Chapter Text
How had this happened?
One minute I had been slinking home from another horrible day at school, already planning in my head for the incredible amazing affirming things I would do as a hero. Even with my crappy bug control powers.
The next, I was a tenth the height, struggling within the confines of my now gigantic clothes.
In my panic I had managed to quite badly claw my poor shirt, which had already seen far better days but was now almost truly unsalvageable.
I looked to my hand in wonder once I was free, only to discover that I instead had a mottled black and brown paw. Acting on an instinct that I was not even aware I had I flexed and sharp claws came out.
I twisted around, far more flexible and fluid then I had ever been. I could see my full flank, complete with outrageously fluffy black tail. If you squinted, it was somewhat reminiscent of my old hair.
I’m a cat.
I sat down for a moment to process.
Two moments.
Huh, the sun is quite nice, and the pavement… I padded around. It was cold, but thanks to the geography Brockton Bay had quite mild winters. So it wasn’t that cold, and the direct sun had left the pavement quite warm. It was awfully pleasant.
I rolled onto my side.
Oh wow, that is nice.
I rolled onto the other side, then my back, letting the rays soak into my fluffy belly. I wriggled around, the pavement along with the warmth scratching my back. God this was amazing.
-x-
“Hey there kitty.” I shot into the air, dragonfly wings reflexing growing out and lifting me away.
Wait wings? Cats definitely don’t have those. Also, it was getting dark, did I fall asleep?
“Whoa wait its ok!” Came the shout from behind me. I twisted around to get a look at my pursuer, a mistake. I was quickly enveloped in strong arms. I tried to struggle but her grip was ironclad.
“Damn I heard cats can be skittish, but nobody warned me about the wings, weird.” I wriggled with increased fervour when she brought me around and I got a good look at my captor.
Beautiful flowing golden hair, the deepest blue eyes on a sculpted face. It was like a Michelangelo sculpture had been give the breath of life.
Glory Girl.
I’d know that face anywhere, mostly because I had an embarrassing number of posters of her and other inspiring female heroes lining my walls.
I slumped when I realised, I was outmatched, my only possible recourse would be to scratch her. But between her forcefield and the terror at marring such perfect flesh I decided to stick with the better part of valour: begging.
I retracted the wings; normal cats definitely don’t have those. I had no clue how Glory Girl had not picked up on that but the last thing I wanted to do was test my luck here.
Then I drew upon every ounce of cat instincts I could find within me and gave the most pathetic, sad, meow I could manage.
“Mroow.” Oh wow.
That was pathetic, also I think I mostly drew on my human pathetic sadness. That made me feel sad and pathetic enough that my second, now mournful “Mrouw” was even more powerful.
“Oh, you poor thing.” She cooed, bringing me to her chest which had been considerable when I was a human and was now seemingly gargantuan.
And very, very comfy.
And then the head scratches started.
Bliss, a pure pleasure beyond all else, beyond even the sun on my bellyfluff. The world fell away and all that was left was the comfort of the hold and the wonderous sensation of nails on my scalp.
I felt an urge rising up within me, I tried to stop it, place my incorporeal mind claws around it before it could escape. But I was powerless to stop it.
I started purring.
Embarrassment warred with pleasure. The battle was hard fought, vicious casualties on both sides. Pleasure won, routing the troops of embarrassment and I let myself go. Allowing the cat to take over, purring contentedly in the arms and- well in the arms of Glory Girl.
The hand came away and without thinking I bit at it, only just missing when she quickly dodged the attack.
Oops. I hadn’t meant to do that. I gave a recalcitrant meow.
“Naww, its ok, did you miss the scratches? I bet you did.” She gave a few extra before taking her hand out and bringing me away from the awfully comfortable spot. I was held up by her face so she could talk to me face to whiskers.
“Do you have an owner?”
I shook my head. Wait. Shit, cats don’t do that. I hastily meowed a no.
“Do you want one?” I looked back at my discarded clothes and bag. I hadn’t tried to turn back into a human. Didn’t know if I even wanted to.
What had being a human gotten me?
Absolutely nothing.
Certainly, no head scratches or comfy holds.
I meowed the affirmative.
“Brilliant! Mom said no cats, but I’m sure if I manage to keep you secret for a week or two, she will simply have to accept you.” I severely doubted the logic there, but I had neither the means nor desire to correct her.
So, I just gave her a happy meow, followed by a terrified screech when we rocketed off towards the Dallon household way too fast.
It was overwhelming to my new cat senses. Just the rushing of air alone felt like a hurricane blowing straight in, and my whiskers picked up every minutia of wind current whipping past.
I yowled at her when we came to a stop at her house.
She had the decency to look embarrassed.
Sorry, sorry, that was way too fast huh?” I yowled again. “Well, we’re home now so you don’t need to worry about it.
I took some deep cat breaths and calmed down enough for my hackles to fall and for the spine quills and armour plating to recede.
Wait, spine quills? Armour plating!?
I glanced at Glory Girl, who just juggled me onto one arm making gentle calming noises. Like I was a normal cat that had been spooked.
It may have worked, I added it to the pile of sufferances I was taking too the grave. In a few moments I was back to being a normal looking cat. Well, presumably normal looking, I’ve not had the opportunity to see more than my paws, flank, and tail.
With me precariously hanging on to her arm she fished out the keys to a window lock.
I looked down, expecting the appropriate amount of fear given the relative distance. I was quite small now.
But my cat instincts just gave me a thumbs up and a ‘you got this bro, totally.’ Also, I had wings and while their instincts were not quite so vocal, I got the impression that I would be fine to deploy them at this height.
With a soft – to human ears, it was quite loud for me thanks – click the window was opened and I was flown into Glory Girl’s room and deposited onto her bed.
I sunk in further than expected. Her bed was at least twice as soft as my own. I pushed back the desire to paw at it to take a look at the room around me. It was startlingly like a normal teenager’s room, more like one than my own room at home. On the wall above her bed, she had hung multiple polaroids depicting her and a dizzying number of people.
There were a few newspaper clippings above her desk talking about some of her cape antics, and that was the sum total of Glory Girl material in the room. She did have the same Narwhal, Alexandria, and Miss Militia posters as me, though a few more prominent male heroes were mixed along with them. And mixed even further were band posters, movie posters, the works. It was like she took an unadorned piece of wall as some sort of personal slight.
It looked nice honestly, lived in. Unlike my depressingly functional room.
Her desk was not neat. Neither was her floor. I’m sure there was some logic behind the various piles, but it was lost to me.
I tried not to think too badly of her for it, we all had our vices. Though my paws were itching to tidy it up at least a little bit. I mean, she had a hamper right there, how hard is it to get clothes into the thing?
Somebody knocked on the door, not waiting for a response before they opened it, talking even as she was midway through the threshold.
“Hey Vicky, Carol told me to tell you that-“ I froze under the flat stare of who could only be Panacea. Wow, she sure is freckly huh, she didn’t show up in many of the New Wave photos and her costume was not very revealing either. So, I was somewhat caught off guard by the sheer volume of them.
Like, I’m talking more freckle than face volume here. Just an absurd number of freckles. So many that I barely registered any other features. Like the almost yellow eyes or the unkempt curly hair that make me nearly growl in curly hair distaste – look after your hair people – or the truly deep bags that extended not just below but somehow above the eyes too.
“That is a cat.” Panacea’s voice was flat, devoid of any inflection.
“Yep.” Glory Girl chirped, grabbing me too quickly for any kind of resistance and holding me out to Panacea. “Do you want to pet . . . her?”
Panacea rolled her eyes with such force I worried the weak face muscles would be unable to keep them inside her skull and put her hand out to touch me.
I realised far too late that this was a terrible idea. I am not actually a cat and Panacea was the biology thinker.
“This is not a cat.” She growled, grabbing me by the scruff of the neck and pulling me out of Glory Girl’s grip. I dangled limply.
I didn’t know if she had done something or if this was just how cats work, but I was helpless to do anything but twitch and meow pitifully.
My quills would not respond, nor my armour, or claws, I could not even open the segmentation on my jaw to extend my fangs.
Wait.
The what? From my where?
It was a moot point, because as soon as Glory Girl realised it would all be over. I would have to return to my old life with my tail between my legs and-
“What? No, its totally a cat.” I made some desperate cat noises. “See, it just meowed and everything.”
“Vicky, it literally has biological weaponry. It could kill a man.”
“And? Cats are meant to be dangerous right? So maybe its claws are a little sharper than normal. That’s fine.”
“It has quills filled with a paralytic venom, a segmented jawline with venom I can barely identify but am reasonably confident would dissolve flesh. Armour plating . . . Oh, and fucking wings.”
“All I am hearing is that it can defend itself.” I could not believe what I was hearing. Glory Girl, the Glory Girl, was defending me.
Also, I was now entirely certain she had never touched a normal cat before. Or a normal anything for that matter.
Glory Girl – Victoria, drew her sister in for a hug. I felt an odd pang in my chest at the sight. I think I’ve been hanging by my scruff for too long.
“Pleas Ames, for me?” She rocked Amy side to side for a bit in the hug, I swung like a pendulum with her.
“Fine. I’m going to regret this when I’m regrowing organs that your ‘cat’ turned into soup, but fine. Sure, whatever.”
“You’re the best!” She exclaimed, and I was finally unhanded.
I hissed at Amy before running behind Victoria’s legs.
I rubbed onto them as I went, revelling at the nice feeling. It seemed like the cat body was just hardwired for enjoying life, something my old body just would not understand. I weaved around them a few more times losing myself to the cat brain for a bit before flopping on the ground.
Nowhere in my human life was as comfortable as some random spot on the floor on a piece of hopefully semi-clean washing.
I scrunched my nose when a finger bopped into it.
Victoria was leaned over, now in casual clothes, with a small plate with food on it. Did I fall asleep again? It was so easy as a cat.
I stretched where I lay, pulling and twisting in physically impossible ways. It was a stretch far beyond anything I thought possible. My whole being felt liquid after.
I yawned and closed my mouth with an audible click then got up for real and padded over to where Victoria was putting down the plate. I gave it a little sniff; it was so strange. Like I was smelling in high definition for the first time in my life.
That brought me up short. I swore cats were colourblind compared to humans, but my eyesight seemed to be completely fine. Then again, I was not a normal cat so . . . It was probably fine.
I put it out of mind and attempted to eat the leftover roast Victoria had given me.
I was not very successful. You don’t appreciate molars until they’re gone, I suppose. I had some luck initially, stripping off a sliver of meat along the grain by gripping it with clawed paws and pulling with my teeth. But chewing that was an ordeal, I struck something of a balance, holding my head to the side as I broke it up on my sharp side-teeth.
It took me far too long to consume it all. I very nearly cracked and brought out my fangs so I could inject it with the venom that I knew without knowing would liquify the meat for easy slurping.
But that sounded awfully gross. Also, why do I have meat liquification venom?
I licked the plate clean; it was good roast.
Next a bowl of water was put in its place.
Hmm.
This presented rather more trouble. My attempt to tilt the bowl enough to drink from the lip only ended with wet paws and crushed dreams.
I queried my bevy of cat instincts on how to drink this water and got a very uncatlike answer.
I opened my mouth, opening the segmentations of my jaw to allow the fangs to come out and extended my proboscis, dipping it into the water and slurping it up.
The insectile move made me jump up in realisation. My powers!
With a small flex of mental muscles, I registered the nigh-unbearable cacophony of insect senses, that knowledge of where every bug in a two-block radius was as surely as I knew where my left pinky sat. Now rear toe bean I supposed.
Well, at least getting turned into a cat wouldn’t impact my hero career.
Actually . . . I could fly now! And had armour, and paralytic venom, and other things. It did mean I wasted a lot of time making a spidersilk costume, but it was only half-finished anyways. I was more set than I was before.
Panic abated, and singular flea excised and drowned I turned around. Victoria was at her desk, working hard on something.
Curious I crouched at the foot of the desk, I tensed my muscles and jumped.
I knew, knew the moment paw left carpet that it was not far enough. Only hours after becoming a cat and I was already fucking it up. No cat would miss a jump like this.
My paws met table and I clung with desperation.
I stuck easily, of course I did, it was easy to stick to surfaces with the silk spinnerets I could deploy when my claws were retracted. The setule’s helped too but at my size they were not enough alone to adhere.
I really should not be surprised at this point but really this was getting ridiculous.
I heaved the rest of the way, aided by a chuckling Victoria. Oh yea, laugh it up princess. Like you’ve never missed a jump.
I sat imperiously for a few moments, licking my paws with effected nonchalance. As if this had all been part of the plan.
I graciously accepted the scratches from that, rubbing my fuzzy cheeks on her hand. It felt odd on my whiskers in the same way as my smell had felt odd. As though I was experiencing the world in more resolution than I should be.
“Naww, you’re such a cute thing, but I do have work to do.” I allowed her to retract her hand, padding around to have a look at what she was doing.
I blinked a few times, she was studying for a college course?
I upped my estimation of Victoria a few notches and recalibrated my biases.
Feeling lazy I laid down, placing my head on my paws so I could still see the screen and splaying my legs out to the side.
I watched her work, absorbing only maybe half of what she was reading. It really was quite advanced. My tail flicked a little without thought as I was fully absorbed into the task of learning parahumans studies vicariously through Victoria.
My eyes strayed from the computer; she looked so different like this. It was a side that I’d never seen captured in the various New Wave public appearances or PR events. She was laser focused on what she was doing, occasionally muttering to herself without realising.
It was captivating.
I felt distantly jealous. I never looked this . . . Nice, as a human. I always had something to hate about my body. My lips were too wide and my eyes too big, and I’d had a paunch on my stomach for ages. Not to mention my bony limbs.
But it felt so far away now. I suppose it made sense. I wasn’t even human anymore. And who cared about looks when my fur was just as fluffy as the next cat’s.
Extra fluffy, I thought, flicking my tail to the side, and watching the hairs swish side to side.
My hair had been my favourite feature. The only thing about myself I unreservedly enjoyed. And I took good care of it. From the looks of it that had crossed over into my cat form. My mottled fur looked downright glossy.
So, for once I just appreciated that somebody could look amazing without agonising about myself.
When she finished, I was dragged unresistingly into sleepytime cuddles. I think I was perhaps a little bit touch starved.
Yep, just touch starved.
I wriggled around in my snuggly, muscly armed, enclosure and listened to Victoria’s steady heartbeat.
I did not even attempt to stop the purring this time.
-x-
Danny Hebert sidestepped the knocked over carton of milk as well as the pool of spilled milk around it. When he reached down to pick it up, he noticed a sticky note at knee height. It was written in ink in neat but scratchy lines. He could see the pen that had sourced it lying to the side, leaking black ink onto the linoleum where it had been bitten in half.
“Dear dad, sorry I’m not home, got turned into a cat and was adopted by New Wave. Cat adopted; you’ll always still be my dad.
Love you lots,
Taylor
PS: Sorry about the milk, I was thirsty, but I don’t have opposable thumbs anymore.
PPS: Sorry about the ink spill as well, thumbs again.
PPPS: Also sorry about the couch, my claws were itchy.”
He scratched the liminary point between baldness and hairness.
“Well, at least she’s not joined a gang?” He muttered to himself. Already adjusting to the situation.
You don’t live this long in the Bay without encountering some variation of insanity. At least this one was of the non-hyperviolent kind.