Stray Cat Strut-Chapter Eleven - A Duel at Dawn

Chapter Eleven - A Duel at Dawn

"Breakfast is the mmmmmost immmmportant mmmeal of the day!

Mmmmraw!

Touch mmmine and you're a dead mmmmotherfucker!"

--Marvin the Marmoset, Marmo-Os mascot, 2054

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"Cat! Nose stole my spatula and won't give it back!" Lucy called out from the kitchen.

I blinked, trying to process all of that. It was... seven forty in the morning, which meant it was way too early to deal with anything strenuous. Last night had had me laying on our bed, downloading a few terabytes of kung fu straight into my brain, and at the moment I was suffering the morning-after consequences of that.

Basically, I felt like I was dizzy, without being dizzy.

I blinked as Nose came running out of the kitchen, spatula held proudly before him like some sort of trophy. The little shit was grinning the grin of a victor.

So I swept in low, spinning my hips around and bending one knee so that my centre of gravity lowered even as my leg shifted outwards. I held back at the end, slowing down so that my low kick was more like a low bump that caught Nose's shin just hard enough to send him flying.

Then, since I was low already, I reached around and caught him around the torso, one arm grabbing him around the front, the other snacking through his arms to lock him in place.

I landed on my shoulder, with the little shit stuck in a headlock. "Gotcha, bitch!" I said.

"No!" Nose shouted, then he started to squeal like a pig caught in a bear trap. "Lemme go! I don't want eggs again!"

"What are you on about?" I asked as I put my new grappling techniques to good use and kept the little shit locked in place. Eventually I caught him so that I had a hand free, and I was able to pluck the spatula away.

"I'm tired of eggs! It's all Lucy ever makes in the morning!" he whined.

"What? Bitch, are you some little rich corpo shit that gets to pick what he eats in the morning? You're going to eat what Lucy puts on your plate and you're gonna be happy about it! The secret ingredient is love! The secret spice is my boot up your ass!"

Nose squirmed for a while, but he eventually conceded defeat against my superior strength. It was good to put my new martial arts to the test, even if it was just on a precocious little asshole that lived under my roof and who wasn't happy eating my breakfast.

I freed Nose, gave his behind a (not so) firm kick, then plucked the spatula off the floor where it had ended up in our tussle. "Lucky little shit," I griped. "If my heart wasn't made of gold I'd beat you black and blue!"

Nose ran down the corridor, stopped, then took a moment to flash me both middle fingers before he scurried off.

Shaking my head, I slipped into the kitchen where I found Lucy hard at work overseeing breakfast. There was toast in the toaster, eggs sizzling on a buttered pan, and a large pot of beans was slowly warming up. "Just toss that in the sink," she said without looking back. "And I'm not making bacon. That shit throws up grease all over, it's a pain to clean and it's honestly kind of scary to cook."

I tossed the spatula into the sink, then swept in behind Lucy and tipped her back so that I could better plant some kisses along the side of her neck. "Did I tell you that you're beautiful today?" I asked.

"Not yet, but I could stand to hear it a few more times," she said before turning her head to give me a kiss that made me forget everything for a moment. "Ah, go sit down. I don't want to burn any of this. You can have the first serving, for valiantly saving my spatula. What did Nose want, anyway?"

"He said he was tired of eggs," I said.

"What? But it's food!" Lucy said. "We treat these kids too well. We should see if they like a diet that's nothing but corp chow."

"I know!" I said with a shake of my head. I sat down at the table and watched Lucy work while rubbing at the back of my neck. There was a small jack there, connected to all the augs and shit shoved into my brain. It had gotten a little warm. Not uncomfortably so, but... still a little weird feeling. I wasn't sure I liked the impression that there was something hot inside of my head.

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But the results...

I picked up a fork from the table and tossed it up, then I caught it out of the air between thumb and forefinger before flicking it back up. It was weird. My reflexes were fine before, but now it was like... I actually knew how to use my own body? 𝙧ΑΝȰ₿ЁＳ

The knowledge was more instinctive than anything else, though. I thought about doing something, and now my body knew the motions it needed to go through to do that thing. There was some brute knowledge there too. How to punch and hit and how to deflect a blow... I think Myalis crammed some biology in my head as well, for good measure.

"Here you go," Lucy said as she put a plate in front of me. I jumped a little, having been stuck in my head while still tossing the fork up and around. "You okay?"

"Yeah, sorry," I said. "New brain stuff has me feeling a bit off. But I think some running around and doing shit will settle it all down."

"Do you have phys-ed in class today?" Lucy asked.

"I guess so?" I said. "Is combat training physical ed? It feels like it kind of is, right?"

Lucy and I stared at each other, and then she shrugged. "I guess? I don't think I have anything like that. Today we're going to be learning how to safely use some of the things in the kitchen, which does sound nice. We have a bunch of things here that I don't even know what they're called. Like... there's a food processor, right? But like, it doesn't process anything? It's weird."

"I'll take your word for it," I said as I started to chow down. "Any more plans with regards to taking over the school?"

Lucy thought about it. "Nah. Not today. You can't push too fast with this kind of thing, because then people start to feel like you have an agenda. It's better to wait for the school to mess up and to ride people's anger to the top."

"Mhm," I said. I opened my schedule and looked at what things were like for the rest of the week. From the looks of things, I have four half-days a week, and that was it. That left me... with a surprisingly large pool of free time. Lucy's schedule more or less overlapped with mine, only she had a couple more days and a few more half-days sprinkled in. I'd have to go bring her to school and pick her up a few times each week, but that wasn't so bad.

Meh, I'd figure out what to do tomorrow, tomorrow. I finished breakfast in a rush, then watched as the kids came in to eat. Lucy was good with them, all smiles and pats on their heads. She wanted them educated and ready for the world. Something that we just couldn't do a while ago, but now it felt like the easiest thing in the world.

It being easy didn't mean that I wanted to dismiss it, though.

Lucy ate, gave some of the brats some orders that we both knew wouldn't be followed without one of us there to bully the kids into doing them--shit like washing up only happened under threat of violence--and then we both ran back to our room to get dressed.

Twenty minutes later we were in the Bastion, flying back towards the CIAL campus.

I noticed that there were more people around when I came in to land. Enough that I was basically forced to set down in the spot marked out for the Bastion or risk landing atop some dumbass who didn't know to look up.

"Alright." Lucy said. "I'm off to class! Oh, hey, if I get a bicycle for getting around with, do you think I can leave it in the Bastion?"

"I guess," I said. It wasn't a terrible idea. "But like... don't turn my transport into a shed. I don't want to have to pick through random crap in the middle of a fight."

"Promise!" Lucy said. "Love you! See you in a bit!"

I got a goodbye kiss, then Lucy took off. We were a bit on the late side. I stepped out of the Bastion and shut it behind me, then took off at a respectable clip towards class. I was joined halfway there by Olivia who was carrying a duffel bag over one shoulder.

"I wasn't sure if you had clothing appropriate for physical exercise, so I brought some extra with me," Olivia said. "It's all CIAL-marked clothing, from the campus store! So you know it's got the CIAL seal of quality!"

Yeah, I bet. I was both anxious to get started, and anxious to be done with it.

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