If you want more to read, consider joining my Patreon! Or check out my other original works:
Stray Cat Strut (A cyberpunk system apocalypse!) - Ongoing
Fluff (A superheroic LitRPG about cute girls doing cute things!) - Ongoing
Love Crafted (Interactive story about an eldritch abomination tentacle-ing things!) - Completed!
Dreamer's Ten-Tea-Cle Café (An insane Crossover about cute people and tentacles) - Hiatus
Cinnamon Bun (A wholesome LitRPG!) - Ongoing
The Agartha Loop (A Magical-Girl drama!) - Volume Two Complete!
Lever Action (A fantasy western with mecha!) - Volume One Complete!
Heart of Dorkness (A wholesome progression fantasy) - Completed!
Dead Tired (A comedy about a Lich in a Wuxia world doing Science!) - Ongoing
Sporemageddon (A fantasy story about a mushroom lover exploding the industrial revolution!) - Ongoing
Past the Redline (A girl goes too fast, then she does it again) - Completed!
Magical Girl Crystal Genocide (Magical Girls accidentally the planet, and then try to fix it) - Completed!
Magical Girl Rending Nightmare (A sequel to Crystal Genocide! Cute girls in a soviet dystopia having a picnic on the roadside) - Volume Two Completed!
Noblebright (A shipcore AI works to avenge humanity) - Completed!
The Complicated Love Life of Ivil Antagonist (The Empress of Mars finds love) - Completed!
Pokebun (Broccoli Bunch in the world of Pokemon) - Hiatus
Queen Violence (An Assassin Reborn as a Kitten) - Completed!
No Strings Attached (An Elden Ring/Bloodborne inspired progression fantasy) - Ongoing
Save Scumming (A time-looping system apocalypse) - Ongoing
Chapter Eighty-Two - Talking Fashion, Obligatorily
"The modern need to launder money has changed. Before it was for the purpose of avoiding taxation and to make money gained through illegal means seem more acceptable.
Now, with modern infrastructure and banking, for a small fee, the Bank of North America will gladly accept your credits, without questions."
--BONA pamphlet, 2034
***
"Hey," I said.
It was... I checked my augs to be sure. Six thirty. In the afternoon. We'd arrived sometime in the morning.
My feet were killing me, and I was seriously contemplating just packing up and leaving, or maybe hiding in a closet somewhere until things calmed down. But no, I had, instead, endured and worked hard to keep on task.
I deserved a medal.
Unfortunately, instead of receiving a medal, I had just walked into a rather busy meeting room a couple of floors above the main conference floor of the casino. It was a quieter space. The main lobby of the casino was now very much not a quiet space.
The inflow of people hadn't stopped. Starting around noon, a line had formed and while security was pretty fast, and people mostly behaved, it had still taken forever to check everyone over and there were still a few last-minute stragglers coming in.
"Welcome, Catherine," Gomorrah said.
The room had been rearranged so that there were a bunch of seats all set in a rough circle. The table that had probably been in the middle was pushed up against a far wall, tipped onto its side to make more space.
The room was currently crawling with Samurai. Gomorrah was here, of course, but so was Nya, Gros Baton, Hedgehog, Tankette, Princess and her sister, Shy, and surprisingly, Emoscythe and Crackshot.
Ten samurai in one room. There were probably plenty of gatherings where there were more Samurai in one place, but I bet that didn't happen all too often. This was probably half of New Montreal's entire samurai population. Or maybe a third? A city of... what, forty million? Give or take, and depending on whether the outskirts were counted.
"Sup?" I said with a wave.
"Nya'hallo!" Nya replied with a bigger, more energetic wave. "This party is weird."
"It's not a party," I said.
"That would explain why it's weird," she replied.
I decided to save my remaining brain cells and focused on Emoscythe instead. "I thought you'd be off distracting the media or whatever?"
"Yes," Emoscythe said. "The runway show was a success."
"It's done?" I asked.
"How long do you think a runway show lasts for, Stray Cat?" she asked. "I distracted the media for a full five hours where they were not allowed to split their attention. That was a showcase of several young, talented individuals whose work I found worthy of attention and some pieces of my mid-fall collections."
"Collections?" Princess asked as she wandered over. She looked up to me and smiled, cheeks dimpling. I wasn't sure if she cared about fashion at all or if she just wanted to stand close. The others were kind of lingering around the room. I had the impression that Gomorrah wanted us to have a proper meeting, at some point, but asking for that when no one wanted to be serious yet was asking for a lot.
"Collections," Emoscythe confirmed with a small nod. "I have three, at least, for each season. Haute couture, so called 'basse' couture, and corporate couture."
"What're the differences?" I asked. "Is one for like, Samurai?"
"No," she said. "Samurai couture is bespoke. Look at young Miss Princess here. Her dress is obviously fashioned after late Baroque dresses. Rococo in its patterning and colour, but the cut is heavily stylized. There's obviously some Disney influence in the overly simplified pattern of the cloth and the shoulders and there are some elements of a late Baroque dress that are missing and are instead simulated for convenience. There's no stomacher, and the bodice is directly integrated into the skirts in a way that wouldn't be possible with more traditional tailoring."
"Uh, okay," I said.
Emoscythe looked at me, then tilted her head back a little. "My point is, Samurai clothing tends to take inspiration from actual fashions and styles, but more often than not, in looking at the details, you'll see tell-tale signs that the person who created the vestment was approaching it from a fundamentally different direction. The clothes aren't crafted from cloth made, in turn, of woven fibers. It's created wholesale. The fibers of Princess' dress are all aligned to subtly press the folds of her dress in a certain way. There are no seams. This dress is, for the most part, a single piece of mixed-fabric cloth."
"And I'm guessing that's a whole lot more impressive than it looks?" I asked.
Princess was pinching the front of her dress, looking at it like it was something new.
"It's beyond humanity's current abilities to craft such a thing. We can make something similar in style and function, however. In any case, to return to your original question--"
"Uh, maybe we don't have time?" I tried.
"No, shut up and listen."
"Okay," I said.
I'd dealt with a few of the kittens (the kids, obviously) who had hyperfixations and special interests and who could infodump about them. Sometimes it was vaguely interesting, and I could always just ignore them.
I didn't feel safe ignoring Emoscythe Mordeath Noir.
"As I was saying, I have three ongoing collections that have seasonal updates. Haute couture, so called 'basse' couture, and corporate couture. Haute couture is mostly created for the sake of exploring new ideas, materials, to promote a message, or display one's skill and creativity in fashion. It's the equivalent of someone who learned how to shoot the wings off of a fly's back from a kilometre away. It's meant to impress."
"Who would do something like that?" Princess asked. "The fly thing."
"Grasshopper," Emoscythe said. "It was an invasive species."
That... tracked.
"Basse couture is mass-market clothing. Taking inspiration from the haute couture of the current or previous season and creating from that something that the common man, woman, or other clothing-wearing person can use. It's fast fashion."
I nodded along.
"And corporate couture is poorly named, but I didn't choose the name for it. It's clothing for the artists of some renown, the actors, the celebrities, and those with the means to express themselves as they see fit, but not the talent to fashion their clothes themselves."
"Rich bitch clothes," I said.
"Yes, quite."
Gomorrah clapped her hands together. "Alright, everyone. I'm sure we could talk all evening, but we do have an event to put on. In... about one and a half hours, we'll be inviting our guests, the gangs of New Montreal, to sit down and listen as we put on a small show for them. Catherine, you were in charge of that part."
"I was?"
She stared. "Yes."
"Oh, cool."
"What's your plan," Gomorrah asked.
I shrugged. "I was mostly gonna grab a mic, get on stage, and tell them that for the next little while, you know, the time we're fixing shit and dealing with the whole global incursion, we don't want them being dicks and wrecking shit."
"And?" she prompted.
I looked around. "And? That's it."
Gomorrah sighed. "Catherine, that could have been an Email."
"Hey, I'm not the one who had the idea to make a whole spectacle out of this." Was I? I was pretty sure I wasn't. It had been a few days though, so I couldn't be blamed for forgetting if the idea was originally mine. Plus that was a long time for someone to come up with a better idea if it was mine.
Nya was giggling.
"Does anyone have a better plan than Stray Cat's?" Gomorrah asked.
"Nya likes her plan."
"Does anyone who isn't wearing cat ears have anything to say?" Gomorrah asked. She sounded like she was a bit tired of our shit.
"Nya's not wearing cat ears," Nya said. "Nor is she! Her's are stuck to her head, like mine!"
I think the point kind of stood anyway, but who was I to argue.
"Honestly, as far as sending a message goes, it's not that terrible," Emoscythe said. "This many samurai and this much firepower is enough to level a small to medium-sized city. Excluding Miss Nya of the Ronin and myself, of course."
Because those two were experienced samurai, and the scale of destruction would be a lot bigger.
"Ouein," Gros Baton said, speaking up for the first time in a minute. "Mais ca manque de gravité... uh, it's missing... gravity?"
"Gravitas," Emoscythe suggested.
"Yeah, that," he replied.
I crossed my arms. "You want me to step on stage to some music and like, fighter jets shooting past overhead or something?"
"No, that would be tacky," Emoscythe said. "And putting on such an obvious show would send the wrong message. Presentation is for people who have something to sell."
"See, easy," I said.
"No, Stray Cat, not easy," the goth replied. "Quite the opposite, actually."
"Well, we have an hour to figure it out, so..."
"This is a perfect time to start a band, Nya!"
"No."
***
A note from RavensDagger
Urgh.
Stupid vacation. This sucks. How is it Wednesday already? I had so many plans for this vacation, and I've done nothing!