Epoch of Desolation

[Side Plot: Completed]

Side Character Rain Leclair has successfully eliminated the adversary.

Unscathed to boot… Rain had patronized himself at the sight of the Plexus’s message as some sort of means to better his mood. After all, even though his first kill was a rat, taking its life had turned out to be quite the bittersweet experience. Even worse was that he had done that solely because of his own selfish interests under the pretext of it being ‘the lesser of two evils’.

Either way, what is done is done, Rain told himself as he shut the door of his hospital room behind himself.

He was still the same scrawny boy with amnesia who had no knowledge of what exactly was going on, but his little expenditure had caused the air around him to turn somewhat dense. And the Jaguar seemed to notice that.

With his newfound weapon smeared by blood in his right hand, and his kill being held by its tail in the other, Rain loomed over the yellow and black spotted beast he had buried underneath his hospital bed.

He could see it, from where he stood, the evident anxiety in the glassy amber eyes of the Jaguar.

Was it the knife or the dead rat he held? Rain wasn’t sure. All he knew was that the beast who had once hunted him was currently afraid of being hunted by him.

How the tables had turned.

Rain closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and with an exhale, released all the tension that had stiffened his muscles. Whatever stern or rumpled expression he’d had also vanished as he sent the dead wharf rat he was holding towards the Jaguar.

The beast didn’t look at the meal it had been offered though; or rather, it only glanced at it for a mere second before putting its gaze back on the knife the human before it had in his grasp.

Rain too looked at his weapon then before raising his eyebrows.

“What?” he scoffed as he questioned the Jaguar in a stiff tone. “What do you take me for? Do you think I went through the trouble of hunting for you to come back and kill you? Get off your high horse, you clumsy spotted kitty.” The Jaguar’s eyes twitched. Rain pointed his knife at it. “I’ll free you now, and you better honor our deal or I won’t take it lightly with you. Do you understand me?” There was no reply. He gestured at the syringe near the beast in return. “When I ask a question I expect a response, and you damn sure know how to respond, don’t you?”

As though hesitant at first, the Jaguar slowly stretched its paw forward and placed it on the syringe, a look likened to that of either curiosity or bewilderment plastered on its face.

“Good,” Rain huffed, and as he’d said, went ahead to haul up the bed frame pressing the Jaguar to the floor.

This he did with his knife still solidly held in his grip; despite all his rambles about their deal and all, he was not going to fully trust a wild cat with the smarts of a human after just a single interaction. He was still well on his guard. And if he was to be completely honest, the Jaguar had not been wrong to look at him with hints of anxiety and fear. After all, during his walk back from the dining lounge, he had actually considered killing it.

That was behind him now though; his decision was made.

The sound of the bed frame standing on its own four feet rang through the room, but before Rain could complete his job and take the bed off the Jaguar, the cat sprang away from the young man who was both its captor and savior.

Rain was unsure of what expression to take as he saw the Jaguar crouching far away from him in a defensive manner, so his face blanked instead.

It was obvious that they both had doubts about each other, but why was the cat thinking it was the smarter of them two?

“You really have paws for brains, don’t you?” Rain said as he placed the bed he was holding up back on its frame, even further going ahead to arrange its rotting bedsheet of yellow and white on it.

His pulse was racing. He had a bit of fear that the Jaguar would end up attacking him, but he’d made up his mind not to show his fear in front of the cat for any reason. If their current interaction developed into a brawl, then so be it. It was not like he was going to let himself die either way.

“I already told you,” Rain continued, “I’ve long gone past the point of trying to kill you.” He was done laying out the bed now, so he hopped onto it and sat cross legged with his back resting on its headboard. “You should stop all that too. What’s the point? I brought you meat and you’re leering at bones, the rest of your clan would look at you funny if they saw this.”

For a moment Rain thought he saw the Jaguar’s shoulders droop and its head hang low. But he forgot all about it as the cat finally gave a longer look than its prior one to the rat he had brought it.

“Go ahead and eat. I even went through the trouble of wiping its body free of the fire extinguisher smoke I had sprayed all over it.” He pointed at the Jaguar as though he was its parent. “And don’t you waste a single meat. Eat it all!”

The cat tilted its head at him with the befuddled look it always had, but soon later it was upon the meal it had been offered, ripping at it in such a violent manner that Rain almost felt like he would puke. Maybe he was saved purely by the fact that there was nothing to puke. Regardless, looking at the Jaguar feed made him both hungry and a tad irritated—irritated that he might come down to having to feed like an animal if he did not find something to fill his belly soon enough.

Like hell I will! Rain discarded that thought and decided to take his mind off his troubles by studying.

Yes, studying. He was back to relying on what he seemingly hated a lot.

Placing his weapon beside him, he called for the Plexus Interface hiding in his peripheral vision, and it answered with haste.

A mixture of blue and purple words manifested before his eyes.

[Bestowed Reward(s)]

+2 Experience Points (Assignable).

[Proceed to assign?]…

Rain didn’t quite recall these words, what he did remember though was that he’d been graced with a new message he had instinctively pushed aside after he’d received the completion message of his tussle with the wharf rat.

Bestowed rewards, huh…? He had attained a point of nirvana regarding his situation where whatever the Plexus threw at him he would just go along with the flow.

Besides, what was the point of trying to make sense of it all?

He glanced toward the window, peeking beneath the small gap the curtains had to view a somewhat foggy world where nothing could be made out.

I wonder what’s happening outside now?

The urge to come down from his bed and stroll to the window came upon Rain, but the tiredness his body had was a lot greater. That kept him rooted.

Then his stomach growled.

Rain was about to plant his eyes upon his midriff when a low moan called his attention to the crouching Jaguar on the floor ahead of him, and the way its front paws were placed firmly on the carcass of the wharf rat it was feeding on. The cat had a look of concern on its face, but the blood painting its jaws made Rain miss that.

He took his eyes away from it instantly.

You must be enjoying your meal… Rain pinched his eyes as he yawned, after which he focused on the Plexus’s message once again and finally answered, Proceed.

The words shifted, but before the new ones could fully come into view his senses dulled in an instant.

A wave of exhaustion overtook him suddenly. The ache in his stomach became a distant throb as his thoughts blurred and his eyelids fluttered into closure.

Before he’d known it, he had given in to his body’s wants.

Although, as soon as he was about to bathe in the warmth of the darkness that had swallowed him, one last message from the Plexus forced itself to appear…

[Side Plot: Completed]

Side Character Rain Leclair has successfully befriended his adversary.

[Bestowed Reward(s)]

A Companion.