The Freaks of the Ring

Six : Percikan

I can already tell from the look on Fish Boy's face that I've scared the crap out of him. Not that I mind in the least; it's better to be feared than loved, after all. The only approval I need is from Mufasa and Levi, and even then I don't exactly give a flying friction about what the heck they think. No, I'm my own person and the leader of this circus, I think I know what I'm doing, thank you very much.

So I escape the meeting with Fishy Boy and go back to more important matters (actually, it's just more fun messing around in here with my brother, but I can't exactly tell that to the others). I plop the tiny mouse back on the ground in front of him and let it scurry about before letting Mufasa have at it. His cat-like ears twitch in anticipation, his tail swinging gently in the air. It's honestly kind of funny watching him do what he wants to. It's pretty much impossible for me to try to train his animal instincts, so instead we just mess around. Sure, there's a bunch of books in the library on animal training, but I'd rather take a humane approach. He is my little brother, after all.
We're not actually siblings though, even though we apparently look the part. Nope, he were both formed in petri dishes so many years ago by the scientists deemed our "parents," even though they didn't even donate any of the cells that put us together. So here we are now, a jumble of loosely sewn together DNA and code. It was the flawed seams in the code that gave us our powers in the first place, actually. Just slapping a bunch of uncensored cells together and hoping for the best can do that, apparently.
I guess I can't really complain though. We had it good in the Ring for years, until our parents went missing and a new kid with powers showed up on our metaphorical doorstep. Tierra and I didn't really get along for a while, not that we're too great of friends now. But no one here can really afford to dislike anyone else. We're all stuck in here without much of an escape. Yeah, we could all just pack our couple of things away and search for a new home, but frankly, it's safer in here than basically anywhere else in the modern world. No nuclear radiation to be found, no possible way of being found, it's the perfect life. All we have to do is make sure no one can get in that doesn't belong to our team.
Maybe it's why I'm not being insanely nice to Rayne right now, and I'm sure Doku could see that. As Tierra puts it, I can be a bit of a puta when I really want to be. Honestly, no one can really deny it, especially me. I can't exactly help my anger issues, they just...happen. Like it just rains, or how birds just know how to fly (okay, bad analogies, but I think you get my point). It's part of my code to be a bit of a puta when I really don't mean to be. I can't exactly complain about that either, though. Again, the whole fear-is-better crap comes into play.
But all-in-all, at least I have a friend in Mufasa. Maybe it's because we've spent our entire lives together that made him become so used to how I can be, but at least I have one ally in life, even if the rest of the Freaks despise me. Not that they do, of course. I think. I hope. I beg.
I sigh and shake my head, attempting to get an insanely charred piece of hair out of my eyes. I really don't know how Levi deals with stuff covering their eyes all the time. It just annoys me to no extent. But I can't exactly complain when Mufasa holds up a gentle hand and bats it away, all the while being the little cutie that he is. I'm sixteen, he's...eleven? I'm not particularly sure, really. Everyone stopped keeping records years ago.
I don't even know why I'm so protective over the kid. I already know that part of it really is because we're siblings, since Levi and Rem have always had the same loyalty for one another since I've known them. But the other half...I'm not even sure. It's probably just because he's never been able to speak and form real words, even though he can communicate with animals perfectly well. He knows sign language, which is how he usually tells me everything, but it's the only way he can communicate with anyone. Do I feel bad that he can't really say anything without using his hands? A little bit. Can I do anything about it? Of course not. He's more cat than human, even if his appearance says otherwise. Plus I know absolutely nothing about genetics, even though it's my blood that makes up the serum that's injected into everyone else's veins. So basically, I'm like an STD, but instead of giving everyone AIDS, I just provide really epic powers that are sometimes insanely difficult to control.
But at the end of the day, I have to wonder what everyone else would be doing if I never existed. Or that I didn't have my powers in general. Would it still just be me and Mufasa in here, or would the scientists that became by default childhood family still take in the refugees from destroyed safebases? Not that any of those scientists are still alive anymore, but it would kinda be nice if they were. Maybe someone could actually help us all figure out what the hell we're doing here.
Maybe one day I'll figure everything out. Maybe I'll go so far as to help out the crumbling world someday. But until we can actually leave base with everyone and come back fully in tact, I have a feeling that's not actually going to happen. It's a struggle half the time to fix up some of the local safebases time after time of destruction, let alone do anything more than provide shelter, food, and water to a handful of people.

The struggle is real.