Twentieth Jump (Shadowrun) Part 4

A Day Out on the Town

            It was a dusky, fog-ridden morning as I went along the busy sidewalk with a Yankaka close at hand. The lower half of her face, along with just about everyone else’s that we passed, was covered by a thin respirator to keep their lungs clear of the low hanging smog that blanketed the streets and was almost one-and-the-same at this point. Yay… Urbanization. I was one of the few that was not wearing one as I simply did not have to breathe the noxious fumes and, even if I was forced to for whatever possible reason, my body was more than capable of processing the toxins.

            Yan was sticking close to my side as to not be separated from me because of the heavy foot traffic that the wageslaves and sararimen (Apparently street names for those who worked for the corporations.) went to and from work. She had apparently found a restaurant while she was out exploring the area and, as always, was keen on dragging me out of the apartment to try it out. Honestly, it was kind of sweet how she wanted to share her findings with me (Though, I am sure it was also because I always paid for the food.), plus it gave me an excuse to leave the apartment and, in this case, an excuse to avoid the plans that Bang, Cannonball, and Chopshop were currently fabricating for the job that we had been given.

            Now this was fairly normal of her, staying close and physically dragging me to wherever she happened to want to go. I did not mind such things, but she seemed a little more insistent this time around. If it so much as seemed as if I was drifting more than a foot away from her, she would pull me close once again or, at the very least, pull herself closer to me if I didn’t budge… At one point she even jumped onto my back under the notion that I apparently wasn’t allowed to run off without bringing her along.

To top it all off, she seemed a bit more jealous than usual. Now, ever since we had started dating, her jealousy was, for the most part, under control whenever she wasn’t in a bad or paranoid mood. What surprised me, however, was the fact that she was smiling and chatting away as we walked, but if anyone glanced my way she would begin to glare and then even growl if they got what she apparently deemed as too close. Heck, she almost lashed out at someone who complimented her jacket while saying something along the lines of “No, nya! You no have Yankaka. Yankaka with Sweet Guy, nya.”

Something was amiss. Despite her psychosis and her usual behaviors, this was a bit… odd… even for her as far as her normal, moment-to-moment behavior, especially around me. She was always a calmer individual around me and, while even I realized that she could be argumentative and aggressive when I wasn’t around, she was normally quite in control of herself if I was present. At least we arrived at the restaurant without any real issue.

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            The restaurant was an in-the-wall and out of the way establishment. The room was small, lit by only the glow of faint, neon lights that lined the wall and the small, hanging lamps that dangled above every table. There was a bar-kitchen mix up against the left and only five booths along the right wall, which might cause someone to wonder how it even remained in business at any given time with such minor holdings. Yankaka was clinging to Tadek’s arm as they entered, tugging him along while he was left to glance around the establishment with a curious eye.

            She had been looking forward to convincing him to come to the restaurant. It wasn’t of the same quality as the last one, but she was sure that Tadek would enjoy a higher quality restaurant such as this. Their serving sizes were actually more than slivers of food just barely larger than the palm of their hands and didn’t take fifty minutes to cook! Though… She did recall never getting any food, but that was the waitress’s fault for flirting with Tadek and forcing her to take action to prevent a new challenger from getting their hands on the object of her obsession.

            Once they were seated, Yankaka made a point to sit across from Tadek with her arms outstretched toward him while they waited for someone to come over and take their order… At least until the Orc that was standing behind the counter called out with a rough “What will ya’ have!? I’m not going to you just to know what you want!”, which was answered with an order from the both of them after they took the time to actually figure out what they served. Soy, krill, mushroom… Really, there was barely any “real food” on the menu to choose from, so in the end they shelved out the extra nuyen to purchase one of the few choices that had the actual meat for the way it would taste or look if it was simply soy.

            Everything seemed simple enough at the least. Lot of food ordered, lot of food eaten, and simple conversation. “Just have to get Sweet Guy to speak, nya. He will tell Yankaka who is after him… Have to be subtle, have to find out what he wants. Then Yankaka can have him for herself, nya.” She thought to herself throughout their conversation, trying so hard to keep things subtle by asking him more about what he had been up to whenever she wasn’t around. She had to find out. She had to know who was between her and what she desired.
            It took some time, but she eventually dragged out how he had been spending a lot of time around a specific Stuffer Shack, a mass-chain convenience store, where he had been meeting new people to converse with whenever he was wandering around the area and wasn’t either practicing his new abilities, such as the magic that Yankaka listened to… and whatever caused him to go limp and not respond to anything that she did. Really, she didn’t know what he was doing, but the Dwarf and Troll explained that he was probably in the Matrix doing what they called “technomancer stuff”.

            That was all the information that she needed, though… She knew that he was talking to people, so now she just needed to find out who might be trying to distract him or take him away from her. Once they were taken care of, they could have a proper date… She just needed to figure out who to remove from the equation.

Twentieth Jump (Shadowrun) Part 3

Espionage and Murder

            It took a little more time, sifting through the jumping, dancing, and otherwise sweaty bodies of the club-goers, but eventually the sprite signaled to me that it picked up someone who matched the rather vague description that I was given; a male elf with long, purple hair, that was currently advancing upon my position.

            I simply remained where I was for the moment, checking my commlink for various features to pass the short instance between learning that someone was approaching and the feeling of a pair of thin arms slipping in around shoulders to pull me in. “Hey, Sweetie! There you are. Got lost in the crowd again, didn’t you?” Honestly, I felt quite uncomfortable from the attention and was forced to resist the urge to slam my elbow into their gut as they came in close… Thankfully to whisper something to me. “Just act natural. It’s not like I am going to shove my hand down your pants. Follow my lead.”

            With a small huff, I followed along as they led me off to one of the booths off to the side that possessed a white noise generator, if the constant buzzing in the back of my eardrum was any hint at such a thing existing. It was annoying, but required for privacy. Once we took a seat, they stayed a bit too close for comfort, one arm wrapped around my ribs, and kept a cheerful, flirtatious demeanor the entire conversation, which only made things ever more awkward for me. “Here I thought that you were supposed to be the greatest infiltrator in the world according to your friends. A little too stiff to be any good at acting.”

            “While I am very good at disguising myself and going unseen… Acting isn’t part of my skill set. Now, what is the job, hmm? You won’t have to worry about anything going wrong with whatever tasks you give me.”

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            Yankaka had climbed out of the van at Gerald’s direction, ducking into an alleyway while Jayla went across the street to take care of her own given task. The cat woman was given a very simple task… Keep an eye out for anyone suspicious approaching the building or attempting to enter through the roof and restrain them. There was a straight-up bounty on Tadek’s head that was posted by one of the AAA mega-corporations on a public forum.

This fact simply fueled her reemerging instability… She knew that Tadek had done a few bad things in his past, actions that made the very criminals and monsters they came across appear more as innocent sheep than the cruel, immoral beings that they were. Yankaka forgave him, though. There was no reason to as he had done nothing to harm her on purpose, but he showed her the sweet nectar of forgiveness so she showed him the same in return. What was it that he said…
            That question stalled the kaka for a moment just as she hauled herself up onto the flat, square roof of the club. What did he say again? With a little whine, she patted at the side of her head for a moment, trying her best to remember what he had said about her, but eventually her attention was brought back to the forefront when her commlink buzzed for a moment in one of the inner pockets of her jacket.

It was Jayla on the other end, a few clicks and the sound of shifting in the background as the large troll spoke. “Hey, Kitten! Wake up over there. I don’t know what your boyfriend did when he came here, but it really shook up the Samurai. They probably won’t send the Reds in, but keep an eye out. Don’t know how they would find him here, but you can’t be too careful.” The feline woman took just a moment to glance over toward the other building and give a small nod… Mostly because she couldn’t touch the little push-to-talk button on her commlink and had answered the call by sheer accident as she was still getting used to the way her new jacket covered her hands.

Thankfully it was Jayla who ended the call and Yankaka simply tucked the commlink back into her jacket as she, while staying low to the ground, made her way along the top of the roof to keep an eye out for any possible intruders. Hmm… She was going to drag Tadek out on a date… Yes, that should make up for all of those times that he went off to work.

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            “So… You want me to sneak into one of Saeder-Krupp’s facilities, implant a datachip into one of the internal decks that are a part of the mainframe… so to speak… and get out without anyone knowing that I was there to begin with? So, you’re giving a new guy an extremely difficult task?” I asked simply, my eyes closing slightly as I gave the elf a rather confused look.

            He simply gave my shoulders a squeeze and slipped me the datachip with a quick movement of his hand beneath the table. “Just finish the job and I will make sure to get that criminal status on your SIN revoked. Deal?” I slid the datachip into my sleeve and slowly pulled away from the other man, of course making sure to at least play on the whole act that we were dating, which we weren’t… It honestly twisted my stomach into knots, but work was work in the end and we had done nothing more than a hug here and there.

            “Right. It shall be done… No worries. Just give me about a month. Have a nice afternoon.” Once I was finished speaking, I sauntered on out of the building and back toward the van that I had climbed out of. Come to find out, Yankaka was missing as Jayla was just climbing back into the van.

            “Don’t worry, String Bean. Your girlfriend’s on her way. Saw her climbing down the side of the building.” Stated the troll with a small chuckle from the dwarf from the nickname that she had apparently gave me. Well… At least no one had died.
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            “Nice Guy’s going to be mad at Yankaka, nya.” The feline woman whined softly, her claws dragging on out of the body of a purple-haired elf that she had personally thought was the one he had been talking to. She saw everything through the skylight on the roof, every little action simply causing her blood to boil and her claws to scratch at the stone of the rooftop.

            She had waited for a purple-haired elf to come out of the building, simply dropping down upon them and sinking her claws straight into their ribs, severing bone, lacerating blood vessels, and puncturing their lungs in a single, harsh motion. They writhed for a few moments, but it was a quick death. It was all to prove a point that no one was to touch her Tadek. He was going to be so mad, if he found out, though… She knew that, but he didn’t need to know.

            Once her claws were free and the blood wiped away on their clothes, the kaka could already hear a few of Nice Guy’s words because of her audio implants. ‘Good’ was the word that she kept repeating, her nearly invisible lips pulling up into a broad, fanged smile as she knowingly used a recording to reinforce her actions. “He will like it in the end… Yankaka did good, nya. Yankaka did good…”

Twentieth Jump (Shadowrun) Part 2

The Yandere Has Returned

            After the long, in-depth explanation of what was going on, they handed over a small crate of equipment that they had been told to give me, one for Yankaka, and one for Bang with a different assortment for each of us. Mine, specifically, came with a rifle with a little card attached to it that called it a ‘Yamaha Raiden’ that came with an internal suppressor, a smartgun system, and a recoil suppressant stock… Neat. There was also a small ring in the crate, which I slipped onto one of my fingers, a small, wasp-like drone, and a smartphone-looking thing that they called a commlink, which I simply slipped into my pocket.

            Yankaka’s simply came with a new, armored hoodie that, well… You couldn’t even tell the difference between it and her regular clothing, a commlink of a different design, and a book on accepting your new, cybernetic self. Bang’s was the smallest of all of our crates, only possessing a new outfit, a commlink, and a taser… The two new ones said that he wouldn’t need much else. With everything in tow, we set out to climb into their van and get acquainted with the neighborhood.

            With them in the front of the van and us in the back, I simply took my time on linking up the drone and the rifle with my own cybernetics, specifically the mental control of Shenfield from Black Bullet, which was already linked to my ‘natural’ HUD. Didn’t have a smartlink, so I had to improvise on getting everything to work properly through the odd mix of my own biology… if you could call it that anymore… and my new technomancy abilities. Those little sprites were quite helpful, honestly. They were in the visible world to me and any that I created were like little, humanoid wisps of a blue-black coloration.

            While Jayla and Gerald were busy talking, mostly explaining everything that was going on, they did ask a few questions about all of us. We each answered in turn, but otherwise there wasn’t anything of any real interest going on up until we arrived at a club (Seriously, these things were apparently everywhere in this place. Can’t even specific which one it was because there were three that were connected to it.) and they told me to get into something fancy and talk to an elven man with long, purple hair. Seemed simple enough. Though, they did warn me to act like I knew her for years and that we were dating… Which made Yankaka visibly and audibly uncomfortable.

            “Why? Honestly this doesn’t exactly seem professional to begin with.” I stated as my clothing shifted into a basic suit-tie configuration, I activated ‘civilian mode’ for my power armor, and shifted my internals around into a much more human configuration. Because of how this world functioned, I honestly toggled everything off except enough to keep myself on par with others. “Cause he’ll be acting the same way and is expectin’ such in return when he sees a blue tie with a lion’s head print.” The dwarf, which he apparently was a dwarf, pointed out with a small thumb over to my tie, which I shifted into the proper pattern and the coloration before climbing out of the van.

            Because of the situation, I had my Zenith my Deus Ex in a formed holster underneath the suit at the small of my back. They told me that cameras were just about everywhere, so I was being extremely mindful to stay as ‘human’ as possible. As far as the drone was concerned, I had directed a sprite to inhabit it and instructed them to stay within thirty feet and keep an eye out for the elf in question as I slipped past the bouncer with a flash of a false ID and waded into a large, hopping group of people.

            I was blinded by the sheer amount of color, body shapes, light shows, deafening music, and my newly-acquired technomancy was allowing me to pick up all of the augmented reality displays and additions that were present…. So. Many. Fucking. Advertisements. Everywhere.

            The drone’s POV was up in the right-hand corner of my vision as I went along through the club, glancing around at each individual face that I could see, but sadly there were just too many people… and about ten elves with long, purple hair that I came across and roughly six of them were male or, at the least, where I was unable to actually tell what gender they were at a glance. Hopefully they found me first, if anything else…

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            Back in the van, Yankaka was nestled back into one corner of the vehicle while Bang was off with Jayla and Gerald talking to them about the importance of love and justice as they obviously required the lessons of truth for they possessed neither of those things. However, that left Yankaka unattended, left to her own potentially psychotic devices.

            The feline woman was holding onto the wooden carving of her obsession between her hidden hands, a single claw visible and currently in use to slowly carve away any splinters and, with the use of her new eyes, work to add an ever-increasing amount of detail through the use of magnification and a picture that she had took of him when he wasn’t paying attention. She had even tested the enhancements of her ears to record a few words that he had stated when the small man and the large woman were explaining everything, something she had only paid half-attention to.

            Her voice was quiet, loving, but held an edge of… discomfort to it near the end of each sentence as if an old, untouched screw was slowly loosening in her head once again. “Nice Guy is My Guy… Why does Yankaka feel uncomfortable, nya? Nice Guy busy here… Not pay attention to Yankaka. Busy last place, too, nya. Place before that…”

            The Kaka took a moment to rub her invisible cheek, her ears flattening down a hint. “No… Yankaka and Nice Guy went on date, nya… He ran off… Came back and Yankaka ruined the date- No.” She hummed, her claw gently tapping at her unseen cheek as she thought over it for a moment. “No… Yankaka no ruin date, nya. Competition did…” Her fang-filled smile quickly dropped down into a frown, her claw coming back down to stroke along the curve of the carving’s cheek with a small growl. “They get in the way… They always in the way, nya. Back where Yankaka’s from, waitress at our date, people nyou fight get in the way, nya.”

            With a long, drawn-out sigh, the spited woman attempted to calm herself, simply stroking along the carving’s cheek while playing those same few words in her ears to try and cheer herself up. She knew that this wasn’t proper… That her Tadek wouldn’t approve of such, as he would put it, discomforting behavior. He didn’t need to know, though. “Don’t worry… Yankaka will take care of it… Yankaka won’t let people get between us again, nya. Yankaka stronger… Can do more. Yankaka make sure that no one attacks, no one tries to take you from me.”

            The woman brought the carving close to her chest with a comfortable, relaxed exhale before stowing it away in her jacket once again. “First… Horn Girl must learn… Tell her that Nice Guy is Yankaka’s before she tries, nya… Get her alone…” Bang suddenly piped up with a “Miss Yankaka of the Kaka Clan! Come here and help me explain to them that they truly can be good people!” That broke her concentration, her smile returning as she moved to the front of the van to help Bang out.  

Twentieth Jump (Shadowrun) Part 1

New Challengers Approaching!

            After the boring, uneventful years of Kingsman… Besides the laser pointer and killing everyone in a radical cult… I was surprised to appear in my apartment (Thankfully the one that follows me from jump to jump.) instead of having to go out and search for it in such a wide world. However after a moment of glancing around, I climbed up to my feet and, just as I stood up, I heard a knock at the door.

            I had no memories of this place, but everything seemed relatively fine. When I opened the door there was a large… I mean LARGE woman standing in such a manner as to block anything that was possibly behind the door. From what I could tell she was roughly 7’ 4” and broader than the door frame by a good margin. Though, I couldn’t see the head until she had crouched down just enough to walk right into my apartment without even a ‘hello’. She possessed these small, slightly curved horns with these color-changing lines set into them, her features were kind of an odd mix of Butch and primadonna with tusks, brown-tinted skin, and surprisingly long, smooth hair that rain down the length of her back… though, the sides of her head were shaved.
            Trudging into my apartment for whatever reason with a wife beater, cargo pants, large boots, and a pair of tinted goggles on the top of her head. “Morning. My name’s Jayla, but you can call me ‘Cannonball’.” She stated as she walked over to the couch and plopped down onto it before crossing her legs, leaned up against the armrest, and turned on the TV. “You don’t even have trideo? You really aren’t from here, are ya’?”

            I heard those words from behind me, my heading turning back to the door and then down to glance at the short, maybe 3’ 10” man with a waist-long beard staring up at me. He wore what appeared to be a lab coat with no sleeves over a mechanic’s jumpsuit that, again, had no sleeves, and a pair of gloves with what I personally thought was a futuristic half-mask that dangled around his neck. Instead of just walking past, he actually raised up a hand and offered me a hand shake. “Evenin’. Name’s Gerald… Just call me ‘Chop Shop’.”

            With a hum, I bent over just a hint to reach out and give him a small hand shake. “Afternoon. My name is Tadek. Bang and Yankaka should be around here somewhere. Any reason for the nicknames? Though, I am going to assume that you’re the two that are going to help me out.” I asked, glancing back over toward Jayla with a small hum before simply pulling the dwarf-looking man inside and closing the door behind him. “Well, you would be correct. Careful with assumptions, though. They might get ya’ killed. The nicknames are more our Matrix and street names than anythin’ else.”
            As the man spoke, he ambled on in and climbed up onto the couch with a groan on his part. “Welcome to the Shadowrunnin’ business, Tadek. Only reason we can talk is cause I’m sure that your house ain’ bugged. Too low tech to be… Seriously, says here that it was made before that whole RFID thing.” He said as he took the remote away from Jayla and gave it a once-over. “Right… Could have asked before coming in, you know.”

            They both simply waved me off as I took a moment to go into the kitchen and grab a bottle of rum from the cabinet. Just as I came into view of the hallway that led toward the bathroom and bedroom, I heard a cry of either surprise or anguish before the sound of hurried footsteps and then a mix of clinging claws and the weight of a disheveled cat woman slam into me and hold on. As I still had everything active, I simply stood there for a moment, took a sip of my drink, and then set it down.
            “Ah, nice of you to join us, Yankaka. What’s wrong?” As I spoke, I reached up to take a gentle hold of the back of her jacket and pry her off of my body… Though, it took a moment to convince her to let go. “Yankaka have metal, nya. Thought about competition and Yankaka’s vision grew closer and my hearing focused in on something!” She whined, her eyes not really appearing any different while her ears twitched a little underneath the hoodie. To attempt to calm her, I simply reached up to slip a hand underneath her hoodie and rub the top of her head for a moment. It seemed to help a hint as she simply embraced my arm for the moment.

            Though, when I glanced over toward the dwarf-looking mother fucker and the massive, horned woman they just gave me a look before turning toward each other and simply raising their shoulders up in a shrug. “Eh, whatever he’s into, right?” Stated Gerald with a simple “Yup.” From Jayla as they turned their attention back over toward the TV. I knew that I had a few new abilities, so I simply kept my hand on the top of Yankaka’s head while I mentally went through the list of technology that had apparently been installed into her body. (Look to a separate post for the list.)

            It took just a few moments to explain what was new and, while she seemed quite… uncomfortable at first, a quick mention of food was enough to distract her from the current situation. Though, as soon as I turned my back she tried to cling to me once more… Thought I broke her habit of that. Eh, it was a kind gesture, so I didn’t complain. Besides, it can be rather difficult accepting that you now have chunks of metal in your body, which was something I understood all-too-well.

            It took an hour, but eventually Bang showed up with all of this clothing in hand, on, and so many other items in hand… Apparently he went shopping. Though, the large woman and the smaller guy ran up to him, ‘confiscated’ it in quick order, and began to run this little device over it in one hand and another small device in the other as if they were searching for something… Which left Bang with only a pair of shorts, but still.

            “Uh…. Who are the newcomers?” He asked, moving off toward me with nothing but a pair of cargo shorts. Taking that as the time to introduce everyone, I motioned from the two newcomers to Yankaka and Bang before motioning back over to them. “Jayla, Gerald… Yankaka, Bang… Yankaka, Bang… Jayla, Gerald.” I explained simply before taking the chance to walk over and close the door that Bang had left propped open.

            “Ah! I see. It’s good to see two new heroes of justice!” As the ninja spoke, he stepped up to them both and offered a hand… Which they simply broke out laughing for a good, long while at being called ‘heroes of justice’ before they each shook his hand and properly introduced themselves.

            After that, however, they set us all down and began to explain everything that was going on… Mega-corporations, magic, metahumanity, technology, social changes, the works. Though, they also gave us some advice such as ‘Don’t make a deal with a dragon’ and ‘Don’t go up against the Red Samurai’.

            Hmm… Simple enough. Though, now I must be careful of what I have on my person and with me at all times it seemed.

Twentieth Jump (Shadowrun) Perks/Equipment/Companions

Shadowrun

Location: Hong Kong

Background/Race: Newbie (Drop-In) and Human.

Team: 300cp

Yankaka: Razorgirl Human(?) = Yankaka is now much more proficient at murdering people in melee combat and has quite a few cybernetic upgrades... Why did I allow this?

Bang: Physical Adept Human = He is now a proper monk!

New Guy: Middle Aged Male Dwarf Ace Street Doc = I have no idea who this guy is, but he seems to be a very good medic.

New Girl: Young Female Troll Mercenary = Again... No idea who this woman is, but they are packing a rather big gun and just shot someone's ear off from a good mile away... They were aiming for said ear.

Perks: Awakened (100cp): I can now access this worlds magic, read auras, detect stuff on the astral plane, so on and so forth.

Resonance (600cp): Technomancy. Mental control of technology and the creation of sprites... These semi-autonomous programs. Cute, little buggers. 

Build/Repair (100cp): If I can understand how it works, I can understand how to make it work. I can easily construct any object as long as I have the tools and can easily repair/diagnose any existing object with practiced ease.

Sorcery (300cp): The casting of spells through sheer will power, I even start out with quite a few spells from various categories.

Equipment:

Contact: Johnson and Fence (Free): An agent and a merchant. Simple. 

Meta link (Free): Very basic commlink. Still much better than my phone from back home.

Spell Focus: Counterspelling (Free): A ring that makes it easier for me to counterspell. Simple.

Yamaha Raiden (100cp): Smarlink, internal silencer, and a recoil compensation system. Neat.

MCT Fly-Spy (100cp): Looks like nothing more than a large insect. Comes with thermographics, ultrasound, and a few other neat things.

Drawbacks: Assassin’s Creed (100cp): A code of honor that I agree with? Fair enough.

Criminal SIN (200cp): Apparently this says that I kicked every puppy in a pet shop, so now I am a criminal.. Great. Wait, 15% tax on everything!? That's just plain unfair. 

Hot under the Collar (300cp): Got a corporation after me... Shit.

Nineteenth Jump (Kingsman) Part 2

Intermission during the Kingsman Jump

            I let out a small sigh as I stepped up to Yankaka, who was currently laid out across the bed that we personally shared. We never did anything in this room, but I felt like it was time to change that fact… We had been together for more than a decade, so I thought that it was time to move things forward a little. As I stepped closer, she stretched out a little bit, her back arching just a hint that forced the hidden curves of her body against the fabric of her hoody.

            Ten years and I still did not know what lay beneath the black and white cloth that she wore, even on laundry day she never seemed to be out of one… I honestly didn’t even know where she kept obtaining them, but that wasn’t truly important to me. Kept an air of mystery about her and, if what occurred when her hood was pulled down the first time was anything to go off of, it was in everyone’s best interest for her to always have one.

            With a nervous sigh, I stepped up a little closer, the feline woman reached out to wrap her arms around me and gently pull me down onto the bed. I could feel her shivering, one of excitement at she pulled herself up close to me for the moment. “Sweet Guy… You look nervous, nya. Yankaka help?” She asked, that hidden chin coming to rest on my shoulder. She always could figure out how I felt emotionally… Couldn’t tell anyone as to why or how, but I welcomed the fact that she could.

            I simply reached back to set one of my hands over her own, the other lifting up an object that caused the woman’s bright, red eyes to widen as if she had saw one of the most wondrous things in the world. “Oh, actually I got you something. A new toy, heh. Would you like to try it out?” The item in question was smooth, narrow at the tip and fit snuggly in the palm of my hand. A tiny button was set near the base, indicating that it was exactly what it was meant to be. It was built for one purpose, fit to bring pleasure and enjoyment to those who made use of it.

            The Kaka simply smiled, pulling herself a little closer so that she could reach out to take a gentle hold of the hand that was holding the toy in question. “Why don’t Nice Guy use it, nya?” She suggested and I was more than happy to go along with it. Taking just a moment to pull away and lay down on the bed, I held up the toy, letting her take a look at it before I finally pressed the button.

            In an instant, a little, red dot appeared on the ceiling, which I brought down to the bed and then flicked it over to the wall, the Kaka leaping off toward it with an excited meow. Heh…. I knew that she would enjoy having a laser pointer to play with. Was it racist… Yes, but she knew what it was and still went after it.

APRIL FOOLS!