Chapter 05

Mittens was startled out of his reverie by his cat-warmer. Silver bands of light started spreading around it, and a bright flash scared him right over the edge. As he started to slip, a big, blue square popped up right in front of his face with a loud DING. Scared for the second time in as many seconds, Mittens did what any cat does when startled - he batted wildly at the blue square. With another, more triumphant ding and a sound like a crowd of humans cheering, it disappeared.

The disoriented cat crashed to the floor for the third time today. Pride wounded, fur floofed, and thoroughly annoyed, Mittens took stock of the changes in his surroundings.

His cat-warmer had gone back to being its normal gray-and-white self, just as it should be. Part of one wall of the building was missing now, and that concerned Mittens. Outside, he could see a variety of types of human fighting - a tall human with metal skin waved a metal stick around, while some other human with dark skin and horns jumped out of the way. A green-skinned human with tree bits sticking off of her held up three other humans in what looked like a meaner version of the nettle hedge. The blood dripping from the struggling three was quickly absorbed by the tree-human’s feet which, upon closer inspection, seemed to be rooted into the ground. Glowing red flowers were growing, blooming, and dying constantly in a ring around her.

Suddenly, a flash of light and a roaring sound exploded right outside the open wall, and Mittens skedaddled. Heading for the small window on the opposite wall, the terrified cat scrambled onto the wood-and-metal box, preparing to leap. Part-way through, yet another blue square popped up right in his face - a solid bap scared the blue square away again. A jump, a dive, and a skip later, Mittens was hiding beside one of the wooden homes. A home that he now noticed was on fire. Looking around, most of the wooden homes were on fire. That didn’t seem right.

Mittens wondered - what is going on? Where is Milly? Where are the other villager humans? The thoughts were somewhat foreign to him - cats lived in the moment, after all. Anything a cat can’t sense might as well not exist in their thoughts, but here he was, thinking about things that weren’t here.

The confused feline was dragged from his introspective confusion when a yowling “meeeeert!” cut through the smoke and noise. Mittens knew that sound! He dashed towards Merelshirra’s house.

More of the wooden homes were burning in the area, and his sensitive eyes stung from the smoke. His nose was dried out, and was starting to burn something fierce. Still, he was in much better shape than the elegant white-furred lady cat, who now looked closer to his color, save for a splash of dark red on her hindquarter and a few ash-black spots.

“Merelshirra! What the dickens is going on! Are you okay?” He could see her crouched, as always, on the low roof of the hut, except this time she was laser-focused on something past the low hedge. Between hissing and spitting, she took a moment to focus on him.

“Oh, Hawmvililyn, thank heavens! It’s terrible! Several of those otherworlder ruffians kidnapped Dahlia and Roscoe, but they left behind their kitten! Poor Dahlia was inconsolable, but you know how those Rifters are. I stayed here to take care of the kitten, but then they set the village on fire! I didn’t know what to do! To make things worse, this devilbeast just crawled its way over here, and I think it wants the kitten! I can’t drive it off! Oh Hawmvililyn, what should I do?” Merelshirra would have seemed on the verge of tears, if not for the angry growling and hissing that she kept up.

Mittens, curious about what had her so riled up, poked his head into the entrance to the hedge. The creature within raised his hackles and elicited an instinctive growl of his own. The beast was enormous, at least two Mittens tall if it was standing. It looked like it should have four legs, but one appeared to be severed, and all of its fur was burnt off along one side. Bloody blisters covered half its face, and one eye seemed permanently shut. Despite its wounds, it persisted in growling and snapping at Merelshirra. The thing could barely stand, but it kept looking towards the hut’s door, behind which a human kitten’s yowling kept its attention.

While the beast itself was normally enough to convince Mittens that a nice, shadowy nook would be a better place to be, he couldn’t abandon Merelshirra or, by extension, the human kitten that she was protecting. That’s just not how a proper cat would behave. There was another thing that currently concerned the nearly-overwhelmed cat, though - more of those squares had shown up. There was a long, rectangular one over the hellbeast, with a speck of red on the left side, and a small blue square with a shape in it over its head.

Leaving aside the bizarre floating squares, Mittens focused on the best. Four-legged, low to the grown, dirty gray fur, disgusting and mindless - basically a big rat, right? A really big rat. And who was Mittens, if not the premier rat extermination expert of the village? The growls and snaps were lower-pitched and louder than a rat’s normal squeak, but they meant the same thing. He was sure - that thing was just a really big, overgrown rat. Mittens convinced himself. He focused, squatted down, calibrated his tail… and pounced.

A rat’s weakest point was its spine, at the base of its head, so that’s where he aimed. The devildog was much too big for him to simply tear it apart, but he did his best. Mittens bit the one remaining ear of the monster, dug his foreclaws into its fleshy neck, and did his best to shred the thing’s spine with his powerful hind legs. His claws dug into the shallow skin, caught on the ridges of its spine, and he pushed. Leg muscles strong enough to launch the cat many times his own height were repurposed, pointy claws dug in, and the beast screamed.

Mittens nearly pushed himself off of the thing, and it nearly threw him off itself when it whipped its head around to see what was hurting it. Mittens hung from the back of its head by one claw, and he panicked, flailing his other paws for some kind of support. The glowing blue square that was over its head came into view and, in what seemed to be developing into a habit, he swatted at it. This time, though, his paw, claws-extended, went through the blue square and smacked solidly into the beast’s face behind it.

The hellspawn promptly thrashed even more wildly, and Mittens was flung several feet away, having finally lost his last hold on it. Bruised and battered, with his eyes watering and nose dry, the determined cat shakily entered pouncing position again, but the monster itself seemed to have other priorities. Both eyes were now closed, one leaking quite a lot of blood, and the back of its head was slick with blood. The long rectangle above its head blinked twice, completely empty of color, and disappeared.