As Katie made her way to the grocery store, she suddenly took a turn down a dark alley, making sure to continue holding Mike in plain sight.

All around them, feral, hungry catgirls peeked out and licked their lips. Mike was reminded that what he felt before had to only be discomfort at worst; THIS was fear.

“Hey, uh, K-Katie, w-where are we going?” He asked, struggling to speak.

“Well, you looked really scared of me, so I’ll just let you go; I don’t think we can be friends if we don’t trust each other.” She replied, setting him on the ground.

The moment his feet touched the cold, hard ground, Mike screamed and clang to Katie.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! DON’T LEAVE ME HERE OF ALL PLACES!” He screamed as she gently pushed him off like a mother animal with an overly-attached child that needed to go make its own way, and started walking out of sight.

“What do you mean? I’m sure if you’re confident you can survive without my protection, you’d at least like a warmup of escaping all the feral catgirls on the street.” Katie responded with a glance back. “You know, I expect a pretty big “thank you” when I do extra work for someone.”

She then resumed her walk and Mike ran after her, only to trip and fall pathetically. One of the surrounding catgirls giggled.

“Want me to split him up for us?” She giggled, advancing into the light, where Mike tried not to get sexually hypnotized by her naked, juicy boobs.

“The feral ones don’t even wear clothes, right. Great, as if this weren’t impossible enough of a situation to escape without boobs bouncing everywhere as they pounce.” He mumbled. “I’d have to be Jet himself to survive this…or at least homosexual.”

“Don’t you DARE; they’re much tastier live!” Another catgirl barked, inching closer herself.

Mike accidentally saw her boobs as well, awkwardly failing to suppress a sexual sigh.

“Aww, how about I let you cum on my breasts if you let me be the one who catches you?” The catgirl asked mockingly, drawing laughter from all the other girls.

Mike blushed bright red, as if his emotional pain weren’t bad enough right now.

“ENOUGH CHITCHAT! WHOEVER GETS HIM EATS HIM! NO SHARING!” A third catgirl shouted excitedly, diving at him.

Mike just barely dodging the following few attempts to snatch him, screaming hysterically, when he was soon in the hands of the same catgirl who offered to let him cum on her breasts.

“Welp, looks like you’re MINE.” She giggled, lowering him into her mouth as the others watched with mixed emotions, happy to sadistically watch him go down, but also sad they didn’t get to do the job themselves.”

“Come on, just let me have his legs! Not like he’ll need those in your belly!” The first catgirl begged.

Mike’s predator simply ignored her and lowered him deeper. The breath of many civilized catgirls was rancid enough, but the breath of a feral one was in a league of its own. On the bright side, even imagining what it must smell like in her stomach made Mike almost a little relieved that at least acid was waiting to rip him apart. Nonetheless, he dreaded the idea of losing his life, no matter how pathetic he thought of it.

“C-can I at least still cum on your breasts?” Suddenly slipped out, making Mike as red as a tomato, and silencing the girls.

They stared at each other awkwardly, then burst into insane laughter. Katie glared at the scene, hidden in the distance.

“Ugh, this guy is so pathetic. Even for a mouseboy.” She thought.

“HE THINKS HE MIGHT ACTUALLY GET TO NOT DIE A VIRGIN!” A random catgirl laughed loudly.

Mike started crying harder.

“Okay, I changed my mind; I DO want to die.” He thought, crying silently.

His predator exhaled her rancid breath sadistically, then shut him inside. But as she blissfully tasted him, she slowly became aware that her friends were acting strange, crying with pain, and jumping around aimlessly.

But that wasn’t what they were doing, but rather, something was doing that TO them. Katie had returned and was effortlessly beating the ferals around like ragdolls with her tomboyish strength.

Mike’s predator then panicked and immediately gulped him down.

“GULP! W-wait, I swallowed him! You’re too late! Don’t hurt me! Please!” She begged, cowering.

Katie clenched her fist angrily.

“You didn’t stop me from saving him, you just made it into more troublesome…” She said, smiling murderously. “…and it will cost you your life.”

From Mike’s perspective, he barely had any time to be tormented by the acid or even smell of his predator’s tummy before it started draining immediately even though it wasn’t finished digesting. (Of course, his nose still got to experience the seven lairs of Hell in her intestines.)

From Katie’s perspective, Mike’s predator backed against a brick wall, cowering helplessly, then pooping and peeing everything out in extreme fear, an evolutionary trait to make her body just slightly lighter and thus faster, before her flight instinct kicked in and she tried to run, but Katie stopped her with a painful punch, leaving her half-conscious and in intense pain on the ground.

Mike was left in her waste pile, gagging furiously.

“Why couldn’t I have just died? Why couldn’t I have just died?” He thought miserably.

“Hey, I’ve been thinking…how would you like my protection?” Katie offered.

“Y-YOU DID THIS?!” Mike asked, still shaken, and staring at the beaten ferals around them.

“It wasn’t that hard. Thankfully.” Katie confirmed.

Mike ground his teeth and stood up defiantly.

“H-HEY! YOU MAY THINK YOU CAN PUSH ME AROUND JUST BECAUSE I’M SMALL AND NERDY…and maybe you can…BUT THE ONE THING I WON’T TOLERATE IS YOU INSULTING IS MY INTELLIGENCE! DON’T THINK I DON’T SEE WHAT’S GOING ON! YOU’RE TRYING TO MANIPULATE ME INTO WILLFULLY STAYING WITH YOU BY TRAUMATIZING AND THEN “SAVING” ME!” He yelled. “WELL, GUESS WHAT! YOU MAY BE ABLE TO HURT ME, KILL ME, OR EAT MY COMICS, BUT YOU’LL NEVER HAVE MY SUBMISSION, MONSTER!”

There was a pause, then Katie simply smiled dismissively. Mike realized what he just did and quickly reverted to his usual self.

“W-wait, I-I d-didn’t m-mean t-that!” He pleaded pathetically in fear as she snatched him up.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice…but don’t worry, I know you’re stressed, so I didn’t take it to heart.” Katie stated casually.

Mike braced himself to be suddenly killed after she thought her statement lowered his guard, but inside of her fist squeezing his guts out his mouth, there was only motionless silence. He finally opened his eyes to see Katie looking down shamefully.

“Oh fuck, what am I doing?” She asked herself frustratedly. “You were right; I WAS trying to manipulate you into being my willing slave.”

Mike loosened up but continued staring in shock.

“Mice make nice snacks, but they’re such a drag to catch, so I wanted my prey to come to me instead.” Katie continued, facepalming. “I even kept a poor, innocent young mousegirl as a snack slave over disturbing a fucking nap. Ugh, I never learn.”

Mike mumbled to find comforting words, even though he had a sinking feeling this was simply Plan B of her manipulation.

“You know what, just forget it. I’ve changed.” Katie decided, putting Mike on her shoulder. “Let’s just share that apartment and pretend each other don’t exist. I don’t need that cupboard anyway.

Mike started mumbling again, but quickly stopped.

“Yeah, I guess that’s better.” He sighed bitterly.

Katie retained her neutral look, but suddenly smirked.

“Interesting that you’re into catgirls though.” She said.

Mike gasped silently and curled up in shame.

“T-that’s not true.” He told an obvious lie.

Katie simply smirked again.

*

At the grocery store, Katie bought Mike whatever he wanted, although his shy personality, bitter attitude, and recent trauma made just about everything look unappetizing, so he selected very little. He had a feeling he would regret missing this opportunity, as she told him this was only a onetime thing to make up for eating all his food, and he was only replacing a fraction of it. But Mike’s mind was mostly busy pondering whether he should still try to escape. Katie could still theoretically kill him at any time if he continued living in the cupboard if she quietly approached while he was asleep. Perhaps he could build a snoring android of himself that would sound an alarm if touched so he could secretly sleep somewhere else and bolt away while she was confused. But even then, it would still be very dangerous. …Not to mention, he had never built anything that complex before… However, the fact Katie said she would ignore his existence made Mike question his theory about her only letting him live to toy with him.

Mike continued pondering this even after Katie had safely set him inside his cupboard with all his new food. He tried reading some comics to take a mental break, but instead found himself angered by all the bends and creases created by Katie forcefully grabbing them, and then just got to work on his snoring robot. But after building a robot turned out to be even harder than he thought, Mike finally just dozed off on his workbench.

“S-she w-won’t kill me t-tonight. W-what are the statistical chances of h-her d-doing t-that…?” He dreamily told himself before collapsing.