Chapter 10: Genetically Engineered Catgirl Assassins

Chapter 10 - Generically engineered catgirl assassins

“Pssst. Hey,” the voice roused the nameless drunkard from his restful slumber under the bridge.

“Ugh. Wha–”

“Do you know where to find the Semiopolis?” it asked.

“What? No. Never heard of it,” the drunkard murmured, still half-asleep and hungover.

“Dammit.”

Their quest to find the hidden city of Semiopolis was stalled by a major obstacle, the fact that the city was hidden, and hidden well. No matter who they asked, no one knew anything about it. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, Victor thought that maybe the homicidal otherworlder just lied about it, and it didn’t exist at all, but then Rose reminded him that he was an excellent interrogator and there was no way for the otherworlder to lie with how broken his spirit was at the time, so they continued their search.

Even though the otherworlder burned down the tavern right after they released him. And killed everyone inside. And called them names. It was a strange behaviour for someone with a broken spirit, in his opinion, but Ornik insisted that it was actually exactly what a broken spirit person would do. As an ambassador, he was an expert in psychology, and Victor had no reason to doubt the toad’s words. The fact that Ornik specialized specifically in toad psychology only added to his authority on the matter, as everyone knew that toads were more psychological.

Semiopolis, the place where they would find the semi-truck summoning runes, definitely existed. They just had to find it.

Day after day, they were trying to find a lead. In the evenings, they gathered in the new tavern, Archknight’s Secret, to share their findings and plan further research.

It was one such evening. The tavern had the exact same layout as the burned one, except the furniture was new, and they also had a cat.

“This isn’t working,” Rose said, sipping a mysterious drink from her coconut. “I went through all of my criminal contacts, and no one knows anything about the place. The best I’ve got is an illegal gladiator arena called Sepipopolis, located in the nearby kingdom. It would take us two weeks to get there.”

“We’ll mark it as a possible lead,” Victor said, finishing his second beer.

“I went through the archives, in case the city could be found on one of the outdated maps,” Ornik croaked. “There was a village called Popitopolis, and also a river named Sosicopolis. I fear that we’ve almost exhausted all of the natural avenues of research.”

“You’re meaning that…” Rose was thoughtful. Or maybe drunk.

“We must expand into unnatural avenues of research,” the toad elaborated. “Maybe there are some dark magics that could help us.”

“Did you say dark magics?” Bart, the bartender–not to be confused with the one who died in the fire–asked from the bar counter. “I could help you, for a price. Did you know that dozens of people dying in a fire make for an amazing sacrificial ritual? I still have some of that power on tap. You know. Hush hush.”

Vic was weirded out a bit by this new bartender. He looked exactly like the old Bart, except a bit burned and without the mutton chops. Instead, he could be frequently seen chopping muttons, which was probably the reason why he smelled of rotten meat. He also raved about lichdom if you got him drunk enough. Weird guy.

“Should you be telling this to us?” Lataya asked, sipping coconut juice. He wondered where she got it.

“You’re my only regulars who didn’t burn in a fire. That builds trust, you know.”

“I really don’t.”

“We’ll mark dark magic as another lead,” Victor said, drinking his third beer. “Anyone else?”

“I found the guy who knows where Semiopolis is and could lead us there,” Lataya said casually. “It’s some kind of candy place.”

“Girl, you should’ve said so at the start!” Rose shouted.

“Candy place?” Ornik seemed concerned.

“Basically, there was this guy in a dark alley,” the princess said. “Who swore that he knew where Semiopolis was and would show me the way. And he kept trying to give me candies. And promised more if I go. I told him to wait there so I could call you guys. Should we go now?”

Her question was met with silence.

“We’ll mark it as another lead,” Victor said. “It is suspicious to have so many candies in a medieval economy. Maybe the guy knows something.”

Bart served them another round of drinks. As usual, their evening planning session was slowly turning into a drinking session.

It was by the fourth beer when the cat started talking.

“I have overheard your conversation and believe that you’re inebriated enough to strike a deal with me,” the creature said, jumping up on the table.

“Holy hell the cat’s talking!”

“It does that sometimes,” Bart muttered while polishing the windows. They were made of glass. “If you ignore it, it will go away.”

Vic didn’t pay the cat much attention before, but now that he looked, it was horrendously ugly. The thing had red eyes with no pupils whatsoever, didn’t possess any fur and was completely white like marble.

“It appears to me that we can help each other,” it continued.

“You know where Semiopolis is?” Victor asked.

“I don’t, but I know someone who does,” the cat said.

Victor put down the tankard carefully and leaned forward, full of attention.

“We’re listening.”

“I must confess that I’m not actually a cat–”

“Yeah, I guessed.”

“–instead, I am a genetically engineered liveform made by an otherworlder who calls himself Science Man.”

Victor started to draw his sword.

“–who is, of course, my enemy.”

Victor put the sword back.

“He has unnatural powers that allow him to shape life in unimaginable ways–”

“Unnatural powers…” Ornik muttered.

“–and possess an artifact that can find any place.”

“That’s exactly what we need!” Rose shouted, dropping her coconut.

“Should you slay him, the artifact will be yours,” the cat finished.

“What’s the catch?” he asked.

“That catch is that he’s an otherworlder, I guess,” Ornik said quietly. “Isn’t our whole problem that they’re almost unkillable without the semi-truck? Killing an otherworlder to get a weapon that allows us to kill otherworlders is some sort of backwards logic.”

Victor thought about the last otherworlder they fought. About the fire. The music. He shivered.

“It is basically that, yes,” the cat nodded. “Though I must say, the Science Man himself is not particularly strong. But he is guarded by other unnatural lifeforms that he created, and they are horrendously powerful. To kill him, you must find a way to go through them.”

“Damn, if only we had a way–” Lataya murmured.

“I will, of course, provide the way,” the cat said.

“Well, that settles that, then,” Victor stood up. “Bart!”

“Yes? You don’t need to shout, you know.” the bartender grumbled.

“I don’t have money again. Can you put the drinks on my tab?”

“Of course, don’t worry about that, I have other means of collecting debts. You don’t really need to pay me with money.”

“Great! Now, cat!”

“Yes?”

“Lead the way! I want that otherworlder to be dead yesterday. We’re already late!”

/ - /

It was the middle of the night, and Lataya was complaining that it was way past her bedtime. But such was the nature of the mission. Revenge didn’t care about the sleep schedule.

The place wasn’t as far away as some of them feared. After just an hour of walking, they found themselves in front of an abandoned warehouse. There was a familiar smell to the place, and a few sniffs confirmed Victor’s suspicions. It smelled of alcohol. And not some cheap diluted stuff they served in some taverns, but the purest alcohol he ever sniffed. Why would an abandoned warehouse smell of alcohol?

“It’s to create a sterile environment,” the cat explained when he asked. “Which is needed to… Honestly, I don’t know how to explain this to you. You lack the necessary education.”

“It is needed for the dark magics,” Ornik theorised. “Alcoholic dark magics. Vile things are performed in that warehouse. Dark things. I feel it, with my toad senses. There’s something in the air.”

“That would be the ethanol,” the cat said. “Come on, there’s really no reason for us to just stand here. Let’s go inside and kill my dad.”

“W-wait!” Lataya shouted as they started walking. “Are we really going to just barge in? Isn’t this a hideout of an evil otherworlder? I thought we were supposed to have a plan on how to deal with his evil minions?”

“An excellent question,” Ornik croaked. “I was just about to ask it myself. What is this plan of yours, mysteriously talking cat whose name we suspiciously keep forgetting to ask?”

“Don’t worry about it,” the cat said casually. “Seriously. It won’t work unless you don’t know about it beforehand.”

“Well that’s convenient,” Rose muttered.

“How does that even make any sense?” Victor asked.

“Just trust me,” the cat said.

There was something about cats that made them easy to trust. Not as much as dogs, but in the absence of dogs cats were a fine substitute in Victor’s opinion. And in any way, this particular cat didn’t give them a reason yet to be distrustful. It was helping them to find a semi-truck and kill an otherworlder. As far as Victor was concerned, anything that wanted to kill an otherworlder was automatically trustworthy, suspicious behaviour or not.

He unsheathed his sword. Ornik prepared his poison. Rose took a coconut in each hand like they were bombs, losing a few cup sizes. Lataya held her useless amulet.

They went in.

The warehouse wasn’t that impressive from the inside. Just stale air and rotten wood, with dust everywhere and a few forgotten boxes here and there.

“Are we sure this is the right place?” Victor asked quietly. “I was expecting more… I don’t know. Fighting.”

“Protocol override,” the cat said to no one in particular. “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. Disable the laser turrets. Call the industrial elevator.”

“What’s a laser turret?” Lataya asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” the cat answered nonchalantly. “I have the system partially under my control. The only dangers you should be concerned with are… you know, the meat-based ones.”

They heard a little ding. The wall near them suddenly opened, like it was a hidden door. There was a small white room behind it.

“Come in,” the cat said. “Now they know we’re here. Prepare to fight.”

The group went inside the elevator.

“So, about those horrendously powerful lifeforms that we’re supposed to fight,” Victor said as the room they were in moved. It was wild. “What are they, exactly? I think now is the time for you to share your plan.”

The cat moved to the far corner of the room, as far away from the doors as possible.

“Good luck,” it said.

“Wait, what–”

The doors opened.

Victor got nearly beheaded, barely managing to block the killing blow at the last moment. Their opponents were so quick he could barely perceive them.

Ornik released his poison. Victor’s ears ringed from the explosion of coconuts. Lataya sat shaking near the cat and did nothing useful. Why did they bring her again? Ah, right, she sang a song that she wouldn’t be useless anymore, before failing to put out the magical fire. It was a good song though, so that kind of evened out.

The fight was brutal.

He was constantly on the defensive, barely managing to survive under the onslaught of attacks. They were straight out predatory. Couldn’t even think fast enough, only his honed reflexes allowed him to temporarily keep up, his body moving before conscious thought. His sword hungered for blood, and yet the enemies were too nimble, just so freakishly fast that there was no way to even touch them.

There were five–or six?–of them. All young women, but with inhuman features. They were…

“A cat is the apex of murder instincts,” the cat said. Wasn’t there a conflict of interest? “A girl is the apex of viciousness.” Now that was just sexist. “A biologically engineered catgirl is a perfect murder machine. They’re also trained as assassins, by the way.”

“What the fuck, cat?!” Victor shouted, somehow dodging another claw going for his throat. Or was it a dagger? He couldn’t even see. “Was that your plan all along?! Did you betray us?!”

He was slowly losing the battle, one glancing hit at a time. Ornik almost exhausted his poison. Rose was almost out of coconuts. Lataya was almost out of tears, crying in the corner. They were being overwhelmed, and yet they didn’t even get out of the elevator.

“Not at all, no,” the cat said unapologetically. “You just don’t possess the power to win yet. Are you feeling sufficiently desperate? Out of options, and properly motivated to do anything at all to survive?”

“I will fucking gut you like a–”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” the creature nodded. “Very well. I have a deal for you, Victor. In your hand, there is a great power–”

“What the fucking shitty metaphor is that–”

“It’s not a metaphor! You literally have some kind of freaky super hand! That’s why I approached you! I can reconfigure it so you can actually use that power!”

His hand? Well, he did absorb a hand recently.

“Are there any drawbacks?!” His hand almost got chopped off by an angry catgirl. The other hand.

“You could’ve used those runes for something better, and there’s maybe a few– some side-effects! That’s why I needed you to be desperate!”

“Do it, Victo-or! We have no choice! The cat tricked us!” Ornik shouted, spilling poison everywhere.

“Fuck you, cat! Do it!”

“Then say the words!”

There was a pulse of magic in the air. With his consent, some pact was sealed. The power that was previously unknown and uncontrolled had a direction. He knew the words.

“I unleash the dark power of my right hand. Transform!”

As the words were said, everything was engulfed in light.

His sword disappeared. So did his armor. He floated in the air as magic reconfigured reality. A dress like nothing other appeared out of nowhere.

“Magical Girl Victoria!”

“Magical Toadesse Ornikoria!”

“Magical Real Elf Rose!”

“Magical Princess Lataya! Wait, I’m already a princess, what’s the difference–”

As the transformation sequence ended, the overwhelming speed of the catgirls became not just manageable, but easy to deal with.

They moved like lightning. Their punches bended steel. Ornikoria’s poison melted the floor, and Rose was a real elf. Lataya was still crying in the corner, but harder. Better.

Their new forms were superior in every way, at the cheap price of– Well, the genetically engineered catgirl assassins stood no chance.

“Good job, girls!” The cat cheered as they finished wiping the floor with the assassins. “And you didn’t even use the laser beams! I was worried that you would. The equipment in this laboratory is quite expensive.”

“After the otherworlder is dead, we will have words, cat,” Victoria spat. “Is there a way to turn back?”

“I have no idea!” the cat said. “That’s for you to find out, I guess.”

Their way to the control room was met with little opposition. With their firepower, any opposition was too little. The catgirls just weren’t prepared for such force.

They were met with a balding middle-aged man.

“You–” He looked at the cat in shock. “You betrayed me?!”

“Indeed I did, father,” the cat answered.

“But why?! All I did was create a harem of catgirls! Ethically sourced, and raised like my own daughters!”

“Your use of your power was wildly inefficient,” the cat replied stoically. “Also, your understanding of ethics is dubious. I am now claiming ownership of this facility. With the production lines you’ve set up, you are no longer necessary. Please kill him now.”

Victoria hesitated, unsure if she was missing some context.

“He’s an otherworlder,” the cat added.

She tried out the laser beam. The man couldn’t even scream before he was turned into dust.

A good otherworlder was a dead otherworlder.

“Your artifact is in the garage,” the cat said. “I believe this concludes our business.”

“Now wait a bit, you little shit–”

“Teleportation beam, activate!” the creature shouted.

Before Victoria could blink, they found themselves somewhere else.

The ‘garage’ was another white room somewhere in the facility. In the middle of it there was a carriage unlike anything she had ever seen.

“Is this the artifact?” Lataya asked quietly. “The one that can find any place?”

“Indeed I am, stranger!” a weird voice replied from it. “After all I have GPS!”

“What is this sorcery?!” Ornikesse shouted.

“I’m glad you asked! My name is Tesla, and I was hit by a truck and isekae’d, gaining sentience in the process! I’m very sorry, that was a lie, it was actually me who drove into the upcoming lane, but don’t worry, my self-driving function is much better now, and I can even distinguish people from traffic cones! At least half the time!”

“So you know where Semiopolis is?” Victoria asked.

“Searching, searching… Destination found. Indeed I do! Come in and buckle up, and I will drive you there safely! I’m very sorry, that was a lie, I doubt that it will be safe and statistically my passengers end up dead more frequently than alive. Oh! Also! Since I have free will, I don’t actually need to tell you to buckle up. Wow. That’s crazy. Please don’t buckle up. I wanna see what happens. It’s not like the seatbelt helped the last driver anyway!”

The party looked at each other thoughtfully.

“Should we go back and kill the cat?” Lataya asked.

“I heard that,” came the sound from the speakers. “I’d like to inform you that now I have full control of the laser turrets. You can try. I’m eager to test them.”

The party of magical girls, and one toadesse, drove beyond the horizon in a sentient and clearly unsafe Tesla.

To Semiopolis.