Old friends, new experiences.

When you arrived at the AWIO in the evening you were greeted by a girl wearing a t-shirt, jeans and cat ears. When the cat ears twitched you noticed that they weren’t cosmetic, they were real ears. She had a solemn look to her, One that told you she was struggling with something difficult. Not wanting to pry, you followed her into a room with a sheet of paper on a desk. You assumed this to be the application form and began filling it out. Just as you were finishing up the door swung open and Rachel walked in, looking surprisingly cheery.

“Evening Luke!”

“You seem happy.”

“Well my dead friend came back to life and he’s going to help another friend so yes, I’m very happy.”

She sat down on the opposite of the desk and took out a notebook.

“So how much do you know about this place?”

“Not a whole lot”

“Do you want the full run-down or a summarised version?”

“Full rundown.”

Rachel sighed, straightened up and prepared herself.

“The AWIO or Alternate World Integration Organisation take care of monster girls that come through a portal to another world.”

“Wait monster girls?”

“Yep! You’ll learn about that during your training. Now another thing we do is handle and facilitate people wanting to travel to that other world. We give them training, navigation and basic know-how for the other world, or old world as we call it. Now you understand that this is a one way trip. We don’t have another way to come back yet. Are you okay with that?”

You look down solemnly “Yes. I’ve got nothing here anymore.”

“I understand” Rachel said knowing what you meant. “Now there’s one thing I need to do before we get started on your training. Stay still please.”

Rachel stares into your eyes and you swear you can see a faint glow coming from them. After a minute she pulls back and writes something down.

“What was that?” You ask. This was getting weirder by the minute.

“I was testing to see if you had any magic. Since the portal opened magic has been seeping through into our world and can cause people to develop abilities. I devolved the ability so see people’s magical aura. It looks like you have heightened senses. Nothing ridiculous mind you, but you’ll be able to see and hear things others can’t.”

You leaned back in your chair. This was a lot to take in at once. Magic? Portals? Monster girls?

“I’ll tell you more when you’ve finished training. You can stay at my place in the mean time.”

“Thanks a lot Rachel.”

Rachel looked back at you solemnly. “I’m incredibly sorry about what happened to you Luke. I’ll do anything to help you right now. You go to my place and get some rest.” She threw you a spare set of keys for her apartment.

As you were walking down the hallway to reception you got caught by the cat girl from earlier. She gave you a big hug, and only then did you notice she was sobbing. She ended up wetting your shirt with her tears. You were weirded out but you weren’t rude. You returned the hug, said your goodbyes and headed out the door. You had some preparing to do after all.