Part One: the great outdoors


TK’s day started off rather ordinary. After a light breakfast she went jogging. She left her house wearing her green gym shorts and top, sneakers and knee socks. She had resolved to never wear this outfit again after being captured by Morgus the last two times she went to work out in those clothes. But today she didn’t feel like giving in to superstition.
After just a couple of minutes she reached the edge of a forest. TK turned off the paved road and onto a tranquil forest path. It was quite early in the morning and so there was nobody else on that path. She turned up her earphones and made her way through the peaceful forest, which she seemed to have all to herself.
The tigress was lost in thought. Thoughts about her recent abduction by some spooky cult, thoughts about her rescue by her charming new boyfriend, thoughts about her life seeming to settle down. The cat-girl was full of optimism this morning and she planned to keep it this way.
But she dismissed those thoughts when she heard crackling and rustling in the shrubbery around her. TK was ambushed countless times before, was alarmed intantly and stopped in her tracks. Without further warning two goons jumped onto the path. One had a spray gun in his hands which was connected to a tank of liquid on his back. The other was holding a baseball bat. Both were wearing black clothes and ski masks and barring TK’s way.
“Sorry guys, I didn’t bring my wallet.” TK mocked. “But if you’re lookin’ for trouble, I’ve got some to spare.”
In response the attacker with the tank on his back fired his spray gun. TK was able to dodge just in time and three blobs of green slime barely missed her. She heard  splats when the hit the tree behind her. “A glue gun, better not get hit by that.” The tiger-girl thought and charged forwards. The second brute with the bat stepped forward, swinging for her head, but too slow. TK ducked under the wooden weapon and sent her opponent to the forest floor with an uppercut. Before the other one could fire again she kicked the gun out of his hands. The surprised goon reached behind his back, fumbled with his belt and pulled out a knife. But by the time he had it ready to stab, TK had already picked up his companion’s baseball bat and swung for his head. He wasn’t as nimble and skilled as the cat-girl and got the club straight on the head.
“One down, one to go. Why is it always me?!” TK thought annoyed.
For a moment it was silent, only the quiet music coming from her earphones was heard in the forest. Then she turned to the goon who had brought the baseball bat and pulled off his mask. He was a dog, some mongrel. “Who are you and who sent you?” She asked him. The dog brute simply smiled.
Before TK could think about why that man was suddenly smiling, she felt a sharp pain in her neck. She had just been hit by a tranquillizer dart. TK whirled around just to discover two additional masked attackers standing behind her. “How many are there?...” was her last thought before her vision went blurry and she lost consciousness.

Hours later TK woke up in an abandoned warehouse. she wasn’t surprised to find herself tied up but she yanked at her bindings in a reflex. She had been tied strictly with rope. Her hands were tied together behind her back. Also her elbows were tied together, almost to the point where they were touching. As if that hadn’t been enough her arms were pinned to her torso at her slender waist, above and below her breasts. The pain of this tight and strict bind was probably the reason TK had woke up. Of course her legs were tied but compared to the ropework around her upper body those bindings were almost comfortable: Around her ankles, above and below her knees and around her thighs were coils of rope holding her legs together in an iron grip. After examining her restraints for a while she found no slack or weak point. “Those goons seem to know their knots” TK thought “but they’re sloppy on the ties.” Her legs were pinned together but otherwise she was able to move them. “Thank goodness they’ve never heard of hogties before” she mused, “those really are a pain.” She looked around and saw no guards nearby. And so she mustered all her skill in pushing herself up against the wall and balance on her feet. The men who had abducted her made sure there were no bottles or shards of metal lying around which she could use to cut the rope. “Bummer…” she mumbled. Just now did she notice that she wasn’t gagged. During other abductions her catnappers always made sure to stuff her mouth before she woke up from being knocked out. “Seems those guys are even sloppier than I thought” the cat-girl thought. “I could just yell for help…” But she had a gut feeling that this was not the right thing to do. There was a window nearby and so she hopped carefully towards it. When she reached it she was able to glance outside. “Bingo” she thought. “So they weren’t that sloppy after all. Outside were fields and forests. She was in the second floor of some big ugly concrete building in the middle of nowhere. And down by the entrance she could see two of her captors sitting in the shade playing cards. One of them was a bulldog, the other seemed to be an Opossum “That’s cunning… If I’d called for help they’d known I was awake. And so they left me ungagged on purpose?!” The thought enraged the tigress. They had her where they wanted her and now they were mocking her. She focused again and took a look at the interior of the building. The warehouse was one huge assembly hall. There were two platforms, one at each end of the hall with small office boxes from which the assembly process could be overseen. She was standing on one of these platforms, next to one of the offices and had a good view on the entire hall.
While she was looking around trying to plan her escape, suddenly the two men got up and headed for the door. Had they seen her looking at them? Did they know she was awake? TK’s mind raced. She took a few hops back towards her corner, let herself fall to the floor and pretended to be asleep. She made it just in time. The two goons came up stairs where our heroine was lying. “See? I told you she wouldn’t be awake yet.” One mouthed off. “The downer was expensive and it’s doing it’s job.” “Sure,” the other replied. “But the boss said, she’s cunning and dangerous. If she wakes up I wanna be sure to notice it.” With that he reached into the backpack he was carrying and knelt over TK. The young cat-girl was desperately fighting her rage. This goon was just inches away from her but she couldn’t kick him, she couldn’t move or even open her eyes. If she did, she’d blow her only shot at escape. And so she just swallowed her rage. He took a leather collar and fastened it around her neck. Next he tied a leather strap around the tip of her tail. “Ok” he said when he was finished. “That way we don’t have to check on her every couple of minutes.” With that the two men went back down the stairs and back outside.
TK slowly opened her eyes and looked around. She turned her head to look at her tail and was about to go berserk at what she saw. “A cowbell?!” She was gritting her teeth to keep herself from yelling it out loud. There was a small metal bell dangling from the tip of her tail “What kind of freaks are those people?!” She felt that around her neck she was wearing a similar device, just bigger. “Talking about adding insult to injury….” Without any high-tech equipment the had her completely immobilized. Even the slightest  movement (and she was having a hard time keeping her tail from lashing left to right as she was really angry) would summon the guards. And she didn’t want to find out what they had in mind for her next. Carefully not to trigger the bells she sat up and leaned against the wall.
She sat like this and didn’t move a muscle until she finally figured out a plan. With the bells around her tail and neck, her captors were likely to let their guard down. And so she only needed to disable the bells.
TK started by carefully and gently bringing her tail up before her face. “This is what you get for taking me likely.” The cat-girl mused to herself and opened her mouth. One bite later the little bell was severed from the leather strap around her tail . Next she tucked the tip of her tail into the bell around her neck, preventing it from ringing. Encouraged by the success of her simple but effective plan, TK bent down and let the little bell drop to the floor gently and checked the hall again. The bars supporting the handrail at the stairs seemed to have some pretty sharp edges. And so she crawled over, careful to keep pressing on the bell with her tail. She laid down and started working on her legs, rubbing them up and down the sharp-edged bar of the handrail. After what seemed an eternity the rope around her ankles came off and she went to work on those around her knees and thighs. Downstairs she spotted a toolbox. If she got her legs free, she could make her way down there and free herself of the painful tie around her hands and elbows. Especially the elbows.
TK was grateful for all the stamina she gained from jogging and fighting villains right now. The ropes around her knees were already in shreds, but the ones around her thighs were a different matter: She was lying on her back and so she had almost no leverage on her thighs.  And so by the time the cat-girl had finally cut the last rope from her legs she was breathing heavily. She was just about to take the stairway downstairs when her ears twitched. She heard the creaking of wood downstairs and froze. A moment later she dropped to the floor, almost sounding the bell around her neck. “Accursed bell!” TK muttered under her breath. She peeked over the edge of her platform and saw the bulldog walking into the hall. But before she had come up with a plan what to do, the goon opened a fridge. “Hey Greg! Do you want one, too?” The bulldog pulled out three beers without waiting for a response and headed back for the door.
“That was close..” TK let out a sigh of relief and started sneaking down the stairs, careful, not to make any noises. As she reached the ground floor, she headed straight for the toolbox. The young heroine actually tried to open it with just her tied hands, but had no success. Next she tried with her teeth, but made no progress, either. “Maybe I should just go back to the stairs and rub myself against those bars again” she decided. But before she was able to do anything more, she was cut short. The bulldog stood in the door facing outside. TK froze. Her arms were still tied and there was no cover to hide. “Yeah, I know how he is about drinking on the job, but the boss won’t be here for another twenty minutes… whatever, fine, I’ll put it back.” With that he turned around to put the beer back into the fridge. When he saw TK, he too froze for a second…….
Then he raised the alarm! TK didn’t even pay attention to all the goons’ shouting. She dashed off to the far side of the hall where there was another door. The tigress didn’t know how she would open it but most importantly she had to put some distance between the bulldog and herself. Before she reached the door it was opened by one of the goons. He was a racoon and was armed with a glue gun similar to the one TK had seen earlier. Without slowing down TK kept heading for the door. The racoon raised a glue gun but was too slow. The heroine’s shoe connected with his gut before the door was even open all the way. He was convulsed with pain and the nimble cat-girl rushed right over him.
Outside she ran as fast as she could, using her tail for balance. “It’s one thing to run with your arms tied like that, but it’s another thing to SPRINT like this” she realized. Again she heard shots and the hissing of tranquillizer darts in the air, almost drowned out by the bell around her neck ringing like mad. Several blobs of glue missed her before one finally hit her left foot. But fortunately that didn’t slow her down; with a “plop” her sneaker came off her foot, leaving her running on one sock. It proved to be enough since she reached the tree line without being hit again.
After running through the forest for another couple of minutes TK realized that she wasn’t followed any more. Tired of running lopsided, she slipped the remaining sneaker off her other foot, although she knew well how painful it can be running over sticks and stones only wearing socks. Finally, for the first time since her abduction she had time to settle down and collect her thoughts. “First priority is to get rid of those ropes…Ouch!..” She concluded. The strict tie kept her elbows together forcing her to pull back her shoulders and to arch her back slightly. That ropework was more than uncomfortable. “There are no rocks or metal pieces to cut the ropes anywhere since I left the building. So  either I have to sneak back and try to find scrap metal near their hideout” the feline heroine planned “If I’d do that, I could even get back my shoe, but maybe they’re just waiting there for me.  Or I move away from them in order to find a road or another building and ask for help.” Determined not to waste any time for her captors to catch up with her she got up and started jogging deeper into the forest, leaving her shoe behind.
Back at the warehouse two men were facing the gang of abductors, one tall and muscular, the other one quite short. “So you lost her?” The shorter one said calmly, more a statement than a question. “Well, you see, she kinda freed herself and got up and ran away and kicked Mike and then….” “SILENCE!” the man demanded. “You fools can’t deliver, so I won’t pay.” “Give us just an hour, please,” the mongrel pleaded. “She just ran away ten minutes ago, we’ve just loaded our trucks to search for her. We’ll catch her again in no time.”
The big one chuckled. “Or we will catch her ourselves and save some money.” The shorter man smiled and agreed to both of them. And so, two search parties headed for their vehicles in a race for TK.

End part 1