Tutorial Level

“Naomi! Oh-my-gosh, hi! You’re so pretty!” said the ludicrously gorgeous, buxom catgirl with red wavy hair, a starry night kimono that did better work accentuating than concealing, and a smile that looked too sweet and mischievous on her fine, queenly features. Her two tails swished excitedly as she bounced on her toes, threatening to upset the delicate balance of her outfit. “And huge! And sparkly! And that hair! You could be, like, a space goddess!”

_Kat, I’m going to kill you. _Naomi did not say, because her own stupidly sexy alien body still refused to speak. Instead, she accomplished an extremely effective pout.

“I, uh, yeah, sorry…”

Naomi softened her gaze. Stop. Stop being so pretty. It makes it hard to stay angry.

Kat didn’t notice. Her gaze was already drawn to the flashing buttons, then the imposing captain’s chair at the center of the room. “Wait, are you the captain? That’s so cool!”

Kat hopped onto the seat. It dwarfed her.

“I mean, that has to be the case, right?” Kat said. “The chair’s you-sized, and there’s your outfit. Really, really, good look, by the way. What’s it like being so tall?”

_ I feel like I’m falling over with every step. _Naomi fell back into a pout and cocked a perfect hip to the side. But I can’t tell you this, because I can’t talk.

She tapped her throat. Kat tilted her head. In some part contemplation, some part admiration, a flicker of realization just beginning to play across her features…

But then the alarm went off.

WARNING! WARNING! [enemy ship] DETECTED!

Both looked to the window. And, well—

Yeah, no shit.

A spaceship. A campy sci-fi spaceship. Massive and imposing, harsh gray tones with brutalist hard edges. Sorta like a bunch of concrete cubes stuck together, haphazardly decorated with pale lights and a pair of rocket boosters.

Terrifying. That’s the word Naomi was looking for. The spaceship was terrifying.

A rectangular hologram blipped into the center of the room—nevermind the computers and monitors everywhere—with an alien on it. Every bit as terrifying as the spaceship outside. It was a vaguely humanoid shark-thing, with giant, inflated muscles you’d expect on a cartoon character. He had his own kinda-sorta navy uniform to match Naomi’s, but instead of a stylishly tilted hat, he wore a pair of eye patches to cover two of his… Four eyes.

“Naomi!” Kat whispered just a tad too loudly. “I think that’s a bad guy! Isn’t this cool?”

_I want to go home, _Naomi thought.

“My, my, my. If it isn’t the famed Captain Diva,” said the creature. His words were more gravel than voice, rasping through the air like sandpaper on wood. “I’ve heard the tales. A virtuosapien, turned bounty hunter of all things.”

Kat watched in delight. Naomi kept pouting, since anything more was too emotive for her stupid alien face.

The creature continued. “Not a dancer, or performer, or whatever else your species was bred for. Truly, how did you—”

Turns out, space fights were super easy. You just had to let Kat hit the red glowing button in the terminal. Their own ship accelerated into the enemy’s.

_______________________________________________________________

COMBAT INITIATED! SELECTING TRACK…

Smoke and fire, blaring alarms, and the worst headache of Kat’s life. That’s what happened when she got distracted and pressed the glowy red button.

Ooh, and all the air probably pulling into the dead of space. That probably mattered too.

Fortunately, Kat remembered to hold her breath. Unfortunately, she and Naomi were flung forward in the acceleration of one ship into another, crashing into the smoking command room of the evil-shark thing and all his goons. Even more unfortunately, Kat saw a corpse laying on the floor nearby. Another Kat, wearing a starry night kimono rather than the… Swan design wrapped around her own body.

That’s the Kat who hit the button, she realized. Also the Kat who stood a little too far to the left—or am I a new Kat who got lucky standing just enough to the right?

Starry night Kat vanished. Swan Kat (or regular Kat, since she was the only Kat here) rose and looked around. To her side Naomi stood tall and fine, still grumpy, but, like, in a stoic gorgeous kinda way. To her front—guns. Lots and lots of guns.

“Move,” said one of the shark people, holding one of the guns. “And you die.”

_ TRACK SELECTED! PLAYING _[ichiban - Party Party]

Kat blinked, time slowed down, and… And new wave disco began to play from nowhere.

Way you down, way you down, way you down, way you down, down, down, down, down…

And the music felt good, to Naomi’s confusion. It pulled at her body in a way she couldn’t quite describe, her hips fighting the urge to sway side-to-side as an elegant, six-fingered hand reached unconsciously for the rapier at her belt—

Blam. Blam. Blam.

Three goons fired at Naomi. In perfect sync to the song’s tempo, she danced towards the closest, redirected his ray gun with one hand, and shot him with the other. Before she could process how the hell she did that, Naomi swerved as the enemy spaceship shook wayward, using the momentum to twist forward and slam a stiletto boot into the next goon’s face. A third stride—her alien body’s long, toned legs carried her with dizzying speed—and she had her rapier planted in the third goon’s neck.

Blam.

A shot to her side. It stung… But nothing worse than that. Naomi gave a quick glance down, fine golden cracks spreading from where the shot landed, same shade as her eyes and lips.

Don’t you let life weigh you down. Hey now, everybody, everybody…

Kat wasn’t doing nearly as well. The pretty alien lady she turned into—Kitty Callisto—did have weapons, but she also had a body and outfit built for something a little more… “Cooperative” than combat.

Sex. Her soft, wiggly body was built for sex. Well, technically, so was Naomi’s. But Naomi’s was also built for killing things, it looked like. Kat only got the first one.

The ship rocked again. Kat stumbled. The ship’s gravity wavered. Kat slipped and just barely latched to one of the bolted seats with one arm, the other struggling to keep her new mega-space-boobs from bouncing too much.

C’mon. Pull me down to-night. Get on the floor…

Naomi’s body rode like a racecar, even if she could barely think of herself as the driver. Its movements were fast and definite, coming and going before she could even begin to process what was happening. A sound of gunshot from one side? She’d already swerved around it. A shark-shaped mook launching at her from the other? She parried his blow with her own, lazier-rapier twirling forward with expertise she absolutely was not supposed to have.

You know you want to get down to-night, to-night…

Maybe the needle-sharp kanzashi binding Kat’s hair together… No, too small and light for a laser fight. The throwing knives strapped to her thighs? Better heft, but she couldn’t steadily reach for them the way the ship swung to and fro. The dainty laser pistol snug between her breasts, then. Not as cool as daggers, Kat decided, but probably better than sitting around like a ragdoll—

Frantic impulse twisted her body aside as two beams of light flew past.

—A wide grin. So her body did know how to fight! At least, well enough not to get shot. Now, how well could she aim the laser pistol…

Don’t you let life weigh you down. Get on the floor and pull me down…

I hate this music! Naomi shouted internally, yanking her space-rapier from yet another mook’s stomach.

Another slash.

Once pace to the left.

Four shots from some ray gun she stole.

A step to the right.

A twist, a turn, and—oh, her rapier was pointed straight at the shark commander. Naomi allowed herself a quick glance to both sides, realizing almost everyone else on this ship had either been downed or broken into pixel-ly lights that read some variant of “NICE!,” “RADICAL!,” or “C-C-COMBO!”

“Impressive, Captain Diva!” said the shark-captain-thing, his giant meaty hands raised into the air. Now that Naomi had a closer look (and, finally, a moment of stillness), something about the creature felt wrong to her. He was so unbothered by all his men dying. Was he supposed to be some kind of mindless NPC? Or were situations like this that normal here? “Now, let’s discuss the conditions of my escape. I have money in my safehouses, information—”

His head exploded. Naomi spied Kat some distance away, proudly and awkwardly holding a tiny laser gun.

“Naomi! Look, I took out the boss!”

Several moments of silence.

“Oh!” Kat gasped with realization. “You can’t talk in that body, can you?”

Naomi walked over and flicked her in the forehead.

TUTORIAL LEVEL CLEARED!!!