AN: So. I finally decided to start posting here on again, just over three years after my last post. I've been very active on Spacebattles during that time, but a while back I decided not to start posting this story here until it was completed. Well, it's been completed for a while now, and I'm finally getting around to posting it here. Be warned, this story suffers a bit from an excessively large cast.

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Now presenting Mahou Neko Jaeger, a terrible name for a terrible story.

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Why the hell do I have paws?

No, seriously. Paws. They are not a thing that humans have. Or, for that matter, except in extremely rare cases (of which I have never been one in all of my twenty-something years), do they have fur.

Something twitches, attached to my butt, and I shiver as I realize that I have a tail.

Slow down, stop, deep breath. I rarely follow the cliche'd 'calm down' mechanism, but I do it not because of improved air circulation or something like that supposedly improving oxygen levels, it's nothing more and nothing less than 'break chain of thought A, so that chain of thought B can be deliberately formulated.' Which is why I suppose it's recommended to others as well.

Right. So.

First off, after taking stock of my other body parts, I appear to be a cat. Second off, I have a HUD, making me some sort of cyber-cat, and most of what it displays are things like 'Life Points-undefined,' 'Ki-undefined,' and 'Zeon, -undefined.' That last one is suggestive of something, but taking stock of my surroundings is more important.

First off, I appear to be on a beach. Worse, a tourist beach, and though I'm suffering from some form of color-blindness, there are still far too many women putting far too much on display, and thus I promptly plant my face into the towel I'm laying on. Something seems off about what I saw (or something relating to it, beyond the color-blindness), but nothing was immediately threatening me as far as I could see, and my ears are giving me a much clearer understanding of my surroundings as well, so it was safe to turn my attention to to my HUD, and possible meanings thereof.

It took a few seconds to learn how to manipulate the HUD; it was locked to my vision, whether my eyes were opened or closed, and regardless of which way it was turned. It's one thing to see something in the corner of your eye, it's another for 'where' you see it to turn along with your eye when you try to focus on it. I couldn't be certain, but I thought it most likely that it was a mental, rather than physical, overlay, which meant I had either some form of cybernetics (as a cat!), or magic was involved. I wasn't ruling cybernetics out altogether, but being a cat certainly suggested magic, at least unless I was a human brain transplanted into a cat body, somehow, in spite of the size differential.

That aside, it fairly rapidly became apparent to me, that much as I had suspected, the HUD had something to do with the Anima game system, and I was being prompted to 'level up.' Turning my attention to that, I began to mentally manipulate a series of options and menus, which rapidly revealed that I was in what amounted to 'character creation' for an Anima character, with starting level eight. Higher level than I'd ever gone in a campaign.

I took a moment to raise my head and look around cautiously, but no one was paying the solitary cat stretched out on a beach towel any real attention, so I turned my attention 'inward' again, and set to work.

((()))

By the time the Mizunos' had finished their stint in the water, it seemed that their cat had fallen asleep on one of the beach towels they had left on the sand. Having owned the 'pet' for some months, both Mizuno women were well-acquainted with the quirks of the feline, and saw little reason to disturb its sleep, when it likely wouldn't last long anyways. They were somewhat surprised however, when another pair of women, westerners of sufficient age gap to be mother and daughter, though lacking the resemblance usually shared by those of such a relations, approached them regarding their somnolescent feline.

((()))

I had literally impossibly high starting stats, and apparently I'd been granted three CP from disadvantages inherent to being a cat (colorblind, 'atrophied limb,' and mute), and one for having a Powerful Enemy, specifically, the Order of Yehuda. I'd thought that society was native to the Anima setting, so perhaps I was in a future version of said setting, where modern technology had been achieved. Regardless, that gave me a lot of points to play with, even though I had apparently been forced to take The Gift and Access To Psychic Disciplines as Advantages.

So, if I was shoe-horned into the two of them anyways, I might as well go whole-hog, hey? I would do all the things. Especially considering that I had eight levels to play with; that opened up a lot of potential.

First, I dropped three CP into Ki Recovery; it turns Ki-powers from a short endurance thing, where you can use them in meaningful quantities once, maybe twice a day, to a near-unlimited endurance source of buffs, or the ability to drop powerful 'bombs' every couple of minutes. Combining it with Psychic Powers, I would have no shortage of long-term buffing and blasting ability.

Next up, Eternal Blood. There's nothing quite like being able to survive being stabbed through the head just as easily as you can being stabbed through the leg, not to mention needing something like 40% of your body mass actually destroyed before you die. Durability is nice.

The other things I wanted required more CP, so I picked out a trio of Disadvantages; Shamanism (2 CP), which required I associate a material component with each spell I cast and have it on hand, Psychic Consumption (2 CP), which made it so that if I tried to manifest a Psychic Power and failed, I'd take Life Point burn equal to the degree of failure, and Code of Conduct (1 CP). For me, spellcasting was usually a utility non-combat thing, so lack of components wasn't much of a worry, and the way I used Psychic Powers meant I pretty much never failed a conventional Potential check (mostly by very rarely making them), and since I defined my Code of Conduct, it would pretty much never matter, unless I acted completely against my creed.

I'm not a perfect in keeping to my ethics all the time (I'm certainly human), but most of my failings in that regard are mostly damaging to myself. As a Christian, pursuit of perfection is essential, but Grace is at the core of Christianity, and thus failure is not the end of the world.

With more CP opened up, it was skill-grabbing time. With eight levels to start with, and more yet coming, buying the most expensive Skill Advantages was unquestionably the path to power, so I spent 3 CP on having the Creative skill group (Dance, Art, Music, Sleight of Hand, Forging, and Puppet-Crafting) increase by 10 per level, then did the same for the Intellectual skill group, (Animals (functionally Zoology), Appraisal, Herb Lore (Botany and some Chemistry/Medicine), History (ALL KINDS!), Magic Appraisal (sense/conceal/discern magic being used), Medicine (Human Anatomy and the skill for M.D.'s), Memorize (REMEMBER ALL THE THINGS), Navigation, Occult (knowledge of all supernatural things), Science (everything not in another skill), Law, and Tactics.)

That was eighteen skills, each would get +80 from the two 3 CP traits, each of those +80 bonuses was worth 160 DP, for a total of 2880 equivalent DP value. A level 8 character gets 1300 DP to spend directly; in other words, buying up those skill Advantages gave me the equivalent of more than twice my level worth in DP. Skill Advantages are often underestimated by players, but they're massively useful if you're going to get past the first few levels, only pay off more and more as time goes on, and are really the best way to play versatile skill-monkeys. So I took my last Creation Point, and stuck it in a +10/level bonus to Notice, since situational awareness is damn important and all. Slight understatement there. I set aside thirty DP to give me basic 'you have no non-proficiency penalties' level of ability in up to 15 of those skills I particularly wanted.

That tied up Creation Point distribution, giving me a very well-rounded ability set, with lots of potential. After that, came the issue of leveling. I decided to take a variation on my favorite build, Mentalist then Tao, and instead build Wizard Mentalist into Tao. Usually, between state requirements and CP requirements, mixing a third branch of 'power' in was functionally unworkable, but with an eleven in every stat to start with, and the extra CP I had available (as well as no choice in picking up both Psychic and Magical powers), there was no reason not to exploit it as much as possible.

So, seven levels of Wizard Mentalist, and then one of Tao, to kick things off. Eleven Power and seven levels of Wizard Mentalist gave me a Zeon reservoir of 850; which was enough to cast pretty much anything I wanted to, at least that was possible for me to cast based on an 11 Intelligence, or twelve, or any number I was really like to have any time soon, anyways, so I didn't buy any more Zeon with DP. Instead, I purchased five Magic Accumulation (MA) Multiples for 250 DP, so that I could charge up 60 Zeon per turn to actually cast spells. It was a modest amount of MA to have; total Magic Accumulation was based on a number derived from your Power characteristic multiplied by your MA, which was one base, plus number of multiples bought.

I had a plan in buying five multiples specifically; at 20 Power, the highest attainable score in any Characteristic, base MA was 35, meaning that a total x6 multiplier would get me up to 210 MA. Magic was the lowest-endurance and most versatile path to power in Anima, with anything more than minor spells generally taking multiple combat-turns to charge up, then 1/4th to ½ of your total Zeon reserve to cast, depending on level. Those spells, however, tended to be absolutely decisive in fights. The game designers behind Anima recognized that mages needed to have some endurance however, and thus, they included the Innate Magic system, which allowed a character to do two things, based on their MA. First, it allowed them to cast one spell per turn without spending any Zeon (though if they did so they couldn't accumulate Zeon for active casting that turn), and second, it allowed them to keep one spell passively sustained via Innate Magic. The catch, was that while any spell of significant consequence cost 200-1500 Zeon, not counting the epic-level spells, the table for Innate Magic topped out when you had 200+ MA, at allowing you to Innate Cast spells worth 90 Zeon without actually spending Zeon.

There was a CP advantage to raise your Innate Magic potential higher, but it was expensive, and I didn't have it. Basically, unless you were a high-level caster, you could only cast what amounted to cantrips out of Innate Magic; Magic isn't supposed to be the branch of power you use for high-endurance casting, that's what Psychic Powers are for, but with Innate Magic, you did get some endurance ability. Since I was using an over-powered and funky build, I only really intended to use magic for buffs that just weren't available anywhere else, and I was really just setting the foundation for doing that properly later, once I was able to up my Power to 20. Oh, a final important thing about Magic Accumulation? That was also how much Zeon you recovered per day. Sixty Zeon recovery means I get sixty Zeon back every day, whereas the absolute cheapest spells cost 20-30 Zeon to cast, and mid tier cost 100-300 easy. Magic is not high-endurance.

Like I said, I had plans.

The magical aspect of DP expenditure taken care of for the time being, I moved onto Psychic Powers. That was easier; I spent 100 DP on the 'Module' that lets you use your regular Attack and Defense stats instead of Projection with Psychic Powers, then dumped as many DP as I could (600) into buying Psychic Points (PP), netting me 60 of them. Psychic Powers are pretty simple to learn and use (though the chapter on them isn't the best written), and as such, are something I usually recommend to new players. You have your base 'power level,' called 'Psychic Potential' determined by your Willpower (more can be bought for DP, to a point), you buy your Projection for your 'skill' with DP, and learn various Disciplines for the 'what' you have that skill with by spending 1 PP per discipline, and then 1 PP per power, pretty simple. There's a few more bits to it than that, but it's still all based around that simple core.

Not spending anything at all on Psychic Projection gave me a lot of versatility in power selection (especially with the 7 extra I got for 7 levels of Wizard Mentalist), and with the module I'd bought, I'd be making up for that lack soon enough. There were a whole host of Psychic Disciplines, but even with that, nowhere near as many Powers as Spells, and I knew them a lot better, so making my selection was quite a bit easier; I picked up the following:

The Teleportation discipline, with the Defensive teleportation, Major Teleport Self, Major Relocate Object, and Teleport powers.

Electromagnetism, with the Control Electricity, Read Electrical Impulses (detect electrical shit), Magnetic Accelerator (Rail Gun), and Control Electrical Impulses (control people via their nerves) powers.

Physical Increase, the buffing discipline, with the Increase Ability (Dex/Agi), Increase Strength, Increase Reaction (Initiative), Regeneration (healing), and Total Increase (buff all physical characteristics) powers.

And the Psychokinesis discipline, with the Shield, Armor, Flight, and most importantly, Atomic Restructuring powers.

In a fantasy setting, where science is at late Renaissance level at best, Atomic Restructuring is powerful, and potentially a game-breaker, because it lets you literally restructure anything on the atomic level, turning it into any element on the periodic table (or combination thereof) that you want. The only law maintained is the conservation of mass, which has interesting applications all by itself; still, turning sand to steel, porcelain to armor-grade ceramics, or lead to gold.

Or, with modern scientific knowledge, to Uranium, pure Potassium, even Chlorine Triflouride. Boom.

I had no qualms whatsoever about doing silly, silly things with such a power should the situation seem to merit it. In the Anima setting there's a secret magical merchant society that exists specifically to keep people from breaking the gold-based economy with such things (even if the magical spell to turn any substance to gold is lower level and easier to cast), so I'd have to keep an eye out of they were present here.

A well-rounded starter selection of Powers made, I spent 28 of my remaining PP on raising my base Psychic Potential by +70, doubling the 70 I got from my 11 Willpower, then bought four Innate Slots (basically buff slots you stick a power in to passively maintain) for 2 PP each, leaving me with 9 PP. I stuck Increase Reaction and Increase Ability (Dexterity) into two of the slots, temporarily investing 2 of my remaining PP to improve the Dex buff, then filled the other two with Psychokinetic Flight and Psychokinetic Armor, buffing Armor by another 2 points to get me roughly the amount of protection a full suit of steel plate mail would give.

An acceptable 'starter' level of protection, and the 5 PP I had left floating around could be 'spent' to temporarily give me access to powers I didn't know in a discipline I had access to, buff a power I was manifesting at the moment, or increase my offensive or defensive skill with them. An acceptable 'starter' set of flexibility to go with my 'starter' powerset.

Moving on from Psychic Powers...

That actually didn't leave a whole lot in the realm of DP expenditure. With the hit to DP taken for switching classes at level 8, I only had 260 left to throw around; I put 250 of it into buying up my Attack and Dodge, balancing it more towards Attack, then the last ten into learning the Basic and Advanced degrees of Tai Chi, paid for at quarter cost due to me taking it both as a Tao, and in place of my 'free' starting weapon proficiency. It didn't offer particularly impressive damage, or any attack/defense bonuses, but it did give me another 30 Martial Knowledge to work with.

So; Martial Knowledge and Ki Abilities. Bread and Butter of a Technician, and the Butter to a Tao's martial arts Bread; I had 10/level from Wizard Mentalist, 30 from my one level of Tao, and another 30 from Tai Chi, giving me a total of 130, pitiful for a level 8 Martial Artist, but pretty solid for picking out a 'starter' package. With Ki abilities, the problem, of course, was that I had far more options available than I had Martial Knowledge to buy them with; deciding what to actually buy was hard.

Well, starting with Use of Ki was absolutely essential; not only was it the Ki ability required for every other Ki ability (unless the character was planning on using Nemesis instead), but as I'd picked up Tai-Chi at Advanced, it was locked in as a prerequisite choice to acquiring that level of skill with Tai Chi. So, down 40 MK, and on to the 'real' choices I got to make. I could go for shapeshifting abilities; but I could do that with magic too. I could go for characteristic augmentation, combat/mobility buffs; I could start buying up Multiplication of Bodies, play Naruto and abuse it, be in more than one place at a time, I could pick up Improvised Combat Techniques for a 'grab bag' of Ki powers; I could buy a lot of things.

It was hard to choose, but in the end, I picked up Ki Control, the most common prerequisite, then Improvised Combat Techniques, and Physical Dominion, which gave a +10 to Physical saves, and was required for shapeshifting or clone techniques. The Improvised techniques would let me throw a big ol' bonus on attack or defense, to make up for my low numbers relative to level, and Physical Dominion would set me up for later, whatever it was I decided to go after.

In the meantime, I dumped all 75 of the Path knowledge for Magic my Intelligence gave me into Creation, so I could use the level 72 spell 'Metamorphism' to change shape into something more capable of interacting with humans than a cat, leaving only skills for me to finish out.

Skills were fairly straightforward; every level in Anima (after the Core Exxet revisions), a character gets to pick 5 skills to drop +10 points in, then picks one Physical and one Spiritual skill, and adds the modifier of the associated Characteristic to said skill. These are 'natural' bonuses, and cannot exceed 100 total for any skill; anything past that comes from DP expenditure or CP Advantages giving bonuses, which have no cap.

I'll not bother to recite all the mind-numbing details here, but what I will include, is that I made sure to have solid skill investments in Stealth, Hide, Notice, and Sleight of Hand. Being a sneaky cat can only go good places, situational awareness is essential, and who doesn't want to be able to juggle or slap arrows/bullets/spells out of the air? After that, I distributed things around the assorted knowledge and creative skills, giving myself a decent mix, and I was, more or less, ready to go, hitting the 'button' that finalized my build.

((()))

"I'm sorry to trouble you," Lynette said, waving a casual greeting to the two Mizuno women in lightly accented Japanese, "But that cat bears a great deal of resemblance to one we lost some months ago; I don't suppose you could tell us where you found it?"

"My daughter found Jaeger," Saeko said, gesturing towards the feline, "Wounded on the streets of Tokyo about five months ago. Where did you lose your cat?"

"Fukui city," Lynette said, while Caitlyn dropped down to crouch beside Jaeger, "He ran off after trouble; I don't suppose that's something you've seen him doing that much?"

"We have," Saeko admitted reluctantly, turning to glance at her daughter, who was beginning to look quite dispirited, "I don't suppose you have any particular way of making certain whether or not Jaeger is your cat?"

"It's fairly simple," Lynette said with a nod, "Is he the largest cat in the world by about eight kilos?"

"That-" Saeko was interrupted by Jaeger abruptly shifting from 'cat-napping' to 'hyper-alert predator' in the blink of an eye, leaping to his feet and arching his spine as he turned to face Caitlyn, whose scent had just reached him in spite of her being downwind.

((()))

A near-euphoric sense of empowerment flowed through my body, my mind, my soul, my very essence, once 'the button' was pushed, and as it did so, I felt a mental shackle upon my memories being torn free, returning to me all of the memories which had been lost.

Chicago, where I met Cait and Lyn.

England, where I dealt with a painful version of 'The Wizarding World.'

Fuyuki City, where I dealt with the swiftest Grail War blitz I've heard of in any reality, before losing all the personal power that I'd gained.

Tokyo, where I met Ami and the other Senshi.

The Arctic, and the Dark Kingdom.

Kota Kinabalu, where I instigated a battle during the eclipse, so as to...

I looked up, and saw that the eclipse was still in progress, though it had not yet reached the point of full coverage, wherein the Moon would fully shroud the Sun. Mere hours had passed since my allies and I had torn up the streets of this city, attempting to defeat Metallia's unwilling thralls and their minions; a glance to my right showed the enormous battle-puppet I had used in the clash, propped up like a statue along the beach-front.

And I could smell Werewolf, beyond that, a familiar werewolf, almost right on top of me. Turning to my left revealed someone I'd not thought I'd ever see again, Caitlyn Gates, formerly of Chicago. Standing just beyond her, staring down at me, was Lynette Gates, adoptive mother of Caitlyn, and probably the single adult I personally had the most respect for in the world, primarily due to her dedication to both the physical and emotional well-being of others. She was a Medical Doctor who'd treated me on more than one occasion, but that was the least of what she'd done for me.

Realizing the aggressive stance I'd taken in response to the flood of power and memories, I forced myself to relax, then carefully stepped forward to nuzzle Cait's hand in the closest approximation of a greeting I could think of on the fly.

"Well," Saeko said regretfully, "He definitely seems to recognize you."

I glanced backward towards the Mizuno's, seeing worry on Saeko's face, and Ami's posture steadily curling in on itself in a dejected slump; that simply would not do.

((()))

Ami tried to tell herself that it wouldn't be the end of the world if her cat was taken back by its original owners, its legal owners. She wasn't completely alone anymore; she spoke sometimes with Hino Rei from the shrine, and she was tutoring Usagi-chan, who was so bubbly that it was like having a friend, but-

A warm hand brushing awkwardly against her side pulled Ami from her mournful internal monologue, and she looked up to see Jaeger had seized the younger western woman's wrist in his jaws, and dragged her over to Ami, pushing the woman's hand against her flank.

"Jaeger-kun?" She breathed, bewildered by the feline's strange behavior.

"Looks like Boss here has gotten rather attached to you folks too," the young American woman said with a smile, before carefully extracting her arm from Jaeger, and offering it to Ami, "My name is Caitlyn Gates; thanks for looking after this troublemaker here."

"Ah!" Ami said, forcefully fighting down the instinctive stutter that tried to work its way out of her throat, hesitantly raising her hand to return the customary western greeting, "I am Mizuno Ami, pleased to meet you, Gates-san."

"Call me Caitlyn, or Cait," Caitlyn said, rolling her eyes slightly as she shook the younger girl's hand, before sitting down on the sand beside her, "Unless you're a lot younger than you look, I'm less than ten years older than you, and I'm not big on formality."

"Arigatou, Caitlyn-san," Ami said, smiling shyly at the older (and much larger) woman, "What brings you to Malaysia?"

"Vacation," The older woman said, before extending a hand towards Ami's mother, "I'm Lynette Gates, I'm a general practitioner who's been working on adding some specializations to my skill-set, and this is something of a vacation between bouts of working and schooling."

"Oh?" Saeko said as she shook the older woman's hand, her interest piqued, "I'm Mizuno Saeko, and I am specialized in Oncology and surgical treatment of Cancer, what do you focus on?"

"Trauma surgery, primarily," Lynette said with a grimace, before releasing Saeko's hand and plopping down beside her, "It's something I started to focus on before I left to Chicago, due to all the gang violence there, but I've started working with genetic diseases as well since I left."

"That's a rather large divergence," Saeko curiously, "Is there a particular reason for the large shift?"

"Two reasons, really," Lynette said with a faint smile, "First, both can be some of the least-treatable afflictions that a patient con suffer, depending on the magnitude of the problem, and second, while there'll never be a treatment invented that will give a permanent cure to the issue of trauma, there is the potential for annihilating all existing and future genetic disorders with the appropriate treatment, though developing such is intensely difficult."

"Being forced to learn a new specialization because there aren't any more cancer patients isn't something I'd mind in the least," Saeko said with a faint smile, "How far into the field are you?"

"I don't know about you kid," Caitlyn half-whispered to Ami as the medical professionals began to delve deep into the technical lingo of their profession, "But I think I'd rather take a swim than listen to them geek out. Want to come with?"

Ami spared a glance down towards the water, and seeing that some of the other members of her tour group she actually knew were down there already, hesitantly nodded, before standing and following the American woman down to the beach.

((()))

I was more than a little surprised to see my two companions again, though with a bit more attention paid to details, it was pretty clear that the Werewolf involved in the fight against Metallia, though its pelt had been white for some reason, had to have been Cait, and I had seen Lyn skirting around the battlefield as well. It must have taken some fairly fearsome magics to let them track me across dimensional boundaries, especially given my altered form, and the nature of the world-between-worlds and its guardians.

That they had tracked me down regardless put a lump in my throat, even if I was a cat, and that triggered hairball-ejecting instincts in my body. I ended up coughing a fair bit, but I didn't actually have any hairballs in need of expectorating, so nothing came of it aside from a few moments of feeling awkward. With that out of the way, I turned my gaze onto the chatting doctors for a few seconds, before deciding it was time to stretch out and 'test' some of the powers I had available at hand. A lot of the things I was now capable of were far too flashy to try out in a place so public as a beach, but a few were capable of being tested subtly.

Such as using Psychokinetic Flight to lift myself a half-inch off of the beach towel I was laying on, and then sliding back and forth a few inches in each direction. It worked. Sure, I might be a cat, but now I was also a flying cat, even if it would be some time before I could properly take advantage of that fact. I 'flexed' another mental power, Read Electrical Impulses, and immediately became aware of the nervous system, cell phone, and other electrical doohickeys of everybody within a goodly radius of myself; it was a bit tricky discerning between them, but my inhumanly-sharp mind was up to the task.

I dropped that power, considered what else I could test out discretely, and threw up Increase Strengh. I could feel the vigor flowing through my flesh, though it was difficult to quantify, given that it'd hardly be discreet if I decided to try to, say, pick someone up and throw them. I dropped the power, content that it had worked, then decided to test Regeneration, by clawing at my right foreleg a little, intent on seeing how it would work. Bad news; no testing of Regeneration yet, good news, Psychokinetic Armor was definitely working, as an invisible screen of force nestled within my fur deflected my own claws. I knew I could force my way through my own passive defenses if I truly wished, but I saw little point; I'd successfully tested three powers, and that was enough for me to decide definitively that things were functional.

I was, once again, a Psychic. This time, a Psychic cat.

…

I needed to learn the power for Mind Bullets. To do anything less at this point would be utterly unacceptable.

((()))

"I don't suppose your hospital is looking for a trauma surgeon or general practitioner?" Lynette eventually asked Saeko.

"...I have no idea," Saeko replied, caught completely off guard by the question, "Why would you be interested in working in Tokyo anyways?"

"Look," Lynette said, pointing out towards the surf, where Caitlyn was teaching Ami and a few of the other Japanese girls on vacation how to body-surf in the modest waves, "My adoptive daughter seems to be getting along with yours fairly well, and I'm not ignorant of how attached she clearly is to Jaeger. One place is quite literally just as good as another, and that rascal never intentionally goes anywhere without a purpose. He was the reason we went to England some years back, and we ended up saving, and then fostering, a young man from an abusive family as a direct result."

"...That seems to be putting an awful lot of decision making on a cat," Saeko said hesitantly, not sure if she was listening to a crazy person or not."

"Not as much as it seems," Lynette said with a small grin, "Let us take right now for an example. Boss, or Jaeger as you have come to call him, has become attached to your family, and your family has become attached to him. In response, I can decide to either attempt to take custody of him from you, leave him with your family and move on, which would result in Cait moving to Tokyo by herself, or find amenable conditions under which both of our families can be with Jaeger. I have nowhere else I'm under particular obligation to be, and no friends or family I'm closer to than Caitlyn, who as I said, would go to Tokyo alone if I didn't try to take Boss with us when we leave."

"...That seems an unhealthy level of attachment for your daughter to have to a pet," Saeko said hesitantly, aware her own daughter was more than a little attached.

"Not really," Lynette said sadly, "Boss is a powerful creature, and Caitlyn met him when he saved her life in Chicago. There's a lot involved in that story, but it isn't really my place to tell it for her."

Saeko's eyes widened, and something tickled at the back of her mind as the American woman spoke, something resonating about the enormous cat, saving lives, and... She lost it, whatever it was fading away.

"Jaeger literally saved her life?" Saeko asked hesitantly.

"Tore apart the man attacking her father's shop," Saeko said grimly, "Maine Coons are powerful animals, and Boss is far more powerful than your average Coon."

The two women were silent for a time, Saeko considering Lynette's words, Lynette more than content to wait for the somewhat younger physician to work things out for herself. Long minutes passed in contemplation, Lynette lazing in the sun, until the eclipse began to approach totality, drawing the attention of everyone on the beach towards the false twilight forming above them.

The instant that the Moon was fully interposed between them and the Sun, a scream echoed from down on the waterline, snapping both doctors out of their thoughts.

((()))

Ami was never particularly interested in physical activity, but as she learned how to simply allow the ocean to carry her in to shore, she saw the appeal in body-surfing. Not that it was particularly appealing to her, but it was enjoyable enough, and watching Usagi flounder around as she attempted to mimic the American woman was even more amusing, especially since the blonde never seemed to turn bitter over her clumsiness. She did get discouraged a bit too easily though, but that had only drawn out an element of Caitlyn-san's character that Ami found a great deal of respect for; she actively encouraged Usagi until the blonde was willing to get up and try again.

At least, until the half-burned body of a girl who couldn't have been more than eight splashed down into the surf almost on top of Usagi, tearing a scream out of her. Before Ami (or any of the other Japanese girls present) had even begun to react beyond horrified shock, Caitlyn had swept the wounded girl up into her arms, and began sprinting up the beach towards where Saeko and Lynette had been talking together.

((()))

Like almost all apex predators other than humans, cats have vastly sharper senses than the dominant tool-users, and I heard the beginning of Usagi's scream before anyone else on the beach had as a result. Just thinking about that ignorant blonde stirred a turn of unexpected rage in me, but I shunted it aside; what she'd done had been unintentional, and had doubtless done more good than harm anyways. Lynette was already surging to her feet, and I could see in her movements that the training I had urged her to undergo had been tempered by regular combat, and she moved like a warrior now, ready to battle the moment it was needed.

Caitlyn, cradling the burnt form of a child in her arms, had been moving like a warrior before I had been forced to leave her a dimension behind; now she moved with all the grace of a blooded predator, which I knew in many ways she was. Perhaps most importantly of all amongst those moving, I sensed dark, destructive magic all over the wounded girl in her arms, something that Lynette would need to know about if she was to treat the girl successfully.

Which meant I needed communication ability, now, without causing a ruckus which might make the situation even more of a mess than it already was. That left two options; trying to shapeshift out of sight, or spending a few of my loose PP to gain access to the Telepathy Discipline, since I couldn't talk as a cat.

Looked like mind bullets would be coming sooner, rather than later.

((()))

Saeko grimaced as she took in the scorched child that Caitlyn had carried up out of the surf, and it took only a glance at Lynette for both to know that the trauma surgeon would be taking the lead in dealing with the injured girl.

"Caitlyn," Lynette snapped, "Get my bag from the car, the red one."

Caitlyn sprinted towards the car, and though Saeko only paid her a single glance, she was fairly certain that the young woman was moving faster than should have been humanly possible. She hadn't worked in an ER or other ward where treatment was as time-critical as what Lynette customarily worked with, but Saeko was still more than aware enough of the urgency at hand to force her attention away from apparent-impossibilities to the certainty of potential death in front of her.

"Ami," She half-shouted, "Get someone to call an ambulance, right now."

Ami half-stuttered a response, but was interrupted by Jaeger leaping up onto her, knocking the girl down, before turning to stare at Lynette. Even though she hadn't been watching the cat, instead pouring bottled water over the edge of the girl's burns, Lynette's attention was immediately seized by the cat, and she turned to stare at the feline for long seconds, before looking down at the girl again.

"No time," She scowled, "We need to get her treatment in the next twenty minutes, or we'll lose her. Saeko, do you have a vehicle here?"

"I do," A new voice cut in, and the pair of doctors turned to see Sakurada Natsuna approaching, a pair of strapping (by Japanese standards) young officers moving up behind her, "And I'm willing to bet the limo will give her a smoother ride."

"We need to move now then," Lynette declared, carefully centering the girl on the beach towel she'd been laid on, "I wasn't kidding about the twenty minutes."

"You heard her boys," Natsuna said, nodding towards the wounded girl, "Help the doctor move her patient."

Two minutes later, they were laying the towel, wounded girl on top of it, down on the floor of the limo, and Lynette was inserting an IV line into her left arm, the right being burned too badly to support the needle, while Saeko hung a bag of saline from an anchor point built into the limo's ceiling. Caitlyn was using a set of sterile swabs (pulled from Lynette's red bag, as the IV had been) to begin cleaning the exposed burns; at Lynette's advice, Natsuna was keeping Ami and the other girls her age out of the limo, so they wouldn't need to see the full extent of the girl's wounds as she was treated. Thirty seconds after reaching the limo, it was pulling onto the streets of Kota Kinabalu, while Ami and the other girls piled into one of the other cars they'd come to the beach in to follow.

The passenger compartment of the limo contained Natsuna, Lynette, Caitlyn, Saeko, the wounded girl, and though half those present didn't notice him until the vehicle was already moving, Jaeger.

"Cait," Lynette ordered as she began to work on removing the burned girl's scorched clothing, "Close the privacy screen, she doesn't need any more people seeing this than necessary."

Caitlyn did so, cutting off the driver's view of the passenger compartment, and a second later, Jaeger scooted out from where he'd been hiding under one of the seats, and then did something that shocked Natsuna and Saeko.

He turned into a human.

"The burns are cursed," He said hoarsely, his voice distorted, sounding almost creepily inhuman, "The curse will kill her before the burn will; you're going to need to pull out all the stops."

"Right," Lynette said, scarcely even blinking at Jaeger's abrupt change into a massively tall man with occidental features, "What can you give us for support here?"

"I can drop some healing," Jaeger ground out, the tone and pitch of his voice changing as he spoke, gradually shifting to something more human, "But I don't have anything to use against the magic right now."

"I'll take care of the curse then," Lynette said with a grimace, "Or at least, I'll try. Cait?"

"I'll do what I can to dampen it," The girl said with a nod, "Let's do this."

Caitlyn's eyes narrowed, the iris subtly darkening, and a shadow that was-but-was-not visible began to radiate off of her. Within the limo, only Lynette and Jaeger could feel its effects, like a heavy weight pressing down on their spirits, though in the car trailing behind, the Senshi each felt vaguely like a feather had touched them in some way or another. More importantly, Caitlyn's magic-suppression technique had weakened the curse upon the wounded child between them, and though it also weighed down upon Lynette's magic, the curse was a 'static' thing, its power limited to what had been imbued into it at the moment of its casting.

The doctor/spellcaster, however, had the luxury of hurling as much of her power as she pleased into the spell she was readying, simply pouring enough into it to overcome Caitlyn's blanket suppression effect. With a sharp gesture and a word, Lyn hurled her spell (invisible to those unable to manipulate magic themselves) into the insensate form of the burned girl, and the curse shattered.

"Drop it!" Jaeger barked, his voice sounding vaguely canine but mostly human, and upon the instant that Cait's suppression field was released, he hurled a healing spell of his own into the form of the girl.

While the spell itself was not visible to Saeko or Natsuna, this time the effects were, charred organs, muscle, and bone, visibly knitting together as tissue regenerated at supernatural speeds. In the handful of seconds it took for the spell to work its course, all damaged organs, bones, and connective tissue in joints was restored, as well as much of the damaged muscle. Most of the skin, however, was left un-healed, and some of the muscle damage was not restored.

"It'll have to do for now," Jaeger said, grimacing down at the child's mutilated body, "I should be able to restore the rest later, but if we do it now, it'll cause too many questions at the hospital."

"At the HOSPITAL?" Saeko shrieked, and the trio of supernatural healers were forcibly reminded that they were not, in fact, alone in the limousine.

"I'm sorry for the rude awakening," Lynette said with a wince as she turned her attention to the other physician in the limo, "But as you may have just gathered, magic is actually real, and my abilities as a healer aren't limited just to what I learned in medical school."

"I don't know how to deal with this," Saeko said rather faintly.

"Look at it this way," Caitlyn said with a wolfish grin, "Now you know why we're so attached to your 'cat.'"

Jaeger snorted, Lynette rolled her eyes, and Natsuna just smiled slightly as she looked on.

((()))

I shifted forms back to feline before we reached the hospital; no one saw a large human male get into the back of the limo, and it would raise too many questions if they saw one getting out. It would hardly be some sort of inescapable dilemma, but why deal with it at all if I didn't have to?

Fortunately/unfortunately, this resulted me in spending the next half an hour comforting Ami as she quietly cried tears of sympathy and stress over the little horrifically mutilated little girl she had encountered on the beach. I had my suspicions about who the girl was, but until I'd had the chance to speak with her, they would mean very little. A half-hour spent wrapped around Ami's shoulders was hardly a burdensome way to pass the time as we waited for word on the girl, even if Saeko kept shooting me unhappy looks when Ami wasn't looking. I couldn't blame the woman, considering what had just been revealed, and I was very careful to avoid letting Ami pull me around into her lap, because I knew from there she'd try to hug me against her chest, not an appropriate thing considering the circumstances, especially-

My thoughts were derailed as the doors leading into the 'Emergency Room' waiting area crashed open, and a pair of orderlies rushed past us with a gurney. On the wheeled metal 'bed,' lay a woman in the middle of some kind of violent seizure, leather straps restraining her limbs; the hair color was wrong, but I recognized the scent immediately.

Beryl.

((()))

AN: As soon as I finished 'rebuilding' Jaeger, I had him roll a Psychic Resistance save to break the memory block Usagi's spell dropped on him; he open-rolled to a 271. The highest possible save difficulty given in Anima is 240, though you can boost it to 260 via a reinforcing spell from the Creation path; sometimes, the dice work with the narrative exactly the way that I want them to.

Also, for those wondering, Fukui is the closest I could find to the fictional 'Fuyuki' from FS/N, and it's a reasonably large city, so it seemed to fit.