Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito.
A Familiar Situation
Chapter One: Enter a Cliché Story Idea
Shinichi stumbled as quickly as he could down the sidewalks, his screams wrenched as panicked yowls from his throat.
No, no, no, this could not be, it couldn't! This wasn't possible!
This was the only thing that dominated his mind as he progressed falteringly, and had since he had first woken up to find himself in dark cloth confines and incapable of standing. When he had writhed his way free, what the teen had found was very unsettling: he was much shorter, and his legs had become unusually jointed and covered in a feathery coat of thick fur. Further inspection, disbelieving in the way that he hoped it was a bad trip from the drug he had been force-fed, revealed that the rest of his body as far as he could see was the same, complete with an extra appendage that he refused to acknowledge as a tail.
Shinichi came to pause in front of a storefront as the exhaustion from his exertion finally hit him, the adrenaline that had been fueling him ebbing away and leaving his limbs leaden and heart trembling in its wake.
Unfamiliar legs (four!) giving way, the once-boy collapsed, body slumping against the side of the building he had stopped before. Shinichi rubbed a cheek against the cool glass of the massive window on which he was leaning, holding it there to let the cool surface provide relief; albeit the night was cold, he felt too warm beneath his new fur, overheated from his awkward falling-running.
After regaining mostly his breath, Shinichi straightened himself before settling on his haunches, wincing as his tail – no, the tail, as it certainly wasn't his – swept to curl around one of his sides and cover his paws. Paws.
This had better just be a bad trip. Not that Shinichi had any personal experience regarding recreational drug use to know what one was like.
Shinichi lifted a forepaw, the sensitive pads covered by long tufts of fur that had kept them somewhat protected from concrete and asphalt despite the lack of callouses. First wiggling the toes on this paw, the not-cat then unsheathed his claws, which was an unfamiliar but not unsatisfactory sensation. His recent thought forgotten, he repeated the motion a few times before recalling what it was that he had wanted to do.
A moment of recollection and the detective-turned-cat placed a claw against his leg and dragged it through thick fur and across the skin beneath. Hissing at the ensuing pain, Shinichi wrenched his paw away, staring at the blood beaded on his claw.
Alright, so this wasn't a dream.
Retracting his claws, Shinichi turned to the shop window to his right, startling blue eyes with little sclera and impossibly large pupils staring wide-eyed back at him from a feline face, sharp angles and sweeping contours veiled by the fur that fanned out from his cheeks and trailed like a beard from his chin to form a ruffled appearance similar to an ascot fluffing out. The fur was similar on the rest of the body, save for the crown and a side of his head, which was plastered into mostly-flat spikes with drying blood.
He was a cat. To be more exact, he was a very fluffy cat, with fur so black that it was difficult to distinguish from the night gloom in the dark windowpane. The only good thing about this situation was that he was not dead like he should be.
Then again, he was a cat. He really shouldn't be a cat. For that matter, he must have broken some scientific law when he turned into a cat.
Somehow Shinichi couldn't find it in himself to panic anymore. He was tired, confused, and in an unfavorable situation. He needed to assess the situation and find out where to go from here.
Unfortunately for the altered detective, he did not even get the chance to start before something wrapped around his stomach and swept him onto his back. Releasing an alarmed cry in surprise, Shinichi flailed his limbs – he was falling! – until he found himself safely ensconced in some sort of hold. Taken aback by this sudden turn of events, Shinichi ceased his struggles and folded his limbs close into his body. Looking up, he was met by a face, which was frighteningly large taking into account Shinichi's new form, craned downwards for a better view at him.
A female teenager, pale-skinned with red eyes and hair that a passing vehicle's headlights revealed to be not black as first impression had suggested, but in actuality a very dark red with a brighter sheen when hit with light. All this Shinichi had catalogued in a moment. (In addition to the fact that it was strange he could make out the unusual color of her hair and eyes in the first place, since he had thought cats unable to see reds.)
Great, he was caught by a girl. He knew what girls did to cats! They hugged them, called them stupid names, and even forced them into the most ridiculous outfits ever! Worst of all, took photos of them for terrible internet memes!
Shinichi refused to be made into a stupid internet sensation. No way, no how!
Crinkling his muzzle and furrowing his brow to give what he hoped was the most evil glare he could possibly produce in this body, Shinichi hissed menacingly and unsheathed his claws once more. He would prefer not to scratch a girl (having had too many cases involving retrieving a wayward cat when young, the high school detective was all too familiar with how painful they could be), but he would if dissuasion wouldn't work.
For that matter, Shinichi was just working at squirming his way out of the unwelcome grasp when he stopped, an inhalation bringing in the girl's scent.
Shinichi had noticed it in the back of his mind during his flight from the scene of his transformation, but being a cat had introduced him to a whole new perspective concerning smells. Now though it was blatantly clear, and it was difficult to articulate how this girl smelled in particular. If he had to put words to it . . . it was like bitter herbs cast into a fire; recently shed snakeskin; strong incense that could not quite mask a smell reminiscent of rot; and underlying this was something that he had never experienced the likes of before, something teasingly near-palpable that tingled in his mouth and nose like stars before sparking over his skin. It was a sensation unto itself.
Transfixed, he had not noticed that he had relaxed and been shifted into a more comfortable position until a small hand ran itself across his back, the long svelte fingers carding through his fur with the manicured nails grazing his skin in heavenly scratching motions.
"You're definitely not a stray," the girl said to him in a low voice. Shinichi ceased his purring (and when had he started in the first place? He realized with mortification) to twist his neck around to glare at her once more. He was not a pet!
She only snickered at his look.
"Of course, I did not mean to imply that you're owned; no cat is, although mortals are fools to think so," the red-haired girl reassured Shinichi.
Mortals? The not-cat wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not by who had picked him up. It didn't seem like the girl was interested in owning him, if her comment was anything to go by, but at the same time she appeared to be suffering from delusions of a sort, which did not comfort him considering that he was in her arms. For all Shinichi knew she was a budding serial killer.
"That being said though, you do make for good familiars. Much easier to take care of than snakes, and to take places also. That is a mistake I will never make again. Alas, poor Yorick."
Familiars? Snakes? Shinichi couldn't help it; working a foreleg free he facepalmed (facepawed? Facepadded?) before trying to free himself from her hold once more. His efforts were squashed as the teen only tightened her grip on him.
"Now stop that, you should be honored that a witch of my caliber would consider you a worthy familiar; though it is true that black cats such as yourself are especially powerful concerning black magic, the only reason I even noticed you was that strange magic I felt."
Magic? Now this was just ridiculous! He needed to get away before she tortured and killed him! Struggles intensified, Shinichi was almost free when a chill washed over him, followed by his muscles seizing up (well, that was not quite true; his organs still seemed to be functioning fine) and refusing to budge even just a millimeter. What was happening? Why could he no longer move?
"Stop being so rude!" Shinichi's captor snapped, moving an arm from where it held him so that she could flick him sharply on the nose with a finger. Had Shinichi been capable of moving he would have bitten her, girl or not.
"Now, this might feel a little strange, but it will not harm you."
No, Shinichi was not reassured by this at all, not when she had already done something to him that robbed him of movement.
Incapable of protesting with so much as a mewl, he attempted to brace himself for whatever was to come – only to flinch internally as that whatever was something he had never before experienced (which certainly fit with the rest of the mess his life had become so recently).
The energy, or power, or even just sensation – whatever one wanted to call it – seeped in through Shinichi's pores like warm butter, only burrowing hungrily into him before it sank into his muscles and scuttled across his bones like an onslaught of spiders. It scurried rapidly throughout his body, finding its way into the bloodstream and infiltrating it. Shinichi gasped inside at the sensation, effervescent like sea spray or carbonated soda, before it brushed against something already there, something that had not existed to Shinichi's knowledge.
It was angry and bristling, cold and blue, shadowed and, for lack of a better word, smelling of petrichor. Something bright red and tasting of acrid poison was latched onto this first part of it, stretching across like a growth of crystals. It . . . just it, appealed to the senses in a way that it shouldn't, for even now Shinichi could feel its lack of tangibility.
The first sensation receded, ebbing out like waves as low tide neared. And then he could move. Shinichi blinked, shaking his head and blinking upwards at the girl bemusedly. She too appeared startled.
"You are the most unusual specimen I have come across, disregarding Kuroba. As I thought, you do have a curse on you, though it is not of human origins. What I did not expect was that your magic may be feline, but it acts much more human-like than anything else. This must be why you did not sense me before."
Magic. Could it possibly be?
In any case, Shinichi did not like the predatory look that the girl (witch?) had adopted as she withdrew from her thoughts to fix him with a broad grin.
"A cat with the ability to control their magic like a human! I could not ask for a better familiar!"
"No!" Shinichi wanted to yell, but instead all that came out was a loud meow. Before he could think of using his returned control over his body to escape the girl was already carting him off down a nearby alley. Finding a crate with tall sides she maneuvered it with her feet and the hand not clutching the cat tightly close to her until it opened at the top. She placed Shinichi inside and then set down the bag she'd had slung over one of her shoulders the entire time, opening it up and rummaging through it while Shinichi scrabbled to climb out of his newfound confines futilely with his still awkward, and much smaller, new body.
"Aha!" Shinichi was not paying attention to the witch, preferring to focus on his current dilemma. Escaping her could be focused on after escaping the box.
"I, Koizumi Akako, heiress of the Scarlet Arts, declare upon my magic that this feline is my familiar, with the shedding of my blood in which my magic resides so mote it be." A metallic flash from the girl's – Akako's – direction brought Shinichi's attention back to her, just in time to see a hand with a bleeding cut in the palm reach over and grab him by the scruff of his neck. The other hand held a knife – a boline, he would later find it was called – faintly illuminated by a streetlight beyond the opening of the alley. A couple drops of blood dripped from its blade.
She held Shinichi steady, pinning him still her hand and arm pressing against him. Shinichi squeezed his eyes shut.
So long world, it was nice knowing you as a human. A second thought occurred to him. Sorry Ran, that I never returned.
He felt the knife slice across his scalp, followed by a hand pressing across where it had cut.
"By the magic residing in our blood, the pact of witch and familiar is formed with the intermingling of our blood, so mote it be."
The hand lifted off of his head. After feeling nothing but the slight sting of the incision made, and that strange power that had invaded his body before seep into him much more soothingly than before, Shinichi dared to open an eye. Akako, who was crouched before him, smiled and quickly lifted him out of the crate, setting him down on the ground outside it.
"See, that wasn't bad at all! You should be honored to have such an opportunity as serving under I, Koizumi Akako of the Scarlet Arts!" Akako started laughing, on the verge of obnoxious.
Shinichi was just about to bolt when she said something that stopped him.
"After teaching you how to speak you will become a very valuable familiar, I feel."
The teen-turned-cat froze with a leg still lifted in the air. Could she do that? Could magic allow a cat to speak as a human?
Lost in the possibilities, Shinichi acquiesced to following Akako out of the alley, albeit he made disgruntled noises and pouted as best a cat could when she picked him up once more, this time being carried away off the street.
Well, this was better than nothing. He would be getting a home and all the trappings that came with it, so perhaps this was more conducive to his goals in the long-run than other circumstances would have been. He had been meaning to assess the situation, after all. Not to mention what else was he supposed to do? Try to get into his house, realize the difficulty of it, and then somehow convince Agasa-hakase that he was Shinichi?
Yeah, no. Who would believe a cat, even if he could communicate? It was a preposterous idea. As preposterous as magic, Shinichi reflected, but if he could be turned into a cat by some sort of shady poison then why should he rule out actual magic? In fact, considering the witch's mention of the 'curse' on him, perhaps the poison itself was magic.
Alright, so maybe Agasa-hakase would believe it with a little prodding, but it still wasn't a viable option.
Exhausted from the long day with all its hectic occurrences, Shinichi found himself falling asleep as he was carted off to his new home. Or rather, base of operation as he preferred to think of it as.
End Chapter One
A/N: Yeah . . . this came from the fact that there are several "*insert character* turns into a cat" stories across many fandoms and most of them don't seem to have a plot or take things in an original direction. So this is a reaction to those fics. No offense to people who have written them, and I have found a few that I've enjoyed.
Decided to continue this by popular request, have some plans written up, but they will definitely need to be changed here and there. Please read and give me your feedback, I honestly take it into consideration!