DARK CAT'S POV:
'Where am I?' That was my first thought when I opened my eyes. 'I thought I was dead when that two-legged creature captured me.'
I slowly raised my head to look around, then I realized I was still trapped in the web.
'Oh no...'
I immediately pretended to be asleep, but the two-legged creature suddenly turned his gaze from the rectangle item to me.
He made sounds, strange sounds… Sounds I didn't understand.
"£$%^()_+_)(*&^%$£"£$%^&...*(-=#"
(I know you are awake… The truck told me.)
My claws were already working on cutting myself loose when the two-legged creature pressed something.
*SCREE—*
Electric shock ran through my body, putting me in a state of shock. This time, the two-legged creature didn't stab me like he did before… He left me awake to I watch.
The two-legged creature removed a larger box from the even larger one he had been staring at before.
He opened it, it released a hiss and steam rose from it. The two-legged creature moved its front paw away just in time.
Then it proceeded to put several other things into the smaller steaming box from the larger one.
The two-legged creature continued staring at the hissing box for a long time. Then suddenly, it glanced at me and pressed the button again.
*SCREE—*
Electric shock ran through my body rendering me unable to move.
'It can sense when I try to cut its web… It doesn't want me to move.'
Suddenly, the two-legged creature used its right front paw to pick an item from the steaming box and with its left paw, it pried open its own left eye.
'WHAT IN THE TARNATION?!' I screamed in my head… I wanted to move… I really did but the constant shock from the web paralysed me and made sure I couldn't.
I could only lay there and watch as the two-legged creature pried its own eyelid open with its left paw and used the curved item in its right paw.
I watched in horror as it suddenly squeezed the curved item. It glowed for a few seconds then the left eye popped out into its paw that was waiting for it.
'OH GOD OF PAWS... IF THAT IS WHAT HE DOES TO HIMSELF, WHAT WILL HE DO TO ME?!'
'I HAVE TO BREAK OUT. I HAVE TO BREAK OUT NOW.' But I couldn't even scream… Let alone move.
***
ORIGINAL POV:
Nicholas gently placed his eyeball into the Cryo-Donor Storage Tube.
If this all failed, he wanted to make sure his eyeball was in a viable condition to transplant back.
He glanced at his eyeball as he screwed on the cap of the Storage Tube, preventing the cold vapour from leaving.
Funny enough, in this world, eyeballs were one of the most easily transplanted organs.
The only reason they ever failed was typically because of immune rejection. That, and the main reason cross-species transplants didn't work.
'Hopefully, the Adapt talent prevents that… Oh well, if it doesn't work, I'll just shove my own eyes back in.' He thought as he placed his hand on his face, he couldn't even feel the skin anymore.
He pulled out a needle—a different one compared to the first he had used on the cat—and stabbed it into the cat.
It was a nerve agent that prevented any movement for less than an hour and it varied from creature to creature… So, he had to work fast.
Once the cat stopped twitching, he released it from the net. He grabbed the cat and placed it on his lap.
He could see the pure terror in the Dark Cat's eyes and he could understand. After all, he was staring down at it with one empty, bleeding eye socket that he had just pulled his own eye out of… right in front of it.
He repeated the same process he had done on himself on the cat.
He pulled out the cat's eye.
He shot the cat up with a basic gradeless healing injector before shoving it back into the net and locking it up then he reactivated the electric current.
Once he was sure the cat was securely trapped, Nicholas retrieved the vial containing the lattice.
It was a translucent disc, shimmering like a frozen soap bubble.
He tipped it onto his fingertip and slid it between the optic nerve stump in his socket and the donor nerve stump attached to the cat's eye.
A tiny electrical pulse from the vial's applicator activated the lattice and it unfurled into a hollow cone.
Silver threads wove between the two nerve ends like mycelium colonizing soil… The lattice guided axon regrowth across the gap without it, the nerves would never reconnect.
Nicholas pressed the stabilization ring around the cat's eye's equator and the segments clicked shut, turning the soft eyeball into a rigid surgical implant.
He pushed the cat's eye into his empty socket.
The ring's micro-anchors extended needle-thin prongs that pierced his orbital bone, locking the eye in place at the perfect depth and rotation.
Then came the gel.
He painted the blue-black adhesive onto each of the six severed muscle ends then he pressed them against the donor eye's surface.
Within seconds, the gel congealed into a rubbery bond.
The ring prevented the eye from rotating or sinking during healing while the gel replaced sutures faster and in more precise form.
Nicholas let his eyelid close allowing the stabilization ring hold everything in place.
He swallowed his first immunosuppressive bead… a tiny pearl that would dissolve slowly in his stomach, releasing its payload over twenty-four hours.
He pressed a fresh pain patch to his temple and the numbness on his face deepened, but he couldn't go to sleep yet.
He glanced at the cat.
He had to decide what to do with it… The energy of the net catcher wouldn't last forever.
He pulled his handgun and pointed it at the cat, his hand resting on the trigger.
He was about to pull it.
Then he hesitated for a second because he could almost feel the helplessness in the cat's eyes.
'Perhaps I should just release it...'
'No.' Nicholas pulled the trigger.
*BAAAANNG*