SEEKING HAPPINESS

Chapter 1: The Golden Era Begins

A/N: Been a long time since I've written a new MPREG story. This one will be a big surprise to many who love my Feral/T-Bone matches and its not what you think. Hope you enjoy it. WARNING: Very graphic sex, slash, MPREG coming up in the next chapters.

Commander Ulysses Feral, Chief Enforcer of Megapolis, stared out the wall of windows at the huge sprawling city. It had once been simply Megakat City but it had seriously grown past that title and had been changed to what it was now. More than five billion Kats lived and worked here. The airport had to be enlarged to handle the increased traffic of visitors . . . some several million . . . that did business or acted the tourist here every year.

Once the omega problem had been dealt with, the city simply exploded in size and popularity. With its modern technology, warm moderate temperatures, and active night life, it was the mecca for all Kats living on Aristal.

Sighing, he turned away from the skyline that boasted many new towers that were higher than his Enforcer building and returned to his desk. Halfheartedly, he sat down and flicked on his computer screen. Grimacing, he stared at the first of many performance reports he had to do. He dreaded this part of his job but he couldn't put it off any longer, yet his mind refused to settle down. It kept drifting off into the past . . . more often lately, he noted guiltily.

When had he become so restless? It felt like he was missing a deadline of some kind and it made him antsy.

He didn't think it was the job. Ever since the last of the omegas had been dispatched finally, the city had found the peace it sought for so very long. His job became what it was supposed to be, simple management of the criminal element which consisted of drug and slave rings, mob activity, property and personal theft, rape, killings, accidents, and the occasional mistakes from the labs and Pumadyne . . . nothing his Enforcers couldn't handle with ease. For a city this size, the crime rate was no more than some of their sister city's . . . as it should be.

The SWAT Kats were seen less and less which was a relief to the city's chronically lean coffers. When they did appear, they did rescue work of the more spectacular kind (bridge collapses, flooding from the occasional tsunamis, shipping accidents, and other large scale disasters) and the bigger mistakes from Pumadyne.

Because they no longer did any property damage or broke the law, Feral and his Enforcers were more tolerant of their presence and actually worked with them often as not. Surprisingly, an easier relationship had been struck between himself and the pair, something he never thought could happen but he could thank his niece, Felina for that.

Ah, Felina . . . the greatest treasure in his life. She'd been a regular firebrand taking no shit from any male as she moved up the ranks of the Enforcers. She'd been one of only a tiny handful of females within the Enforcers when she arrived. Today, females counted for more than half the force thanks to her leading the way.

Felina was now, officially, his second-in-command . . . a far cry from her humble beginnings as his second assistant and personal pilot. When she'd reached the rank of captain, he'd sent her off to command a precinct house where she showed to everyone just how great a commander she was. Her house had the highest arrest record than any other in the city. From there she moved to commander of a chopper squadron then to the position she now held.

~*O*~

To reach this mecca of peaceful prosperity had required Feral and the SWAT Kats to give up their moral and legal rules for dealing with the omegas. After all, the strict rules of the law that he'd been trained to follow were of no use in stemming the escalating toll in lives and property destruction the omegas inflicted on the city due to their chronic ability to escape from justice and prison. So the defenders finally gave in to the inevitable and fought dirty.

The first step toward ending the threat led Feral to push aggressively for a more secure prison system. He made a nuisance of himself with the city council and wouldn't back down until he finally got the funds he needed. It helped that Callie was on his side as well. Thanks to their persistence, Megakat Prison and Alkatraz Island were completely fortified and upgraded, becoming two of the tightest and most escape-proof prisons in the world. Additionally, Feral rewrote the procedures his officers were to follow when escorting prisoners to the Enforcer building, to court, and to prison; areas where prisoners were very successful in making their escapes. Prisoner escorts were to be heavily armored and armed with the latest weaponry and out-numbered the prison five to one (or more depending on the threat level of the prisoner). Deadly force was allowed. That last stricture made most normal prisoners quite docile and gave the omegas pause.

Second step was initiated by the SWAT Kats, namely Razor. Though harder for his conscious to abide, he made the decision to make a small store of lethal ammo. He and his partner still used non-lethal ammo for the lower grade criminals but didn't hesitate to switch to lethal for the omegas. They were simply tired of the constant loss of life from the omegas depredations. Their new motto was "better dead than alive" and they had Feral's full support for that stance. Officially, the Chief Enforcer had to appear to object to their change in tactics but unofficially, Feral carefully covered up their deliberate solution to their omega problem with cleverly worded mission reports and quick closing of the cases.

Their third and final step was taking on the omegas offensively rather than defensively. They no longer waited for the omegas to appear, actively seeking them out instead. The first to feel the Enforcers and SWAT Kat's change of tactics was Dr. Viper. With the aid of Professor Hackle, Razor developed a device that would track the lizard, thus allowing them to find his lair. During a recent battle, Razor fired the tiny tracking device into Viper's scaly hide then when he escaped the scene (as he invariably did), the SWAT Kats simply followed his trail right into the swamp. Once their quarry was inside his lab at the heart of the swamp, the SWAT Kats blew him away and his lab. There wasn't anything left to bury but a piece of his tail which they left in a box on Feral's desk, a note attached with the ominous words: "That's the first one!"

Feral grinned wolfishly at the grisly item, showing a lot of teeth. He was very pleased and not the least bit dismayed by the gift. Smiling the whole time, he wrote up the 'doctored' report on the death and closed the case.

Time for us to regain our city, he thought, and I don't care how it's done. That's one for them but I hope I get lucky and catch the next.

And so it began.

~*O*~

Over the next two years, the number of omegas began to whittle down. Feral got his wish and with his Enforcers captured Hard Drive and secretly destroyed the surge coat. Incarcerated in the newly designed and secured Megakat Prison, Hard Drive was in for life sentence with no hope of escape by Dark Kat or anyone else.

Another omega Feral was able to dispose of was the Demon-In-The-Box, otherwise known as Mad Kat. He never felt comfortable having that thing in his evidence lockup so he prevailed upon Dr. Sinian to find some way or place to permanently remove the threat from their world. It took her more than a year, so while he waited, Feral wisely had the box given a cell all its own at Megakat Prison. Dr. Sinian finally discovered a spell from one of Queen Callista's spell books that sounded like it would do what they wanted but it required someone with a magical core. Since it had been proven that Ms. Briggs was a descendent of the queen, and even though her magical core was dormant, Dr. Sinian felt it was worth a try. Ms. Briggs agreed with her and so, to their intense relief, the spell she read from the book did send the deadly box into another dimension, one barren of life. Three omegas gone!

The next target was Dark Kat. Fighting together, the SWAT Kats and Feral fought an epic battle against the mutant looking kat when he appeared in the city one dark, rainy night attempting to steal some nuclear material (again). More prepared and using far stronger and deadlier weaponry, the defenders managed to chase Dark Kat all the way back to his favored hideout, yet another dead volcano. Rather than try and dig the omega out, Feral helped the SWAT Kats level the mountain, bringing it down on the criminal, his deadly weapons, and his creeplings. They also insured there was no other avenues of escape (like a hidden underground passageway or river) before they felt the monster was finally dead and not returning to this world any time soon. What was very satisfying to Feral, T-Bone and Razor was the last image of Dark Kat's face they saw on their comm screens just before the mountain came crashing down. DK's expression was one of horror and surprise. Obviously, he never dreamed the city defenders would simply kill him outright which was why they succeeded this time.

Before leaving the now flattened mountain, Feral ordered his Enforcers back to base then addressed the SWAT Kats over a private frequency they'd established some years back. "That's the last omega and I want to thank you for a job well done. Peace is finally ours."

A triumphant "YES!" made Feral's ears ring and put a grin on his craggy face.

"Well, not quite, Commander," came the cautious voice of the gunner. "There's still the Pastmaster, though we haven't seen him in over seven years, the Metallikats and Turmoil, if she's still on the loose, that is."

Feral's grin widened even though the SWAT Kats couldn't see it. "I agree on that sorcerer but as for the last three, I can safely guarantee they will no longer be bothering us." His tone reflecting satisfaction.

"Oh?"

"He may hate me for a long time to come, but with a court order in my paws I confiscated the Metallikats memory disks from Professor Hackle. To salve his conscious and anyone else that might have objected to outright killing them, we had a formal trial where they were convicted and the sentence carried out within a week. I had the great satisfaction of watching those two disks be melted into slag."

Another cheer from the pilot filled the airwaves.

Razor whistled and shouted with glee. "Radical, Commander!"

Yeah, what a sneaky thing to do and I only wished you'd done it sooner." T-Bone chimed in, laughing in relief.

"Ah well, you know we all have our breaking points and I just happened to have reached mine," Feral said offhandedly.

In a smirking voice, T-Bone said, "Yeah, we know all about that. So what did you mean about Turmoil?"

"Ah yes, her . . . she's in a distant prison for crimes she'd committed in her home country. I heard through the international grapevine that she'll not see the light of day until she's far too old to be a threat any longer. This prison is tighter than ours and most feared amongst criminals."

A sigh of regret surprised Feral.

"You didn't know her like I did..." T-Bone said, quietly. "I wished she'd turned herself around but I guess she loved the life of an air pirate too much. Anyway, except for the Pastmaster, it looks like no more high profile threats at last. A celebration is called for."

"I agree and I think the Mayor won't hesitate to initiate a city-wide party to do it once I report this to him. Be watching the news tonight. I want to wish you a relaxing evening and many more to come. Looks like we'll not be seeing much of each other from now on, either."

A chuckle from the pilot told him T-Bone was amused by that statement. "Ah now, Commander... just because the omegas are gone doesn't mean we'll vanish completely from crime fighting completely. There's always something for us to do."

Feral laughed and agreed that was certainly true. On that positive note, the three parted ways.

As Feral had predicted, the Mayor called a news conference immediately to tell the city the good news and by that evening the celebrating was in full swing. Even fireworks were shot off to the exuberant cheers of the populace. Everyone showing extreme relief at regaining their freedom from the constant threat caused by the omegas.

~*O*~

The beginning of the golden era meant people could finally get on with their lives, especially those in the upper strata of society including its city officials.

Having played second fiddle to the city's bumbling mayor long enough, Calico Briggs made a surprise decision. Since it was she who had truly run the city from behind the scenes, she thought she might as well have the authority to go along with it. A recent poll showed the people of Megakat City seemed to be thinking the same thing so on the next election, Briggs was voted in by a landslide much to former Mayor Manx's shocked surprise and dismay.

Many hard feelings lingered against Manx thanks to Callie's 'tell all' campaign. Because of that, Manx felt it prudent he leave the city that had been his home for more than three decades. No one shed a tear at his departure.

Under Callie's command, the 'good old boy' council found themselves being ousted right and left. Everyone was tired of their chronic failures to curb the former mayor's excesses and manage the city needs responsibly. With a new council, Calico Briggs instituted ways to increase the city's coffers with advertising campaigns directed at bringing in new business and tourism.

Of course, with the removal of the Mayor, the other high positions had to be either renewed or replaced. Having got on better terms during the last decade with Feral, Callie reinstated him as Chief Enforcer. Then in quick sequence, she selected a female deputy mayor from the city prosecutor's office by the name of Loren Furlight . . . a brilliant lawyer who helped with Callie's mayoral campaign, and promoted the Assistant Prosecutor Jeffrey Evanston as the new City Prosecutor as he'd proven how effective he was in processing cases quickly and with airtight evidence, far outshining his more lazy predecessor. It helped that he worked well with the Enforcers too.

The smart, handsome, and redheaded Evanston had impressed someone else as well. Feral's niece, Felina had taken a shine to the tom ever since she'd crossed paths with him during court cases that involved the two of them. Because of her duties, their courtship was several years long but when the city achieved peace, they felt it safe enough to tie the knot much to Feral's pleased relief. Her happiness was all he cared about so it was a joy to see her lovely form coming down the aisle on her father's arm at the well-attended wedding. The SWAT Kats had even been invited, both hooting and whistling when the pair had their first kiss. Not long after, Felina was promoted to Lt. Commander and took her place as her uncle's second-in-command.

~*O*~

For a short while after these events, Feral was on top of the world and busy getting his Enforcers outfitted with new equipment, weapons, and seriously upgraded training courtesy of the city council's generous budget increase for the Enforcers. That took him a good year to get in place and to ensure all their orders with Pumadyne were funded and placed at the top of the list . . . no more waiting years to get their needs met.

However, when his forces were working like a well oiled machine and peace had brought needed prosperity, Feral found himself restless and yearning for something he couldn't quite define. After fifteen years of strife and four years of peace, at no time did he take care of his own wants and needs. Now with no serious threats to concern him, he had nothing but time on his paws in his off hours and they weighed heavily on him.

That isn't to say he hadn't sought companionship, but it consisted of only short term relationships, one night stands and even celibacy. All of which had left him chronically lonely but he was normally too busy to care. That had changed leaving him restless, lonely and at odds with himself. Staring at his computer screen again, the words on the screen nothing but a blur, he thought about what he wanted.

Time to get my life in order and find a friend! He thought, decisively. Mind made up, he settled down to work so he could leave on time. He had plans to make for the evening and they didn't involve staying at home.