Chapter 57: Hurricane

FieryKathy

I make my way downstairs, being careful to not bump the camera into things. Although I can repair it if I need to, I’d still prefer not to have to use my powers. Because the lessons have started back up again, the park is even emptier than usual. It does make it a lot easier to take some reference pictures for Carol though. I start walking around the park, taking occasional pictures of some nice sights, making sure to get as many angles on the park as I possibly can. It doesn’t take terribly long to have collected quite a few pictures.

I think this should be plenty. 

When I look at the camera’s holographic preview screen I hear some kind of electronic sound from behind me.

“Heya! My fellow catgirl!” A voice which I immediately recognize, calls out to me.

Gamma suddenly hugs me from behind.

“G-Gamma, watch out for the camera!” I yelp.

“Oh, I see you saw my note!” She quickly releases me.

“It was a bit hard to miss.” I check the camera to see if anything’s broken. These cameras are pretty sturdy but I don’t like taking chances.

“Hihi.” She laughs. “Sorry it took so long but here you go.” Gamma hands over a headset, with its speakers mounted on the top, positioned just right where they would nestle into my feline ears.

I swiftly look around to see if anyone could see us before taking it from her.

“Chill friendo, no one can see us.”

“The kid on the bus saw you.”

“I know.” She winks. “I like to mess with younglings, it’s pretty funny to watch them trying to explain it to their parents.”

“Chaotic neutral it is...definitely.” I inspect the headset even further in my hand.

“Not going to try it on?”

I look around me again. “I don’t know.”

Gamma giggles. “Yer a bit of a worrywart aintcha?” she puts a small round electronic device on my chest and presses it, while doing the same for herself. “Here, now only us two can see each other.” swiftly she unclasps my choker and takes the headset from my hand.

“You just put it on like this.” She demonstrates on her own head. “And if you want them to be noise-cancelling you press this button.” She turns her head so I can see the buttons on the side. The moment she presses it small caps plop out of the speakers to cover her ears.

“Wow! But aren’t the ear caps a bit… clunky?”

She presses the button again to stop the noise-cancelling. “What did you say, couldn’t hear you.” She winks. “Don’t worry, I can lip read. I just thought the caps would look funny. They are completely unnecessary because the headset creates a forcefield. The added effect is that your friends can see if you are not interested in listening to them. The forcefield even keeps your hair nice and dry when it rains too.” Gamma smirks. “Anyway, this button is to change the colour of the headset, and this one is to make the neon lights switch colour. Here, now you try.” She explains this stuff as hectic like a hurricane in a bottle.

I take the headset back from her and perform all the actions she just demonstrated. Especially the noise cancelling mode is incredibly impressive, you can’t hear a thing.

“You can allow some degree of sound to come through by turning this button.” She puts my hand on it.

“It’s amazing, thank you. Are you sure I can just have it?”

“Don’t worry about it, kitten. When you’ve lived as long as me and are somewhat of an inventor you do tend to amass quite a fortune. I have like a dozen of these laying around in my room anyway.” She bashfully pats me on the back.

“Oh, well thanks a lot then!”

I wonder what exactly her room looks like though if she’s got twelve of these. Are they just on the floor? Or does she have them neatly sorted? 

I look at her for a second or two.

Never mind, they would definitely be laying on the floor. 

“I should let you go back to your class before they are starting to miss you. See you later fellow kitty cat!” She takes the button from my chest, takes some sort of device from her pocket, waves at me, opens a portal and floops through it. And just like that she’s gone. The only thing that’s left is a post-it note, gently floating down from where the portal disappeared. I catch it midair and read the text in fluorescent pink marker. “Go on now! Education is important! Love, Gamma.”

“Alright, alright.” I smile to myself and head back to the classroom.

Even though Gamma is so chaotic and I literally just met her today, I do really like her.

Before I manage to get back, however, a new portal appears and Gamma sticks her head through it. “And don’t forget your choker!”

“Ah right!”

She winks and disappears again.

When I get back to the classroom I get greeted by the professor and go back to Carol and Hailey.

“Did you get some good pictures?” Carol asks when I rejoin them.

“I took quite a few, hopefully they are helpful.” I hand over the camera and she swiftly starts browsing the pictures with the holographic screen.

“Awesome, thanks a lot!”

“No problem Carol.”

Hailey taps my shoulder. “And what’s that, Ami?” and points at my headset.

Carol looks up from the pictures and stares at the headset too. “Did you go shopping too?” she whispers.

“Ah, no… Remember when I told you about the other Goddess we met this morning?”

They both nod.

“Well. This is the headset she promised to give me. She just popped up to hand it over.”

“Oh! Never a boring moment with you around.” Carol laughs. “But you should totally demonstrate how it works though.”

“I’d like to see that as well.” Hailey enthusiastically nods.

“I’ll show you after class when we can get somewhere private.”

“And then we can pet Ami again too!” Carol whispers into her friend’s ear.

“Ooh, yes!”

“Hey I heard that!” I pout, but quickly after we all start giggling. 

I let Hailey and Carol resume their work after Carol copied the photos to her tablet and handed the camera back to the professor. After which I went back to my seat to work on the storyboards of my manga. When the lesson is over I look upon my work.

“Wow, you got a lot of work done, didn’t you?” Hailey takes her canvas and puts it in a safe spot at the back of the class.

“Yeah, if I can work another hour or three on the storyboards I think I might be done with that. How about you Hailey?”

“It’ll take a bit longer than that.” She laughs.

“And mine will take even longer.” Carol stretches and puts away her canvas too. “But at least it’s getting somewhere now. Thanks again for the pictures.”

“No problem at all! I’m happy to help.”

I put away my own work in my folder and put it in my bag so I can look over them when I’m home.

“So, we’re heading towards a quiet spot now?” Carol playfully prods my side when we leave the classroom.

“I know just the place, but first let me message my girlfriend, ok?” I take my phone out.

“Of course, please do contact your sweetheart.” Hailey smiles and hangs her arm around my neck.

I stick out my tongue and tell Sam that we’ll be going to the spot where we met in uni for the first time. She almost immediately sends back that she will come in half an hour, with a lot of heart emojis of course.

“Just follow me, ok?” I tell me friends who both nod in agreement.

“Lead the way, boss.” Carol replies in an accent.

“What are you, a mobster?”

“Smuggling cat girls around campus.”

“Hihi.”

We walk up the familiar stairs to the top floor, it is then when I remember what happened here last time. I take a deep breath and walk in the corridor. 

What has happened has happened, he can’t hurt me anymore. Now it’s time to replace those memories once and for all. 

I unclasp my choker and put it in my pocket.

“Are you sure that’s okay Ami?” Hailey asks.

“Yeah, there’s rarely anyone here, and thanks to my hearing I can hear people coming up the stairs really easily anyway.” I wiggle my ears for a second.

“Alright then.” She smiles. “Now give those cute ears here for a nice scratching!”

Both Carol and Hailey jump me and start scratching me behind my ears. It doesn’t take long before my legs give in to the bliss and I drop to the floor against the wall, a little purring mess. With Hailey to my left and Carol to my right.

“She’s so cozy to cuddle up with.”

“Mhmm. It reminds me of my cat back home too.” Hailey agrees with our friend.

“D-do you not want to see the headset first?” I purr.

“Nah, that can wait.” Both of my friends smirk.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah