Planet of Cat Fights: Vol 1

By S.A. Oosthuysen

Although the “people” on this planet are all cats, they are not much different from the human race. One of the main exceptions is that some of them have supernatural powers.
A cat with nine lives used his superpower to fight a gang on his own. After learning more about their motives for stealing, he was persuaded to join them instead. With their special tactics and his superpower combined, they would be unbeatable... or would they?
This dark and edgy novel contains plenty of action with some humour and drama as well. It’s meant to entertain young readers, but since it contains violence and references to sex, it is better suited for teenagers and young adults.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.A. Oosthuysen
• Release date: Jul 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005691318

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Copyright © 2022 S.A. Oosthuysen

ISBN: 978-1-0056-9131-8

First edition 2022

Published by S.A. Oosthuysen at Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

S.A. Oosthuysen

[e-mail]

CONTENTS

1. Another world

2. Honour is a choice

3. The cats

4. Tom

5. Lion’s Den

6. Boom

7. Good people?

8. Iron Claw

9. A cat with nine lives

10. Legio

11. The black panthers

12. The chase

13. Jaguars’ revenge

14. Tiger Triggers at war

15. Bobcats

16. Feline pyramid

17. Natalie

18. Roar!

19. The pride

20. Splash

21. Desperately seeking it

22. True colours

23. Training session (part 1)

24. Training session (part 2)

25. Revenge

26. Underwater

27. Just when you thought it was over

1. Another world

Do you sometimes wish you could escape to another world and start over? If you could go to another planet, which one would you go to? We know there are eight planets in this universe. Apart from planet earth all the other planets look deserted and dull, so you probably wouldn’t go to any one of them, right?

What if there was a ninth planet that was covered by an invisible cloak? If this was done before the human race invented satellites, then no one would ever know about this planet. Imagine how the story takes place on this fictional planet.

It started in the year zero when this planet was suddenly covered with blue skies and an invisible cloak. A wind came from out of nowhere and blew over the deserted planet. The wind quickly turned into a tornado that became larger and larger.

While the tornado kept spinning, it began to take the shape of a man wearing a royal outfit. The colourless man-shaped tornado was soon covered with many colours. It wasn’t long before it changed into a lion that stood upright like a man.

This lion was powerful and had a list of special abilities. He could also adjust his body to go without food or rest. He could adjust his body to feel comfortable and not feel too hot or cold.

Imagine you were like this powerful lion in the middle of a desert. What would you do? Bear in mind you wouldn’t need anything, and yet, you wouldn’t be completely satisfied either.

The lion looked over the desert and thought, "This planet looks dull. I should at least change the scenery." So he created a large garden with trees that were lined up and spaced evenly apart. Even the grass was perfect, meaning they were all the same shape and size.

The lion looked at the garden he had created. It was perfect all right, but somehow it looked almost just as boring as the desert.

He wasn’t satisfied with the garden and so he thought, "Things don’t always have to be perfect."

Therefore he changed and rearranged everything in the garden. Instead of having identical trees and grass, he created a bigger variety. Instead of having them all lined up, he scattered them. Even though the garden started to look rather messy, he still ensured a form of neatness as well.

He also created a variety of colourful flowers placed neatly together. He then added stones and water fountains with streams. The beautiful garden was enlarged so that you couldn’t see the end of it.

The lion then thought about building himself a home. He made sketches and blueprints of the new cottage that he wanted to live in.

Did I say cottage? I meant to say palace. Surely this lion, dressed in royal clothes, would prefer a huge palace.

He built the palace alone. It wasn’t really difficult for him because he couldn’t get hungry nor get tired. He also had several superpowers that helped him. One of his powers was to make copies of himself appear at any location. So he could lay the tiles on the first floor, create a copy to paint the walls outside and create another copy to work on the roof. All the copies worked together at the same time and they were all controlled by one mind.

If you think he also created several copies to help him build the garden, you would be correct. It’s a very useful power to have and yet, it could not take away his loneliness. Talking to one of his copies, would be like talking to a mirror because he controlled their thoughts. He could see what they see and hear what they hear. They couldn’t do anything without him because their minds were controlled by his.

The lion made the copies disappear… for now. He sat on his throne like a king and wondered what to do next. He wanted to be a king and therefore he felt he needed at least one servant.

While sitting on his throne he imagined seeing the workshop. He had to do that in order to make a copy of him appear at that location. As soon as the copy appeared in the workshop, the lion controlled that copy to create his first servant.

The servant was created in the form of a dove. It did everything the lion commanded it; and it didn’t do anything else without the lion’s command. Although the dove appeared to be the perfect servant, there was still something missing.

The lion led the dove outside and asked, What do you think of my garden?

The dove answered, I don’t know what to say.

The lion suggested, You may say it looks wonderful.

As expected the dove said, It looks wonderful.

The lion thought, You’re only saying it because I told you to say it. He was unsatisfied with the dove because it behaved like a robot.

You may wonder, "Why would he be disappointed?"

Let me explain. Regardless of the movies you might have seen, people can’t be friends with robots. You see, a robot behaves like a computer; and a computer will only do what it is programmed to do. It won’t do anything of its own because it doesn’t have free will.

The closest a computer can get to free will, is to generate random numbers. Let’s say you set up a playlist where the first ten songs are good songs and the last ten are bad songs. You select the shuffle option so the songs will be played in a random sequence. Because you added ten bad songs on the playlist, the computer will play some of those songs, if not all of them. The computer doesn’t know whether they are good or bad, and it will surely not be a sign that the computer hates you.

Even if your computer displayed a message on the screen saying how much it likes you, it wouldn’t mean anything to you, because you would know you are the one who entered that message.

The lion thus knew the dove needed something else. He wanted to give it free will, emotion and perhaps creativity… but to create those things would be more complicated than you might think.

In his workshop the lion worked on his new project while the dove just stood by the door staring at him. The dove didn’t move nor say anything; he didn’t even blink.

After several hours the lion completed the new thing he created: it was an object shaped like a heart. The lion installed the heart in the dove’s chest. Don’t worry; it was a painless procedure. The purpose of the heart was to enable the dove to make its own choices.

The lion wanted to test and see if it worked. He led the dove outside again and asked, Now what do you think of my garden?

The dove flew over the garden to take a proper look at it. He soon came back and with a disgusted expression he said, Your garden doesn’t exactly match your palace. I mean, your palace is built perfectly whereas your garden isn’t. The streams aren’t running in straight lines; the flowers don’t look the same; each grass is pointing in its own direction; and the trees together with their branches aren’t even lined up.

The lion smiled and said, The garden is supposed to look like that.

It was clear that the dove had free will and his own taste. The lion was pleased with that and so he decided to give the dove a name.

He told the dove he would call him Davey. The dove said he didn’t want that name and so the lion asked him what name he would prefer.

Cypher, answered the dove.

Are you sure? Do you know what it means? asked the lion.

Okay, I know it means ‘zero’, but I don’t care; it sounds much cooler than ‘Davey’, the dove answered with a disgusted expression.

The lion didn’t mind hearing his honest opinion and agreed to call him Cypher. He was pleased with his work and so he sent a thousand copies of himself to create more doves. Each copy had to make a couple of doves so he would have plenty of doves in a short amount of time.

When all the doves were created they bowed down before him. The lion was pleased knowing the doves honoured him because they chose to do it.

2. Honour is a choice

The lion had his own planet, his own palace and he was honoured as a king. So what more did he need? He wouldn’t expect the doves to bring him food or anything because he didn’t need food. What he needed perhaps was to be entertained.

The lion instructed the doves to prepare a play for him. He chose a dove named Ted to be the director and another one named Dovy to be the producer.

He needed someone to be in charge of the costumes but thought, Designing costumes can be time consuming.

He came up with an idea and said, I don’t want you guys to spend too much time on the costumes and makeup, so instead I’m going to give one of you the ability to change the appearance of others.

Since Cypher was the first dove he created, the lion decided to give him that ability saying, With this superpower I’m about to give you, you’ll be able to change your appearance anyway you want to. You can do the same to the others with the exception that you need their permission to do that.

Cypher gladly agreed to receive that power. He said he understood the limitation and promised he would use it wisely.

The lion then stretched out his hand toward Cypher. A tornado appeared in the palm of his hand that soon stretched towards Cypher. The doves that were standing close to him backed away. Cypher was surrounded by this tornado for a few seconds before it disappeared. The doves all stared at Cypher not knowing what just happened.

You can now change your appearance, said the lion. Give it a try.

Cypher managed to change his colour, his size and his hairstyle all at the same time. He was thus more colourful, slightly bigger than the rest and had a unique hairstyle no one else had.

Later during the preparations for the play, Dovy discussed his ideas with the others. There were several props and music instruments in the room they could use. Ted had to make notes as he was supposed to direct the group later.

Cypher, on the other hand, was alone in another room. He was checking out his reflection in the mirror while changing himself into all kinds of animals.

A few minutes later Ted entered the room and told Cypher the other doves were waiting for him. When Cypher joined the others, Dovy instructed him to change the appearances of the doves that would be the actors for the play.

They were supposed to be different kinds of animals, so to make it easier, they had to stand in a line in front of Cypher and tell him which animal they wanted to be. Since they gave him permission, Cypher could change them accordingly.

While Cypher was still busy transforming them, the ones that had been transformed dropped out of the line and started preparing their dialogues. They enjoyed themselves and were excited about the play. Even the actors waiting in line were excited as they already knew the script and the roles they would play.

Cypher didn’t join in the excitement as he didn’t know the script. Eventually he became so curious that he stopped transforming the doves and headed over to read the script.

After reading the first page he asked, What role am I supposed to play?

Ted answered, Your role is to transform the actors.

Cypher wasn’t happy about that and said, "No,