If you want more to read, consider joining my Patreon! Or check out my other original works:

  Stray Cat Strut (A cyberpunk system apocalypse!) - OngoingFluff (A superheroic LitRPG about cute girls doing cute things!) - OngoingLove 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) - HiatusCinnamon Bun (A wholesome LitRPG!) - OngoingThe 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!) - OngoingSporemageddon (A fantasy story about a mushroom lover exploding the industrial revolution!) - OngoingPast the Redline (A girl goes too fast, then she does it again) - Completed!Magical Girl Crystal Genocide (Magical Girls accidentally the pnet, 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) - HiatusQueen Violence (An Assassin Reborn as a Kitten) - Completed!No Strings Attached (An Elden Ring/Bloodborne inspired progression fantasy) - OngoingSave Scumming (A time-looping system apocalypse) - Ongoing

  Chapter Thirty-One - Trinity the Sneaky

  Trinity grinned. All on her? Well, there was a lot of her, so she was sure she could handle it!

  The first thing was getting across to the next building over. The zipline was taut when she tugged on it. "I'm ready," she said.

  "Good," Big Sister Emily said. "One of you will tell me what you see that isn't picked up on the camera, remember?"

  "Mhm!" Trinity said. She shifted under the bnket-fort they'd set up on the roof so that she was even closer to Big Sister Emily, then the other her pulled out the camera and aimed it around. It was neat, seeing the footage on the screen whenever she moved the camera part. "Okay, I'm going now," Trinity said.

  "Good," Emily replied. "Give me a moment, you can go on my signal."

  Trinity nodded, then tucked the camera into a pocket on the harness she was wearing so that the lens bit was sticking out. Then she shrugged her poncho of invisibility on. That made the camera see nothing, at least until she turned on the poncho and it--and most of her--went invisible. She tugged up her hood, then gave herself a once-over from the her that was still in the bnket fort.

  All that was visible now were her feet, and only if she stood up straight. If she knelt down, it was only her face that was visible, and it was still partially covered by the hood.

  "Okay, go," Emily said as she dipped her head down from the edge of the wall. "Heroes aren't looking. Don't forget your Minor Shadow power."

  "Okay!" Trinity said. She activated Minor Shadow Blend, which made her a teensy bit harder to spot, then grabbed the zipline doohickey and locked it in pce around the line.

  Then she clipped a line from the doohickey to her harness and let go. She bounced a few times, handing from the ropes. It was strong enough.

  Standing back up, she moved all the way back, then took a running start and leapt up and over the edge of the building.

  "Wee," the Trinity with Sam screamed since she couldn't shout with her other selves.

  Sam woke up with a start, but Trinity ignored her.

  She flew across the gap between buildings, poncho of invisibility fring out around her. Twisting around, she made sure her feet would hit the building first, to absorb the impact. It made some noise, but it wasn't too bad.

  Now, the window. She leaned over, put a foot on the windowsill, then tried to tug the window open... no luck, though.

  There were some solutions to this, like using a rock, but she thought to ask Big Sister first.

  "The window won't open," Trinity said.

  Emily winced. "What does the lock on it look like? Is it a lock, or is it an unopenable window?"

  The part of her that was at the window leaned way over, looking around until she found it. "It's a lock," she said. "One of those ones you spin around and it holds the window in pce."

  "Okay, in that case, we might not have a choice. You might need to gain Unlock Simple Door."

  "Or Reach," Athena said. "I think it can work through windows, and all she'll need to do it turn the handle."

  Emily hesitated, then nodded. "I suppose that makes sense. But we haven't tested that. It's probably best to take the safer option for now."

  "Got it," Trinity said. She focused, and a few moments ter, had a new power.

  Robber Power ShopTotal Robber Points: 3Power - CostUnlock Simple Door (3 Points)Featherstep (4 Points)Reach (3 Points)Whisper Drift (3 Points)Summon Glow (3 Points)Quick Patch (4 Points)Gust Flick (4 Points)Shadow Hop (5 Points)Minor Illusory Double (6 Points)Dust Hand (5 Points)

  She picked the option at the top, and spent her points.

  Unlock Simple Door (3 Points)You can manipute the mechanism of a locked door to open it quietly and without a key on touch.

  Power Unlocked.

  "Got it," Trinity said. She reached over, touched the window, then grinned as the little lock clicked out of pce. With the window unlocked, she was able to grip onto the edge of the frame and tug it open. Inside was a corridor, one that wasn't very well lit, but that was fine, it just meant that no one was going around.

  She stepped in, pulled herself as deep into the window as she could, then unbuckled her harness before hoping into the corridor.

  "I'm in," she told Emily, even though they could both see it on the camera.

  "Good. Take your time. Teddy and Aurora are on standby to make some noise if you need a distraction."

  Trinity nodded all of her heads, then started down the corridor. It was only lit from the light coming in from outside, but that was enough for her. She moved over to the next door, then slowly turned the handle and opened it just a crack.

  A break room? There was a table, and a counter with some coffee machines and toasters and a fridge, as well as some chairs. There was a man sitting at the table, an HRF guard with his head lowered, hands holding onto a mug of steaming coffee.

  Trinity looked around, and saw another door to the man's right.

  Emily hissed as she slipped into the room, but Trinity was a good thief, and she walked up behind the man and stood there, silent. He eventually groaned and stood up, put the mug in a sink, then made his way to the exit.

  Trinity moved with him, always staying low and right behind him, only walking by carefully shifting her weight so that none of her footfalls made any noise.

  Sneaky!

  The guard left through a different door than the one she'd entered, so she followed close behind him. It led to another corridor, but this one at least had something interesting. A door, deeper into the building. The guard walked past it, but Trinity stopped.

  This door looked more interesting. It was all metal and stuff, and besides, she didn't want to just circle around.

  So she waited until the guard was done, then opened this new door and peeked in. It opened into a space with a balcony that ran around a rge room. There were plenty of cameras on the ceilings, pointed in and down, and this space was the way to access them.

  Moving forwards slowly, she snuck to the edge of the balcony and looked down.

  There was a lot of sciency stuff below. Tables with weird machines, a few desks, some computers. Three people in white b coats were at different stations, all of them working with the slow, careful boredom of adults who didn't have anything to do, but who didn't want to look like they had nothing to do.

  A space on the floor was marked out with yellow-bck tape and there were warnings not to cross the line.

  In the middle of that space was a plinth, and on top of that was a small metal-looking cube.

  Trinity wanted it. It was shiny-looking, and probably important. There were a bunch of cameras pointed right at it and a bunch of other sciency things as well.

  "That might be it," Emily said as she squinted into the screen. "Or it could be a red herring."

  "We'll probably find out the moment Trinity touches it," Athena said. "If it's part of the Endgame, then it'll let us know."

  Emily nodded.

  "So, I go touch?" Trinity asked.

  "If you can find a safe way down," Emily said.

  Trinity nodded, then left the room. She headed towards the door the guard had gone to originally, then jumped to the side and crouched when the door started to open.

  Two men came out, both in HRF uniforms. "God, these shifts just never end," one was saying.

  "It's easier when you're on duty in the city. There's always something going on. Out here it's basically torture," the other said. "I think literally, too. Spending this long doing nothing can't be healthy."

  "I know. At least there's Endgame pay."

  "Yeah, but I'd trade that for a better breakroom," the other said. "You've tried the coffee here?"

  "Urgh."

  Both of them moved past her, never even gncing at where she was huddled invisibly against the wall.

  Trinity ran, quick-quick, to the door before it closed completely, then she slipped into the room they'd left. A stairwell! Perfect.

  She moved down, and found herself in a big lobby space. There were more corridors here, all circling around that big room with the sciencey stuff, and a few posts where guards were standing by the entrance. She nodded.

  This was fun, but it was about to get a lot funner.

  ***

  A note from RavensDaggerThree pieces of news!

  First!

  The TTRPG has done way better than I expected it to! almost 30 Canadian dolrs raised for what is essentially a free product is... actually really cool. Like, legit, thanks to anyone that joined in on the Kickstarter, I appreciate it <3

  There's a link for it here: https:///projects/ravensdagger/hope-punk-a-stray-cat-strut-tabletop-rolepying-game

  And if you want to try the game, there are early editions on DriveThruRPG and Itchi.io here:

  https:///en/product/536904/hope-punk

  https://ravensdagger.itch.io/hopepunk

  Second!

  A bit of sadder news, but... I unfortunately need to take some time off :(

  Next week, from the 20th to the 24th will be a week without posting. I... am aware that this is gonna be awful for a lot of my stories, so I might still post a few things here or there? Mostly, Save Scumming has enough advanced chapters that I'll post a few, Spore is being posted daily already, and I might post 4-5 chapters of Stray Cat Strut next week, ending the current volume only to take the week after off to start pre-work on the next volume!

  Third!

  This one's hype! The first ever Stray Cat Strut fanfic that's made it to print is out!

  Link: https:///amazon/B0FGP4ZWGT

  Tinea and Leah's a super cool series, based on SCS, that Eleeyah has been working on for a couple of years now! They asked for permission to publish it as a novel and I gave it, so consider it a sort of... expanded universe SCS fic!

  I'm kinda crazy hyped to see SCS fanfics reaching this level, it's really cool!