Author's Note: Ninaein is from Ch 2, if you skipped over that one.
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Kaia had told Bubbles that she'd taken her clothes to be laundered. What the neko hadn't realised is that her succubus had cleaned up the whole damn attic, too. She'd been feeling like wearing her dice earrings that Jackie had made for her... But the entire room was empty. Not a single thing left behind.
The catgirl's mouth dropped into an angry frown as she thought about how the clingy woman was trying to force her to move in, and had stolen Bubbles' most prized possessions. She was going to... Actually, Bubbles didn't know what she was going to do.
Everything she could think of was just going to make the damn succubus excited. It was no fair that Bubbles wasn't able to punish her.
The only thing that Bubbles could see was the piece of sugarloaf that the baker tossed her way. Except, because she'd been gone, it looked like a rat or something had nibbled on it.
She knelt down next to it, poking at it and generally feeling sorry for herself.
She knew she was being a selfish brat. She had gone from a virgin street kitty who had to save weeks to get a decent fish, to a woman with multiple partners, and enough gold she could splurge every now and then. From nothing, to the comfortable life.
She had no reason at all to be acting so down. Even if her treasures had been moved, Kaia wouldn't have got rid of them. She loved her too much for that. They were probably just getting cleaned, or waiting for her in that big house in the middle of the city.
It had been a couple days since her date with Edric. She'd spent most of it lazing around the house, getting overfed by Kaia whenever she came home, and getting more than her fair share of tail as well.
Her tailor had promised to come around on the weekend, and she'd already planned what she wanted to do with him. However, that was a little ways off and she'd had enough of being lazy and spoiled.
Bubbles nodded to herself and stood up.
It was past time that she hit the arena.
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One copper piece could let you watch a couple of fighters duke it out, magic free. Three pieces was the minimum bet when trying to pick a winning side, with a payout of five. Not a bad way to earn some cash if you know who was rigged to win, decent way to lose if you didn't. And going big was a great way to end up knifed in an alley.
Two copper pieces was enough to get you into the training space beneath the arena, where Bubbles now found herself.
She'd dressed for the experience, a heavy cloth mask with a pouch of golden pothos strapped across her face. The heart-shaped leaves, streaked with yellow, her best bet at neutralising the stench of sweaty fighters and other people who just came to try and maintain fitness.
She'd kept her new dress. It was designed for free movement, after all. However, she'd swapped out her bra for something a bit tighter, with a bit less boning in it. That had only taken her a couple rounds of a rigged game of knucklebones on the street corner. Though, they had caught her, and she'd had to run.
Bubbles giggled at the memory, as she stepped into the back line of the group as the trainer for the day continued the routine.
The tauran woman clapped her hands in a beat, the tiny silver ring through her nose bouncing as she squatted, "And crush that skull between your thighs! Crush that skull between your thighs!"
Her blonde ponytail became a snake, flipping and dancing up and down as the neko easily joined in. The hardest part about it for Bubbles was keeping her balance, but the actual strength part, not so much. She spent her days running, after all.
"Sweat is magic! Cast those spells!" The tauran shouted enthusiastically, "Lets change it up! Pump some lightning! Do it with me, now!"
They shifted to stepping up and down off a small rock, pumping their fists in a rhythm-driven uppercut. Bubbles almost immediately twisted her ankle, but ignored the pain and kept it up. She'd paid good money for a decent workout, and that was what she was going to get.
"Charge and cast, charge and cast!" The woman shouted, as one of her other clients fell to the side, keeling over and groaning. A nearby gladiator buried his axe in his target, before walking over and dragging the exhausted newcomer out of the way so they wouldn't get trampled.
The stabbing pain lanced through her ankle, and the neko bit her lip as her eyes watered, but she continued all the same. She was not so weak that she always had to be saved by someone else. She wasn't going to be Kaia's damsel in distress. She refused.
On some level, Bubbles knew it wasn't being tough or clever to keep pushing. Her ankle was going to swell up, and she wouldn't be able to walk. However, she was neko. Healing from a little twisted ankle was just going to take a bit of a laze in the sunshine.
Another client collapsed. Tourist idiots who got overheated, not understanding the brutality of an arena workout. It wasn't just the pace or exercises that was hard. The entire place was boiling with the proximity of so many people pushing themselves to their limits. It was like sprinting around in a sauna.
The neko shoved the grass straw from her drink through the bottom of her mask, getting an ugly stink of sweaty taurans and humans. She gagged and barely managed to sip at her water, before locking her mask back down and pushing on it so she could take a decent whiff of her flowers.
"Nekos! Double-time!" The tauran yelled, pointing at Bubbles, and another woman a couple rows in front of her.
Bubbles rolled her eyes and tried to increase her pace. The other catgirl apparently wanted to show off. They flipped lightly onto their palms and continued the stepping motion, bobbing themselves up and down as they did it.
That one was wearing leather, so she might be an actual arena competitor. Or she was just insane. There was plenty of crazy floating around in the nekan bloodlines. Especially when it came to warriors.
She'd met a hooktooth, once. Just the once. She could remember how the asshole had snapped his fingers and sent a tauran flying across the dancefloor. As if that was going to result in anything but a beserker rage. Especially when both of them were drunk.
Of course, being drunk, there was only one way it ended. Tauran women saw picking a fight and flirting as the same thing. And there was no bouncer in the world willing to interrupt a tauran woman whilst she was rutting.
"Blondie, you call that picking up the pace?" The trainer yelled as another human collapsed.
Bubbles held up both her rude fingers, and kept to her chosen pace. She might be little more than a kitten at times, but her ankle hurt, and she wasn't going to be a little bitch for someone she was paying. Maybe if the coins were swapping hands the other way.
