Chapter 3 A cat ran up a tree.

#1. What is the story you want to tell? ( I want to tell a story about a cat who ran up a tree and is a secret agent. )

#2. Why did the story start out this way? ( The agent's past led him to a secret, now it's the future, and he's on a mission to deliver a cure to someone special. )

#3. How will the story progress from there? ( The agent will escape in some sort of way, but then get hurt, probably a head injury. )

#4. Know your ending before getting too far in. ( The agent starts from the very beginning. )

#5. What about the world? ( Normal/Magical, Kinda like Harry Potter where normies don't know about magic. )

#6. Things to avoid talking about. ( Political viewpoint, extreme cases of violence, extreme cases of drug use, and explicit content. )

#7. Expand on why you can't talk about these? Use reasoning, and make exceptions if needed. ( For this world, Drug use, and violence are going to be the main theme, and the topics will be quite dark, however avoiding dismemberment, rape, and in my opinion, extreme use cases should be avoided, but not discouraged. )

#8. Who is your targeted audience? ( Late Teens, Adults )

#9. How many people do you want to keep track of at any one point in time? ( 1-5 any more will be challenging, maybe using them as background guards, or crowds where some of the excess members can blend in. )

#10. Target word count for the chapter/short story. ( In this case, as it's a short story I would like around 1,500 words maybe more. ) minus the 10 rules.

Before we start the chapter "punctuation means it's spoken out loud", ( punctuation means its a thought bubble), *punctuation means its an action of some sort*, ~~~punctuation means a scene transition/flashback~~~, and no punctuation at all would be a narration.

~~~ Start of story ~~~

"Mission log number 8596, code name Blue Goo. Has been assigned to agent 24978, code name Street Cat has filed the report." Said a man in an all-black military suit with no distinguishable features, except for a crest that shows DaVinci's Human, with a lycanthrope-like animal.

"The report states that..."

~~~ Flash back ~~~

"All right is there any other information I need to know about this mission before I start?" Asked Street Cat.

"The information reported may be out of date, the records we received for this mission state that the security was overhauled roughly one year ago, and the information we have on file is roughly seven to eight years old, proceed with caution." Said agent 98734

"All right" Said Street Cat as he got up and saluted, before leaving the building.

*Sigh* ( The world has never been the same since magic ran rampant throughout our world. I can't believe it's been 20 years since 2019. What was it originally called again? Covid? Meh, who cares. As long as the normies don't realize that magic is real everything is fine. Can't believe the things in Hary Potter were real though. A whole realm of magic was just out in the open and no one noticed. )

*opens the file*

(Let's see what we have here, this file states that the facility in question is using magic to gather and suppress the magic in the surroundings to create a miracle drug, called the Blue Goo? Really, Blue Goo, that's so not original... Anyways they have a coverup as a normal science lab, with strict surveillance. With the overhaul of the security though it would be safer to use this as a reference than scoping it out myself. Then the dropoff point is for the Blue Goo for a mage suffering from magic withdrawal??? Won't that kill him though? Not my job to question, lets go scope out the place. )

*flash* Street Cat's, body slowly vanished from the corridor.

~~~ 3 hours later ~~~

On the edge of a building, a cat sat slowly swinging its tail.

( So that's why it was called Blue Goo. )

Within Street Cats' vision, the building appeared to be surrounded by a viscous blue liquid consisting of pure magic.

( The report said nothing about this, if I get too close it could lead to a mana eruption... Hmm... How should I go about this? )

*swoosh, swoosh, tilts his head*

"Look at how cute that cat is!" said some child while pointing at Street Cat on the roof.

"What cat honey?"

( Oh, a young mage, I'm surprised the mother can't see me though, it's probably the dad whos magical then. I should report this, and grab some equipment... Wait, how is she not dead yet then, she's clearly within the condensed magic. )

*Lifts paw and slowly touches the condensed mana.*

The sound of sizzling rings out.

"MEOW!!!"

The noise scared the little girl.

~~~ Down a back alley. ~~~

" F*ck, f*ck, f*ck my hand. "

*Grabbing his wrist and applying some red liquid to it, the flesh that was melting off, it stopped, and slowly went back to the way it originally was.*

*grumbles* ( That one little mistake just cost me ten grand... So I need a mana barrier and I should definitely put a tracker on that child. )

~~~ Some shop in the association ~~~

"I'll take that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, some of those, 300 magical rounds, one health potion, and let's see, hmm, do you have a mag..."

"STOP, STOP, STOP IM ONLY ONE MAN! So you needed, the reinforced magical leather, these three blank scrolls, sealing low-grade scroll, sealing mid-grade scroll, sealing high-grade scroll, a high-grade tracker pendant. 300 magical round, a health potion. Ok, what else?"

"Do you have a magic absorption ring of great quality"

"... Let me check your clearance level."

* Street cat hands over the temporary card he got for the mission. *

"Hmm, the foundation is funding this, is great quality gonna be enough for your mission? We have a perfect tear, but I would have to phone it in for permission."

"Phone it in, and I'll take as many as I can get, if they say that it's too much, tell them that the area of influence, gets denser the closer I am to the target. Just the outer area, already melts flesh."

*The clerk paused for a moment, then left the counter.*

mumbling in the background

( Thank god the foundation is footing the bill, I'd be on the street if I had to pay for all this. )

*Street Cat proceeds to wander the store for anything else he needs.*

The clerk came back with a wide smile on his face

"Street Cat, you got permission to grab three S tear items, and they said if you can finish the mission within 24 hours you can choose any 1 S tear item to keep."

/O_O\

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

:o

"LETS GOOOOOOO!!!!! I'll take the cloak, luck chain, and the lock-picking kit."

"Which lock-picking kit do you want?"

"The universal one, with a 50% chain to fail, with the luck chain is guaranteed to work on the first try."

"And what S-tear item do you want if you can pull this mission off in time."

"You know the one I want."

"No."

"They said any item."

"The answer is still no, chose something else."

"Fine, reserve me a lightning shot."

"No."

"Why not? They said any one item, you denied my original offer now, this, what gives."

"Fine, I'll get you THAT item, just stop trying to kill yourself, by absorbing too many powers."

~~~ Back at the Facility. ~~~

Atop a building, the Street cat takes, off one of his gloves and puts a ring on his finger.

(Let's see if this works.)

The street cat reaches out his hand and touches the condensed magic, and nothing happens. Slowly he moves forward, and still nothing.

"Thank god, let's just place everything on and hope it's enough to reach the core."

With everything on, his body started to shrink, and sounds of bones cracking, and breaking sounded out across the roof. Where Street cat once stood, was now a small black cat wearing a black robe, with ten rings on its tail, a small backpack, and the most adorable cat shoes ever.

Quickly making his way down the building, the cat rushes into the condensed mana. Without any hesitation, he makes his way into the building and finds someone taking an elevator down.

( Odd it's going smoothly. I haven't even run into security yet. )

As the elevator hits the bottom floor his movements get a bit sluggish. Then the elevator doors open, and he just freezes.

The magic in the air is so dense walking is no longer an option, even the researcher who came in the elevator with him swam out.

( This might be touchy. )

Navigating through the underground passage proved to be quite difficult, however as he traveled closer and closer to the magic, the pressure started to lessen, back to normal.

Peaking his head around a corner, he saw what he was looking for, however, the door was tightly guarded.

(Hmm... how should I go about this? Smash and grab, a delayed trap, or sneaky, sneaky.)

3 minutes later

(Let's go with a delayed trap, I believe I saw something in one of the other rooms that can help me.)

Without wasting much time he headed back the way he came and entered one of the side doors, and started to make a timed explosive with the tools in this arsenal.

With that, I will end this chapter here and we will talk about it in the next chapter.