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The tiger woman passed out long before I got us back to the plane. When I returned I asked Tina to take care of her.

"She looks pretty bad, maybe we should get her to a doctor or something." Tina said when she got a good look at the tiger woman.

Carl was setting up a camp stove and came over to see what was going on. He checked the woman's pulse and said, "Her pulse is steady, and it doesn't look like she's bleeding anymore. So long as we get her plenty of food and water she should be alright. She wouldn't have survived this long unless she had a strong regenerative ability."

"Do we have any food or water?" Tina asked, looking doubtfully at the injured mutant.

Carl shrugged, "I've got a few odds and ends on the plane, but not much. And I have some bottled water."

"I'll take care of the food issue." I told them and took off. After a bit of hunting I was flying back towards the plane when I had a thought and made a quick tour of the area until I found some berries. I didn't have any way of carrying them, so I returned to the plane first.

"Here you go." I said when I landed, and dumped the animal at Carl's feet. "I need a bag or something, I found some berries." He went rooting through the plane and came up with a box and handed it to me.

"What am I supposed to do with that?" he asked, gesturing towards the carcass.

I shrugged, "I don't know. Do you need me to skin it for you?" He turned a little green and nodded. "Okay, I'll take care of that when I get back." With that I returned to the berry bushes and collected as many as I could. When I returned I handed the box to Carl and got to work. I had a bit of a snack while I was at it and turned over the remains to Carl.

"Uh, thanks, I guess I can make a stew or something." he mumbled. He set up a large pan on the stove and started adding ingredients. I left him to it and checked in on Tina and the tiger mutant.

"How is she doing?" I asked.

"She's all skin and bones." Tina replied. "And I swear she's gotten even skinnier since you dropped her off. Maybe her body is cannibalizing her muscles and whatever fat she had to replace all the blood she lost?"

"Not all of that blood is hers, but you may be right." I replied. She did look rather sunken; I hoped she'd recover okay. The more I looked at her the more angry I got at those who had used her. "I'm going back out." I told Tina. She nodded and waved as I took off and flew back towards where I'd recovered the tiger woman. There was no sign of the men who'd shot at her. I was feeling angry enough to want them to attack me, so I landed and started walking.

I was mostly ignored as I walked down the street. I walked past where I'd found the tiger woman and still no reaction, so I continued on to where I'd overheard the conversation about her. I saw no trace of the men so continued aimlessly wandering through the area. I was getting some suggestive looks from some of the men, but couldn't understand what they were saying. Which was probably just as well.

There were too many people; too many sights, sounds, and smells, for my enhanced senses to do me much good. That's the only explanation I can think of, anyway, for how they got the drop on me. Several men jumped me as I rounded a corner and pulled me to the ground before I could react. They obviously didn't know who they were dealing with!

With a feral grin I pushed up from the ground and threw them off of me. One managed to keep a grip on my arm while the others staggered back or were thrown away from me. I growled as I grabbed the man who was still holding onto my arm and threw him into the nearest wall. Two men pulled out pistols and started shooting at me. But they were slow, and bad shots anyway, so I had no trouble slipping in and disarming them. They stumbled back, holding their bleeding hands, as I wasn't gentle about it.

The man I'd thrown looked to be knocked out, but there were two other men who had just picked themselves back up and pulled their own weapons. One of them had an automatic so I took him down first. The gun, and his hand, hit the ground and he frantically tried to stop the flow of blood. The other man saw the damage I'd done and tried to run for it, but I ran him down in less than a second. I slammed him up against the wall and growled, "Do you speak English?"

He babbled something in Thai, so I knocked him out and turned to one of the others. The third guy I asked spoke English well enough. "Where are the mutants being kept?" I growled into his ear. He shivered in fear and gave me directions to a house a couple of blocks away. I knocked him out and followed his directions. Nobody else tried to get in my way, but there were two men with assault rifles guarding the house. I walked right up to the door and they pointed their weapons at me.

"You lookin' for a job?" one of them asked with a leer. "Cause that's the only way you're going in there."

"Oh really?" I said and released a small jolt of electricity into both guards. Their eyes rolled back into their heads and they collapsed. To my surprise, the door wasn't even locked, so I let myself in. The house didn't look like much on the outside, but the inside was an entirely different story. From the looks of it I figured one of the higher ups in this slavery business must live here. The first floor was empty, so I walked up the stairs. At the top of the stairs was a short hallway ending in a single door on each side.

I tried the door on my left. Inside was an office, so I decided to have a look around. If the owner of this house was someone of importance in this slave trading scheme, I figured there might be some information on where other slaves were being kept. After an hour or so of searching I'd found a notebook that might be useful, if I could read Thai. There were also some video tapes of some of the slaves to be sold, by the looks of it. I threw the notebook and tapes in a bag, along with a few other papers that looked like they might be useful.

I dropped the bag by the second door and opened it. Inside was a huge nest of cushions with a man and two girls sleeping on it. The girls were both catgirls and looked like locals, though it's hard to tell with mutants. All three were naked, and the girls were covered in bruises and dried blood, especially around their breasts and groin. I started to literally see red and had to stop and take several deep breaths to keep from tearing the man limb from limb right then.

Instead I quietly stepped over to the side of one of the girls and shook her awake. I put my finger to my lips and whispered, "Shh, I'm here to get you out of here." She seemed confused and frightened. I stepped around the sleeping man and woke the other girl and cautioned her to be quiet as well. Then I beckoned both of them towards the door, but they shook their heads and huddled together in fear.

"No go, he hurt!" one of them whispered. Well, at least they understood me.

"He won't hurt you ever again, I promise!" I said, but they didn't seem very convinced. Especially when the man stirred and opened his eyes.

He looked around in confusion at first and then his eyes settled on me. Either he'd heard about me, or was just frightened at a strange mutant with bloody claws standing over him. He scrabbled away from me, getting caught up in the cushions as he tried to get away. The girls looked confused at his reaction and looked questioningly at me.

"Come with me, I can protect you." I told them. They still didn't look convinced, so I gave the man a jolt of electricity to knock him out. Both girls backed away from me with wide eyes when they saw that, but I just held my hand out to them and tried to look friendly.

They were still too afraid to come with me and I was thinking I might have to leave them there when I heard a noise from downstairs. "Stay here!" I told them and rushed out of the room. I stopped at the corner and glanced down the stairs to see who was there. The front door was wide open, revealing the two guards still unconscious on the ground outside. But their weapons were no longer there.

Should have taken those with me. I thought. I couldn't see anyone, but I heard a rustling in the room below. Whoever they were, they probably thought they were being quiet. But in here, away from the noises of the city, it was easy to hear them. There were two by the sounds of it, one on each side of the staircase. I waited for a few minutes, but neither man made any move. Obviously they knew someone was up here, and had no intention of coming up.

I shrugged and ran down the stairs on all fours as fast as I could. As soon as I burst into the room they started firing, but apparently they weren't as smart as they thought they were. They'd positioned themselves on either side of the staircase and when I came down faster than they expected, they missed me by a mile. But they didn't miss each other. I jumped to the side to attack one of them and realized the fight was already over. Both men had multiple bullet wounds and probably wouldn't survive. This time I took the weapons with me as I went back up the stairs. The bag I'd put the tapes and papers in was pretty big, so I shoved the weapons in it, too.

The girls seemed surprised to see me, especially toting two assault rifles. After stowing away the rifles and hefting the bag in my left hand I held out my right again and said, "See, I can protect you, and I promise I won't hurt you or make you do anything you don't want to do. Please come with me?" One turned to the other and I realized she probably didn't understand English. The one who had spoken before said something to her in Thai, but they still didn't make a move towards me. I waited with my arm outstretched for a few minutes, but they stayed where they were.

I let my arm drop in defeat and, with slumped shoulders and my wings dragging the ground, turned to leave. I screwed up and scared them, and now they're going to end up being abused again! I thought dejectedly as I walked towards the stairs. But I stopped when I felt hands cautiously touching my wings. "Wait. We go." one of the girls said. I turned and found them both standing there, with the one who doesn't speak English nodding her head along with the other girl's words.

"Really?!" I exclaimed. They both nodded and I smiled widely in return. I really didn't want to leave them there! We walked out of the house and I glanced around to see if there were any other threats around. I didn't see anything, but I didn't want to risk getting them in a fight in the shape they're in. "Why don't I carry you two back to the plane?"

The English speaking girl explained my words to the other one and then they both nodded. I asked one of them to hold the bag for me, and put an arm around each of their waists from behind. Once I was sure they were as comfortable as they could be, I took off. They both screamed, but settled down pretty quickly. It wasn't until I got back to the boat that I realized that one of the girls had fainted.

"She okay, scared." the other girl explained as she helped me carry her over to the plane. I introduced them to everyone and suggested they get some rest in the plane. Once they were settled I asked Tina about the other woman I'd found.

"She woke up long enough to eat the berries and drink some water, and then passed out again. Carl says the stew will be done soon, though, so we should have some more food for her when she wakes up." Tina said.

"Okay. Do you need anything else?" I asked.

"Well, I've been thinking about that. I talked to Carl, and he agrees that if you keep bringing people in at this rate, we're going to run out of room way too fast. And we're kind of exposed out here, too. Maybe we should look into finding another base of operations? Something on land, but near the water so we can move the plane nearby, maybe?" Tina said.

I nodded, "Okay, I'll take a look around and see what I can find. Just make do as best you can until then." I was about to leave when I thought of something else, "Has anybody come around asking after her?" I asked, pointing at the sleeping tiger woman.

"Yeah, a couple of guys did come out. Only one of them spoke English, and not very well, but it was pretty clear who they were looking for. I'm hoping Mike or Paul get back soon, so they can help me guard the plane. I'm sure they'll be back." Tina replied.

"Why are you so sure?" I asked.

Tina laughed, "They'd have to be pretty dumb not to figure out she's here, or that we at least know about her. I mean, a bunch of mutants come in and scatter all over the city, with the most famous mutant of all coming and going all the time? They've got to know we're involved, even though I told them I'd never seen her."

"Maybe I should stick around." I said thoughtfully. I hadn't really thought a lot of this through. Tina's pretty tough, but she couldn't be expected to guard the plane all by herself if several men with guns came here. And besides, stray shots could hit the girls inside the plane.

"Just don't go too far. I'm sure with your ears you'll be able to hear gun fire easily enough." Tina said.

"Okay, but be careful." I said. With that I took to the air again and started scouting the shoreline. I mostly just flew up, rather than out, so I could see or hear it if Tina ran into trouble. I saw a couple of promising spots before I saw Melissa coming in, carrying a couple of women. I flew down to escort her in, as she was flying a little erratically.

"Hey Cat!" she said with a weak smile when she saw me. The two women she was carrying looked terrified, but considering the amount of blood on Melissa's clothes, I could guess why.

"Run into a little trouble?" I said as we circled in for a landing. Melissa wasn't up to landing hard, nor were her passengers, so we took our time to shed speed before landing on the pier.

"Just a little." Melissa replied as she set the women down. She seemed a little unsteady on her feet, so I helped her along. "Hey, I'm okay!" she protested.

"Sure you are." I replied sarcastically, looking pointedly at all the blood on her. I'm sure most of it wasn't hers, but some of it certainly was. By the time I got her settled in the plane and the women she'd rescued had started helping her clean off the blood, I could hear shouting, and it was getting closer by the second. "Stay here." I said and motioned for Tina to follow me. When we got past the plane where we could see down the pier there were several men coming our way, and they all had guns of one kind or another.

"Guess it was a good idea not to stray too far." Tina said as she checked her gun.

"Guess so. Don't stray from the plane, I'll see if I can't disperse them. And don't let Melissa get involved; I think she's taken a beating getting back here." I said. Tina nodded and knelt down to where the plane would give her some cover. I checked to make sure Carl and the others were as safe as could be and launched myself into the air. The men on the pier spotted me right away and started shooting. I was moving too fast, though, and they only grazed me once before I was diving down into the center of the group.

I didn't take into account the fragility of the pier, so I smashed right through it, taking most of the men with me into the water. They were too busy trying to get themselves out of the water to give me any trouble, but the ones still on the pier were another matter. They started shooting into the water randomly. I dove down and swam out from under the pier without getting hit too many times. Once I was about halfway back towards the plane I climbed back up on the pier and turned to see how many were still on their feet.

Roughly half the men were on their feet, though some of them were wet. The rest were either struggling back onto the pier, or had been shot by their reckless comrades. As much as I was tempted to cut them all to ribbons, I decided I'd better end things quickly before things got out of hand. I held my hand out and tried to blast them, but the electricity was getting redirected by all the water I was covered with. But in a second the flowing electricity heated the water up to the point it was steaming off of me. Soon I was dry, but surrounded by a cloud of steam.

A breeze cleared the steam away and I could see the gunmen were looking rather uncertain now. I smiled and released a bolt of electricity into the group, somehow hitting all of them at once. All of the men who were standing were knocked back, unconscious. Seeing this, the others quickly pulled themselves out of the water and ran for it. I turned back and walked up to Tina. "Keep an eye on those guys for me, will you?" I asked.

Tina smiled, "Sure."

I checked in the plane and found Melissa had fallen asleep. The three I'd rescued were also sleeping, but the two Melissa brought in were wide awake. "Do either of you speak English?" I asked them.

"Oui, I mean yes, I do." the taller of the two said with a strong French accent. She had cat ears, but no other animal traits that I could see, not even a tail.

I turned to the other woman, who seemed less than fully aware of her situation. There was a faint pattern to her skin that made me think she might be a snake or lizard hybrid. When she looked up briefly at me I was sure as she had slitted eyes like a snake. "What about you?" I asked.

"Yess." she replied so softly I probably wouldn't have even heard her without my enhanced hearing.

"Do not mind her, she is not used to being a girl." the French woman said. The other woman flinched but didn't look up.

"My name is Catherine, what's yours?" I asked them.

"Je m'appelle Clarice. My friend is called Jordan." the French woman, Clarice, replied. "Are you the famous mutant, Kittyhawk?"

I shrugged, "I don't know about famous, but that's what some people call me, yeah."

"What will happen to us now?" Clarice asked.

"Well, that's up to you. A friend of ours is looking into declaring our home as a protected sanctuary for mutants. We can take you there, if you want. Or we can see about getting you home. Our resources are a little limited, but we'll do what we can for you." I said.

Clarice shook her head sadly, "My home, it is not friendly to our kind. Your home sounds interesting, I will go there if that's alright."

"Of course, what about you Jordan?" I asked.

She shrugged, "I'm...not even...me...anymore. I'll go...with Clarissse." She seemed upset at the hissing in her voice and hid her head in her arms. Clarice held her and looked apologetically at me.

"She is having a hard time with her changes. She says she is not human, and won't listen to me." Clarice said.

I nodded, it was hardly an unusual reaction amongst those with more dramatic changes. Arachne still has some trouble with her mutation, and how she has to eat. "Will you take care of her?" I asked Clarice.

"Of course!" she replied. I nodded and returned to Tina.

"What's going on over here?" I asked.

"The men you zapped are still out, and the others haven't come back, but someone is moving around down there. I'm just not sure who." Tina replied.

I took a close look at what she was talking about and smiled. "That would be Paul and Mike, with another addition." I said. Soon they were picking their way over the pile of unconscious gunmen, collecting weapons as they went and piling them in the arms of a stunned looking woman with a big bushy tail like a squirrel's.

Once clear of the men Paul dashed ahead and grabbed me in a fierce hug. "Whoa, what was that for?" I asked, laughing.

"I was worried. We heard gunfire, a lot of it. The sounds were moving towards the plane, so we came back to make sure everyone is alright." he replied, looking me over carefully and frowning at the blood on my clothes.

"I'm fine, Paul! Most of the gunfire you heard was from the men pursuing Melissa. She's a little beaten up, so she's sleeping in the plane. One of the women I brought in was hurt pretty badly, too, but she seems to be a fast healer. Other than that everyone's fine." I said.

"Then where did the blood come from?" he asked.

"Lots of people. And yes, some of it's mine, but I was only scratched, really. You know it takes a lot more than a bullet to slow me down." I replied. "So, who's the new girl?"

Mike and the girl had caught up to us by this time. Mike introduced Jessica, the squirrel tailed woman, and told me she was visiting from Australia and they'd happened across her just as some men were trying to abduct her. Apparently she had already mutated before coming to Thailand. She had been harassed a lot at home and thought this would be a good place to get away from that because there are so many mutants here.

"She was studying to be a doctor." Mike finished by saying.

"Really? In that case, we have some injured people here. Maybe you could take a look at them?" I said. She nodded and Mike led her back to the plane.

"So what was all the shooting about?" Paul asked. I explained everything that had happened since we split up. We turned and started walking back towards the plane when I felt a pain in my chest and I staggered forward a step from the force of an impact. The sound of a gunshot caught up with me just as I looked down at the hole in my shirt.

The wound had already closed and would be fully healed in moments, but I was furious. Growling, I turned to look for the source of the bullet. I saw a group of armed men approaching from the city and, just beyond them, a man with a rifle up on the roof of a small building. "I'll be right back." I told Paul. He ducked out of the way as I spread my wings and launched myself into the air. The man with the rifle took another shot at me as I approached, blowing another hole in my chest. That hurt!

I dived and crashed into him. We broke through the roof into the room below. When I picked myself up I saw that he was probably dead and jumped back through the hole I'd made to see what the other men were doing. They must have been watching for just that, as I was hit by a hail of bullets as soon as I was within sight of them. I fell back through the hole and lay there a moment while my wounds healed up. I was really getting tired of getting shot up. And my clothes were ruined, just as I'd feared they would be. My mother would not be happy.

I decided an alternate exit was in order and smashed through the flimsy wall. The men were surprised and I took full advantage of it. In the blink of an eye I was among them, slashing about wildly. I was hit several times, but I didn't even slow down. Seconds later the fight was over and the survivors were running away, their weapons lying on the ground forgotten.

I started to chase after them, but Paul was suddenly there in my path. "Calm down Cat!" he said. I paused and he pulled me into his arms and held me. The red I hadn't even noticed faded from my sight and I slumped, realizing I'd been running mostly on instinct again.

"Sorry." I mumbled into Paul's shoulder.

"For what, defending yourself? Come on, let's get back to the others." Paul said. He pulled back far enough to kiss me and then took my hand. We started walking back towards the plane, pausing to pick up the discarded weapons on the way. No point leaving them around to be used against us later.

Tina and Mike ran out to meet us. "Are you alright Cat?" Tina asked.

I nodded, "Yeah, I'm okay. Just got a little carried away."

Mike snorted, "I don't think she was worrying about what you did to them. You look a little pale, and you got shot up an awful lot. I know you can take it, but maybe you should take a break and rest a little?" The others agreed with him. I felt alright, but I realized the charge I was still carrying might have something to do with that. I wasn't sure how much of the feeling of health and energy that gave me was real, this electrical powers stuff was still kind of new to me. So, after washing up and changing clothes, I climbed into the plane and curled up among the other girls to take a nap.

It was morning when I woke. Jessica was sleeping but the others were all out of the plane. I carefully crawled out so as not to wake her. I found the others sitting on the edge of the peer eating the stew Carl made. The tiger woman was among them and seemed okay. "Hey, I never did get your name yesterday." I said, startling her.

"Oh, hi Cat, I'm Kim. How are you?" she replied.

"I'm fine, but the question is how are you?" I said.

She smiled, "I'm still a little weak, but I'm feeling a lot better."

"She wants to help us, but since she's had five bowls of stew this morning, I think it's safe to say she needs more time to recover." Melissa said.

I nodded, "Yes, I'd say so. How about you Melissa? You looked pretty out of it last night."

"I'm fine, I just needed to rest a little. Just like you, I guess." she replied.

I didn't see Mike, Paul, or Tina anywhere, but the girls I'd found in the house were sitting next to Kim. "Where's Paul and the others?" I asked.

"They're on guard duty. They're down the pier a ways, they didn't want any fighting to wake you up." Melissa said.

"How are you two?" I asked, looking over at the catgirls. They'd been cleaned up and were wrapped up in blankets. As they turned to look at me I realized they were younger than I'd thought. Especially the smaller one who didn't speak English.

There were tear stains down the younger girls cheeks and she seemed to be on the verge of crying again. The older one seemed okay and spoke for them as she had before, "We okay. Squirrel woman take care of wounds."

"Can I talk to you for a moment Cat?" Kim asked after looking over at the two girls. I nodded and we walked down the pier a ways, almost as far as Paul and the others were standing guard.

"What's up?" I asked.

"I speak Thai, and I've been talking to those two. I haven't gotten a whole lot out of them yet, but it's pretty clear they've been badly abused. They're healing up fine physically, but I'm worried about the little one, Lek. She's taking everything that's happened to her harder than the other girl, Muay." Kim replied.

"That's their names, Lek and Muay?" I asked.

"That's their nicknames. I haven't gotten their real names out of them yet." Kim said.

"Okay. Any idea why she's taking it harder, other than her age?" I said.

"I'm not sure. I just wanted to warn you that she's fragile. And Muay may be, too, and just doesn't show it as much. They've both been through a lot." Kim replied.

I remembered how I'd found them and nodded, "Yeah, they have. Could you keep an eye on them for me? Oh, and how old are they, anyway?"

"Sure, I'll keep an eye on them. Muay is sixteen and Lek is thirteen." Kim said.

I was shocked to learn how young they really were. And to think what that man had been doing to them...

"You okay Cat?" Kim asked worriedly. I looked up and saw that she had backed away several steps. There I go scaring people again. I thought as I realized I was growling.

I took a moment to calm myself and nodded, "Yeah, sorry. It's just...what was done to them is horrible enough. But to do that to children!" I clenched my fists and took deep breaths to calm myself again as I once again remembered the shape they were in when I found them.

Kim looked uncomfortable and waited for me to calm back down. I was about calmed again when we heard a scream followed by a splash, and then another. We hurried back to the plane to find Melissa and the girls gone.

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To Be Continued…