Disclaimer: The SWAT Kats are owned by Hanna Barbera and the Tremblay Brothers. I own the OCs.
Thank you my Co-Author MisaRae, you make writing fun.
Razor took T-Bone's paw in his, knowing that he had to leave the hospital and head back to the salvage yard. He needed to get a real good look at the TurboKat and move it to his private workshop before Chance was released. He did not want Chance to have to see the TurboKat in such disrepair and start to remember what he just went through. Razor wanted nothing more than to see his best friend on the mend, and back in the skies at the controls of his beloved jet where he belonged. He said to T-Bone before he let go of his paw, "I have to go back to the hangar for a while, buddy. I will be back in time for dinner. Unless you want something different?"
T-Bone removed the cover from the tray that one of the service cats had left earlier. He looked at what the hospital called food and saw the grey/brown slop that was hidden under the cover. He quickly put the cover back and said, "Surprise me."
"Alright, I'll bring you back a decent sandwich or something from that deli that you like so much. You know, the one where that cute she-cat works. The one with the long legs and shapely body that you couldn't keep your eyes off of?" Razor said as he made an hourglass shape with his paws.
T-Bone leaned back in his bed as he tried to remember the she-cat that Razor was talking about. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks. He hadn't thought about her since he started dating Callie. He slapped his forehead with his left paw and said, "I was supposed to go on a date with her, and I never cancelled when I started dating Callie. Please do me a favor and tell her that I apologize for standing her up, and I will make it up to her when I see her next."
"I'll see what I can do, but I have seen what she can do with those paws, and I don't want to get on her bad side. She just might be as strong as Caliber, and I definitely don't want to be on her bad side, ever," Razor replied.
"You don't have to worry about her that much. I have seen her outside of the deli, and she plays with the neighborhood kittens daily. She has a very big heart, and I am actually shocked that no one has snatched her up yet. She would make a great catch for any tom out there," T-Bone said.
"You know her better than I do, so I will take your word for it," Razor replied, and then looked at the clock on the wall. "I have to get back to the yard. Who knows what junk Burke and Murray have dumped there since we have been gone." He took T-Bone's paw in his one last time, then released it before saying as he started walking away, "I'll be back in a few hours. Try not to let any of the pretty nurses get too attached to you." He let the curtain close behind him as he walked out.
T-Bone watched as his best friend disappears behind the curtain. With nothing else to do, he switched on the TV and watched the news.
Razor felt a pang of guilt in his heart from leaving his best friend, but he had a job to do back at the yard. One that was going to take weeks, if not months, to complete. He desperately wanted to have the TurboKat ready and waiting for T-Bone when he was ready to take to the skies again. He didn't care how many hours a day he worked on it. He just knew that it had to be done. He only hoped that Felina would understand why he was spending so much time in the hangar away from her.
Ulysses arrived back at his apartment after his impromptu conversation with Callista in their minds. It wasn't the way their conversation occurred that weighed on him the most. He sort of half expected her to be able to use her mind to communicate with others. It was the way the conversation had progressed to them confessing their love for each other that did. He knew that he loved her, and had never really stopped, even after he married Adara. As he thought of his ex-wife, he shuddered. He did love her, but it was not as deep of a love as he shared with Callista. He said, "Why did Adara have to treat me so cruelly after we found out that we could not have kittens? We were so happy just being together as husband and wife. Then she started with the kitten nonsense."
He paused mid-step as he had a brief thought of possibly having a kitten with Callista. "There is no way that she would want to start a family again. She has already raised Serena, and has a granddaughter." He was still lost in thought when his feet started moving again, taking him right up to his front door.
Ulysses took his keys out of his pocket and inserted one into the lock on the doorknob, opening the door. He entered and closed the door behind him. The apartment was dark, barely furnished, and worst of all, it was lonely. There was no one waiting for him to come home to. No one to kiss him in welcome. No one to whisk the day's worries away with a simple smile. He missed not having another around. Ulysses walked to his bedroom and opened the closet, removing a duffel bag. He placed it on his bed and started packing just what he needed to spend the night at Callista's. As he finished packing, he thought about the lonely life that he lived. He was tired of living alone and having no one to share life with anymore.
Ulysses zipped up his bag and threw it over his shoulder before walking out of the room. He placed the bag down as he picked up his coat, and the retirement forms fell out of the inside coat pocket. He bent over to pick up the forms, and his face developed a small smirk, since his life of service to the Enforcers would soon be over, and hopefully his life with Callista by his side would start. He read the "Recommended Replacement" form one last time, just to make sure that he hadn't missed anything, and then saw his niece's name listed to be his replacement as the commander. He knew he was going to receive a rash of crap from the higher ups for making that recommendation, but he could not think of a better cat to take over his position in the Enforcers than her. He folded the forms back up and placed them back in his coat pocket, picked up his bag, and walked out the door, before heading back to the office for the rest of the afternoon.
Razor arrived back at the salvage yard about a half hour later, and didn't see that much of a mess. He guessed the talking to that Callie had given Burke and Murray did the trick, and they hadn't been back for a few days. He opened the gate and pulled the Cyclotron into the yard before closing the gate and locking it again. He mounted the Cyclotron again, and rode it towards the hangar entrance. As he did, he noticed the TurboKat sitting over in the corner. He stopped and took a minute to assess the damages from his current position. It didn't seem as bad as he originally thought. He said, "Don't worry, I will have you back together and ready to hit the skies in no time."
]He pressed a button on the handlebars of the Cyclotron, and the hangar door slid open, revealing the ramp that led down into the lair. Razor drove the Cyclotron down into the hangar, parked it, and dismounted. He walked over to the forklift and started it up. He drove it up the ramp, and then once he reached the yard, he headed towards the TurboKat. When he reached the jet, he stopped the forklift and connected the forklift to the front landing gear of the TurboKat so he could tow it down into the hangar. He made fast work of connecting the TurboKat to the forklift with the drawbar, and then he got back into the driver's seat of the forklift. He placed the forklift in reverse and pulled the TurboKat from its current resting place down into the hangar, and to his private workshop. Once the TurboKat was positioned properly, he disconnected the forklift and put it away. He walked over to the lockers and changed into his overalls in order to start working on the TurboKat's disassembly to see how much damage had been done and assess how long it was really going to take to get her flying again.
He finished changing and closed his locker. He sighed, knowing that the task ahead of him was going to be a long one. He walked towards his workshop and stopped at the entrance. Jake took a good look at the TurboKat under the lights, and didn't see too much exterior damage. He walked over to one of his toolboxes and removed a battery powered screwdriver and a box of bits for the screwdriver. Jake turned to the TurboKat and started walking over to it with his tools in his paws. He placed the tools on a wheeled cart, and wheeled the cart over to the jet.
Once at the jet, he carefully inspected the exterior to see where the blast had originated from, so he would have a starting point. He saw that most of the charred sheet metal seemed to be coming from the rear left landing gear. He grabbed the cart and a small wheeled stool, sat down, and started removing the sheet metal around the area of the landing gear. As the panels were removed, he stood up and looked into the belly of the plane where he saw this charred, ugly, black mess from the smoke and the explosion. Although, there didn't seem to be much structural or mechanical damage from what he could tell. He sat back down and slid out from under the jet. Then he stood up and walked over to a hose reel attached to the wall. He grabbed the end of a hose with one paw and turned the hose with the other.
He returned to the TurboKat, resumed his position in the belly, and opened the nozzle to wash away some of the dirt and debris from the belly of the jet. As he did, he discovered that the damage had been confined to that section of the plane, and was mostly a few hydraulic lines that had been damaged from the blast. The pumps and most of the wiring in that section was mostly undamaged, from what he could see, but he was going to have to open up the harnesses and the pumps just to make sure that nothing had been missed. As he continued working, he thought about the systems he had installed into the TurboKat 2, and how well they worked under Felina's control. He stopped working for a brief minute as he remembered the way she smiled, and how much fun she had piloting the TurboKat 2. Jake quickly shook his head to clear his mind. If he started thinking about Felina, he wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else, and his intentions of getting the TurboKat running again would go up in smoke. He continued working on disassembling the TurboKat's hydraulics and wiring well into the afternoon.
Callie and Felina made their way back to the springs, laughing the entire time as they remembered Ferdinand's and Antonio's faces when Callie made those tiny lightning bolts dance around her fingers. Felina had her left arm draped over Callie's shoulders as they walked. She said, "My uncle wanted to have dinner with me and Jake tonight to discuss where the SWAT Kats go from here, now that he knows who they are. Why don't you join us? It is not often that my uncle is willing to buy dinner for cats that have been thorns in his side for years."
Callie placed her right arm around Felina's waist and replied, "As much as I would like to join you, I want to spend time with T-Bone at the hospital. I am just so glad that he is going to be alright. I don't want to think what I would do if I had lost him, Lina. I just love him so much." Callie stopped and started to tear up again as she thought about Chance not being a part of her life.
Felina spun around in order to face Callie. She brought both of her paws under Callie's chin, made her look into her eyes, and replied, "Hey, he is going to be alright, Callie. You just said so yourself. You need to stop dwelling on the past so much. He loves you as much as you love him. You both are going to be great parents to your kittens. I just can't wait to see how much they are going to have Chance wrapped around their tiny little fingers as soon as they are born. He is going to be so screwed." Felina smiled as she finished speaking, because she just knew that Chance would not be able to resist his kittens.
Once again, Callie had to start smiling and chuckling along with Felina. Not just because she was right, but because her personality was infectious and everyone around her, especially her friends, could not help but fall in step behind her.
They continued walking down the hall, back to the pair of doors that separated the springs from the rest of the spa. They pushed the doors open, and once again were greeted by this warm, humid air. As they entered and let the doors close behind them, the first thing that they saw was Katerina and Tina embracing each other, lovingly, and Callista relaxing on the other side of the pool.
Felina said, "Ladies, as much as I like lounging around in a pool of hot water, we have serious business to attend to here. Callie's and my massages didn't go as planned. Actually, after they hit on us, Miss Spark Plug over here," she pointed to Callie as she spoke, which brought on a very unamused look from Callie, "sort of put them in their place with this little light show in her paws. You should have seen their faces when she had these tiny lightning bolts dancing around her fingers. It was priceless seeing two muscle bound toms running away from these two very hot looking she-cats."
Callista opened her eyes and looked directly at Callie with a very concerned look on her face. She said rather angrily, "Callie, thanks to your little stunt out there, those two toms now know that you can use magic. I certainly hope that they don't tell anyone what they saw. It could be very dangerous for you if they did."
Callie replied, "I used that Glamour thing, just as you did back at the coffee shop, Callista. If I managed to get the spell right, they will not remember a thing about today."
Callista stood up and walked over to Callie, still with a look of anger on her face. As she was walking, Callista grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her. She stopped exactly two inches from Callie, placed her paws on her hips, and said, "If you managed to get the spell right? Callie, if you got the spell wrong, which I have a very good feeling that you did, not only will they remember everything in vivid detail, they will have that image burned into their minds permanently, and that is the best case scenario. What makes you think that you got the spell right in the first place, and what made you think that you have enough experience to use that level of spell? I warned you that Glamour is an advanced form of mind control, and that you are nowhere ready to attempt to use it. I just hope that you did not mess their minds up too badly."
Callie had never seen Callista so angry, especially at her. Even as a kitten, when she accidentally broke things at Callista's house, Callista never got mad at her. Now Callista looked like she was madder than ever, and worse, that anger was directed at her. She sheepishly replied, "I mimicked everything that you did back at the coffee shop to the letter. Right down to where my eyes had no color left in them. You were the one who told me that I was learning faster than even you expected, so I stretched my wings to see if I could cast that spell."
"Yes, I did, and I meant it, but that does not mean you are an experienced sorceress! By attempting to use Glamour, you could have not only damaged those two toms' minds, but you could have accidentally damaged your own mind, or worse, sent your soul out of your body to a place that even I would not be able to reach! What I am telling you, Callie, is you could have suffered a fate worse than death itself. So please, do not attempt to use a spell that I have told you that you are not ready for. I don't care if I make it seem as if it is an easy task. I have been using magic for a very long time, so most spells are easy for me to successfully cast. You, on the other hand, are still new to this, and have no idea what the repercussions are if something goes wrong. And believe me, you will cast more spells wrong than right for the first few years! So start off slow and think twice before attempting something that you have even the slightest doubt you might not be able to handle!" Callista yelled at Callie as tears formed in her eyes. She then placed her arms around Callie and pulled her into a tight hug. "I don't want to have this conversation again, my beloved granddaughter."
Callie closed her eyes, returned Callista's embrace, and said, "I am so sorry, Callista. I never meant to cause them harm by using that spell. I just wanted to teach those two toms a lesson on how to treat a she-cat properly."
"I know you didn't mean to cause any harm, Callie, but you could have caused irreparable damage to them. You need to be careful of what you do. You are still learning how to control your powers, Callie, and the more that you use them, the stronger your powers will become, and the more confident you will be in using them. You will be able to use spells like Glamour, eventually. As of now, you are not ready for those types of spells, so please don't try them unless I am guiding you," Callista replied.
"Alright, grandma. I will not try to use those types of spells without your guidance. That is, unless I need to wipe something from Chance's memory," Callie said, and then smirked as she imagined all the things she could get away with.
Callista was starting to smile, and then she frowned as Callie said that she would erase certain things from her husband's mind. She said, "I tried that with Steven once when I bought this really expensive dress, and I wanted it to be a surprise when he saw me in it. It didn't work out as planned. We both wanted another kitten, and that dress was going to make him want to ravish me, but he saw me trying on the dress one afternoon while your mother took a nap in her crib. He silently came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me against his body. I felt how excited he was as he pulled me closer to him. We made love for the rest of the afternoon. However, I was not fertile at that point, so I didn't get pregnant, as I was hoping to. We were supposed to go out on a very romantic date that weekend, when I was supposed to be at my most fertile point, so I erased the memory of that afternoon from his mind so he would be surprised as he saw how hot I looked in that dress. He passed unexpectedly a couple of days later. I still kept the dress, but Steven never got to see me in it again. If I hadn't tried to erase that memory from his mind, you might have had an aunt or uncle running around."
Callie really didn't know what to think or say at that point. One, Callista had told her that she erased a very pleasant memory from her grandfather, and two, that if her grandfather had lived longer, her mother might not have been an only kitten. She had never met her grandfather, but she had seen him in various pictures of him and Callista throughout the house. They were always holding or touching each other, and always smiling. They were obviously very much in love with each other. Callie just pulled Callista closer to her, since she did not have any words to convey how she felt at the moment.
Callista felt Callie's emotions come forth in her embrace. She closed her eyes and said, "You would have loved your grandfather. He acts just like Chance does, and he was not afraid to show his love for me in front of anyone. He didn't care that his buddies from work made fun of him as he kissed me in front of them. He just smiled and said, 'If your wife was as gorgeous as mine, you would kiss her and show that you love her more than anything in the world in front of anyone and everyone.' Your grandfather was always showing me off to his buddies and making them jealous of him because I was, as he put it, 'The most beautiful she-cat in the world.' I do miss him, a lot. He was the first tom I ever dated that told me he didn't care if I was a sorceress, and that he loved me for who I was on the inside. Although, being an absolute fox didn't hurt at all." Callista giggled as she remembered Steven, and how he acted when he was around her.
Callie was now giggling herself as Callista told her stories about her and her grandfather. She thought, "Callista is right. Steven and Chance definitely are the same. Chance is not afraid to show that he loves me in front of anyone, and neither am I afraid of showing my love for Chance." She replied, "I wish I could have met my grandfather, at least once. He seemed like a very kind and loving tom."
"Yes, he was, Callie. You should have seen him when your mother was a baby. He would come home from work, and the first thing he would do was kiss me and playfully grab my butt as he walked past. Then he would find his daughter, pick her up, and carry her on his shoulders. I swear, if he didn't have to put her down for dinner, or to put her to her bed so she could go to sleep, I don't think he would ever put her down. I think he loved your mother even more than he loved me. Steven would have acted the same way with you, Callie. He would have never stopped playing with you, making you smile, or showing you how much he loved having you in his life. That was just the type of tom he was. I am sure that Chance is going to be the same way with your kittens. Once they are home, he is not going to be able to put them down. They are going to have him wrapped around their tiny little fingers as soon as they are born," Callista said.
"I certainly hope not, Callista. I don't think that I can take care of and discipline three girl kittens by myself. I wouldn't mind him spoiling them a little, but I will need his help to sure that they are raised right, and don't turn into spoiled little brats," Callie said.
"I doubt you have to worry about that, Callie. Your kittens are going to be some of the best behaved girls ever. I am sure of it," Callista said, and then she started smiling.
Callie backed out of Callista's embrace, but took Callista's right paw in her left and said, "So, ladies, I don't know about you, but my nails could use a little pampering. Shall we go have that manicure we have been talking about?"
Tina and Katerina unwrapped themselves from each other and stood up in the pool. They made their way to the stairs and ascended, while grabbing towels to dry themselves off. Katerina said as she wrapped another towel around her body, "These nails have not had a good manicure done to them since I was the squadron leader." She looked at her nails as she brought her paw to her face and saw that they had jagged edges, and were a hair too long for her liking. "These girls definitely need a little attention, and maybe a good coating of a hot red lacquer?"
Tina looked at her own paws. She had never had a manicure done, and was not sure what to expect. But to keep Katerina and the rest happy, she went along with it. She said to Katerina, "If it will make you happy, love, then go do it. Me, personally, I have never had a manicure before, and it is really not my thing. At least, I don't think so."
Callie turned to Tina and said, "You have never had a manicure before? Well let me tell you, sister, you are going to love the feeling of your paws being pampered, and your nails would look lovely with this brownish nail polish on them. I think that the color would accent your fur beautifully."
Tina turned to Callie and said, "I have never been the type of she-cat to be pampered and have things like a manicure done, so I will trust your judgment."
Felina tuned to Callie and Tina while saying, "Miss Spark Plug here," she placed her arm around Callie's waist and gave her a sideways hug, "knows how to be pampered, and what colors go with what. She could have been a fashion designer or something but instead, she has decided to spend her days helping other cats."
"Again with the 'Miss Spark Plug'. I swear, the next thing you will have me do is parade around in a skimpy swimsuit in some sort of pageant or something. You know I find those things degrading to she-cats," Callie said as she removed Felina's arm from around her waist.
"I know you do, Callie, but think how Chance would react if he saw you parading around in a skimpy swimsuit, or better yet, a long gown that really showed off your body? He wouldn't be able to keep his paws off of you," Felina said, and then laughed.
Callie just blushed as she thought of Chance seeing her in a swimsuit, and then picking her up and carrying her to the bedroom for hours of making her moan and groan.
Felina saw the way that Callie was blushing. Felina placed her arm back around Callie and said, "I guess you like the vision I planted in your head, Callie. Now, let's go get those manicures." After she finished speaking, she led the group from the pool out into the main spa area, and off to where they gave the manicures and pedicures.
End of Chapter