chance a playful smile that made the big tabby grin sheepishly. They were down in the hanger, not wanting to risk waking up Jake. The cement floor however was not very comfortable, and in fact left them both quite sore.
Jake looked up sharply at both of them, then just shook his head and walked up the stairs to the apartment above. There were some things he really just did not want to know.
At around 9:14, the alarm sounded. Chance and Jake ran over to the control panel, the faster Jake getting there first, and hit the button. "Yes, Miss Briggs?"
"Guys! We've got a situation downtown! There was a scream in an alley not too far away. Now the Enforcers are chasing this weird creature, but it's doing a LOT of damage! They can't stop it and several have already been severely injured!"
Elena jumped off the couch and flew downstairs towards the hanger.
Chance saw how fast she moved and knew something was very wrong. "We're on our way!"
The two ran downstairs after the she-kat. They quickly changed into their flight suits while Elena worked furiously at her computers, pulling up every bit of information she could. She brought up a system of security camera shots from various angels on the larger screen. Nine divided images appeared on the screen. They were security camera images from various locations around the city, set in nine-camera grids. She rapidly flipped through the images until she finally found a set showing the scene downtown. "There!"
T-Bone and Razor ran over and looked at the screen where she pointed. The image in the bottom left corner showed the Enforcers firing on a large kat-like beast with massive claws, long ears, and a thick tail. It was splattered in blood, obviously not it's own. Most of their laser fire missed the creature, but what did hit didn't even seem to have any effect. They watched as it lunged forward, landing onto the nearest Enforcer. The kat screamed as the beast's claws ripped right through his flack jacket, disemboweling him on the spot. Another swipe of the creature's claws, and his throat was torn open. He was dead.
Not wasting another moment, the SWAT Kats turned and ran to their jet, leaping up into the cockpit. Elena was already at the controls. The lift rotated and lowered. She put on her headset and switched on the radio com. "Be careful, guys!"
With Elena working the controls from inside the hanger, the SWAT Kats found they were able to get underway at least 2.7 minutes faster now. And when it came to the sort of situations they had to deal with, every minute counted. T-Bone threw the power lever forward. The engines flared to life and the jet took off down the underground runway, then out of the large hanger door, flying quickly into the sky towards Megakat City.