Catherine left the thief back at the pipe, leaving her to hide as she slid along the concrete walls to get closer to the voices. She sidled up directly under the platform and peered over it, extending a thin tentacle so she could see. What greeted her were four people, three in metal armored suits, much like the ones the soldiers on the first ship wore, and a man in a white lab coat.

The man in the lab coat looked human, till she noticed he had blue scales around his neck and the sharp teeth. The others Catherine could only assume were at least male, judging by the voices coming from the suits. The coated man was inspecting the prison transport discs, several laying deactivated against a wall a few meters away from him, while inspecting the newest arrival as it floated at a level below him.

“What, this makes ten?” one of the armored men said, the tallest out of the three.

“Yeah, all from the same block.” The second spoke, the only thing Catherine found of note to differentiate this one from the others was a thin red tail poking out from the backside of their armor.

“Same block?” The first man asked, and in order to reaffirm something he looked over to the pile of deactivated machines “Some one get loose we didn’t know about? Which block was it?”

The third one, the smallest of the group, pulled out a tablet from a latched pocket in the back of his suit and started navigating the display “Block H, no one in there should have been able to snap a lock on their own.”

“Well someone clearly has.” The lab coat guy said, slamming his open palm on the top of the machine “And they are having a nice lunch in there.”

“What makes you say that?” The first guy said.

“these holding cells are designed so if their prisoner dies in containment, they are to drop their cargo into the void, and the automated system destroys the corpse.” Professor lab coat replied, kicking one of the deactivated holding cell “The first out of place one we got back shows that someone tried to free the prisoner but wound up killing them in the process, causing the cargo to drop. Who ever did this learned from that, cause the second one we got back had it’s insides attacked directly, causing it to release the prisoner.”

The third one looked up from their tablet “Wait, they learned how to release the clasps after two tries?”

Professor lab coat shook his head “No, I highly doubt some random dumb prisoner managed that. This is just what I am guessing based on the machines that were operational enough to get back, what was the time frame between the first and second anomaly?”

After searching a bit on their tablet the man spoke “three hours.”

“Hrm, and we had to recall them to this staging area once management noticed the anomaly was repeating.” The tail man said.

“There are also complaints that orders from several cells are unresponsive from that block.” The first added.

Professor lab coat shrugged “One anomaly is fine, some waste of space getting lucky, unlocking his chains and managing not to fall and break his neck landing on something. But this sequence of events and lack of corpses means one of two things. A prison break or some dumbass didn’t send a beast to it’s proper cage.” He walked back over to the still operational holding cell, a holographic screen appearing in front of him and with a few simple presses the machine flew over to the pile and deactivated itself.

The large man chuckled. “Either way is fine with me, always fun shooting fish in a barrel.”

Shorty hit a button on his tablet, a gate opening at the back of the platform. A floating 3-meter-wide metal board flew out of the gate, stopping just in front of him. “Let’s get this over with then.” The man said, stepping onto the board. He reached down, opening up a compartment on the board and lifting out some sort of rifle. The two remaining armored men got on with him, taking out their own guns from separate compartments.

“We will contact management once we are done with the investigation, you staying here?” The second one, cat tail, asked.

Professor lab coat shook his head “I’ll be submitting what I found so far, don’t get too cocky in there.”

The three just laughed, then waved him off as they flew down the passageway and out of sight.

Catherine waited till professor lab coat exited the staging area, as they put it, before sighing. “maybe calling him cat tail will cause a bit of confusion, oh well not like I’m ever going to see him again, or recognize him if I do.” She shrugged, not putting too much thought into it she made her way back to Nyoka “sup, coast is clear on my end, how’s it hanging up there?” She asked, looking up to a firmly stuck in place thief, glued to the pipe with her slime.

Nyoka frowned “Not funny…” She huffed, unable to move even the slightest bit “Can you let me down now? Since no one is around… I can walk on my own you know.”

Catherine reformed the top half of her elven body, crossing her shoulders and tilting her head she gave a deep, thoughtful “hmm, depends.” She looked up, a smirk on her face “do you know a way out of here? I doubt we can use the doors on that staging area.”

Nyoka struggled, but then gave up. “We can probably follow the machines, they have to exit some where and if we can get to the guts we can make it to just about anywhere.”

At Nyoka’s words Catherine looked down the passageway, noting it still continued on past the platform “the guts?”

“Yeah, the guts. It’s a nickname for the inner transport system the ship uses. Its basically a super highway reserved for transporting materials across the ship without having to deal with civilian traffic. It connects to almost every major area on the ship.”

“oh? So if I used that to sneak around, I could go anywhere?” she asked, a deathly grin appearing on her face at the idea of not having to drag this cat around with her.

Nyoka paled, fully understanding what that look meant “N-not everywhere! Even if you got to, say, the dungeon district the guts would only take you to the loading bay of that area! To gain access to any dungeon you’d still need an adventurers ID or special clearance!”

Catherine clicked her tongue “Doubt it, but fine.” She snapped her fingers and Nyoka slowly drooped down to the pipe covered floor, then the slime that was used to hold Nyoka in place scooted over and rejoined with the main body. “We will go with that then.” She watched Nyoka silently get up, brushing off her rags “How would one get an adventures ID?” she asked, motioning for the cat to follow as she started heading down the passageway, following the containment cells.

“Well, usually you’d just sign up… but with me being a fugitive and you being…dead? I don’t think that would work.”

Catherine smirked, reforming her whole elven body and waving a finger in the air ‘Oh sure, this appearance is dead but I could always use a different one, for example.” She shapeshifted, shrinking down to slightly above Nyoka’s height, her body shifting to the form of a human girl with white hair and small frame, then mimicked a pose she remembered this body doing “This could work or,” She then shapeshifted again, gaining height and taking on the appearance of a young male human.

“This could also do but I’d prefer being female.” She, or now, he, said.

Nyoka blinked, shed seen the slime shapeshift before but not as other, humanoid creatures. “Uhm, why the preference? I didn’t know slimes had gender.”

Catherine shrugged “just doesn’t feel right, like something is silently screaming in the back of my head.” She then shifted again, taking on her default elven Catherine look “plus, people tend to attack faster if I’m male for some reason.”

Nyoka didn’t know about that but wasn’t worth putting too much thought into it “Well you can’t be seen like that, it’s bad enough I can’t disguise myself but at least people from my race have a lot of siblings, most of them twins.” She then puffed up her chest and said with pride “I myself have 12 different sisters.”

Catherine looked back at her and raised an eyebrow “…ok? Your point?” she asked.

“My point is, its not going to be weird for someone to look like I do, I can just claim to be one of my relatives.” She huffed.

Catherine stopped walking and smirked “Hrm, good point, that is awfully convenient.”

“Yup, still need to get a counterfeit ID but I think we can… go…under…catherine? W-why are you looking at me like that?” Nyoka stopped, her face paling as she noticed the look Catherine was giving her, the same look she had always looked at her with when she was about to kill her. She recognized it from the first time they met, where if it hadn’t been for Lucy she would of eaten her. And she recognized it from just moments ago. She shivered, taking a step back “Catherine, I… I thought we had a deal.”

Catherine chuckled, taking a step towards her to match her step back “Yes, we did have a deal, but you just offered up some mighty, juicy information.”

Nyoka took another step back “W-wait! You still need to know how to get a counterfeit ID! I know where we might be able to find one!”

Catherine matched her step “Oh yes, there is that… do me a favor and keep thinking that bit of information please.” She smiled, her whole body going translucent as it expanded.

Nyoka’s eyes went wide, this was it, this was the moment this twisted slime finally ate her. In her panic she turned to run, tripping and falling to the ground. She looked back, seeing a slimy white tentacle wrapping around her leg and another quickly moving up her body. “N-no stop! W-we had a deal! We had a- Hmpf!” Nyoka soon found a slimy tentacle shoved into her mouth, silencing her.

“Yes, and remember that deal? As long as I find you useful, I let you live. And as you said, it wouldn’t be strange for someone to look like you so, thank you for being so useful.” Catherine chuckled, her body expanding over Nyoka, swallowing her whole.

Nyoka struggled, she could feel the slime invade every corner of her body, wrapping around her, squeezing her, even invading her most private of places. All she could do was let out muffled screams and wait for the sizzling sensation of her being dissolved, consumed by the slime.

…

…

…

But it never came…

instead she was spat out. Harshly hitting the ground away from the slime she shot up, touching every part of her body to make sure it was all there. Wrapping her arms around herself she began to silently cry tears of joy and relief.

“Jeez, you are just too easy to tease.”

Nyoka heard Catherine, teasing? She calls that teasing?! Anger swelled within her, she was tired of having her life being treated as a plaything, to be held by someone who treats her life like some kind of joke. She stood up, turning to Catherine and was about to yell at her but what she saw caused her voice got caught in her throat.

“Like it? Never done anything like it before so I had to make sure I got the dimensions right.” Catherine said, doing a little spin.

Nyoka blinked, the anger washing away as she was left, stuck in disbelief at what she was seeing. Infront of her was a perfect copy, albeit, minus the white hair, of herself. Catherine had copied her form, right down to the hidden mole right above the base of her tail. “Wha…why?!”

Catherine smirked, her new cat ears twitching and her tail swaying behind her “You said it yourself” She said, a layer of rags to mimic Nyoka’s current dress formed over Catherine “No one would question someone looking like you.”

Nyoka’s felt strength from her legs leave her, and she slumped to the ground, landing on her knees. She was speechless, stuck in disbelief.

Catherine chuckled, bringing a finger to her mouth where she gently tapped one of her new fangs “now there is the question of my name… should I just go with Cat?”

“No… just… no…” Nyoka managed to say, before she went limp, all tension released from