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My earliest memories were of St. Mary's Orphanage. I have no memories, no pictures, no proof I ever had parents, but the adults that ran the orphanage insisted I had two. The nuns always tried to act like parents to us, but I could never really grow close to them. I had always liked to fantasize that my real parents had just abandoned me before leaving the city, but deep down I knew they had probably been picked off by the Pack.

There were never any other leopards at the orphanage, or any other type of feline there. I had always heard that the city was of mostly canines, but I never fully understood what that meant until I left at age sixteen, the age where they put us out on the streets of New St. Louis, or New Lou as most people called it. Almost everyone I saw on the streets were dogs or wolves, with a few foxes and other species once in a while. At St. Mary's, they told me being different was good; it made me special and unique. But the other kids used to make fun of my ears, my long tail, my name, and especially my claws. They said they made me look girly. It was right about then that I learned how to fight.

I only had one real friend at the orphanage, a black-and-brown-haired Labrador named Brad. We always thought of each other as brothers, even though we knew we were not related by blood, not even close. He was dropped off at the orphanage the same day I was, and we shared a bunk bed all of the years we spent there. We liked to explore around the old place, find odds and ends that we kept hidden underneath our mattresses, and make up stories to tell to each other. He would always stand up for me when I got picked on, and he was always right by my side in fights. Always right by my side when the adults found out about our mischief that got in trouble more times than I can count. I could depend on him for anything, and him me.

Another Christmas came to St. Mary's, and a few of the kids actually got adopted that year. But not me, nor Brad. To help ease our disappointment, the adults gave us all some small presents, laid out unwrapped under a sad excuse for a Christmas tree. Brad and I had just learned to read, so we received comic books from the adults. It was the first thing we had ever really owned, besides the small springs or pieces of wood we'd found lying around the old place. Each comic book depicted a different superhero, each fighting crime on the streets of seedy cities and punching bad guys in the face. Those superheroes immediately became our idols. We read each book over and over again until they became worn, wrinkled, and ripped. But by then we had every word, every picture memorized and burned forever into our memories.

Soon after we got the books we decided that, as kids of that age would, we would be superheroes when we grew up. Even though we never got the ability to fly or shoot lasers from our eyes, we still wanted to fight crime. The orphanage occasionally let us out into the surrounding couple of blocks in order to "learn more about the outside world", or something educational like that. On one of those days, when we were about six, Brad and I approached a lady fox on the streets and announced that we were superheroes, and asked if she needed any assistance. She laughed, patted us on the heads, and said, "If you can get rid of the Pack, then you will have my thanks." She walked off.

We made some not-so-careful inquiries to the adults of the orphanage and people on the streets as to the identity of this mysterious "Pack". Most of the people wanted to shield us from the thing that had no doubt ruined their lives, but after a couple of years piecing together information, we learned that the Pack was a powerful gang that had the entire city in its paw. Government did not exist here: the Pack paid off figures of power to get them to turn a blind eye. There was no real law, only the Pack's decrees, and its thugs were the enforcers of these rules. The policemen were all paid by the gang, and many of them were actually Pack members themselves. With no-one to stop them, the Pack grew stronger and stronger, killing anyone who stood against them and holding the city and its inhabitants hostage. During the night we could hear gunshots echo through the alleys, and during the day we could see bullet casings on the ground outside that hadn't been there before.

By the time we had a pretty good idea of what the Pack was, Brad and I were both sixteen, and it was time for us to move out of the orphanage. The now-weary adults wished us luck in the future, and closed the door behind us. We were all alone on the streets of the most dangerous city in the country.

It wasn't hard to find an abandoned building for us to lodge in. No one complained that we didn't pay rent. We didn't even have to steal food, luckily, because we could usually find odd jobs to do around the city to pay for our basic needs.

We never gave up our dream of fighting crime in the city. We never stopped thinking of how to take down the Pack. We just had no practical way of doing it. By then we had learned that the gang was being run by a dog known only as "Boss" to the city. He resided in his tall casino near the center of the New Lou, enjoying all the pleasures such a position of power can bring. However, the casino was always well-guarded, and we didn't know exactly where this "Boss" was.

Brad and I eventually learned that the guards and miscellaneous thugs that worked in the casino took their breaks at a nearby bar. We also learned that after a few drinks, most could answer any question with little prodding. From them we discovered that the Boss spent his free time on the rooftop of that tall building, to oversee his kingdom. After a few more weeks of listening in on conversations and asking questions at the bar, we had a pretty good idea of the layout of the building. We would alternate nights going to the bar, him one night and me on the next, so no-one would know we were working together on this, and get suspicious. Afterward, we would meet back at the abandoned building, or "hideout" as our still-superhero-infatuated selves liked to call it, to share the new intelligence with each other, and revise our plans.

It was on one of these nights, not long after we turned seventeen, that Brad went to the bar to dig for information, and I stayed at the hideout. He said he would be back by around midnight. I kept myself occupied re-reading a weeks-old newspaper and drawing on the people's faces. The hour hand on my watch, another Christmas present from the orphanage from years ago, eventually rolled past twelve, and kept on going. He wasn't back yet. At first I thought nothing of it, and thought maybe he was busy with a loose-lipped bar fly. I stayed up all night. The hazy sun rose, and he still hadn't come back. It was obvious what had happened. And once again, I was all alone in the world.

Being alone gave me time to think, and I realized that if Brad had been discovered and killed, the Pack might find me next. I figured I might not have much time left, so I accelerated our plans and prepared to enter the casino that night. I stashed our meager belongings in a corner of our hideout, went over the plan over and over again in my head, and at sunset I left the hideout and headed for the casino.

I walked right into the place, and nobody even raised an eyebrow. I wove through the numerous card tables, slot machines, and dancers to get to the back of the room, all the while trying to breathe in as little smoke and trying to ignore the dogs' jeers at my heritage as much as possible. In the back corner of the room was a metal door that led to the emergency stairs, which went all the way to the top of the building. There was a guard in front of the door, one which I had bought quite a few drinks for at the nearby bar. He must have recognized me too, because he hesitated for a fraction of a second before pulling out his gun: a small, discreet revolver. In this din nobody would have heard him use it if I had let him. But that brief hesitation was all I needed to disarm him and take his weapon. No-one else in the room saw any of this; they were too distracted by their vices. Nobody saw me make the thug open up the door, and disappear inside.

For forty stories we climbed, and for forty stories I thought again and again about what I was about to do. I did not like the idea of killing anyone, but some people are too dangerous to let live. This was the only was the city could finally be free. And the only way to avenge Brad. It's what he would have wanted.

Unfortunately, the Boss had been expecting me, and things didn't go as planned. I soon found myself heading back down to streets of New Lou. The quick way. What was I thinking? I thought to myself as the ground quickly rose up to greet me.