Chapter 67: Catchy

After dinner, setting up the tents and tons of ear scratchies from Hilda and my girlfriend the five of us sit around the campfire a bit longer before heading to bed. The water in the pond made a great mirror to reflect the lights of the hundreds of fireflies that had appeared when the sun set.

“Fireflies are pretty nice aren’t they?” My sister looks behind her and watches over the pond.

“Yeah they are. It’s sad they are so rare in our world.” Hilda pokes the fire with a stick, making one of the logs start crackling a bit louder.

“Mhmm.” Élise nods. “I’ve only seen them once before and that was quite a while ago.”

“They always make me think of that one song.” Nikki comments while humming the melody of a song I’ve never heard before.

“Didn’t that song turn 50 this year?” Hilda turns to Nikki.

“Last year if I recall correctly. I like to make myself believe...”

“That planet Earth turns slowlyyyy.” Élise fills in the rest of the sentence.

“It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep,” Hilda continues the chorus. For the first time hearing Hilda’s singing voice, it’s surprisingly nice.

“Cause everything is never as it seems!” They all sing the last line together before starting to laugh.

“It’s an oldie but a goldie.” Nikki lets out a content sigh.

“Yep, but now the song is stuck inside my head.”

“In mine too.” Hilda grumbles.

“So at least there’s an advantage to not knowing the song.” Sam whispers into my ear with a giggle.

“But now I want to know the rest of the song too! It sounds really nice.”

“Well you can always look it up when you wake up, sis. But beware, you are going to be singing it all day long at uni.”

“It can’t be that bad can it?”

“It iiiiss.” Nikki laughs.

“And bonus points if you also make your girlfriend have it stuck in her head for the entire day.”

I look at Sam, she stares at me for a second before her eyes go wide. “Oh no, please don’t.”

“I’m going to play it on the speaker.” I grin.

“Please not too loud though, Ami, just enough so we don’t hear it too.” 

“Okidoki.”

“Well, good luck to you, Sam.” Hilda gets up and pats Sam on the back. “I’ll be going to sleep now, I’d like to get up a bit earlier today so I can make myself some soup.”

“What soup are you going to have?” I look up at her.

“Ah, just some powdered soup to which you just add hot water. I think I’m in the mood for leek...”

“Oh, sounds nice! Good night then, Hilda!”

“Good night kitten.” she pats my head. 

“I forgot we needed to eat after this, again.” Sam looks at the little remains of meat.

“We need to feed both bodies after all.” Hilda sets up the ward and opens her tent. “See you tomorrow?”

“That’s the plan.” My sister replies.

“Alright, good night.”

The rest of the party says Hilda good night too as she disappears inside of her tent.

“I don’t think we should make it too late today either, Ami.” Sam pokes my side.

“Probably not, we need to get up quite early too.”

“What time will you have to get up?” Sam looks at my sister and her girlfriend.

“We need to be at work around eleven I think?” Lise looks at her partner.

“Yeah, eleven.”

“So we can get up at like nine.” She smiles at us.

“Urgh, I’m so envious of that.”

“Our work times are pretty good, that’s true, and the commute is also not bad at all.” Nikki takes over the role as burning log poker.

“We really hit a goldmine with our jobs didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did.”

Sam is pouting now that my family is boasting just a little too much about their glorious jobs.

“I think I’ll go to bed now.”

“Awh, sorry for all the boasting, Sam.” Élise giggles.

Sam waves it away. “It’s fine, we have to go to bed anyway.” she looks over to me. “Are you coming too, Ami?”

“Yes!” I get up and give a quick hug to Nikki and Lise. “Good night!”

“Good night to you too cutie.” Nikki replies.

“Good night, and don’t let the cat catch your tail.” She bobs her head towards Sam, who immediately started grinning.

“I think that might be somewhat hard to do.” I gulp and head over to our tent.

Once inside me and Sam start undressing.

“I hope you had a fun time.” I say while pulling my robe over my head.

“Definitely, but let’s just hope next time you’ll be awake for longer, not that I dislike staring at your cute sleepy face.”

“Moh.” I pout.

She giggles. “But I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than the other game. I guess a catgirl badass archer fits me more than a dragon girl medic.”

“Mhmm.” I nod. “I did like touching your scales though.”

“That’s indeed the one thing I miss. But fluffy tail and ears aren’t that bad either.” Her long tail reaches around and tickles my bare back.

“Eeeep! That tickles.” I jump a little.

“Hehe.” Sam suddenly pounces, making us tumble on the soft bedrolls.

“S-Sam’s wild…” I blush while she’s rubbing her face against mine.

“Mhmm, I know.” She lays down on top of me, embracing me completely with her strong arms before rolling over so I’m on top of her. Sam pulls me even closer towards her. 

It’s sooo comfy…

I can’t help but start purring, almost at the same time her body starts doing the same.

“I can definitely understand Carol now.” Sam puts the blanket of the bedroll on top of us.

“Hmm?”  

“About the ‘wanting to be a cat girl’ stuff. I think when she starts playing this game she’ll definitely get hooked.”

“Yeah… I think so too… but at least she’ll have a trial period first then.”

“Are you going to ask Veanya about it?”

“Probably, I did promise it.”

“Hmm.” Sam nods and squeezes me tighter. “Squishy catgirl.”

“I think your boobs are squishier though…”

“Maybe.” She laughs.

“Tall, stronk and squishy catgirl.”

She starts petting me, making me doze off slightly.

“I think I’m going to fall asleep...”

“Yeah, we should probably log off then.”

“See you on the other side?”

“Mhmm.” I nod.

Soon after that my interface vision goes black. But rather than waking up immediately I find it very hard to regain consciousness. Until slowly but surely I feel my mind drifting back towards reality.

I wake up to my girlfriend holding her hand against my cheek. She already has a shirt on and has reattached her prosthetic.

“Ami, are you okay? You are burning up.”

I try to sit upright in bed but don’t really manage to do it, flopping back down on my bed like a wet noodle. I can see my sister is standing in the doorway as well.

My body feels incredibly hot and bothered.

“Is she alright?”

“I don’t know, she feels very feverish. Can you speak, Ami?”

“S-Sam...” My voice is weak as I only barely manage to speak loud enough. “I don’t feel so well…nya.” That last part just flopped out without me having any control over it.

Sam and my sister share a surprised look. “Is this…?”

“I think so… I didn’t expect it so soon. I’ll go and get something to cool her off.” My sister jogs towards the living room.

“You’ll be fine, Ami.” Sam tucks me back into bed. “I think it’s best you rest a bit, okay?” She runs her hand over my cheek.

“I-is this the heat… nya?”

“It might be…But then again this is all new for us so we don’t know...”

My sister runs back into my room with an icepack covered with a soft looking towel.

“Here, this might help cool you down a little.” The moment she wants to hand the icepack over to Sam a familiar voice speaks out from behind her.

“Wait a minute!”

My sister almost falls over from surprise and even Sam bounces back a little.

It’s Gamma.

“I thought I felt something wrong, looks like I was right.” She barges past my sister and almost pushes away Sam, just so she could take a device out of the pocket of her hoody and hold it at my ear. “Mhmm, mhmm.” She nods.

“H-hey Gamma.” Sam stutters, Gamma had invaded her personal space just a little too much.

“Oh, hi!” She puts the device back inside her pocket.

“S-so?”

“So, what?” Gamma appears to have no clue what Sam is talking about, tilting her head questioningly.

“W-what d-does she have? Is it the heat?”

Gamma looks over to me and then back at Sam, and at my sister too before laughing.

“Hahaha, did you think this is the heat? No no no, that’s a completely different pair of sleeves.”

“What’s so funny about that?” My sister asks, sounding slightly insulted.

“You’ll know when she gets it, you won’t be able to pull her off you in that case.” Gamma laughs again, completely waving away my sister. “She just has a nasty case of the catgirl flu. Normally catgirls develop immunity to this when they are young but because that never happened to her she got it quite bad now.”

“Is there something we can do to help her?” My girlfriend asks.

“Normally I’d say yes but since she’s an almost bottomless pool of mana I think medicine would actually be slower then her self-regeneration. She should be mostly fine by the evening.” Gamma looks at one of the watches that hang around her left arm. “Just let her rest a bit and it will be okay. Oh and when V shows up, say hi from me okay?” She opens a portal next to her.

“V? You mean Veanya? Why would she show up?” My sister asks.

Gamma already has already set one of her feet through the portal before she answers. “Weren’t you listening, Girly? She’s self-regenerating, basically means she’s leaking mana as fast as Plasmaforian sif, anyway, see you!” And with that, Gamma left the room.

“D-did she just call me, ‘Girly’? And what the heck is a plasmasomething sif?”

Sam shrugs. “Those are just Gamma things I guess.”

Before my sister can reply a bright white light fills the room, ending with Veanya leaning over me.

“Goddess number two I presume...” My sister throws her hands up with a sigh.

“Hmm?” Veanya looks confused at the reaction of my sister.

These Goddesses apparently don’t know how to knock…. 

FieryKathy