Chapter 1

She woke up with a yawn, stretching as she flexed her entire body. A small thud pounded on her head, and she cursed, smacking her lips. Her large brown eyes flickered open to see the open streets of Magnolia and pedestrians who passed by without a care.

"Heeellloooo, Magnolia~" she sighed contently. "These damn migraines aren't going anywhere...I need hangover soup."

She stretched again, her legs sticking up as she felt something weird. Something from her bottom that extended...She blinked, realizing a strange new feeling of having...something like...another limb. She shook off the feeling and sat upright, only to feel a weird sense of gravity tugging at different parts of her body that made her lie down again. Instinctively, she sniffed the air, smelling the morning dew of the grass, the river that ran alongside Strawberry Street, and...individual scents of each passerby.

Something was off.

"Awwwww, so cute~" A voice cooed. Her ears flickered to the noise, and to her greatest shock, something touched her head. She flinched and snapped her head around, only to see a woman looking down on her. "Aww, did I scare you? I'm sorry for that~" the woman murmured with a smile and petted her head.

Oh no, something was definitely off.

Lucy shook her hand off and jumped off the bench, walking away from the woman as she realized something even stranger. From her perspective, she could only see the feet of other pedestrians unless she looked up. It was as if she suddenly shrunk. She also noticed, with an unsettling feeling in her stomach, that she was walking on all fours and was subconsciously controlling a limb from her behind again. She swiveled her head back, and her heart dropped.

A tail. A fucking tail. Her large eyes traced it back to a furry body that connected to her head. She stiffened, and within a few seconds, she ran over to the river and looked down, her heart full of dread, as she saw the reflection of a cat.

A cat.

A snowy, orange-tinted cat with large brown eyes containing an equal amount of shock and despair as she had in her thumping heart.

She shifted to the right, and discovered the reflection moved as well.

A cat.

She was a cat.

She looked with an incredulous expression as she touched - pawed - at her whiskers. And she was horrified when she learned she could control another muscle that she normally wouldn't have as a human - a large bushy-ass tail. She could flick and swivel her ears. She could smell nearly everything around her. She could flex her han - paws - to reveal a set of sharpened and deadly claws. Terrified, she looked again for confirmation.

In the reflection was no eighteen-year old human Lucy Heartfilia, who worked part-time at a convenience store and studied as a full-time college student and was slightly drunk from a late-night party. Instead, it was a snowy orange cat with large brown eyes that blinked in shock. She touched the water with her nose, yelping at the cold touch, and backed away in disbelief.

Lucy was a cat.

Her paws flew to her face as she yowled in horror.

"I..." Makarov began hesitantly.

"Please don't say what I think you're about to say."

"...may have gotten drunk...and...sent off some...magical sparks." He wiggled his fingers.

Porlyusica slammed her hand against the table. "God damnit, Makarov! I told you not to get drunk these days!" she hissed and slapped a hand against her face. "Who the hell did you transform this time?!"

"Uh..."

"Please don't tell me you don't remember."

"I don't remember."

"I swear I'm gonna kick your ass out of my house this instant!" she roared and jumped onto the table in anger. "Haven't I told you not to make our magic noticed by the Magnolian citizens?! Huh?! What if they write some damn article about a human transforming into...I don't know, some cat?!"

Makarov covered his mouth in shock. "Oh Mavis, did I turn someone into a cat?" he whispered.

"That's. What. I. Want. To. Know!" Porlyusica shrilled and stomped the table after every word, causing Makarov to shrink behind a chair. "Some poor cat/monkey/dog/thing whatever is walking on the streets, confused on why they're something other than a human!"

"Then we have to save them!" Makarov announced, his eyes shining.

She glowered at him. "Except a certain somebody forgot who he placed a transformation spell on."

"Right," he said. "Then we'll go find whoever is under the spell!"

She glowered even more. "Like it's that simple, you fool."

"Wait, I remember something!" Makarov gasped and pressed a finger against his forehead. "Yes...t'was a cold night on Strawberry Street in Magnolia...yes...t'was yesterday on that fateful night that I purchased a bottle of whiskey for my woes of-"

"What woes?" the woman asked icily.

Makarov stiffened. "A-a-anyways..." he stuttered, "Yes, I drank...and became a bit woozy...that two muggers came up to me and tried to steal my wallet. Yes." He scratched his chin. "I may...or may not have...performed some transformation curse..."

"Oh," Porlyusica sank into her chair, relieved. "If they're bad guys then-"

"I may have...missed..." he added. "And...uhm...shot everywhere...in front...o-of me..."

It was then that Porlyusica's eyes lit on fire as a demon aura flared and suffocated the room.

"What if some drunk wizard guy shot some random curse magic and accidentally hit me?" Lucy wondered with a sigh. Then she shook her head. "Nah, magic isn't real...and that's way too bizarre..."

A few seconds ticked by as she realized...

"Then why the fuck am I a freaking cat?!" Lucy shrieked and stomped her paw angrily on the ground. "Oh my god, everything sucks and I wan - oh no, Erza is going to kill me for being late...I'm going to lose my income...then my apartment...then my tuition...then my college career...then my dad will be disappointed...and oh wow, this is actually a very shitty situation," she realized after listing all the possible events. "Curse you, wizard man or whoever did this!" she yowled and raised a paw to the sky.

On cue, a thunder crackled against the sky, and clouds released an enormous downpour of rain. Lucy's jaw dropped onto the ground. "Can this day get any worse?!" she shrilled in disbelief.

A bicycle skidded into a nearby puddle and splashed Lucy from nose to tail. Her eye twitched irritably as she shook herself, only to be pelted by more rain. Shivering, she crawled underneath a bench and curled into a ball, silently crying from all the misfortunes and stressed from the amount of delirious confusions. "I'm never going to drink alcohol ever again," she sniffed.

"There you are!"

Her eyes flickered open in shock to see a pair of onyx eyes. She raised her head. A boy was intently staring at her. A boy with pink hair and fringes that seemingly faded into an orange color. The shade of pink resembled cherry blossoms that sprouted every spring in Magnolia. She could only blink back in disbelief, and after a moment of cluelessness, she realized he was talking to her.

"Are you alright? I'm sorry that I splashed water onto you. I'm rea - damn, and you don't even have a collar," he said and with gentle fingers, rubbed her head. Her eyes briefly closed, absorbing the heat that came from his fingers, as she unintentionally purred. She jolted in surprise from the unfamiliar noise and turned her head away from his hand, embarrassed. I can fucking purr?! she shrieked internally.

The boy chuckled as he playfully tapped her head. "Is it okay if I take you home for today? I don't want you staying in the cold. I'll return you to your owners if you have one."

Her ears perked. And flattened against her head when a thunder boomed in the distance. Hesitantly, she looked back at his outstretched hand and back into his eyes.

She had no shelter. She couldn't even go back into her apartment in this state. She had no keys, no money, no identity... There was nothing she could do as a cat. The least she could do at this moment was to take this stranger's offer for food and shelter. Lucy tilted her head forward and, after a moment of hesitance, rubbed his hand as she purred again from the warmth. The boy's eyes brightened, and with two hands, lifted Lucy-the-cat from the bench and into the pouch made from his jacket.

"Comfortable?" he asked.

She mewed in reply as he laughed and made his way to a bicycle.

So he was the bicyclist that splashed me, Lucy thought, cuddling into the warmth of his chest as they made their way through the pouring rain.