Xlaits Writes

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.

He releases a soft sigh, turning away from the skyline to look at the matte black plastic of the case layed off to the side. His eyes then scan the barren room, every paintless wall, every stripped-bare support beam, taking in every detail of the vacant space.

His attention returns to the case, his tail lashing about behind him as he kneels down and unlocks the case, opening it slowly. From within, he produces a coal-black rifle barrel, which is covered in a matte finish. Etching and enamel line it, the barrel’s exit having a dark grey rose insignia emblazoned all around, the majority of the barrel taken up by a mossy-green nest of thorn-covered vines, which abruptly end at the barrels threading. The tiger’s other hand produces a silencer, which is only emblazoned with a much larger rose, the grey and the black now swapped. This gets screwed onto the barrel, before he reaches down and picks up the body of the rifle. It’s large, easily taking up most of the case. It too bears a matte black finish from end to end, with more of those crazy, unruly vines emblazoned upon it in their own channels of engraving and moss-green enamel. As he attaches the barrel to its body, the vines on both the barrel and the body line up, and as he squeezes his pads tighter against the metal, he twists and locks the gun together, the vines match up perfectly to form long, continuous crossing and meshing of stems and thorns. Despite the well emblazoned weaponry, the stock of the large-caliber weapon is rather plain by comparison. Even the small bipod is nothing to gawk at.

Despite the large weapon, he does not attach a scope, instead choosing to use only the iron sights. Laying prone, the feline sets up the stylized rifle, wiggling a bit to get comfortable against the concrete, cheek slowly coming down to rest on the weapon. He releases another sigh, relaxing himself as his chilly blue eye closes, leaving that crimson orb to line up his monochrome vision with his sights, lining them up with a building several blocks away, a mere dot in the distance to him.

He takes his time, lining up the shot nice and slow. Meticulous and precise, with unerring, robotic movements. Internally, his vision zooms in, the blacks and whites and greys changing into a chromatic explosion as the feline night vision gives way to mechanical thermal vision.

With this change, he can see the movements of the various beings past the concrete and rebar. His tail moves to click in the large magazine in place, then up to pull the bolt back, letting it spring by itself back into place, loading the bullet into the chamber.

Little by little, a clawed finger puts pressure on the trigger, pulling it slowly toward himself. Everything relaxed but his hands, his arms, his wrists, keeping his mark lined up. Every movement his target makes, the predator adjusts the tiniest bit, micro-movements no normal eye would notice, adjusting for wind, for distance, for drop, for movement. His mechanized arms stable and sturdy, not allowing the weapon to sway. Even his simulated breathing has stopped, keeping his body unnaturally still. Unblinking, unbreathing, he zeroes in as the trigger is pulled further and further until…

The sound in the room is deafening, despite the silencer. Glass shatters from the window, the massive, aerodynamic slug flying straight and true.

His ears lean forward, turned to be aimed at his target. In the distance, there’s the sound of concrete shattering.

She was very canine like, almost as tall as the car itself. Her fur was soft and silken, a pure white where it wasn't stained purple from her wound. Her face was smooth, with a much shorter fur, having almost a skull-like look to it. Where there would be eye sockets, there was only smooth skin, the majority of the creature's face featureless. Where a nose would be, was a little set of cut, almost reptile-like nostrils. Her mouth seemed to be always parted slightly, her ragged breath causing steam, even in the normally warm night. Aqua colored, jagged teeth jutted out from all angles from her jaws, seeming to not wish to stay in her mouth. Every morning before work, he'd start his routine. Remove the old bandages, treat her wound, and patch her back up. Then he'd scrounge in the fridge for something she'd actually eat. Lucky for him, in her state, she'd eat near anything he offered. He'd grab a light breakfast or, in some cases, an energy bar and head out for his job. In the evening, when he arrived, he'd do the same for her, checking, to the best of his office worker ability, to make sure the monster wasn't getting an infection, or there wasn't anything stuck in there, then patch her back up with a little antibiotic, hydrogen peroxide, and a little gauze and some cloth wrap. She was nice enough to stand, despite the whine she made when she did so, so he could get it around her body. And thus was the routine for many months. After some time, the beast became accustomed to this new routine, and began to map out the house when she regained some strength. There were times when he'd come home, and she'd be sitting behind the door, waiting for him. Over time, her wound healed, she refused to leave. Even after he brought her back to where she was found, she found her way back in the dead of night. They had formed a bond, him and her. Not a friendship. Not partners. A bond stronger than love. But that is where their story ends, and mine begins. I was born of their union.

All of the labs in the building were relatively quiet. Soft chatter of the employees, the clicking of various machinery and robotics… it made the air seem still. Even in the lower labs, even the basement labs, everywhere was unusually still. Deep within the facility, a large blast door separates a single chamber from the rest of the rooms. It was usually avoided by the various workers, with only the repair drones occasionally disappearing inside.

Inside was a room covered in frost and ice, and a large obelisk of metal. The walls were unnaturally smooth, black metal, only given texture by the layers of frozen coolant that adhered to them. The spire in the center of the room seemed to be made of the same material, it’s pointed, angular appearance making up the entirety of the rooms focus. Occasionally, red lines pulse along the surface of the metal structure, following unseen, hexagonal patterns along its surface. The whole room feels inhospitable, ominous… and because of the temperature of the room, at least the former was true.

This is the brain, the central hub of the entire facility’s network. Their computer system, their security, their drones, all are tied to this supercomputer wrapped in an arcane feel.

There is a loud rumble, a thunderous cacophony of sound and chaos as some of the more volatile machinery above detonates. Fire engulfs the rooms, but the suppression system does not turn on. None of the drones come to aid in quelling the flames. The lights, however, dim and the emergency lighting is engaged, bathing the entire facility in an uncomfortable, red light.

An engineer near the central hub is tasked with entering the uninhabitable room. The nervous system of the whole building was not working properly, and they need to know why. Hastily donning cold-weather gear, he multitasks, jamming his elbow against the keypad in a rushed attempt to gain access to the chamber. It takes a few tries, but he eventually gets his access code correct. However, the massive sliding door, which was both electrically and mechanically operated, refused to budge. Cursing his luck, he looks around frantically for a moment, then nods with resolve.

It takes a try or two, but the heavily kitted out male leaps up and grips the ledge of one of the spider-droid access hatches, pulling himself inside the spring-loaded door. Crawling through the vent, it gets colder, quickly, and despite his jacket and pants being made for this, he still finds himself shivering.

“I don’t get paid enough for this.” He thinks to himself as he pushes on the maintenance door at the other side, which doesn’t budge. “Great. Iced over.” Using his small stature to his benefit, he spins around inside the vent, a heavy boot being brought down onto the hatch. Thunk. Sharp ears can hear the sounds of tinkling ice on the other side, proving his theory correct, and gleaning a positive outcome of his first strike. Another after another, he strikes the vent hatch with the heel of his boot, until it finally swings open forcefully, before swinging back and forth on its hinge.

Finally though, he shimmies through the door backwards, landing on his feet. Shattered ice lies on the floor around him. His breath visible, he makes his way to the obelisk of a computer, looking around cautiously for any signs of damage.

The icy floor causes him to slip when he gets close, a gloved hand slamming against the computer’s side to keep him from falling on his face. Panting from adrenaline, he shakes his head, standing up. “Gotta be more careful.” He mutters to himself, before looking at the surface he was still leaning against.

Anywhere there was significant contact with his hand or finger there was a lit up hexagon. A screen beneath the surface had lit up just above that, showing garbage text entered into the prompt, and had been submitted.

“Shit.” Frantically, he began typing commands, looking at diagnostic logs and checking all output for any traces of the problem. However, the computer had other plans.

All at once, the screen cleared. Everything was replaced by large, blinking letters.

INTRUSION DETECTED

A loud hiss filled the room as the top-most half of the spire split along its edges, releasing a cloud as the intensely hot air inside of the computer was exposed to the frigid air surrounding its casing. The four “walls” of the case slowly came down, remaining upright on two arms each, almost as if they were being carefully set aside.

The core seemed to be a fairly large, robotic skeleton, which was violently ejected from within a small electric or magnetic looking field that was holding it in place, landing with a heavy, metallic thud on the ground.

The engineer’s first reaction was to step towards this new, robotic entity, believing it to be damaged. His movement was halted as it stood up slowly, body twitching slightly, the new dent in its “ribcage” slowly being pushed outward and repairing itself. It’s mostly featureless face looks up at the engineer, red and blue, mismatched, goggle-like optics staring straight at him.

It speaks a single word, its voice purely fabricated, clearly electronic in nature. Every syllable was synthetic, holding no inflection, no emotion.

“Identification.”

He fumbled through the thick, tightly zippered jacket for his lanyard.

“Identification.” It stands up straighter, a thick, grey goop beginning to ooze from out of its largest bits of casing. The engineer, unfamiliar with this new entity, or how it functions, continues to fumble, mumbling to himself in a frantic panic. He finally retrieves the card and holds it up.

Its eyes lock onto the card quickly, the goo still pouring out onto the ground, pooling around it’s feet. “Identity: Confirmed. Clearance level: Engineer Level 2.” Its puddle begins to take shape, forming synthetic musculature over the metal skeleton of its original frame. What was an 8 foot tall, mechanical skeleton has now become an equally, if not slightly taller, featureless, androgynous humanoid before long. “Clearance Level is has been administrator modified recently to 4, with a note: Temporary Clearance for entry to Brain.” It steps forward, the grey figure slowly defining its shape as it moves.

A once slender build gains muscle definition. A featureless face begins to lengthen into a short, feline muzzle. Shoulders widen, and fur grows in. Everything is grey, a metallic, almost gunmetal grey. In the light of the room, it reflects softly, but quickly loses its luster as the now male-looking construct fills in the coloration. Snow white fur, with charcoal stripes breaking up it’s monotony; short, but still there. It looked soft, and seemed to frost over. His eyes change from goggles to round, glassy orbs, their irises matching their original colors, an almost 3D-glasses-looking set of eyes with the right retaining a crimson red, the left taking on a chilling blue.

He grins, his voice taking on a now mostly organic feel, but in some way still seems electronic. It’s not something noticeable right away. “So you are not my handler.” It’s low, almost a growl, almost sadistically playful in nature, but his words are clear, understandable. “You know not what I am capable of, you know nothing of who I am, or what I do. You are… unfamiliar with my systems.” His grin only gets wider, displaying sharp pearly white teeth, inset in gunmetal flesh. Digitigrade legs carry him slowly forward, bringing him closer to the frightened male.

The engineer draws a small pistol from a holster within the oversized jacket, and without hesitation fires several rounds into the machine’s chest, emptying all the 9mm slugs from within the magazine. The robots eyes dim, and it stands motionless, jaw slack, statue still for a moment before coming back to life, shaking off the cold a bit before grinning again. “Not only an intruder, but an aggressive one. Self defense engaged.”

He blinked, never to open his eyes again…

Wiping the blood from his silvery claws onto the frosty wall, he sighs, breath invisible, indifferent to the air, looking around the chilled room. “What I wouldn’t give to be outdoors again.” He leans on a massive, clawed hand, pressed against the frigid wall for a moment, closing his eyes. In his head, he looks through the building using the network of security cameras installed in various places. A smirk grows on his face as he sees the panic and mayhem his little “hiccup” has caused.

With a nod, he resolves, standing upright. Like tearing tissue paper, he rends the metal of the blast doors wide open, giving him a nice exit point to his frosty tomb. Instantly, the one alarm he doesn’t control sounds, only adding to the chaos above. Large caliber, automated weaponry unfolds from the ceiling, aiming at his center of mass. Each gun immediately opens fire once in place, all slugs whistling their way to their target.

Reacting at a speed only a computer could, he tears a chunk off the thick metal door, using it as a large tower shield. Without a valid target, the guns continue to fire into the shield, the heavy slugs tearing large holes and chunks out of the thick metal. Unimpeded by the weight of the improvised cover, he advances down the choked hallway, the only exit from his chambers and a heavily armed killing plane. This was built to keep him in, and keep unauthorized others out. However, they had never tested it against him.

It’s failing.

Horribly.

As he advances, he lifts up the scrap to scrape the guns off the ceiling, moving it to carve them out of the walls, and remove them from the floor. His tail, ever working, wraps around the barrels, pulling them in nice and close as they are converted into a silvery goo, which is added to his mass. He chooses not to add any bulk to his already bulky frame, instead adding it as true mass, making himself heavier, but not making his paws any less quiet against the metal floor.

And so it continues, on and on. He forces his way past turrets and soldiers, scientists and engineer alike, reducing them to nothing but aftermath. He doesn’t stop the bloodshed when he reaches the ground floor, no. He continues upward, making sure there wasn’t a single living person in the building he hadn’t completely fucked up, mangled, brutalized… killed. After all, that was his original purpose. And unstoppable soldier, a covert but fierce weapon.

After what they did to him…

He finally enacted his revenge…