Ace woke up with a startling realization: he was very, very small… and furry.
Blinking against the morning sun streaming through a dusty window, Ace inspected his paws. Soft, pink, and terrifyingly clawed. His tail twitched involuntarily.
"…I… I'm a cat?" Ace whispered, or rather, meowed. Yes, it sounded like a meow. Great. Just great.
"Welcome, little one!" a squeaky voice chirped from somewhere below. Ace looked down to see a tiny hamster in glasses, juggling a stack of magical scrolls with alarming dexterity.
"I… I don't know what's happening," Ace tried again. Meow. The hamster blinked.
"Perfect! You can talk!" squeaked the hamster, adjusting his glasses. "We've been waiting for a… new manager. The magical upcycling fashion studio—"
Ace's ears twitched. "Studio?"
"Yes! The one your… well, you used to own in your previous life," the hamster continued casually, as if explaining how to tie shoelaces. "You're… uh… reincarnated here. As a cat. Obviously."
Ace fell over sideways, tail flopping dramatically. "Reincarnated as a cat and running a magical fashion studio…? Are you serious?"
"Yes," the hamster said, rolling his eyes. "Now hurry up! We have clients coming."
Clients. Ace's eyes widened. Clients. As in… paying adventurers?
Before he could process, the door slammed open with a gust of wind and a very large, very disheveled human wearing armor that had clearly seen better centuries barged in.
"My armor! It's… falling apart!" the adventurer cried. "I need—something—strong, magical, fashionable!"
Ace blinked. This was happening now. And apparently, as a cat, he was expected to solve it.
He leapt onto the table, accidentally knocking over a vial of glowing thread, which wrapped itself around his tail and started spinning in magical patterns.
The adventurer stared. "Is… the designer a cat?"
"Yes," Ace meowed proudly, because pride was all he had left. "…And I'm going to save your fashion sense."
The hamster scribbled notes frantically. "Step one: assess materials. Step two: measure client. Step three: magically upcycle scrap into wearable armor. Step four: hope nothing explodes."
Ace sighed, his tail flicking dramatically. Step four sounded terrifyingly likely.
But as he batted a pair of enchanted gloves across the table, a spark of inspiration hit him. Perhaps this small, furry body wasn't a curse—it was an opportunity to create the most absurdly fashionable, magically enhanced, completely ridiculous outfits the kingdom had ever seen.
And maybe, just maybe… he could save the world one enchanted stitch at a time.
---
As Ace begins examining the adventurer's armor, one of the threads starts glowing violently. "Oh no… this isn't just magical—it's explosively fashionable."