MultiPets: the Chimera Knight

Katrina Arden wants to become a Chimera Knight, a hero in a world where animals and humans live and work together as one. With the help of a Wearwolf, a canine that transforms into armor, her wish may very well be granted.

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Location: Los Angeles, California, United States

Monday, August 21, 2006

Alternate Chapter 2, part 2: A Not Unexpected Guest

“Cute,” Katrina said sarcastically. “Real cute.”

Katrina lifted herself off the floor and went over to her dresser. Now that she was wide awake, it was time to make the most of it. She rifled through the dresser’s contents, not entirely sure what to wear. While not particularly concerned with how she looked, she wanted to show off her new tattoos without looking too trashy. She finally decided on a pair of jeans, which she thought fit her extremely well even though the pattern on her legs was now hidden, and a tan camisole. The camisole revealed the more indicative parts of the tattoo, anyway, those being the vines on her arms, part of the crest on her back, and the Pet Mark on her chest, which she thought of as more sexy than just the vines on her legs. With a sweatshirt tied around her waist, in case she felt too cold, her trusty pair of sneakers, and a clip for her hair, she was ready to take on the world.

“C’mon, let’s go have breakfast,” Katrina said to Wearwolf as she started down the ladder from her loft.

“How exactly am I to get down the ladder?” the wolf inquired.

“How exactly did you get up here?” Katrina inquired back.

“I believe you wore me as you ascended the ladder,” Wearwolf replied.

“Oh, yeah,” Katrina recalled. “Can’t you jump down or something?”

“I suppose I could try,” Wearwolf said, peering over the edge of the loft into the common room below. From this vantage point, he could easily see into living room, dining room, and kitchen, all of which were partitioned off simply by the arrangement of furniture rather than actual walls. Whoever had built this house, and many similar houses in town, seemed rather stingy about using walls and as such only used them to separate the first-floor bedroom, common room, and bathroom from each other. Just looking down made the bandages on his shoulder and midsection ache. “I am uncertain if I can perform such action without further injury.”

“We’re not that high up,” Katrina admonished. “I do it all the time. Watch.”

Katrina let go of the ladder and hopped backwards. She made a perfect, foot-stinging, three-point landing on the floor.

“Okay, now you try,” Katrina called up to Wearwolf. He perched next to the ladder uncertainly, aligning his hind legs with his front. After a moment of hesitation, he shoved off with his hind legs and leapt forward.

“I swear, Katrina, one of these days you’re going to hurt yourself doing that,” Katrina’s father said as he walked up to her. Then Wearwolf landed on him, tackling them both to the floor. Fortunately, Katrina’s father was a rather rotund gentleman, which provided a lot of cushioning for the fall.

“That was an experience I’d rather not repeat,” Wearwolf said, stepping off of Katrina’s father.

“Well, maybe we can install an elevator or something,” Katrina replied, looking back up the ladder. “Nothing fancy. Just a couple pulleys, some rope, and a basket. Shouldn’t be too hard to set up.”

“Or we could just wear hardhats from now on,” Father joked as he sat up. He reached over to pet Wearwolf. “Good morning, Wearwolf.”

Wearwolf snapped at father’s hand, growling as he pulled back defensively.

“If you don’t want him touching you, you should just tell him that,” Katrina admonished.

“It would be rather pointless,” Father replied, pulling himself to his feet. “I wouldn’t be able to understand him, anyway.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Katrina said, looking back at Wearwolf. “I can only understand him because we share an empathic link. To anyone else, it just sounds like he’s growling and stuff. Like how you can talk to Cleaver for hours, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.”

“Or how you could talk to your father for hours, and he won’t hear anything,” Katrina’s mother said from the kitchen.

“What was that, dearest?” Father joked.

“Never mind, dear,” Mother replied.

“Man, I hear his voice so clearly, I almost forgot about it,” Katrina said.

“We all make that mistake occasionally,” Father replied. “Fortunately, our pets understand each other well enough. Well, come along. Let’s have breakfast.”

Katrina and her father sat at the table. It was already set for three, despite their being four chairs, with pancakes and fresh fruit.

“Wearwolf doesn’t need particularly fresh meat, does he?” Mother asked. “I went shopping yesterday, but it’s not like they sell it live or anything.”

“Shouldn’t you already know?” Katrina inquired.

“You know it doesn’t work unless I actually ask,” Mother explained. “How am I supposed to see a future that doesn’t happen? Besides, it’s only polite.”

“All right,” Katrina said, turning to Wearwolf, who had serendipitously took the unset seat. “You don’t need to kill it yourself, do you?”

“I am more suited to hunting my own prey,” Wearwolf replied. “But when injured like this, I will eat whatever I can get. Even carrion, if it comes down to that.”

Katrina thought about the answer for a moment, then called to the kitchen, “Yeah, just don’t cook it too long.”

Katrina’s mother promptly came out of the kitchen area with Wearwolf’s food, having already prepared it ahead of time. She placed it on the floor next to Katrina, eliciting Wearwolf off her furniture, and sat across from her daughter. A lavender cat, having smelt meat, trotted out of the downstairs bedroom, but upon seeing Wearwolf darted into the kitchen.

“You know he’s not going to hurt you,” Mother called out to the feline. “This is very immature of you, Mysticat.”

The cat meowed disdainfully from behind the refrigerator.

“She’ll adjust,” Mother said.

“So, mother, maybe now that I’m all grown up, you’ll finally tell me my odds of becoming a Chimera Knight,” Katrina said, sliding pancakes from the platter onto her plate.

“You may be an adult, but you’re far from ‘all grown up’,” Mother replied. “Besides, I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

“You say that every time,” Katrina said. “If I cared about being surprised, I wouldn’t’ve asked!”

“She’s got a point there, dear,” Father said, picking up a newspaper.

“People ask me about the future everyday, Katrina,” Mother explained. “They all want to know the future so they can prepare ahead of time, or get an edge on the competition. But it doesn’t work that way. Knowledge of the future changes nothing.”

“It doesn’t stop you from being ready for just about everything,” Katrina pointed out. “You even know ahead of time when I do something bad and ground me the second I walk through the door or climb in through the window.”

“And it didn’t stop you from misbehaving, did it?” Mother argued over her cup of coffee. “I don’t even have to tell you anything anymore. You just go right up to your room and complain about unfairness without even being told. Admirable, but at the same time, disappointing.”

“Even amusing, sometimes,” Father added. “Now, if we could only get you to lecture yourself, we wouldn’t have to lift a finger.”

“You know it won’t change what I do in the slightest,” Katrina said. “So why don’t you just tell me?”

“Oh, Katrina, how I wish I could tell you,” Mother replied. “But I’m afraid we’re about to be rudely interrupted.”

Right on cue, the front door opened. Behind it was a woman in her late forties, but one could scarcely tell by the well-toned figure she took great pride in maintaining. She wore distressed jeans with savage-looking holes in a number of places, a leather vest, a white work shirt, a dark-purple bandana to hold back her lavender hair, and a rather irritated expression.

“It’s called a doorbell, Jessica,” Mother said while the door was opening, loud enough for the woman to hear without having to face her. “I suggest you use it next time or, failing that, knocking.”

“Ye know why I be here, don’cha?” Jessica demanded, marching right up to Katrina’s mother. Her voice was gravely. It made others feel the need to clear their throats sympathetically.

“Good morning, Mrs. Chardonnay,” Katrina greeted brightly. Jessica Chardonnay was quite possibly Katrina’s most favorite person in town. The woman was, allegedly, a marine in her former life in the Quinlong region until she became pregnant and decided to move inland to the Dionysus region to raise her kids. Word was, however, that Mrs. Chardonnay, or “The Siren” as she used to have been known, was actually a pirate who needed to lay low for what was now nearly sixteen years. Ridiculous, to be sure, but she and her husband certainly spoke the part.

“Mornin’ lass,” Jessica replied quickly.

“Good morning, Jessica,” Father greeted through his newspaper.

“Mornin’ Phil,” Jessica replied.

“Good morning,” Mother greeted in a sing-song voice. “Would you care to join us for breakfast? I made extra just for you.”

“Cut the crap, Diane,” Jessica blurted out, leaning on the table. She narrowed her eyes at her, one of which was brown while the left was steel gray. The steel gray eye focused in a series of unnatural shutter movements. “Ye know why I be here, so why don’t we dispense with the pleasantries?”

“But I do so enjoy the pleasantries,” Mother purred. “They’re so… pleasant.”

“Arr, I don’ have time for this here nonsense,” Jessica growled.

“You have plenty of time for this here nonsense,” Mother countered. “What you lack is patience. You’re about to make a decision sixteen years in the making, and now that time is fast approaching. You’re eager to make good on your promise, but you need my insight to know if it is safe to follow through or not.”

“Aye,” Jessica acknowledged, softening her demeanor a little bit. “It ain’t easy for me to ask this, but I do need yer help. I want to know if I’m doing the right thing.”

“You are,” Mother said. “But it’s whether or not you’ll continue to do the right thing that’s in question. You want to know if it will be worth sacrificing what you have now to try to regain what you sacrificed long ago.”

“Aye, aye,” Jessica said. “Now make with the freaky cat-magic already.”

“It’s not ‘freaky cat-magic’,” Mother replied as Mysticat climbed into her lap. “But for now I’ll dispense with the explanation and skip right to the good part.”

Katrina’s mother stroked her cat gently, a purple glow growing in her eyes. She studied the air in front of her for a while, then smiled and closed her eyes. The glow was gone when she opened them, and she turned her gaze to match Jessica’s.

“You will come to appreciate your children more than you could ever know,” Mother predicted. “Fifty creds.”

Jessica furrowed her brow for a moment or two in an attempt to correlate this new information, and soon asked, “What the Hell is that supposed to even mean?”

“It means you owe me fifty creds for the reading,” Mother explained.

“You know what I mean!” Jessica exclaimed.

Katrina’s mother sighed and said, “You may proceed as planned. All that holds you back is your own conscience. Seventy five creds.”

“I guess that’s as good as it’ll get, fer the money,” Jessica grumbled defeatedly. She straightened up and fished the money out of her pocket. A little lower, she added, “Bloody highway robbery. And I should know.”

1 Comments:

Blogger Nicholas DeVivo said...

Sorry for not posting over the summer. I had meant to, but my computer crashed and I had to retype some of my work from hard copy.

I usually have about three questions for my readers regarding the post, but I really only have one at the moment: Where do I go from here? I want her to have some adventures around town before she leaves on her quest, but I'm not entirely certain what I want her to do or what exactly to do next immediately after this. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

August 21, 2006 11:31 AM  

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