Stray Cat Strut

Interlude Lucy - School Days

Lucy looked at herself in the mirror, then gave a little spin.

CIAL had their own uniform. From what she understood, and from what she saw, there were some strict rules about what a person could and couldn't wear, but the rules were also pretty relaxed in other ways.

The school sold uniforms, and the prices were... well, they weren't cheap. 15,000 credits for a blazer made her skin crawl. It wasn't that much, in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough that she recoiled from the very idea of spending that much.

Fortunately, they had a cheaty device that could print just about anything, and a cheeky Myalis to help create 3d files for said printer.

The official CIAL uniform included a blazer, with different colours for different years, pants or a skirt, and all-black shoes.

Her uniform was all-black, except for a few shiny white lines running along the seams of her blazer and along the edge of her skirt. Her official school shoes had red laces that stood out rather starkly.

Black and white like that meant that she was the lowest level of student at the school. Or something like that. There were different marks as a person rose in ranks and years.

She suspected that that was on purpose. It didn't mean anything, but it created a quick visual hierarchy that she imagined a certain type of person would quickly become obsessed with.

Reaching down, she tugged her thigh-high socks up a bit. The trick with those was to have them stop just short of the hem of her skirt. That little bit of squished thigh? That shit would drive any gay girl mad.

Lucy grinned at herself. She felt... strangely pretty. Not that she'd ever thought of herself as not pretty, but... being able to move as she wanted to, without the shakes, the aches in her legs, the sudden waves of tiredness? It felt empowering. Plus, the better diet and self care meant that her skin was practically glowing.

She ran her hands through her hair, puffing it out a little--getting her hair to sit in anything but some variation of a curly fro was a lost cause--and then she picked up a purse and slung it over her shoulder. It was shaped like a big poofy cat's head, and was very cute.

Plus, she needed a place to put her gun. It was one of those Foxteeth that Cat had given to all of the Kittens a while back. She figured she wouldn't need it, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

A touch at her neck, where that necklace Cat had given her lay, and she was ready.

"What do you think?" she asked the presence behind her.

A large form peeled itself out of nothing, revealing a mechanized cat whose head came up to mid-waist on her.

The P.U.S.S Model Y shifted, then stretched. It looked like a bengal tiger, if bengal tigers came equipped with several machine guns and a rocket launcher. This one was the one she usually found following her around the house, or when she had to go downstairs to check on something.

Not that it was easy to spot, being invisible and deathly quiet. She only knew it was around sometimes because it opened doors behind her and elevators took a moment longer to close than they should have.

There were four more of the same model around the house. Maybe. Probably. She'd never seen them all in the same place.

She supposed that others might have been worried, living in a home with so many invisible things able to rip them to shreds, but Lucy felt like it was rather comforting.

With a final nod to herself, and a brilliant smile that she usually saved for Cat, she flumped out of the bedroom.

She found Cat waiting for her by the elevator, back leaning against the wall, eyes glazed over in that way that meant she was looking at something on her augs.

"Oh, you dressed up too?" Lucy asked.

She let her gaze trail up and down Cat's body in a way that some people would call lecherous. Those people would be correct.

Cat was in a tight shirt with a long collar, like a turtleneck but with exposed shoulders. Said shoulders were well exposed because Cat had let her blazer fall back, it was only staying on because her hands were stuffed into the pockets of her cargo pants.

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Those weren't regulation. Nor was the handcannon strapped to Cat's thigh.

Her cargo pants were high-waisted with a thin little belt, and were bunched up at the calf.

"Looking dangerous," Lucy purred.

Cat snorted, then blinked whatever was on her augs away. She stared at Lucy. Really stared.

Lucy felt her grin widening. She didn't like it when strangers looked at her like she was a fresh piece of meat, but when Cat stared and fought back a blush like that? Yeah, that made Lucy feel a certain way.

"That's a lot of cat themed stuff," Cat finally said.

"You like it?" Lucy asked. She pulled her blazer open a little, revealing a simple t-shirt with the Stray Cat logo on it. "I printed it special!"

She walked over, then gave Cat a quick hug. Then she leaned in and whispered into her ear.

"The skirt is hiding other cat-themed things too," she said.

"Ah," Cat replied.

Lucy held back a giggle. Teasing Cat was her number one favourite activity. The results of teasing Cat was her number two favourite activity.

But none of that right now, she didn't want to arrive at school all messed up for her first day. "Are we heading out soon?" she asked.

"I was waiting for you," Cat said. "Did you get that class schedule thing from the VP?"

"Yup! Culinary classes first thing in the morning, then political sciences in the afternoon. There's like, two hours between the classes, which feels like a lot."

"Yeah, I guess. I loaded up the Nyanzerfaust's broken leg into the Bastion. I can tinker with that during the break," Cat said. "Got combat in the morning and then the same class as you in the afternoon. Wild how we just happened to be invited over just as all these classes are starting up in the middle of a semester, huh?"

"Yup, wild," Lucy said with a grin.

They headed downstairs where the Bastion was waiting for them.

"Do you think we should paint it yellow?" Lucy asked.

"Paint it yellow? The Bastion?" Cat asked. "Lucy, I'm not painting my awesome mech carrier school bus yellow."

"Aww, but it would be topical."

"It would stick out like a sore thumb," Cat said.

"It's a twenty-five metre long flying brick with cat ears and more guns than a tank," Lucy pointed out. "It's less like a sore thumb and more like... a sore hand? Wait... a sore arm? Let me workshop that analogy a little more. Point is, it's not subtle!"

"And painting it yellow would make it even less subtle," Cat pointed out.

Lucy laughed as she found her seat in the cockpit and watched Cat expertly and easily turn the ship on and start to pilot it out of the garage. "Sure, but that could be a good thing. It's like... a frog."

"A frog. If you convince Myalis to change my name and theme to frogs I'm walking off the roof," Cat said. "I've got enough trouble with the whole cat stuff all over. You know she'd somehow cover all of my crap in slimy goop just because it's thematic."

"I meant more like, you know, poisonous frogs are colourful to tell people that they're dangerous," Lucy said.

"Yeah, and machinery and buses are yellow to warn people not to get in their way for the same reason," Cat said.

"The NMT buses aren't yellow," Lucy pointed out.

"They might have been once, but now they're all shit coloured from flying through too much smog," Cat said.

They argued about buses and paint schemes for a while, at least until the CIAL campus came into view ahead on the wide screen in front of Cat and they started to descend towards the main plaza of the campus.

Cat snorted when she noticed that someone had marked out a large rectangle, about the size of the Bastion, with several cones. They'd painted Samurai Parking in the middle of the rectangle.

She came down near it, parking the Bastion an entire car-length to the side of the box. "Cat," Lucy said. "You're doing that on purpose."

"It's funnier this way," Cat said. "C'mon, they're using me being here for their own shit, the least I can do is poke them about it."

Lucy shook her head, but she didn't have time to argue because it would soon be time for class.

***