Chương 2: Prologue

Caroline Daniels was the world's best assassin. She didn't know it, and nor did the rest of the world. It was an unfortunate reality of her line of work that being famous tended to be a rather large sign of incompetence. She had begun her career at the tender age of seventeen. Caroline found herself orphaned one fine day, with little more than a stipend to her name and an apartment whose rent was due in a few month's time.

School was pushed to the side to make room for a part-time job, but she was still too young for real work, and that meant a rapidly-dwindling supply of cash. She would have made it, though. She had always been a clever sort of girl. Quick to smile, quicker to make friends. She understood people, what made them tick, and she had always been a hard and dedicated worker. Were things slightly different, she would have risen to be something moderately special.

Maybe not a genius in her field, but certainly a respectable veterinarian, or maybe a paediatrician? She did consider becoming a housewife as well, if she could find the right person, but those sorts of thoughts always felt distant. Instead, a terrible thing happened, as they most often do, a the worse possible moment. Her only remaining companion in life, the only one she could trust, fell quite ill. His name was Sir Ragamuffin, and he was her mother's cat and a member of her family from before she was even born.

Sir Ragamuffin was brought to the vet. His illness was curable, but medication for it was unaffordable. Caroline, still seventeen, with new calluses on her hands and a heart filled with equal parts despair and a fragile grief, knew that she didn't have the means to save Sir Ragamuffin. Unless she gained a surprise windfall... She found the contract on the internet. A seedy site, the kind of place only the desperate would peruse. There were offers to sell her body, but she found those abhorrent.

Peddling drugs felt needlessly reckless. But killing a man... well, a little research revealed that the man in question was not a productive member of society, and the contract did offer to pay handsomely. She took a temp job delivering groceries on top of her normal work. The next evening, she rocked up to the not-so-very-good-man's door and accidentally delivered her order to the wrong address. He choked on the medication she'd mixed into the food he'd definitely not paid for.

There was an electronic transfer in her account the next morning, and Sir Ragamuffin recovered to good health. That set Caroline up for a life that she would never have expected for herself. Time flowed on, she aged, the world changed in little ways, then in massive, irredeemable ones. Sir Raggamuffin passed away at the venerable age of twenty-one, ancient by the measure of house cats. Her handlers sent her letters of condolence, but otherwise his death wasn't celebrated except for in her mourning.

He was replaced by several more cats whom Caroline felt deserved a warm home as well. Her only regrets in the next three decades and a half was her lack of true human companionship, but that was fine, she had many a furry friend, and her work was very fulfilling. It started with petty contracts, then grew sharply more complex. She didn't leave a calling card, because that was stupid.

She didn't let people know that she was anything more than a humble gig worker living off of a limited family trust that afforded her only the basic necessities. Caroline was a moderately happy, lonely woman who left a trail of the dead behind her. When magic came to Earth she took note of it, researched it as she did everything else, and used it as the tool it was. Life went on...

well, most people's lives went on, the people she was contracted to take care of very much didn't keep on keeping on, but that was just work. Her current contract was going to be her last. She could feel it in her bones. Her doctor agreed and had told her to spend some time with friends and family. But all she had were cats. So here she was, taking another contract. On paper, it was the kind of impossible job that the average assassin would baulk at.

Even the more professional ones, from three-letter agencies across the world, would think it impossible. Caroline found it mildly challenging. The target was a Professor Daniels (No relation, she checked) who had been a lead researcher at Nimblecorp International for several years. A professor of Etherical technologies, something of a new field of study that had appeared in the last few years.

He'd been poached by the USMRC, a North American corporation dedicated to researching magical technologies for the express purpose of creating patents. The corporation ran a tight ship. It had all of the cutting edge technology one might expect from a modern fortress planted some fifty miles west of the New York Exclusion Zone and right on the edge of a newer mega city.

Cameras, walking patrols of guards and mechanised walkers, there were rumours that they had mages scrying the exterior at all times and rogues with newfangled skills letting them know about anyone with suspicious system-given abilities snooping around. It had taken her three days to be hired as a janitor and given a free rein of the place. Caroline was getting to be a little... mature.

A bit of make-up to improve that, a slight stoop, and the proper uniform and credentials and no one batted an eye as she pushed a long broom across the floor. That was enough to get past the first layer of security. And the next. The third was all up to timing, waiting for a guard to go on break then holding up his replacement with some chit-chat. The fourth layer of security didn't matter, because Caroline wasn't here to steal secrets, she was here to kill a man, which was significantly easier.

This, too, was a matter of timing. She wandered the halls, actually putting some effort into doing her cleaning work appropriately. Professor Daniels crossed her path twice in the next few hours, but always with someone. The third time he was with someone, but the man split off and slipped into a lab with an exceptionally suspicious glance over his shoulder. Caroline rolled her eyes and followed him into the lab. It was a spotless room, all stainless steel and small desks with terminals sitting atop them.

The professor was in the centre of the room, looking at the contents of a small lacquered box with something shiny within. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. He jumped when he noticed her coming in.

"Who... oh, you're cleaning, um, sorry, give me just a moment?"

"Certainly," she said with a kindly smile. She was by the only exit, time wasn't a concern, and if she missed this chance, another would come. The professor fussed with his box. He was sweating profusely. Caroline glanced within the case, her attention drawn to... a small metallic necklace carved like a sleeping cat. She shrugged, then flicked a needle forwards. The professor reached towards his neck. Then his face slammed down onto the box, spilling blood from his broken nose all over.

Not that he felt it, he was very much dead already. She moved up and took the needle back. She'd toss it into a bucket of soapy water later, then down a drain. So far, everything was going well, which was why Caroline was surprised when she died. It happened quite suddenly. A lurch in her chest, a tightening around her throat. For a moment she worried that she may have poisoned herself, but she knew the effects of her own tools, and this wasn't it.

Her vision swam, and she stumbled back until she bumped into one of the lab's tables. She clutched at her chest. A heart attack? She almost couldn't believe it, but her doctor had warned her not to strain herself. Caroline tried to breath through a neck that felt no larger than a straw. Her vision swam. It felt like someone had stuck a pick into her chest and was wiggling it around. She tossed the needle down a drain. She was going to be discovered, she couldn't have evidence on her.

Someone walked into the room, screamed the professor's name. Polite concern had her moved out of the room, but it was too late. The ground rushed up to meet her and she was no more. Except... Maybe not. For while no living being was ever aware that Caroline was the greatest assassin that has ever lived, that did not mean that others failed to notice.

I awoke in a grand hall. A lofty, enormous room that stretched out to the sides so far that I couldn't see the distant walls of it. Immediately, I was on edge, but long years of training and a fair few dicey situations meant that I didn't freeze. Instead, I observed and remained calm, because freezing is admitting guilt, and that's the last thing you ever want to do. The room was occupied, but not by people. I moved back slightly as a pair of teenaged cats scampered after each other.

Further out was a large rock protruding from the ground, with a beam of warm sunlight illuminating the top of it. Several cats were piled atop each other in that warm light. One had their tail over the edge, and a kitten was on their back, batting at it. Trees grew out of the ground here and there, and I noticed plenty of slanted eyes gazing down from the branches above. The air smelled of cat. Not a stink, but a warm, welcome odour that permeated the room. There were meows and a distant but constant pur.

This was a safe, warm, hospitable place. It was home. Not to me, but... maybe? I shifted forwards as I sensed something looking at me. It was The Cat. The Cat sat upon a throne covered in soft cushions. The Cat was resting there. The Cat was a Cat. They were The Cat. I winced, forcing myself to refocus. There, off to the side, was a calico, and over there, a handsome maine coon with a luxurious grey coat. I could make out their details with ease. The Cat was a Cat. It was just The Cat.

It was as real--more real--than all the rest.

"You must be wondering why you're here," The Cat said. I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I had no mouth, I realized. The Cat moved closer. They were graceful as a stalking panther and as clumsy as a newborn kitten.

"Once in a while there's a soul so pure, so tasty, so kind and so filled with potential that every eidolon in the world finds themselves chasing after it, like seeing a wounded mouse scamper by." I shifted and tried to look at my hands, but I was without those too. Looking down made me twist around, facing the floor then back around to look ahead. I should, by all means, have been dizzy from the twist, but there was no inner ear to feel vertigo with.

"I want you to make sure she survives," The Cat said. It tilted its head curiously.

"Well, at least you'll be cute. Good luck. Enjoy my blessing. Consider it repayment for being a good servant to my lessers all these years." The world went dark again, and I could almost feel the details of what had just happened whisking away, like waking up after a particularly detailed dream. I clutched to the memories though, replaying it all quickly the same way I'd rewind through a brief to remember details about a job. And then the darkness shifted. I was being held.

This time, I definitely had a body, but it was all wrong. I blinked, then moved my arms, only they weren't shaped correctly. Squinting, I looked at a large furry paw held before me.

"Oh. My. God," someone gasped. I looked up... then up and up. There was a girl kneeling before me. Dimpled cheeks, dirty blonde hair, eyes that sparkled behind a pair of glasses holding on with some tape. She gasped and leaned down, and her entire frame filled my vision. There was a lot going wrong at the moment. For one, my frame of reference was all off. This looked like a normal girl. Well, normal for the kind of young woman I might find prowling an alley, maybe.

She was dressed in rags and looked like she could use a shower. And yet, while her proportions were fine, she was still massive. It was like having a bus lean down towards me.

"You're so cute!" she whispered. Her hand approached my face, and it was larger than my head. I... would like to think that I was not a stupid person. I could put two and two together. Sure, there was a great deal of confusion going around, but I didn't get as far as I had by ignoring objective reality when it was right in front of me. I had died. I was now... very small, and furry. I had met The Cat, if only fleetingly.

"Ohhh, who's a precious little kitten? You are! Yes you are!" the girl confirmed. Well… fudge.