Stray Cat Strut Chapter Eighty-One – Pop Goes the Patella

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Chapter Eighty-One - Pop Goes the Patella

"r/AITA

Hey, AITA if I used Hadegtainnt's inferior streaming service instead of Nimbletainnt Stream Max Pro?

Hi r/AITA

Am I in the wrong for using an uncool, inferior product? My many human friends ca to my location of housing today, and on opening my dia streaming capable devices, they discovered that I was using a streaming service that was not Nimbletainnt Stream Max Pro.

I have since been divorced, my parental figures have disowned , I was fired, my life insurance was cancelled, and my dog was summarily executed.

AITA?"

-Botted subliminal advertising Readit post, 2028

***

This was not working out.

But it also wasn't so bad that I was pulling out my very fresh and cool hair yet. I left Princess to act like mini-royalty for a bit while I got myself sothing to drink. Sohow, having appear in the back areas of the casino and just ask around to find so coffee or sothing set a fire under the asses of the casino staff who were being difficult with the Kittens, and suddenly yes,there were spare coffee machines around and of course the vending machines could be brought over and set to be free for our wonderful staff of volunteers.

Why was it that people so often needed to face a threat first-hand before they started to act on it?

Then I noticed soone shyly walking up to . That dude that Lucy had foisted off onto. George or sothing. "Hey," I said. "Sup... dude?"

"Paul," Paul said. "And, ah, we have problems."

"Yeah, of course we do," I said. Standing next to a fold out table with coffee-making stuff on it in the back of a casino, surrounded by bare cinderblock walls and people hustling around, only so of whom seed to know what they were doing was exactly how I imagined that this would go down. "What kind of problem?"

Paul swallowed audibly. "There was an issue with the catering."

"Was?"

"Samurai Tankette showed up," he said, brightening up a little. "She's taken charge of that part of the event. She, ah, ca in with her own thodology, that doesn't quite match our plans, or what Miss Lucy had outlined."

"Okay, and?" I asked leadingly.

"Miss Lucy said to cancel all of our plans and do whatever the samurai say," he said.

That tracked. I took a sip of my coffee. "Probably for the best. Tankette seems like she'd be able to work things out."

"Yes, I think things are going well with that. I can't quite tell though, the, ah, systems we have in place to see if things are working on ti were contingent on our previous plans, and now we're ignoring those." He looked at the tablet he was carrying, as if the glorified Excel sheets on there would suddenly vomit out the answer to life, the universe, and all the rest, conveniently slotted into little rectangles.

"Alright. That happens. Just trust Tankette. And I'm sure she'll reach out if she needs help."

"She set up a bakery," he said.

"Cool."

He stared for a mont. "It... was in a tank?"

"Yeah."

He stared so more, then looked back down at his tablet. "Um, there's more problems?"

I nodded, slowly. Paul wasn't catching on as quickly as so others. Kinda weird how I missed so of the army guys. So of them had been competent enough. I took another sip of coffee. I'd have to pace myself. Didn't want to be on-stage with a need to piss. "So, problems?"

"Yes! The hotel that's part of the Velvet Wheel is asking for reinforcents."

"Like extra cleaning staff, or..." I asked.

"Security," he said.

I finished my coffee, tossed it towards the nearest trash can, missed, then took off walking. "Co on. Let's go see what's going on."

"Um, Miss Samurai Stray Cat," Paul said.

"Yeah?"

He pointed in the other direction. "It's that way."

"Of course," I said before spinning on a heel and walking the other way. Paul scrambled after , working hard to keep up even if he had longer legs. We left the main lobby space of the conference hall and went up an escalator into another section of the casino.

There was a clear separation between sections, and clear signage pointing people off to one side and down towards the front of the building where the Conclave was being held. We didn't want people circling around the back and avoiding the security check and badge pickup at the front. Still, no one gave Paul and I any trouble. I guessed that the casino staff all had so way of telling Samurai apart from normal folk.

Or they had passed around files to their employees. That would probably make the most sense.

"There, that man in the suit," Paul said as he gestured ahead. There was, indeed, a man in a suit. He was a tall white guy, with slicked back hair and what looked like a permanent scowl in place. He was talking to a trio of others, casino employees.

When he saw us coming over, he stood a little taller and did a sort of nod-bow in my direction. "Miss Stray Cat," he said.

"Hey," I replied. "What's the problem?"

He blinked, but I had the sense that this guy was on the ball. "A few clients are being particularly... rambunctious. It's not usually sothing we have difficulty with."

"But you're having difficulty with it now?" I asked.

He nodded. "We are. Our security apparatus is stretched at the mont. We have every mber working overti and have brought in additional contractors, but even that has left certain areas undermanned, including our hotel services."

"Alright, so what are these people doing that's so rambunctious? Pissing the hotel pool and taking drinks from the mini-fridge without paying?"

He smiled slightly, not actually finding funny, but kind of silently agreeing with the general vibe of jokiness. "If only. We have contingencies for that. Most of our patrons are here to gamble or attend one of the events or concerts we hold. When they are angry, they'll more often than not call their lawyers first. Or they're drunk."

"Right, and I imagine that your security team can handle the average drunk dude pretty well," I said.

"Exactly. We try to treat them with so amount of dignity, seeing as how they might be repeat custors once they sober up... and after they pay the additional fees. In any case, the current patrons are a little more dangerous than what we're used to dealing with."

"Like tatted up gangsters and the like?"

"Surprisingly easy to handle. Mostly those sorts didn't book a room overnight. No, the 'gangsters' that we're having issues with are of a higher class of criminal. And they mostly have issues with each other. There have been more violations of our on-site weapon rules this weekend than in the rest of the year combined."

"Right... okay, so how bad is it?" I asked.

We both paused as a few distant pops went off.

"I'm going to hope that those were firecrackers," I said.

He pressed a finger to an ear, tilting his head a little. "Ah, one of our guards is down."

"Right," I said before sighing. "Stay here, Paul, I'll be right back. Cats, follow ."

The two cat drones stalked after as I made my way down a carpeted corridor, then into a larger lobby space with so stand-up desks and elevators and a trio of guards. Two of them were holding riot shields and a third was bleeding behind said shield. He looked like he'd be alright, though, it was a leg wound.

So I turned my attention to the most probable asshole. It was so twenty-sothing in a nice suit. Not like a nice suit off the rack, but a nice suit. Shit looked tailored. He had so guys with him who were clearly goons.

"Okay, what's going on here?" I asked.

Moron A in the nice suit half-turned towards , then raised and pointed a gun in my general direction. "More of them?"

"Them?" I asked.

"Miss, stand back," one of the security guards called out.

"No, no, I want to see what he does. Like, is he gonna shoot ? That'd be interesting. Myalis, would that work?"

If he aid at so precise locations between joints in your armour, the rounds that kind of gun hold could penetrate and injure you. Nonlethally, but it would make a ss.

Huh, well, that wasn't good. "Who even are you?" Moron A asked.

"Soone very tired. Can you put the gun away, please?"

"Fuck off."

"Okay then," I said.

This suit of mine had so nice back-mounted guns. I'd used those a ton early in my career... a few weeks ago. I knew how they worked. Moron A didn't, because when the guns flipped up and over my shoulders he didn't react.

When they fired and ripped apart his kneecaps, he did react, a lot, mostly by screaming a whole bunch.

"You guys looking to lose your kneecap privileges too?" I asked Moron A's goons as they reached for their own guns.

They actually paused. Smart goons, those.

"Alright. Security, put him out of the building. Soone call his parents and tell them to co pick their kid up, or sothing."

"You have no idea who you're threatening!" he scread from the floor.

I made a sort of lazy half-shrug. "No? I an, obviously. I hope you're not in charge of your gang."

Right, that was one problem moderately sorted, right? Hopefully the blood stains and bits of kneecap all over the place would be a good reminder to behave in a more civilized way.

***

A note from RavensDagger

Like I ntioned previously, next week is vacation week... but it's also the week where SCS's current volu ends?

So I'll probably be posting 5 chapters of SCS next week, and then none the week after to give a break to start on the next volu. Might take 2 weeks off? I'd like a week to build up a backlog, since... ya know, 80% of my inco is people signing onto the patreon to read ahead, and I'll have no 'ahead' left.

Hehe?