Kitsa Isles: Outstander Revolution

chapter 6: lab recruits

I was sitting with Mint in the main cabin when Jasper left the room. I was gonna follow him, but I didn't know if Mint wanted to be alone. I also didn't think he'd just run off. Someone else could get him and watch him. Mint looked down at me, mainly because I was still sitting on the floor. "You need to brush out your hair. It looks horrible." I looked up at her and squinted. "I had no idea, thanks Mint." She pointed up to her bunk, where a small pink bag was sitting. "I've probably got one in there. I'd get it for you, but, y'know." I nodded and crawled up to her bunk. I went through the bag. In there were most of Mint's belongings, including an abundance of cosmetics and other random stuff she had. I found the brush and crawled back down. I put it in my hair and-
It immediately got stuck.
"Shoot." I muttered. Mint laughed at my struggling. "You need some help?" I nodded sadly, and I slid over to her on the bunk. She managed to get the brush out of my hair, and she held a section of my hair in her hands. "This is probably gonna hurt." She began brushing out the surface first, and I felt miserable. It hurt so bad. It felt like someone was pulling out my hair. "Your hair is greasy too. I know mine probably is too, but this is so gross." She muttered as she brushed out my hair. Once she'd gotten most of it sorted out, which took quite a long time, I actually kind of enjoyed having someone brush out my hair. "Aqua, I have a bit of an odd question for you."
"What is it?"
"Why do you keep thinking about how much you enjoy being brushed?"
"..We talked about this, Mint."
"I know-"
"It's creepy."
"So is enjoying being brushed!"
"I can't control that!"
"Neither can I!"
We both went silent. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable Mint. I can finish the rest if you don't want to." I said, attempting to break the silence. "You're alright," she said, "I just was wondering." She gently started petting me on the head. "Hey- That's just unfair." I muttered, crossing my arms. "Teehee." She didn't laugh, she just straight up said 'Teehee.' She stopped petting me and handed the brush back to me. "Go put this up and take a shower, you filthy animal." I rolled my eyes and put the brush back up. Our bathroom was another offset cabin that wasn't very... nice. It was kind of sad looking, but none of us were plumbers. I stepped into the shower, and I'm not going into detail about this part. That's just weird. I finished my shower and put my clothes back on, because I'm not a weirdo, and went back into the main cabin. I grabbed a spare towel and used it to try and dry off my hair for the most part. Mint looked a bit envious. "I wish I could take a shower. I was only gone for a little bit and I still feel disgusting." I snickered a bit. "We'll figure something out for ya." She looked a little sad, and I felt bad for laughing. I sat back onto the bunk with Mint, and I noticed that she looked even more upset now. "You alright?" I said, and she looked up at me. "Not at all."
"We'll figure something out for you. You won't have to sit here forever." She just nodded, but she didn't look very convinced. I didn't really know what else to say, and I was really tired. I just shifted into a full cat and curled up beside her. I fell asleep eventually, but I could feel her gently petting me.
When I woke up, Juno was standing in the main cabin. She was speaking to three people. I couldn't get a good look at them, because if I got up, I'd probably wake up Mint. Juno pointed over at our bunk. "Over there is Aqua and Mint. Mint is the blonde girl, and she recently lost her foot in a hypno lab. Aqua's the cat. She's not usually a cat, but she's a shapeshifter, so apparently for now, she is a cat." I tried to squint and examine the three newcomers. Two guys and a girl, both of the guys had black hair while the girl had green. Green hair was pretty uncommon, but I guess blue hair was as well. Black hair was a trait that most hypnos had, not many half-hypnos possessed the black hair trait. It was a little odd. I decided to talk to them whenever Mint got up. "The cat's looking at us. I thought you said they were asleep," one of them said. I couldn't see far enough to establish who, but I also decided one of the guys said that. "Aqua is a bit unpredictable. She observes every detail about everybody. One of her past roommates was murdered due to a lack of observation, so I guess she feels obligated to know everything about everybody." My heart sunk at the remembrance of that horrible night with Sasha and Greg. Greg, who'd been murdered all for some twisted plan. Sasha, who murdered him all because he was a pawn. I was playing checkers, but Sasha was playing chess that night. "I'd rather not have a cat know everything about me, thanks." one of them grumbled. I decided to carefully step off of the bed and walk over towards the conversation. I shifted back and identified the person who said that. I stepped towards him, but Juno grabbed my tail. "No need for violence, Aqua. That is Oblivion who you're threatening right now. The other two are Midas and [insert green lady name]" I nodded and backed away from Oblivion, and Juno released my tail. "I'm Aqua. It's nice to meet you," I chirped and stuck out my paw, intending for him to shake my paw. He squinted at it. "Don't touch me, weirdo." I was a bit taken aback, but I guess he didn't want to touch a cat paw. I turned to [green hair woman] and decided to greet her instead. She shook my hand and smiled at me. "Well, it's nice to know someone has some respect around here." I turned to the other guy with black hair, and I was honestly pretty surprised. He looked a lot more intimidating than Oblivion. I still offered to shake his hand to be kind, but he shook his head. "I would, but you wouldn't like what would happen." I noticed the odd gold foil that appeared to be wrapped around his hands. Right above that was an assortment of tattoos. I shrugged. "Suit yourself, I guess." Juno smiled. "I promise, Aqua is not as nearly scary as she looks. Unless you're on the enemy team, of course." She giggled, poking me in the arm. I laughed too, but the others were stiff. "Tough crowd." Juno mutterd. "Anyways, I'm gonna show them where they sleep. Check up on Mint, al-'' Jasper suddenly burst through the door. His tail was all fluffed up and his eyes were wide. I shoved Oblivion aside and ran towards him. I bent down to reach his eye level and he hugged me. "They try to take me back, Awua!" He murmured, burying his face in my shirt. "Who did?" I felt the stares of everyone in the room, but that didn't matter to me. "The hypno!" He was crying, and I felt my shirt get more damp the longer he sat there. I picked him up and held him with one arm like you'd hold a toddler. He wrapped his arms around my neck, and I was beginning to believe he was gonna choke me out. He tried to stammer out some words, but he kept stuttering. "Shh, you're alright now. Where did they try and take you?" He was still whimpering like a kitten. "Near the really really big house." He meant the armory cabin. I turned to face Juno and the others. "I'll be back." Everything was telling me to stay put. I was still injured and tired, but I was too angry to care. I was still carrying Jasper as I marched towards the armory cabin. Sure enough, one of the scariest hypnos I'd ever seen was watching from a tree. It had the head of a regular shape shifting hypno, but the neck extended into a long caterpillar like-creature. It was like a vine hanging from the tree, and it had a singular set of arms hanging down from it's torso. I set Jasper down and bent down to whisper to him. "Stay close behind me. If it grabs you, scream like you've never screamed before." He gave me a nervous little nod, and I noticed he was quivering. "You'll be alright. I'm not gonna let that thing lay a hand on you." I stepped towards the tree where the hypno was perched, and I gently shook it. The hypno unraveled from the tree like a snake. A feeling of dread washed over me. It was standing in front of me almost, so I took the chance to attack. I grabbed part of its neck and slashed my claws through it, adrenaline rushing through my vines. The creature screeched and whipped it's head around towards me. I slashed through it's red eyes in an attempt to distract it, but it simply opened a new pair. It tossed me to the ground, and I heard Jasper cry out in fear. I scurried to my feet and in a panicked state, I actually bit the snake-hypno. The taste was foul, but the bite was enough to give me some time to get a good attack. Or atleast, so I thought I'd get one. I was suddenly picked up by its arms and I felt claws rake through my stomach. Blood was gushing out through the wound, and I felt everything start going limp. I felt Jasper huddle beside me, his tail rapidly thrashing around. It was a common sign of an upset emotion in cats. I was about to mutter out the words "Go get help" before I saw a familiar black cloak. I watched as a sword stabbed through the creatures head and as it fell to the ground. I looked over at the black cloak, and I watched as it removed the hood. Under that black cloak was a kitsune mask, as if the cloak wasn't already enough to hide their identity. The mask was removed, and underneath it stood August. "You really are the master of near death experiences, cat." He had changed so much. He was no longer the angsty teen with anger issues, but instead a more calm and collected warrior. He looked over at me, then at Jasper. "I see you've got another cat. Is he your kid? Did I miss something?" I shook my head the best I could, but I was still, y'know, bleeding out. "Right, you're dying. Thomas, get over here!" I heard him shout. Thomas suddenly appeared from outside of the main cabin. "Holy- What happened here? Aqua, are you o- AUGUST?" I noticed how short Thomas was compared to August. I then thought about how tall Thomas was compared to me, since I was even taller than August. I also was thinking about how I was still bleeding out on the floor. "No time for introductions. I'm sorry I haven't visited in like, two years, but I'm a busy guy." Thomas was in awe. "If you hadn't chosen to come now, Aqua would probably be dead." August nodded. "Yeah, and she's probably going to be dead if you don't do something about it." Thomas looked down at me. "Yeah, that." He ran off to go get his medical supplies, and returned with the same box he'd treated us with the first time. Juno and the new recruits made their way over next. "How did she manage to almost kill herself in like, 10 minutes? Is she really that clumsy?" I heard the Oblivion kid say. He better hope that I don't get blessed in the next 10 seconds and miraculously get up to beat the living daylights out of him. I hadn't even done anything to make him hate me yet. I hate people that choose to just be rude in general. Therefore, I hate him. Although, if he does hate me, he wouldn't be the first. There are a lot of people out for me. I was mainly thinking about my emotions to take away from the screaming agony coming from my stomach. There was blood coating it like frosting on a cake. I was sure that I'd definitely lost some kind of vital organ. "Okay, Aqua, don't panic when I lift the bottom part of your shirt up so I can treat the wound." I literally wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't said anything about it. Now I was definitely going to panic. My mind was spinning so fast that I couldn't even grasp what was happening around me. I could only make out the outlines of everyone around me. The last thing I felt before everything went dark was Juno speaking with Jasper.