Maybe it all started back when I first met Chance, when we both started our Enforcer cadet training. I knew, that if I wanted to avoid getting kicked out, I had best to keep my mouth shut and not show obvious signs of being gay. I spotted Chance right away though in the long line of other cadets.
I don't know if it was because I found him attractive or I just knew he was one I could trust with my life no matter how tough things would get in the heat of battle, which I know, today, that I can. We were all dressed in light sand grey shirts with the Enforcer logo on our shoulders and wearing a pair of matching sand grey trousers with black polished shoes. The drill sergeant was very much roaring his speech to us rookie cadets, we called him Sgt. Roar. "ALRIGHT, KITTENS! I AM YOUR DRILL SERGEANT AND I WILL BE WHIPING YOU ALL INTO SHAPE SO YOU CAN BE WORTHY ENOUGH TO FLY ONE OF OUR TOP-KNOTCH FIGHTER JETS." He then pointed at one of the jets in the hangar nearby and I knew my paws were itching to sit in that gunner seat. I love flying! Don't get me wrong, but I just love tech and gadgets so I knew before I joined the Enforcers that I wanted to work with weapons and of course to shoot with them.
"Better watch out, guys. I'm gonna be the one flying circles around you." Came a comment from down the line. I looked down to see who the smart aleck was. Knowing Chance as I do now, I am not surprised it was him, who said it. He had that overconfident grin, spread out from ear to ear. He had his arms crossed over his chest, which made his muscles flex under the sleeves and his belly stretch the buttons slightly. All I did was rolled my eyes and smiled as I looked at him along with my fellow cadets. Back then Chance was a lot more husky and I was a lot more scrawny. That changed after we started the physical training.
Sgt. Roar turned to Chance with a raised bushy brow and a grin on his face. "Cockiness will get you some of the way, cadet. But you got to prove you have the right to brag about it, but that's for the flight simulator. For now, we will start off with a little basic combat training." Sgt. Roar finished. Just then another cadet coughed and raised his paw. The sergeant turned and he looked real mad that he had been interrupted, "Yes, Cadet?" "But, sergeant, we're pilots, not ground troops." Sgt. Roar marched up to the cadet, red under his fur and shouted at the top of his voice, "AND WHAT WILL YOU DO, CADET, WHEN YOU HAVE CRASH LANDED AND SURROUNDED BY THE ENEMY? RELY ON YOU HAND GUN WHEN THEY HAVE BROKEN YOUR DEFENSES? NO! NOW DROP DOWN AND GIVE ME 100 PUSH-UPS, COME ON, GO, GO, GO!" He then turned to the rest of us. "Right, if anymore of you PUSSY CATS have any other stupid questions... " he said before continuing "we can start the lesson. Now, who has had any training in any sort of combat?" I knew I had, so I stepped forward. "Good, now you two demonstrate, what you got." Sgt. Roar said and I glanced to see, who I would be sparring with. At the time I was surprised that Chance had stepped forward, but I was also excited to see what he could do. We walked up to Sgt. Roar and he asked us to face each other and the one who hit the other on the shoulder would win. It was time to brush up on my kung-fu training. I bowed and took a stance. Chance returned the bow and got ready. "All right, GO!" Sgt. Roar said and we both ran towards each other.
Chance opened his guard with a frontal punch, which I dodged by ducking under him and made a grounded circular kick, which made Chance lose his balance and land on his back. I turned and faced him again, waiting for him to stand. "Come on, Furlong. He's just a pip-squeak." Shouted a fellow cadet and I frowned. I would show them what this pip-squeak could do. I could hear Chance growl, maybe because he fell for such an obvious mistake. So I decided to use it against him. We stood ready and Chance came at me again. The cadets were shouting and cheering on Chance and me as we continued to fight. This time instead of repeating his attack, as I thought he would, he caught my waist whilst in mid-air, when I tried to spring over him. He tackled me and threw me to the floor. I managed to flip over and land face down and on my paws and feet. My first thought was: "Crud! He's got a clear shot! I had to think fast. So as he went to tap me, I got on all four and gave him a double donkey kick to his chest, which knocked the wind out of him. "Go, Furlong. Finish him off." "Way to go, Clawson!" I got on my feet again and ran at him. I'd show them, I wasn't a pip-squeak. Chance had much the same idea as he got up and we reached for each other's shoulder. We both struck each other's shoulder "TIE!" shouted the sergeant. We both fell backwards from the impact. "Well done cadets you got the right stuff, but it just needs to be polished off. Now, we will not be fighting competitively but you will need the basics." I sat up, rubbed my shoulder as I got up. Chance then walked over to me with a happy smile on his face. I groaned as I thought: "Great! Now Mr. Cocky-Fly-Boy is going to rub this in my face." I was wrong.
"Pretty smooth moves you got there. Chance Furlong." He said as he raised his paw. I smiled back as I took his and shook it. "Jake Clawson, you too. You do martial arts?" "Nah, mostly I've been a kick-boxer. What about you, pal?" "I did some kung-fu back in high school. Nothing huge." "Still, you did good in opening my first attack. No one has had much luck avoiding my signature piston-punch." Chance said as we walked back into line. "Really? Well, if you'd like I could help you out so you had a chance of beating me. But I wouldn't count on it." I said with a grin on my face, which just made Chance laugh. The warmest laughter I had ever heard. Better than any hit on the radio. "Thanks, but with your help, I'll know all your secrets and then you won't stand a chance." "Not all of them." was my thought to his last words before we got back in line.
Since then, we became best friends and luck would have it, we were paired up with Chance as my pilot and I was his gunner. This was when my feelings started to grow for Chance. I liked his good and humorous nature and I never grew tired of our friendly challenges and how we always tried to beat each other. We shared a room at the Enforcer Academy like all the other pilots and gunners. We had great times with long conversations, where we shared our hobbies, our passions, our likes and dislikes. And the more I got to know Chance and the more our friendship grew, the bigger my crush got and the harder it was to tell Chance that I wasn't into she-kats. I wasn't ready to tell him. I mean, I could tell him... but it would be, you, know... oh, okay I was a scardy cat. Happy? I was so scared to lose Chance that I wouldn't let my feelings for him ruin the friendship we had.
So, I had to fly under the radar and it didn't seem like Chance had caught on that I liked him more than just as a friend. But I soon found out that I wasn't flying low enough to keep out of the other cadet's radars.
A lot of the other guys were giving me all too familiar looks. Chance just brushed it off, when I mentioned to him.
"Chance, Maincoon and Whiskers are giving us those weird looks, again."
"Ah, they're just sour because you set the newest high score on obstacle course, today, and aced the last test. Thanks for the help, by the way."
"No problem, pal" I said, but I just wished it was the case, but one day, on my way back to our room, three kats came down the hall and despite avoiding eye-contact and just trying to look friendly, I knew they were looking for trouble and they wanted to include me. Whether I wanted to or not.
Two of them blocked the path to my room and the last made sure I couldn't get away from behind. I tried a calm approach as I didn't want to kick tail unless I had to. "Problem, guys?" I asked politely as I looked all around me. "You're our problem, rod-rider." I frowned at the very negative label. One, I had heard too often and I knew now that I was out of the bag.
But I wouldn't let them know that.
"That's some harsh accusation, Maincoon." I answered. "You know, we're right, Clawson. Me and the guys have noticed how you try to act like a Tom-kat, but whenever we're on leave and hit the bars, you don't pick up a single she-kat." I couldn't argue that but it didn't prove otherwise. "I can't be a lady's man like the rest of you." I answered jokingly, just to prove them wrong, by playing the awkward-nerd-card. "Even a runt like you could pick up any desperate she-kat, but you don't." Maincoon continued and all I could do was try to find holes in his arguments, getting madder by the minute. Even if I had been a straight kat, I couldn't stand those, who just treated a she-kat like that. "Then clearly, I value what a she-kat says, rather than using her to take the edge off and throw her away like a used oil rag. Or maybe I'm too dumb to pick up the classier ones. That sounds a little like you, doesn't it, Maincoon?"
I hadn't meant for it to sound like that, but I was getting madder by the minute and all I wanted was to go to bed. But my not-so-smart comment came back to bite me. I had just pushed past Maincoon and his gunner Whiskers when they grabbed my shoulders and Maincoon had pinned me to the wall. I groaned and before I could react to anything, Maincoon held a Swiss knife to my face. The next words Maincoon uttered, I still makes me shiver to this day. "I think it could fun to SKIN this Kat." He said as he started cutting of my shirt buttons. All I could hear was my own pulse thumping louder than a steam piston. So much that everything fell silent around me. My calls out to the three so-called comrades and their laughing faces were all drowned out by my panicking heart's frantic beating, as they cut open my shirt.
They were now on the last button up at my neck and I was dreading if they were really going to skin me, when that last button was gone. I could now hear how the blade was cutting through the threads, which kept the button stuck to my shirt. Each cut slicing away the only barrier keeping me from the blade shredding me.
The button fell to the floor. It fell so slowly it was like time stood still. I then looked up and met Maincoon's face twisted in glee. Now the real "fun" began. Then time suddenly spun up to speed as the third guy and Whiskers disappeared behind Maincoon as they were tackled. Maincoon was keeping the knife still but close to my face.
"What the heck are you doing, Maincoon?!" Chance shouted angrily as he got up from the two he had tackled like if it were training for a football game. I was both happy but also panicking at the sight of Chance and his anger-stricken expression. If Chance heard, what this was about, then that was maybe the end of our friendship. "We're just doing you a favour protecting you, Furlong." Was Maincoon's reply, as if holding a fellow enforcer at knife point was normal. "I don't see any threat here and I can watch my own back, thanks." Was Chance's reply as he crossed his arms and looked from me to Maincoon. I felt really helpless. All I wanted was to do was shut Maincoon up or let him finish me, so I didn't have to face Chance, when he heard the truth. "Clearly not, when you have something like HIM watching your back, or do you just like this little hole-dipper watching your tail." Now I went from helplessness to utter rage. Any strength I had lost out of fear came back like the thrust of a turbo-charged jet engine. I grabbed Maincoon's paw, which held the knife, and twisted it over the one he used to hold me up against the wall. With the new leverage, I was able to kick that overgrown fur ball right in the chest. I could feel under my foot the cracking sound as I broke a few ribs. "No one talks like that to MY pilot!" I shouted as I landed on the floor and looked at Chance. "Chance, behind you!" I shouted as I pointed at Whiskers, who was about to tackle Chance from behind. Chance ducked as Whiskers was about to pounce and swiped his legs away, making him fall on his tail. "You, damn rod-rider!" "Jake, watch out!" Chance shouted and I looked to see Maincoon grab his knife and was about stab me, when I stepped to the side, avoiding his jab and grabbing his paw again. This time, I twisted his paw so much I hear let alone feel the shock I gave to his joints as I snapped his wrist. Chance reacted quickly and finished it off by punching him right in the face. "Come on, Maincoon. Let's get out of here!" Whiskers shouted as he and the other one started running. "You'll both be kicked out, mark my words, Clawson. Your kind don't belong with the Enforcers." Maincoon wheezed, pointing at me as he followed Whiskers. "Well, neither do back-stabbers!" Chance shouted.
Author's Note
ALRIGHT! Chapter 1 uploaded after major editings, both from my phone note to file to finished chapter ^_^
Hope you'll like it and I'll be working on chapter 2 asap
Please remember to leave a comment.