AN: This is also a school assignment, but it's much shorter, and I'll have to be done by the time the summer ends. So yes, this will be finished! I have decided to upload the rest of the The Diamond City too, so that should be happening soon. I hope I captured Hazel right, but do enjoy regardless!

"Get your grubby paws off me, mouse for brains!"

The tiny, tabby kitten sighed, gazing longingly out the bars of his and his siblings' cage. It wasn't so much that he wanted to be free; no, he liked the small, warm space he had been confined to. He simply wasn't too fond of its other residents. He turned to look them, the two small she-cats locked in each other's needle-sharp claws.

"I'm gonna get yo-Hey, no fair! Biting's not allowed!" one whined, turning and scampering to hide behind her completely indifferent mother. "Right, Mom?" she asked, poking the larger cat's back. "Tell her she can't bite me anymore!" The three cats' mother only smiled, catching the accused kitten around the side with a paw and pulling her in for a rasp-tongued lick.

"Moooom, stop-"

"They are a rowdy bunch, aren't they?" an alien voice rumbled. A gigantic, pink face hovered in front of the cage, its paw-sized, eyes gleaming with amusement. "All except that one," it added, turning slightly to stare right at him, the outcast.

The tabby kitten's coat fluffed up with apprehension. His two sisters were now pawing at the bars of the small enclosure, begging to be chosen, but he sat still, meeting the gigantic, pink thing's gaze. Human, right? he thought. Though I don't suppose it could be anything else.

"He looks like he's thinking, doesn't he, Hazel?" The pink creature spun all the way around to face another of its kind, one slightly smaller but of similar stature. From the very, very little the tabby kitten knew of the creatures' species, these two were the females, while the bigger one standing primly a short way away was the male.

The one called Hazel approached the cats' cage slowly, pulling a narrow cylinder behind her. She bent down slowly, her green eyes focused on the tabby kitten. "Yeah," she replied, the faintest of smiles curving her lips. "Like a little feline philosopher, pondering the meaning of life." She straightened, turning to the other female. "He's definitely the one I want," Hazel decided. "And his name will be Rene Descartes." She looked back down at her kitten-to-be thoughtfully. "He knows he exists."

With that, she walked away, leaving the larger male and female to scoop the kitten up. The tabby's sisters protested, but in an instant he had been stolen away. They would never see him again.

The tabby kitten-or Rene Descartes, he supposed-wasn't upset at all. His sisters had never really liked him, thinking him much too quiet for his own good ("You'll never get adopted if you don't look happy!" one had told him), and while his mother would miss him at first, she would quickly move on. They would all be adopted eventually. That was the way it worked.

A sudden movement jarred the kitten from his thoughts. The taller female deposited him in Hazel's lap where she sat in some gigantic metal box. The tall one retreated, but a moment later she had reappeared in a cushy seat beside the male. Rene Descartes looked around curiously, noting the strange lights and strange smell and strange feel and-

"This is a car, Rene Descartes," Hazel explained. "I'm Hazel, that's Dad and that's Mom." Her large paws seemed to have minds of their own as they flew through the air, moving from human to human, but Rene Descartes thought he understood.

"Hazel, honey," Mom said sweetly, "do realize he's just a cat. He can't understand you."

Rene Descartes frowned. "Yes, I can," he replied calmly. "And I am appreciating the knowledge I am being given, so please don't stop her."

Dad chuckled, his broad shoulder's shaking slightly. "For a kitten named after a famous philosopher, he sure does have a squeaky meow."

Mom laughed at that, nodding her head in agreement, but Hazel gave her new cat a soft pat on the head. "I know you can understand me, Des," she reassured him.

Despite the somewhat odd cylinder she wheeled around and slow way of moving, Rene Descartes decided he really liked this human. She was different, just like him.