We didn’t spend long in Crestwood. The folks at that particular city hall were much calmer than Oakland had been. I ate food on my way back to Oakland as I really wanted to get Oakland as cleared out as possible. Once it was empty, Crestwood and Sunset hills would be able to finish evacuating. Helping these folks get packed up and moved would go a long way to earning their trust. This was how I found myself at the northwest corner of the township. Ted informed me that one of the residents refused to leave her house and her cats.

  The neighbors next to her were packing things up in a minivan. The efficiency in cramming things into their vehicle was actually rather impressive. The husband walked by me as I was passing their house by on foot. He spoke with a tint of fear. “Are we going to make it out of here okay?”

  “Yeah. It shouldn’t be a problem. Don’t overpack. Getting everyone moving is more important than trying to grab everything you own.” He looked at me funny, like I had said something alien to him. I kept on walking, keeping my eyes on Ted and the team by the front porch of the house on the corner. The cat sign on the mailbox told me I was dealing with a cat lady. The house was pretty decently sized; two stories and a large front porch. I crossed the recently mowed lawn to the front steps. I was greeted by Ted and a few others of his team. Ted was tall, and built like he was made for this line of work. He gave me a grimace that spoke volumes about the difficulty they were having. I nodded my head to Ted and motioned for them to take a step back. The front door was painted pink with two grey cat outlines on either side of the center of the door. I knocked on the door knocker in the center and waited. There were sounds of footsteps from hard heels striking against wood on the other side. The Door swung open smoothly to reveal quite a woman. She was on the taller side, being over five and a half feet tall. She wore tiger print spandex to cover over the porn star body. She wore a leather corset of all things, why a corset? And to top it all of she wore a cat eared headband.

  “Meow to you.” were the first words out of her mouth, spoken in a far too sultry voice for the moment we were in. I immediately used Assess.

  Human Cat Mistress, level 3

  What the hell! She was level 3 already. “Hi, I’m Neal Cassland. We need to get you moved out of here. You may bring one cat with you, but no more.”

  “Neal is it? You really need to work on your sweet talk. There is no limit to what you can attain with the purrfect words.”

  “May I have your name at least?”

  “Why, I’m Katnessa, darling.” Why did I have the feeling her real name was just Vanessa, but she had gone 1000% in on this whole cat thing.

  “Katnessa, then please pack up your things and pick which cat you are taking with you so that we can help you get someplace more safe than this.” There was little time for diplomacy. She was one of the closest residents to a portal. There was one west of us by about a mile or so.

  “Sorry, Neal. I have to have all my cats with me. They are my protectors.” She pointed to the tabby cat behind her that was the size of a huskie. It must be four times the size of a regular cat. It licked a paw clean that was just large enough to easily slit a person’s throat. Clearly she had an ability to affect the size of her feline companions.

  “Please explain how your class ability works. Based on that I will consider some level of compromise.”

  “Why Certainly. My class ability does a bunch of stuff. It shares experience between me and my cats. It lets me communicate roughly, but not well. I can also enhance up to my caster level number of cats. I only have 2 because of that, but I will get more, and they will be even bigger based on my level. It’s all just to ensure that little ole me is purrfectly safe from the demons.”

  “Well, Crap! That means we need to take more than one cat at least. We’ll take whichever cats can get into my SUV, but you need to pack enough food and litter for them. We can’t be worried about feeding a bunch of cats in addition to thousands of people.”

  “That won’t be a purroblem, Captain. My cats feast on what they kill. Right now, that includes little wolf men.” She smirked slightly and nodded her head towards her the room behind her.

  I followed to the kitchen and dining area to be confronted with quite the sight through the back all glass doors: over twelve dead lupin. It was morbid to say the least. They were in various states of being consumed. Exposed intestines were draped around one of them like decoration. Several cats feasted on the exposed liver other organs. I wanted to be sickened by the whole scene, but in actuality I was impressed. Reaching into my pocket grasped the communication stone and brought it close to my lips, “Ted, send the kid to the back yard with Rick. We need him to start using that ability right now.”

  “Yes, Captain. We’ll send Will and Rick back there. He said he can only do it 3 times a day. Do you want him using all 3 of them uses?” Ted’s voice came back across the stone.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Absolutely. Everyday have that kid using his abilities as soon as we come across dead humanoid enemies.”

  “Understood Captain.”

  I went to put the stone away, but Katnessa interrupted me, “Oh, what is that little rock you have there?”

  “It’s a communication stone. We’ve been taking them off the enemy spell casters.”

  “Oh, I will have to get one of them. Then I can talk to your pretty face all the time.” She laid it on a bit thick for me.

  “Down kitty cat.” She gave me this overly frowny face in response. Her abilities were awesome, but she is a problem. I finally pocketed the stone. “So how long will it take you to get your cats and yourself all packed up? We are on a bit of time crunch.”

  “Oh, alright. I’ll get packing.” She let out a melodramatic sigh, “Boys and girls. We are going to be leaving soon. You all need to go to the toilet. I will not have any of you stinking up Mr. Neal’s car.”

  I wanted to pretend that she was crazy, but cats started forming a line into a room that I can only assume has the litter box. Then I heard flushing. I started shaking my head, but was interrupted by a knock on the glass door. Standing there smiling was young teenager Will holding three ability tokens in one hand. As soon as he saw me, he stopped knocking on the window to give me a thumbs up. The smile spread to a silly looking grin on his 14 year old face. I have no clue why I put the young teenager into the first squad, but can’t really go back now.

  Upon opening the door Will handed me all three ability tokens, “Two of them are duplicates with hunter and knowledge. This other one has arcane, hunter, artificer, and a few others.”

  I had to fight back my smile, “duplicates within knowledge you say? Well, I’ll use one of them and we will store those other two.” Before I could second guess myself, I stuffed two of the tokens in my pouch of storage. I then gripped the one remaining token, closed my eyes, and concentrated on it. The ability presented itself in my internal display almost immediately.

  Predictive aim-Tier 1-Arcane, Knowledge, Intelligence, Math, Time, Divination, Hunter

  When activating this ability, the user has 60 seconds or the next time they fire a handheld ranged weapon, whichever happens first, to use the enhancement they have to their aim. Using this in a cluttered battlefield is more difficult to control than a less full one. Aiming is the only activity the user may do until they fire their weapon. This will work on two handed light and medium ranged weapons. It will not work on weapons that are classed as too large or too heavy.

  I selected yes to learn the ability. Finally, I have an ability that can actually be used in combat. Three of my five slots were filled. Only two slots available. I have somehow crossed a threshold with this ability. I went from desperately needing abilities to actually needing to decide whether I wanted an ability or not. This was very new, and not something that my friends and I had to worry about up until now. There were other things going on with this ability. It had intelligence and math as potential affinities. This meant that Billy could use it as well. All those academics, bankers, financial planners, and similar could have a combat ready ability. This should help us.

  “Mr. Neal, you look like the cat that got all the canaries. What just happened.” Katnessa whispered in my ear. As I opened my eyes, I saw all the cats looking at us. Were they interested in what we were talking about, or was it just the mention of canaries? Oh well.

  “Katnessa, I think we finally have an ability that is a full on game changer. Will, you did great. I would love to get you and those tokens back to Fenton now, but I imagine we will have to wait until Katnessa is all packed up.”

  “Wait a second. That little token had an ability?” She no longer spoke in honeyed tones. Now, she sounded like one of my cousins.

  “Yes it did. We will be taking the other two tokens back to Fenton to make lots of copies.”

  She looked at me incredulously, “Do you have some sort of magical copying machine?”

  “Not at all. We found people with the ability to copy abilities. We are getting tokens to them so that we can eventually mass produce enough abilities for everyone who needs one.”

  “Wow, you’ve really thought this out.” She had this look on her face that told me was more than just mildly impressed.

  “Yes. We need ways to fight back.”

  Rick knocked on the open glass door, “Hey everyone it sounds like Mount Vesuvius Carmichael Handbiter the Third knows where a potential lupin grouping is at.”

  We all looked at Rick. I am not sure if he spoke a name, or what. However, it was Katnessa who looked more than just upset. She was almost angry. “You mean Mr. Skittles, right?”

  The cat meowed with a feral hiss at the end. Rick with his speak with animals was stuck interpreting. “Mount Vesuvius really doesn’t like that name.” Rick shrugged his shoulders. He was just the messenger.

  I cut off Katnessa by placing a hand on her shoulder, “How about Vesuvius. Its short, yet still a very powerful name.”

  The cat meowed back to us briefly. “Vesuvius finds the shortened name acceptable in most situations. However, the next time he is at a cat show, he requires you do use his full name.”

  Katnessa finally got to respond, “But Mr. Skittles.” She was nearly pleading with the cat. One loud quick meow later and she slumped her shoulders, “Okay Vesuvius.”

  “So Vesuvius, we are going to need your help in pinpointing the location of the lupin. The first chance that we find animal specific abilities, you will be top of the list.” The cat practically smiled as it meowed.

  “Vesuvius accepts the offered payment. He prefers something to enhance his claws.”

  “Excellent. You should explain to Rick where this is at. Then, once we get all of you to Fenton this squad will work with a few others to destroy the place they are hiding in.” The cat got up and went outside. I guess that takes care of that.

  Katnessa sidled up to Rick, “So you can speak to my cats. My my, aren’t you my new favorite chew toy.”

  I exited out the front of the house to go get my vehicle. As I got into the SUV, I was nearly knocked to the ground. There was an explosion to our west. A plume of smoke was rising from not more than a mile or two away. Then gunfire could be heard from that direction as well.

  “Fuck My Life.”