EXTRA: This takes place after Catching a Stalker Smash and Grab


Kitra breathed in and out, seemingly in a trance. In reality she was working through her copy, tattooing her latest drawing onto her back. A pair of silver wings with light lines of another color running through them. They were somewhat small, but that wouldn't matter once she brought them into being. Another copy was sponging the oozing blood off of Kitra's back. Close by on a small table were several tubes of colors, waiting to be used if need be.

As she had just started, the only bit that done was the black outline of the wings. It ran from shoulder to shoulder and went about midway down her back. It was painstaking work, seeing through her copy's eyes. She couldn't hear anything as she was concentrating so hard on what she was making the copy do.

That meant she didn't even notice that her door wasn't completly shut, meaning she could be inturrupted at any time, by anyone. She made her copy fix the tube of colored silver onto a new tattoo needle and she began the process of filling in her wings. Starting at the top of her shoulders, leaving curvy thin lines of skin untouched, to be filled in later with another color. Kitra continued working carefully unaware of anything around her. OOC: Her copies are images of herself*

Ah, the smell of freshly oozing blood. It was alarming delicious, and coppery nutritious. The grizzled old gray striped cat did a double take as it stalked past the slightly open door, its nose leading its whiskers around the very edge of the door frame. Light green eyes followed after the whiskers. Triangular ears twitched and swiveled this way and that, but in the end, they followed the rest. The eyes blinked. On the other side of the doorway, a tail twitched from its tip, commanding the attached butt to sit. The cat's head tilted to the side. Three dots and a question mark were implied by its gaze.

Calley was testing out a new cat form. Because really, one can never have too many cat forms, and a certain trip to the local pounds had scored him a potential army of them. Having all of them copied into his brain was a far cry from actually being able to use all of them, though: one of the main annoyances with his power was that he had to actually figure out how to move around in a form before he could, well, move around in it. The gray striped cat wasn't exactly moving with a show of airy grace. Its ears were still swiveling thanks to some uncontrolled electrical signals in its brain, its right hind paw carried a distinct limp--he was having a bit of trouble figuring out that ankle, and that attempt to sit down hadn't entirely been intentional. He was mostly in control, though. He just... needed some time for fine-tuning. Which he'd get, since he physically couldn't switch forms until he had.

But back to the interesting part of our story. Fresh oozy blood. And Kitra, plural? So she'd drawn herself. Interesting. At least, that's what he assumed she'd done, and since he knew her power let her do things like that it was a reasonable enough guess. He tilted his head further to the side, whiskers fanning... and fell over into the door frame. I hate myself.

You will hear no argument from me.

He twitched back to standing and sauntered into the room with jerky movements, like a cat marionette. Or a cat with severe arthritis. Actually, he was pretty sure that was half the problem: this kitty did have arthritis, and apparently that wasn't something Slate knew how to heal. He'd never worn a form this old. It sucked. In any case: he sat down at the foot of the Kitra who was doodling on the other Kitra's back with a stabbing stick, and tilted his head (but not too far). Then he croaked, as loudly as was kittily possible:

"MAROOOAK."

This cat form sounded like the exhaust pipe of a car-frog was back-firing. It was awesome. Very much the reason he'd bothered to copy an ancient cat form. With a voice like this, the aches in his little old bones were worth it.

Kitra had kept her focus on her copy pretty much perfect and was almost done with one of the wings when she swore she heard a cat mew. To be precise it was an actual "MAROOOAK." Highly intruging as it came from behind her. She looked down using her copy and smiled inwardly. It was a kitty, an ancient kitty though, but still cute. Kitra herself spoke, "Hello kitty, would you like to come and sit on my lap?" She hoped the kitty would, she loved cats. Which reminded her, she missed Calley, he made such a beautiful tiger.

> "Hello kitty, would you like to come and sit on my lap?"

The gray cat raised its head to the fullest extent of its neck, staring up at the woman with its green eyes as appraising as binoculars, and just about as alarmingly wide-open. After a moment its head dipped back down to settle at a reasonable height from its boney shoulders. Its gnarled tail curled upwards at the tip... then arched up in a sudden burst of speed. All the better to lash back down at the floor with, my dear.

"MURKACK." It replied evasively, sniffing at the air as if it wasn't quite sure whether this human was auspiciously scented. At least one of them wasn't... the tattooer didn't actually have a scent. The tattooee, now, did. Well, then. Calley was pretty sure he knew who was the creepily brought to life undead drawing and who was the artomancer. Silly Kitra. She did only have a mere human nose; he couldn't blame her for forgetting to draw herself with a scent. Come to think of it, could you actually draw a scent? ...With wavy lines, yes.

"MACKRA." The gray cat finally conceded, hopping like a lithe bag of bones into the girl's lap, and arching up every vertebra in its long spine for a petting. Several of them cracked. Loudly. Oooo, that felt good.

Kitra arched an eyebrow at the kitty's crackling spine. She smiled and pet the ancient purring cat with happy glee. She shut her eyes and looked through her copy's. The copy began tattooing yet again as another copy sponged away the blood carefully. If someone was to take a careful look, each time one copy did something the other paused for about a second or two. Kitra continued petting the ancient kitty. She sighed, "I miss Calley ancient one."

> "I miss Calley ancient one."

The gray striped tom gave a crackling purr of a laugh. Funny: Calley didn't miss her. Kitra was fun. Very fun. But the last time he'd hung out with her, he'd made two very big mistakes:

1) He'd told her more of his past than he should have; as far as he knew, not even the Boss Man knew about his family. Right up until he'd spilled his guts on collar-cam stereo. Who cared about all that? He should have kept his trap shut.

2) He'd hung out with her. That, right there, was the biggest mistake. The day had started with hanging out with her. It had continued with hanging out with her. It had ended in a kind of torture he couldn't even remember except in wisps of gray fog. Sometimes they were in his dreams. They would whisper and roll, and he would wait for them to touch him. Everything would go gray--that even, impartial gray that only cared about surviving or dying. Sometimes they were the same thing. Sometimes he couldn't tell whether they were different, or which was supposed to be better. He didn't wake up from those dreams with a scream or a startled start: he blinked his eyes open calmly, and wondered why everything in his waking life looked so distant. It was the distance that made him want to scream, not the gray pain.

Before the torture that day, there had been Kitra again: Kitra getting showy and talkative, and giving Abyss all he needed to complete a little jigsaw picture of who the spy at Sanctuary was. Hunter hadn't been thrilled by that, or by the minor fact that Calley had told Abyss everything he knew about the Boss Man's strengths and weaknesses just because he liked the big red monkey-tailed man better. Hence the torture.

No, Calley really didn't miss Kitra. Kitra was very firmly associated with pain. Naturally, a simple gray striped tomcat didn't know who Calley did or didn't miss. A simple gray striped tomcat just sat its boney hindquarters on Kitra's lap, and purred like a copper sponge rasping over bricks.

Kitra sighed and petted the ancient kitty while musing outloud. "Although Calley seems to be avoiding me, it hurts a little bit. He's like a younger brother to me." She smiled the frowned in realization, "Maybe he's avoiding me 'cause of what happened with those Order members. I hope Hunter didn't hurt him at all." Her tattoo was almost finished, all that was left was the second color that would fill in those small, curvy lines. "Hmm, do you think I should do light blue or dark blue for the other lines ancient one?"

> "Although Calley seems to be avoiding me, it hurts a little bit. He's like a younger brother to me."

Aww, that was sweet. And she was like a big sister to him. Not quite as cool as his real big sister, but she had the bonus of being a mutant. That sort of put her in a position to understand some things his real big sister hadn't. Like why it was a bad idea to tell your father what you were. The gray tom kept up his quiet, gravelly purr. One thing he didn't like so much about this form: the purr was too quiet. He liked his purr to be heard down the hall; Kitra would be lucky to hear it at all, unless she leaned in closer to him.

> "Maybe he's avoiding me 'cause of what happened with those Order members. I hope Hunter didn't hurt him at all."

He lay down fully, and stretched out his paws. His little unclipped kitty claws flexed rhythmically with his purr, sliding easily through the fabric of her pants and lightly pricking at the skin underneath. Give the girl a cookie: she'd figured it out.

> "Hmm, do you think I should do light blue or dark blue for the other lines ancient one?"

Since cats either couldn't understand human speech, or spent most of the daily wisely pretending they didn't, Calley made no reply. He just kept purring, adding in a demanding "MROCK" on principle that while she might be petting him well enough, a human can always pet a cat better.

She grinned and scritched the ancient one's ears. "Am I not petting you enough? I apologize. I think I'll go with the dark blue." As she spoke she closed her eyes and focused on her copies. Her tattooing copy picked up the dark blue and fixed it onto a new needle that appeared in it's hands as the old one disappeared. The other copy worked on sponging her back off as blood slowly oozed as the tattooing needle bit into her skin. Slowly, the lines that were just skin, became dark blue with the ink. Kitra scritched the ancient one's ears and spoke. "I think once I'm done, I'll go try and find Calley." She tilted her head, "It would be nice to see him again."

> "Am I not petting you enough? I apologize. I think I'll go with the dark blue."

Sticking to your principles frequently yields rewards. In this case: additional petage. Dang straight, bipedal punk, dang straight.

> "I think once I'm done, I'll go try and find Calley. ...It would be nice to see him again."

Calley purred a quiet laugh. Considering he'd spent the majority of the past two weeks in some animal form or another--some inconspicuous animal form; he'd only spent a little while as a tiger--more luck to her in finding him. Heh. He started to fuss a little; twitching in place under her hand, and such. Then, in traditional cat manner, he made the inexplicable leap from her perfectly comfortable lap and simply walked away. Petting time was over. As was right and natural, the cat had made that decision before the human could.

He didn't look back as his whiskered face pushed out through the open door. His tail followed.

Kitra continued petting the ancient one when he suddenly leapt from her lap in a typical cat manner. "Bye ancient one." Kitra's copy had finished inking in her dark blue lines. Her other copy finished sponging the blood from her back then put tattoo ointment on it. She then had both her copy's bandage her up. In a few minutes they were done and she grabbed a loose fitting shirt and left her room in search of Calley. As she left her room, her copies merely vanished as did the tattooing needle the towels remained and so did the inks. Kitra would clean that up later though.[/color]