Catgirl System

I poked my head out from underneath the log cabin, only to lock eyes with a human.

This young woman was sitting atop a set of three steps leading up to a wooden door with a screen window, next to a bowl of milk. She was squatting with her knees up to her chin and her hands atop her knees, hair in her face. I couldn’t see her features behind those hands and that bobbed magenta hair…except for her rose-gold eyes.

Thanks to the lantern by the door, I could see the luminance swimming in those eyes, the deep-green hue of her corduroy pants.

But I wasn't just gonna sit here and stare.

This was the one animal I’d been hoping never to encounter—never to become.

I'm making it sound like humans are the devil, aren't I? That's not what I mean. It's more that to me they were, uh, weird and mean and faintly gross. Probably like asking you, the reader, if you wanted to become a dangerous, predatory slug that's also an alien invader. I think this comparison was doomed from the start, but do you see what I mean?

Yes, by getting the power to transform into a catgirl, I was getting the power to become like the immensely powerful city-builders. But I was also getting the power to do things like crash cars, fuss over what clothes to buy, and yank random feral cats' tails with impunity. I'd never gotten over that last one. Seriously, why? They’re just spines with hair on them.

And I'd seen them do worse, on top of that. You know…crime…beatings… Maybe it wasn't worse than what truly angry and desperate cats would do to each other, but…I'd never been a social animal, and that was why.

Now I had a new life, a new body, and a new desire to investigate this human and her bowl of milk, all while staying decidedly farther than an arm's length away.

First I ripped my eyes from hers. Then, slowly and deliberately, I walked up to the bowl.

Looking around, I didn’t see anything. And I didn’t hear any challenging snarls. So maybe I could just kind of…

Silently, I declared the bowl mine. Coolly, I rested my paws on either side of it.

The journey began. I dragged it backward.

The human looked…flabbergasted. Affronted. Weird. Why?

I wasn't going to let my question show on my face. Instead, I was keeping my face and composure perfectly level. I wasn't going to let her think I was afraid of her, even though I kinda was.

I sniffed at the bowl. At this range, the smell was much clearer. This milk was fresh, and aside from coming from an unfamiliar Vencian species of cow, its quality was undeniable.

Was it enchanted with some horrific, gut-twisting curse?

Well, the current twisting of my own hungry gut, along with my parched tongue, were bad enough. So I started to lap it up.

Slep, slep, slep.

Soon after I started drinking, the young woman made a weird sound. It took a few seconds for my brain to wrap around it, but eventually I understood:

“Shoo, shoo!”

I glanced up. She was waving one of her hands at me. To make me go away! Well, how dare she. Who else was gonna drink thi…

I turned my head. This time, all the way around. Five raccoons waited in a crowd, gritting their teeth at me.

Wow, okay. Good thing I’d stopped relying on smell, because these were five whole smells I'd missed. Which was weird, because three of them were holding and munching on handheld clumps of what was clearly garbage.

Didn’t know raccoons liked milk, but I guessed they liked anything, huh…

Then the young woman started…crying? Or at least tearing up? She flung her head back and forth—gawking at the raccoons, then me, raccoons, me—in total indecision. Her hands flew around her face, grasping at nothing but air.

My options flew through my head. If I couldn’t take squirrels, I sure couldn’t handle these. So, reinvigorated a little by this milk, I’d have to run yet again.

But then the whimpery pink girl did something that made me freeze: she reached behind her back and pulled out an enormous sword. One so large it clearly couldn’t have fit in the space she got it from.

And in one swift move, she brought it down on my head!

I darted out of the way. No, that’s a lie—I threw myself like a whirling pogo stick far out of her path, with an involuntary yowl. Sadly, I landed right in the midst of the raccoons, who hopped out of the way with a chorus of growls. What was going on? Why was it going on?!

Before I or the raccoons could act, though, the cabin door opened.

Another young woman, backlit magnificently by the yellow light of the doorway behind her, extended her arm, to me.

Suddenly I was a magnet.

Literally: I was being dragged by an invisible force toward that second girl’s hand. And the magnetism sped up fast. In a single second, I ended up in her arms, scared out of my mind, waggling my legs in all directions, screeching like a deeply confused baby.

The woman held me tighter against her chest. As if that was somehow going to calm me down!

Her chest was soft, ample, and all but exposed. Admittedly I preferred getting smothered by warm pillows to being, like, hit by a rock…but not knowing whether she meant to smother me added a layer of indignity.

The raccoons started to creep after me and the second girl, but they wouldn’t set foot on the short stairs leading up to the doorway. Apparently they respected this log cabin, staying on the boundaries of human space, never going any further than that.

At this point, the pink girl was on her feet. I could see she had on a red plaid shirt, plus suspenders that arched over her—her big soft chest things. What were those called? Why was I blanking on that word?

She and the woman holding me exchanged a few clipped sentences. Then the pink girl disappeared behind the closing door and the whole world was bright.

Wow. That was the most disorienting turn of events I’d been through so far.

It was hard to see the inside of the cabin with this person’s arm and thick blue sleeve squinching up my face and eyes, but I could tell that everything in this room was dazzlingly lit. While this one was small and yellow, the big one further inward, past another doorway, pulsed the deep red of firelight. So I must've seen the glow of firelight from the other window.

And was that cooking I smelled? Was that stew?

My stomach rumbled like a mighty rolling wave. The suffocating woman gasped, then whispered to me and rubbed my head. I couldn’t follow her words very well, but I knew she’d called me her “sweet little baby.”

Ridiculous. First of all, I didn't know her and, unless she had some more baffling magic powers, she didn't know me. Second, I wasn’t little, she was just big. And could she stop crushing me?

I swiveled my head and hissed. That must’ve surprised her. She dropped me on the ground and backed away. I skittered onto my feet, raised my hackles, and bared my fangs at her.

Now I had a good look at her and her outfit. A massive, floppy hat and bluish-green hair. A dress that covered absolutely everything except—except for her big flesh mounds that I was still inexplicably forgetting the name of. And tall, clacking shoes that took an acrobat to walk in.

Seeing her now, and particularly her hat, I intuitively knew why she’d been able to pull me over with just a wave of her hand. She was a witch!

Tonight was making more sense. A terrifying kind of sense, but if I could deal with the white aura stuff and my own rebirth, I could deal with this too. Maybe?

Here was some good news for my own survival: judging by the way she’d dropped me and the cringe on her face right now, she was, oddly enough, afraid of me!

I made up my mind not to even try to stay the night in that “safe” cabin. Scaring the witch reminded me that I was tough. I didn’t need human charity, nor did I like it. But I did want to eat—and I would spare these young ladies the indignity of having me chomp off their fingers, though I assured myself I could do this if I wanted.

So I commanded this witch to feed me some of her delicious stew, which was sitting in a great big pot on a ledge beside us in this tiny kitchen area.

I told her, “Meow.”

Her face flatlined. Then she gave me a gentle smile.

Oh wait, I forgot I couldn’t say words…

I meowed again, this time with a nod at the stew.

This time I got the message through. Snapping up a ladle and mug, she was quick to get me a meaty, steaming meal. Then she crouched and set the mug before me.

Huh. Presentation was a bit off—who serves soup in a mug?—but I wouldn’t bite the hand that fed me.

This witch lady wasn’t so bad, as long as she wasn’t smothering me. Come to think of it, humans weren’t necessarily so bad when they knew what I was after and cooperated. Some were even nice! Annoying when they kept trying to pet me, though.

Sure enough, she kept stroking my back as I ate. I grumbled at her every time, but she just laughed. I would’ve hissed at her, given her one of those fake little nips that barely grazes a human’s hand, but since she had both the food and the superior magic powers, I wasn't prepared to get on her bad side. Though I assured myself that I could totally find a way to kill her if I needed to.

When I was almost done, when I had to stick my head all the way down in the mug to chew up the rest of the stew and the witch started laughing hysterically, the cabin door opened again. I heard the heavy black boots of the magenta-haired girl thumping their way back inside.

I finished quickly so I could get a better look at her. The light in the kitchen brought out the luster of her hair and played with the steam-like swirls of fuchsia now showing within her eyes. Her arms were nearly bare—and surprisingly toned. Her face was…

It gave me a strong sense of déjà vu.

I’d seen that face on Earth, I just knew it! But I couldn’t say how, and now it was gonna bother me all night.

The two women chatted with each other again, too fast for my Stage 1 Human Language brain to follow. But I picked up on one thing: though the blue girl suggested it, the pink girl didn’t stoop to pet me.

Good.

Holding the door open to the night, the pink girl looked down at me and said with a smile, “Good night.” Her voice was as soft as her spirit was and her sword wasn’t.

I ran away through the open door. They weren’t getting any sentimentality from me.

I’d have to find another way to spend the night. Not a problem. The real problem would’ve been joining a sleepover with weird human strangers.

New Sub-Location Added!

Check your Map to find Reed's Cabin.

That box brought me to a halt just a few meters away from the cabin. Which I guessed belonged to someone named Reed?

Wait—speaking of locations, what was that “quest” from earlier about exploring the woods? And could the boxes please stop showing up in front of my face during battles?

Huh huh huh???

Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata

Quests are ways of gaining Experience (and sometimes other rewards) without necessarily battling.

If you’re good, I might add a Quest for making friends! Or girlfriends!

G'uuuhhhhhhhh.....