Cain led the way through the halls. He had explored every corner of the station initially when he arrived because of his curiosity but he wanted to go to his favorite section of the station with the tiger that Jace had yet to name. It seemed that his creator had a way about drawing in unconventional allies. First it was big sis Solisa, now it was this Astral Beast.

    Cain walked past a few guards before stopping at a corner. He started moving differently to be more quiet as he peered around the corner. Standing at the sides of the door were a pair of guards.

    Which was good because they would not be here unless they were in there. Unfortunately the older humans were constantly overzealous in their protection of them. So Cain always had to sneak in and out.

    Cain backed up, motioning for the curious tiger to follow him with his head. They walked over to a deadend of a nearby hall. Cain looked up at an air vent grate above them. It was big enough to fit both of them.

    Cain hacked into the station''s maintenance systems. Quickly breaking through several firewalls. Then the grate swung open as Cain released the locking mechanism. It would be at least an hour before the maintenance people noticed what Cain had done. Then it would not take them long to realize it was him.

    Cain crouched and prepared his back leg mechanisms before jumping up into the vent. Cain scrambled as he climbed fully inside before looking down at the tiger and nodding his head, indicating again for the tiger to follow him.

    Cain backed away and a moment later the tiger was appearing through the hole with her paws scrambling and scratching against the metal as she started pulling herself up. Cain flipped around and stuck out his metal tail.

    The tiger bit his tail and he walked forward helping the tiger climb inside the vent. Once the tiger was fully inside it let go of his tail. So he began climbing forward following the vent path he had pulled from the schematics of this area of the station.

    He went down then around before arriving at a grate. Cain snuck a look inside before glancing behind him to see the tiger was still following him. But was it smaller? It was, it must be one of its abilities.

    There was a clicking noise in front of him as the grate''s locking mechanism disconnected. Cain crawled forward and out of the vent coming out the back of the room. Sprawled around the room were a bunch of small humans that were covered in blankets and hugging big fluffy pillows.

    Cain snuck over to the side of the room in order to avoid waking them up. Sitting at the side of the room was the teacher. She was quietly watching the children who were napping at the moment.

    When she saw Cain she smiled and waved but froze and had a look of confusion when she noticed the tiger. Cain quietly moved over to the teacher and made sure that the tiger was following him.

    "Ma''am, I am glad we will not be interrupting class." Cain used a quieter voice function that is on his voice box. He was quietly fitted behind the desk. The tiger moved in behind the disk with him, sniffing the teacher.

    "That is okay, is this a tiger?" The teacher whispered back, nodding at the tiger.

    "No, she is a highly adaptable and intelligent rare creature. But she is harmless unless attacked. But she is a fully sentient being but she is also essentially a young child. So I was hoping to get her more used to being around the smaller humans in case she runs into a group of them later." Cain explained. "At the moment her paws have no claws, she likely unconsciously retracted them when we entered the room."

    "Well that is… good. Just in case I will use my ability on you two, so you won''t accidentally hurt them. But I will only wait until they wake up. They just started napping so it will be awhile before you can play with them." The teacher whispered back.

    Cain nodded before moving out of the way and laying down. The tiger followed his league, clearly confused but still going along with him.

    An hour later the first of the small humans were waking up. The little girl looked around groggily before pulling her blanket back up. But she suddenly shot up and looked right at Cain with a grin. "Cain!" The little girl''s screech caused the tiger and teacher to flinch because of the high frequency.

    The little girl ran forward forgetting the comfort of her blanket and pillow as she ran forward and hugged Cain''s head. Giggling with glee while pressing her face up against the cold metal of Cain''s head.

    The other children began stirring awake while a few immediately sat up. They were woken by the little girl''s screech of delight. Some were shooting up immediately when they realized what the little girl said.

    The children began swarming to the tiger and Cain. Draping their bodies over every part of them. The tiger quietly growled in annoyance while the teacher panically told the children to be careful.

    Cain made a chuckling noise. "Small humans, who wants to go for a ride first?" Cain spent the next several hours playing with the children. When he first started exploring he found he was able to easily understand the older humans after studying the smaller ones. They were a great form of informational data. He hoped the tiger would infer information from the experience in a similar manner he had.

    They walked around with the children on their back. They pushed giant rubber balls back and forth with children and then they waited quietly as the teacher continued her class. Finally they went back to playing with the small humans after the teacher ended classes. They mostly moved around the room playing with them.

    When the small humans were taken out by the bigger humans was what marked the end of the day. The small humans were exhausted and sleeping as their bigger human counterparts carried them out. Afterwards Cain and the tiger walked out the door and headed to their next destination.

    To the cafeteria, from Cain''s knowledge the tiger should be hungry by now. As they made their way to the kitchen his sensors picked up the sound of a chemical growling coming from the tiger''s midsection. He could not smell it himself but he was guessing the tiger was picking up the scent of cooked food coming from the cafeteria.

    Cain led the way into the cafeteria and stood in line behind the other humans. He was receiving frowns and looks of confusion as he waited in line. The tiger was patiently behind him but was now making whining noises. There were a few minutes before they arrived at the start of the kitchen window. Sear?h the n?vel_Fire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    Cain lifted himself up on his back legs and put his front legs on the counter to balance himself. The kitchen staff member who was by the window blinked in surprise and confusion.

    "Hello, I am not eating but my companion would like some cooked red meat. If there are an array of different meats for her to try it would be appreciated." Cain asked the person.

    The person looked over the counter down at the tiger that was making pouting noises. "Um… I suppose we can. We have some steaks, fried chicken, and… lasagna?" The man shrugged in confusion. "I will be honest, I do not know what tigers eat."

    "Those dishes should be fine. A plate of each of them will do wonders for data on what it can and cannot eat. I am surprised that Sergeant Steel has not brought the tiger here before." Cain pointed out as he waited.

    "Ah, there is a good chance he only eats in the cafeteria near the Tartarus Project dorms." The man pointed out, "that is not a name I recognize, so he might have come with the new arrivals and they are confined to a single area of the station for the time being."

    "That might be the case," Cain nodded his mechanical head up and down. "I came here because the data shows that this cafeteria had the best selection of meats for dinner today."

    "So you are what, the tiger''s caretaker? How did someone even get permission to have a tiger?" The man asked in confusion. He then looked behind him, "oh, you need to move down there to get the dishes. If you want, one of the chefs can carry it to a table for you." The man pointed to the end where dishes were placed.

    "Please do, have one of the chefs bring it to that empty table." Cain nodded at the end of a table that was void of people. He started moving over to and jumped up onto a seat. The tiger pouted louder as it moved over and climbed onto a seat next to him. A chef came out with three plates.

    One of the plates had two cooked pieces of steak. Another had several pieces of fried chicken, it looked to be an entire chicken that was cut up and then fried. Then the last was an entire dish of lasagna.

    The tiger looked at Cain like she was asking for permission. "Eat up, I will figure out where we are going next while you eat." Cain told her.

    The tiger immediately began with the more familiar looking steak. Quickly slurping down both within seconds. Then it began eating bites of fried chicken crunching through the bones and eating it causing the nearby humans to flinch. Cain did not bother stopping her because she can apparently digest bones.

    After eating the chicken it looked at the lasagna in curiosity. It dipped its nose down and liked up a layer of the dish. Its head immediately shot up while its tail froze midair. It started for a second before diving headfirst into the dish slurping up the lasagna with its tail wagging back and forth at an unbelievable speed. Causing the nearby people and the chefs from the kitchen who were watching to burst into laughter.

    It seems the tiger appreciated a good lasagna dish.