//Breaking News// According to reports by the National Defense Forces Authority our forced recently confronted a Ratkin K-73 Infiltrator ship. It was reported that the ship was a holdover from the N-43 War.

We now go live to NDFA spokescat.

/Spokescat/ Greetings and salutations, I’m General Maxwell Britchfield. Today a Ratkin K-73 Infiltrator entered our airspace and failed to respond to hails on all frequencies and communication channels.

Essentially what happens when a ship warp jumps, especially in the older ships, it has the possibility of getting stuck in the currents and tides of sub-space. There are still many ship’s pilots that still believe that believe a war still on. All attempts were made to communicate the end of the war to the fighter pilots.

Because of the failure to reply from the fighter, our interceptors were dispatched to take out the invader.

Again, I would like restate that all attempts were made to communicate with the K-73 Ratkin before orders of termination were issued.

Now I’ll take questions….

//Reporter// National Defense Advisor has raised the current has raised the threat level from 1 to 2. Any reports of stray ships or Star Cruisers should be reported immediately to your local Commissar station or NDF Center. Now we return you to your regular scheduled broadcast.

***

Herman Park, along with other areas of the city, were considered neutral territory. This particular area was shared between the Niko-Niko Street Gang and the North-Central Posse. Causing trouble was bad for business.

“What do you think?” I asked Angel Eyes.

He looked around taking in the scene. He was distracting by a few cat-girls playing volleyball. I stared at him then punched him in him the arm.

“Oh yeah,” he scanned around with his wytch sight.

“We got Sweaty the Ice old ice-cream guy, couple of nerdy LARPERs, a few fams, Spot and Joe from the Neko-Neko Street Gang, and then…” he said pointing to a group of wanna-be pinks from the middle class suburbs.

“Yo-yo-yo wat up trogs!” the guy in the expensive label clothes said to me.

“I know this guy, we went to private school together,” I muttered to Angel Eyes.

The guy, Duke as he used to call himself in private school, was a weekend wanna-be thug.

He walked closer and gave me a fist bump. He tried to give Angel Eyes one, but he just looked at him as if he was trying to decided he was going to kill him or walk away.

“So what are you troggers gonna do today, you gonna go taggin’ or store bashin?” Duke asked.

His friends nodded at each other.

“Fuck this shit, I’m jumpin’ outta da airlock,” and Angel Eyes left, headed towards the volleyball cat-girls.

The Ice-cream guy walked with his cart and gave me a salute. The old man had been there since I could remember. I returned the salute and than an idea hit me like stardust hitting the event horizon.

I threw my arm around Duke and put on my best J-J Dizzy (a singer turned actor who supposedly came from the ghetto) impression.

“Listen G-Duke, would you mind hookin’ a brotha up?” I asked, leading him away from his posse.

I ended up selling all 100 tables of Up! to Duke and even managed to convince him he could be a big time dealer like at my old private school, just like J-J Dizzy where he played a drug dealer in some movie.

Even though I made about a 100 G-note profit (and giving Angel Eyes a 40% cut) for the troubles. I was roped into popping a tab of Up! with Duke to prove it was the “good stuff”. Now I’ll be awake for days.

I decided to chill on top of the park table while I waited for the first waves of dopamine to wash over me.

Spot, a muscular cat with dark skin walked towards me with Skinny-Joe following closely behind him. Although Spot and Skinny-Joe both wore white t-shirts, jackets and jeans, it was the black handkerchief they wore on their first belt look that was the symbol of their gang affiliation.

Spot threw his hands up in the air and said, “You’re claiming this territory now?”

I looked at the dark brown patch of fur around his right eye, a throwback to his feline blood. I shook my head no and stuck out my tongue showing him the tab of Up! as it was slowly dissolving on my tongue.

Skinny-Joe looked at me and threw his hands on his hips, “What’s da fuck is wrong with you? You know better than to get high off yo’ own supply, Cat!”

He opened his jacket showing me that he was carrying a butcher knife and asked, “We cool, Spot?”

“Yeah, we cool” Spot said as he sat next to me.

“Ok, cool, I’m gonna chill wit Angel Eyes,” he as walked off.

Spot leaned closer to me, “Yo, I heard you got yo ass beat by Akuma.”

I spat the left over bits of the tab on the ground. I was right, it did taste like old dragon. Then turned back to Spot, and started mean-mugging him.

“Chill, Cat, I don’ mean nuttin’ by it,” he replied.

Looking to change the subject I asked, “So how’s your family doing?”

“Tiny (the Niko-Niko Gang leader and runt in Spot’s family) got tor’ up by Juice (the 2nd in command), after he challenged him to run the gang,” he said sighing. “Juice fucked him up bad.”

“Juice?” I looked up with a questioning look on my face “You mean that skinny shit that’s smaller than Skinny-Joe?” I asked, sounding skeptical.

He laughed, “Yeah, I know, right? Tiny couldn’t hurt him no matter how many times he popped him!”

“Tiny’s an amateur boxer, how the fuck did Juice do it?”

“I don’t know, Cat. Tiny only managed to win when he got ‘im in a headlock and chocked his scrub ass out,” Spot said. “But not befo’ gittin’ four ribs broke, a collapsed a lung and his face got rearranged, but he’ll bounce back. We all bounce back”

“Like a rubber ball, Cat. Wat did yall’ do wit Juice after he stepped up?” I asked, seeing myself in the same situation.

“Next day we tried to find out how the fuck he got so tough, but his mamma told us he jumped out da airlock and joined Tanglewood,” Tiny said taking a swig from a hip flask he pulled out.

He offered some to me, but I was already high from the Up! and refused.

“There’s somethin’ fucked up going on, The Champagne Knights, Lee Hou Possse and even da Volcano’s all got new Boss-Cats runnin’ dem.” Spot looked me dead in the eye “Watch yo back Cat, someone’s makin’ a power play.”

“Thank’s bro, give tiny my best regards,” I told him. Though the Niko-Niko Street Gang was a rival gang they backed up against Tanglewood and since than we had an alliance.

I snatched up Angel Eyes who was conversing with Skinny-Joe and we hit the after burners back home. On the way back I told Angel Eyes what Spot said. I didn’t need wytch sight to know he didn’t like the news either.

We both agreed to keep this quiet till we knew more.