C.a.t.: Initiation

The first thing I noticed when I regained consciousness was that I had the worst headache I could ever remember having. It felt like I spent the last week getting wasted nonstop, and then decided to let a couple jackhammers have a three way with my skull. I groaned and raised my hand to rub my head. Wait... no I didn't. I couldn't.

I forced my eyes open, and had to close them again when the light blinded me. In the brief moment I'd had them open, I saw light blue tiled walls around me. I tried to move again, but still found myself restrained.

"Wh... where am I?" I asked. My tongue felt thick and my jaw was sluggish, making it hard to form words.

"Sounds like he's awake," I heard somebody say from nearby.

"All right. You sure he's securely restrained? Okay, open the door."

"I'll go with you, sir."

"Very well."

I heard a hiss, followed by footsteps. I opened my eyes, and this time I forced them to stay open and focus on the figure making his way towards me. My vision was still blurry, not to mention being blinded by the bright lights, so I couldn't make out much more than a shadowy silhouette, but when he spoke to me his voice was crisp and clear. I only saw the one shadow, but I could smell somebody else with...

Wait, what?

"Good to see you're awake, Michael. Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," I answered after a moment of struggling to make my mouth obey.

"That's good. How do you feel?"

I was about to answer, but then I realized whoever I was talking to was probably a C.A.T. officer, and wasn't likely to find my jackhammer sex analogy as hilarious as I did, so instead I just told him, "Like fuckin' shit."

And then I realized I was an idiot.

To my relief, the man chuckled. I blinked my eyes a few times, my vision getting clearer by the second, and was finally able to make out some details about him. He was wearing a dark green suit and jacket, with buttons and medals pinned all along the front and shoulders. Gray, neatly cropped hair topped his head. I wasn't clear headed enough to see them yet, but I had a feeling that if I could see his eyes they would be slitted like Nina's.

"Mr. Arghen, name is Henry Chace. You can address me as Sergeant Chace, or sir. If I'm having a good day, I might let you get away with just calling me Sarge. I'm sorry to inform you that you've slept through initiation. Classes have already begun."

"How much have I missed?"

"Almost three weeks."

I blinked. Had he just said... no, he couldn't have. I shook my head to clear the remaining sleepiness out of it and then asked, "What did you say?"

"I said," he repeated, folding his hands behind his back, "that you've missed the entire first three weeks of classes."

My heart sank into my stomach. Three weeks of missed classes. I'd never be able to catch up now. And if I wasn't able to take classes... "So," I said, hardly able to form words through the lump of emotion in my throat, "you're sending me home?"

To my surprise, Sergeant Chace laughed at this. "Not hardly, son. Sending you home now would be... a little difficult."

I cocked my head. "What do you mean?"

The sergeant raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You mean you haven't noticed already?"

"Noticed what, sir?"

Chase thought for a second, and then said, "You seem stable enough now. Let's get you out of those restraints."

He waved a signal to someone outside, and there was another hiss as the metal restraints unclamped themselves from around my body. I stood up, groaning in appreciation as I stretched muscles that, apparently, hadn't been used in three weeks. I rolled my head, popping the kinks out of my neck, and then looked down at the sergeant. That caught me off guard, because Chase hadn't looked like a short man while I was sitting down. Standing up, though, I realized that I had a good six inches on him.

"Step over here, Michael," Chase told me, crossing to the other side of the room. I followed him, and stopped when he led me to a mirror set into the wall. "Take a look."

He stepped out of the way, and, confused, I looked at my reflection...

And let out a little scream!

"What the fuck?" I exclaimed, taking a step back from the mirror.

"Calm down, son!" Sergeant Chase told me. "Take a deep breath."

I put my hand on the chair I'd just been restrained to to steady myself, and did as the sergeant said. When my heart had calmed down after the initial shock, I swallowed nervously and looked back up again.

There in the mirror, staring right back at me... wasn't me. Instead I saw a felinthro standing where I should have been. Six and a half feet tall and rippled with muscle, like most male felinthroes were, its body was covered with at least three different kinds of fur. Its chest was dark orange with medium length fur, while its arms were a lighter tan. A cheetah's tail extended from the base of its spine, but its head was the most startling. Long golden hair that would have made a shampoo model green with envy framed a snout covered with the same color fur as its arms. The face was a strange, equal mixture of human and feline, just like on all felinthroes, but I've never been able to describe it better than that.

Slowly, my head still reeling, I raised a hand. The felinthro in the mirror did as well.

"That's... that's me," I stammered, staring wide eyed at my new body.

To my right, Sergeant Chase put his hand on my shoulder. "I know this isn't a good way to wake up, but are you really surprised? This is what you came here for, isn't it?"

I nodded, my mouth —my

snout

— locked so tight I couldn't have answered him if I tried.

"How much do you remember before passing out?"

I closed my eyes and thought back. Three weeks ago, and I'd been asleep the whole time afterwards. It felt like an eternity ago, and I was having trouble...

"I remember hurting a lot," I said, opening my eyes and looking at the sergeant. "And then... fighting something?"

Sergeant Chase nodded. "The straps that were holding you down during the procedure broke. You attempted to escape. Nina Stukson tackled you, and one of the guards tranqued you before you could get anywhere."

My face started to burn beneath my fur. "I'm sorry," I said, looking down at the floor.

"Nobody blames you, son," Sergeant Chase said, clapping me on the shoulder again. "The pain during the procedure is enough to drive anybody insane. That's why we tie them down. It isn't your fault."

I looked into the mirror again, taking in my new body. I could hardly recognize myself. There was something in the shape of my face that recalled its true form, but everything else was completely alien. Crouched on the floor, I could feel my tail resting on the cold, hard tiles beneath me. That was perhaps the strangest part of all. My arms, legs, and face may have changed shape, but I'd had those since the day I was born. The tail was brand new, though. A brand new appendage filled with brand new bones and muscles. I focused on it, and made it slide left and right across the floor. It felt so strange, yet so natural at the same time. Like moving an arm I'd never known I'd had.

"Motor skills seem to be fine," Sergeant Chase muttered under his breath, and I blushed under my fur again.

"Sir," another voice said. My ears perked up, and in a flash I was on my feet and facing the other direction. Without realizing it, or even knowing how I did it, I sprouted claws from my fingertips, and I bared my long white lion teeth. An animalistic snarl escaped my throat, but then cut off all at once when I recognized the other person in the cell with us.

"Nina," I said, taking a step back. She stood with her back against the far wall with a clipboard under her arm, dressed in the same white lab coat she'd been wearing last time I saw her. Well, the one she'd been wearing

part of the time,

anyway. I breathed in through my nose, and caught a particularly strong scent in the air. It was the same one I'd notice along with the sergeant's when they'd come in, but I'd been so preoccupied talking to Chace that I'd forgotten about it.

"Hello, Michael," she replied with a quick nod, and then quickly turned to look at the sergeant again. "Sir, I know you don't blame Michael for what he did that day, and you shouldn't. But I'd like to take responsibility for everything."

Sergeant Chase shook his head. "We've been over this already, Stukson. The fault lies with the maintenance teams. Leaving straps that worn out is a serious breach of the safety code. You were just there to administer the injections. You can't be held responsible for something that isn't your—"

"But it is my job, sir," Nina argued. "Before I was put in charge of administering the injections, I was with facilities maintenance. I know everything that the maintenance teams are supposed to do before beginning the procedure. I know what to look for. Michael broke through those straps in just a few seconds. If they were really that worn out, there's no excuse for me not seeing it before we started. My negligence put Michael's life in jeopardy, as well as the lives of everyone else in the area. If I hadn't managed to subdue him, he could have—"

"All right, all right," Sergeant Chase cut her off with a wave of his hand. "We'll discuss this later." He turned back to me. "Right now, we need to decide what to do with you."

"Sir," I said, standing at attention. Only now did I realize that the only reason I was taller than him was because I was in my felinthro form. "If I've really missed three weeks of classes, I'm afraid I won't be able to catch up to the other recruits."

"Well, we still can't send you home," Chase replied. "Look at you! You passed the point of no return as soon as Nina stuck you with that first needle. No, the only thing we can do is keep you here and get you trained, even if you'll be a few weeks behind the others."

"What will I have to do, sir?"

"We'll have to get you a personal trainer. Someone who'll teach you one on one, so you can get your lessons without disrupting the other recruits' curriculum. We've got more than a few instructors around who can work that into their schedule. We just have to figure who'd be a..." his voice trailed off, and he looked at the woman at the other side of the cell.

"Stukson!" he barked, suddenly sounding very much like a drill sergeant.

"Yes, sir!" she replied, snapping a salute. I looked from one to the other, puzzled.

"You say you want to make up for what happened to Michael?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Then from this minute forward, I am making you his personal trainer. You will teach him everything he needs to know to be an agent of C.A.T. Do you understand?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" Nina said, giving him one more salute.

"Very good!" He turned back to me now. "Well, you heard her. Miss Stukson's gonna be your private tutor the whole time you're at C.A.T. Academy. Everything you need to know will be drilled into your head by this pretty little woman here, got it?"

"Uh, yes, sir," I said, still trying to catch up with everything that had just happened.

"Are you okay with these accommodations?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any questions you have will be directed to her from here on out, understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"I can't hear you, agent!"

"SIR, YES, SIR!"

Sergeant Chase folded his hands behind his back. "Very good. You're both dismissed."

With that, he walked toward the cell door, which hissed open for him and then closed again behind him, leaving Nina and me alone together. I watched him go, afraid to turn around. Suddenly, I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened just before beginning the procedure. The way her feline hands had felt caressing my cock. My heart began to beat faster. He had assigned

her

to be my instructor? Out of all the capable felinthroes in C.A.T., Sergeant Chase had chosen the one who'd already given me a striptease and almost jerked me off? I couldn't decide whether I was the luckiest man on earth, or heading straight for the electric chair.

One thing I did know, though, was that I was naked.

"So, um," I said, gathering my courage and turning around, praying to whatever gods were listening that my cock would stay down. Nina and I locked eyes from across the room. Holy shit, she was beautiful. Even from over here, I could make out the slits in her eyes, setting her apart from the rest of the dull human race. And I was the same as her now, wasn't I?

"First things first," she said, brisk and back to business, "we need to get you something to wear."

I gave her a lazy lionsmile. "Do we really have to?" I asked. "Maybe we could—"

"Michael," she snapped, "we're professionals. Behave like one."

I snapped my mouth closed. "Right, okay. Er, I mean, yes ma'am!"

She came to my side of the cell. "We'll get a shiftsuit made for you, but in the meantime you'll have to make due with human clothes."

I looked down at my muscular new body. "I don't think my old clothes are going to fit anymore."

"They will once you change back," she reminded me. "Felinthroes can shift between their human and feline forms at will, remember?"

I slapped myself on the forehead. Of course I knew that. That's what being a C.A.T. agent was all about.

A hint of a smile showed on her lips ."Don't worry about it, you've got a lot on your mind. Stay here, I'll go find you some clothes."

"That would be greatly appreciated, ma'am," I said, sitting back down on the chair they'd had me clamped to before while she left the cell as well, the door hissing shut behind her. The chair wasn't comfortable in the slightest, probably because it was in a jail cell. It was still better than standing up, though, because when I stood up I wanted to do something. I'd slept for three weeks straight, if Nina and Sergeant Chase were to be believed, and now that the tranquilizers had worn off my body was positively buzzing with energy. I wanted to move, to run, to test this body, see what it could do! I wasn't human anymore, I was at least 50% wild animal, and I wanted to act like one.

Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I wrapped my clawed hands around the armrests as if I was trying to hold myself down. I'd get plenty of chances to test my new body, but not if I lost control again like I had during the procedure. I just needed to keep my cool, sit here, and—

"All right, I think these are your size."

My eyes jerked open again just as the door hissed open to let Nina back in. I didn't see her, though, all I saw was the flying bundle of clothes she'd chucked right at my head. The clothesball was already only a few scant inches away from my face when I saw it, but somehow I was able to reach up and catch it in two hands before it hit me.

"Good reflexes," Nina said approvingly, with hands on her hips. I noted that she had changed out of her lab coat, and was now a wearing something different entirely. It was a single black garment that stretched over her entire body, from her ankles to her wrists, and hugged her like she was wearing an outfit made entirely out of the stuff they make yoga pants with. My mouth fell open a little bit, and she smirked at my reaction. She looked amazing. I mean, it wasn't the same as seeing her in her underwear, but the way the outfit displayed every single one of her delicious curves didn't leave a whole lot to the imagination.

"This is a shiftsuit," she told me, motioning towards her body. "It's made of a special type of elastic that only C.A.T. has access to. It's not bulletproof, but it's pretty damn close, and its stretchy enough that a piece as small as your hand could stretch to fit a full grown horse. That way we can change back and forth between our human and felinthro forms without having to change our clothes every time too."

"Uh huh," I said, nodding like a bobblehead. In truth, I'd only heard about half of what she'd just said, but it didn't matter because I already knew all about shiftsuits. Travis had told me about them before...

"My eyes are up here, Michael," Nina said, and I snapped my head up to look into them.

"Sorry."

Nina blew an annoyed breath out of her nose. "You're going to have to get yourself under control, Michael. If you can't focus on your training, you'll never graduate. Do you know what happens when you don't graduate?"

A chill ran down my spine, and I nodded, suddenly mute. The Divider. Travis had told me about that too, and that alone had been the reason I hadn't applied to join C.A.T. before he died. I didn't like to think about it, especially now that getting it was a very real possibility.

"All right," I finally whispered. "I'll pay attention."

"Good," Nina replied with an approving nod. "The first thing we need to do is get you turned back to your human form. Stand up."

I did as she said, setting the clothes down in the chair again. I felt a bouncing sensation down below, and cringed when I realized I had gotten another hardon just from looking at her in her skin tight suit.

"Just ignore it," she said, maintaining eye contact with me. "Now, shifting is easy once you get the hang of it. Every Felinthro ever made has been able to do it within a day of getting their new form. I promise, you won't be any different."

"All right, just tell me what to do."

"Look inside yourself," she said, reaching out and putting a hand on my chest. "Visualize yourself changing back, and your body will respond."

I was about to nod when her fingers tightened around a fistful of my chest fur. She gave it a playful tug, biting her lip in a mischievous smile, and then ran her fingers down my chest, down my belly, down until...

I yelped a little when her nails came a centimeter away from my cock, but she pulled her hand away at the last second, leaving me feeling stunned and excited by her touch yet again.

"Jesus, woman," I whispered. "Quit giving me mixed signals!"

She looked up at me with a gravely serious expression. "Stay professional, Michael."

The look on her face was solemn, but when I looked into her eyes I saw them dilate, and she sucked in a husky breath. Then she stepped back, putting her back against the wall where she couldn't reach me. I blinked in surprise.

What the fuck is going on?

"Hurry up," she told me. Was it just me, or did she sound a little short of breath? "We've got other things to do."

Trying desperately to take my mind off her, I looked up at the ceiling.

Visualize yourself becoming human,

I thought.

Visualize...

Right then it was hard to visualize anything besides clawing Nina's clothes off and cramming my cock up her wet, tight

—

my penis twitched, and I mentally kicked myself. Focus! I needed to focus! If I couldn't get my head where it needed to be, I'd be in the Divider before I'd been here a week. I had to do this. I had to do it for me, and for Travis. I had to learn. I had to pass. I had to

visualize myself becoming human!

Suddenly, a strange feeling washed over me. I gasped, and looked down at myself to see my fur shrinking into my skin. My muscles shrank too, back to their original size. My tail was growing shorter, pulling into my spine like some kind of telescope. My heels touched the floor as my paws turned back into feet, and I had to blink a couple times to reorient myself as my snout pushed its way back into my face. The whole thing took about ten seconds, but once it was done I gasped and almost fell backwards into the chair. I teetered a bit, but then a hand grabbed hold of my shoulder, helping me to find my balance. I shook my head a little, and then looked at the olive skinned beauty who... who's body was suddenly pressed against mine.

"That was intense," I said.

"Mmm, I bet it was," she murmured in reply, inching her head closer to mine.