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Chapter 3: Something's Going On But No Ones Talking

T-Bone was concerned by the tone of Razor's voice when he called him. He was even more worried when he saw his partner's closed and remote face.

Razor didn't say anything to his friend as he hopped aboard the jet for the quick trip back home. When they got back and were changing clothes, Jake still wouldn't talk about it and tried to escape up the ladder to the garage.

Chance was having none of it and placed himself in front of the ladder, forcing Jake to stop and scowl at him.

"Something bad had happened! I can see it in your eyes. Talk to me Jake. What happened with Dark Kat and did you see Feral there at all?" Chance demanded.

Jake winced in anguish at the mention of Feral's name. He was furious inside and he wouldn't have been surprised to learn Feral was feeling the same way. His mind shrieked and railed in fury at the injustice...the sheer wanton destruction of their lives committed by that evil pair upon Feral and himself deserved the maximum punishment...death! And he would see to it that Dark Kat and Viper were taken out...permanently. He had been fortunate not to have taken a life when he was an enforcer and now as a SWAT Kat but just this one time, he would make an exception and not feel guilty about it.

He didn't want his partner involved though. "Yeah, Feral was there. We'd been locked up together after Dark Kat beat me up first. Dr. Viper was there too working with Dark Kat. Those two are cooking up something that's going to be really bad... I just know it." He said darkly avoiding the rest of the story. "They kept us in a tiny room then in the morning they gassed us and released us where we'd been when we were taken."

"What the heck could those two be up to anyway?" Chance asked rhetorically.

"Guess we're going to have to on the alert and watch for anything suspicious. I don't think they intend to wait long before they strike." Jake said grimly.

"Crud! Well then we better be sure the Turbokat is ready and loaded." Chance said thoughtfully. He eyed his partner in concern. Something more had happened, he was sure of it but it was obvious that Jake wasn't willing to discuss it. The tabby tom would bide his time and be watchful. He could see Jake was getting into one of his moody states. He hated those times when Jake would seal himself away from everyone while he brooded.

He sighed mentally, 'Nothing I can do about it but hope he'll tell me eventually.' He turned and climbed the ladder with Jake right behind him.

They worked on cars for the rest of the day, a cloud of unresolved issues hanging over them.

When he got into his office, Feral summoned several of his special ops teams and Felina.

Everyone had been surprised to see him just walk into the building as if nothing had happened. There was still an APB out on him as being kidnaped.

When she had received the summons from her uncle, Felina had been stunned. She raced for the elevators and nearly ran down one of the teams going into the Commander's office. Squeezing past them, she hurried up to her uncle's desk.

She could see strain in his face and an angry, haunted look in his golden eyes.

"Uncle?" She questioned, worriedly.

"Felina, let's all go into the conference room, shall we." He said flatly as he got up from his desk and led the way to the conference room off his office.

When everyone had taken a seat, Feral wasted no time getting to the point. "Dark Kat is working with Dr. Viper. My capture was totally accidental. I don't know what they are up to. I wasn't there long enough. They released Razor and I where we'd been taken without a clue as to why. What I want is for all of you to work your network of connections in the underworld, hard! We need to find out what they are planning as soon as possible. I don't have to tell you that whatever it is, Megakat City is going to be under fire really soon. I want reports on anything you find out no matter how small or seemingly unrelated...I want everything. Get to it! Dismissed!" He ordered not allowing questions.

Grim faces stared at each other as they got to their feet and left. Felina could see written on the leader's faces that they thought something more had happened than just being kidnaped for Feral to be so cold and remote. They hurried off to try and get him what he wanted. Felina lingered a bit but was a little hurt when her uncle just nodded at her and left the room for his office. It was obvious he wasn't in the mood to explain what had occurred when he was in Dark Kat's paws.

Frowning worriedly, she headed for her office to root through her files and go out and button hole some of her more likely prospects for information.

Just as Feral and Razor had guessed, a few days later, Dr. Viper struck hard and viciously.

Instead of his usual targets, Viper chose to cause as much panic as he could. Using his vines and plantimals, he instigated an assault on a shopping mall. When the enforcers arrived, Katizens were screaming and running pel mel out the many doors of the mall getting in the way of their rescuers in their mad panic to get away from the horror behind them.

Inside the center atrium, a huge vine plant was snaking its tentacles out in every direction and grabbing a Kat at random and tossing them like rag dolls. It was a nightmare of injured and dead bodies everywhere.

Fury was in his eyes, as Feral arrived. He took one look at the vine plant and grabbed a bazooka from one of his troopers and fired a missile at the thing's cluster at the top where the tentacles emanated. It struck true making the creature scream in pain. Not wasting his advantage, Feral snatched a specially designed freeze gun that was recently developed to handle things by Viper and fired at the base of the treelike thing. It screamed even louder and toppled over. Enforcers quickly hacked at it cutting off its tentacles.

Leaving the thing dying on the floor, Feral led a group of troopers in search of Viper.

The SWAT Kats had heard the alarm over the enforcer band radio in the shop and were now on the scene. Before they landed to join the chaos, Razor made T-Bone hover first.

"I've finally finished that cold-blooded creature scanner and I want to try it out to locate Viper." He told his partner. He focused the device on the mall and ran it from end to end slowly.

"There's no sign of him. He's not here." Razor growled angrily. He turned on his radio and contacted Feral.

Feral heard his radio demanding his attention. Without stopping his search, he yanked it out of his coat and answered.

"Feral!"

"Commander, Viper isn't there. My scanner shows no sign of him. It's a diversion!" Razor said flatly.

"Fuck!" Feral cursed causing a couple of his officers to flick their ears toward him in surprise. "Cease the search. Viper isn't here! Go through the area to make sure there's no more of Viper's plant soldiers around." He ordered then turned on his heel to return to the entrance. "Razor! Come down and talk to me!" He demanded.

"Sorry! No can do! We're going to have a look around to see if we can find out where Viper went to!" Razor told him then cut the connection.

"Why the heck did you tell Feral about Viper and why did he listen?" T-Bone asked in shocked surprise.

"He didn't need to be wasting time. Whatever's going down, now isn't the time to be at cross purposes with the enforcers." Razor said flatly.

That sounded reasonable but it still didn't sit easily with T-Bone. He knew it had to be part of what had happened to the two of them. An unhappy tabby prepared to do a grid search to look for signs of the mutant lizard Kat while part of his mind worried about his partner.

Feral snarled and cursed savagely under his breath. He didn't know what Razor was up to but he had a gut feeling they were going to end up at the same place when this came to a head. He spent the next few hours cleaning up the mess at the scene then returned to his office and poured through the reports his special ops were sending in. So far none of his teams had found out anything useful.

The SWAT Kats searched for several hours without result. Disgusted, Razor told T-Bone to abort and go home since they were running low on fuel. Arriving home, Razor was tense and angry as he stripped his G-suit off. Without a word to T-Bone he went straight to his work shop.

Chance sighed and decided to leave his partner alone. He went upstairs to finish up the work still left in the garage.

At city hall, Mayor Manx was fielding angry and upset constituents from the mall disaster. After soothing yet another irate social elite whose wife and son had been injured, Manx sighed as he hung up.

"Callie!" He called out.

"Yes, Mayor?" Callie asked as she hurried into his office.

"Do you know what's going on? That's the fifth call I've had to deal with in the last hour!" He demanded.

"I only know what I heard on the news, sir. Dr. Viper left a vine creature there to create havoc and he disappeared. I haven't had a chance to speak to Commander Feral yet." She said unhappily.

"Then call him! I want a report on what happened and what he's doing about finding that criminal." Manx ordered.

"Yes sir." Callie said and left for her office. Calling Feral quickly, she received a curt response to her inquiry and a promise of a report to her when he had time then he hung up on her. She held the phone in shocked surprise. Feral had nearly bitten her head off and hadn't made any attempt to temper his words. One thing she'd noticed about Feral was he always spoke with respect no matter how angry he was but he made no effort to do that this time.

This wasn't the first time Viper had attacked though his method was different this time. He attacked the city on a nearly constant basis so Feral's attitude was strange and unlike him. Something must have happened. Since he certainly wouldn't tell her what that might be, she would have to find out through her only real source of info at Enforcer Headquarters.

Lieutenant Felina Feral wasn't given to blabbing about sensitive enforcer information behind her uncle's back but when she was concerned about the Commander, himself, she was willing to bend a little to an understanding ear. Since that first time they traded info, she and Felina had gradually formed a careful friendship.

She would have to connect with Felina later tonight, if possible. It had taken a few hours before Felina had returned her call. She was a bit leery but agreed to meet at Callie's apartment. They didn't want to be seen together.

Around seven o'clock that night, Callie opened her door to a casually dressed Felina. She'd chosen to wear a pair of dark blue jeans and enforcer t-shirt of light blue. Callie smiled warmly and gestured for her to enter. Callie herself had opted for a comfortable pink sweatsuit.

She led Felina to the living room where they sat down.

"So what did you need to see me about?" Felina asked getting right to the point in her usual blunt manner.

"Has something serious happened to the Commander recently?" Callie asked.

Felina frowned for a moment then sighed. "He was kidnaped by Dark Kat's minions as well as Razor some nights ago. He told us Dark Kat has joined up with Dr. Viper and they are up to something really bad. What doesn't make sense is the evil pair released my uncle and Razor the following morning. My uncle says he didn't know why they were released. He was kidnaped by accident when he stumbled upon ninjas and creeplings stealing electrical equipment from a factory not far from my uncle's home." Felina told her.

"But that's happened before to him. The way he sounded on the phone was just wrong. It sent alarms off in my mind. Something else must have happened." Callie insisted.

"Your suspicions are right about that but unfortunately, I don't know what happened. He isn't talking about it at all and I get a strong feeling that whatever occurred it was very bad. It's upset him enough to make him cold and remote. It's as if he's seeking revenge but that goes against everything he believes in so that can't be it." Felina said in frustration.

"You're right, that's not like him. He's too moral and by the book to do something like that." Callie agreed.

"I've been trying to keep a close eye on him. He seems driven to find those two creeps. He has special ops teams and myself digging up any information we can find to locate them. So far we haven't had much luck." Felina said unhappily.

"Great, a possible dual attack by the worst enemies the city has and we can't do anything but wait for them to do it." Callie said in frustrated disgust.

"Whatever it is, they've already begun. That attack at the mall was a feint and I wouldn't be surprised if we will be treated to more such feints until Dark Kat launches his major offensive. Meanwhile all these little attacks wear us down and make us vulnerable. It doesn't look good, Callie." Felina said grimly.

"The SWAT Kats should be made aware of this!" Callie said anxiously.

"Oh they know! During the attack, Razor called my uncle to tell him he could find no trace of Viper in the building and suggested he cease his search. He then told my uncle that he and T-Bone would do a grid search then he cut off the connection. My uncle was furious and cursing. That caught quite a few of the enforcers by surprise." Felina reported.

"I'd be shocked as well. He never swears and why would Razor call Feral and tell him anything. What the heck is going on?" Callie asked rhetorically.

"I wish I knew. Whatever happened it's affected Razor as well." Felina said.

"I don't like this. I can feel a chill down my spine about all of it. It's frustrating to know we have to wait until those creeps attack again and hope we can catch one or both of them. But this business with Razor and Feral is a real cause for concern." Callie said tightly.

"Yeah, I think you're right but there's really nothing we can do about it right now but keep a watchful eye on both of them." Felina said heavily.

"I'm afraid you're right." Callie sighed.

"I'd better be going. I've got to get up early. I'll let you know if anything new comes up." Felina said as she got up to leave.

"Thank you Felina, I really appreciate that." Callie offered a wan smile as she saw the female enforcer to the door.

"Take care, Callie," Felina murmured a soft good night.

"You to!" Callie said tirededly.