Tales Of Miss Doom - The Ward

He awoke sometime in the mid-morning. He had scarfed down breakfast, ate until some kibble came back up, then gorged on more. Miss Doom trained her humans well, he thought, They leave me plenty of food. But as he sat staring at the self-refilling gravity feeder, he realized he was no longer hungry. Instead, he was bored. It was a boredom so deep that the thought of more kibble did not quell his idle mind.

He sat back on his haunches and studied his paw. Grey fur filled his face, blinding him to the mess of kibble-explosion on the floor. Hmm, clean. No bath needed. But what to do? He questioned himself, pondering all the activities he did daily. Eating had lost its luster, bathing was a chore for his eighteen pounds of fluff, he had no desire to dig his favorite ball from under the couch, and the male human was not home to attack. His options were limited. Then he had a mischievous spark and smirked.


Miss Doom lay curled atop a piece of partly shredded paper. She was not asleep, merely thinking, envisioning her thoughts as reality. The house was quiet, perfect for a bit of relaxing contemplation. Her eyes drifted to the holes and shreds in the paper, her code tapped out by tooth and fang. It was only a rough draft, the fourth revision this week. She found a flaw, not in the words, but in the plan itself. She sighed as she sat up, her tail wrapping around her legs.


He crouched, watching her back. He rolled his shoulders and twitched his tail, silent. Today is the day, he told himself as he braced for launch. This would not be the first attempt at a sneak attack, but it would also not be the first successful surprise attack, either. As a cat, he had stealth, but he was young and still needed practice with surprise. Twice last week he had caught her off guard. She had not been as thrilled as he, but he did not let that deter him from trying again.

He released the air from his lungs, cleared his mind, and jumped...

...right into her swinging tail. She had spun so quickly he had no chance to escape landing on her paper after a harsh tail thrashing. Her teeth sank into his ear as he skid by, stopping only when his bulky weight slammed into the back cushion of the couch.

Children! she shrieked internally. They ruin everything and make it so difficult to plan world domination!

Aloud, she chided him on his poor timing and even poorer placement. Her soft voice rang clear, "Sampson! If you had bothered to bathe, or at least decided to stand downwind, then you might have had a better shot." Her tail thumped the couch, the only visible indication of her annoyance.

The overlarge juvenile kitten bowed before her was not her offspring; somewhere along the way, after adopting her human and allowing him a mate, she somehow managed to find herself in charge of a stray puffball. She remembered what it was like to be orphaned and let him stay, although after attempting to train him, she was beginning to give up on having an able apprentice. This thought flitted through her mind once more, turning her stern visage into that of a disappointed teacher.

He cowed, mewled his apologies, and slunk off to his hiding space beneath the bed, presumably to bathe and sulk. She looked down at her paper once more and her frown deepened. Such potential, and yet such destructive tendencies. She pushed her ruined notes onto the floor, her mood spoiled for plotting to take over the world.