Patreon reward for Zeelo featuring wereanimal. Calvin babysits Zeelo for a few days, and like most adults is stressed and tired. So Zeelo decides to make sure that Calvin is able to relax and have fun by converting him to a werekitten. Of course, werekittens are always getting into mischief, and with two werekittens something unexpected is bound to happen.
Anyone Can Be a Little Kitten
By CalexTheNeko
“MROOOAWRL!” Zeelo gave a shout as he jumped from a bookcase landing on Calvin’s shoulder. The small brown werekitten was good, and kept his claws retracted as he landed on the human’s shoulders.
“Ahhhh.” Calvin gave a very meek yell in mock fear. “You got me.” Unlike Zeelo, Calvin was a human, and also unlike Zeelo wore clothes, a pair of jeans and a hoodie, and only had brown hair atop his head instead of all over his body.
“Awwwww.” Zeelo dropped off of Calvin onto the living room carpet. “You didn’t sound like you were into it at all.”
“Sorry.” Calvin shrugged. He didn’t know Zeelo that well. This was just a job. Watch the kitten for a few days. Zeelo seemed like a good kid, and Calvin was doing his best to entertain him. But the simple fact was that like most adults, Calvin was just tired. “But good pounce.”
“Now it just feels weird to get complimented on it.” Zeelo huffed and crossed his arms. “What’s wrong?”
“Excuse me?” Calvin sat down on the couch to relax a moment. This question out of the blue caught him off guard.
“It’s really obvious something is wrong. What is it?” Zeelo asked.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” Calvin rubbed the back of his head. “Life is the same as ever.”
“Uh huh.” Zeelo sounded unconvinced. “You know… Animals are really good at picking up on emotions, we can tell when you’re stressed.”
“But… You’re not a normal animal. You’re a humanoid, you talk, I’m not sure you have the normal senses of other animals.” Calvin shifted the subject.
“Do too!” Zeelo stuck his tongue out. “I’m not some normal civilized animal or a common house cat. I am a werekitten!” To demonstrate his point, Zeelo shifted his weight, as he suddenly dropped down onto all fours, losing all signs of his humanoid appearance, then jumped up into Calvin’s lap. There was nothing about his appearance to suggest he was anything other than an ordinary kitten.
“Wait what?” Calvin leaned back, but managed to avoid jumping straight up in alarm and tossing the kitten aside. His charge had just physically transformed to another form. “How did-“
“Like I said…” Zeelo shifted back to a more humanoid form while maintain his position in Calvin’s lap. “I’m a werekitten. Now… What’s wrong?”
“It’s really nothing.” Calvin insisted.
“Liar.” Zeelo shook his head. “I can smell the stress coming off of you.”
“It’s seriously nothing.” Calvin gave a sigh. “Just… The normal wear and tear of daily life. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“I don’t get older.” Zeelo stated bluntly.
“You may feel that way now, but make the most of your youth, it’ll be gone before you know it.” Calvin gave Zeelo a pat on the head.
“I’m a werekitten, never gonna happen. This is as old as I get.” Zeelo insisted and rolled onto his back. “And I like it that way. Adults seem like they don’t have as much fun.”
“They don’t.” Calvin patted Zeelo again. “Just, more responsibilities just comes with the whole adult package deal, and life gets a bit harder.”
“So, why not just take a break and relax, forget about it all for a few days?” Zeelo asked. “It’d be much more fun than trying to be a kitten than some stressed out adult.”
“I would if I could.” Calvin chuckled. “But not everyone can just turn into a little kitten to relax.”
“Sure, they can!” Zeelo insisted. “I mean what part of WEREkitten are you not understanding here. I can get you relaxed and destressed in no time.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice.” Calvin didn’t believe the kitten. He clearly thought he had an active imagination. “I would do it if I could.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Zeelo on the other hand interpreted this as Calvin giving him permission. The kitten leaped from Calvin’s lap and bit his hand before landing on the couch next to him.
“O-ow!” Calvin pulled his hand back. It was bleeding, or at least he thought it was. But though there were a few drops of blood from where Zeelo had bitten the wound itself was gone. As if it had magically disappeared. “Huh?”
“Alright we don’t have a full moon so you’re gonna have to trigger the change on your own.” Zeelo insisted. “Think kitten thoughts!”
“You’re serious aren’t you?” Calvin would have dismissed this as more imaginative nonsense. Except, he was looking at his hand where there should have been a shallow wound. He had been bitten enough to draw blood and yet his hand seemed to have healed up before he even got a good look at it. The tiniest of doubts had been placed in his head, and now he was wondering. “What are kitten thoughts?”
“Mostly about what you want to play, or eat, or where a good place is to nap, or chasing each other.” Zeelo tried to explain. “Just… Think like a kitten does!”
“Like a kitten huh?” Calvin leaned forward and tried to think. Well, this kitten had pounced him from above, and also bit him very suddenly. He usually thought of cats as mostly being lazy and lying around all day, but he guessed while they were young they were pretty hyperactive. And what all did cats like? Well… Even adult cats couldn’t resist playing with string or a laser pointer. Then there was squishing yourself into a cardboard box. Then, Calvin had a specific thought which wound up being the catalyst needed. Mostly, he thought about how fun it might be to catch Zeelo off guard and pounce him.
The changes started immediately. Calvin suddenly found himself shrinking into his clothes as black and orange fur began to grow in patches al over his body. He disappeared to inside his hoodie just as his ears moved upwards on his head, becoming larger and more triangular shaped. As he squirmed around, trying to free himself from his now giant clothes he felt his hands and feet changing, suddenly felt his knew claws come in. He wound up digging those claws into his hoodie and tearing it slightly as eh climbed his way out. He stood up on the couch, feeling off balance as he realized he was standing on his toes. A long slender tail grew from the tip of his spine, and with that the changes were complete. He was a werekitten, just like Zeelo. Six and a half years old and only two feet tall, and no longer wearing a stitch of clothing. Had he not had such a different fur color being black and orange it one might not have been able to tell the two apart.
“Told ya!” Zeelo stuck his tongue out. “Anyone can be a little kitten if they want to be.”
“Huh…” Calvin stared down at his body, not sure what to make of it at first. He flexed his paws, watching his claws come in and out. The kitten had been telling the truth the entire time. Wait, he had said something about not aging? Was that also true? Was Calvin going to stop aging? He had a few questions, but as he looked at Zeelo and saw the brown werekitten smiling smugly at him most of those questions were pushed to the side for the moment as he remembered one very important thing.
He was totally gonna pounce that kitten.
“MROOOOOOOOOOWWWWWRL!” Calvin leaped from his position, tackled Zeelo rolled off the couch with him, playfully biting at the other kitten as they rolled around on the floor.
“Oh, you think you’re the first to sucker pounce me like that?” Zeelo asked. “I know more than how to handle this by now.” He used his hand-paws to swipe at Calvin’s ears and grab onto his back as they continued to roll around. “I’ve been doing this since before you were born! Maybe!” Zeelo paused for a moment allowing Calvin to pin him. “Actually, the timeline is really kind of a confusing mess at this point, especially once you account for all journeys through time, loops, alternate timelines and sub-realities.”
“What?” Calvin only understood about half of what Zeelo aid.
“Boop!” Zeelo took the opportunity to boop Calvin on the nose. “Don’t worry, if you decide to stay a werekitten long enough it’ll all make sense.”
With that they resumed wrestling, but not for long. As they rolled around the living room carpet the two eventually collided with a small backpack. A small backpack with something hard inside that was enough for both of them to feel the impact. The two kittens let go of each other and sat back looking at the bag.
“What the heck do you have in there?” Calvin asked. “Like twenty pounds of schoolbooks or something?”
“That’s not my bag.” Zeelo shook his head. “It’s a friend’s, Calex’s. And I sincerely doubt he would have any schoolbooks. Fiction, historical, How To, all possible. But nothing for school. He’s homeschooled. Sort of. It’s a long story. He must have left it here last time he was over. Anyway… Felt too hard to be a book.”
“Then what is it?” Calvin asked.
“Let’s find out.” Zeelo unzipped the backpack.
“You sure it’s okay to just go through his stuff?” Calvin asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure he won’t mind.” Zeelo nodded. “Besides, in the shape he left in he couldn’t take it with him. Probably already forgot where he left it and replaced it.” It wasn’t hard to figure out the hard object they had felt. Zeelo pulled out what looked like a metal ray gun right out of a sci-fi show. “Ohhh this must be what we hit. It’s kind of heavy.”
“That a toy?” Calvin asked as he stood up next to Zeelo. That was the best explanation he could think of for it. The thing looked far to real to be a toy though. It was more like a movie prop. Calvin imagined it had to have been one of those really expensive collector’s items.
“Naaaaaah, this is one of Odin’s rays.” Zeelo beamed as he turned the ray to the side so that he could show off a series of dials and knobs. There were all kinds of different settings on them and symbols, things from magnifying glasses to hourglasses. “See here’s how you set it up.”
“Huh.” Calvin squinted at the settings. The thing really did look right out of the movies. He could almost believe it might fire for real. “What is each setting supposed to do?” He asked while he reached a paw out and touched one of the knobs next to the hourglass.
“Well it-“ Zeelo didn’t get to finish. Suddenly, the ray gun hummed to life, and a blast of blue energy was released from it. Both Zeelo and Calvin were caught in the blast, and abruptly both of them began to shrink even younger than they already were.
Their tails got shorter in comparison to their bodies, which in turn became much rounder. After a few seconds they were too young to walk upright, and fell down onto all fours. Reduced to mere infants, it was impossible to tell the difference between heir humanoid cat form and their completely feral cat forms.
“Meow?” Calvin asked. “Mrow meow!” He tried to voice more words. But it didn’t work. After all, he was less than a year old now. Far too young to be capable of speech.
“Meow.” Zeelo had dropped the ray gun when he changed. He managed to sit up on his haunches and pointed to the gun, and the knob that Calvin had touched when setting the thing off.
“Mew?” Calvin realized he was the one responsible for them suddenly being babies. He rubbed the back of his head with a paw sheepishly. It wasn’t like he knew it would do something like that! Or even that it COULD do something like that. “Mrow mew meoooow.” Calvin did have a thought though. Surely, if it could turn them into infants it could reverse the change. The knob had to go more than one way. He crawled over to where the ray gun lay and studied it.
“Mew?” Zeelo followed Calvin curious to where he was going. It was pretty easy to tell Calvin was studying the ray gun. Now, anyone else would have immediately guessed correctly that Calvin was trying to figure out how to undo the sudden age regression he had just caused. Zeelo having had a wide berth of experiences of being various ages, species and sizes, did not jump to such a conclusion. Because with so many knobs the device was most likely capable of doing more than just changing peoples’ ages. And Zeelo had an idea what some of the knobs might do but had no clues on the other. Were Calex here he could have asked him, but it was unlikely the other werekitten knew how to use it either. Most likely he had ‘borrowed’ it from his owner without fully understanding what he had taken.
Not that Zeelo had room to talk, having perhaps, occasionally, maybe, done something similar with strange technological items or magical artifacts. Rather it was super advanced tech or a magical amulet, these things tended to be shiny! You couldn’t expect a kitten not to get curious when something was so shiny. If they didn’t want kittens messing with it they should have done something to make the design more dull and attract less attention. Clearly, if Zeelo had caused any ‘incidents’ in the past it was the fault of whoever created whatever item he used that was responsible. These things were just set up to take advantage of natural kitten instincts.
“Mrooooooow.” Calvin was engrossed in his study of the ray gun while Zeelo was reminiscing. He saw the knob he turned, but he wasn’t confident just turning that up would fix it. The symbol next to it just showed an hourglass with sand falling down through it, and then the actual knob could just be set to point to a series of dots with each dot bigger than the last. Currently, it was turned to the biggest dial. Turning it to the smallest dial -MIGHT- make them old enough to talk again. Or it might maybe them even younger, but just not by as extreme a jump. Not that there was a lot of room to get younger at this point. They only had a few months and some change on them. He had no idea if these dots referred to the age a subject would be made or the intensity of how powerful the regression beam would be. It didn’t help there were all kinds of other switches and knobs, some of which were Greek letters. Even were he not a baby kitten he couldn’t have been able to figure this thing out without an instruction’s manual.
“Meow?” Zeelo, while not knowing Calvin’s goal had a slightly better idea of what some of the settings were. He didn’t understand them all. But he knew some of the ones that tended to get used on him a long. He pawed at the gun, showing to where there were a series of switches on the top of it.
“Mew?” Calvin looked at the switches. There were a lot of them. Perhaps one of them was a reversal switch. Except… He wasn’t sure. There was a switch that flipped between magnifying glass and hourglass, then a bunch of the other ones that had various Greek letters on them. Calvin stared at it for a moment then looked at the ray gun. If he was careful not to pull the trigger maybe he could play with the settings and find something to test it on before using it on themselves. He began to slowly flick different switches and turn knobs. The entire time Zeelo watched him without interfering.
After being satisfied that the device was set to do something different, Calvin just didn’t know which. Glancing around the living room he saw a potted plant. Assuming it was alive, and not a synthetic replica that could make a good test subject. He tried to lift the gun and point it at the plant. However, his younger body lacked both strength and dexterity. As a result he mostly only managed to slide it across the floor.
“Mew!” Zeelo understood this correctly at least. He moved to the other side of ray gun and pushed against it, trying to lift it up off the ground. Calvin didn’t waste the opportunity to quickly grab onto the other side of it.
They both sat up on their haunches and together managed to hold the gun steady. It was heavy though, and doubtful hey could hold it for long. Calvin just had to give a test fire and then they could let go of it. He let go of the gun with one paw, reaching for the trigger. As a result the pressure he was applying to the side of the gun suddenly drastically decreased. Zeelo had not been prepared for this and was still pushing against the gun as hard as he could. The end result was that the gun tipped over on top of Calvin, with Zeelo them stumbling and landing on top, followed by the gun releasing a bright blast of purple energy that struck both baby kittens.
It was pretty easy to tell that Calvin had gotten the combination wrong. Suddenly, both kittens were shrinking in size rapidly. They weren’t getting any younger though, just smaller.
“Meoooow!” Calvin managed to crawl out from underneath the gun before it was large enough to crush him.
“Mew!” Zeelo leaped from atop the gun, trying to get to safety, but wound up landing on Calvin as the two rolled across the carpet for a few seconds. As they continued to shrink smaller and smaller though they were soon less rolling across the carpet and more through it.
Kitten instincts kicked in, and both kittens forgot the current situation and began wrestling for superiority. Once more, there was biting and clawing, and attempts to pin. Since both of them had been reduced to infants they were on equal terms and neither one was actually able to pin the other. After it went on for a few minutes both of them grew tired of the game, sat up and began to groom themselves as if nothing had happened. It was during this state they became aware again of their current state.
They were in a forest of gray trees that stretched high into the sky. At least that was what it looked like. Each of the trees though was made of some kind large interwoven fiber. Zeelo having seen the sight many times before realized what he was looking at. These were individual strands of the carpet. Calvin, having never been this small in his life, or even shrunk before today at all, and so took slightly longer to figure it out. But as he looked up, seeing the ceiling was far higher above how far he could see he put the pieces together. He recalled they had started shrinking after the gun went off. Then he had gotten distracted and… He had to admit werekitten instincts had to be pretty strong if while that was going on he suddenly let himself be sucked into a game. No wonder the little kitten seemed to always be in high spirits and wanting to play.
Except, Calvin realized he probably shouldn’t think of Zeelo as the little kitten anymore. He was the same age and size as him now, and both of them were much younger and smaller than Zeelo had been when Calvin arrived. Calvin could hardly think of Zeelo as the little guy when he himself was no bigger than a speck.
“Mroooow.” Calvin stood up on all fours and glanced around. He then managed to stand up on his haunches and dug the claws from his forepaws into a carpet strand. He may have been an infant, but he was also a kitten. And a baby kitten was a lot more capable than a baby human. He climbed up the carpet strand, aiming to get to the top.
“Mew?” Zeelo watched Calvin for a bit, then quickly followed up the same stalk.
At the top, there wasn’t quite enough room for the two of them to stand on the carpet strand. They weren’t THAT small. But as they reached the top and clung to the side they could look around and get a sense of scale. The living room seemed to go on in every direction forever. Just a see of gray fiber trees that never ended. Most things, such as the couch, the ceiling, and the exits to the other room were too far away to see. There was one thing they could make out. A large object, bigger than any mountain, and very shiny. The ray gun.
“Mew.” Calvin sounded annoyed. Finding the location of the gun didn’t do them a lot of good. Being this small it wasn’t as if they could operate it, even while working together. He let himself slide back down the carpet fiber and landed in the forest of strands, invisible to anyone observing the room.
“Meow!” Zeelo followed Calvin down. The brown and orange kitten seemed uncertain, and Zeelo wanted to help. After all, his whole goal was to get Calvin to destress a bit. He just hadn’t accounted for finding one of Calex’s toys left behind. But what was he to do now?”
“Meow…” Calvin looked around, nothing but carpet strands in every direction. Not even anything to use as a diversion to entertain himself when he was this small.
Except for the other kitten.
“Meow!” Zeelo tried to cheer Calvin up by instigating a game. He crouched down low, and wiggled his bottom half indicating he was getting ready to spring. “MEOOOOOOOOOOW!” Zeelo gave a battle cry as he pounced upon Calvin. And then with that he took off running on all fours as fast as he could between the individual carpet fibers.
“Meow?” Calvin was stunned as he was suddenly knocked onto his back. As he slowly got back up and saw Zeelo disappear in the distance as the fibers blocked the view he had a thought. At this point, the carpet was sort of like a jungle. One with a thick canopy that made it impossible for them to see. And with so many trees that there were tons of blind spots for trying to hide from or ambush someone.
In short, it was the perfect place to play a game that was part tag and part hide-and-seek. But Zeelo had already taken off! And Calvin was going to lose him if he didn’t act quick. The black and orange kitten picked himself up and got back up onto all fours and took to running in the direction he saw Zeelo. He had lost visual sight of the other kitten though, and so now was relying on his ears as they twitched listening for the sounds of movement. It was probably safe to assume any other movement he heard was likely Zeelo. It was doubtful the two were going to run into anyone or anything else being this small.
He heard the sounds of someone running. Calvin acted quickly. Focusing on the direction they were coming from, he went and crouched between two fibers where it would be impossible for Zeelo to see him as he came in. Then he waited. Sure enough, a few seconds later, the brown kitten came running right into view. Zeelo wasn’t even looking forward at the incoming trap. He was too busy looking backwards expecting Calvin to be somewhere behind him. Well, it was a bit hard to tell one carpet fiber from the other, and so was hard to maintain what direction you were going. Zeelo had gone in a circle without even realizing it. And that worked out to Calvin’s luck.
“MROOOOOWWWWWWWWWRL!” Calvin launched himself onto Zeelo as soon as the other kitten was in range. He caught Zeelo squarely on the side, rolled along the ground with him and then came up with Zeelo pinned to the floor and he himself atop Zeelo with his forepaws on the other kitten’s chest.
Boop!
Calvin booped Zeelo’s nose with a paw, letting the other kitten know that he was now ‘it.’ Then with that, Calvin took off running. Zeelo was stunned for a few seconds, but not one to be left out of the fun was after him soon.
Things had not quite gone how Zeelo had planned. But, it looked like Calvin was enjoying himself. And he didn’t smell as stressed. The size thing was a problem that would sort itself out later. Probably. Someone usually fixed that.
In the meantime, there were games to be won and played. And so the two kittens spend the entire weekend, stalking, chasing and pouncing each other in the forest of carpet.
The End