“A fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.” - Friedrich Schiller, Historian.

I was a kitten! I was adorable if I do say so myself. Sure, being born wasn’t fun. I’ll spare you the gooey details. What matters is, I was alive again. I even had a whole litter of brothers and sisters.

The only problem was, I was an alley cat. And not in the fun let’s-make-a-musical ‘everybody wants to be a cat’ sort of a way. It was the ‘born on a rooftop between a gutter and a chimney’ sort of a way. The first few days of my life, I was so weak I couldn’t even open my eyes. I had the vague sensations of being licked and jostled around between other soft fluffy bodies.

Mumma Cat did her best to feed us, but like any single mum, times were tough. Honestly, it reminded me of my first childhood back on Earth. My first mum worked really hard, but no matter how hard she worked, we never got ahead in life. Like me, I think the overwork killed her. Like mother, like son I guess.

So here I was, growing up in the dodgy end of town again. I really missed actual food. Cat milk was gross. I didn’t sign up for this. I have to admit though; it was nice to snuggle up with all my purring brothers and sisters and Mumma Cat next to the warm chimney on cold nights.

When I could open my eyes, I found the view from our roof-hole was amazing. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. I was in a medieval city with beautiful lamp lights glowing by the sea. The babble and bustle of the city around our rooftop was easy to pick up with my sensitive cat ears. I couldn’t see much at first because I wasn’t very good at walking yet. But when I could walk, I was going to conquer this city.

Okay, I know that was ambitious. I was a kitten after all, but I felt like I had this new life. Why not make it great? I wanted to make a real difference in this world. I was going to be a force for good.

You might be asking, ‘But wait, you’re an adorable little kitten. What could you possibly achieve?’ And you’d be right, if I didn’t have magic. Oh yeah, that’s right. All those ‘resources’ I stole from that imploding pyramid gave me some pretty sweet advantages.

So there I was, getting a nice lick-bath from Mumma Cat. It’s amazing by the way. I highly recommend it if you’re ever a cat. Anyway, in my relaxed state, I was trying to access my augmented reality screen. It was like being constipated, but in my eyeball, because I could feel that gemstone inside my eye socket from my last life. So I squeezed my little magic muscles around the rock in my head, and this window popped up.

Now, magic in this world was wild. It was all visible on this black augmented reality screen that only I could see. I was still figuring out how it all worked, but I had access to my Status. Having a Status allowed me to see the possible skills and spells that I could unlock on a Tech Tree. The Tech Tree looked like a family tree if I zoomed in, or a spider’s web if I zoomed out of it. Except instead of people’s names on the tree, there were descriptions of professions or ‘classes’ that branched into different skills and spells. It was going to take me some time to get my head around how it all worked.

So, in my weakened state as a newborn kitten, I split my time between training my body, exploring my surroundings and learning about my new options for advancement.

Now, you need some context for what happened next.

I’ll admit it. Being dead had gone to my head. I regret blowing up that nice pyramid. And stealing Death’s carriage. I’ve made some mistakes, and this one was a big one because I might have stolen from the wrong person.

You see, I forgot to mention that there was this really, really nice crown, back in the pyramid. It was on a pedestal, and I thought it would look great in my carriage of death. I mean, who wouldn’t want a glowing golden crown? So yes, I took the important-looking crown. And it went with me through the, I’m going to call it a reincarnation portal.

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This scene may or may not have repeated itself a few times around the pyramid before I arrived at the last room and blew everything up. Look, what matters is that I am a changed man. I’m definitely not going to go around stealing stuff anymore. That’s the old me.

Besides, if I kept stealing things, I might draw attention to my weak little kitten self. I had to stop looting and blowing things up for a while. If that was Death’s house and he wasn’t dead, well, I didn’t want Death or his friends to find out that I had robbed them and destroyed their pyramid. If Death was alive or had friends, they might want their stuff back. Or revenge. But I’ve used all their stuff up in my reincarnation. It’s all gone. No refunds. You see, all that loot was converted into energy when I went through the glowing red doorway.

So yes, I regret it. Not just because I’m in hiding. But because it was wrong. Stealing is wrong. Unless … No, no. Stealing is definitely wrong.

Anyway, that was my long-winded explanation of how I was given my class. When I opened my Status, I saw I had been ‘awarded’ the Crime Lord class. I assumed I was given that class because of my looting and destruction. But who knew?

Well, cats don’t live very long anyway. And I’ve got maybe, 10 or 15 years until I’m dead again, if I’m lucky. I doubt I’ll be able to pull the same trick twice when I die again. So this is the end of the road for me. This was my last life. A second chance at life.

I had to start asking myself the big questions. You know. Look deep down. How do I want to live my life? Who do I want to be?

Well, I was born into this world a Crime Lord, probably because of my post-death adventures, but that didn’t need to define my future.

And there it all was in front of me. My choices. A vast web-like Tech Tree of skills, spells, classes and perks to choose from. A holographic representation of all the different paths I could choose to take my life in. Except this time, I had the money to be whoever I wanted. I had these reincarnation resources or ‘points’ to spend. I could buy advantages or professions based on all the treasures and resources that I took from the pyramid. And I had a lot of resource points to spend.

But before I went shopping, I had to look at what I started with first.

Next to my Tech Tree was my main Status Page. It showed me all the skills and statistics of my cat body. I had to do more constipated magical muscle squeezing to bring up my Status Page. Mumma Cat must have thought I was in pain because she just licked me harder. Bless her. And it popped up!

Name: Sooty

Age: 2 weeks

Race: Cat

Class: Crime Lord (Level: 1)

Attributes:

* Strength: 1

* Speed: 1

* Toughness: 1

* Intelligence: 11

Skills:

* None

Spells:

* None

Perks:

* Eye of Death: You can see Death coming.

Sooty? My name was Sooty? Is that a joke? Who gave me the name Sooty? Really Mumma Cat? Ugh! Well, I guess it makes sense. I was the only black kitten in Mumma Cat’s litter. The rest of the kittens were gingers, like Mumma Cat. There was a lot of soot around the chimney we lived next to though. So maybe Mumma Cat thought I was just dirty from all the soot we had to live with from the chimney?

Oh well. If that’s what Mumma Cat wanted to call me, Sooty it is then. New life, new me.

Other than my new badass name, I was pretty weak right now. That Eye of Death perk sounded useful though. I probably got that from sticking that gemstone in my eye socket the other day.

Okay, I have confirmed that I was indeed a kitten. Now I could finally spend my reincarnation resources and unlock the power of the Dark Side. Cough. I mean, the Tech Tree. It was time to decide how I was going to take control of this city.