Forgotten
Chapter 2: Acidic Questions
***
As
the sun rose slowly above the emerald horizon of
He
sat up and yawned, stretching his arms above his head. With a little extra
oomph, he was able to arch his back far enough to make the vertebrae crack into
place with sickening volume...whoever said his ability to click some of his
joints would result in arthritis was an idiot.
Still
a little groggy and disoriented, he forced himself to stand up from the couch
and wander over to the window next to the kitchen table, and stared out across
the miles of scrap metal as the sun glinted off it...bright light often woke
him up fairly well, as it often does to most. Soon enough, he felt awake enough
to think straight, and realised he hadn’t seen his reflection in ages...and
what he’d become. Last time he looked in the mirror, he was an aging Japanese
businessman; thick black hair, though it had receded slightly to bear a widow’s
peak on his forehead, ferocious-looking eyebrows that seemed permanently locked
into a frown – they were thicker toward the sides of his face, and spiked
upward, almost making one think of him, at first glance, as one of those
ancient samurai kinds – and beneath then, cold, obsidian eyes, slanting up
slightly at the corners. His high cheekbones and slightly squared-off chin made
him seem all the more formidable; the reason only two men in history had
attempted to legitimately challenge his authority.
His
eyes refocused, and caught the reflection of an unfamiliar visage staring back
at him against the window pane. A ginger-brown furred creature stared back at
him with a bewildered expression, with thick raven hair sitting on his head in
a rather disorderly manner. The eyes were so similar to his own –
Japanese-looking, curved up at the corners – but they were sharper and much
larger than a human’s eyes would be. His still rather prominent cheekbones were
hidden entirely by brown fur, which formed two sharp points at each cheek.
Despite the fact that the rest of his face had been replaced with a Kat-like
muzzle, he still had the overall shape – including the chin. After minutes on
end of staring at the reflection, he began to recognise the Kazuya within the
beast’s visage. Somehow, under all that fur, he was still his old self.
After
a moment he glanced back down at his hands. He’d noticed, the night before,
that everyone else around had only three fingers and a thumb...he still had
four and his thumb. The nails were gone though...and in their place were claw
sheaths. He’d discovered the claws last night, of course. With all his fighting
experience, he could tell they’d prove more than useful at times.
The
movement of feet caught his attention, and he turned his head to glance over
his shoulder. He caught the view of a smaller Kat with bright ginger fur and
emerald green eyes; ‘Razor’, he’d called himself. He smiled softly at the
sleepy creature.
“‘Morning...”
Razor
smirked slightly through half-lidded eyes and threw himself at the
refrigerator, yanking the door open. “G’morning Kazuya...how’d you sleep?”
He
moved from the window, and sat back down on the couch. “Better than I have in
years...usually I get two hours if I’m lucky.”
Pulling
a bottle of milk out with one paw, Razor reached for a cereal box from the
cupboard with the other. “Good...today will no doubt be busy.” As he plopped
both items on the kitchen table, he turned to retrieve a couple of other items.
“By the way...I forgot to tell you last night; T-bone and Razor are our
aliases...out of uniform, just call me Jake. My buddy’s name is Chance.”
Kazuya
nodded, and ran a hand through his hair. As he did, something crashed down next
to him unceremoniously. He recognised the blonde tabby’s fur easily; Chance. He
chortled deeply to himself. “Chance isn’t a morning guy, is he?”
Jake
shook his head, smiling, as he brought three bowls and spoons to the table, and
sat down. “Nope, never has been. I’m surprised he’s actually up yet, considering the time of day.”
The
smaller ginger-furred Kat motioned for the other to help himself to the
breakfast, and Kazuya did just that. He was hungry, after all, since it’d been
a while since he’d eaten. Cornflakes weren’t really turning him on as far as
breakfast went...but it was food nevertheless. After he’d fixed himself an
overloaded bowlful, Jake poured himself his share of the cereal, and a decent
helping of milk.
Since
Chance slept through most of the meal, breakfast was in relative silence. Then
again, it was rude to talk with a full mouth, right? At any rate, it was a fast
meal, and as the two washed up their dishes, Chance finally woke up and
sleepily dug into his meal.
“I’d
better find you something to wear other than those boxers, and get you a
towel,” Jake commented as he put the bowl on the drying rack next to the sink,
“Though I doubt any of my clothes will fit you. I’m sure Chance won’t mind if I
steal something from his drawer.”
Kazuya
glanced down at his black satin boxers, and sighed. That’s all the
G-Corporation had left him to wear?! Cheapskates.
Jake
returned and dumped a pair of short-sleeved blue overalls in his arms a moment
later, along with a fresh towel. “All I could find for now...but hey, you’ll
probably get ‘em dirty negotiating the junkyard anyhow. Shower’s down the
hall...go for it whenever you’re ready.”
Now
was good, actually...and he nodded once, heading down the hall to clean up.
Chance
mumbled something incoherent at Jake as he put his dish in the sink, and
prepared to walk off...but ended up yowling in pain a second later. Jake’s foot
had planted itself down firmly on the tip of his tail. The blonde turned around
and snarled at his buddy.
“Chance,
I’m not cleaning up your dirty dishes...if you’re gonna be lazy, maybe you
should get married...”
Sighing,
and now rather more awake than before, he complied...after nursing his abused
tail for a moment. “I would if I could...but I doubt there are any women that
would want to live in a cruddy scrap yard...and as if I can afford somewhere in
the city!”
It
was true...neither would ever be able to afford something better than
this...especially with that debt above their heads for eternity. But with their
double careers, it didn’t seem as bad...besides, where else would you have free
parts pouring in from everywhere?
***
An hour or so later, with the sun rolling higher and higher into the emerald
sky, the three tomkats were out in the scrap yard, just outside the garage.
Chance had made himself comfortable sitting on a pile of old tyres, whilst
Kazuya was sitting on the bonnet of an old wreck...the blue overalls he was
wearing were just a little bit too large on his slender frame. Jake seemed perfectly
happy to sit on the concrete and tinker with yet another invention of some
kind.
“So,
are you going to tell us about yourself?” Chance smirked playfully, leaning
back in the segmented rubber tube of old wheels.
Pulling
his legs up to cross them beneath him, Kazuya smiled back at him...though the
smile was strangely dark and subdued, as if it was forced. “Only
if I have to.”
“You
do...unless it’s too gory.” His smirk widened somewhat, and was still
half-serious.
“Well,
my past is most definitely rather gory and unpleasant...but it’ll make for a
good ghost story.” This time, the smile
was genuine. He sat back, leaning back on his hands. “You ready for a long
story?”
Both
nodded, and Jake paused in his tinkering for a moment.
“Well
I guess I should start from the boring stuff...family. I’m the oldest and only
son of Heihachi Mishima...former CEO of the biggest company in
Jake
blinked, then arched a brow. “
Kazuya
nodded. “Yeah, a group of islands off the Asian continent. It had a population
of over a hundred thousand when I was born.” That caused two pairs of brows to
rise, but he continued anyhow. “Anyway, it was apparent even before I was born
that he didn’t want me around...so instead of getting rid of me, he decided to
make my life a living hell from the word go. As soon as I learned to walk he
was forcing me to learn the martial arts...Mishima
Karate, to be exact...which is notoriously brutal and hard to master. I
actually learned fast for a kid...but it was never good enough for him. He
decided he’d had enough by the time I was five...and threw me off the top of a
cliff.”
Jake’s
eyes nearly rolled out of his head. “A cliff? You mean like a ravine?”
He
motioned towards the massive blemish slashing diagonally across his broad chest
and stomach. “No, a cliff...as in,
one you’re supposed to be splattered at the bottom if you fall down...but
somehow I survived...but not without a few souvenirs.”
“So
that’s what that scar’s from...” Chance, if he weren’t covered in fur, would be
ashen white at that point. The thought of a mere kitten...no, child; they
probably don’t have kittens where Kazuya’s from...being thrown down a cliff by
his own father...sickened him.
“Indeed.
Took almost a year to fully heal too. By then he’d
adopted a little silver haired street rat to ‘replace me’, even though I still
lived with him.” He sighed, drawing his knees up, and wrapped his arms around
them. “I had to put up with him and his arrogance along with everything else
until I finally left home at eighteen.
“From
there there’s not too much of interest...trying to find odd jobs anywhere I
could...waiter, cashier, apprentice mechanic...”
Chance
and Jake exchanged glances.
“...until
I was twenty-six. My father decided to start a martial arts tournament, which
he called the King of Iron Fist. I participated...the prize was the Mishima
Zaibatsu itself. I won it, believe it or not...and threw him over the same
cliff he threw me over when I was young.
“From
there I transformed the Zaibatsu into the most powerful company in the
world...something my idiot of a father never seemed to be able to do, since he
never quite studied his employees and their full potential. About a year after
I took over the Zaibatsu, I discovered he was alive...and I used the same
tactics he used to lure me out...and announced the King of Iron Fist 2.
“It
was a much harder tournament to participate in, since there were more
competitors...but out of sheer luck, my father won it...and out of sheer spite,
he decided to try and get rid of me, once and for all. After knocking me
out...he dropped my body into the mouth of a live volcano.”
The
two tomkats gave him a disbelieving look. “You’re joking, right?”
He
shook his head. “Nope. He actually did it. I landed on
a ledge just above the magma; the poisonous gases and sheer heat actually
rendered me medically ‘dead’...but a company called the G-Corporation spend
around ten years trying to rectify the damage done by the suffocation and the
burning...might I add that suffocating is one of the worst ways to die?”
Chance
shuddered; Jake, on the other hand, was engrossed in the tale, and was leaning
forward for more.
“I
finally awoke from the treatment, though I had completely lost my memory. It
took me six years to finally remember everything...four years later I’d trained
up and hardened myself to the reality of what had happened, and was ready to
take on my father for what he did to me...the fourth King of Iron Fist came
about when he learned of my presence. Of course, he still wanted me dead after
all those years...funny how old hatred never dies.
“In
short, I fought and won; thanks to the son I never knew I had. Being dead, so
to speak, for at least ten years, sort of stops you from learning of such
things. But at any rate, we both fought the old man, and won...from there,
nearly ten more years of my running the Zaibatsu ensued, before I collapsed in
my office one day...then awoke here. Apparently I caught the Gaidoku virus
that’s been wreaking havoc on Earth. Looks like Hackle has
the cure we’ve been searching for, too...”
A
long silence followed as Kazuya ended his story there. Finally, Chance sighed and sat forward on his
perch. “You’re right...it was quite gory. I dunno how you’ve stayed sane all
this time.”
The
raven-haired Kat smirked and shrugged. “Whoever said anything about sane? All
I’ve done is tried to survive. But anyway...now that I’ve
spilled my heart and soul out to the both of you...your turn.”
Jake
grinned innocently and motioned to Chance...who grinned back in an almost
mocking way, and cleared his throat. “Alright then.
There’s not too much to say about our childhoods compared to yours...except
that both of us were both sporty and academic I guess. Jake was obsessed with
technology, and I wanted to be a fighter pilot. We both applied to become
Enforcers after University; purely by accident, he ended up being my gunman...”
Chance motioned with a clawed thumb at the cross-legged tomkat sitting below
him. “We had been on several missions before...but the most drastic one was
when we had to fight one of the city’s greatest enemies...Dark Kat.
“Of
course, it was a dogfight. Commander Feral ordered us to break off pursuit, but
back then, we were young and hot-headed. We had our weapons locked on him, and
no matter how much we were told to pull back, we didn’t...as a result of an
accident, we lost control of the plane, and ejected...the jet crashed into the
brand new Enforcer headquarters, resulting in millions of dollars in
damages...needless to say, Feral wasn’t one bit impressed.
“In
fact,” Chance continued with a depressed sigh, “He gave us the bill, kicked us
out of the military, and sent us here to this junkyard to somehow pay off the
debt. That was quite a few years ago. Instead of becoming bitter and angry
though, we both swore revenge on Dark Kat for ruining our careers; Jake noticed
that most of the parts thrown in here were junk...but there were a few gems
lying about. In fact, we found enough crud to build an entire jet of our
own...and eventually other equipment; and, after creating aliases and disguises
so Feral wouldn’t be able to have a bigger fit over his spilled milk...the SWAT
Kats were born.”
Kazuya
blinked, and smirked slightly. “You know, your lives sound a hell of a lot more
interesting than mine.”
Again,
the two glanced at each other, then for once, Jake
spoke. “Well, you said you were an apprentice mechanic...that holds hope for
you for a future here. If you don’t desperately want to return ‘home’...we
could always take you on as a third ser of paws here. Heck knows we could use a
little help every now and again.”
Kazuya
snorted with laughter. “Return to Earth...like this? I’d become a science
project...again. Besides, there’s nothing for me there...and your little
rebellious superhero act sounds far more interesting than running that
godforsaken Zaibatsu.”
***
With a cough of smoke, the engine below him splurted
a thick stream of black oil into Kazuya’s face and shirt. This time, instead of
yelling and stepping back...he sighed, and waited for it to stop.
Chance
looked over his shoulder at the tall tawny Kat. What a mess...oil all over the
place. Maybe he shouldn’t have left the old crud-bomb of a vehicle to a rusty
mechanic to fix...besides, after the last two months of working with him,
Chance had learned that Kazuya wasn’t particularly skilled in the mechanical
field, and he had limited experience. It was time to help him with the old,
broken-down rusted wreck.
“Need
an extra paw there?” The look from the obsidian eyes he received for asking,
from beneath the covering of dark, thick oil, was enough to kill.
“I
can’t decide where to start with this thing. I say we rip out the engine and
put a new one in.”
Chance
peeked inside beneath the bonnet, and received a splattering of oil in the face
too. “Ugh...well for a start, it could use a new...wait, you’re right. But the
old lady who owns it can’t afford a new engine...we’ll have to make do with
what we can.”
Kazuya
sighed and walked back into the garage, grabbing a rag to try and get some of
the oil out of his fur.
“You
know, for a former businessman, you sure don’t react too badly to getting
filthy.” Chance commented as he began tinkering within the engine, not looking
at the other Kat.
Kazuya
chuckled as he tried to wipe his face clean. “Being covered in your own blood
is worse than oil and brake fluid in my opinion. Besides, it comes out
eventually, so there’s no need to whine and complain like a little princess.”
“Good
point. Ah, bingo...here’s part of the problem...” Leaning in a little further,
Chance fiddled with a few connections lower down, and pulled out a few parts.
“We can replace these, and mend a few other components...and this old bomb
should last her another year or so, before she’s back again...I’m sure Jake
will come up with something brilliant to put in their place.”
“Speaking
of whom, where is he?” Kazuya put the rag aside, though he wasn’t satisfied
with the state of his ginger fur – still soaked and clogged with the
stuff...but he could clean himself up later.
“Down
in the hangar I think, coming up with something new.”
Rolling
his eyes and smiling, Kazuya rejoined Chance at the front of the car.
***
Sitting amongst several piles of paper and metal components was the second SWAT
Kat, contentedly scribbling away on a blueprint with a piece of chalk. It
seemed to be one of many – it also seemed that Jake had something planned.
Chance
and Kazuya looked on in silence for a little while as Jake scribbled away
happily...the genius looked like a small child with his crayons. It was a while
before he spotted the two onlookers, but when he did, he smiled and waved them
over.
“Come
over here you two, check this out...”
When
they did, they found themselves staring at blueprints for an F-22 Raptor
look-alike. The perplexed looks Jake received were for completely different
reasons; Kazuya had little clue as to what the jet was exactly, and Chance
found it difficult to believe there was a need for one. The old Turbokat still
served them admirably after all, and it would only be unnecessary work in
building an entirely new, more advanced vehicle from scratch, right?
“Uh
Jake...what exactly is the point of
building another jet?”
He
placed aside the papers for the time being, and looked up at his taller buddy.
“Chance, we’re both pilots, remember? And we can easily train Kazuya to be a
second gunman...besides, the Turbokat only fits two.”
“Whoa
wait, are you sure...”
“Sure of what?”
After
a hesitant moment of thought, he glanced at Kazuya. “Are you sure you want to
get tied up in this?”
The
darker-furred Kat shrugged his broad shoulders. “I have nothing more useful to
do. Besides, it sounds like a substantial challenge, and a change from the old.
So why not?”
Chance
sighed softly, and sat down beside Jake. “Alright, you win...so how are the
plans going?”
Grabbing
the blueprints again, Jake began pointing out aspects of the new jet. “Well,
for a start, she’s faster than the Turbokat, and just as agile. With the
technology upgrades the Turbokat’s been through, and with the new ones we’ve
been working on, we can conserve time and space by throwing it all straight
onto the new jet, making it more advanced than the Turbokat by a long shot.
It’ll also have a higher capacity for missiles and the like, and a more
accurate targeting system...so the pilot won’t always need a gunman.”
On second thought, thought Chance, this could be an awesome plan cookin’. “Sounds good to me. So, when do we start work?”
The
smaller Kat grinned to himself as he leafed through a few more pages of plans. “As soon as we’ve cleared out the back end of the hangar.”