#my_work

The felinoid creature continues his song as he travels the snow-blanketed world he has discovered, the soft white of his surroundings lending it’s beauty to his craft. He is only stopped by a large, steep incline which blocks his path.

“Typical.” He growls, his twin, white-tipped black tails lashing about behind him in annoyance. “I get into a whimsical mew-d, and the planet decides to ruin it.” With a movement, the black tabby swings his guitar around to his back, his other hand raised to the air. With a snap, a small ball of light appears above his hand, swelling into the shape of his matter manipulator, which solidifies, then drops into his awaiting paw.

He takes aim and blasts away the snow before him, only to find more snow. His ears flick in annoyance, pulling the trigger harder as he walks forward, blasting more of a hole through layer and layer of snow. Sighing, he shakes his head. “I’d bet my tails this was from an avalanche.”

Because of the time this embankment was taking, the Kineptic began to whistle. It took him a moment to find the pitch and tune, but he picked up where his guitar left off, letting his notes stick into the snow. The sound was muffled, but it was there.

Measuring his distance, he closes his eyes, letting his music take him. In his mind, he focused on his own little world, a mental space created for him to find his muse and relax. His own little mindscape, his personal Wonderland where he was Alice. Here, he designed and crafted, tested his theories and writes his music.

He took his time to walk through the warm forests of his homeworld, enjoying the feeling of the sun on his tuxedo fur, the breeze rushing through his billowy, revealing clothes. With a snap, he materializes his guitar before him, spinning about and catching it before it falls too far. Claws for picks, he starts to play, in time with his whistling.

His concentration is suddenly broken as he trips. With a yeowl, the mostly-black feline falls flat on his face, matter manipulator clattering against stone and sliding noisily into the small cave. “Nyne hells, what…” As he sits up, he rubs his nose, looking about.

The cave is dark, but the snow-reflected light from outside allowed his eyes to see deeper than any other. There aren’t any signs of usual cave formations, and the surfaces were all smooth. It was as if the cave was carved out by a matter manipulator.

“Nyao… where did my Manipulator get to…”

It takes him a moment, but his eyes lock onto the gentle glow of the manipulator’s emitters. The glow was, to his eyes, enough to illuminate a shape further down in the cave. A large, rounded yet square dome, which seemed to have another odd lump next to it.

“What the…” He whispers breathlessly, ears now perked and on guard. If it was a creature, it would have heard his outcry and surely have come to investigate, but the lack of movement or response proved it was inanimate. The Kineptic dusts himself off as he gets up, then raises his hand in front of him.

A sharp snap echoes through the cave, and a small fireball is launched from his fingers, which shoots down the cave. It stops several feet away, hanging and hovering in the air, bright enough to illuminate the back end of the cave.

It was a tent and a firepit.

Wits about him, he cautiously approaches, retrieving his trusted tool from the ground as he passes over it. A quick snap de-materializes it, turning it into a ball of light which just fades into nothingness. The flap is sealed shut, the zipper and canvas all covered in thick sheets of ice. The campfire is long dead, with no warm ash or charcoal.

“Nya… whoever left this behind must have left years ago.” He mutters to himself, stepping away from the tent. He raises his other hand, giving a sharp snap as he swings it down and across the air, as if to slice the air. The projectile fired is fast, faster than any eye could register. A chunk of ice explodes off of it’s sheet, but a good bit remains.

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

Once the tent’s door was cleared, he stepped a little closer. With careful claw and baited breath, the feline-man pulled the zipper, opening the tent just enough to peer inside without crouching too low.

Inside lay a sleeping bag, which was iced over but empty. Moving his vision upward, a simple oil-burning lantern hung from the crossbars of the tent, it’s lifegiving warmth long snuffed out. When his gaze returned lower, he stumbled backward, falling on his ass with a gentle cry of surprise.

There was someone still in there!

Frantically he rose, mindful of the icy floor as he rushed forward to open up the tent.

Encased in a thick layer of ice, was a humanoid body. Lighting the lamp lit up the tent better, revealing a Glitch in plain clothing. It’s optics were off, it’s face illumination dark. One of its legs was broken at the hip, laying on the floor, but still attached via a few pieces of colorful, brittle cable. The hand on that side was mangled and dented, a finger broken off, yet still attached, the back of the hand bent in and cracked. Clutched tightly against its chest was a matter manipulator, similar to the one the Kineptic carried.

Its emitters were damaged badly, the crystals cracked and broken, but surprisingly, still had a very faint glow to them. The bottom of it’s metal casing was badly dented and cracked, it’s paint chipped away and showing some signs of rusting. No doubt the thing wouldn’t work without repair.

“How long have you been here, friend?” The feline alien mutters. Making sure everything was there, the Kineptic male wraps his tails around the Glitch-sicle and starts dragging him out of the cave. “Don’t worry… I’ll get you free. I hope I’m not too late…”

Aboard the Kineptic ship, the feline moves about the planet, looking for any signs of a ship in orbit. Behind him, in the teleporter room of the ship, the broken glitch sits on the warmest thing in the ship, the teleporter pad.

“You know, I don’t think it was a good idea to bring a corpse aboard.” The S.A.I.L. remarks.

“This is the third time you’ve said that, S.A.I.L.. I heard you the first time.”

“Gatha, please listen for once…”

“I will turn you off and navigate on my own.” Comes the growl from the cockpit. “Just alert me when the Glitch is thawed, or if another ship comes within scanner range.” There’s a soft beep of compliance, and the computer screen goes dark.

Searching the orbit of this planet for a derelict vessel, time drags on for hours, into what feels like days. Staring into the black void before him, the feline enters various coordinates to check, letting the ship do most of the navigating on its own.

Gatha stretches and yawns, tongue curled and teeth on prominent display, as cats normally do. He throws a leg over the armrest of his chair, shifting his position to squish his back into the corner of the chair. Outstretching an arm to the command console, he types in a few sets of coordinates, then rests back, relaxing as he watches the stars whiz by, his large, emerald-dotted orbs flitting lazily about as he watches out the windshield.

It isn’t long before S.A.I.L. interrupts the Kineptics’ lazy moment. “Gatha, your passenger has thawed.”

There’s a heavy thump as the feline is scared from his chair onto the floor. “Damn it, S.A.I.L.! I hate it when you do that!” Dusting himself off as he gets up, Gatha looks at the door. “Thank you, though.”

Ignoring whatever the ships AI has to say, the felinoid walks through his ship, stopping at the door to the teleporter room. He gives a feeble attempt at slicking his ears back, only to have them pop back up, and then he takes one more step forward to trigger the motion activated door. It springs open with the sound of hissing pistons, one half of the door sliding to the left, the other swinging upward into the ceiling. There’s an amused smirk on Gatha’s face, still impressed at his own engineering.

There, propped up against the wall and seated on the slightly warm teleporter pad, sits the thawed Glitch remains. Gatha uses his Manipulator to dry it up, then hauls it into the main section of the ship, and onto an awaiting table.

It takes him some time, but Gatha manages to pull the whole machine together, repairing and replenishing what needs to be repaired. Unknown, ancient technology mixed and meshed with Kineptic esoteric ingenuity, a blending of new and old pull together this old Glitch.

“I wonder if he still works…”

There is a sudden, startled beep from within the ship. As his energy replenished to his auto-on threshold, Kernel returns to operation. His optics look around the alien room, scanning everything. Last his memory could recall, he was freezing to death in an artificial cave, after being caved in and unable to return to his ship. His eyes land on his hand, which was mangled and dented from attempting to unfreeze his leg. The gunmetal of his arm was now a stark contrast to the new, bronze-colored parts of the new parts on his hand. Running his fingers over the new metal, he is unable to determine it’s makeup, despite it being a near-perfect replica of the parts that were damaged.

His system diagnostics bring his vision past his hand, to his leg.  It had clearly been removed, as it was the same bronze coloration from the hip-joint down.