All the other cats were just whatever they happened to be. Some were plain lions, some just stupidly striped tigers, there were Jaguars and Pumas and Panthers (not only those at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris.)
He, he was a very special species, he was beyond all that, beyond even, well you know. He was a bit of a chameleon of the cats, though he would never dare to combine these words in public. He liked to call himself the C-Cat... or Copycat, as some would say, he was the creme de la creme of looks, and smarts and oh... just name it and he certainly excelled at it... and did he not, adjustment was no problem, survival of the fittest?, he knew if anything, he would be the last cat standing, jumping, looking good. He, after all, was able to intelligently pick and choose, to grab a stripe here, to become inspired by a roar there. Some of the design solution found on cougar was much better than on a siamese cat, yet when it came to speed, he knew how to make himself look like a perfect Cheetah, going straight for the kill, cutting corners, picking the shortest sprint...
He was convinced that what he arrived at was the ultimate and the optimal perfection. Only thew best of the best, perfectly adjusted, optimized.
There was just one, just tiny, little drawback... being the very best, the fastest adapting one, the nimblest shifter of shape and color and thought, made him incredibly hmm, how did he sometimes try to call it...
Well, let's say his friends were never able to keep up. They were just slow and did not get his speed in spotting trends, and so they had to be just left behind.
So there were friends in his past, yes, many, very powerful, influential friends... like even the lion (from him he sampled the left paw)... and there were even more powerful friends in C-Cat's future... Hyena, his current buddy told him that...
Well, in the present, the present... here he did not have a real group. Right now... for now, just this second...
As for hunting... he was best at hunting trends anyway... and this winter, this winter was the winter of the Bears anyway... he would be a Copy-Bear this winter... he would own the snow, the hills, the mountains... He would be dressed up as a blackbear, be strong as a grizzly... he already saw himself rushing through the powdered snow...
At least this is what he thought, the really big bears did around December...