I have Nine Lives

Felix's body couldn't endure the after-effects of teleportation very well, it wasn't that his body was too weak, but the distance of where he was and where he was supposed to be teleported was too long.

Felix's surroundings were moving around him as if he was on a carousel when he finally arrived at the location he was supposed to be teleported.

White tiles... small but compact rooms where people in white coats were either talking. Or doing some experiments, he knew where he arrived.

He was in the same place where the scientists usually came together to talk, but it seemed that everyone was preoccupied with something else or it wasn't break time for them yet.

He looked around for a few seconds to identify the scientist that was supposed to help him, but even after a few minutes of his arrival, no one came to pick him up.

Did Vangar not notify them yet, or did they not get the message yet?

Felix continued to wait, and only after around 2-3 hours did he meet the person that was supposed to help him with his flying.

He was a man of average stature who wore glasses and the normal scientist outfit.

A lab coat, a white shirt, some protective gear for his face. And finally, some white gloves on his hands.

His hair was cut short from both the sides and back.

The scientist was looking at Felix with wariness. As he still remembered the day that Felix attacked after his escape.

He could still remember vividly how Felix used his claws to kill his former comrades. The images were vividly imprinted in his mind.

No matter how highly Vangar praised Felix in the message he sent to him, he could not look at Felix just as if he was a normal soldier of the army that came to him for advice.

Felix wasn't the only one that was left with trauma that day.

Time passes, and memories fade. At least, that's what happens to normal people.

However, it was different for the scientists of the humans as they all had great memories.

The man in front of Felix still remembered the screams of dread that his colleagues did when they were butchered by the cat that stood across from him. And no matter how cute he looked, The man knew that under his fur laid a monstrous devil.

But orders from higher-ups were orders that he couldn't refuse. He needed to help Felix reach his full potential for the better of the planet. Every scientist in the building had their hands on the confidential information, so they knew about Felix's soldier program.

Most of them didn't feel right when they read that Felix will be raised to be a star of the military.

As they thought that he would hold a grudge against them for what they did, they even saw how Shima had been punished according to military law and detained, so they thought they would be next.

Vangar's message. Which told him that Felix wanted to make peace with them, relaxed the man a bit.

However, he then read the rest of the message and started to sweat buckets as he realized he had to work with Felix face to face.

All of this lead to this awkward situation, as Felix looked at the man and the man looked at him.

The man's hand trembled as he adjusted his protective gear and said with a shaky tone:

"My name is Mirkov, and I will assist you with the energy expenditure problem you have."

It was obvious. The man feared Felix greatly as he took a distance of around 2 meters away from him.

Felix tried to take a few steps towards him, only for the man to walk backward.

"Uh...."

Felix wasn't sure what to say in this situation, so he took a few steps back to give Mirkov some space.

"We can start with an example. Can you fly anymore?"

As long as Felix was at an adequate distance, Mirkov would gladly work with him as he didn't feel really confident with examining him if he was too close, even though this would lead to mistakes.

It was a problem that he could remediate with time. But now, he couldn't get closer to Felix without having a mini panic attack.

Felix shook his head at the question, his armor was all out of juice, and he needed to recharge it, which would take quite a lot of time in the planetal environment.

"My armor is all out of power. Can we use some energy from the base?"

Mirkov nodded as he put two fingers on his ear and sent a message using his technologically advanced brain like a walkie-talkie.

"Send some energy nodes to the middle research facility."

After that, they waited awkwardly for a few minutes before another person entered with a box full of Rubix cubes.

Then he left quickly sensing the tense air in the room.

Felix looked at the fully charged Rubix cubes in the box and took one from it.

The armor sockets at his back opened up by themselves as two small mechanical hands took the cube from Felix's paws and changed the used cubes that were in his armor.

The energy from the cubes started to course through the armor and into Felix's body as he slowly started to take off the floor.

His flight was a little bit wobbly at first, but he already had gained some experience, and now with a new source of energy, he could continue his practice.

Mirkov watched Felix take off as his wings stretched behind his back and through a new opening in the armor that was slowly being molded around his wings, creating a new shape.

The armor's AI was adapting to Felix's bodily changes in real-time.

Felix flew like this for a few minutes before he plopped to the ground, the empty Rubix cube being ejected out of the armor soon after.

"Saw anything useful, Mirkov?"

Mirkov thought about everything that happened, but he couldn't link anything he saw to Felix's immense consumption of energy.

He told Felix to try again, and then he took a notepad so he could write down everything that Felix did for a more in-depth analysis.

Felix continued to fly around while Mirkov put everything on the notepad, but no matter how hard he analyzed the data he gathered, he couldn't find out what was wrong with him.

At first, he thought that he had written the wrong data, but the more he read, the more he didn't understand.

The more he analyzed, the more he was engrossed with the numbers that he wrote down. He felt that Felix's problem with flight wasn't something that came from him but the wings themselves.

Felix stopped flying as he finished the whole box of Rubix cubes. His whole body was sore and hurt from the constant energy supply that went through it without pause.

His insides hurt as well, but the part which hurt the most was the wings.

He had pumped them full of energy for around 6 hours and were heavily used.

Mirkov finally finished analyzing some of the data as he looked towards Felix's exhausted form and told him:

"I have found the problem of your energy wastage."

He started explaining while showing Felix the data on the notepad:

"It seems that your wings don't actually propel you into the air nor are they the catalyst for your flight, you could have always flown, but you haven't done it up till now because you didn't know how to."

"The wings are used as a placebo effect on you, which means you thought you could fly because you got wings, until you actually flew, the wings aren't the reason you can fly, and because of that you use too much energy."

Felix had question marks all over his head as he heard everything that Mirkov told him, what the hell was these words supposed to mean?

Seeing that Felix was confused by his methodical explanation made Mirkov almost facepalm as he decided to explain things to him in an easier-to-understand version.

"You use too much energy because the wings aren't what makes you able to fly."

Felix looked at his new wings and then asked:

"What are the wings for then?"

Mirkov was stumped by the question. Felix's ability wouldn't give him a useless addon, would it?

He wasn't familiar with his special ability, besides the common information that was passed around. So he couldn't say for sure.

"Well, I could analyze you a bit further to find out what they are for, but you know..."

It seemed that while they have been together for a while in the same room. Mirkov was still scared of Felix and he didn't want to get near him.

Felix started to stretch his wings as he got up from the floor, he was still a little bit tired, but he really wanted to find out what those wings of his were for if he didn't use them for flight.

Mirkov started to slowly back away as he realized that Felix was up to something.