Chapter 1 (Skyshadow)
I hiss as I feel the needle enter my ear. Beside me, Celest looks so worried. Her white cat ears move down as a frown covers her face. She shakes her tail a little. Her hands are balled into fists.
"Why are you doing this?" she asks me with a pout. She then leans down to my other ear and whisper:
"We're not human, Sky, you know this. We were just cursed to look human. All of Sapphireclan and Lotusclan. With a few conditions, of course," she puts her fists to her ears and caress them. I stare at her white tail, shaking back and forth, and the ridiculous pink bow around it.
"I don't know. I just want to do this," I reply. Beside me, Windshield, my ex-mentor, chuckles. He puts the silver hoop inside my black cat ears and wipes off the excess blood.
"I can't believe I work here now," he whispers, a hint of sadness in his voice.
I don't reply to his comment. I thank him before walking out of the piercing room. Immediately, me and Celest put our hoods on, hiding our ears. We then help each other to put our tails inside our hoodies.
"I hate this," my sister complains, her icy blue locks into mine, "I want to be a cat again. A real one, not a hybrid."
"Yeah, well, I can't help you there," I snap back, irritated. We've had this conversation a million times. She gets the hint and shuts up. She looks at her balled fists, imitating paws, and sigh. She then take a look at my hands, which are not balled into fists and the black ring on my left hand. Her stare travels from my hands to my lips, where my lip ring rests. She then looks at my cat ears, hidden under my hoodie. My left one has three earrings. Two silver hoops and a little diamond. There are none on my right ear.
"You look more human than cat, to be honest," she says without thinking twice. I stop walking immediately and glare at her. She gasps and plays with the hem of her white summer dress. She's wearing that under her light grey hoodie. It's elegant and cute, nothing like my outfit.
I'm wearing an off-shoulder black t-shirt, with the words "Starfucks" on it and a picture of a frappucino from Starbucks, but instead of the usual mermaid logo, it's a middle finger. As for the bottom half of my body, I'm wearing denim shorts. On top of all that, I have a black hoodie.
"You look more pathetic than you were as a kitty, to be honest," I repeat her words. She sighs before I turn my back on her and walk away. I can still remember the day we got turned into hybrids; some kind of cat from our enemy's clan came with a necklace around his neck. I called him a kittypet. He replied by smirking and his necklace glowed. It was so bright, we closed our eyes. Next thing we know, we're humans. And we're not in our forest anymore. We're in this huge place called New York.
"Skyshadow! You know what I mean!" she shouts after me, running.
I hiss and turn around. I wish I still have my fangs. I would be far more intimidating. Celest doesn't even flinch under my glare.
"Don't you dare use my real name in this world," I warn her and she nods. Under her hood, her cat ears go down once more.
"Let's look on the bright side," my sister suddenly smiles, changing subject, "We still have our powers!" she shows me her fisted hands and a light blue aura surrounds them immediately.
Powers. Mine is to move in between the shadows. Kind of like teleportation, really. I go into one shadow before popping out in another. Celest's power is to heal whatever she touches. Which makes her a great medical cat. Well, she was a great medical cat. Can't say the same now.
"I wonder what's their goal," she continues blabbing even if I'm silent, "Turning us into humans? What for?"
"To piss us off?" I say sarcastically.
She giggles and we arrive to our forest. Our home. Celest says that we should live in a house or something like that but I can't. I can only sleep in our forest.
My black leather boots hit the grass and I let myself fall onto it. The cool feeling of my skin on grass calms me down. I'm no aware of the smile that is on my face before my sister teases me about it. I purr unwillingly and let my tail free. I take of my hood, exposing my ears. Curling up in a ball, my eyes flutter close.
"Sis? It's early, are you really sleeping this early?" Celest's sweet voice whispers.
"Yeah. I have a shift at night," I reply, not wanting to talk about my "job" anymore.
I swear I can hear her frowning.
"A shift? Of your fighting job?" she asks. I turn around to look at her; she still has her hood on but her tail is free.
My fighting job. Illegal fighting with other humans to earn money. Basically, we fight for the crowds pleasure and depending on how much blood they see, they will throw us money. I nod, not adding any details. It's not something I want to talk about right now.
"Hey, sisters," a low voice whispers. I'm almost immediately on my feet, ready for attack. I feel myself sigh in relief as I see a man with crazy, orange hair with two cat ears on each side of his head. His stripped tail moves back and forth as he walks towards us. Celest blushes.
"Lionheart!" I smile at my childhood best friend. His eyes widen before he puts a finger to his mouth.
"Shh! It's 'Leo' here, remember? Don't say my real name!" He comes closer before ruffling both my hair and my sister's. I laugh like a maniac before ruffling his back, which doesn't make a difference because it's was messy to begin with. Celest, on the other hand, blushes even more.
"Please, it's not like anyone's here to listen to us! Don't be such a kittypet," I tease him and he smirks. But his eyes are tainted with pain. He wants to be a cat again, just like Celest.
"Anyway, how are you two?" he asks. My sister goes on a full-on blab session about my new piercing and how Windshield was apparently 'flirting with me'. I roll my eyes at her as I sit back down on the grass. Lionheart (or should I say Leo) listens carefully to every word that escapes from my sister's mouth. I smile at that. They like each other, it's so obvious.
When they first met, Leo teased Celest about her being a kitty, due to her very small size. Celest giggled and Leo smiled so warmly that I was about to gag. Too sweet for me. They both must have a huge crush on each other but they deny it.
"Stop pretending and have babies already!" I yell at both of them. They both stop talking, stare at each other, then look away, blushing furiously.
"Sky, what the hell," Leo mumbles, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck.
"Yeah, we're only f-friends," Celest looks like she wants to crawl in a hole and hide away for the rest of her life.
I laugh at the sight of the two of them.