Castle Saga: Missing Manga
What a long day, Felin thought to
herself, stretching with all the limber grace of a cat, as well she
should.
Felin barely remembered to terminate the computer program she had been
running
before turning and gathering up a notebook and the manga she’d had her
nose in
for some time. Not coincidentally, Felin’s termination of the program
caused
the machine which had been causing the background noise – background
noise?
Felin’s ears twitched and she turned back to face the machine which had just turned off and gasped, chuckling slightly as she covered her mouth. “Oh yes, I had been running an experiment, hadn’t I? I’m quite sorry about that, Ami. I nearly forgot you had been in there.”
“Thanks a lot,” Ami said weakly, giving Felin a sideways look before stumbling upright and shuffling her way to the exit as fast as she could. Felin scratched her head, slightly embarrassed that she’d gotten so absorbed in other things that she’d forgotten Ami was in one of her machines. That’s right… Felin looked back where it seemed as if pale, fleshy tentacles were retracting into the ceiling and disappearing.
“Now I remember. I was testing my new pseudo-flesh composite…” Felin smacked her fist into her palm lightly and snatched up her books, giggling to herself as she briskly walked out of the lab and opened the door at the top of the stairs, emerging from the relatively dim lab into the brightly lit common room, full of noise and warmth, the smells of food drifting from the kitchen nearby.
Of course, the sound of someone laughing was usually never far from the common room either. This time it was Jelex chasing a shrieking Rei, whose towel was barely decent enough cover to go around in public. Then again, it looked as if Jelex had ambushed her on the way back to her room from the hot tub, from the way Rei’s skin let off little wisps of steam and her wet bare feet slapped the floor as she ran. They circled around the couches a few times before heading back up the stairs and nearly killing Usagi, sending the already klutzy girl tumbling down the stairs to land with a crash at the base.
“Owwww!!! Watch where you’re going!” she shouted at the pair of them, already climbing the spiral staircase, Rei frantically hotfooting it for her room and safety, Jelex likely just chasing her out of sheer energy.
Felin giggled. Noisy, chaotic, it was somehow conducive to concentration. Sitting on a nearby couch, Felin opened her notebook and set her manga aside, now too absorbed in her work to be reading it. “Hmm, let’s see…” Felin twirled her pencil in her fur, rolling it between her fingers before putting the point to the paper. “Today I employed a test of a new composite material,” Felin said, reading aloud as she wrote.
“This new material I hope will manage to increase the effect of mechanical appendages, such as robotic hands and tentacles. I noticed that many subjects did not react as acutely when the tickler or tickling object was metallic and often cold. Warming the metal proved to be a difficult task, in terms of keeping the temperature near a comfortable level.” Felin looked up, thinking about what to write next and absently watching as Usagi tore out of the kitchen squealing, Makoto right behind her.
“No picking at dinner before it’s done!” Makoto admonished Usagi, catching up to her and tackling her to a couch. Before Usagi could react to squirm free she had straddled the squirming blonde and gripped both of Usagi’s wrists in her left hand, tickling around the poor girl’s waist with her right.
“NEHEHEHEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEHE AHAH B-but I’m hungry, Mako-chahaHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHN!!!” Usagi squealed, trying to worm her way from underneath Makoto or break the stronger girl’s grip on her wrists.
Felin licked the tip of her pencil before continuing. “This new composite material has aesthetic and textural properties very similar to that of human flesh, as well as being heated to human body temperature.” Felin cast about in her mind, remembering the beginning of the experimentation when she had been paying closer attention. The tentacles had deftly unbuttoned the last two buttons of Ami’s nurse uniform, with the flesh-like tentacle beginning to poke and prod around her sides. It had seemed quite effective… “Preliminary testing seemed to indicate that the material did indeed improve the effectiveness of the mechanical tentacles’ tickling… however…” However, I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t gather data, the catgirl admonished herself ruefully. “However, more testing is needed to ensure accurate results,” Felin wrote instead. Satisfied, Felin left her notebook open and went into the kitchen, just ahead of Makoto, who had left Usagi a giggling mess on the couch.
“Hungry, Felin?” Makoto asked, chuckling as she rolled the sleeves of her shirt up again. “Dinner might not be for a little while, unfortunately.”
“That’s all right, I was just looking for a quick something to drink,” Felin said, opening the refrigerator and taking out the gallon jug of milk, opening another cabinet and finding a plastic bottle. Unscrewing the top, she began to fill the plastic bottle with milk. Makoto giggled, the sound of something sizzling and an aroma filling the air as she half-turned.
“A cat drinking milk is really cliché, you know,” she said, a grin hovering about her face. “Maybe you should try something different.” Felin raised an eyebrow, smirking as she put the milk away and took a sip from her bottle, peering over Makoto’s shoulder.
“Hey, that looks good. Let me have a bite of that – “ Felin snatched up a fried shrimp and popped it into her mouth, skipping back and washing it down with a gulp of milk before giggling. “Mmm! That tasted good! You really are a top-rate cook, Makoto.”
“And if I didn’t need to watch the food to make sure it doesn’t burn, I’d be taking a frying pan to your little kitty rear end,” Makoto threatened good-naturedly. “Go on, scat. Go make evil nefarious plans or whatever it is that you do in your spare time. Dinner will be soon enough. If you pick at it any more, you’ll be joining Usagi.”
“Did you call my name? Is dinner done yet?” Usagi asked, showing up at the doorway to the kitchen just as Felin was about to leave. “Is it, Mako-chaaaaaaaan? Can I have some, please?”
“I said no! Now go sit down and quit bothering me or I’ll really teach you a lesson!” Makoto threatened, more of an edge in her voice, then giggled as Usagi yelped and fled back to the couch. Felin just chuckled and sipped at her milk, going back to her notebook and closing it.
“Enough notes and science for one day,” she said to herself. “Time to relax and get back to reading – “ Felin paused, frowning at the table. “That’s funny, I could have sworn that my manga was right here…” Felin got down on her knees, looking under the table, under the couch, in between the couch cushions, everywhere the manga might have fallen to or been knocked by a speeding passerby. Finally she changed tack. “Usagi, did you see my manga?”
“I haven’t seen any manga,” Usagi said, looking up innocently from her TV watching. “Why? Is it gone?”
“It seems to be, and manga just doesn’t sprout legs and walk away,” Felin said, sitting down next to Usagi and giving her the once-over. “Did anyone come through here while I was in the kitchen?”
“Maybe, I dunno,” Usagi said with a shrug, still watching TV. That changed as Felin knelt right in front of her, eyes narrowed in a suspicious glare.
“Maybe, eh? Either someone came in or they didn’t.” Felin rose upwards, making Usagi shrink back and gulp, still trying to watch TV around Felin. “Are you hiding something from me?”
Usagi knew enough to realize what would follow a question like that. “N-no, I’m not!” she said at the same time she sprang off the side of the couch, trying to run. This was tantamount to admitting guilt, at least in Felin’s eyes. Felin’s tail snared one ankle as Usagi tried to scramble over the arm of the couch and scurry away.
“If you weren’t, they why try to run?” Felin asked, arms crossed beneath her chest and ears twitching.
“Well, whenever you say stuff like that you’re gonna tickle me no matter what I say!” Usagi protested, the statement carrying enough truth with it to make Felin pause and think.
“You do have a point… so why dance around the matter?” she asked with a feline grin on her face, stripping Usagi’s foot of its sock and giving the sole a good raking with her claws. Predictably, Usagi went berserk.
“FEHEHEHEHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELIN
“Mmm? The front door opened, did it?” Felin asked, tapping her chin with a claw as she mulled over that information. “Front door… mmm, what’s the time? Around…” Felin took the remote and flipped to The Weather Channel, catching the current time in the bottom right corner of the display. “A little after five. That means Syia would have just gotten back from work, now wouldn’t it!”
Usagi
nodded. “Yeah, sh-she works at the
“I’ll tickle your feet as much as I like, and you can’t stop me,” Felin teased, now bringing her hands down on Usagi’s waist and tickling just for fun, sending Usagi screeching and bouncing like an out-of-control Superball. It was especially funny when Felin suddenly let her ankle go, sending her flying over the side of the couch with a crash that barely impeded her blazing retreat up the stairs to her room.
“I wonder
if Syia took my manga…? She doesn’t know I’m reading it, of course, she
could
have seen it on the table and decided to ‘borrow’ it. Yes… of course,
even then
I’ll have to make sure she knows whose it is…” Felin rubbed her hands
together
and headed upstairs…
On
to Castle Saga: Missing Manga part 2