Sammy scowled at the closed door to Alice's bedroom. The scent trail leading to it told her that Alice was home, as was Neko, and that both of them were
in there. But it also told her that they were upset, more upset and afraid than she'd ever sensed from them before.
That meant trouble. BIG trouble.
But they weren't doing anything about the trouble. Alice was -asleep-, if the breathing noises she was hearing were any indication -- it was hard to tell
over the sound of Neko's purring, but even the purring had a desperate quality to it. It might've fooled Alice, but Sammy'd been a cat her whole
life. She knew a fake purr when she heard one.
VERY big trouble. Neko didn't purr much to begin with, so for her to -fake- a purr... wow.
She moved silently to the end of the hall, where it opened out into the living room. There was nobody there, but the scents on the air told her that they had
visitors -- female, upset and angry and afraid, and recently in battle with -- she sniffed again, carefully, and her lips drew down in a grimace of distaste.
Nemesis. That combination of machine oil, explosives, hot brass, and other odors could only have come from one source.
She began to rise to her feet, intending to stride in and demand to know what was going on, and paused as a barely-suppressed shout erupted from the kitchen.
"She's WHAT?!?"
Uh-oh, Sammy thought, Aunt Ifrit's awful mad about -something-.... She hunkered back down and moved into the shadow of the couch, where she could just
barely make out the low voices in the kitchen.
"... didn't fight them... prisoner... can't be true, can it? ... Vanguard ... Inyme --"
Sammy blinked, startled, and missed the next bit. Inyme? Alice's girlfriend? She didn't particularly care for the odd-looking (and odd-smelling, not
bad, just odd) girl all that much, and she rather thought the feeling was mutual, but she didn't -dislike- her either. And Alice practically glowed
whenever Inyme was around. The way Inyme acted made Sammy feel a bit like an intruder, but there couldn't be something bad about anything that made Alice
-that- happy. She'd taken to avoiding the two of them when they were together -- fairly often, these days -- just to make sure her and Inyme didn't
clash where her big sister could see.
Since Inyme tended to vanish completely when Alice -wasn't- around, it meant they hadn't clashed where Alice couldn't see, either, but that was
probably for the best, Sammy figured.
The voices in the kitchen had died down now, to be replaced by soft crying and muttered ... somethings. Sammy suspected the latter was Aunt Ifrit, whose
temper could run as hot as the flames she played with; the former had to be one of the visitors, then.
If whatever the trouble was was bad enough to reduce Aunt Ifrit to cussing, and make someone else cry, and make Alice cry herself to sleep in the middle of the
day, and Neko to fake a purr... it had to be HUGE. Huge, humongous, epic sewer rat sized trouble.
So why weren't they doing something about it? They were heroes! All of them! Aunt Ifrit and Neko and especially Alice, they stood up to trouble every
day of the week.
Concerned and confused, she returned to the hall, and finally curled up against Alice's door to wait.
Later in the afternoon, after Aunt Ifrit had caught her outside Alice's door and drew her away to talk, Sammy was even MORE agitated. Her big sister had
trouble; she needed to help! It was simple. That's all there was to it.
But how?
What was it Aunt Ifrit had said? Inyme was a prisoner of Vanguard, because she'd been a spy and a traitor and lots of other things -- Sammy sensed that
her aunt had been struggling to keep from using the words she REALLY wanted to use -- and had betrayed Alice. All of them, in fact.
Then Aunt Nene had added her voice to the confusion, calming Aunt Ifrit down -- and now Sammy didn't know -what- to think. Was Inyme a traitor? Maybe...
but Sammy didn't care much about things like that. What mattered to her was whether Inyme was a bad guy or not.
She didn't -smell- like a bad guy... and Alice wouldn't have ever done the things she had with a bad guy, either. Sammy wasn't blind -- or more
accurately, deaf or unable to smell; she knew what those two had been up to from time to time! -- and if there was one thing Sammy was sure of, it was that
Alice was one of the good guys. Her big sister wouldn't ever do THAT with someone who was actually -bad-.
So Inyme broke a rule or two. Sammy did that all the time! She made a mistake. Well, Sammy thought, I do too, sometimes. And -I- don't get locked up by
Vanguard over stupid little mistakes.
Vanguard... they seemed to be at the heart of it all. The more Sammy thought about it, as she paced and catnapped and fretted and paced some more about the
living room, the more she began to realize that this was all just so -messed- -up-.
And it was all Vanguard's fault! Well, okay, maybe a little bit of Inyme's fault, too, but still.
It all made sense now. When Vanguard had taken Inyme prisoner, since Alice worked for Vanguard she couldn't stop them or fight them about it. Aunt Ifrit
couldn't, either, that'd look bad on Alice since she was Alice's mom now.
Sammy didn't for a minute believe that Inyme, however weird the girl was, would have actually done anything THAT wrong. She was used to trusting her
instincts, and her instincts said that Inyme was odd and different and good and not-food and DEFINITELY not-play and a half-dozen other things, but not a one
of them was BAD. And hadn't Aunt Nene just convinced Aunt Ifrit of the same thing? Alice and Inyme LOVED each other! And Sammy knew for fact how tough
it was for Alice to say that about anyone, and how certain she'd have been before doing so.
And Vanguard was a bunch of stuck-up paranoid jerks anyway. They didn't like heroes unless you jumped through all sorts of hoops to 'prove'
yourself to them; now that she really thought about it, it sounded an awful lot like the gangs they used to have to run from. You had to be initiated to be
part of the gang, had to prove you were 'worthy', just so you could stand around all day hassling people who hadn't done anything to you.
Oooh! She felt her tail begin to lash, and welcomed it. Those Vanguard jerks had taken Alice's girlfriend prisoner, and there was nothing Alice could do
about it? Fine! SHE'D take care of the problem. She wasn't officially linked to Alice, she didn't work for Vanguard; those goons wouldn't
have a leg to stand on if they tried to blame Alice for something Sammy had done. She'd move out, live on the streets again or crash in the base or
something, if that's what it took.
She stood, a determined look on her face, and moved back down the hall to her bedroom -- a hand-lettered sign said "Danger! Unstable! Really Bad Stuff!
KEEP OUT!" -- and rummaged around in her closet as quietly as she could. There! And there! And that too.
Sammy didn't own many clothes, or see a need for many, really. She'd grown up wearing the baggiest things she could find, to hide her tail and other
things; after finding Mrs. Wilde and the Home she'd learned to dress better and not worry about hiding her catgirl features any longer, but her wardrobe
hadn't expanded significantly. She still preferred baggy sweaters and loose coats, or nothing at all when the weather was warm enough.
But she'd acquired enough odds and ends to be able to put together a costume, she figured, and set about doing so. She needed to look different, just in
case.
When she was done, she looked at herself in the mirror. It was perfect! She'd look like some sort of catgirl-ninja-intruder if she happened to be caught,
rather than Purrfect Scrapper, Alice's friend and sometimes-sidekick. And if she WAS caught, well, she felt certain she could outrun them. They
didn't call her HyperKitteh for nothing!
She twisted and double-checked her reflection from behind. You couldn't tell it was her -- she was a faceless, nameless, dark-blue and black Ninja of the
Night. With a tail.
Grinning behind her mask, she opened her window and slipped out. "Operation Bust-Out is a go! Agent Sammy is on the job!"
Four hours later she was in a distictly fouler mood, handcuffed into a chair in the middle of a bare, reinforced-concrete room that had decidedly
unpleasant-looking stains on the walls and floor.
"Stupid Vanguard," she muttered, and the armored figure by the door shot her a dirty look. She stuck her tongue out at him.
Despite her disgust, she had to admit Vanguard was a lot better than she'd given them credit for. She'd used her hero license to get in to the base --
all above-board and legit, Purrfect Scrapper had plenty of clearance, even if she hadn't officially joined Vanguard -- and stashed it in a safe, secluded
cranny of the rafters. No sense trying to disguise yourself if you carried around an ID, right?
Even wandering around looking like a ninja hadn't raised an eyebrow; she'd spotted at least a dozen others dressed similarly, all wandering around the
public portions of the firebase on their own errands.
No, she reflected wryly, it was probably shredding the power room that tipped them off...
But how else to -do- it? If the lights were on and the doors were working and the guards could -see-, then she'd get nowhere, fast.
Of course, everything vital had independent backups. But she knew that. She'd seen TV. She'd figured she could count on at least thirty seconds or
so of confusion before everyone figured out what had happened, and at least an hour to repair the damage. She had done a heck of a job on that power room, if
she did say so herself.
"Ready to talk, kitty cat?" the guard asked, affecting a bored tone.
"Meow!" she shot back defiantly. The guard shrugged and returned to his duty, which was apparently to stand there and stare at her and occasionally
make snarky comments all in the hopes she'd suddenly 'fess up, or something. Sammy wasn't sure.
Not that she particularly cared, either. She had a job of her own to do, and had been working on it ever since they'd left her in this stinky little room
with the stinky little man with the really big gun. She couldn't do a thing against the impervium handcuffs directly -- even her claws weren't THAT
sharp, dammit -- but they'd been in too big a hurry to search her thoroughly, and so had missed the tiny, hand-crafted lockpicks that she kept secreted in
the fur of her tail. They were a remnant of her past, one of the few things that she hadn't replaced or given up entirely yet, and she tried not to grin
as she fiddled the lock bit by bit.
The door opened and a man stepped in. She didn't know Vanguard insignia, but the guard stiffened to attention, so she assumed he was important. She
scowled at him, just because, and let it hide the expression of satisfaction that wanted to cross her features as the handcuffs finally un-latched.
"Good evening, miss," the newcomer said, nodding politely. "I'm Captain Levins. What is your name?"
She remained stubbornly mute.
Levins nodded, as if he expected the response. He brought out a datapad and made a quick note. "Mm-hmm. Okay then. At this point I'm obligated to
inform you that you are under arrest, for suspicion of espionage, treason, destruction of government property, and terrorist activities." He smiled,
then, and raised an eyebrow. "Somehow I doubt I need to go into the details of what the penalties for any one of those, let alone all of them, could
be."
"You don't scare me," she said, though even to herself her voice lacked conviction.
"Told you she was fiesty, sir," the guard put in.
"Mm. Well, one way or another we'll get answers." Levins looked at his pad for a few moments, tapping the stylus thoughtfully against his chin,
then shrugged. "No help for it, I suppose." He turned and left, pausing in the open doorway long enough to say, "The medical team will arrive
shortly so we can begin DNA identification. Call me if anything changes."
"Yes, sir," the guard responded, snapping a quick salute. The door closed. He turned to Sammy and shook his head. "You could make it easier
on yourself, you know. Start by telling us who you are and why you attacked the base, and maybe the captain would petition for reduced penalties."
"Would he?" she asked softly, watching as the guard leaned forward, suddenly attentive. "Would he really?"
"Well, I can't promise, you know," the guard -- Sanders, she saw, from his nametag -- said. She gauged the distance between them and tensed her
legs to spring. "Why don't you give it a try? Can't hurt, right?"
"No... but I can!" she cried, lunging forward out of the chair. She was on him before he could blink, certainly before he could actually react, and
the fight was on.
He was tougher than he looked, but almost from the moment she landed on him Sammy knew she would win. She didn't even need to use her claws -- simply
bouncing his head off the concrete floor a few times had the desired effect. She rubbed at a sore spot on her jaw where he'd clipped her with an armored
gauntlet and resisted the urge to kick him for it. She stripped him of his armor and handcuffed him into the chair she'd been in only a few minutes
before.
Now what? she fretted to herself, her tail lashing in agitation. The minute I step out -- OF COURSE!
The worst part about the whole thing, Sammy fumed as she carefully maintained an easy walk rather than the full-speed dash she wanted to do, wasn't that
Sanders was slightly taller than she was, making the armor fit a bit oddly.
Nor was it the weight; impervium was heavy, sure, but she was blessed with strength far beyond what her build suggested. She could carry it easily.
It wasn't even the way it pinched and confined her tail. She was used to that, from her years in hiding.
No, by far the worst thing, the very worst thing of all, was this: Sanders had eaten Mexican for lunch.
The smell inside the armor, for one with as sensitive a nose as Sammy possessed, was overpowering. The odors of refried beans, spices, meat and onions mingled
with the lingering stench of a man who'd spent long hours sweating into every pore, crack, and crevice.
Sammy liked Mexican food, and having a scent she liked mingle with the rancid miasma of a man she most definitely did not like was close to making her
physically ill.
It was thus with some measure of relief that she heard and saw the alarms go off. At least it gave her an excuse to ditch the armor.
"Alert! All Shield personnel, this is a class-B alert! Target is a escaped prisoner, identity unknown, appears to be a catgirl. Last seen wearing
stolen Vanguard armor. Tracker places it in D wing, but it's not moving and we think she's ditched it. All available personnel, locate and
apprehend!"
Fusionette blinked at the radio in her hand before a fierce grin erupted on her face. All right! Guarding diplomats was so -boring-; this sounded like it
might be fun!
She acknowledged the alert and clipped the radio back to her belt. "'kay, listen up!" she said to the bickering men in the small conference room
with her. "-Stay here- until I get back, okay?" Without giving them time to respond, she slipped out the door and sealed it with her own personal
security code.
Then she took to the air, ignoring the usual rules against flying inside the base. It was a class-B alert, they could get over it!
Sammy took the corner a little fast, even by her standards, and had to scramble for footing. It might have saved her life.
A brilliant blue beam sizzled past her head, splashing off the wall in front of her with a great, resounding crash and a flare of explosive energy. She yelped
in surprise and lost the battle versus gravity; her feet slipped out from under her and she landed on her rump, sliding helplessly in the same wall that had
just absorbed the blast in an undignified heap.
"Aw, rats!" she exclaimed, just as another female voice from behind let out a frustrated "Aw, I -missed-!"
Sammy blinked and tilted her head back, viewing the corridor upside-down. That voice sounded familiar, somehow...
Fusionette floated there, drifting forward slowly, her energy sizzling around her hand and slowly fading.
"'nette?" Sammy inquired.
"Scraps?" Fusionette wondered.
"You SHOT at me," Sammy observed, a tone of outrage creeping into her voice. "After all those times I saved you and then you try to BLAST me
from BEHIND?!?"
"Wait a minute, I only shot at you because you -- HEY!" Fusionette exclaimed. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "YOU'RE the one who blew up
the power room?!"
"Um, hey wait I can explain, 'nette PLEASE don't throw that blue stuff at me, eep!" Sammy rolled frantically to the side as another blast
ricocheted off the floor where she had been just a moment before.
"Freeze or I roast you, Scraps," Fusionette said, gathering a huge sphere of blue radiance between her hands. "You're under arrest!"
Sammy trusted her instincts... and right now, they were telling her that moving was an extremely bad, not-good, terribly horrible idea. She'd seen that
look in 'nette's eyes before, and it never ended well for the person on the receiving end of it.
"Okay," she said meekly, raising her hands in surrender and rising slowly to her knees.
Fusionette eyed her warily for a moment, then let the ball of energy fade. "What is going -on- around here?" she said plaintively.
"I'll explain, 'nette, I really will but you gotta believe me, I'm -NOT- the bad guy!"
Fusionette glared at her. "Why should I?"
"Umm..."
The radio crackled, interrupting Sammy as she tried to come up with a reason that Fusionette would accept. "Sensors indicate energy discharge in your
area, Fusionette. We're sending backup."
"Acknowledged," Fusionette replied shortly. She regarded Sammy with a suspicious stare. "You've got about thirty seconds. Make it
good."
"Vanguard arrested Inyme 'cause they think she's a traitor but she's NOT she's my big sisters' lover and she's wierd and all but
she's NOT a bad guy and I came in to bust her out and got caught, you gotta believe me I didn't hurt -anybody-, not even the stinky guy, what's his
name, Sanders, I just knocked him out and stole his armor but I didn't lay a claw on him, and I'll -pay- for the power room if that's what it takes
but you have to let Inyme go, it's not her fault and it's all just a stupid mistake and EVERYBODY makes mistakes, I mean, look at how many times
YOU'VE gotten in over your head, 'nette, you should know better than everyone that people make mistakes and that doesn't make them a bad
person!"
For a long moment there was silence, save for Sammy's breathing and the faint crackle of static from the ionization field around Fusionette. Sammy could
hear, over her own frantic heartbeat hammering in her chest, the sounds of approaching footsteps, moving fast and heavy with the weight of armor and weapons.
Fusionette cracked a small grin. "Wow, Scraps. Did you breathe at -all- during that?"
"Hey!"
Fusionette shook her head. "No time," she said. "Get out of ... what is that, Salvation Army meets The Ninja Store?"
Sammy glanced down at her impromptu costume, then shrugged. Vanguard had already removed the mask, and it was a simple matter to get the rest off. Soon she
was clad only in her fur. "Do you believe me?" she asked hesitantly. "I'm tellin' the truth, 'nette, I swear I am."
"Sshh!" Fusionette whispered as she stuffed Sammy's clothing into one of her belt pouches. "Shut up and let me do the talking, dummy!"
The footsteps rounded the corner, revealing a standard Vanguard backup squad moving at a fast jog. "Fusionette," one of them called, "are you
all right?" The others spread out and raised weapons, training them on Sammy -- who for her part, said "Eeep!" and raised her hands again.
"I'm fine, I'm fine -- and put the guns down, boys, there's been a mix-up," Fusionette replied smoothly, stepping between Sammy and the
well-armed group.
The leader of the squad cocked his head. "Oh?" he said. "Looks like you've caught the escaped prisoner... what's the problem?"
"This isn't the escaped prisoner," Fusionette corrected. Shooting a glance over her shoulder -- was that a wink? Sammy wondered -- she added,
"It's my strong and highly capable yet highly twitchy relative Purrfect Scrapper!"
"What about the discharges?" the man inquired suspiciously. He indicated the scorch marks on the floor and wall.
"Oh, well, you see, um," Fusionette said, suddenly at a loss. Sammy rose up on tiptoe to peer over her shoulder and waved one hand in greeting.
"I startled her!" Sammy said brightly. "I wasn't watching where I was going and I came around the corner a little too fast and next thing
you know there's, like, laser blasts or something and it was really crazy for a minute until we figured out that I was me and she was her and now we're
all okay now, okay?"
"Yeah, what she said!" Fusionette agreed.
"(What DID she say?)" one of the squad muttered. "(I think she speaks Squirrel,)" replied another. The men looked at each other and
slowly began lowering their weapons.
"How'd you get back here?" the leader demanded, clearly still unconvinced.
"I'm not sure, actually," Sammy said thoughtfully, scratching her head. "One minute I was out there looking at that big robot-thingy and
then the lights went out and there was this explosion and people were running everywhere and that Borea lady was barking orders and it was NUTS, and I just
tried to stay out of the way and then it was light again and I've been wandering around looking for the way out since."
"Then the alarms went off about the escaped prisoner," Fusionette jumped in as the man's eyes started to glaze over. "And she panicked and
started running, and I was of course out looking for the prisoner, and, well, next thing you know..." She shrugged. "Just bad luck, I guess."
"(Does she have any other type?)" another voice muttered. Fusionette scowled.
One of the men tapped the leader on his shoulder, passing forward a blinking datapad. "Checks out, sir," he said quietly. "Logs show a
Purrfect Scrapper checked in via the Atlas portal earlier today, and hasn't checked out yet."
The squad leader scowled, though it appeared to be more in disappointment than in anger, and shouldered his weapon. "All right," he growled.
"Lemme see your ID and you can be on your way."
Sammy nodded agreeably, then adopted a striken look as she patted her chest and hips. "Uh-oh..."
"Let me guess. Lost your ID?"
Sammy looked downcast. "I must have dropped it somewhere?"
"Catgirls." The squad leader shook his head and blew a sigh. "Fusionette, you vouch for her identity?"
"You bet!" the blue-clad hero replied, nodding vigorously.
"Fine." The man gestured, and the squad fell back. "Escort her to the civilian areas and make sure she doesn't get lost again."
"You got it!"
When the men had left, both women let out a relieved sigh.
"You owe me BIG, Scraps."
"I guess that makes us even for Faultline, then?"
"Not by a long shot."
Outside in the civilian area, Sammy retrieved her ID and rejoined Fusionette near the base portal. "Listen," the Vanguard operative said in a
whisper. "Your friend, or whatever she is, isn't here anymore. I don't know where they took her, but you, Miss Furry --" and here she poked
Sammy painfully in the shoulder, "-- need to -chill-, okay? Vanguard aren't the bad guys either. We're not gonna hurt her if she behaves
herself."
Sammy scowled, but nodded. "I guess..." she said petulantly.
"Your big sister is Archer, right? Purrfect Archer?" At Sammy's nod, Fusionette continued. "Well, then, just take it easy and try to help
-her-, okay? She's got lots of pull around here, more than -I- do, even. Let her deal with the brass, and just back her up." Fusionette grinned.
"Like I'm one to talk about charging off half-cocked and all, but anyway."
Sammy chuckled. "Okay, okay, I get it, no more Secret Agent Kitty." She stuck her tongue out at Fusionette, then sobered. "Thanks a bunch,
'nette... I really do owe you one."
"Yeah, well, just don't you forget it, huh?"
Sammy nodded, then turned and stepped through the base portal, popping into existence in The Legendary's lobby. She turned and headed for the teleporter
bay and home.
"I'm not gonna say a word," she told herself out loud. "Not a single word to ANYBODY. I'll never hear the end of it if they find out I
was rescued by Fusionette!"
This last was proclaimed as she hit the button to send her home; and as the room began to fade from view, a sudden clamor from an antechamber off the teleport
bay -- when did THAT get put there?! -- caught her attention.
She vanished and reappeared outside, away from the base, and realized that she had no idea who had made that noise... and who probably had overheard her.
"... aww, -rats-!"
--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs