Sidestory 2: Singing In The Rain

---Taken from the interview in Apr 299 "Pet Fancy"

I was seven when my parents bought her.

I know: what was a seven year old boy supposed to do with a pokegirl? Well,
I'd been sickly for years with lung problems, no friends, and we moved
around a lot in those days. Father was a specialist in fire-retardant
technology (ie: fire detectors, non-water based "sprinkler" systems, and the
like) and moved around quite a bit as work was available.

Some kids were into sports like the League events and rooting for this or
that Tamer in those arena based pokegirl battles. Some kids were into
racing, the *human* dominated sports where a human and some type of machine
competed against similar opponents. I wasn't.

Like a lot of people, geneology figured into my interests a little. Like

most people, I had a pokegirl in my ancestry - my grandmother on my father's
side was a Kitten.

Most people don't get tested, but with my health being poor I was tested at
age five by a Nurse Joy. I had the signs of two Blood Gifts and a Blood
Curse. My Blood Gifts were psychic in nature, some nebulous form of the
esper gifts. Not even the Espea at the center could determine what the gift
was other than it was minor and still dormant. This might have suggested my
future career would be a Tamer, but the Blood Curse dashed that. Frail
Constitution. Which was why I had actually been taken to the center in the
first place. I would always get ill easily and tire quickly. With work I
could buid myself up to nearly human-normal levels, but I'd never be able to
develop the levels of stamina that a Tamer required.

Naturally, once the results got out there was a great deal of teasing, which
further distanced me from my peer group.

So my parents, not sure what else to do with me, got me a pokegirl "pet".
Their reasoning at the time was that this way they wouldn't be leaving me
alone and I'd have a sort-of friend.

As you know, the League discourages having a pokegirl pet. If one *must*
take a pokegirl as a pet, there are certain acceptable breeds: those who
have proven themselves loyal even under extreme conditions such as occurred
during Lao's Rebellion. There are also some breeds that just do not take
well to having *pet* as an occupation, Amazon-chan and Elf for example.

My parents took me to the local Breeder's ranch, and at the time I had had
no idea *why*. They left me alone for a time while they spoke with the
Breeder, and I was left to my own devices.

While much of childhood was a blur, I still remember bits of that day.
Teenage and adult pokegirls would look on me with wonder and delight,
children - particularly human children having that effect on them. I was
uncomfortable with the attention, of course. I was used to being excluded
from any groups at school and having no friends.

Then *she* found me.

I know, you expected me to find her. Tamers usually select their pokegirls,
but then I've never claimed to be a Tamer. It was definitely the other way
around. I was fidgeting a lot when I felt a soft hand touch my shoulder.

She was gorgeous even in a ragged-hem orange sundress. Oh, she was obviously
a pokegirl even at age seven. Long delicate ears jutting out from either
side of her head, tail nervously twitching behind her. Her hair, a blonde
mane, was in disarray. And her first words to me weren't special, just an
invitation to play and the cards in one hand indicated what the game was.

Then *it* happened. It rarely does, but it is said that the first Tamer had
it happen to him. When it happens to a Tamer it is considered the worst
thing that can happen to him or her, effectively ending the Tamer's career.

It was an almost physical click as we stared into each other's eyes. This
little blue-eyed Kitten looking back in confusion as she felt it too, as if
we were two parts of a puzzle that had just fitted perfectly together. The
old term was based off of something in a pre-Sukebe popular story:
Recognition. As if two people recognized that they had just met someone who
completed their soul.

Her name was Mineko, named after a character in that pre-Sukebe manga that
had been recovered and reprinted back in my parent's days. Her ears went
briefly flat at some of the whispers around us, then sniffed me up and down
and declared we'd be friends forever. Son of a snorlass if she wasn't right.

We played Old PokeMaid while waiting for my parents. They came out, saw us
together while ringed by various older girls. The Breeder explained that
pokegirls, even domesticated and the more intelligent ones, tended to act on
instinct. The others were there to protect the young couple.

My parents purchased Mineko and some things to take care of her. Grooming
equipment, medical supplies, a book on Kittens and their care, and a set of
equipment for when she got a little older.

I read the book. I knew its importance though much of it went straight over
my head at the time.

That began a golden time for me. Mineko was bright and vivacious, clumsy as
her namesake in some things, but her cheery nature and overwhelming
cuddliness made up for a lot.

There were events that stood out. The time she followed me to school and
snuck into class. It wasn't until she fell asleep and snoring that she was
found out, and that was two hours into class. Boy, did *I* get chewed out.

Though it worked out in an odd way. Mineko had been allowed to stay the rest
of the class, and at one point the teacher asked a question. Mineko
answered, correctly I might add.

The teacher had later come clean that his idea had been of having Mineko as
an example. Here was this dumb animal but she provided the incentive for
everyone to do better than her. Mineko picked up the praise part and that
she would be allowed in class, and so was happy.

Mineko slept a lot, enjoyed PE, and generally tried to be the class
cheerleader. It wasn't until the last class of the day that she changed
everyone's opinion of the "dumb animal."

I stunk at Music. Always have, always will. Everyone laughed at my attempts

to sing the school song, but I've never claimed to be a singer either.
Everyone else got through it, some nearly as bad as me. Then after the last
kid had gotten done, Mineko scampered up to the podium to give it a try. I'd
planned on waiting until we got home and then trying to explain to her how
they were making fun of her behind her back and she shouldn't come again.
When she started singing everything changed.

She did the school song. Perfectly, with all the little range changes and
stops intact. And, well, you know what her voice is like and its range.
Mineko left everyone in awe as she sang for the first time and did it so
well that even those who had referred to her as a "mangy little fleabag"
were staring in wide wonder by the time she got to the end.

Our teacher, Mister Jonz, was very into music. He heard her voice and gave
her another piece of sheet music, and groaned when it was obvious she
couldn't read it. I read it to her, and used the piano to give her the
melody. After hearing it once, she had it.

Mineko's first concert, and her first experience with applause. She ate it
up like it was the finest tuna. Mineko was invited back to school, and this
time there was not any hidden agenda or desire to ridicule her. Her
performance on tests, yes. She was far more accepted than I was and a few
guys tried to convince her that she'd be much better off with them.

We went through school for a couple of years like that, with Mineko sort of
being the unofficial class mascot. She couldn't officially play any sports
with human girls, but loved practice. Especially volleyball for some reason.
She'd occasionally embarass me by getting sleepy and curling up asleep on my
desk or under it, but a lot of times she'd really try to understand this
'school' stuff.

There were also a couple of bad times. When we studied Sukebe's War and
Lao's Rebellion she'd look at the pictures and get a bad case of the
sniffles, or she'd try to hide in my shirt. (It was amazing how much of her
she could get to fit.) It got so that on those days I'd have a little
warning and arrange for her to stay home. Once the connection was explained
she didn't have a lot of trouble with this.

Our family was going through some tough times on my eighth birthday, and I'd
gotten a little money for a birthday present. Not much, but I was also
working part time as a bicycle courier in town for the printers. Instead of
getting a videogame, what I got was a silk ribbon that I gave Mineko to tie
her hair back with.

I know she's taken the ribbon off since then to wash it, but she almost
*always* has that ribbon with her.

It took a lot longer to get the other thing I'd been putting money down on.
Collars are not cheap. When I showed her the collar in the store she nodded
and looked at it. When I told her that I had been saving for a year to get
it for her, well, at first I thought I'd somehow insulted her. She just went
absolutely still.

After that, she practically grafted herself on to me and accidently bit me

she was so excited.

For several days after that she was strutting around and baring her neck to
show off that collar.

We had briefly gone into the city, mainly I wanted to check on the
possibility of an ident-chip, when she stopped strutting. She'd been on the
leash, not wanting to get seperated, when she sniffed the air and pulled me
into a building. Curiosity almost killed the Kitten. We got our first look
at the brutal world of Underground Fights. We got out as soon as we could,
but Mineko slept a little less peacefully after that, and we went back to
sleeping together. No, not like that, we still weren't that old.

When we were both eleven things began to change again. Mineko had been
banned from school. A new administrator had insisted on following little
rules like that. So I brought stuff home for Mineko so she could still learn
and practice music. I got her an old six string guitar and that helped take
her mind off the fact that she couldn't come with me to school any more.

A few months later, an uncle of mine sent us a note about a little girl
who'd recently gone through some hard times. She'd been a student at an
elite school and she'd started going through Threshold. Of course they'd
disbarred her immediately and she had no place to go.

As she was showing signs of being a Kitten, and everyone in the family knew
about Mineko being in school until recently (and actually passing her
courses though by a whisker), our house was elected for her to come to terms
with the change until a Breeder or Lab could accept her. It would also be
some company for Mineko.

Well, you know the story.

Her name was Ami, short for Amiedra. She was quiet and depressed. All she
had known was school and now she was banned. Pokegirls weren't typically
allowed in academic institutions. She could go to a *pokegirl* school and be
taught to become a pokegirl nurse, and that was what she was currently
planning.

Mineko of course exudes friendliness. She became Ami's friend within the
first half hour.

I was picking out a collar for Ami a month later and had my second pokegirl.
Even though we weren't old enough for Taming or anything we were all
friends. It was just safer to register her as my pokegirl. Unusual to have
one pet, let alone two.

Because I'd always been in the country or suburbs while we moved around, I
didn't understand what it was like in the cities. Ami had been in the one
city all her life and the relationship between Mineko and Ami was a little
"city cat/country cat" between the two. In the city: they didn't usually
have pets, there were lots of thieves, and pokegirls were *not* people. At
least to the majority of city dwellers. In the suburbs there were pets.
However we were in the country at that time, and the little towns tended to
be a bit more openminded. Pokegirls were used on the farms all the time:
when the harvest comes around you don't care too much that an extra pair of
hands happens to have fur on 'em.

Hmmm? Oh, the principal? Well, you run into his sort every so often. They
talk about hidden agendas and pokegirl conspiracies and hidden bases and
plots of genocide against the human race. I'm not one to knock other
people's beliefs, but if there *were* a pokegirl conspiracy and hidden
cities and the like, don't you think the League would step in? Besides, I've
always played straight with my 'girls and they've always been straight with
me.
Anyway, I continued to bring home schoolwork for the two kitties and the
music teacher got permission somehow for Ami and Mineko to use the music
room after regular school hours. Ami spent most of her time at the keyboard
of a computer, but quickly learned the principal *did* check up every so
often and so found herself at another keyboard just to cover for her
presence.

It wasn't too long before Ami's early Threshold turned out to have a nasty
little cause. It had been considered strange by all concerned that she went
through Threshold before hitting puberty since it's always a year or two
after puberty that Threshold hit.

I'd left for school, my father was out on a job, my mother was called off to
help watch some kids at a neighbor's house. It wasn't a Team Rocket type of
group. The attack was brutal but efficient. Neither Mineko or Ami were
really combat trained, the closest was Mineko's volleyball and Ami's time
learning rhythmic gymnastics. The only thing they had going for them was
their collars, which kept them from being captured in pokeballs. By the time
my mother found out that the neighbor's kids were OK and that nobody there
had called her, the thieves had already broken in and were trying to catch
the two with shock prods.

I still don't remember the whole thing. I was just suddenly aware that
Mineko and Ami were scared and in pain. I ran out of class and all the way
home, I guess. Don't remember. I *do* remember feeling the panic die out
suddenly and seeing some really big guys carrying two limp bodies out. Then
I don't remember anything more for awhile.

Yup. Those latent psychic abilities. The Blood Gift of Boost. Neither I nor
either of them remember it. That's just as well actually. Mineko is a
friendly person, Ami is shy and gentle. Remembering the bloodbath would have
been extremely bad. As it was, the two ended up crawling into bed with me
for several nights thereafter. It took several nights before Makoto or M'rei
started joining in.

Oh yeah, these thieves hadn't come empty handed. What was left of their car
was searched and turned up two pokeballs and two other girls who had been
forced through Threshold prior to puberty. Which pointed out to the local
researcher, a Doctor Deviance, that it had to have been artificially
induced.

Nothing else much happened for some time. Until puberty finally hit. What a
mess *that* was.

Mineko hit it first. Though their breed doesn't officially change, it's sort
of a slow-motion evolution. Usual with Kittens, it was her nails that were
the first thing you noticed changing. Instead of human style nails, they
got thicker and narrower, longer and sharper, and had that orange tint
coming in stronger. Over the space of three months, she got moody, taller,
slightly more curvy, and even more moody. Ami was next, then Makoto and then
M'rei.

It was rough going. Not so much for my folks, but I was suddenly hit with
all four of them alternately wanting to slap me around or cuddle with me or
just run around the house screaming in frustration. They spent a lot of time
practicing their music and getting cold showers.

When it all finally hit the fan, the Doc took me aside and explained what
was going on. And what I had to do.
Nervous? You bet your sweet bippie! These were two friends and two
acquaintances that were getting more towards friend status all the time. I
knew the basics of course but a scared barely fourteen year old boy was
about to do *that* and possibly lose up to four friends. Though if I didn't,
then I would *definitely* have lost four friends.

Mineko, of course, was first. After we'd discovered that her nails *had*
made the change to the more functional claws of a Kitten, and I'd recovered
from the blood loss and Ami had packed the wounds, we got down to the
Taming.

After that, and treatment for dehydration and exhaustion, we began working
on the rock group. "Mineko and the Pussycats."

We weren't an overnight sensation by any means. It took over two years of

working clubs before we got to be more than a novelty act. Then we got to do
the opener for Baka Street Boys. People started noticing us, and we put out
that first song that started getting decent attention: "Tamer's Blues". We'd
stayed away from the whole angle of Tamers and the League to begin with, but
that was our first hit.

After that, another six months before we got a decent break with "Archeon's
Lament" and we followed it with the still-popular "We Gotta Rock." That one
was joined by "Everyone's Looking For Someone" and you know how darn well
*that* sold.

There's been a couple of groups that have followed us, notably Jem & The
Holograms and their rivals the Misfits, but ours was the first pokegirl rock
group unless you count the ones that still do novelty acts at carnivals.

We added, as you covered in that article last year, Sakura, Maya, Hotaru,
Setsuna, and Honey. Nice article, by the way. It cut down on the questions
as to why we were still "and the Pussycats" when we had just added a
Fighting, a couple of Normals, a Magic, and a whatever-you-classify Honey
as. Virtual? Whatever. Honey is Honey. Heck, if *that* were a consideration
you should see some of our roadies.

We're still quite popular, and if it weren't for the success of our newest:
"Train Of Thought" we likely wouldn't be having this interview. Following
that Team Rocket attack on our concert, and Makoto and Mineko putting the
two in the hospital, we're taking a sabbatical right now.

We *have* managed to change perceptions a bit, though some still regard us

as just a lucky fluke for a novelty act. The girls have proven that keeping
them in their old tired roles is not necessary or even a good thing. A
Kitten is a lot more than a walking purring sextoy and that pokegirl battles
isn't necessary for them to develop.

Of course, from what I've heard of this Ranma Saotome fellow, if we've begun
changing perceptions then he's just bloody well kicking the legs out of the
conventional wisdom. To which I say: good for him!

On to the business end of things, I suppose.

We've got the Heroic Legends disc coming out in a month, which will have
"Train Of Thought" as well as the girls' individual "theme" songs.

Oh and no, I have no idea why they keep trying to get me to wear a tuxedo.
==========

Mamoru Tengoku was the manager of "Mineko & The Pussycats" from 297 to 305.
He and the Pussycats retired from active performances in early 305 and set
up the Neko University & Boarding School after the development of an
anti-Feral drug usable on Kittens in 304.