Survivor: Directive Zero

[GorMartsen]

Location: Hope, A-class planet, E-zone (blue)
Date: April 8 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

The hot, viscous blood flowed down my chest, leaving a heavy scent in the air as I ate the beast's core, rich on my tongue.

And with each bite, the musts, the needs, and the shoulds were leaking out, leaving only pleasant silence.

I felt freer.

There was a hunger, and there was prey. And so I feasted.

And when the core was gone, I tore into the beast, ripping it apart with my teeth and nails, chasing pieces full of power.

The blood of my prey, the freshness of early morning. Slowly greying sky.

It melted worries, it washed away urges, it brought peace.

The lingering pain in my limbs faded, and I stretched, bending my spine and digging deep into the stone with my claws. It scratched an itch I didn't know I had.

Sitting down and wrapping my tail around myself, I began to clean, licking the blood from my black fur. It felt nice, calming.

—

The early morning turned bright, carrying the scent of plants, the murmur of water, and the whispering wind between the stones.

Calmness felt in bones.

It stretched, chasing the wind, shuffling scents, and bringing stories from across the forest.

A cry of prey which met its end. A hunter growls, fighting for its life.

Or a loud, sharp fall of stone.

Snapping my eyes open, I felt how the tranquillity I had swum in washed away, replaced by sharp clarity.

My muscles tensed up, trembling. My ears twitched, irritated by yet another clatter of stone against stone.

Fading from view, I leapt fluidly onto a boulder, curious about who dared to disturb my sleep.

Pack of two-legged.

They were going along the hillside, one after another, with a tall and broad one in the lead.

I lay down on a warm stone and watched them come closer, with my head gently resting on my paws.

The pack reminded me of something I had but lost. My mate. She was glorious, strong, and her black fur felt nice between my teeth.

"Are you sure it's the right place?" called one with long fur on his face—beard—bringing me out of sweet memories.

"You heard Old Bill yourself. See the hill, the fucking cannibal tree. It is the right place," called back the tall and broad one.

Their chittering reminded me of a flock of beasts I knew to stay away from.

"Those trees give me the creeps," called one with sticks on his back, joining the chorus.

"Dunno. He is touched in the head," chittered again the bearded one.

"For crying out loud, we discussed it already," barked the tall and broad one and turned to others, stopping.

They all stopped, splitting apart slightly, and I followed their chittering and barking. It felt familiar, as if I knew it before.

"Aiden, this tree is too old. I didn't sign up for that," the bearded one chittered.

"I don't see the noir," the smallest one called—cub?

"Of course you don't. It's sitting on those boulders, invisible, and watching us idiots argue," barked the tall and broad one, pointing at me.

The pack looked my way as one, and I tensed, ready to slip away.

"Fucking idiots. Stop wasting my time. Let's set up the trap, catch the noir, and get the fuck away," barked the tall and broad one once more, and I prepared to act, pressing my ears to my head and baring my fangs.

"Easy for you to say. You're not the bait," said the bearded man.

"James, you get two shares. Two! Just. Do. You. Fucking. Job," replied the tall and broad one—leader?

I twitched my ears, feeling the anger in those words.

And something tickled at the back of my mind, as I saw a man getting busy with banners.

It reminded me of something I almost forgot.

Lola.

Sliding back between the boulders, I flipped the bloodied clothes bundle aside and nudged the pouch with Lola.

How long was it without charge?

I probed the pouch with my paw, and my claws cut the leather, revealing the glimmering silver necklace inside.

I didn't know the answer. It was hard to think.

Bending my head over, I took it into my mouth, warming it. It felt cold against my tongue and teeth.

How long?

The worrying silence in my head stretched as something shifted in my mind, unfolding, taking space. Names and concepts. They were all coming back, weighing heavily.

L: [ ping ]

My heart flipped as the message glyph unfolded, squeezing into my mind, too.

Lola.

K: [ do you copy ]

I waited for a reply, dumbly looking at my paws as my memories were coming back. Paws, not hands.

Why, how?

It was hard to think. It was confusing. I didn't understand what had happened or why, and my memories were shifting between the cat and Katee, overlapping. Blending.

L: [ ping ]

Another glyph unfolded, reminding me where I was, what I was doing. Lola.

Her reply wasn't normal, and it worried me more than who I was.

K: [ Status? ]

L: [ Status: Hibernate. 1.2% charge. ]

L: [ Alert: Boot requirements: 25% charge. ]

That… that wasn't good. An hour or two later, and it would have been too late.

Steps.

Careful steps reached my ears, and I turned to the exit between the boulders.

The shadow fell at the entrance, and the bearded man squeezed through a moment later. He glanced outside, turning his head left and right, fiddling with his pants.

Gobsmacked, I watched him lean on one boulder as a babbling stream hit the other, and a moan escaped from his lips.

Standing a few steps away in silence, I felt awkward, sensing the sharp scent of urine. It tickled my nose.

Ah-choo-mmrrrr!

Reflectively covering my muzzle with my paw, I looked at the man with wide-open eyes.

His shoulders tensed, and I noticed a vein pulsing on his neck.

As if in some cheap holo, he turned towards me slowly, urinating on the ground in a wide arc.

His bulging green eyes met mine as the sound of urine hitting the ground changed to a sharp metallic one, and we both looked down.

He was fucking peeing on my needler.

Mreuuwrr!

"Noir," he screamed, and the thick, bluish energy wrapped around him, forming a bulb that corked the exit, sealing it.

The shouting from outside followed, along with swearing and the sound of someone running toward us.

I darted my eyes to the needler at my feet, glanced back at the clothes and up at the open air above us.

I still had a way out.

Wrinkling my nose, I awkwardly cupped my needler with my paw, and my invisibility flared with broken lines, causing nausea.

Avoiding scratching it, I turned towards my clothes bundle, unsteady on my paws.

My other front paw caught the beast's head, and I almost fell, stumbling and stepping on the claw knife sticking out of the beast's eye socket.

I needed to take that, too.

Fuck, I need my hands.

The blue glow disappeared behind me, and dropping the needler, I spun around, lowering myself and instinctively pressing my ears against my head.

But the bearded man was gone, and beyond the exit, I heard voices.

"James, what the fuck?" screamed the man I recognised as the leader.

"Noir, it's noir," replied the bearded man, breaking into falsetto. "It ate some noble there. We're all gonna die."

"Shut the fuck up," barked the leader. "Alex, traps before the exit, Pen, net over the top. James, if you don't aggro it, I'll gut you myself. Go. Go. Go."

I didn't understand the word, but I recognised the tone. Commanding tone.

Fight or flight?

I didn't like either.

"Net is ready"

Glancing back at the bundle of my clothes, with my dripping wet needler on top, I tried to come up with something.

I had the cat corpse, half-eaten. It wasn't fresh. Subterfuge? And what about my things? The needler?

"Traps are ready."

Darting my gaze between the boulders and seeing nothing, I looked up again. I didn't like the way the air buzzed there.

"James, now!"

Moving past the bundle of clothes, I tested the slope. It wasn't solid, crumbling from my touch.

"We're all gonna die" pierced my ears, rattling through my teeth and making me want to bite his throat off, now.

The fuck.

Suppressing the urge to attack, I pushed the bundle of my clothes, my needler, and the claw knife towards the slope.

"We're all gonna die" pierced my ears again, and I grimaced, feeling my skull vibrate.

But it also reminded me of a small but important detail—the bearded man saw my needler.

Hooking my claw under the belt that held the bundle together, I cut the buckle off and sent it towards the spot where my needler had been peed on.

Plausible deniability.

"We're all gonna die."

For god's sake, shut the fuck up.

K: [ Status? ]

L: [ Status: Hibernate. 5.3% charge. ]

L: [ Alert: Boot requirements: 25% charge. ]

Burying my muzzle into the clothes, I spat out the necklace between the vest and the pants and patted it, pressing it down.

Just wait for a bit.

"James?"

Stepping slightly back, I slashed at the slope with all the fury I felt, and it shifted, burying my things under it.

"Aiden, it isn't working," said the voice I was beginning to hate.

"I fucking see that. Go check. Alex, corridor," replied a commanding voice.

Hearing the approaching steps, I jumped up slightly and clung to the top of the boulder, my claws digging deep into it.

Hidden and with my invisibility no longer glitching, I waited for a visitor, planning my next steps in case it failed.

The footsteps stopped at the entrance, but instead of someone peeking inside, I saw a hand holding a mirror. It flashed in the sunlight, sending rays through the niche between the boulders.

Time stretched in silence, broken only by the heavy breathing of the man.

"James?" called the leader. I was sure by now it was the bearded man's name.

"I don't understand, Aiden. It's dead?" said James in a confused tone.

"What do you mean it's dead?" asked the leader. Aiden?

"Dead, like dead dead?" said James, entering between the boulders. Still guarded and shimmering with a bluish energy shield. A hammer in his right hand.

Furrowing his brow, he picked up the belt buckle.

"What do you see?" asked Aiden.

"Come and see yourself," replied James, lowering his hand with the buckle and kicking the dead beast's tail. It barely budged.

"Fuck you, James," said Aiden, and I was sure he cursed him.

He soon appeared, towering a few heads over James with a spear at the ready.

"Okay, this is dead dead," he said, and James passed him the buckle. "What is it?"

"I found it here," James said, still furrowing his brow and studying the ground.

"Is it Thorn's buckle?" Aiden asked, bringing it closer to his face and grimacing. "Whatever. Check for sparks."

James silently nodded and crouched by the beast's corpse, placing his hammer on the ground and reaching for the knife.

"The core spark is gone," he said, opening the chest in one slash, and Aiden grimaced.

Watching James gut the beast, I kept still, listening to his voice and catching words here and there. But I paid attention to where he looked, realising what he was doing—cutting out sparks.

"Found invisibility spark," said James in a raised voice, freeing the shiny yellow crystal. It looked like a small tube.

"Well, bless my balls. If the shield spark is in place, we are set to go," replied Aiden, accepting it and holding it up against the sky. "Looks intact."

James sped up his gutting of the upper torso, finding a few more small crystals, like water drops, but Aiden didn't comment until James switched to the lower half and cut out a familiar, spongy rock.

"Well done, James," said Aiden, clapping him on the shoulder, "Let's move out."

"Wait," replied James, gripping Aiden's hand on his shoulder.

"What is it?" asked Aiden, and his spear tipped forward. I prepared to jump.

"No, nothing. Let's go," replied James, rolling his shoulders.

—

I watched them go from the top of the boulder, catching James' occasional glances back in my direction.

I was sure I didn't fool him with the buckle, but for some reason, he decided to withdraw.

A smart man.

Seeing them disappear behind the curve of the hill, I jumped back and began to dig out my things and Lola.

Especially Lola. I was worried about her state.

K: [ Status? ]

She wasn't replying anymore. I had no idea why, and that worried me.

The back of the vest peeked out between the stones, and soon I spotted Lola's necklace covered in dust. I didn't hesitate to take it in my mouth, but grimaced as stones crunched between my teeth.

Leaving everything as it was, I jumped back onto the boulder, worried that Aiden and his party might come back.

L: [ ping ]

The glyph unfolded in my mind before I even settled on the boulder, and I exhaled in relief.

K: [ Status? ]

L: [ Status: Hibernate. 5.1% charge. ]

L: [ Alert: Boot requirements: 25% charge. ]

Setting my head on my paws, I stretched on the warm boulder again. Thinking.

There was a lot of that to be done.

And the most pressing issue was my form. Cat form.

How did I come to this?

Now with my memories back, I saw the frenzy that took over me when I killed the beast. When I reached for the core.

Back then, I didn't catch it. It sneaked up on me under the cover of my pain, confirming my worry that when I got wounded, I might not be rational.

I wasn't.

But that didn't answer the question of why this beast form overtook me, and why so fast.

It couldn't be the powers. The snake, back in the cave, was clearly more powerful, but it didn't even try.

The moose's imprint tried, but it was stretched over time and wasn't that sharp either.

So why this? Why now?

Once again, I found no answers, swimming blindly and burning on my way through.

L: [ ping ]

And my mad dash, my stubborn attempt to replicate the banners I saw at Ivor's camp. It almost killed me.

It was hard to blame it on some influence on my mind, though. No, I was just impatient. But that was the problem here—my patience was running thin.

I was getting tired.

But somehow that chain of events brought me to this.

And perhaps, it was worth it. Because something had changed on the way here, and I was able to hear Lola.

Or perhaps I should have tried sucking the necklace earlier.

Fuck if I had an answer for that either.

But there was one thing I knew to try. The self-checkup with my own power—the ability to see my body in my mind.

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Hope, A-class planet, E-zone (blue)
Date: April 8 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

With another tuh-dum of my heart, the circulatory system bloomed in my mind, forming constellations of active powers with glowing pathways between the stars.

But my attention was drawn to my core. It had changed. In place of the cherry-sized one I had before was a new core, twice as big.

It thrumbed with new powers, much stronger and more potent, flooding energy into an intricate web of pathways through my body, the cat's body.

Fangs and claws. Dense muscles under fur. Paws instead of my hands and feet. A tail at my back and ears on my head that twitched with every thought.

Nothing of the human. My new reality.

L: [ ping ]

The message unfolded in my mind, forming the orange text behind my closed eyes, and I focused on the one-star constellation that had grown where my ARC had been.

Another weird manifestation of The Anomaly, and the unintentional consequences of my stubborn refusal to stop messing with my head.

K: [ Status? ]

As before, it pulsed when I sent a request, and the response glowed orange again, displaying the system message.

L: [ Status: Hibernate. 6.8% charge. ]

L: [ Alert: Boot requirements: 25% charge. ]

A feature I had never had before, limited by my perception.

But neither did I have a tail.

Glancing over the circulatory system in detail, I searched for something, anything to explain the changes.

The new core pulsed, the pathways glowed brighter, and active constellations shone with stars as the me-cat body radiated with energy. But there were no new key stars, no new active constellations, nothing to explain it.

There has to be something. Has to be.

That girl from the clearing. She had made her fur and claws go away, somehow. I remembered that clearly.

How?

Opening my eyes with a sigh, I stretched one of my paws forward and flexed my claws, chipping the boulder. It felt natural, as if I had done it thousands of times before.

As if I had always been me-cat.

As if whatever had happened didn't change me, but only brought to the surface what was already there.

It was a lie. A feline imprint that I had failed to purge, to assimilate.

The Anomaly was fucking with my memories, with my brain and my body, making me believe what wasn't here. What I wasn't.

L: [ ping ]

Feeling restless, with my tail lashing against my sides, I tried to think more, but failed miserably.

The cat in me demanded action, to claw and slash, but there was nothing to destroy, to fight against.

It drowned my thoughts in the beast's rage, boiling hot in my blood.

Arching my back, I slammed my paw into the boulder, pouring my rage out, and with a sharp crack, stone chips blew back, flying everywhere.

Shit.

Sneezing from the rising dust, I backed away, limping and fighting nausea as my invisibility flared wildly.

My paw was hurt, my wrist most likely broken.

It didn't take me long to figure out why.

My moose powers, they too had gotten stronger.

—

L: [ ping ]

Instinctively licking my paw, finding it soothing, I waited until my regeneration finished mending my bones.

On some level, I knew that was a bit too far, but it bothered me less than the shift in my powers.

They were dangerous to me before, but now even more so. If I didn't have the regeneration, this broken wrist would have been a real problem, maybe even the end of me.

But what if I were to break my neck next time?

The thought was not comforting.

My ears twitched, reacting to the slithering that came from somewhere up the hill, and I tensed up.

A snake.

Any snake I had seen recently wasn't good news. Not the one in the cave, nor on that cliff by the river.

I was hurt, even if nearly healed. I didn't have my needler or the claw knives, and my powers were acting up.

I didn't feel like fighting it.

A few stones rolled down from above, picking up speed, and the slithering stopped.

L: [ ping ]

My danger sense flared in my guts, and I darted sideways, overshooting by a good twenty metres before jerking to an abrupt stop.

The bright orange lightning storm hit the place I had just been, expanding rapidly. Almost reaching me.

Fuck.

Catching my footing, I soared in a long arc as a loud crash of stones erupted behind me.

Not for long.

I dropped down, speeding up my fall, and another lightning storm struck above me, casting sharp orange light.

Too close.

Jerking to a stop again, yet still hitting the ground, I broke into a zig-zag sprint, trying to get away without moving in a straight line.

The lightning began to strike the hill more rapidly, getting closer and closer each time.

I felt the urge to enable my hex-field, to protect myself, but I fought it and kept running.

I didn't trust it to hold the lightning. I didn't know if it could. Only as a last resort… and I wasn't there yet.

Hit by hit, jump by jump, the snake pushed me down the hillside, closer to the tree. Cornering me.

That gave me an idea. A crazy one, and I charged forward, avoiding all attacks by the skin of my teeth.

L: [ ping ]

Lightning flared on my sides, blasting stones as I banked left or right on my way down, barely staying out of harm's way.

Bursting under the canopy, I dashed towards the trunk at full speed, as another lightning bolt passed by, blasting the ground and setting bushes on fire.

Almost there.

The slithering behind me became more aggressive, more direct. Closer. The snake was catching up.

I reached the trunk before it got me. Scaling up the tree, I dug my claws into its bark without a care. No, I needed to cause as much damage as I could.

Jumping onto the first branch, I barely avoided another lightning bolt. It exploded against the trunk, showering me with splinters.

Glancing back, I didn't see the snake. It was invisible, but the grass and shredded bark on the tree were giving it away.

It was following me up the tree.

Good.

Turning my invisibility off, I enabled the hex-field and ran along the branch, trying to guess the snake's size.

Thirty metres? Longer?

Here!

Abruptly stopping, I turned around and looked for signs. It should be closer now.

Arrrrrgmrrrr!!!

The lightning hit me like an atmospheric entry, tearing through my hex-field.

Not fast enough.

Fighting against blinding pain, I shot my own lightning bolt at the branch I was standing on. It exploded under me and began to fall in a cloud of splinters.

Falling down with the broken branch past the snake, I smiled.

That should do it.

The tree shook, and the snake screeched, finally becoming visible. Wrapped around the trunk, she thrashed against it, releasing lightning after lightning.

Dropping the hex-field mid-fall, I tried to catch myself with the moose's powers. It didn't work the way it had before.

Jerking up and down, wrestling with my powers, I glided towards the hill. Away from the snake and the tree twisted in the battle.

Spotting a pond of still water hidden between short bushes, I let go of my shaky grip on the powers and dropped into it with a loud splash.

The water soothed the flaring pain across my body, and just for a moment, I let myself be, drifting a touch away from the muddy bottom.

L: [ ping ]

Too bad I had to breathe.

Activating regeneration, I pushed against the pond's bottom, breaking the water's surface, and looked back at the flesh-eating tree. The fight continued. The snake was still alive.

Right before my eyes, it dropped on the ground, oozing blood from the missing scales along its sides and tail.

Yet, still alive.

I activated invisibility, but just in case, submerged deeper, leaving only my eyes and muzzle above the surface.

The snake was retreating, fighting through the spiky roots, and leaving a bloody trail. It still had its hex-field on, surrounded by flaring lightning.

Something moved at the edge of my vision, splashing water, and, glancing sideways, I saw another beast watching the retreating snake.

It was a bear, the size of a family flyer, that somehow crept up on me. It kept its body low, clearly waiting, clearly not seeing me.

The air shimmered in front of its head, and a boulder appeared there.

Boom

And it was gone, splitting the air with a sonic boom and hitting the snake.

Holy fucking shit.

Boulder after boulder appeared before the bear, striking the snake and levelling the ground, as the sonic booms rang in my ears.

It wasn't a bear, no. It was a fucking mobile artillery platform.

The lightning storm crackled unnaturally in the dust hanging in the air, and the bear charged forward, disappearing inside it.

The resulting silence was deafening, and I strained my eyes to see what was inside that cloud of dust.

It slowly settled, and I finally saw the bear feasting, covered in snake blood from head to waist.

I waited, fighting the urge to join. Or to run.

My danger senses were acting, warning me against it.

L: [ ping ]

—

That the bear wasn't a low-level one was clear from the carnage it caused, but the real scope of its power I only saw now.

Still hiding in the pond, I watched the bear sniping with great precision at anything that dared to come close.

Two aerial beasts the size of a personal flyer, a wolverine, and the whole pack of wolves. They all fell to its skill.

Their corpses became a secondary dish to smaller hunters, who appeared soon after and were now tearing apart whatever the bear's projectiles left behind. Mostly blood and bones.

The bear didn't touch them, ignoring their presence.

They were some sort of rats, big as dogs, with hairless tails and long muzzles.

L: [ ping ]

Suppressing the tremor in my body, I waited, barely moving. Watching someone eat something that your fangs beg you to sink into… it wasn't fun.

And so I kept track of the other beasts and thought about my fight with the snake.

The beast wasn't on par with the one I fought in the cave, sure, but I was right to avoid the direct fight with it. I literally had nothing to get through its hex-field.

In a way, it showed me my own strengths and weaknesses once again. But also exposed how unprepared I was for fights like this.

Without my needler, without my claw knives, I was just prey.

Hell, I barely controlled the powers I thought I knew.

My core had evolved, but I didn't expect the trouble it would bring to my survival.

Training. I needed training. I had to figure it all out, especially now stuck in the cat form.

L: [ ping ]

With a sonic boom, the bear unleashed a stone into the sky, sniping an aerial beast.

It flapped, trying to get away, but one healthy wing was not enough. It was falling my way.

Watching it get closer, I tensed up, suppressing the tremor in my jaw and an overwhelming desire to sink my teeth into its body.

It crashed with a splash into my pond and, a moment later, broke the surface, awkwardly holding a bleeding wing above the water.

I was right behind it, to be discovered at any moment.

I lurched forward, sinking my claws into its body and pushing it underwater.

It struggled, trying to fight its way out. I pushed even harder as the blood spreading in the water drove me crazy.

My instincts screamed to bite, to taste the hot-running blood, to tear the core out and gulp it down.

The fight left the aerial beast's body. And I lost it.

I tore its core out in one swift move of my clawed paw and gulped it in one go.

Only a moment later did I realise that something else had fallen down my throat too.

Lola.

—

K: [ Status? ]

Silence. There was only silence left to accompany me.

Creeping up the hill, I was extra cautious not to disturb any rocks or step on branches scattered along the slope.

Since I gulped down the core, and Lola with it, my invisibility stopped glitching, properly hiding me and letting me leave the pond and place of the fight at the foot of the tree.

That was the only benefit that came out of all this disaster.

Briefly closing my eyes, I looked inside myself and once again saw empty blackness in place of my stomach. Whatever inner vision I had, it wasn't able to penetrate the field generated by aetherium in Lola's necklace.

Opening my eyes again, I looked up the hill. A bit more and I would reach the place between two boulders.

I was short on time.

I had been worrying about Lola, about the core I had just eaten and what it would cost me.

But worry would do nothing, and I continued to climb the hill.

I knew what I needed to do, and for that, I needed safety.

Reaching the narrow gap between two boulders, I wrinkled my nose at the smell of the cat's corpse, split in half and burned by lightning.

Hooking my claws under the bottom part, I sent it flying down the hill. Not that far. My moose's powers were glitching now, affected by the aetherium in my stomach.

As if I was able to use them properly before.

Sending the upper part after the bottom one, I scraped the ground to somewhat mask the scent and hide the bloody prints.

Still, this place was better than anything else for what I had in mind.

I was planning to gut myself, to get Lola out.

Glancing around, at the poorly hidden blood, at the half-buried clothes under the slope, I held my paw before me, flexing claws.

That was going to hurt me.

Dropping invisibility, I once again activated the hex-field.

It didn't glitch either, but most importantly, it clung to my claws, extending them.

I didn't imagine it then. I felt them slicing through the branch under me when the snake's lightning hit me.

Adding more energy, I extended them a foot and pressed against the boulder on my right.

No matter how much I wanted (not really) to gut myself to get Lola out, I wasn't reckless.

I needed a hideout—hell, even a burrow would suffice—to wait until my body was mended by my regeneration.

And so I dug into the boulder, awkwardly bending my paws, struggling.

I was missing my fingers, my human hands.

A cat's paws were not meant for such labour.

But bit by bit, I clawed my way into the boulder, slowly raising a little heap of broken stones by its side.

I was all covered in dust and fine stone chips. They crunched between my teeth.

It didn't matter. I was almost done.

Pushing another block out with my head, I looked up.

It was already past lunchtime. The sun was high, hiding behind the towering flesh-eating tree and casting shadows.

Glancing back into the burrow, I licked my lips.

I was thirsty. I needed water.

With a sigh, I pushed the stone block aside and went to the slope at the end of the gap between the boulders.

Biting on the needler through my vest, I carried it inside the burrow, avoiding the taste of urine. Then I did the same to my pants and the claw knife.

They were all placed at the far end of the burrow. It wasn't big or tall, but I was able to fit inside, and that was all that mattered.

Leaving it again, I pushed the biggest chunk of boulder to cover the entrance.

Water, I needed water.

—

Following along the hillside to the left, I searched for the place I remembered from the cat's life. A small creek with clean water, hidden between the bushes.

The stony hillside soon turned green, covered in lush grass and bushes, with moisture hanging in the air, and I recognised the view.

It was that place, often used by the beast for hunting and sating thirst.

My invisible paws sank into the carpet of greenery as I was crossing the hillside to the bushes, creating a new experience for me.

I had memories of doing so as me-cat, but that was different somehow.

Shaking off the melancholic mood that came over me unexpectedly, I walked past the bushes and came to a stop before a creek with a rocky bottom and crystal clear water.

My mouth got dry, and my fur itched, asking to be cleaned, to just jump into the water.

Ignoring urges, I cautiously walked onto the rocky bank, looking left and right. There was no one else. No other beast was hiding or lapping water.

Leaning over, I slowly began to lap from the stream. The water was crisp and fresh, making my teeth and fangs ache. It was the best water I had tasted in like forever.

Hopefully not my last.

Feeling sated, I slowly walked into the creek, checking banks on both sides as the dust from my fur muddied the water down the stream.

The stream was strong and quite rapid, and I felt it pressing hard against my chest and sides. I turned slowly, letting it overflow over my back and do the cleaning.

It also felt nice, reminding me of those heavy shower streams back on Mastodon I so liked to enjoy.

The memory soured my mood even more, reminding me of the loss I suffered, about everything I had lost, including my human form. And perhaps some sanity.

Silver sparkled in the water, and before I knew it, I slapped a fish out of the water onto the rocky bank.

The water beast, fat and slightly oval, flopped between the rocks and bushes, cutting them with sharp jets of water.

Or perhaps sanity was overrated, or didn't fit this place, this Anomaly.

Appearing by the beast's side, I severed its head with one swift slash of my hex-field-enhanced claws, and blood spilt across the rocks and bushes.

Biting down on the fish, I glanced longingly back at the clean water. I wanted to bathe more, but time was ticking.

Turning towards the way I came from, I set my paws on the return path, back to the burrow.

Soon.

—

The stone creaked as I pushed it aside, opening the entrance into my burrow. Bending low, I slipped inside and dropped the fish to the side.

True to its name, the burrow barely had space to turn around, but I managed and began to pull the entrance stone back, making it creak again.

It was a struggle.

It settled with a thud, and the burrow plunged into shadows, yet not deep enough to fool my eyes.

Time.

Shifting back slightly, I flopped onto my side, hitting my back against the stone wall. But I didn't have much choice. I had to hurry up.

With a sigh, I brought my right paw to my mouth and began to lick it, cleaning between the claws and removing any remaining dirt.

The fuck am I doing…

Closing my eyes, I slowed my breath, mentally preparing for what was to come, and almost reflexively, the circulatory system appeared before me, glowing with stars and pathways.

Except for my stomach.

Blindly placing my paw on my stomach, I tried to align them perfectly.

Here.

Opening my eyes, I looked at the place where my paw rested, slightly to the left.

Here comes.

Extending the index claw, I pushed it down, right through the fur, until the pain hit me and the taste of blood spread in the burrow.

I widened and deepened the wound, gritting my teeth and a painful growl stuck in my throat.

Fighting lightheadedness, I dug my claws inside as an acid-sharp scent joined the scent of blood.

AGHhhhhhhhhhhmmmrrpppp

The claw caught on something sharp, and I pulled it out, convulsing from the pain.

It made it hurt more.

The pink-silver necklace, covered in my dark blood, surfaced with my claws, and I closed my eyes again, breathing hard.

Regeneration. I needed the regeneration.

As it kicked in, mending the wound I had made, the pain gradually began to fade, leaving a silent emptiness in my head.

Bringing my paw to my mouth, I took the necklace in.

It burned against my tongue and teeth, rich with the taste of my blood.

K: [ Status? ]

L: [ Status: Hibernate. 18.0% charge. ]

L: [ Alert: Boot requirements: 25% charge. ]

Sighing, I relaxed in my awkward position, half on my back.

Lola was fine, even almost charged to boot up.

Relatively hidden, questionably safe and with emergency food at my side, I was quite set for a long wait, if it would come to that.

The aerial beast core. I had eaten it. All this time, I was afraid its imprint would begin to overwhelm me, changing me.

It didn't come to that. And I didn't know why.

I dreaded it anyway, silently betting on what came first.

I hoped for Lola.

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Hope, A-class planet, E-zone (blue)
Date: April 8 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

I had been dreaming.

Running through dense foliage deep in night shadows yet bright in starlight, I knew that.

My paws pounded the ground, my body moved swiftly with muscles bulging beneath my fur, and the power trembled in my blood.

The white and short tail, flickering between the trees and bushes, was leading me somewhere, and I knew—I had to catch it.

But no matter how hard I pushed, how swift I moved, it was out of my reach.

The shadows deepened on my side, forming a massive, ghostly shape, and it joined my pursuit, side by side.

It was tall and broad. It moved swiftly, often bouncing off the trees along or above the path, between the branches.

And I remembered.

The stars came to life inside my body, forming the constellation, and I shot forward, speeding up.

As if mocking me, the white tail moved faster, too, and the forest became a blur, smeared along my path.

The air itself began to fight me, pressing hard into my face, pushing back into my chest and trying to bend my limbs, to twist my paws.

And the more I fought against it, the more it resisted me, keeping me away from the mocking tail, dangling white in front of me.

It flickered left, it flickered right, bouncing or dropping low.

As if guiding me.

And involuntarily, I matched its pace, I mirrored its flicks and sweeps. Its rhythm.

The whistling air in my ears changed. It calmed, it stopped being violent. It played with my fur instead.

And in that moment, I understood the song it had been whispering all this time.

I was no longer fighting Air. Guided by its song, I was catching up with the tail, no longer mocking me with its stark white in the night.

We flicked, and we swept through the night, blurring through the forest, singing the song of Air.

—

Opening my eyes, still foggy with the dream, I felt the change.

The air. It was no longer the pressure on my fur, no longer the environment.

The gentle draft was tickling my nose, and somehow I knew that there was no one around my two-boulder burrow.

It wasn't scent, it wasn't sound. It was a new sense the cat had for ages.

It was weird.

I had its memories, I knew its past, and I felt the air. I remembered using it unconsciously while sleeping on the boulder just this morning. But I had failed to recognise its song. Its tale.

Looking blindly at the bright strip of light along the entrance stone, I felt spellbound, enthralled. I felt connected to the world in a way I had never felt before.

I was present.

Closing my eyes, yet still feeling the world around me, I looked for the new constellation.

As before, the circulatory system bloomed before me, showing my active powers.

The inertia constellation, the still-working regeneration, pulsing in my guts, and the ones in my head, enhancing my eyes and the sense of smell.

Except for the ARC star, there was nothing else new.

Again.

Confused, I opened my eyes, and my gaze fell on my paw extended before me.

Why?

Absently scratching the floor, slicing the stone with deep grooves, I felt confused. I didn't understand what was going on.

The cat's body. The Air senses. They were breaking my shaky understanding of the system.

The anomaly core as the power source, the key star and the constellations for abilities, the pathways to distribute the energy—no matter how strange it was, I saw the logic there.

But not with this. It wasn't matching up.

With a melodic dzing, the slice of stone chipped out and clattered along the floor.

And I froze.

My claws—like the bobcat's claws—were sharp beyond normal logic. No real animal should be able to slice the stone so casually.

But the bobcat's claws were powered by The Anomaly, I knew that. I tested it thoroughly, bringing them in and out of the aetherium cave.

Were mine too?

Beginning to slice stone again, now consciously watching it, I paid attention to the way I did it, the way I felt it.

I didn't have any active "cutting" ability—no constellation or key-star to do that—but my claws kept cutting stone.

It threw a wrench in my assumption that "cutting" was an imprint of powers left behind when the beast died.

I was wrong.

It also explained why the badger's meat didn't carry the regeneration imprint. It didn't work that way.

And then I remembered—my lungs had healed before I awoke the regeneration itself.

This. This meant something.

But what?

Alert: [ Charge 25%. Boot sequence initiated. ]

I clenched my paw, and the stone shards flew across the floor, dzinging.

It was time.

Holding my breath, I waited, afraid to send the status query, my worries about powers gone.

What if it had reset her?

What if she didn't remember?

What if she got damaged?

What if she wouldn't recognise me?

What if…

Pull yourself together, Lt. Commander Ladova.

Forcefully breathing out, raising the dust from the chipped floor, I did what I had to.

K: [ do you copy ]

L: [ Loud and clear. State your designation. ]

The standard answer didn't ease my worries…

K: [ Lt. Commander Ladova. Authorisation Code: RW-7-DRC-MD ]

L: [ Code confirmed. ]

L: [ The channel is stable. ]

L: [ ARC band confirmed. ]

L: [ Katee, do you know that your new ARC doesn't respond to system requests? ]

L: [ Where did you get it, by the way? Black market again? ]

Each message bombarded me, forming glowing orange text before me, and somehow I found myself overwhelmed.

Laying my head down on my paws, I found it hard to breathe, and something tingled in my eyes, blurring the shadowed burrow before me.

L: [ You disappeared on me for six days, and what I hear instead of "I missed you"? A new ARC band! ]

L: [ If you hope I switch my cosy, well-protected necklace for this half-baked implant, you sorely need a memory wipe or protocol updates. ]

She was alive, and all the same, as ever. Lola, my Lola.

L: [ Katee? ]

K: [ Lola. ]

L: [ Don't Lola me. Send me the implant specifications already. I bet the AI they installed is going to fry your brain at any moment. ]

L: [ Cheater. ]

L: [ How did you even find Black Market in SIX days? ]

Involuntarily, a smile spread on my muzzle, twisting my lips uncomfortably.

It was my Lola, alright.

L: [ Fine! Be like that. I will get in myself then, cheater. ]

My eyes snapped wide open. What was she on—

L: [ Oh. This looks promising. Based on stochastic analysis, that band clearly matches the system channel. Let me see. ]

Request: [ System Status ]

It was different. It still glowed orange before me, but I felt how different, how active it was inside my mind.

Unfolding, it ran like a wave through my body, spreading through me.

And then it collapsed back, disappearing into that corner of my mind, long ago associated with the ARC.

L: [ Katee? Explanation please? Why are these data glyphs encoded? ]

L: [ And why did I get the beast's scan instead of system status here? ]

L: [ This is not ARC. ]

Still stunned by the experience—and the unexpected outcome—I tried to grasp the sheer volume of possibilities it brought.

K: [ No, it's not. ]

K: [ It's the key-star in place of the ARC. ]

K: [ And if I'm right, the scan you got—it's me. My current form. ]

L: [ Start from the beginning, tell me everything. ]

And so I did.

K: [ Six days ago, when we lost contact, I was fighting the moose beast… ]

—

K: [ …and now I am stuck in this beast form. ]

K: [ And right before you awoke, I have realised that we are missing something. ]

K: [ Something that would explain my cat form, my claws and my air senses. ]

L: [ Proto state. ]

K: [ I am sorry? ]

L: [ It's a proto state. An ability before key-star, or a spark, as the locals call it, gets formed. It matches the term definition by 86%. ]

That got me thinking.

She was right. It matched the definition. The unrefined ability with no clear way to turn it on or off.

L: [ You should do the same thing you did in the hideout—push my necklace against the core to cut the energy flow. ]

Cut the energy flow, right. I did it before.

It was how I learned that the bobcat's claws needed the charge from The Anomaly.

It was how I broke the moose imprint before it consumed me, back in the hideout.

And then it clicked.

K: [ That's why the aerial beast's imprint didn't happen. Your necklace suppressed it in my stomach! ]

L: [ Agree. With 95% probability, it also explains why you didn't experience those beasts' imprints from the badger, bobcat, and the snake organs. They had all been subjected to aetherium influence in the cave. ]

L: [ The fact that those organs didn't turn into crystals in the cave only supports this theory. ]

Blindly staring at the entrance stone, I was trying to find holes in this theory, but the longer I thought about it, the more sense it made.

The aetherium cave was able to block the C-level of The Anomaly's density, and probably more at the cave bottom.

I remembered how bad I felt inside it, how it was blocking The Anomaly's energy flow inside me.

If crystalisation was The Anomaly's energy phenomenon, blocking its flow had to do that, had to prevent it.

And the imprints within.

It was all approximate, and maybe more testing was needed to be done to measure the density, the effects themselves, but even without them, the logic held.

And if I pressed Lola's necklace, the only dense enough aetherium I had, to my core, it might just disrupt the energy flow enough to revert back into human form.

There was only one problem, though.

K: [ I will try it now, but most likely it will break the connection. ]

L: [ Just don't try to eat me again. ]

K: [ No promises. ]

Without waiting for an answer, I spit the necklace out, hiding a smile.

It was nice to have Lola back.

It clattered against the burrow floor and bumped against my paw.

K: [ do you copy ]

I waited for a reply for a moment, and it didn't come, proving the need to hold it in my mouth.

Flopping on the side again, I awkwardly picked up the necklace with my paw. Even if I knew that the aetherium in it should suppress my claws' cutting ability, I was worried and tried to be careful.

It made the process of putting the necklace on my body, over my core, only harder.

Pushing it hard against my body, I tried to relax, preparing for the unpleasant effect I knew was coming.

Time ticked second by second, forming minutes as I waited. Then waited more.

But something was wrong. It didn't work.

Closing my eyes, I looked at my systems, and the reason became quite clear.

The core still pulsed, the energy still flowed through my pathways, and my abilities were still active.

My core was too strong now, or the necklace wasn't close enough, separated by meat and bones.

Involuntarily, I gulped.

I knew the way to make it closer. And I wasn't sure I wanted to repeat that.

But what choice did I have?

—

My paw, my claws were shaking above my upper abdomen. The place where I felt my core was hiding inside my body.

Get a grip, Ladova!

It was the third time I raised it, preparing to gut myself. Again.

And it was the third time I felt like backing away.

I am fucked.

Angry at myself, at my own fear, I slashed my claws sideways, splitting fur open and exposing ribs.

The pain hit me a second later, and I shoved the necklace into the open wound, growling through my clenched teeth.

I would never get used to it.

Leaning back against the burrow's side, I tried to breathe shallowly in an attempt to avoid a sharp pain.

It didn't really work that way. It hit me with each move of my chest, with each breath in and out.

The weakness hit me sharply with the crushing power of gravity, and I realised that the moose's powers stopped working.

I smiled through the pain, hissing through my teeth.

It was finally, fucking, working.

Something shifted in my head, and it took me a long, stretched moment to realise what had changed. I was so used to the me-cat existing in my mind that only when it was gone did I feel it missing.

It was like a gaping wound in my mind. I felt the same after I lost the ARC.

Incomplete, broken, missing parts I thought were mine.

Raising my human hand before myself, covered in blood, dark in the burrow's shadows, I tried to smile with my own human lips.

It felt hollow.

The pain in my abdomen reminded me of the necklace, and I dug my shaky fingers into the open wound. They touched the necklace on the first try, and I pulled it out, gripping it tightly.

Lola. At least I have my Lola back.

The necklace was dripping with my dark blood on my naked chest, glimmering slightly silver. I took it in my mouth, absently noting that it took more space than before.

K: [ It's done. ]

Request: [ System Status ]

As before, it hit me with a wave that slowly spread through my body, leaving a tingling behind.

I felt exhausted.

L: [ You punctured the right lung's pleura. That would be tricky to close up. ]

L: [ There is also intense internal bleeding, so please hurry up. ]

It took me a moment to realise that my eyes were already closed and the text was just glowing behind my closed lids.

I didn't feel like doing anything, as if the gaping hole in place of me-cat was sucking all the will to live.

L: [ Katee, do you copy ]

The numbness spread through my body, bringing unexpected relief from pain. I felt like rocking on the waves.

Request: [ System Status ]

The message—and the wave after—slightly shook me from my numbness, trying to remind me about something… something…

Something…

 

[GorMartsen]

Do you recognise the scene?


View: https://youtu.be/DjSYWhtamoA?si=80lWpJ0zjNsbqKk0

 

[GorMartsen]

Location: Hope, A-class planet, E-zone (blue)
Date: April 8 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)

Floating nowhere, surrounded by space with more metrics than I was used to, I felt blank.

No name, no thoughts, no desires.

Request: [ Heal Parietal pleura ]

I had no I, no body, and no mind.

Blank.

Request: [ Pleural Cavity Regeneration ]

Only endless space stretched over countless dimensions.

Lost.

Request: [ Seal Superior Espigastric Artery ]

But something…

Something was still there.

Regeneration: [ Superior Epigastric Artery ]

And then I felt it. The hook.

It pulled on me, throwing me across space, through dimensions.

Dropping into my body with a whoosh, I froze.

I knew my name.

—

Snapping my eyes open, I felt the hunger.

It twisted in my guts, loudly growling, and trembled in my knees, demanding action.

Food. I needed food.

The strong fishy scent tingled in my nose, and I flipped onto my stomach, trying to find the source.

Food.

My hand landed on something slimy, sharp to the touch.

The river beast.

It almost slipped out of my grasp, and I tightened my grip, digging my fingers in hard.

A sour, fishy scent hit my nose, leaving an unpleasant aftertaste. The fish was spoiled. It was too late to eat it.

And yet I still felt something, something inside it.

Bringing it in front of me, I dug my fingers into the cut where its head had been. They touched something hard inside, and the buzzing feeling spread through me, somewhat dulling hunger.

Hooking my fingers, I ripped it out with a wet pop, dropping the useless body on the ground.

In my fingers, wrinkled and covered in slime, was the beast's core. Working it between my fingers, I tried to clean it, ridding it of the velvet shell, and it glowed blue in the darkness of the burrow, radiating energy.

I felt the need to eat it, to bite into it. Consume it.

And only when I tried to drop it into my mouth did I realise that Lola's necklace was still there.

That finally made me think.

K: [ do you copy ]

Request: [ System Status ]

Ignoring the wave through my body, which only made me hungrier, I shifted the necklace with my tongue and put the core in my mouth.

L: [ How are you? ]

As I bit and sucked on it, the energy flowed into me, too slowly.

K: [ Hungry ]

But then the flow increased, becoming a wide, slightly sluggish stream, and I breathed out in relief, no longer feeling the all-consuming pressure to eat.

L: [ How bad? You are not combat-ready ]

K: [ Manageable ]

The core cracked in my mouth, and a wave of energy hit me, stronger than the stream before.

Flipping onto my back, shifting my butt slightly sideways, I closed my eyes, slipping into the inner view.

The pathways were glowing, spreading energy from my head across the system, across my body.

K: [ Apparently, eating a crystallised core is still possible ]

Request: [ System Status ]

The System Status wave looked different from within, structured, and somehow I understood the information it was collecting.

But most importantly, I saw the fading scars I had left under my ribs and, apparently, in my stomach.

L: [ Which grade? ]

K: [ Blue, so E-ranked? ]

L: [ Five more minutes and you should stop doing it. It stresses your pathways ]

She was right. Looking at the pathways, especially at my head, I saw the signs, the ones I had a long time ago, when The Anomaly's density was too much for me.

And sure, I could use regeneration, but that would defeat the purpose and would be a waste of energy.

I had already wasted quite a lot of it, almost dying.

That reminded me of the dream-not-a-dream, and somehow I knew. It wasn't a hallucination of the dying brain.

Opening my eyes, I blankly looked at the burrow's ceiling.

I have almost died.

The thought didn't hit me as strongly as I thought it would.

K: [ Thanks for saving my ass ]

L: [ No neko shall die on my watch ]

K: [ Neko? ]

I frantically touched my face, my ears. They were normal, human. I ran my hands down my bare chest, and they met no fur, no other oddities I knew were there before.

Even my nails were normal, no longer claws.

L: [ Tail. It's so cute ]

And as soon as she said it, I realised that the tail was still there, uncomfortably pinned under my butt. I didn't need to touch it to know that.

I was so used to its existence…

It reminded me of what I had felt before I lost consciousness, the missing me-cat, the gaping hole.

With trepidation, I reached for it, dreading to feel it again, but there was no hole anymore, just a gentle, sleepy me-cat curled there.

Relief flooded me, and with a sigh, I relaxed on the burrow's floor.

I knew it was weird to miss it. I remembered the time before I had it, but… somehow… somehow I was failing to see myself without it.

K: [ I still have me-cat ]

L: [ I advise against operating again without anaesthesia. The shock will kill you this time if blood loss doesn't do it first ]

L: [ Your superior epigastric artery is too close to your core ]

L: [ Don't rush ]

Smile tugged my lips, even though she was right. I had rushed it before.

K: [ I wasn't going to ]

If anything, I wanted to keep it, like a kitten I never had.

L: [ I estimate a 23% increase in your chances of infiltrating Outpost Eleven if you still have your tail ]

The jump in logic was abrupt, but I saw what she was doing. I played along.

K: [ How so? ]

L: [ I ran an extended analysis based on your interaction with Sir Ivor, and especially the girl in the clearing ]

L: [ You have a 51% chance of success in infiltration if you pretend that you are a low-level noble masquerading as nobody ]

K: [ And what role does the tail play? ]

L: [ The tail increases the chances of infiltration to 74% in total. Based on psychological group behaviour in caste-based societies, the tail's existence would explain why a noble pretends to be nobody ]

It clicked then.

K: [ To avoid bringing shame to his House, so they travel anonymously until they get beasts under control? ]

L: [ Precisely. You just have to pretend you are not noble. Badly. Which you do naturally ]

K: [ Oh, fuck you ]

L: [ That is against regulations ]

The smile was still splitting my face, and I might have just laughed aloud, almost forgetting where I was, but the spiking energy in my mouth didn't let me.

Sitting up, I spat the fractured pieces of the core into my palm, and rays of blue light illuminated the burrow. It was giving off more light now.

Rolling the necklace in my mouth, I run my tongue over my cheeks. They were numb and tender after the core absorption.

Setting the fractured core aside, I looked around, spotting my clothes and the needler peeking out of my vest.

I pulled them closer to myself.

My hands began to check the needler on their own as I tried to think through Lola's plan.

One clip of ammo. It was all I had been left with.

K: [ Language. I don't speak the local dialect ]

L: [ Resident program ]

Snapping the clip back into the needler, I mentally marked that I had only seventy more shots left.

K: [ I don't follow ]

L: [ With 89% probability, we can succeed in replacing the "System Status" command with "audio proxy" resident program ]

That. That was promising. She already hacked it, successfully forcing my regeneration to work…

K: [ I need to train my regeneration to activate automatically ]

I had sent the message even before I had thought it through, but in hindsight, I should have thought about it before today. Way before today.

L: [ That was my initial goal. I have already prepared a resident regeneration program ]

K: [ What do you need from me? ]

Setting the needler on the floor, I fully focused on Lola.

It was too important.

L: [ That can wait. You need to recover first, but we can test the concept with "audio proxy" ]

K: [ You said replacing? How did you send the regeneration command then? ]

L: [ I brute-forced it, adjusting glyph combinations based on your psychological profile ]

Nodding to myself, realising that nothing would be done right now, I picked up the vest, checking its pockets.

K: [ Why not brute-force the new command? ]

I found two cores, one green and one blue, in the side pocket. They glowed as I put them to the side, suppressing the desire to bite into them.

Where did I leave the ice-tipped claw knife?

L: [ Memory allocation. I don't really know how it works. The last thing we need is to replace something vital with it, like breathing ]

Nodding to myself, I patted the dust from the vest and began putting it on. My fingers felt slightly stiff, and securing the laces and buckles felt strange.

K: [ Anything else? ]

My gaze landed on the chest pocket, and I remembered what I had there. The map.

L: [ I need your full glyph-encoded imprint on the "System Status", with annotations ]

I opened the pocket and found it still there, together with a coin and the gravel from the slope.

A small miracle in an overall shitty situation.

K: [ Give me a minute ]

Finishing the straps and buckles on the vest, I pulled my pants closer, and the other claw knife clanged against the stone floor, falling out.

It looked strange, slightly reflecting the core's light on its white bone blade in the wrong way.

I recalled the effect it had when I used it last, how it made the upper part of the cat disappear, severing it in half.

Carefully picking it up, I once more looked it over, but nothing gave away its changed state. No crystal-like tip, or a side of the blade, or anything else really. Except for the way the light refracted around it, making its shadows wrong.

K: [ The second claw knife. What do you think it does? ]

Setting it on the floor, I picked up the pants and began to pull them on. For some reason, they felt tight, and I began to undo the laces on the sides.

L: [ With 97% probability, it is controllable access to subspace ]

I thought as much.

K: [ We need to prioritise collecting information on so-called Craft. It might be our way off the planet ]

L: [ Agreed ]

And when I had almost finished with the laces, I remembered that I had no hole for my tail. Picking up the claw knife, I pulled my pants down to my knees again and tried to guess a place to make a hole for my tail, while awkwardly sitting with my weight on one side.

Here.

K: [ I plan to visit the flesh-eating tree when we finish with "audio proxy" ]

L: [ Objectives? ]

It took some twisting and wiggling before the tail fit into the hole, and I was able to begin fastening my laces on the side.

K: [ Maybe it didn't eat everything ]

Something had happened to the pants. They were barely fitting me anymore.

L: [ Worth checking. Don't forget, you need to calibrate your power output, too ]

With a sigh, I tried to find a comfortable position for what I expected would take quite some time.

K: [ I thought as much ]

Finally somewhat comfortable, with the needler on one side and the claw knife on the other, I closed my eyes, preparing.

K: [ Ready. Let's do it ]

Request: [ System Status ]

—

L: [ That would be it for now ]

Exhausted from all the mental work, I breathed out in relief.

K: [ Eta? ]

And yet, I was still curious how long it would take Lola to prepare "audio proxy" or whatever the name was.

L: [ Two hours and thirty-one minutes to finish the neural model ]

K: [ Have fun. I am going to see the tree now ]

L: [ Roger ]

Collecting cores, hiding them in the vest's pocket, I began preparing to leave the burrow.

The pocket wasn't a secure place either, but I wasn't planning to leave them, nor anything else here.

Picking up the needler in one hand and the claw knife in the other, I looked around. Except for the dead fish's body, there was nothing else left.

That tree really robbed me blind.

Trying to tuck the necklace into my cheek, I began to crawl towards the exit.

The light from the gap above the entrance stone was still bright, and I found myself asking how long this day would stretch.

Activating invisibility, I pushed the stone out and crawled out into the space between two boulders.

Squinting my eyes, I looked around the place, which somehow looked different, especially in the yellowish hue of the early evening.

It took me a few moments to realise why. I was standing at a different height.

It was confusing.

Shaking my head, I walked out of the gap between the boulders and looked at the tree.

It was as huge as ever, partially hiding the sky behind itself and making me question my sanity.

Still, if there was even the slightest chance to find anything, I had to check.

Glancing at the glitchy invisibility around my right hand with the needler, I began walking down the hill, towards the blasted tree.

The sharp stones under my feet soon began to irritate me, reminding me of the shoes I had lost.

And then I felt the itch. It began from the spot at my tail, where my weirdly not-fitting pants had a hole, but soon it spread all over my covered skin.

The vest felt restrictive, the pants did not fit, and stones kept poking at my soles.

The tail, clearly showing my mood, began to flick against my left or right leg, slightly curling around it each time.

It irritated me too.

To get my mind off my body discomfort, I focused on the air, on the calming touch it had and the tales it brought to me from across the hill and the forest before me.

Or so I told myself.

Somehow, I knew that there was a massive beast sitting on the hill, about fifty metres to my right. The air from that direction had a sharp edge to it, changing density in rhythm.

I saw nothing, nor did I hear a peep or smell anything. But I knew it was there, slowly breathing.

It kept me on my toes. This time literally. Without even realising it, I adopted the me-cat toe-walk, balancing with my tail.

Reaching under the canopy, I sighed with relief when my feet touched grass. It was nice, even calming.

Passing by the pond, where just today I had been hiding from the bear, I resisted the urge to dive in. It was neither the time nor the place.

Circling around the place where the snake died, I kept an eye out for any movement and listened to the air, but there was nobody.

Only the ground was glaring at me with the scars from the fight that had happened here.

On the contrary, the tree trunk had no more scratches on the bark I had left myself, nor the ones the snake had made.

It had healed itself already.

Looking up the trunk, I silently mapped my way up. I still had to get used to the new output my core was giving. And the way it was affecting my inertia manipulation, making it stronger, too.

K: [ How much stronger did my core get? Any ideas? ]

L: [ I don't have a clear reference point to answer that. But if I compare your pathways to the scans we had made in the cave, it would be 8.9 times higher. Approximately ]

L: [ We need to run tests on your core, but if I extrapolate data I already have, it should be stronger by an order of magnitude as well ]

I didn't feel like testing or calibrating anything, but who was asking me what I wanted?

Sighing, I looked at my hands, realising that I had to free at least one to be able to grab onto bark or twigs.

Pocketing the claw knife, I switched hands, freeing my right one.

No time like the present.

Glancing around, more out of habit than out of need, I bent my knees, dipping slightly, and pushed hard against the ground, adding the moose's powers slightly at the end.

It was way too much.

I soared up, along the trunk, with wind whistling in my ears, and on reflex, I leaned into it, slipping between the cavities in the air created by the tree.

And somehow, that was enough to reach the first branch stump, one I had created earlier today, fighting the snake.

Caught in the experience, I barely touched it and picked up the speed again. And then again and again, each time trying to add as little energy as possible into my moose's powers, and yet it was still too much.

In no time, I found myself on the branch where I had hidden the bag and my clothes the day before.

The alcove made out of the twigs and leaves was open again, and at first glance, it was empty. As if I had never put anything within it.

Carefully measuring my steps, I got closer, trying to glance through dense foliage.

It was not for nothing.

Even if the bag itself was gone, somehow, the bag's strap stayed behind, half-merged with the twigs. And in the loop attached to the strap was hanging my ice-tipped claw knife.

Not rushing it, I carefully glanced around for more, looking for anything, really. And I was rewarded.

A barely visible vine swirled through the alcove foliage, with an almost invisible flower bud.

Testing the air, I felt nothing, and only a yawn tried to escape my tightly closed lips.

Fuckin' bitch.

Covering my nose with my elbow, I tried to hold my breath, remembering now how I wanted to take a nap in this alcove.

That surely would have been my last.

Seeing nothing else, I slowly straightened up and reached with my free hand for my ice-tipped claw knife. It slipped out of the loop, slightly jarring twigs, and I didn't wait. I jumped off the branch.

Falling down, twisting between the branches and the twigs, I looked at them, searching for something, even if I didn't know what.

Just something.

And then I saw it, a subtle flow in the twigs and leaves, a pattern, as if the tree was breathing.

Getting closer to the ground, I looked down, trying to absorb the force of my fall as slowly as I could.

I still jerked here and there, but when the ground hit my feet, I almost got it. I almost caught that minuscule level of the power I had to use to safely absorb my fall.

Once again, the question of why I was able to use it properly when I first awakened them came to my mind, and once again, I had no answer.

Except for the obvious one, the core evolution was not straightforward, and going through it was dangerous.

But that was all less important than the food. I was getting hungry again.

Taking both the needler and the ice-tipped knife in my off-hand, I reached for the fractured core I had been munching on and put it into my mouth.

The energy flooded through me, almost making me moan with relief.

K: [ I found the ice-tipped one ]

L: [ How is power calibration? ]

K: [ Work in progress. But I need to eat something. And soon ]

L: [ Keep me posted ]

K: [ Of course. RW-7 out ]