Chapter Six
"Talking"
'Thoughts'
As night drew over Megakat City, an orange tabby riding a MV Agusta F4 motorcycle roared down the city streets heading toward a fairly nice urban neighborhood. As he entered the neighborhood proper, he drove past two streets before turning off on the third one. He passed a lot of nice homes, after going past the fifth one, he pulled into the drive of the sixth one and pressed a button on his dash that caused the garage door to silently open so he could drive right in.
Once inside, he pulled in between another motorcycle and a Chevrolet Trax then hit the button again, closing the door. Shutting off the engine, Kazuma reached up and pulled off his helmet. His ears twitched as he listened carefully for a moment. Sensing and hearing no danger, he climbed off his bike and headed for a door on the left wall that led inside the home.
Stepping through into the house, Kazuma turned to the right and made for the kitchen just off the entry to the garage and went to the refrigerator located to his right. Cabinets ran along the wall with a sink below in the middle. Across from him was a table with five sturdy chairs, left over Chinese food and pizza along with new take out food boxes, by the looks of it, cluttering the table's surface.
After getting a drink from the fridge, he walked over to the table, set his helmet on one of the chairs before poking around in the boxes and bags to see what there was to eat. He found a cheeseburger and fries in one. Pulling them out, he set the fries down and unwrapped the burger and took a healthy bite. Picking up the fries and his drink, he headed to the living room
Two of his five teammates were sitting on the couch that sat before the front window near the front door, watching the flat screen TV that was mounted on the wall opposite them. Beside them, in a corner was a comfy armchair and before them was a big wood coffee table with bits and pieces of their meal sitting on it.
Kazuma strolled in and sat in the armchair, setting his drink and fries on the table. He glanced over at his team as he relaxed to eat his meal.
Antonio Yuudai looked something like a Selkirk Rex with silver smoke fur, stunning white hair and bottle green eyes. He stood only a foot shorter then Kazuma. His body was lean and muscular with hard muscles built from years of hand to hand combat training. He wore a simple red shirt and brown pants, his bare feet resting on the coffee table.
Next to him was Karel Yuudai. He possessed the body type of a Kurikian Bobtail with silver fur tipped in black, blue-black hair, and hazel eyes. He was more thin and wiry with smaller muscles than either Kazuma and Antonio. But his smaller, more agile frame and coloring, allowed him to easily blend into crowds and not be noticed. Because of this, he was used as an infiltrator and, as he was conversant in many subjects, he was very useful in ferreting information from anyone by making friends then extracting what he needed from the person. He was wearing a long sleeved, gray shirt with a patterned blue shirt over it, unbuttoned, and blue jeans. White socks covered his feet that were stretched out under the table.
"What are you two watching?" Kazuma asked casually.
"Kats Eye News. It's about the SWAT Kats and how they just saved the city about three days ago," Antonio responded his voice deep, an Italian accent easily heard.
"From who?" Kazuma asked his eyes turning toward the TV.
"Turmoil." Karel grunted his voice gruff and possessing a slight Dutch accent.
Kazuma made no comment to that but asked something else, "Where's Raina?"
"In the study. She's getting her computer desk and laptop set up," Karel said turning his head to look over at his SIC.
Urabe was their actual team leader but since she already was on a separate mission, that of investigating the SWAT Kats, omegas, Mayor Manx and his deputy. Till she returned to their temporary home, Kazuma was in command.
"Raina! Could you come out here a minute?" Kazuma called over his shoulder so his voice would carry down the hall.
He heard light footsteps before a female resembling a fawn colored Turkish Angora, came hurrying toward them. She had a lovely fall of auburn hair with wide yellow eyes covered by a pair of glasses perched on her nose. She wore a long sleeved blue and white shirt with blue capri pants and had a pair of house slippers on. Her body was slender with her female curves just beginning to show as she was just coming of age for a Saharas.
"Yes, Kazuma-sama?" Raina asked shyly, her voice soft and musical.
"Kazuma, it's Kazuma! No, sama, san, or dono okay?" Kazuma corrected her gently. He disliked the use of those honorific titles at any time but especially during missions. It was bothersome to him to have to remember and use such titles.
"Sorry, Kazuma-sama, I will try to remember," Raina said forgetting again and hearing Kazuma sigh in annoyance.
"Are you on line now?" Kazuma asked his tone relaxed so she would be more at ease.
"Yes and I've been using the time to look up all the strange and supernatural things that have been occurring within Megakat City over the past hundred years per Urabe-dono's orders," she said briskly reaching up to push her glasses back up her nose.
"Found anything yet?" Kazuma asked curiously.
"Just that…uhm...well, I'm not sure if this matters or not…" Raina hemmed around timidly, this was only her second mission and she was understandably nervous. She didn't want to seem foolish, and waste the teams valuable time with things that weren't important.
"If you've noticed something no matter how trivial you think it might be, don't be afraid to tell us and let us decided if its useful or not. Now what did you find?" Kazuma reassured her.
Gathering her courage and armed with the data she had uncovered, she quickly briefed him, "Well when I examined the frequency of the strange occurrences, I noticed there was a spike in activities that has repeated itself every ten years. I couldn't find a reason for that to be happening."
She had the full attention of Kazuma as well as the other two team members when she related that bit of news.
Frowning, Kazuma asked, "Does Urabe have her cell phone on her?" Something had clicked in his mind and he needed to speak to Urabe right away about it.
"Yeah, she does...did you notice something?" Antonio asked having seen his SIC expression sharpen.
"About forty years ago, another team visited the city. They were dealing with a corrupt judge who had been making deals and taking bribes with criminals. He had his own criminal enterprise going by the time they investigated.," Kazuma said remembering a report he'd read during his training.
"What happened to him?" Raina asked she could see this was imported.
"The report said he died before our team could pin anything concrete on him. But that's not what's interesting..." Kazuma paused as he tried to bring up the specifics of the report in his mind.
"And...?" Karel asked wondering what had piqued Kazuma's interest.
"Just weeks after his death, Dark Kat entered the picture." Kazuma said.
"You think those two incidents are related or even that it's the same Kat?" Karel asked wondering what could have changed a normal looking Kat into a frightening looking demon.
"A distinct possibility, Antonio. Send a message back to Akiko-sama. Tell her we need the records on that Judge from forty years ago, anything we have on where and how he supposedly died, the names of the team that investigated it and their reports," Kazuma ordered. "Insure the names of the team doing the investigating are included and were and how he died. And those who were on the team along with their reports on the message." Kazuma told the silver smoke.
"I'm on it," Antonio said turning off the TV and moving to write up the message.
"Raina, did Urabe say when she'll be back?" Kazuma asked.
Karel interrupted wondering why his leader wasn't sending him out as well, "Wait, what about me? Shouldn't I be looking up info on Dark Kat?"
"Not without a partner you're not. Dark Kat is too dangerous, even for someone like you. But I do have something for you to do, find out where the Metallikats are at the moment and if Turmoil is planning to escape from Alkatraz again."
Karel sighed but nodded, "Okay, I understand. I'll get right on the hunt for those two right now then I'll see when I can get into Alkatraz."
"Good. I know how good you are at your job Karel, but with omegas like Dark Kat and the Pastmaster...it takes several of us to face them because of just how deadly they are. We must never underestimate either of them." Kazuma warned him lightly.
"Okay, okay I understand," Karel sighed turning away.
"Uh…Kazuma-sama, I don't know when Urabe-dono will be back as she didn't say. Do you know where Urabe-dono is? She said that she was going to meet Jimmu-san's mate, Abi-san…but…she hasn't return," Raina asked a little concerned.
"Don't worry about Urabe, Raina. She most likely has already moved on to her other job by now." Kazuma smiled wishing he was with Urabe right now helping her with that particular job. He would love to make a certain Kat sweat.
~0~0~0~0~0~0~
In a more wealthy part of town a short, very portly tom moved about his mansion. His bathrobe was wrapped his chubby waist as he made his way downstairs and walked to the kitchen. The staff was gone for the day, as he reached in a cupboard for a glass.
He moved to the sink to fill it with water. Once full, he shut off the water then took a sip before turning to retrace his steps. As he began to pass by the living room for the stairs out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a figure.
Gray eyes widened in fear, as he stood frozen in place. The figure was sitting in one of his favorite armchairs, legs crossed and wearing an outfit of black and brown with a Kritimukhas mask that covered their entire face. It was white with eyes painted on it of black with two red lines coming down the nose to the lips and green lines over the eyes with a small yellow dot on the forehead.
"What in the…? Just who are you? What are you doing in here? I'll call…" Manx stuttered, trying hold onto his courage and not show fear to the person sitting there. But his body was shaking so much even a blind kat could see he was terrified.
"Go head and call the Enforcers, Mayor Manx. I'm sure they would love to hear about all your dealings under the table or how you're using taxpayers money for your own personal use along with how you keep other politicians from running against you. Or maybe some pictures of you and that lovely under age she-kat, you so love much to be with..." The figure said coolly their golden eyes glaring unsympathetically at Manx.
"Who…who…who are you?" Manx asked nervously though he had a good idea. 'They can't be here! They couldn't…what I am going to do?' He thought anxiously.
"From the look in your eyes, you know where I'm from and why I'm here and I must tell you...you fool of a mayor...we are not pleased...not pleased at all." The figure hissed, their tone deadly.