[Episode 49208] [Episode 49208]Shampoo grumbled to herself as she sipped her tea and watched the scene across the table. A series of explosions in the distance set her ears twitching. If she hadn't known that New York was as much a big distraction as a target, she'd have been rather disappointed with how things were going.
The U.S. Military had moved in with much more speed and ferocity than she had expected. She was too used to the backwater parts of the Chinese military, which tended to be run by local warlords more than Beijing anyway. The werecats were still fighting ferociously, but the only territory they truly held now was Manhattan itself. Being an island, it was fairly easily defensible, once the trains had been blocked up in the tunnels.
She could still remember the shock she'd had when she had talked to some of the police higher-ups, and had been told that the island had less than a week's worth of food available. The water supplies they could be sure of controlling were even worse off. Even if Master Claudius had assured her that everything would be dealt with in two days, she couldn't afford to rely on that. So she'd had several werecats sneaking out in cat form to try and get more food and to convert more people outside the city.
Then, of course, there were the others. Shampoo had found out the hard way that anybody with enough werecreature blood in their ancestry didn't become one of her thralls; most didn't even become werecats. She'd barely escaped from the super-strong werecheetah that called herself the Pink Avenger. And there were hundreds of other werecreatures of various types around town, most of whom had been killed as soon as it was seen they weren't cats. Of course, the really dangerous ones were the ones with blood so weak they became werecats, but not under her control, as they could move invisibly through her ranks.
Such as the werecat across from her, who was currently terrorising the wererat waitress at the café by licking her cheek.
Shampoo set her teacup down. She had nothing against ‘playing with her food’, as it were; when she had discovered the young waitress at this high-class café was a wererat, she had spent some time scaring the girl herself to make sure she knew where her place was. But there was no real challenge to frightening this quivering little rat, and thus no fun in it.
At least, no fun for her. As she watched Nohman start to grope at the girl who was too scared to move, she revised her opinion of him downward into ‘Musk without the skill’ territory. When he caught the rat's ear between his teeth, Shampoo cleared her throat. “We here to discuss terms, not to play with hired help.”
Nohman grinned. “I was wondering when we were going to get down to business.” He let go of the waitress.
Shampoo waved away the waitress, who skittered out of sight as quickly as she could. “You could always have started.”
She took another sip of her tea. “You say you have names of people organizing the resistance. Names and presumably locations.” Setting her cup down, she continued, “I am interested. Master Claudius is interested. But obviously you not just giving us information for free, no? So we want to know, what you want to tell us this.”
Nohman's smile was something that Shampoo would be glad never to have to see again. “That's simple enough. Obviously, I have some werecreature ancestry myself, which is why I escaped being made into one of the lesser thralls out ther. And your Master Claudius has considerable knowledge about werecreatures, obviously. I wish to have my heritage fully awakened.&rdquo Nohman leaned forward, his voice getting lower but more intense. “I wish to become what is currently lying dormant inside me.”
Shampoo was glad she wasn't holding her cup; it would not have looked good had she shattered it in her grip. She'd have to make sure to warn Master Claudius about this man. She paused to collect her thoughts.
She was saved from having to come up with an answer to that as an image of Jadeite appeared in the air above the table. Shampoo laid down a series of curses in Chinese that nearly peeled the paint off the walls before switching to Japanese. “What you want?! Am in meeting!”
Jadeite said, “Your ‘Airen’ is here, along with several of the others. They're currently dealing with some of my friends, but I'd like you to be back here with the rest of those from your town just in case.”
“What, stone-boy not think he man enough to deal with them himself?”
Jadeite growled, then settled his features into his usual smirk. “And what would Master Claudius say if these pests were to bother him directly because you were ‘too busy’ to help deal with them? I'm sure he'd understand if the situation in New York is so unstable that you can't afford to leave it even for a few minutes...”
Shampoo rattled off several more curses regarding Jadeite's biologically improbable ancestry, then said, “Fine. I be there soon.”
Jadeite smiled, and his image vanished.
Shampoo growled, grabbed one of the menus, and wrote an address down on it along with some notes in Japanese. “You know where this is? Go there, tell them I sent you. They take you to see Claudius.” She slammed the pen back down on the table. “Now I have to go make sure fox not make stupid mistake by being too sure of self.”
“Pleasure doing business with you.”
Shampoo glared at Nohman. “Pleasure was all yours.” She then left the cafe and ran down the street toward the portal back to base.
Nohman smiled as he watched her leave. “Oh, it was.” He folded up the menu, then stood up, looking around for the wererat who was here before. “But perhaps I can have some fun before I leave.”
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(Posted Sat, 24 Apr 2004 14:29)
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