"Hey!!" Rex gasped, his hands over his head, his forward facing a wall. "Not the shirt, too."
The cat-eared cosplayer didn't care.
"Strip Human!" She barked.
Respecting the sharp point dipping into his tailbone, Rex concurred.
His fancy green glowing jacket, he had no idea how he had come to possess, came undone.
Losing the fancy plastic and neon jacket hurt him real bad.
Even though he had barely known the jacket, he loved it.
His assailant didn't care.
She fumbled it into her cat-themed backpack, along with the rest of his apparel and gadgets.
All that held back the call of nudity was the superhero-designed briefs he wore.
"Satisfied!" Rex asked her, highly displeased and doing his best not to sound too obnoxious, though. Lest the blade really did end its foreplay over his tailbone, and make entry instead.
"Nyehh," The Cat-eared cosplayer agreed.
"You know this is not the right attitude towards Halloween, right?"
She didn't answer.
He continued anyway.
"If you intend to steal, using the celebration as cover. You should at least use a more befitting costume."
"A robber, a clown, a politician….Anything but a cat-eared beau…Jeez, the disrespect you are giving to that costume hurts me more than this robbery."
"Nyeeh..why do you keep referring to my appropriate attire as costume?" The cat-eared cosplayer complained. "And what is this Halloween, you speak of, human?"
"Nothing, but one of the best of holidays," Rex corrected sharply, turning to face the lady, and ignoring that steel blade for a moment.
"A futuristic uni glass, spandex crop top, spandex shorts, that beautiful way it hugs your body…The matching yellow jacket."
He paused to catch his breath.
"The perfect blonde hair, with the life-like hair effect and those blue eye contact lenses, I can catch a brief glimpse of behind those glasses."
"Your costume is perfect, Señorita."
The Cat-eared girl did not seem to share or appreciate his adoration of the pure brilliance of her costume and the sight she had blessed him with this blissful night.
She brought her blade to his neck.
"My fit is not a costume..nyeeh, We Purrians have a superior fashion sense than humans."
"Stop calling my fit a costume," She nyeed angrily. "It's a beautiful fit."
Rex stood frozen, his mind rapidly analyzing.
"Wait a moment."
"You said Purrian."
"I can't recall any fantasy character with such a title, and I daresay I am quite versed in digital media, Bonita."
"Care to elaborate, Rex asked with a voice bearing the appropriate etiquette of a well-cultured netizen.
The Cat-eared girl, who referred to herself as a purian, looked at him like he was drooling saliva from his mouth.
"Are you naturally a Dunce human, or are you just demented?"
"Come again?"
She repeated her question, word by word, oblivious to the hint.
Rex fisted his hands; a robbery by such a beau, he could handle.
But such an insult to his intelligence.
NEVER!!!
Just as the Purrians' slender and cute hands shot forward. He noticed it.
His hands were thicker and richer than they should.
This wasn't his hands…. No sooner had he made that observation, he noticed that the slender hand that was rapidly heading for his face was not in the form expected of a punch.
It was wide open, more like she intended to unleash a slap on his face, just as she had done earlier, when she aided him in booting up his neuro system.
But even for a slap, the form still felt off..Wait…Everything is slow.
Why am I in slow-mo? Rex quizzed himself.
That familiar Artificial voice came to his aid.
You are currently processing information at a cycle of [3:1]
This implies you are processing information three times faster than a normal human should.
Your current Organic System has been forced into this state as a result of an imminent threat to your being.
Cool, Rex thought as he bent his knee as quickly as he could.
At some point, the rapidly approaching slender hand had grown out some pretty sharp nails that, if he didn't take action, would mess badly with his pretty face.
He didn't need another scar; one was more than enough.
Oh Shit…He cursed as he noticed a problem; he was processing information faster, not executing actions faster.
He wanted to kneel as quickly as he could, but he was moving at the same almost slow pace as the claws were approaching.
Sling… One of the claws made it to his forehead and drew a perfect straight arc across it.
"Damn girl!" Rex screamed out loud. His perception of things, returning to normal.
"Nyerry," The Purrian apologized half heartedly. "Don't insult a Purrian's fit."
Rex didn't listen; he was exploring his face so hard, it would give a cosmetologist a heart attack.
His scar was missing, his hands were wrong… What the hell is going on?
"Today is March 17, 2047…Right?" He asked.
"Easy prey," the Purrian declared, clearly uninterested in whatever was going on with him.
"Nocteria 14th, Year 128 PR," She answered after a while, her tone clearly pitiful.
"They must have messed with you so badly, your mind fractured." She continued with her compensating voice. "You are using the Old World Calendar, human."
"Old World?" Rex asked, his new voice even deeper.
"The Old world before the rift wars," The Purrain explained from the abundant goodness of her heart.
"I like studying earth history, so I could tell."
"Rift wars?" Rex's mouth moved again, completely acting on its own now.
"You have forgotten even the rift wars, Human?" Purrian asked, shocked.
Her tone was even more pitiful as she continued to explain.
"The rift wars, the greatest exploit of your kind."
"You entered the Nether, with your powerful technology, manipulating spiritual energy in ways we never thought possible."
"Slaying Netherborns in thousands, you brought independence to several tribes, including mine."
"Independence," Rex echoed once again. Even within the madness, he could relate to independence, no matter the situation.
An essential blessing, offered by the Superior tribe to the minor tribe, with an all too interesting resource.
"Nyeehh, Independence." The purrian shrugged, returning her blade to her sheath.
"Personally, I would have preferred they found a way to send us back to our home world."
Rex looked at the cat-eared girl, dumbstruck. His brain was finally coming to terms with the reality that she was not a cosplayer, and accepting the all too life-like tail that had been wiggling from her behind.
"So you aren't human?"
"Nyeehh" the purrian swore. "My grandfather said our world was much more better than your dirty world…don't insult me, just because I am a creeper."
Rex shut his mouth; he thought he had peaked in ridiculousness when he became a being of data.
But hey!
There was always another peak to surpass.
Waking up in 'New Earth,' a relic from 'Old Earth'.
"Halo," He called.
Purrian looked on, in pity to his weird call.
The fusion specialist didn't reply in words.
His vision glitched.
Three dots appeared in his vision, like it were waiting for a prompt.
"What am I… What exactly is going on?"
[Analyzing Prompt…]
[Optimal Response Identified]
[Executing Response….Error Detected | Multiple Neurological Damage Identified at Memory Processing Center | Attempting Troubleshoot]
"Eeehhh.."
Boom…Another life became his.
It was all a jumbled mess, like memories from a dream, but one thing remained strongly.
He was Jace…and he had somewhere to be.
He had somewhere he really had to be.
His eyes instinctively went to the middle of his chest, where a four-letter word was tattooed.
ADEA.
Yes Adea!
He had to go to Adea; he had to be with Adea. She needed someone to take care of her.
Nothing mattered, nothing meant anything.
This was why he woke from the dead, why he clung to life so violently.
He had to get back to Adea.
[Memory Sync Successful]...Halo gloated, but he didn't care.
He left the purrian who looked at him, like he was a stray puppy.
With nothing but his briefs, he left the alleyway and entered the street.
A Hover car sped past; he didn't care.
'Adea,' his mind sought for like drug.
"Home, I need to get home," He declared to the purrian.
"Well, be going then," the Cat-eared beau dismissed him, her ears perking up, her tail waggling a bit too much, her smile sly.
"I don't know how," Jace admitted honestly.
For the life of him, the current moment felt like a fever dream, but even if it was a nightmare, he would get himself home to Adea no matter what.
"Figured so," she nyeehed.
The purrian brought her hand to his hair, shuffled it a bit, and found what she was looking for.
He felt it, when she touched it.
Something logged into his head.
'Your neuro chip is bleeding," She announced. "I don't know what happened to you, but I am guessing experimentation."
"A lot of that has been happening in Junk City."
"Home?" he reminded her.
"How would I know? I don't know you," The Purrian reminded him. "I was just trying to steal your cybernetic eyes when you began to jerk, even though you were clearly dead."
"Next thing, you were pinching me on my….Her face turned red, but Jace wasn't in the mood to swoon in, on this opportune window, to remedy his laid status.
"Any Idea on how I can get home?" he reminded her, sounding as not so desperate…as he could fake.
The purrian studied him, likely deciding if she should help.
He did his best to look as help-deserving as he could.
It seemed to work.
Cat-eared brought out a black bracelet from one of the numerous pockets on her tank top.
"Your Nano Bracelet," She announced. "Purrian's takes it easy on damaged prey."
"Thanks," Jace blurted as he took it from her hand.
Muscle memory took over; he strapped it right, his hand gestured reflexively over it, and the bracelet flared alive.
Projecting a halo screen, that he didn't give two *ucks how it worked.
"How do I find my way home with this?" he quizzed.
"Well, see if you saved it in your maps or something."
Jace continued to look bewildered.
He had no idea what any of the things currently projecting from the watch thing did.
His memory was still all a haze; he was both Rex and Jace, but Jace felt more like a dream, yet meant everything to him.
The purrian took pity.
"What's your OD tag?" she asked.
"O D, What?"
"Omega Denizen tag, you couldn't have forgotten that, too?"
Jace continued to look at her, with hopefully those pleading eyes, that could elicit her pity and benevolence.
The purrian helped.
She began to interact with his nano bracelet, not long after…she brought up an array of digits, that looked like the kind of code a random password generator would generate.
A set of digits, letters, and special characters, arranged in no obvious order to elicit any kind of uniformity or structure.
A bunch of things that did not give any impression of being meant to serve as a memorable tag.
"This is it," the Purrian confirmed as she began to fiddle with hers.
"I will place an order here and then use your ID as the recipient… so then your address will be displayed," She explained as she did.
"A clever trick, right?" she asked…looking at him excitedly, her tail in a slow dance.
"Yhh," Jace confirmed, his hands picking up a commando mission, without waiting for a clear instruction from his neural system.
It shuffled her platinum hair, the same way you would gently and lovingly scratch a really cute cat.
She shot backward.
"Heyy…"
Silence…
Neural Hq caught up, "Sorry, Sorry, Sorry!" Jace chanted away to his purrian benefactor.
"It's okay, she swore…her voice low. After he must have chanted that word a dozen times.
"You have to let me know before you do that," She declared, her tail the quietest it had ever been.
She fiddled with his nano bracelet for the last time, this time much more reserved with her movement.
"Just follow the direction the Nano bracelet provides," she concluded at the end of it.
"Thank you," Jace greeted sincerely.
"What's your name, Purrian?" He asked, at least he owed that to her.
"Viscountess Purri Yo!" she purred excitedly.
"Thank you, Viscuntess," he greeted again, before he hurried off. He had to get to Adea.
"Heyy!" Miss Purri chased after him. "Is Adea your mate?"
Jace froze.
Did he have a lover in this world, a soul mate? Damn!
He couldn't be certain, though.
It might as well be a really great pet; all he knew was that Adea meant the world, and she needed him.
"I don't think so," Jace answered her. He had never been in love, but he felt he kinda understood what it felt like.
Messy, beautiful, addictive, but what he felt right now couldn't be defined like that.
It was just beautiful and intimate, it was pure.
Purri's tail wiggled a little bit.
"Okay!" She accepted excitedly while staring at Jace like she had more to say, or she believed he had more to say.
Damn it…Rex cursed; he should be on his way to Adea, not entertaining this nice robber.
"Okay," Purri said again, her tail quiet. "Alright then," Jace accepted and turned his behind, protected only by his brief to the purrian.
"Wait!" She called out and ran to him.
"Take this."
She gave him her articraft of steel, the same dagger that had mercilessly assaulted his tailbone earlier.
"Stay safe," she whispered sofly to him, then turned tail and impressively scaled up the building complex behind her.
In moments, she was on the roof.
The building looked at least nine stories tall, yet she scaled it in seconds.
"Wow!" Jace praised impressively.
"Would have better appreciated my clothes though," he muttered as he resumed his expedition home.
This earlier declaration turned out to be as nonsensical as it was stupid.
Rex had to brandish the dagger menacingly a couple of times before he got to his apartment complex.
A 33-story catacomb of studio apartments… Cheap housing in this era, an observation reinforced by the abundance of lowlifes at every corner, and a lot of creatures that definitely weren't human.
Still treating everything like a fever dream, Jace just accepted the norm and got himself to the 17th floor, room 043.
A keypad stood ominously before him, the last guardian he must surmount to get to Adea.
Muscle memory came to the rescue.
His hands danced across the tab.
He did his best to note the numbers, 0 2 0 1 - 1 1 9.
A date that meant a lot to him, the knowledge came instinctively as he recited the number.
ATTENTION TENANT,
An Artificial voice began to announce from speakers built into the keypad.
PLEASE BE REMINDED THAT YOUR SMART RENT CONTRACT RENEWS IN 57 HOURS..
PLEASE ENSURE YOU POSSESS ENOUGH CREDIT BEFORE RENT RENEWAL
CURRENT CREDIT BALANCE IS INSUFFICIENT…
Jace compartmentalized that shit, the same way he did with the Goblins, who had been dangling suspicious-looking candy to him at the ground floor.
The door slid open.
Lavender hair, bear-themed onesie, eyes that shone like diamonds, that smell that meant life was still worth it.
"Adea," He gasped.
"Daddy," She called while tilting her head to the side with a smile.