InsaneJournal

Dr. Viper's Girl (4/?)
Title: Dr. Viper's Girl (4/?)
Chapter Title: That Which is Necessary
Rated: PG13
Pairing: none
Fandom: Swat Kats
Swat Kats belongs to Hanna Barbera and it's partners

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This story is an idea that's been bouncing around my head for about a decade. Warnings for a sanitized description of Stockholm Syndrome.

This story was written June 2010. It has been edited.

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I spent most of my early days in Viper’s lair being depressed and learning the layout. I slept in a mossy aerie in a nook of the tree, accessible by flight or by a rope ladder I could fold up for privacy. A fungoid roof grew over my head in the course of three days. I slept in the open summer night air, listening to the bugs and the frogs and missing dearly the sounds of the city.

Viper’s lair was of a surprisingly simple design. He had two separate labs, one for research and one for experimentation. The research lab was furnished with chemicals and equipment salvaged from MegaKat City: katalysts, computers, an electron microscope, spectrometers, a generator, and other equipment I couldn’t begin to identify. The experimental lab was more what I would have imagined for Viper’s lab: cages of plantimals, jars of preserved successes and failures, dissection tools, all with warnings pasted onto everything.

I never saw Viper’s room. I don’t know if he had one. I do know that instead of chairs there were large bowls set sort of in the floor, half full of mud or oil or occasionally something else that Viper would climb into and lounge like a basking snake. My tail was too substantial for a standard chair but I didn’t feel ready to take up Viper’s way of life; using his specialized furniture felt too much like admitting to all I’d lost.

Zyme slept in a mossy alcove with no privacy. I guess he no longer saw a reason for it.

I spent my first days in my aerie with the ladder drawn up. The most I had to remind me of my new landlord was the occasional hissing from below. I don’t think I ate during those days. I was too depressed to be hungry.

It was the third day when I dropped the ladder and gazed out over the swamp. I thought I could see Kataluna Island in the distance.

“We’re worried about you,” said a soft voice. Zyme had climbed up the ladder and was sitting next to me.

“Hmm,” I replied.

“We’re wondering when you’d like to come down.”

“‘We’?”

“Viper, too. He doesn’t want to see you hurting yourself and neither do I.”

My ears twitched. I didn’t believe that, not really.

“I brought food,” Zyme said. He brought out a basket with a cloth tucked in. It struck me as almost painfully domestic.

“I’m not hungry,” I lied.

Zyme shrugged and lifted the cloth. The smell made my stomach growl but he wisely didn’t say anything. Instead the bastard reached in and picked out what appeared to be a steamed tuber. He peeled it and bit into it. I swore softly and reached in the basket.

We ate side by side in my aerie, a simple meal of tuber and roasted small animal. I think I finished off most of the basket on my own. I admit I felt much better.

“Sulking out here won’t change the past,” I said while crunching small bones.

“But we can change the future,” Zyme said.

“Viper can really help me keep these wings?”

Zyme smiled. I could have sworn there were tears in his eyes. “I think he’d like nothing more in the world,” he said.

“All right.”

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“I want you to help me,” I said. It was later that day. I was in Viper’s research lab while he watched Zyme analyzing data on one of the computers.

“I am not acussstomed to anssswering to the whimsss of othersss,” Viper hissed.

“I would like for you to help me,” I amended. “I would appreciate it if you could help me solidify my mutations to prevent any tampering from antimutagens from reversing it.”

Viper’s tail flicked. He hissed, long and drawn out. “That might be quite a challenge,” he mused. “Isss thisss a busssinessss proposssition?”

“What do you mean?” I knew exactly what he meant but I needed to be sure.

“I will need a quantity of Katalyssst X63 to repeat the exxxperimentsss on your sssellsss before I exxxpossse you to any chemicalsss.

“You don’t have any left from your… recent activities?”

Viper hissed, shaking his head as though I was particularly slow instead of just stalling. “Of courssse not,” he said. “Mutating a ssswamp’sss worth of creaturesss takesss vassst quantitiesss of chemical. I had to ussse all I had. I need more if I’m going to work on you, young Feral.”

I sighed in defeat. I’d already weighed this probability before asking. I knew what principles I was violating. I only hoped my uncle could find it in his heart to forgive me. “Then we’ll need to acquire some,” I said.

“Yesss…”

“MegaKat Biochemical always has increased security after one of your attempts on the city,” I mused aloud. “If you go for your usual method of infiltration there’s more likelihood of Enforcers getting killed.”

“I assssume you have ideasss to keep usss from being cornered?”

“There are numerous ways into the building,” I pointed out. “The sewers are going to be watched until the middle of next week, standard policy after one of your attempts. The skies are always watched for Dark Kat. Shipments in and out are only randomly checked and then only for QC purposes. You could always just use the service entrance. I can give you the code to unlock the door, unless it’s been changed.”

“Who hasss acsssessss to thisss code?”

“It’s used by all the Enforcers for getting into and out of the building. There’s also surveillance to deal with if you’re going to be using the corridors instead of the ventilation. All surveillance is handled through a central security office off-site. That’s not helpful directly but what if we found a way to loop their security footage? Then their cameras wouldn’t even register a problem until the next day when personnel don’t show up on camera. That means I have to go with you then.”

“I wasss going to sssay, I’m not Dark Kat,” he said, clearly amused. “I do not messss with sssecurity if I can jussst sssneak passst it all. It isss why I ussse the ventilation.”

This is how I found myself in the sewers outside of MegaKat Biochemical in the middle of the night. Neither myself nor Viper were really capable of passing as one of the Enforcers on duty no matter how many uniforms we stole. Regardless I waited for the few moments when the service entrance was left unguarded between shifts.

It was too easy. A pair of bolt cutters took out the camera surveillance at the entrance. I used the general code to unlock the door and waved Viper in. We avoided the next camera and he led me into the ventilation shaft.

“We need to be careful,” I whispered. “These are probably being watched. They know you by now.”

Viper hissed in response and slithered towards what I assumed was storage. I followed, crawling on all paws like an animal.

I didn’t notice the tripwire until after Viper had knocked it. We paused and I followed the wire to what looked like a transmitter on the wall. It flashed ominously. I didn’t recognize it and said so.

“The Ssswat Katsss,” Viper mumbled. “We mussst hurry.”

“Or hide,” I suggested. “Uncle will never let the SWAT Kats into the labs, not after the last time they responded to a break-in.”

“Rather hurry,” he said and we continued to the chemical storage room. There we loaded up on Katalysts carefully sealed in glass ampoules. Viper lovingly wrapped each ampoule in padding to prevent breakage and packed them in a satchel. Then we were back out through the vents.

We were at the last bend before the service entrance when we heard the voices of someone in the vents with us. Viper drew us through a twisting, winding maze of ventilation shafts, a map he must have known as well as the layout of his own lab. From the echoing distance I heard snippets of the conversation between our pursuers.

“Couldn’t be Dr. Viper…”

“Think it’s too soon since his last attempt?”

“No one could recover that fast…”

It sounded like the SWAT Kats. I sneered but kept myself from hissing in frustration. Either Uncle wasn’t trying hard enough to stop them or he was getting wise. I was liable to believe in the second one which meant it would be harder to get out of the labs than I’d thought.

After all their sounds faded away Viper slithered up to my side. “We should go,” he whispered. I nodded and we made our way back through the maze.

We stopped near where we’d entered and I strained to hear the dreaded sound of Enforcers pacing the hallway. I went pale when I heard it.

Viper hissed. I looked down.

Heartache is a terrible emotion. I felt it fully as I watched and heard my Uncle below me with a squadron of Enforcers giving orders for a systematic search of the building. I curled in on myself and purred quietly to myself.

I felt a scaly paw over my mouth, trying to keep me quiet. Another paw slowly rubbed up and down my spine in a way that was somehow comforting and that thought scared me. I quieted down.

Thankfully the Enforcers didn’t seem to have noticed us. Or maybe they had because when my Uncle sent everyone else off to their posts he joined the group going to the chemical storeroom and left one of his sergeants to guard the ventilation shaft alone.

“We have to kill him,” Viper whispered.

I shook my head. I was not going to be killing an Enforcer for doing his job. I may have fallen to breaking into sensitive buildings and stealing dangerous chemicals for a wanted mega-criminal to use on me in unethical and illegal experiments but I was not going to kill anyone.

…Now that I’ve said that murder doesn’t seem all that far to fall.

Either way I was not going to have an innocent’s blood on my hands.

“If we don’t kill him we can’t essscape,” Viper warned.

“We’re not going to kill anyone,” I hissed.

“Then we turn ourssselvesss in?” Viper demanded in a whisper. “I am here for you. I am caught for you. I will kill for you if you cannot. I will not be captured for you.”

I looked down at the Enforcer’s head. He was in the middle of checking in on his radio. “Can you lower me down?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“I’m going to put him under,” I explained. “I just need to be able to grab his neck.”

Thus with a few silent maneuvers I found Viper’s tail wrapped around my waist as he let the top half of my body slide upside-down out of the ventilation shaft.

There was a quiet noise as I grabbed his head. I jammed my thumbs into his carotid arteries and waited. He left out a grunting stammer and faded into unconsciousness.

“He didn’t see me,” I whispered. “Now we really do have to hurry.”

Viper nodded and let me drop. I grabbed the satchel and he fell to the floor. We hurried outside to see the glare of a searchlight scanning the ground from a chopper above. It was searching directly between the service entrance and the street.

“Crud,” I swore.

“There’sss two katholesss they’re checking,” Viper whispered. “We need to get them to focusss on one while we sssprint for the other.”

“What distractions do we have?” I asked.

“Ourssselvesss,” Viper suggested.

“There’s got to be better than that,” I moaned.

“There isss.” With that Viper whistled. Within a moment one of the katholes popped open and a pair of plantimals popped out. The chopper focused on them.

“Go!” I didn’t have to be told twice. I followed Viper’s command and ran to the other kathole, threw it open, and jumped in. Viper followed and the chopper’s searchlight shone directly at us for a moment before we sloshed our way into the darkness.

My heart broke at what I knew my uncle must be thinking of me. I’d used Enforcer codes to give Dr. Viper access to dangerous chemicals, some of which might be used later in one of his attempts at taking over the city. I’d made myself an accessory. All so I could keep these wings.

“When we get back I want you to take to the ssskiesss,” Viper said as we fled. “Sssee if we are found out. Try and watch Enforssser activitiesss from the air. Fly asss high asss you like.”

I didn’t answer. I was too busy being shocked at what I’d done, at what I’d given up in order to keep these wings. It didn’t seem worth it. Nothing seemed worth it.

And then we were out. MegaKat Swamp loomed in the distance. I followed Viper into the trees and into the water but once there…

I broke. It was as bad as when I’d first left. I cried, rocking back and forth like a kitten. The ampoules didn’t matter, the Katalyst didn’t matter, my wings didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I’d failed. I’d failed as an Enforcer, as a niece, as a daughter, and as a kat.

A gentle hand took the satchel from my hands and laid it on the ground next to us. Viper wrapped his tail gently around me and guided me into crying into his neck. I sobbed until I had nothing left, until I could barely breathe. All the while he whispered sweet noises into my ear and slowly rubbed behind my ears.

Once I was all cried out he stroked down my back and coaxed my wings from their tight clench against my body.

“Now then, Felina, I want you to fly tonight,” he said. “Fly asss far and asss high asss you want. You’ll feel better afterwardsss. Meanwhile I’ll take the Katalyssstsss back to the lab and get sssome ressst. We can begin work when you’re ready.”

I nodded. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

Viper stroked behind my ears once more before picking up the satchel and slithering off into the swamp.

I was left alone sitting in the mud. My wings stretched out behind me and I flapped them a few times to work out the kinks. I really didn’t want to fly that minute so I figured I’d wait.

I didn’t have to wait long. I heard the voices from behind me before they saw me. Honestly, with all that banter it’s amazing the SWAT Kats ever manage to catch anything. I scrubbed at my fur to dismiss any incriminating smell and sat there, trying to look nonchalant.

“Lt. Feral?” I heard behind me.

I turned around without getting up. T-Bone stood knee deep in swamp, glovatrix at the ready in case I did something. I smiled at him. It was a genuine smile. Even if I was about to be arrested it felt good to see a familiar face that wasn’t Viper or Zyme.

T-Bone kept his glovatrix up. “So… anything interesting happen tonight?” he asked.

“Such as?” I asked.

“Any, shall we say, forays into the city?”

“And if there have been?”

“Dammit, Feral, this is serious!”

“I know,” I whispered.

T-Bone let his aim falter before dropping his arm to his side. He sighed before trudging up to me and sitting in the mud right next to me. His eyes closed for a moment and I swear he groaned before regaining his composure.

“Officially, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Dr. Viper broke into the labs,” T-Bone said flatly. “He cut the wires to the surveillance equipment, hit one of our trip-wires, escaped with a small amount of Katalyst X-63.”

“And you know there’s a cover-up,” I said. It was not a question.

“I just need to hear it from you,” he said. “Your uncle needs to hear what happened so he can take… the necessary steps.”

“And what are those ‘necessary steps’?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

I debated not telling him anything at all. I debated telling him everything. I debated sugar-coating things. In the end, I just told him. “Dr. Viper found me that first night,” I admitted. “He took me in, offered to cement my mutations to my body. I… I believe him. I agreed to help him into MegaKat Biochemical if the only things he stole were the things he needed to help me and if he didn’t hurt anyone. And no one was even truly injured.”

T-Bone looked at me in some mixture of shock and disgust. “And you believe him. How?!”

“Different things he’s said,” I elaborated. I knew I wasn’t going to convince T-Bone but maybe I could convince the other SWAT Kat lurking behind the plants. “Dr. Zyme is alive, did you know that? He went with Viper. He’s been Viper’s accomplice on a few of Viper’s doozies. I think he’s finally happy. It’s pure research with a worthy lab partner.”

T-Bone looked even more disgusted.

“Take the last doozy of a plan they had. Viper’s idea was to use Katalyst 99 because it tested better in animals. But Zyme used scrapings of his own cells to prove that Katalyst 99 would have resulted in us being very dead rather than like this. So Viper switched to the much less dangerous and weaker Katalyst X-63 because it wouldn’t kill us.” I smiled just a little bit as his disgust turned to shock then thought.

“Still… Zyme… He was such a mild, soft-spoken kat…”

“He still is,” I pointed out. “But he’s very firm in his beliefs and one chief among them is that no one should have to die because of anything he or Viper does. They both hope for a world where someone like Viper or, well, me, could walk the streets of MegaKat City without fear. And they’re both prepared to die for that hope because they both know it’ll never happen. I don’t want to hide like they are. I want to be myself. And if Uncle will let me I’d like to still be an Enforcer.”

“After he knows you’re associating with the likes of Dr. Viper?!”

“He already knows,” I purred. “He was with me when Viper first offered. Ask him. Ask him where no one else can hear.”

I heard splashing coming towards us and looked up to see Razor. “I just got a message from Commander Feral,” he said. He paused and looked at T-Bone and me funny, I guess as we were chest-deep in swamp. T-Bone looked embarrassed and stood up. I figured I should as well.

Only after they’d stared for a few moments did I remember I’d somewhat given up on clothes since taking up residence with Viper. “What?” I asked.

“Well, Feral says the kat found passed out was just put unconscious,” Razor explained. “It’s a trick, cut off blood to the brain, goes out like a light. He’s fine now. Also, Viper only stole five ampoules of Katalyst X-63. He left everything else alone. The amount he stole wouldn’t even fill a standard flask. Doc says it’s enough to do cell cultures on but not much else. Lt. Feral’s story checks out.”

I flicked my wings to get the mud off of them and stretched. “Anything else?” I asked.

T-Bone still looked at me like I were insane. Razor seemed to be withholding judgment. I gave both of them a hug, Razor first, then T-Bone. “It’s good to see you guys,” I said and I meant it.

“It’s good to see you too,” Razor said. T-Bone stayed silent but at least looked a little less incredulous. I waved them off but instead of waiting for them to leave I climbed a tree.

The swamp over the treetops is beautiful. Don’t pay attention to anyone who says otherwise. I spread my wings and pumped them a little, warming them up. At the first good breeze I jumped. The sky met me with open arms and I was flying.

I spent who knows how much time with my eyes closed, just feeling the wind all around me. I angled to climb high, higher. I opened my eyes when it grew cold and found myself at the base of the cloud layer. I giggled and played in the formless fluff until I shivered with cold. I dropped down and circled lower. The city lay far to the north of me; I’d drifted too far south. I could see the salvage yard below me. I followed the road into the city.

I avoided a chopper on patrol and flapped through the skyscrapers just to feel that I could. I buzzed a few office buildings before Enforcer Headquarters came into view. I perched myself on the top of a neighboring skyscraper and just watched the chopper patrols come and go. I wondered if my uncle was there or if he’d gone home to his lonely excuse for an apartment yet.

I felt the sense of being watched. I saw the SWAT Kats jet on the tarmac right before it took off, heading south. A chopper headed off north. Out of curiosity I followed.

It was a good thing I followed it. I followed as it headed north out of the city to land in a strip of land between farmland and the beginnings of the swamp.

It was my uncle. And he was alone.

I flapped above him, just above the trees. When he stopped I landed. When he continued I followed. I knew he knew I was there. He’d probably known while still in the city.

We came to where the hillocks turned to mud and I sat in a tree above him.

“I’m in no mood to play games tonight,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I climbed down the tree to the ground.

He wouldn’t even look at me. “Do you even know what you’re sorry for?” he asked.

“I…” I stood there at a loss for words. “I’ve disappointed you,” I said. It was the truest thing I could say.

“You have.”

“I--I couldn’t live with myself if someone was hurt or killed because of what I wanted,” I whispered as if it would make a difference. “I wasn’t going to let him hurt anyone. And no one was hurt.”

“No one?” he asked.

“No one,” I repeated. “I kept a watch on Viper the whole time. I made sure no one got hurt.”

“I was hurt,” he said. “You hurt me. I could have brought you the supplies you needed. You wouldn’t have had to stop anything. I wouldn’t have had to spend the last four hours covering up my own niece’s break-in of a top security building to steal dangerous chemicals in the accomplice of Dr. Viper.”

“I didn’t know that,” I whispered. I could feel myself about to cry again.

“Felina, all you have to do is ask.”

“I wish you’d told me,” I murmured. I couldn’t stop the sob.

When my uncle wrapped his arms around me I threw myself into his hug. I cried for the second time that night but this time it hurt more. And this time the paws stroking my back and the purr comforting me were so much better at making me feel like me again. We sank to the ground and I climbed into my uncle’s lap.

“I wasn’t the only one you hurt,” he whispered. “You hurt yourself, didn’t you?”

I nodded. It had been one of the most painful things for me to do, disappointing my uncle and turning from everything I’d ever known or learned.

“I do hope it’s worth it,” he said.

“He just needed more X-63 to do cell cultures on,” I murmured. “That’s all. To test things he has so he’ll know what each thing he tries does before giving it to me.”

“That’s… oddly civil of him.”

“I think… I think he genuinely doesn’t want to hurt me.”

“I sincerely hope so,” he said. “I don’t think I could live with what I’m about to do if he ended up hurting you.”

I looked at him, confused.

“I’m letting you go,” he said. “You can go wherever, even if it means back to Viper.”

I kissed him on the cheek and purred. “I’d like to stay like this for a little bit first,” I said before snuggling into his arms and wrapping my wings around him.

I fell asleep in his arms like that. When I woke up I was lying in Zyme’s alcove in Viper’s mangrove. I had been groomed and was covered in blankets for warmth.

It felt like a dream. For a moment I wondered if the previous night had happened at all. I wondered if I should somehow contact my uncle so he could get the chemicals for me so we didn’t have to. I dropped down from my aerie to the lab.

“Good morning, Felina,” Zyme said brightly. “Did you sleep well?”

I nodded, not knowing how to ask if our raid of the Biochemical Labs had been a dream or not.

“I had a wonderful conversation with your uncle last night,” Zyme continued. “He didn’t want to let you go but we had a nice talk about the importance of things and he agreed that some things are worth more than a few laws, especially when those laws are the only thing between a kat and justice.”

“You ran into my uncle last night?”

“One of us had to come fetch you last night and Dr. Viper was so exhausted.”

I figured out it wasn’t a dream. “What did he say?”

“Your uncle? Other than astonishment at my continued existence he was pretty quiet. He insisted he could have gotten us the chemicals we needed without a raid. I was forced to relieve him of that delusion.”

“Delusion?”

“Of course,” Zyme said brightly. “What if the City found out he was supplying materials to a criminal? Even just once? It’d be like Dark Kat all over again. The Enforcers would have to get to him first before he got killed by some vigilante. No, it’s safer for everyone involved if it’s a raid. No one gets hurt, the only kats at fault are those who are already at fault. Feral found himself unable to disagree.”

Zyme’s words hit me in a strange place. I remembered my uncle’s words and how I was unable to do anything but feel. Now with Zyme’s eminently logical interpretation I finally found myself able to think. Zyme was right. It hurt Uncle and it hurt me to have to resort to a raid. But it would have hurt us both so much more if we hadn’t.

It still hurt me. But I didn’t feel guilty anymore. I ambushed Zyme in a sudden hug. “Thank you,” I whispered.

Zyme petted my ears and gave a quick purr. “No one got hurt, that’s the important part,” he said. “And no one got caught. Everyone’s safe. Thanks to you.”

I nodded as I stuck my face in his neck and purred. I never wanted to go on a raid like that again. I never wanted to put Uncle in the position where he was risking his career for me again.

End Chapter 4