A week had passed since Duchess and my kits died. I probably should have felt like I could relax, but relaxing was the last thing on my mind. I would avenge them, but right now, I needed food. I had pretty much been living off my baby fat and a few trash scraps. But now the baby fat was gone, and trash scraps weren't enough. I needed to work twice as hard to get a proper amount of food, even if it meant fighting the gulls. I had heard about an old loner named Crow, who had attacked the gulls and gotten killed, but he was old, and I was... semi fit.

So I decided to try to fight them.

Now I was near the restaurant, watching the human prepare to cut the fish. When he had finished, he began to slice. When the first tasty, juicy piece of flesh sailed in an arc and landed on the ground, I launched myself at it. To my surprise, I managed to lock it in my jaws. Then the gulls attacked.

They clawed me with their webbed feet, they stabbed me with their sharp beaks. I tried to run, but was swamped by them. I heard the humans shriek and laugh at the show. I was forced to throw the fish scrap to get them off of me, but three decided that I was tastier than the fish, and kept attacking me. Just when I was envisioning my limp body hanging from their mouths, a gray cat flung itself at one of the gulls. It's neck snapped, and the cat moved onto another. I was able to shove the third off of me, and the gray cat chased it away. Then we stared at each other. From his smell I figured that he was a tom, at three years of age, same as me. He displayed thick black tabby stripes all down his tail, with one on his face, running across his eyes like a mask.

He smirked. It was like Edger's, but less evil and more mischievous. Then he snorted, realizing I was staring at him. "If you want fish that bad, why don't you just get some the easy way?" I stared at him. "What easy way?" "Isn't it obvious?" I shook my head no, and he shrugged. "I'll show you." He then raced over to a wooden post leading up to the platform that the humans ate on. He pulled himself onto the platform and slid through the human's legs. Then he jumped onto the table that the human cut fish on. The human meowed angrily and pointed his hose at him, nearly drenching the gray tom. The cat smirked and avoided it, slid to the other end of the table, grabbed the biggest fish on the table, a fat blue one with brown stripes, and gracefully slid down to me on a slanting metal post. "Ta da!" He said happily, placing the food at my feet. I stared at him, my mouth open wide. He then realized that every cat and human was staring at him. Even Trixie, who NEVER came out of her den during the day. "What?" He asked. I continued to stare, and he bowed. "My name's Bandit. What's yours, beautiful lady?" I blushed, and closed my mouth. "I'm not beautiful. And my name is Spark." "Well Sparky, are you going to eat your fish?" I choked. "That's for-for me?" "Well sure. I don't have any trouble getting my own." She purred and crouched down to eat. When she had finished, she was full, and Bandit was halfway through a fish of his own. "So Bandit," She said, cleaning her whiskers. "Where are you from? You're obviously new." "I'm from town," He said after a minute. "I got bored of there, and I had heard of a nice place to live further away, so I was going there when I saw you getting attacked. I think I might stay here though. The food is delicious, and easy enough to get." I sighed. "Maybe I should move." He tilted his head. "Well now you have me to give you food, so--" "That's not why,"

I mewed bitterly. "There's a cat here-Edger. He's a bully. He forced me to bear his kits and they were born dead, and I rejected him and he killed my best friend. And now I'm going to get revenge."