Anticat

"You have got to be kidding!" I hissed to Ryan, "What the heck are they doing here."

"Are you really still upset about what happened last year? You tripped literally no one remembers it." Ryan whispered back.

"You just proved your own theory wrong. If you remember, everyone does." I glared at the group that had just entered our headquarters.

"It's called teaming up for the end of the world." Ryan muttered, "I think that's more important than your little grudge."

The group walked up to the director and their leader shook my uncle's hand.

"Pleasure, thank you for coming." The director stated.

"Of course, even if they landed here the entire world is at stake. I have brought my top agents who meet the criteria they set."

I glared at them some more. I made sure to send a particular pile of hate toward the annoying one with the black hair.

Of course he'd match the criteria the cats set. The stupid idiot was to bloody perfect in every way. And if that wasn't enough reason to hate him, he was rich and like 8th in line for some throne somewhere. The rest of the royalty should have locked him away in a castle somewhere, how he even become an agent was a mystery.

"Listen up. I'd like you all to welcome the FBI agents who will be joining us for the foreseeable future. Please make them feel at home here." The director turned his head and made eye contact with me on the last part.

I clicked my tongue and slipped away. Hard pass, I'd rather watch them get eaten by some crocodiles.

I pulled up the announcement screen and glared at it. Seriously couldn't they have modified a criteria to not allow royalty or something?

Battle human criteria

Age: 17-27

Fitness level: High – this will be tested for

Mental soundness: Resilient

Status: No known ailments/impairments

I looked at the last one for a moment. Should I pretend to have glasses? Did I want to be a 'chosen' human? Nah that sounded like a pain, can you imagine being followed around by a cat 24 hours a day? I think I'd go insane, or more insane.

Then again, I looked down at the gathering of agents who were becoming buddy-buddy with the FBI agents, that was exactly our goal.

Those of us who met the criteria were going to take the cat tests and try to 'partner' with one of them.

Who thought that was a good idea? Let it be known for the record, I am 100% against partnering with a space feline. So why am I going to show up at the stadium? Well honestly I'm not sure, emotions were never my strong suit, I just follow orders because it's convenient. This was the first order I've been truly against, and that's because the stupid lead cat branded us.

But the other option is the opposing team who wants to kill us. So I'm going to be on team Cody instead. What is the goal of team Cody? Well I'm still working on that.

"Okay everyone move out, we can't be late." The director headed out the door and I reluctantly made my way back downstairs and to the end of the group. "Match up in vehicles and each group takes a stadium. Group one...." He began listing out the groups by each stadium and my jaw twitched.

"Group five, Cody Seeker, Ryan Hunter, Kyle Winters….." he listed a few others and I wanted to smack my head against the wall, was it too late to call in sick today?

"Just great," I started walking toward my assigned vehicle as the others followed.

"I call gunshot!" Ryan leapt into the passenger seat.

"For the millionth time it shot-gun." I slid into the driver's spot.

Where had she picked up that annoying habit.

"Oops" I clicked the door lock leaving the other agents out of the car. "My bad, go find a different ride."

"Cody! Come on its him!" Ryan clicked the doors back open and I wanted to toss her out too.

I had almost forgotten she was one of his biggest fans because he'd saved her life at one point. Stupid prince even had the damsel in distress act covered.

"Whatever." I glared daggers over my shoulder as he slipped into the vehicle and gave Ryan a dazzling smile. "Picklebrain."

He shot me a weird look, "Still making terrible insults I see."

"Well your brain is full of vinegar so if your not pickling something i don't know what your trying to do." I retorted.

An amused smile curled the edge of his lips making me want to insult him more. I turned forward and put on my seat belt.

Then I stepped on the gas and shot out of the parking garage and down the road. I need to come up with some better insults.

"Come on music!" Ryan fiddled with the radio. "Does it ever just play good music? Is that so much to ask for?"

"Just play something on your phone." I replied.

"No way! That defeats the purpose of a car radio." Ryan replied.

I glanced over at her. She was definitely missing a few brain cells. The station switched to some rap, then some pop, then rock, then some Spanish channel, then, I winced, what even was that? No way that was music.

"Oh just pick something or I'm turning it off. Plus we are almost there." I reached for the off button but Ryan blocked me.

"Fine." She left it on a country station and I sent a silent thanks to the maps app that said I only had another minute of this nonsense.

 Everyone else in the car had been silent the whole trip, Ryan seemed to have an issue with silence. I grimaced as the country changed to some techno music monstrosity.

The stadium came into sight, ah what a glorious sight. I pulled into the parking which was already filled with people. How many random people had shown up to this? I scanned the crowd but didn't see anyone I recognized.

Chaos would be an understatement, there was no rhyme or reason to the lines leading to the doors and the stronger people were pushing through the crowds.

Well that suited me fine, if we politely waited in line and the cats found their teammates before reaching us that would be just fine by me.

We entered a line and moved surprisingly fast into the stadium, well snap that didn't work.

I passed through a glowing blue window like wall in front of me. It felt surprisingly refreshing. Dang! I'm starting to like alien technology.

221130228 appeared briefly before disappearing again.

Right, I'll need to set it to not delete that data if I get chosen. What a pain.

The inside of the stadium, what had those cats done to this place? The grassy field had been replaced with giant pile of dirt, and I mean giant. It went up through the roof and kept going up. It looked like an anthill with several openings.

"Welcome to the trials." I saw a cat sitting above one of the openings, its fur orange with black stripes. "Each of your numbers has been randomly assigned to an opening. Please find it and begin the first test."

I stared at the pile of dirt, did they want us to enter it like ants now? No way that dirt pile was safe!