20 February 2012
"So you can move from one place to another simply by thinking about it?," asked the fox.
"Yes," replied the cat. "I can teleport through solid matter as well.
"If that's the case," pressed the fox, "why don't you just beam through the walls or whatever it is that you do, and get out of here?"
"Well," mused M-12, "I've done that from time to time, but they feed me here. This is my home! What is it that you do?"
"Apparently this," said the fox telepathically, extending a paw covered with flame.
"Doesn't that hurt?," marveled the cat.
"Nope," answered the fox. "I apparently set one of the men in white coats on fire, but he was hurting me! Are there others like us?"
"I've met some," said the cat, but the white coats seem to move us out of here after a time. They really don't seem to want us to meet, like they're scared of what we can do, or something. There's a ferret in the next room, though.-- Come on, I'll introduce you!"
The fox and cat walked into the next room, another laboratory center. An animal crate was there, but it was completely covered rather than like the wire cages commonly seen.
"So why can't this guy see out?," asked the fox.
The cat chuckled. "He's a mental dominant," the feline explained. "If he locks eyes with you, he can make you do pretty much anything that he wants!"
"Who's talking about me out there?," asked a voice from within the covered crate.
"Just M-12, with a new friend," answered the cat. "Care to come out for a spell?"
"Do I ever!," declared the ferret. "These walls are starting to close in on me!"
"Be right back," promised the cat, disappearing right before the fox. In a moment he reappeared, his forelegs wrapped around a ferret.
"So you can take others with you when you teleport!," concluded the fox.
"Only what I can wrap my limbs around," corrected the cat. "R-21, meet my new friend J-47, the fox. He's a pyrokinetic, but we won't hold that against him," giggled the cat.
The fox and ferret shook paws. "So what is this mental dominance thing?," asked the fox.
The ferret looked at the cat. "Mind a little demonstration?," he asked. The cat reassured him that he did not. Looking into the cat's eyes, the ferret ordered, "Bark like a dog!"
A blank look passed momentarily over the cat's face, and then he began yipping and barking in a most un-feline type fashion.
"Alright, that's enough!," interjected the ferret, and the barking stopped. A blank expression passed over the cat's features again as he returned to himself.
"What just happened?," asked the cat, genuinely confused.
"You're either a gifted actor, or you speak a foreign language!," replied the fox.
That speculation was cut short, however, by the entrance of three armed men into the room.
"I think we're in trouble!," worried the cat.
The Augments III • Opuss № I