Log [Forge, Catseye] In the jungle, everyone screams...

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

Far too curious about whatever Forge is up to that afternoon, Catseye decides to investigate. Of course, this leads to a bit more than Forge expected.



Forge turned the corner, the squeak of his sneaker-clad foot seeming louder than usual on the hardwood floor. The world looked slightly blurry and shaky in front of him, but that was to be expected. His eyes were closed, after all, and he had a heavy blindfold over them.

He turned left again, squaring himself to the open hallway. The small digital camera built into his PDA focused on the end table, the door, and the top of the stairwell as Forge flicked his eyes back and forth behind closed lids. His contacts displayed the image directly on his retina - just as if he was seeing it himself. Well, not nearly as clearly or as stable, but that was the limitations of the lens. This was brilliant, he reminded himself. Something like this could have dozens of applications. Medical treatment for the vision-impaired, thermal imaging for firefighters, realtime data updates for stockbrokers and market analysts.

For the moment, though, it was just really, really cool. Forge loped forwards towards the stairs, stepping carefully, recognizing his lack of depth perception with the sole camera lens. He made a mental note to try dual cameras next time as he stepped across the landing to the stairs.

He'd pointed out he was seeing through Warlock on the journals and Catseye had heard him refer to the small unit as that more than once during those moments where he rambled on without end while he worked on one of his projects. It wasn't a hard reach at all to simply stay out of the line of 'sight' of the small black box instead of Forge himself, Catseye lurking closer and closer, whiskers quivering as she scanned the hallway in her own way. She's have to wait until he was clear from the stairs of course, which meant following him a while longer, not that she minded in the least. This was much fun, and the anticipation of the pounce was a delightful feeling in and of itself as well.

She crept after him stealthily, managing not to click her teeth in anticipation (only kittens just starting to hunt and house cats did that after all), all the while waiting for just the perfect moment to make a flying leap at him - or rather, at Warlock she decided. If he was seeing through that, then of course the effect would be far more fun that way for him too.

The stairs presented a bit of a hindrance as Forge reached the bottom, taking his hand off the rail. The lack of depth perception seemed to make every step down seem like a cataclysmic dropoff, and the grainy video reminded him of too many of those zombie shooter games that he used to play. Standing in the foyer of the mansion, Forge spun around, arms outstretched.

"Genius..." he breathed.

There was, without a doubt, a gleeful joy at pouncing someone new in nearly exactly the same place she'd pounced someone just the previous night. Slinking down the banister, tail curling around it to keep her steady, Catseye gathered herself for the pounce of all pounces, waiting for just the right moment as he slowly spun around before launching herself in the air, paws waving madly at the unit Forge was holding in his hands.

Forge had time to pause and wonder if his color balance was off when the streak of purple rushed into view, moments before the large cat pounced directly onto his chest. His vision was filled with purple hair and flailing paws as he tried to shake his head, but the image would not go away until it finally blinked out as one of Catseye's paws hit the power button.

"Catseye, dammit!" he barked, "I'm working! What have I said about playing when I am-" Forge staggered around the foyer as he held the car at arm's length with one hand and pulled up his blindfold with the other -

-just in time to see his foot extend over empty air by the steps to the basement.

"...shit."

Meep. He hadn't been supposed to back up like that! This was highly uncooperative of him and typical of a human at that! With an increasingly wide-eyed and not at all dignified expression, Catseye kept very still as he hovered over the edge, hoping her own weight would somehow keeping them from both tipping over into the opening maw of the basement stairwell.

Which of course, didn't quite turn out that way. As they slowly started to tilt over the edge, Catseye meowed in a decidedly unhappy way - and then clamped both front paws around his arm as best she could even as gravity took a decidedly stern hold on them.

Forge managed to tuck himself into a ball and roll as best he could down the short stairwell rather than bouncing painfully. Even still, his back and head ached when he landed at the bottom. As far as he could tell, nothing seemed to be broken or bleeding, but he had a bit of difficulty breathing...

When he opened his eyes, the reason for that became evident.

Tugging him into the right rolling pattern at the start of the fall hadn't been obvious at all but she hadn't had time to think about it and a cat's shape hadn't been nearly adequate enough in terms of weight and pull - so human it had been, even though it meant landing in an awkward pile the instant the remembered she wasn't in her proper shape anymore. With a faintly miffed sound that wasn't quite proper for the throat she was using, Catseye look up slowly, more than a little peeved at the aches in her elbows and knees although it really wasn't all that bad all things considered - she'd landed on something soft. And then she caught on to the fact that her would-be prey was staring at her. From underneath her at that. Uh oh.

"Catseye sorry?" she said in a very small voice, looking a touch guilty as she started to push herself up.

"It's... um... okay," Forge managed to mumble, realizing the situation he was in.

Bruised at the bottom of a staircase, check. Tolerable, he'd been in worse.

Ambushed by a cat who turned into a teenage girl at the most inopportune times, check. Well, it had already happened to Kyle (who Forge swore immediately would never ever ever hear about THIS particular detail).

Realizing suddenly that Catseye did not exactly transform into human form with anything resembling a set of clothes? Uh-oh.

"We should, um, should... we ought to, um..." Forge stuttered, "Room. We should go to my room. Your room! YOU should go to your room and I should go to MY room. As a cat. YOU as a cat. Me as a, yeah, as me. Room."

Blink. Catseye froze, staring at him, the vertical slits to her pupils shifting slightly as she changed focus from his face to the floor behind him, then back again. No, nothing there. And she wasn't smelling any blood either. "Mrrr. ShinyBitsBoy hit his head?" she asked softly, feeling rather concerned as one hand went from pushing herself up to reaching out for said supposedly bumped head instead. Because Forge was babbling which wasn't Forge at all in Catseye's experience. Sure, he rambled on and on, sometimes about stuff Catseye took interest to at that, but he never babbled.

Therefore, something was wrong. Very wrong.

Please for the love of God do not let anyone come out of the basement right now, Forge prayed quickly. And now she was running a hand through his hair and this was bad. No, this wasn't exactly bad, but - get a GRIP, man!

"Fine! I'm fine. Ow," Forge moved Catseye's hand away and rubbed his head, pulling himself into a sitting position and trying to scoot out from under his would-be assailant.

Well, that had been a bit more coherent at least, although Catseye really wasn't convinced. She settled back in kneeling position as he finished scrambling away from her, hands resting on her thighs. "Is ShinyBitsBoy sure he is all right?" People said they were all right all the time, even when they weren't.

"I'm okay, really, and-" Okay, that's a natural pose for a CAT, not a naked GIRL... "-can you, um, change back or something? This is, um. Awkward. Yeah."

Catseye blinked once more, slow and pensive, then looked down at herself idly. Whether he was being silly or not, his request certainly didn't seem to faze her - quite to the contrary, she beamed at him approvingly, granting him a brilliant smile before nodding once and then without further fuss shifting back to her cat form smoothly. "Mrrr!" Whiskers tilting forward once towards him in the equivalent of a cat's smile, Catseye then idly licked her shoulder, as though nothing awkward at all had been going on for anyone.

Forge pulled himself to his feet, groaning at what was certainly going to be yet another crick in his back. "'m going to my room," he announced. "Ow."

"Mreow." The sound could have been faintly apologetic if one were inclined to think it so. As it was, Catseye was careful not to twine between his legs as she normally would as he headed for the stairs and then for his room, trotting quietly next to him instead while trying not to obviously peek up at the PDA in the process.

Slumping on his bed, Forge gave a quick look at Kyle, then let out a loud groan as Catseye scrambled up on the other end of the bed. Pulling himself to a sitting position, he carefully took his contacts out and put them in their case, seated his PDA in the cradle, then fell face-first onto the pillow.