Jump 450: Swat Kats

Jump #450: Swat Kats
>Ace of Cups: An unexpected message, a chance meeting, or the start of a friendship or romance.
>Age: 22
>Location: Megakat City
>Identity: Villain (-50)
Well, it's not much of a show if you have stealing taking the heroes' thunder. Villainy works, it has nice hours, and it comes with free ham. Oh so much ham.
>Drawbacks: (0) Aw, Crud
Hey, now. This is a kid's show.
>Scrapyard Skills (650)
Well, this is pretty useful - taking disparate parts and improvising them in an improbably strong way is powerful. If I can use a washing machine to help make a jet engine, I'm in.
>Maniacal Laugh (Free, Villain)
I find it more menacing to say "maniacal laugh" and have my underlings laugh for me.
>Back of the Alley (500, Villain)
You've always got to have a plan for where you're going, whether it's out or in. Having more options is ideal. I mean, if you have to go through a door, like a peasant.
>Crazy Theme: The Machine (200, Villain)
Welcome, my son- wait, no, that's a little too dark for this. Might still drop the reference somewhere though.
>Scrapyard (0)
Well, I need somewhere to practice those skills, right? Plus there's all kinds of cool stuff in here.

Man, this was not a decade that went remotely near the way I'd expected. I figured I'd be a bit villain, pop up now and then, get foiled, swear revenge and slink away in the shadows, you know? And during the first couple years, that's exactly what happened. Went out of my way to avoid killing anyone, stole an Enforcer jet for a joyride and then robbed a bank, got shot down near a scrapyard outside of the city and disappeared, then popped up a couple more times, with more of my body being replaced by metal each time, going with the theme. I avoided getting roped into the whole 'Dark Kat wants to explode the city' nonsense at the end of year two, sure, but things started taking a turn for the dark not too long after that.

For example, Turmoil came back. Twice, no less, the second time with an actual army that she used to invade the city. (It went about as well as you'd expect, and she literally lamented that she couldn't just point people in the city's direction to conquer it without training them.) I had run-ins with the Metallikats several times, if only because we butted heads and they looked at me as if I was trying to be one of them, which of course wasn't the case. Later down the line, I came across their carcasses and fixed them up, but didn't turn them on until I was outside the city. When asked why, I told them because it'd annoy them that they owed me, and when threatened, I told them they could either shoot me, or start walking toward the city, because the closest electrical outlet was a long hike away. Doctor Viper and Morbulus ran into each other and devastated an area, half of it swamp and half digested by the giant bacteria. I still have no idea how that thing even came back.

Other annoying things: Commander Feral got slandered about halfway through my stay and resigned, prompting Steele to be named acting commander, and was constantly reminded of that by literally every Enforcer he talked to. Mutilator somehow escaped captivity and return with a different alien fleet, this time aiming to conquer Megakat City ("and then, the galaxy!", of course) and the Enforcers held things together long enough for the Swat Kats to capture him, and the aliens fled when their leader was captured. Rex Shard somehow pulled himself together because his shattered shards came into contact with various precious gems, but was left alone to live in a crystal cave. As for me, I had skirmishes here and there before I graduated to full-conversion cyborg, made a number of robots that looked like tinker-toy kats, set them loose in the streets, and had victory in hand before Callie talked me out of running the city.

>"Fine. So... once you have the city, then what?"
"What do you mean, then what?"
>"Well, who's going to run it, day to day? Where are you going to get the money?"
"Rob the banks to give it out?"
>"Then no one will put their money in the banks, so they'll run out. And then who's going to pick up the trash on Thursdays? You'll get a city that's broke and overflowing with crud."
"Hm. Well. Crud. Say, interested in a job?"
>"Not on your life, buster."
"Well, I had to ask."

And so I walked away. My robots weren't feeling quite so generous of course, but then they weren't made to be smart. A well-placed scramble missile saw to their demise, courtesy of a jet flying by at a suspiciously convenient time.

Also, because the Pastmaster decided to screw everyone over forever, he somehow gained the ability to go to alternate timelines. And so he saved the mirror-universe Swat Kats from being exploded, brought them and Dark Kat to the normal universe, and suddenly you have two full years of chaos and villains plotting against each other that culminates in both Dark Kats deciding to conquer the city with their trusted lieutenants, various villains running around causing chaos and dealing with the Enforcers - including both the Metallikats AND the mirror universe versions of themselves who weren't made of metal - and the Pastmaster apparently cracked and decided to rule past, present, and future. Which of course meant that he had three versions of Callie Briggs in a dungeon until they all agreed to marry him, which would supposedly count as victory. Meanwhile, the Enforcers were rounded up and hauled off, while thugs were broken out of prison to work for Dark Kat. Dark Kats? Eh, who's really counting.

The resolution of this whole mess: the Swat Kats were shot down by their darker versions and held prisoner by them, and eventually talked them around and redeemed them. The four of them grabbed Felina Feral, her disgraced father, the mayor, and a handful of civilians (basically all the bit characters we constantly see), and fled underground. Literally, into the sewers. From there, they were able to get around the city - using the villains' earlier methods against them, despite the smell - and got into and out of the city. They broke into Megakat Penitentiary and all of the Enforcers escaped right under the villains' noses, and the next thing anyone knew, the Enforcers were using the Swat Kats' scrapyard to put together their broken tanks and choppers, except repainted with the usual red-on-blue color scheme, and stormed the city.

The results were pretty much predictable from that point forward, really. Electric guitars, explosions, saving all of the Callie's and sending them back to the right time periods with SCIENCE!, and Mayor Manx kicking a creepling in the face before pulling the trigger to demolishing Megakat Tower as his crowning moment of awesome. Feral taking down BOTH of the Dark Kats (one of whom was banished back to his homeworld through a portal he'd managed to get open, rather than being able to summon his own reinforcements) was the icing on the cake. Steele had a semi face-heel turn arc prior to this point and learned how to not be completely scummy, so he led the ground assault with the Enforcers - and actually led from the front. As things were wrapping up, he decided he'd go into politics. Last I saw, he was running for mayor with a reformed Turmoil as his deputy mayor.

Also, the Swat Kats, and Callie and Felina? You know everyone totally ships it. Not going to say who got who, but that ship not only floats, it sails.