The Future Will Change

About an hour later…

Diamond Tiara got a text from Keiji.

“Hm?” she immediately picked up the phone and looked at the message.

‘Staying at Rumble’s place. He picked me up. Sorry!’

“Ugh!” Tiara rolled her eyes upon seeing the message and sighed, “Could’ve at least told me that sooner ya dick…”

Silver Spoon looked over and noticed the message. “Ah. Well at least we know he’s with someone he knows. Don’t worry, I think he’ll be fine.”

But Tiara wasn’t exactly convinced that he’d be ‘fine’ given the amount of recent attacks lately. But given how late it already was, she figured it was no use to complain about it now. “Blech…whatever. He better have a good explanation for this.”

“Come on, he’s probably hanging with his friend because they got a new game or something. You know how guys are,” Spoon tried to reason with her in order to calm her down.

It worked for the moment. Tiara got up from the dinner table and walked upstairs. “Fine…I’m gonna go shower. Let me know if he says anything else.”

“Will do.”

Oh little did they know…

“Rrrgh…” Keiji huffed and squirmed within the handcuffs he had been locked into while sitting in the back seat of the convertible that Argos drove with his crew. “Damn you…holy water-infused handcuffs and bullets? How the hell did you know about all that??” he asked in reference to his weaknesses as a vampire.

Next to him in the back seat, the cat mutant was scrolling through Keiji’s phone with her paw-fingers and a malicious cat-grin on her face and one of her fangs poking over her bottom lip. She had sent a fake text message pretending to be him. “Hmhm….don’t underestimate the power of a genius hacker. I know everything about you, vamp-boy," she muttered as she tossed his phone down to the bottom of the car's seat.

“Grrgh…but why me of all things?” Keiji protested, “I’m a nobody, you know that? Killing me won’t solve shit. Who even are you, anyway?”

“Like, duh,” she mewled with a small flick of her ears, “I know that killing you won’t solve anything. Who do you think I am?” She reached over and pinched his cheek, “And to answer your question: You can call me Chati.”

“Mmmph…” Keiji hissed at the touch and tried to bite down on her finger with his shark-like teeth. Chati pulled her it away at the last second and giggled into her hand.

“Mewhehe…” Her expression then turned somber as her voice lost the playful tone she had. “...I’m just like you, ya know. I’m from that world too. I was an Abyssinian that was placed here against my will after the war ended. When I got here, everyone treated me like garbage. Freaking out as soon as they saw the cat-lady with paws for hands…”

Keiji thought back to when he had first arrived here and how difficult it was for him to make friends until he met Diamond Tiara… “...okay, I get it, but--”

“Oh. Do you?” Chati raised an eyebrow. “Some random vampire batpony just so happens to land here. Then just so happens to cross paths with the heir to one of the richest families in the nation.”

“...I…”

Chati’s expression grew more intense as she bared her fangs with her tail frizzing up. “Then he just so happens to shack up with another one of the heirs to the richest families in the nation. Oh yeah! You had it so hard. Didn’t you?! Huh, playboy?! Go on! Tell me how hard you have it fucking some rich guy's daughters! GO ON! TRY ME!”

“...” Keiji couldn’t say anything at first. Ultimately, she had a point. His life, at least now, was rather cushy compared to how things were before he got here. “...okay, look. While that may be true, I suffered through hell to get here.”

“Yeah well that doesn’t matter now, does it? Look at me. I’ve been punched, kicked, spat on, had my tail and ears pulled, and touched in so many places by weirdos that it’d make your head spin…” she went on as she held her face in her paws, “...lost my home, couldn’t find work, and was ultimately forced to live on trash. So yeah, I’m looking for revenge on the rich assholes who never bothered to help me. Starting with you.”

“...but…you’re--this is a bad idea. You say the humans here hate you yet you’re buddying up with them just to get what you want?” he asked in reference to Argos who was at the wheel. “...isn’t that a bit hypocritical?”

Chati folded her arms beneath her chest and sighed. “...Don’t you think I know that? I’m doing this for me. Not for them. Besides…I’ve…well you don’t need to worry about what else I’ve got planned. Just know that you’re my stepping stone to get what I want.”

There were far too many layers to Chati’s mentality that Keiji couldn’t exactly pick apart at the moment. The holy water-soaked cuffs had already burned into his wrists and sealed off his power, preventing him from fighting back. All he could do for the moment was try to negotiate.

“Listen…I don’t know all of the details of your presumably fucked-up backstory or anything,” he commented, noting that she had to be doing this for a reason greater than what she had described thus far, “But this ain’t it chief. There’s gotta be a way we can work this out, come on. I don’t even know you.”

“Oh. You mean to tell me you can single-handedly change the public’s opinion on our kind?” she hissed with an expression of disbelief, “Yeah, right. All you’re worried about is how much money you have and how many girls you can get with. You’re all the same…you’re one of those dirty corpos now…”

“No. You don’t know Tiara and Spoon’s families. They aren’t what--HRRK!”

Chati wrapped her tail around Keiji’s neck and tightened her grip to choke him. “Shut up, you…I don’t need some corporate dog telling me what to think. I’m gonna put you in your place, dammit!”

“We’re here,” Argos commented as they arrived at an empty, abandoned motel building, “Do what you want with him until we secure the ransom.”

“Mwhehehe…” the feline gal shot a predatory glance in Keiji’s direction--the latter unable to breath from the tail constricting him. “How much holy water will it take for me to see bone, I wonder~?”