Hey there! :) A little heads-up before you start reading: the story is rated T for the moment, but it will go up to M very soon, mostly because of the language and VIOLENCE. Lots of violence. (And some gore later.)

Also, if there was a category named action and screwed up humor, that would be just fitting for this story... enjoy! ^^

Izaya let out a muffled groan, clutching his side. As it turned out, one of his latest clients didn't react too well to his precious information landing in the hand of someone else, and long story short, decided that the man in the fur coat could do well with a few more holes in his body… From all the things Izaya expected that person to do, shooting him was not exactly something he would have bet on, but oh well. If Shinra was right, none of his organs were hit fatally, and a few weeks later he'd be "just as much of a jumpy bastard as he always was". The ruby eyed man made a bittersweet smirk. Well, weren't they such good friends?

Stirring a little in the sheets, he tried to twist his body a little to reach for his phone – the precious source of all kinds of rumors and information – but he realized just how bad of an idea it was when a searing pain shot through his side, making him yelp uncharacteristically.

"Well, that hurt a fucking lot" he growled after a few minutes… which seemed like eternity as he waited for the worst of the pain to fade away. Unfortunately it was still bordering unbearable, but Shinra was probably well aware of it, since the doctor left the room with the promise of bringing some extra strong painkillers. There was a slight chance (alright, more like a sixty percent chance) that his bespectacled friend would try to use him for some sort of sick experiment, but at this point Izaya would gladly have drunk a goddamn potion turning him into an elephant if that meant that he could get rid of the pain. He was not weak at all; in fact his pain tolerance proved to be superior to most of the troublemakers roaming Ikebukuro, but those shots messed his insides up damn well and all he wanted was to have a clear head again, preferably one that wasn't filled with his own screams saying stop it! Being hit by a trashcan from across the street was a breeze compared to this…

The door finally creaked open after what seemed like decades and the informant gazed up to see… someone else standing before him.

"Huh?" he managed to say very intelligently. Realizing just how much it'd hurt his reputation to leave it at that, he continued with a fake smile "and who may you be?"

The man in the doorway looked like someone straight out of a bad horror movie with his white clothes and the scary-as-hell mask all over his face, strands of hair peeking out here and there.

"A doctor" he said curtly as he started walking towards Izaya. The informant was both intrigued by this strange human and somewhat tempted to get his hands on his beloved flick blade… too bad the trusty little weapon was stashed away in his fur coat, which at the moment wasn't quite in his reach.

The doctor closed the distance between them and raised a syringe in the air. Izaya suspiciously eyed the green liquid which looked nothing like legit medicine for him, before the sharp object suddenly disappeared from his sight and landed unexpectedly in his arm. On instinct he tried to pull away and fight his way out of the grasp that now held his arm, but the same unbearable pain came back, this time threefold and he was barely aware of what was happening anymore. The last thing he remembered was the swaying of the room right before he fell back on the sheet… and then everything went black.

A few images danced through his mind, although they all seemed to fade into darkness before he could have grasped them. Were they nightmares? Moments when he was actually awake, hallucinations or simply just memories? At this point it was hard to tell.

The next time he woke up, Izaya found himself surrounded by cold, grey metal. He was behind bars. Sure enough, it wasn't his first time waking up in… highly unlikely places, but being put behind bars? Seriously? Just who was the goddamn idiot who decided that it was a good idea to put Orihara Izaya in a ca- wait, what?!

As his vision cleared, it became obvious that the metal bars around him were part of a cage that most likely held him captive. Wait… how did he get there? Who was so damn creative (and on a side note, quite sneaky) to get him there in the first place? Izaya was an expert at avoiding physical injury, his mind was twisted beyond recognition, so no amount of hypnosis could have had an effect on him… and as for drugs, having messed with many people's drinks before, the informant had a very good idea of what to avoid himself. The question still remained. How did he get there… and where was he?

Raising his head and turning around a bit, he saw a slightly similar room to Shinra's lab… except that in this case, the equipment was irrationally oversized, giving an impression of an operation room for giants rather than for human beings. And on a side note, why was there so much light? He tried blinking a few times, but that didn't lead anywhere; most of the room seemed like a color-drenched blur with way too much light for his liking. Something was dead wrong and Izaya didn't like it one bit.

The edges of the cage were blurry, but some of the equipment Shinra would use seemed perfectly clear in the distance, confusing the informant even more. Just what happened to his eyesight? Staring at his laptop screen day and night probably had a side effect, but to this extent? Again, it was fishy, but something told him that no matter how much he would have preferred this to be a dream, he was in fact wide awake. To the point that when he leaned forward, he hit his head accidentally on the closest metal bar and bounced right back. Now that hurt. Hissing in irritation (wait, since when did he make such ridiculous noises?!) he got back on his feet… and two more feet. Okay, wait, something was definitely wrong. Glancing down to see just how on earth he had ended up on all fours, he caught sight of something dark and...

What the hell, he wanted to say in surprise, but only a screech-like sound escaped his throat at the sight of the dark, furry looking things.

Being the calm and collected individual that he was, Izaya forced himself to concentrate and analyze the situation. He thought of all the recent clients and their possible contacts who could have potentially owned a place like that as well as all the drugs which had a similar effect on someone's sight. His mind was still racing with all these thoughts when the door creaked and he immediately turned his head in that direction. Within seconds a tall figure appeared whom Izaya recognized as…

Oh shit, he thought at the sight of the masked man. While normally his brain would have made the connection between that strange liquid and his current condition immediately, at the moment the first thing taking control over his body was adrenaline. This was the kind or flee or fight effect that he had learned to control over the years… although this time it seemed to come back ten times stronger than before.

The man walked up calmly to the cage where Izaya was kept and as his paws (oh, god, why?!) moved backwards on their own accord, he became painfully aware of just how little space he had in there.

"Finally, you're awake" the doctor hummed in an amused tone, as if Izaya's current situation was the most amusing thing for him in the entire world. In fact, it probably was.

"Then let's see how good the serum worked!" he said in a tone that promised nothing but suffering for his "patient". Izaya felt his heart beating faster by the moment and the urge to run or slice something became almost too strong to bear. All of his muscles flexed, ready to either make a dash for any kind of exit or to attack the first thing in sight, even though they seemed to be in all the wrong places.

The man in the white robe unlocked the cage and opened the closest side to reach in for Izaya. His hands were covered in gloves that would probably withstand being soaked even in the strongest mixes of acid; something that claws didn't have a single chance against.

If someone asked Izaya what happened next, he would not have told it. Not because he didn't want to, but for the reason that his mind seemed to switch off and his instincts took over almost completely. He could only faintly recall dangling from a high place, moving frantically… and the slimy feeling of his paws as he slipped on the floor before making a dash to what seemed like a window.

The next thing he knew he was falling through the air, speeding towards grey concrete that would surely be the death of him. His mind seemed to clear a bit, but that barely did anything to keep him from breaking his neck down there. Izaya was well practiced in jumping from one building to another, landing safely from altitudes that anyone else would have called a suicide attempt, but this time was different. His body wasn't normal anymore, he couldn't get it to make the same moves and in the end he landed face-first in… something hard, but not quite as hard as concrete. His nose hurt like hell as he forced himself on his wobbly feet… four of them, because two simply didn't work and looked around. Or would have, had something not knocked him off balance and sent him flying… this time he indeed landed on concrete, falling hard on his side, which hurt even more than the head-dive into whatever cargo was under him before.

"Filthy cat" he heard a man grumbling, the one who oh-so-gently swiped him off of the dark blue bags a few seconds earlier. Clawing his eyes out suddenly seemed such a good idea... The adrenaline was still working, although it couldn't quite get his weak, and quite probably broken, body to move. Was his arm… um, whatever limb he got there, broken? It was hard to tell with the pain taking over his senses, just as it did before at Shinra's…

Shinra. Doctors. Experiment…

Izaya was on his feet in a second at that thought, and he made a dash for the closest thing to use as a shelter. It wasn't easy to find something like that though. A stray cat, especially one with blood trails on its fur, was not exactly welcome in the crowds of Ikebukuro, and those streets weren't made for pets anyway. He bumped into legs, shopping bags and briefcases more often than not, and some kids even thought it was a smart idea to kick him aside.

After what seemed like an eternity, he made his way into an alley. A very suspicious looking one at that, but at least it was empty for the moment. He went to lie next to a dirty cardboard box. Surely, the ground was dirty, and Orihara Izaya preferred to stay clean (in the physical sense, at least), but in his current situation that was one of the most insignificant issues. For starters, he had to calm down a bit and think. Running around aimlessly would probably only get him killed in the end.

Most of his body still hurt and it became more prominent when the adrenalin decreased in his system, but he tried his best to concentrate on his thoughts instead. After calming down a little, it didn't take too long to piece things together. The doctor took his chance to use Izaya for some weird-ass experiment which left him trapped in a not-so-human body. Two key questions went unanswered though; why did he do that, and how was Izaya supposed to regain his arms and feet? The human ones, of course.

From the corner of his eye he could see something moving slightly… and even felt a muscle working at the end of his spine… could that be...?

Well of course, he tried to roll his eyes, only for them not to move accordingly. The man from before did call him a cat, he was walking (or more like stumbling most of the time) on four paws, so it was just natural that the dark furry thing next to him was his tail, but it was still a bit hard to comprehend. That was something new for sure. He might as well have been thrilled to play around with his new body part, had he not been in such a predicament. Because who would want to stay stuck as a damn cat for the rest of their lives?

On a side note, fleeing from Shinra's place might have been a mistake. Shinra may or may not have known about this, but as for the other doctor, if he injected something powerful enough into Izaya to literally alter his whole genetic profile, then he was probably the one who could change him back into a human being as well… that is, if the masked man was intending to do that. But Izaya had a feeling that he could not be trusted…

Glancing downwards, he saw sticky, half-dried blood on his paws mixed with dirt. It was hard to remember anything between seeing the man walk in and Izaya jumping out the window, but his best bet was that he had managed to scratch the mad doctor pretty badly. That gave him a little sense of triumph; even in his current, less than favorable state he could do harm, and more importantly; fight for survival. Now, if only he hadn't been feeling like shit and could actually walk back home…

… or maybe not. He suddenly remembered that his front door opened with a special card, something he most definitely didn't have at the moment and would need an actual hand for anyway. The windows were perfectly burglar-proof, so there was literally no way for him to get in. While Namie had access to open the door, she usually made sure to stay as far away from Izaya's personal territory as possible, having had more than enough of the insufferable man during her working hours. He could wait until his secretary actually went there and then sneak in, but chances were, cats didn't live long enough for him to see that happen… The image of a mummified cat at his doorstep formed in his head at the thought. Yeah. This was not the best idea.

Whatever the case, he at least needed to test his physical state. Slowly rising to two feet, then putting some weight on the other two he tried to find his balance. He may have had luck back there in the lab, but it became obvious that moving like a cat was not all instinct; there were a lot of things he had yet to learn. Fortunately for him, diving sideways was not one of them. Hat it been, he would have been crushed by the TV falling out of a window… or by the following dark brown luggage.

Izaya scurried away from the falling objects with records speed, although his movements were far from the elegance most felines possessed. Hell, he was still wobbly on his tiny paws and his left side hurt a lot, but at least he dodged that thing falling from above. Without a warning, mind you, which the informant didn't quite appreciate at the moment. Humans were interesting creatures, he loved them from the bottom of his heart, but he couldn't help feeling uneasy when they hurled random things in his direction without giving him a heads up while he was… well, not himself.

Glancing up from what seemed like a safe distance for him, he saw a bottle of whiskey following the previous two objects, shattering on the floor and almost immediately filling Izaya's nose with the typical smell. As a cat, it was even more unbearable…

A loud yell was heard and to Izaya's mild surprise, this time a man followed. He was shoved out through the window by a very angry woman and landed on his butt next to the broken TV.

While the "lady" was cursing her husband at the top of her lungs, Izaya remembered a certain blonde who would throw objects and people around with the same rage; although he was much more powerful than an average human.

"-and take your shit with you!" she yelled, and soon enough clothes and further bottles of alcohol came raining on the man from the first story window. That was the moment Izaya decided that it was high time to leave. Turning around and running away from the scene, he soon found himself on another busy Ikebukuro street, although this one was a bit more tolerable than the first. People still looked at him with disgust from time to time and he could hear a middle aged man calling a certain service specialized in capturing runaway pets and strays…

A shiver ran down Izaya's spine at the thought of being put behind bars again. Like hell he was going to end up in a cage for the rest of his kitten life. He couldn't possibly gather any useful information there, not to mention messing with his precious humans…

He ran further, changing courses so that by the time the white van arrived with those idiots to catch him, he would not even be in the area.

Passing through various streets in an attempt to avoid large crowds, he ended up in a long one with mostly backdoors to the buildings which had their opening to some main street. This was one of the rare streets Izaya didn't know, but at least there was literally no one there, so he was safe until he came up with a plan. And boy, he needed a brilliant one to get out of this mess.

He sat down on the ground (damn, so cold!) and was about to restart his previous chain of thought when his nose caught the smell of something… heavenly. Too bad it was masked by the sound of something equally strong, but rotting. The combination of those two smells were driving him crazy; he never expected cats to have such an oversensitive smell. One was like… fish, maybe? Yes, definitely some kind of fish, while the other smelled awful. For a moment the thought of corpses being in the black plastic crossed his mind. While that was a really interesting idea, his stomach told him otherwise, reminding him of the fact that he hadn't eaten in a long while…

Curiosity (and hunger) getting the better of him, Izaya walked over to one of the black bags. By the time he realized that they were the typical bags for the trash, his claws were already stuck in the dark plastic and he had a hard time trying to pull them back. It was embarrassing to say the least; the infamous Orihara Izaya standing in an abandoned street, trapped by a damn trash bag. Just what he needed…

And just when he thought that it couldn't get much worse, the back door to the building opened to reveal a monstrous figure. Izaya had to keep reminding himself that it was him who grew smaller, and not the entire human race that suddenly turned into giants. Still, this one was quite big even with human standards… and very familiar.

"Hey" the deep voice rang in his sensitive ears, which he recognized immediately. His spirits lifted a bit at the thought of meeting a friend. Well… an acquaintance anyway. Maybe he could find a way to communicate and…

"Don't do that, you." For some reason the black Russian didn't seem pleased at his presence at all, and Izaya suddenly realized that getting Simon to communicate with him while he was literally nothing but a filthy cat would prove to be about as difficult as teaching Shizuo astrophysics.

A moment later he was lifted in the air, pieces of torn black plastic stuck in his claws and the next thing he knew he was soaring through the air; something he had had more than enough of for one day. He landed on his feet in the end, but not without difficulty. In fact he nearly lost his balance while trying to stay upright. Damn, flying was no fun when you were not surrounded by an airplane…

Even from afar he could hear the sushi chef muttering something about black cats bringing misfortune before the man went inside. Izaya was certainly not satisfied. He tried to remove the annoying pieces of plastic from his claws, but immediately found himself falling face first and hitting his nose – again. Thinking of whatever he could have done wrong this time, he realized the very simple nature of the problem; he should have sat down on his butt before trying to fix his front paws if he didn't want to hurt himself – again.

As he tried to remove the bits (and failed to do so), he sighed internally at how hard it was to be in that body. Cats were never interesting enough for him, humans held much more potential after all, so he barely knew anything about the feline kind. How was he supposed to move? Were claws the kind of things you extended and retracted, or maybe they were out all the time? What did cats eat? Fish sounded like a classical hit, but then again, Izaya loved fish even as a human, so it was hard to tell. Also, how did they communicate with humans? Meowing surely didn't do the trick, right? He was thinking of drawing things in the dust with his paws (in case he could free them anyway) or snatching a phone away and typing something on the touchscreen… there had to be a way.

He wasn't quite sure yet about who to contact, but Simon sounded like a good idea at first. The Russian might not have liked Izaya, but he was kind enough to help someone in trouble, or at least not make their suffering worse.

There was Shinra as well, but that would only work if the underground doctor wasn't involved in the experiment from the start. He needed to first find out whose side he was on.

As for Namie, that woman would probably slam her high heels right through his skull without a second thought if he as much as approached her. While she proved to be a very good assistant, that woman was also one of the cruelest human beings he had ever encountered.

His family as a whole was off limits, given that most of them would have laughed their ass off, had he told them about the situation. No way.

The Awakusu appreciated him as an informant and would have done a few favors for him, but he had a feeling that they would be more content to leave him this way where he couldn't cause much harm to anyone's plans. Too bad he was going to find a way to do that anyway, cat or not.

After what seemed like an eternity, Izaya managed to get the annoying black plastic bag pieces out of his paws and looked at them with wide eyes as the claws retracted. That was… a strange feeling. He wasn't even sure if that was an automatic mechanism or if it worked much like the way you move your arms and legs, without even thinking about it.

The grumbling of his stomach reminded him once again that it was time to eat something. Ikebukuro was not exactly a suburb where you can just sneak into someone's garden to grab something so he had to be really creative to get his han-, correction; paws on something edible.

The more he looked at the back entrance of what must have been the Russia Sushi, the more he found himself yearning for fish. Simon didn't seem too eager to communicate with him anyway (what was that about bad luck again?) so the informant decided that he might as well take a risk. At that time of the day, Simon usually stood outside and handed out flyers to promote the restaurant. He could snatch something from the kitchen and then make a run for it.

Walking silently on his soft paws, he approached a small window that, judging by the smell, probably belonged to the kitchen. It was just a few inches above ground, the perfect opening for his current, small form. If only he could have actually felt where his body parts ended and began…

That thought came a little too late when he bumped his head into the window frame while trying to enter and stumbled into the building… landing butt-first in a bowl of wasabi. To say that he was surprised would have been an understatement. The same applied for Simon who came face to face with an equally puzzled looking cat. For a few seconds they were staring at each other incredulously, and then Simon grabbed the cat in a hold strong enough to earn painful mewls, before proceeding to throw the wasabi-covered feline out the window, sealing it shut shortly after.

Izaya was slightly mortified. Because no way in hell was he completely losing grip of the situation, right? He was always the one in control, so that couldn't happen, right?

Well, who was he kidding, really? Izaya was sitting on the ground with a lost expression on his kitty face, his fur dirty, paws sticky from dried blood and his butt and most of his hind legs completely covered in wasabi. Just… great. Fucking perfect.

Ten minutes later people walking through the West Gate park looked in bewilderment at the strange half-green cat making a dash for the fountain and jumping around in the water with such intensity that it would have passed for a circus attraction. Especially since cats didn't like water to begin with...