Neko Fugitive 1[unedited]

Neko Fugitive

Chapter 1: Bleak Futures

"Ugh, don't aliens wear anything comfortable?" a woman asked the cat-like creature standing on a table next to her. They were in a clothes shop on a planet they had just landed on.
She had long black hair that was messy from being away from human facilities for several days, she appeared to be the age of a college student. She wasn't exactly the best looking person, especially in the situation she had caught herself in, with pale skin from lack of sun exposure, dull grey eyes that always seemed to be glazed over in deep thought or lack of caring. She was a little short and very skinny, as a lot of poor college students are. She was wearing what looked like a white and blue school uniform straight out of Japan, but it had a shiny texture. "And why can't I just wear what I had on?" she asked the cat accusingly, this wasn't the first time she suspected him of trying to make sexual suggestions toward her.
"I told you, you would stand out in a crowd." the cat spoke frankly, he was colored light orange, except for a series of slightly darker orange markings covering his left side. He looked much like an ordinary house cat except for the markings and the fact that he had two tails. His face seemed uncaring and concentrated, with yellow slit eyes that made him look like he was constantly squinting.
"Oh yeah? Well how's this going to help?" she asked impatiently "I haven't seen anything besides me that walks on two legs since we left Earth."
"Well..." he seemed to be having trouble finding the words "It's kind of..." he glanced away from her "You see, those aren't normal clothes..."
"Let me guess, they turn me into a cat?" she asked flatly.
"No..." the cat responded "There's a reason that that's the only thing they sell that fits sentients... It's a slave uniform..."
"You better be kidding, or take this thing off of me right now." she whispered angrily.
"It doesn't mean anything! It's just a disguise! And you only have to wear it in public, otherwise you can wear what you want!" he braced himself, fully expecting her to smack him across the room.
"Fine!" she gave in "But I am NOT your pet!" she added angrily. When they first met, she had asked the cat if he was supposed to pose as her pet, he told her that since there were few sentient species in the universe, it would be more likely for HER to be HIS pet!
"I know!" the cat said, hopping down from the stand "I never intended that, I just needed a hostage to help me get off of your planet. I never wanted you to come all this way, but as I said, I can't return intelligent life-forms to planets who don't know about the rest of the universe yet." he started walking toward the door and added under his breath "If you weren't so stubborn..."
"What was that now?" she said, starting to follow him.
"Oh, nothing." they walked out of the secluded dressing room, the whole building seemed to be loaded with animals, they all spoke a common language like the cat, conversating with eachother. The building itself had a high ceiling that seemed to be patched together with all kinds of odd materials, stores, shops, and stands everywhere being managed by the various animal-type beings of all shapes and sizes. Through the windows and few glass doors, you could barely make out a large clear dome protecting the people inside from the atmosphere-less vacuum of space. It reminded the girl of malls back on Earth in the way of the shops, but it still seemed very strange being in a public area in the middle of space. "Hang on Meryll." the cat said as he stopped and started talking to a large grey wolf sitting behind the counter.
'This is so weird' Meryll thought 'Being led around the universe by a bunch of kittens, I always thought aliens would at least be sentient like humans. And to think, just a few days ago I was at home, bored with college...' she watched as the cat exchanged whatever unfamiliar currency the rest of the universe used, she didn't care to ask.
"C'mon," he motioned to her to walk out of the store with her "Let's get back to the ship. Even in disguise you're going to get attention, which means I get attention, and I don't need the authorities to figure out where I am."
"Huh, maybe I should just hand you in then, less trouble for me," Meryll said "what's stopping me from telling them 'Getch kidnapped me from my planet and has been carting me around the galaxy with the other cats he's kidnapped'." she could tell she was getting strange looks from all the animals around her, she thought that she really shouldn't have said that. She was hoping that Getch was right and no-one cared about sentients.
"Less trouble for you? They can't send you home, what do you think they'll do?" Getch asked calmly "Stop talking so freely about it, both our lives are in danger here."
There was a short pause, stopping in the middle of the exit "They'll kill me, won't they?" she asked expectantly as they looked over at the port, essentially a parking lot for spaceships. They stood in front of Getch's ship, it was a large misshappen object that could easily be mistaken as a ballistic missile if you saw it on Earth. It was a bland silver color except where there was rust, burn marks, holes from weapons, and anything else that could happen to a spaceship, this one had been through everything.
"No." he bumped up against a button on his ship and they both walked inside "But you would need that uniform for more than just a disguise... C'mon, I think I sense a new Neko awakening..."

Chapter 2: Remembering Origins

Meryll was walking down the sidewalk, back from classes. It was the middle of winter, she shivered even in the warm coat she had on, and was wondering where to go. She was officially out of money, like most college students, and she lived alone in a student apartment, so she was very bored most of the time. She was barely pulling through with a scholarship she got for her advanced writing abilities, she didn't even have a job to live off of. She was lucky enough to have a family-owned restaraunt nearby, her parents wouldn't charge her to eat in her financial situation. So other than having nothing to do most of the time, she was going through life well, 2 years into college with a journalism major. She didn't care much about that though. Her writing was just that, stories, she felt like there was nothing interesting left to do in her life, everything was the same every day. Within a few days, Meryll would regret ever thinking this way. She sat in her apartment now, simply writing on her laptop, nothing specifically, just whatever she felt like. She looked up in thought, staring out her window at the night sky, she saw a shooting star. She smiled "Hmm...". She continued to watch it, it was strange, it wasn't simply a flash across the sky like the usual shooting stars, this one seemed to be moving slowly... and getting larger! It looked like it was going to land in the city! She continued to watch, whatever it was, it flew right by her building! A few seconds later, there was a loud crash somewhere in the forest. She lived right on the border of the city and the forest was a protected ecosystem by the government, so the city never expanded that far. "What the h***!?" she yelled, protecting her face with her arms as a huge rush of wind hit her from the sonic blast going by. The window shattered and shards of glass hit her, a few slicing shallow cuts into her skin. The rush stopped and she simply stared in awe out the busted window "Please... please tell me I wasn't the only one who saw that!" she said with a panicky voice.
-----
Regardless of how strange this experience was, she had decided to ignore it as a dream, except the next morning, she woke up to the same destroyed window with shards of glass all over the floor and cuts showing on her skin. She stared at this scene for a minute, trying to gather exactly what happened the last night. She didn't have classes today, so she put her coat on and decided to take an investigative look into the woods... She wandered around aimlessly for awhile, she couldn't see out to the other side of the building, so she had no idea where whatever flew past landed, but she was determined to find it. She stepped out from behind a tree and immediately stepped back, peeking out again. There was a large misshappen pile of silver metal around the clearing, seeing some smaller things moving around the object quickly, though she couldn't make them out, being so far away. "Holy-" she was interrupted by something hitting against the back of her head. She fell down, unconcious...
Meryll woke up with blurred vision, she tried to move, but felt like every part of her body was bound down so tightly she couldn't move an inch. She glanced around as much as she could without the ability to move her head, she saw the big heap of metal still in the woods, there were other little blurs running around the ship, looking busy. The area was nearly destroyed from this large pile crashing right through the forest, leaving a large scar in the ground. The metal thing itself was in pretty bad shape, various parts of it smoking and even other parts actually on fire.
"Stupid lousy ship, can't exchange it without some major creds, I'd be dead without those kids to fix it." a voice complained near her. "And now some sentient comes around, as if I'm not in enough trouble. Guess I really can't get more from them than I do now." Meryll tried to speak something, but even that was beyond her ability, which was strange considering there was nothing over her mouth "And now it's awake, cheap collar can't keep them senseless." there was a sigh "Alright, I'm going to allow you to control your head, hold still..." the voice paused "never mind."
There was a series of shifting movement from in front of her to behind her head, then some clicks. She heard an electronic whistling sound, and her head shot back against a tree from the force of this sudden release, she had a splitting headache from both the release and from smashing her head into the hard tree trunk. As if it weren't bad enough, she still couldn't move the rest of her body. Opening her eyes, she could now see around more clearly and rotate her head around again. It felt like there was something around her neck, glancing down as far as she could, she could see something flashing there, though it was impossible to make out as it seemed to be wrapped completely around her neck.
She looked back up at the metal thing and saw several cat heads looking up at her in front of it "Wow, what is it?" one spoke.
"Ah!" Meryll shouted in a panic "How-!?"
"Thought so." a voice by her side said. A slightly larger cat, this one with two tails and markings on it's side, jumped out from behind her "Kids, this is a sentient, they're rare and most of them live on primitive planets like this one, where their technology is hardly adequate, and they don't know about anything living beyond their world, isn't that right?" the cat turned toward her "They've even predicted this planet to kill themselves off with nuclear warfare."
Meryll simply nodded in shock to the first question "I... I-"
"Maybe you three should finish fixing the ship, I need to talk to the primitive" the other cats nodded cheerfully and started running back around the ship. The cat that stayed nearby sighed "they're still kids, they don't understand" the cat next to her said "listen, you're going to wake up soon, this is just a dream, you'll be fine" the cat reassured her.
Meryll simply stared for awhile, still in shock of the situation. Then she said "No way! That didn't work last time! There's no way this isn't real! What's going on here!?" she had gathered herself again and was now VERY curious about this "Why can you talk!?"
"I can't tell you anything, you really won't want to know." it said "Now please, just go back to sleep or something."
"NO! I want to know what's going on! Why can't I move!?" she asked stubbornly.
"Please, you have no idea what you're part of already, I don't want anyone else to end up like me." he said irritably "I'm going to put you back under, please don't resist, you'll be fine in a day or so, and you can go back to whatever kind of existance you had befo-"
"Just tell me! I'm not going to do anything, I just want to know!" she argued.
"YOU WILL REGRET IT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE IF I TELL YOU!" the cat yelled, it angrily jumped up and hit something on the back of her neck as if he was violently attacking her. She felt paralyzed once again, her vision once again blurred and the scene at the clearing disappeared, the force of being pushed back into paralysis knocking her out yet again.
-----
She didn't know how long she was unconcious, but she was suddenly woken up again, she was lying down on her back this time, aparently knocked down in some kind of commotion in the area. She could barely make out trees in the background "Scream for help and you won't be hurt..." the cat voice whispered.
She couldn't tell what was going on, but it was dark out "What? Don't you mean-"
She felt a sharp object touch against her neck "You heard me, do it!" it whispered violently.
"HELP!" she yelled a few times more, hoping whatever was being held at her neck didn't 'slip'. Though paralyzed, she could feel herself being dragged away, she wondered how a cat was able to drag her along. Her vision returned once again and she saw a group of people in various blue-shaded full body suits, masks and all. They all looked exactly the same, and were holding guns at Meryll and the cat behind her. Just as soon as she saw them, she was pulled through a doorway that quickly closed behind them The cat put her down and ripped something off of her neck, accidentally scratching her there a little, she immediately held her hand up to her neck to feel the cut, finding that she could move again. The cat then rushed to the front of what was now a repaired spaceship and hit several buttons as it started to lift off. Meryll fell back against the back wall of the ship from the momentum of the quick liftoff, knocking the wind out of her on impact. As they left the atmosphere, artificial gravity set in and the momentum stopped throwing her back. After a half minute of struggling to catch her breath, the cat jumped down from the seat at the front of the cockpit "You wanted to know what's going on? Congratulations, you're part of it..." the cat said menacingly.
-----
Meryll shot awake, smashing her head against the pipe above her bed "OW!" she almost yelled out, but remembered the kittens were sleeping in the same room. It was universally night-time, she had been having this dream several times since it actually happened, and it was starting to disrupt her sleep.
The back room of the ship would look dingy to an optimist, parts of the ship simply mounted to the walls, nothing much holding them up at all. The room was hot because of all the running machinery, but that just made it comfortable because of the coldness of space in comparison, but everything was the same ugly yellow worn metal color, as with the rest of the ship, making a pretty unsettling place to sleep if you weren't used to it.
Getch walked by, seeing that she was up "Good, you're awake, we're almost there. Bring Pyro." and he kept walking past the room.

Chapter 3: Preparation

Meryll looked down as she stood, the kittens that were so curious about her a few days ago were growing somewhat attached, wanting to show off what they could do, asking what humans were like, and she was always so nice to them, she didn't have children, but since she came along with Getch and the kittens, she found she had a sort of maternal side for the children. They were dozing off around her on the improvised bed. She smiled as she watched for a few more minutes, she knew what they were now and she couldn't help but feel sorry for them.
'According to Getch, they were an artificial race created by the government's "GeM", or "Genetic Military" program. Each was created from a species that was sentient like me once.' she leaned over and picked one of them up gently, cradling it in her arms 'Each created for a specific purpose, intended as tools for the military. With the exception of Getch, they're all just little kids, it just sounds sick.' she walked down the hall in thought, she was trying to psyche herself up for the rescue they were about to attempt. Meryll already knew how dangerous it was to sneak into a GeM facility, but she wanted to help, the kittens couldn't get away from there alone. Getch had told her about how he was lucky to get out alive when he rescued Pyro, the kitten she had in her arms, alone. He had barely escaped alive and almost drifted away into space with the child in tow. She didn't want to just let the military experiment on the kids until they were dead "This is just wrong" she said as she stepped into the cockpit.
"You don't know the half of it, I had to go through this as an adult. It's painful..." Getch said, staring out the window "I always wonder if I won't make it back out. These kids won't survive without me... it's the only thing I keep going for..."
The kitten in Meryll's arms let out a long yawn "What's going on?" it asked curiously.
"New Neko" Meryll said before Getch got the chance.
"Awesome! What's this one do?" Pyro asked enthusiastically. He actually enjoyed being this way, and always wanted to meet new Nekos.
"Don't know yet. You can help get it out, I scanned a hatch at the bottom of the facility. It looks like an airlock." Getch explained "We can't open the inner door from outside, but with the help of a certain fire Neko..."
'When Getch first told me that each of these kittens had specific abilities, I never dreamed they could do some of these things. Pyro was one of the enthusiastic ones that wanted to show off their powers to me. He could ignite things in flame just by touching it, Getch considered him the most useful one they have. He could help fix the ship and infiltrate places like this with ease.'
"Meryll!" Getch shouted, making her jump out of concentration "Wake up, you daydream too much." He flew the ship slowly near the hatch, a wire with a hook on the end shot out into the facility "Get ready to go, your species can't survive in deep space so I got a suit for you at the last stop."
Meryll walked back out of the closet a minute later, the suit actually feeling more comfortable than the uniform from before. It didn't look or feel like the clichè space suits from Earth, in fact it was various shades of purple and fit close to her body instead of being loose and heavy, having buttons all over various places, it seemed to be very multi-functional. "'This' is a spacesuit? you're kidding," she complained "and where's the helmet?"
"You don't need a helmet, just push the button around the suit's collar."
"I hate the term 'collar'." Meryll said, she did just as Getch instructed, "AH!" there was a sudden stabbing pain in her side as if someone had literally stabbed her and she fell to the floor clutching her stomach in pain.
"Relax, that'll stop soon." Getch reassured her "It needs to take a blood sample to see what you breath and what to maintain your body temperature at." Meryll felt the needle slide out in what felt like an unnecessarily long drawn out pull, she wanted to take off the suit to check if she was bleeding, but she didn't want to find out if it needed to take a sample again if she took it off. As she stood again, rubbing her now sore side, she gasped as something shot into the back of her neck, not quite as painful as before, but it still hurt. She could suddenly breath easier, as if the oxygen was being forced right down her throat "And that's it, now as long as you wear this suit, you technically don't need to breath, and your body won't freeze in the vacuum."
"Wow... no wonder you think Earth is primitive, but does it have to hurt so much?" she said, gasping in pain.
"It doesn't for most bio-wear, but they never bothered to load the sentient ones with sedative chemicals. Now you know what it's like being discriminated against, it hurts, doesn't it?" he stated agressively.
"Yes..." Meryll said, feeling that the universe was totally against her in every respect at this point.
Getch finished pulling something like a black glove with buttons all over it, like the suit, around his front right paw using his teeth and approached the airlock to their own ship with Meryll and Pyro by his side. "Okay, let's go" he pushed the open button, watching the heavy old metal door creak open with difficulty. They stepped through the inner door, closing behind the team with the same horrible screeching noise. The outer door soon opened into the wide empty space...

Chapter 4: An Unexpected Foe

For a second after the airlock opened, there was a rush going past the group as the air left the room, hitting the group outward violently, Pyro tried to skitter back against the wall, but fell anyway and almost slipped out. He grabbed the end of the stiff steel connection wire they had shot into the facility. Meryll pulled him back in easily, then tried to say something and started to choke, holding her hands up to her neck as a reaction.
"Close your mouth, you're letting the suit's air escape." Getch said coolly. After coughing a few more times, Meryll decided to listen this time. "Alright, this is simple, just climb the line over, open the outer door, and close it behind us once we get in. You'll be able to breath naturally once it pressurizes. And with that..." he gestured her over to the wire, Meryll glared at him for the gesture. She grabbed the wire and launched forward, letting the lack of gravity take her up. As she hit the outside of the ship, a cold chill hit her as if she had just stepped into cold storage, it wasn't instantly deadly freezing like she thought space would do to her, but she assumed that was once again the suit's fault. She grabbed the wire, which was even colder at this point, and heard Getch call up "Careful, I don't wanna have to recover you from space!" Meryll wondered how they were able to talk and survive in space. He was starting to latch on to the wire himself, Pyro right behind him. Right out there in the middle of space, Meryll started to think about the situation again, she was trying to infiltrate some lab in the middle of space with aliens trying to save their cat friend, wearing a full body suit with no helmet, yet still not suffocating! She sensed Getch getting closer, he would just start complaining if she didn't start moving again, but the situation just sounded absurd! It didn't take them long to reach the hatch, Meryll hit against the facility with her legs against it. She grabbed the door's rusty handle, pulling with a lot of difficulty, and pushing her legs against the facility as leverage. She was greeted by another rush of air that blew the door open the rest of the way, slamming against the side of the facility with a deafening crash. "Way to be stealthy." Meryll glared over at Getch again. Getch climbed over her and into the airlock easily. Meryll soon followed and Pyro made it up a minute later.
After closing the door, there was a large hissing as the chamber repressurized "Can I talk again now?" she said, still scratching violently at where the needles had stabbed her.
"You're doing it now aren't you?" Getch asked rhetorically.
"I got the inner door!" Pyro chimed in, he held his paw against it as it started to glow a deep orange, slowly melting a small hole right through the heavy, secure door.
"So how exactly can he do this?" Meryll whispered to Getch curiously.
"No clue" Getch answered "I never really cared beyond the fact that it's just wrong... we're living beings too."
"Yeah... I was just curious, he can set stuff on fire from nothing." Meryll said "It seems impossible."
Getch chuckled, then said "Maybe where you come from, but you're going to see a lot of strange things in comparison."
"Done!" Pyro said, waving at the melted hole in a futile attempt to cool it "Whoa..." he said in a low voice, stepping through. Getch followed closely, careful not to come in contact the molten metal.
"Hey! What am I supposed to-" she was cut off by the door sliding open with a difficult groan of metal, not much unlike Getch's own ship's doors "Oh..." she put her hands over the back of her head in embarassment.
"What the h*** happened?" Getch said, there were two mutilated animal's bodies at the corner of the room.
"Oh no... Research subjects?" Meryll asked worriedly
"No..." Getch said with concern "scientists..."
"Huh? Did someone beat us here?" Pyro asked
Getch walked over to examine them, the corpses were charred almost beyond recognition, a wolf animal and a smaller, squirrel-like one "They usually keep these places small, whatever did this can't... be... far..."
Meryll started to ask "Why did you-"
Getch shushed her, there was a faint noise coming from deeper within. Getch moved forward, away from the dingy side room, as the group went through a few more very dark rooms: living quarters with books, clothes, notes , and trash scattered everywhere; a kitchen filled with trash, a clean sterilization room... and in every room, there were wires hanging out of everywhere, smoking electronics, and more charred bodies. The sterilization room was broken, the door having been left wide open. The next room was filled with glowing tanks of thick liquid.
Meryll let out a short cry as she looked into the tank, there were sentient beings floating there, most children in tattered clothing with disfigured, mauled, and nearly destroyed bodies "Few survive the transformation..." was all Getch said as he continued moving past them.
Meryll stared into each of the tubes, walking behind Getch, she looked over her shoulder at Pyro. He had stopped at one of the tanks specifically and was standing with his front paws leaned up on it, it looked like his eyes were starting to tear up. "What's wrong?" Meryll asked in a concerned tone, the kitten looked up at her and turned away, running to the last room in tears. The occupant of this tank looked nearly human, wearing a nearly destroyed slave uniform, and having a body that was horribly cut up and mangled.
"Pyro was human once..." Getch said, having walked back after the commotion.
Meryll was stunned 'Is this corpse human? And they can be turned into Nekos... how?' she almost felt as bad as Pyro, the fact that their races were being used this way, enslaved and tortured, changed into some experiment if they were unlucky enough to live with a new life in an unfamiliar world that they would never see the outside of again, all simply because of what they were.
"I'm sorry..." Getch said, turning away to the next room again "The Neko is close, we can still help that one."
Meryll didn't say anything for a minute, then nodded and started to follow, looking back over her shoulder one last time to check the tube. The next room was once the typical laboratory white, but it was full of bloody instruments and examination tables, nearly everything was stained red in some way. Some of the instruments seemed to pulsate with some kind of strange, unseen energy... But there was no time to spend trying to figure that out, the faint noise from before was getting louder now, it sounded like a child crying. They stepped into the next room and saw many clear cylinders like before, these were not filled with liquid and one was shattered everywhere around it, the others were empty. Meryll looked over in the corner, there was a small white kitten whimpering in fear. There was visible electricity, like lightning, vibrating erratically around it. Meryll tried to ask the kitten "Hey, are you-?"
"NO! STAY BACK!" it screamed, it sounded like a little girl. Lightning erupted from the kitten, blasting toward Meryll, she screamed as the bolt hit her, shocking her for a few seconds and leaving her weak on the floor with smoke pouring out of her. Getch ran out of the room as Meryll pulled herself out with some effort. They heard more electricity shoot through the air with a series of loud crashing bolts inside the room, you could tell that random objects were being destroyed inside.
"She's scared. She's going to keep attacking us." Getch said calmly.
"Who's 'us'?" Meryll moaned, then added in scorn "Those scientists deserved that..."
"Though that's true, we don't want that to happen to us" he looked at the charred remains of a wolf-type in the corner.
"What do we do!?" Meryll asked weakly, trying to keep her voice over the lightning even over it's shocking effect on her.
"We have to either wear her out or calm her down." Getch said, then thought for a second "I suggest the latter or she might blow up the ship when she wakes up."
"Okay, I'm going to try and get to her then." Meryll stood up, "I think I can move quick enough." but as soon as she stood up, she stumbled back down to the floor.
"Yeah, 'you' can outrun lightning, sure." Getch said sarcastically "How's this, I distract her, you get close when she's focused on killing me and you try and calm her down there?"
"Sounds good to me" Meryll said, they nodded to eachother and put it into action. Meryll ducked under a bolt at the last moment, nearly falling over on some glass as she tried to jump to the side, she would have to start getting more athletic if she kept doing this.
Getch sighed, "She's not going to last long if I'm not careful." jumping in and yelling "Hey! Over here!" and dashing around a bolt, he felt his fur stand on end as the static affected him. The cat wasn't even looking where she was shooting anymore because the tears in her eyes were blinding her, she was simply attacking where she heard him yelling. "Right here! Hit me here!" he started yelling, he ducked under a shot, jumped and just barely bent his back to dodge it "Hit me!" he strafed to the left from another one "Whoa!" the next bolt hit him dead on, sending him flying back against the back wall in a pile of staticly charged fur.
Meryll was close behind the kitten at this point "Getch!" she yelled out. The cat turned, opening it's eyes with a look of total fear. She braced herself for more lightning to shoot out, but nothing happened, a few sparks went around and her fur stood on end, a bolt even shot a few inches toward Meryll. She noticed that the kitten was struggling, using the attack so much at once even seemed to be hurting itself. The kitten panted in exhaustion, trying desperately to back away from Meryll. "Relax, we're here to help." Meryll said quickly, hoping that the kitten wouldn't try to hurt itself anymore.
"NO! LEAVE ME ALONE!" it yelled, backing herself into a corner as far as she could.
Meryll came closer, the cat had nowhere left to move and no energy left to attack, so there was nothing for Meryll to dodge, she kneeled down close to the kitten and started petting her, trying to calm her down.
She looked up in surprise "Wh-What?" the cat muttered weakly, as Meryll came closer "Y-You're here to..."
"Yeah," Meryll said "you're safe now, don't worry" she was trying to comfort her as much as possible while they were both panting from exhaustion, the cat's eyes welled up staring at Meryll, she buried her face in the side of Meryll's suit "It's alright now..."

Chapter 5: Down Time

"Thanks for your concern back there, Meryll" Getch said sarcastically, now back on the ship, he was starting to pull off the odd-looking glove.
"That little girl was torturing herself trying to defend herself from us" Meryll whispered "That seemed like a higher priority" she looked down at the kitten, she was still whimpering in fear, her face filled with tears, and still very scared. Meryll bent down to look at her "What's your name?"
"I-I..." she couldn't think of anything about it "I don't know..."
"Meryll, they usually aren't given names since they're taken as small children." Getch said, starting to operate the ship "You don't think anyone would really name thier kid Pyro, do you?"
"I guess not... How is he anyway?" Meryll asked.
"He'll be fine."
"They called me Flash..." The kitten spoke quickly "... back in the lab..."
"Alright Flash" Meryll patted her on the head "We're here to help, there're more Nekos in the back" she took a few minutes to explain what was going on as far as she understood.
"So..." Flash sniffed "There are others like me?"
"Yes," Meryll said "like I said, we have some in the other room."
"... Can I see them?" she asked nervously.
"Of course," Meryll said as gently as she could "but most of them are asleep..."
Flash started walking to the back, yawning "That's alright... I'm tired too"
Meryll nodded, watching her leave the room "They're kinda cute when they aren't trying to kill us." she smiled "So where are we going now?"
Getch continued to stare at the monitors "Home."
"home?"
"you didn't think we could survive living on a single spaceship, did you?" He pressed a few more buttons on the console, then turned around to look at her "We have a planet to return to after retrieving the Neko."
"Oh, I guess..." she had thought that it was normal to live on a spaceship out there "does that mean there's more freed Nekos there?"
"I wouldn't dare to leave them alone anywhere." he responded seriously "I take them all with me. So as you can see, I haven't been at this for long."
"Yeah, probably not a very good idea" Meryll watched Getch return to the controls without another word, so she went herself and walked into the back room. Flash was asleep already, right in the middle of the bed, she picked her up gently, lied down on the bed and let Flash fall asleep on her suit "Good night."
-----
The planet looked similar to Earth, but the already limited landmasses seemed even less here, it was almost totally blue from that far above. The kittens were all excited, they apparently loved coming back here. Flash was sitting away from the rest, still very nervous about being pulled into the situation. Meryll stood looking over Getch and the controls, staring down at the planet "It's beautiful from up here."
"It's nothing..." Getch said
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"You're too serious, you have to loosen up every once in awhile!" Meryll said happily "It's not worth it if you don't enjoy yourself sometimes."
"There'll be time for that after I rescue the nekos, but for now, I can't sense anymore." Getch said disappointedly.
'Getch's ability as a neko is to be able to sense the unique life force of his race, supposedly to search out escapees...' Meryll thought to herself 'I guess they never thought of what to do if he himself escaped.'
"Meryll, we're almost there," Getch interrupted her thoughts "you should quit daydreaming and get ready to hit the atmosphere."
"Oh, right!" she started toward the back room "Come on, kids!" they all ran back quickly, except Flash who wondered why they were in such a hurry. Meryll closed the door for protection... and started cushioning the back wall with cusions and bedding "Is this really how we're supposed to do this?"
"Nope." Trent, the water neko, said "We just have to improvise without money to get the right ship parts."
"Ah, living on the fringe of poverty, I was in college, I'm used to it" Meryll said, laughing a little. After she said this, everyone came crashing right into the propped up bedding as they hit the air of the planet. They had to stay like this for a few minutes. Very soon, they had slowed down enough to land.
"Wow..." Meryll looked out over the ocean from the sandy beach "It's just like Earth..." she saw a single mountain on the horizon, and another one right behind her. The beach was littered with stray trees, driftwood, and discarded shells. There was a thick rainforest planted near the beach, and she could tell by distant calls that it was inhabited by some kind of animals; regular ones, not the intelligent kind like other aliens.
Pyro came and sat next to her "Meryll?" she looked down at the cat "You're from Earth right?... What's it like? I never knew..."
"Oh... well... Earth is..." she thought for a minute, she had never had to describe her planet before and never thought she would need to.
"What's wrong?" Pyro asked.
"I guess I'm just not used to all this yet, never really thought about my planet before..."
"Oh... then just tell me what you did on Earth!" he chimed happily.
This, she could do. For the next few hours, she talked about everything she had done in her life; her family, her school, and everything she did normally, leaving out certain details she considered a little too personal... While Pyro listened, occasionally trying to compare it to something Meryll didn't know about, not having grown up in space herself. He seemed very interested in what Meryll had always thought to be an extremely boring and repetetive lifestyle. Soon, the other kittens stopped playing around to listen to her, even Flash who hadn't even introduced herself to the others yet, and even Getch stopped working on the ship to listen. There were two suns around this solar system and both were getting low as Meryll told them about seeing the ship fly past her that one night on Earth.
"Your parents must be worried." Flash spoke out suddenly.
Meryll hit herself in the head "Oh god, I never even thought about that! I still have a broken window, they're going to think I got kidnapped!" she looked over at Getch "Not like I wasn't though."
"Eh, they can use a news interview for publicity" Getch said, a little distracted and about to go back to the ship.
"Always looking on the bright side, eh?" she asked sarcastically, then briefly holding her stomache, said "Ugh, I'm hungry."
"You shouldn't keep wearing that suit, Meryll," Getch warned "It's going to start feeding you through a hole in your body, and it'll make a new one for that too..."
Meryll gave a panicky cry, running back to the ship. A few minutes later, she came back out in the sweatshirt and pants from Earth, but with all the sleeves rolled up "Alright, I could go for some alien food." everyone laughed. They sat around a fire in the dark on the beach, there were some long rods with some strange kind of meat cooking over the fire. The cats knew the area well and knew the feeding areas of some the edible unintelligent animals. "Mmm, tastes kind of like a seasoned steak." Meryll said, it was apparently very different from anything on Earth.
"What's that?" Pyro asked.
"It's a type of meat from Earth, it's really good." Meryll responded, trying to eat while still speaking, she only had the military-style rations that Getch kept on his ship since she left Earth, and hadn't even had them for awhile since she thought they were disgusting. She desperately wanted to eat at the opportunity of having real food.
By this point, Getch had fallen asleep close to the fire, his ears shot up and twitched a few times. Eyes opening, he said "So soon?" and jumped up "Come on everyone! We got another one!"
Everyone looked up from their meals "Already?" they all seemed to say at once.

Chapter 6: Seperating Forces (Part 1)

"This one... might be hard" Getch said, staring up at the large building from the planet it sat on.
"I thought you said these places were small!" as Meryll complained, the Neko kittens were working on infiltrating an air vent, but couldn't think how to stop the fan inside "And we're taking everyone? Flash hasn't even settled in yet!"
"This is one of their main labs, hopefully we can rescue a few Nekos in one attack" Getch said, starting to pull the glove from before on.
"Attack?" Meryll sounded surprised "We're going to fight!?... And what is that thing anyway?"
"Of course, you didn't think we'd find everyone DOA all the time did you?" Getch yanked the glove the rest of the way on with his teeth "And this is more bioware, you think those stores would last long selling only sentient clothing?" there was a click of the glove integrating with Getch's body "It's a multi-purpose weapon."
"I thought we would just kind of try to avoid fights..." She tried to suggest she shrugged nervously
"No, they deserve it, you said it yourself. They're doing this to all sentient races, it's just... not right."
"I know I said they deserve it, but I didn't want to do it to them myself..." she kept arguing
"Okay, let's leave them alone and just take the nekos with us, then they can just kill scores of other sentients just to make us a few new ones we can risk all of our lives to save." He spoke sarcastically "It needs to be done." Meryll didn't know what to say back to this, he had made a good point.
Some of the cats were praising Flash, who had had disabled the fan by now, the others were finally acknowledging her ability. She had still been too shy to introduce herself to them, even until this point.
"Alright, good job Flash" Meryll congradulated her too "So, do we have a plan, Getch?."
"Nope, GeM facilities don't have public blueprints, we don't even have a floor design to work with." Getch said, still not caring much about it.
"So let's just go!" Pyro said impatiently, jumping into the shaft.
"Pyro, wait!" Trent followed close by.
"Uhh, maybe I should follow them." Geno, the last neko of the group, jumped in after them.
"I don't think I ever learned what Geno can do..." Meryll said.
"Me neither, the name doesn't suggest anything specifically, and we just can't figure him out..." Getch said.
"Well, should we follow them?" Flash asked.
"That's probably a good idea." Getch ran and lunged right down the shaft.
"Want a ride?" Meryll asked Flash, picking her up gently and sliding down carefully herself.
At the bottom of the vent there was a small room right in it, most likely for maintenance "Alright, so where do we go from here?" Pyro asked.
The glove on Getch's paw shot out a short blade, which he stuck into the floor of the vent and tore a hole through it "We fight."
"What? We can keep going in the vents!" Meryll reminded him "I don't care what you say, I would rather sneak in!"
"We've already discussed this, we're going to get rid of them so they can't do it again." Getch argued.
"Well I at least want to get the Nekos first, before we endanger them!" She spoke back.
"Fine! you go waste time, we can take care of this!" Getch said, angrily jumping down the hole he made with the blade.
"Uhh, I think I'll go with him" Pyro jumped after him.
Trent went toward the hole "Pyro always gets in trouble if I'm not around..." the kitten jumped in after them.
"I don't wanna fight, I'll come with you Meryll." said Flash.
"What would I do with them? I can't fight." Geno started to follow Meryll and Flash through the shaft.
Eventually, the group reached as far as the vent could go, there was another opening. Looking down it, there was a storage room below, one guard standing at the exit, it was a sentient in a blue suit like she saw that night she left Earth "I thought we were rare around the universe..." Meryll said.
"Let's just say that Nekos aren't the only genetic program they have..." Geno explained. The two cats jumped down silently onto a few boxes, then to the floor, hiding behind some other ones. Meryll tried the same, but weighed much more than two kittens, the boxes collapsed in on themselves with her, causing her and the boxes to loudly crash to the floor.
"What the...?" The guard started to run over.
"Sooo graceful." Geno said sarcastically.
"Who are you!?" The guard pointed a gun at the two, but an electric bolt struck his back almost immediately, causing him to collapse on the floor as Flash looked over his body.
"I know, I know" She said defensively "We were the non-violent group, but I had to..."
"It's alright Flash" Meryll comforted her "At least we're not going on some gung-ho killing spree like a few other cats we know."
Elsewhere in the building, the 3 others were ducked behind a low wall, trying to escape the wild gunfire of the guards overhead "We should've gone with Meryll!" Trent panicked.