Etcetera was running. She tasted blood in her mouth and felt how her legs buckled from the strain, but she had to keep going. If she stopped, then they would get to her. She heard their barks echo in her ears and knew that this was it. This was how she was going to die.
She hadn't meant to be so far away from home. It had just happened somehow anyway. And then she had ended up in Pollicle territory, and they had spotted her, and now she was running for her life back to the junkyard. The question was just if she would last that long. Her legs were failing her, and she had been running for so long that she didn't think she'd be able to get a word out to call for help when she finally reached home.
The Pollicles barked furiously and snapped after her tail. They were so close now. What would she do when they caught up with her? Fight? No, Etcetera couldn't fight. She may be older and somewhat wiser, but she was still just a kitten, and quite a small one at that. She wouldn't last long, but maybe she'd feel better about it if she died fighting instead of just giving up.
'All right, just turn around and face them now, Etcie,' she thought as she ran. 'Get it over with. Do it. Now.'
Somehow she just couldn't bring herself to stop. She didn't want to die.
A dog managed to get its teeth around a few strands of fur on the tip of her tail, and Etcetera yowled loudly in pain. A surge of fury came over her. Okay, that was it! She turned around, ready to face her fate.
The Pollicles stopped for a moment, probably surprised to find that the kitten had ceased running. Then they growled. She felt their breath on her face and grimaced. It smelt of old blood.
Etcetera closed her eyes and waited. She didn't want to see who got the first bite out of her.
It took very long for them to begin. Perhaps they couldn't decide on who was going first? She could hear loud barks and yelps, and figured they were fighting over her. Maybe she could sneak off as they fought and get to safety?
Etcetera opened her eyes and gasped.
There was fighting going on, but not between the Pollicles. A cat had shown up that Etcetera didn't recognize. He was tall and had black fur, but that was basically all she could gather since he spun around like a tornado fighting the Pollicles off. A pit bull whined as the mysterious tom twirled around and scratched it on the nose with long, razor sharp claws, before he turned on the spot and hit an Alsatian with his back legs in the face.
The dogs didn't know exactly what to do. Parts of them seemed to want to run away with their tails between their legs, but another part wanted to stay and show this feline that you didn't mess with the Pollicles! The result was that the dogs stayed put, but their legs twitched randomly as if they itched to carry their owners far, far away. The Pollicles had never seen a cat fight like this. They had never seen anything fight like this.
As the mystery cat methodically worked his way through the entire pack of dogs, Etcetera found herself staring at him. She had never seen a tom this brave before...
Finally the dogs ran away, beaten almost to the point of not being able to walk in a straight line, and also extremely embarrassed that they had been taken down by a cat. There would be no end of this once the story got out, and the story always got out. Everyone would laugh, and especially the Pekes. Woe!
The tom stood calmly and looked at them as they ran off, his eyes gleaming red like balls of fire. The shadow of a smile ran across his features as he turned around and looked at Etcetera. His body stiffened momentarily as he noticed her, but he recovered from it splendidly.
'I wonder if he's seen me before?' thought Etcetera. 'It seems like it...'
"You all right?" he asked, his voice low.
"I'm fine," said Etcetera and coloured a bit. "Thank you. I mean..."
She wasn't quite sure what to say. What did you say to the tom who had just saved your life? "Thank you" did sound rather tame.
Now she noticed that he was mainly black, but that he had some sort of mark on his chest. It was a large R in a white shield, and with a pang of realization she knew who her saviour was.
"You're the Rumpus Cat, aren't you?" she said, her eyes widening.
He nodded. "You have heard of me, I take it."
"Totally! You're the one that broke off that big fight between the Pekes and the Pollicles and the Pugs and the Poms! Munkustrap told us about you the last Jellicle Ball! We had one of the tom kittens to play you! You're a hero!"
Etcetera knew she was gushing. She couldn't help it. This was just too cool.
The Rumpus Cat cleared his throat. "Well, I think I'll go, then. If you're okay. Go home now, Etcetera."
He didn't wait for her response, but merged into the shadows and was gone. Etcetera was left alone, blinking in surprise.
"Wait!" she called out into the darkness. "How did you know my name?"
The Rumpus Cat didn't show up again or respond, so the kitten sighed deeply and started to walk home. She couldn't wait until she told her friends about this!
A pair of red eyes watched her from the roof of a house, eyes that slowly faded into a more normal yellow as they followed Etcetera. The face of the Rumpus Cat changed from being completely white to having a brown patch over the left eye, and the pitch black fur on his body became tousles of brown and white. The R and the shield on his chest shrank and faded until they were barely more than small marks underneath the fur, invisible to anyone if you weren't looking especially for them.
The transformation barely took 30 seconds, and when it was completely over, a young tom that was about as different from the intimidating Rumpus Cat as you could possibly be, was standing on the roof.
"That was close," said Pouncival to himself.
Then he took a peek at himself in a puddle of water, stated that he looked inconspicuous enough, and started to walk home from what he'd told his brother was a perfectly normal evening stroll.
It had begun about a year and a half ago, when he'd helped Mistoffelees with a magical experiment. The magician wanted to see if he could create a potion that increased the strength of the one who drank it, and Pouncival had agreed to work as a guinea pig if Mistoffelees promised that it wasn't dangerous. It hadn't been dangerous, just... weird. Somehow things had gone wrong, a little too much of something and a little less of something else had ended up in the potion, and Pouncival had awakened the next day with knowledge how to fight and the strength to win, and on top of that his senses were now at least twice as good as they had been before.
He had walked to Mistoffelees and demanded an explanation, but the magical cat could not explain it. Somehow the potion had given him all these abilities, and since they were not likely to go away he just had to learn and live with them.
He and Mistoffelees had created the Great Rumpus Cat together as an alter ego of Pouncival, so that he could go out and make sure that his abilities were not wasted. The potion had made him strong enough to defeat any Pollicle, but he needed a disguise so that the cats he saved would not recognize him. If word got out that Mistoffelees has made a potion that provided such strength, and Macavity heard about it...
It was too terrible to imagine. So Pouncival kept it a secret and fought a silent battle as the Rumpus Cat at night, but went through all the things that a young Jellicle tom had to go through by day.
Pouncival strolled into the Jellicle junkyard casually, and immediately he heard the loud voice of Etcetera.
"And then - POW! - he just walloped that big stupid dog right on the nose, and BANG! he kicked another one so hard it fell over and then KABLAM! he hit two of them at the same time, and he was so brave, like just in the story but better, and then he came up to me and asked me if I was okay and he was so cute and I was like 'yeah, I'm fine' and then he..."
"You made quite an impression," mumbled the ever-so calm voice of Mistoffelees, who stood leaning against a trashcan right next to him. "She'll be at this for a while."
Pouncival looked at Etcetera with a sigh. The tortoise-shell was entertaining a captive audience as she loudly proclaimed her meeting with the famous Rumpus Cat, complete with sound effects and exaggerated paw gestures. She almost knotted her legs together as she tried to describe the hero's way of disposing of the Pollicles.
"Perhaps it would have been better if I'd left her to get eaten," muttered Pouncival. "Now we'll be hearing about this for days."
"Tugger will be delighted," said Mistoffelees cheerily. "She'll leave him alone for a while now." He looked at his friend. "So were there really fifty of them, like our damsel in distress claims?"
Pouncival shook his head. "Ten or perhaps eleven, I think. Not exactly the largest pack I've ever encountered."
"And it worked out without a glitch? No injuries?"
"Not for me. And no, before you ask, I did not discover any new powers that I might have."
Mistoffelees smiled. "I'm just looking out for you, Pounce. We still don't know what kind of side effects the potion might have. You remember our rule, don't you?"
"'Should I ever feel that something is not like it should be, I shall come directly to you,'" replied Pouncival mechanically. "Yes M., I still remember it."
"Good."
The two toms stood in silence and regarded Etcetera and her audience for a bit.
"Do you think there will be trouble out of all this?" asked Pouncival after a while. "I mean, we both know that Etcetera has a tendency to... get obsessed about things. She certainly seems excited enough about the Rumpus Cat rescuing her so that it could mean trouble."
"What, you mean you don't want a fan-club?" teased Mistoffelees and grinned. "If you ask real nicely you might be able to join. I mean, you should make honorary member, considering there is no one who knows more about the Rumpus Cat than you do."
"Except perhaps you."
The magical cat nodded thoughtfully. "Except perhaps me. In any case, I don't think you have to worry. I mean what's the worst thing that can happen?"
"Have I told you how dreamy Rumpus Cat is?" asked Etcetera and rolled over on her back.
She lay on the hood of the car in the junkyard with her trusty kitten companions, sunbathing and gossiping about toms. In Etcetera's case, there was only one worth talking about.
"He has these really large red eyes that, like, pierce through you and looks into your soul," she continued when no one spoke. "He looked at me, and there was this... connection, you know? Like he recognized me. Maybe he has, like, seen me before and fallen madly in love with me, like admiring from afar or something? And now he has finally met me eye to eye and he's all shy because he's, like, thrown by my beauty. That's why he hasn't shown up again, because he's shy," she concluded her theory.
"Or maybe he has better things to do than hang around the junkyard in search of one kitten he saved," said Victoria without opening her eyes. "I mean, he is a superhero. They have a lot of work to do."
"Nothing is more important than the quest for true love!" exclaimed Etcetera.
"Come on, Etcie," sighed Electra and raised her head from the patch of sun she had been lying in. "You've only got a crush on him because he saved your life. Which is cool an' all but I don't think it builds the foundations for an everlasting relationship all on its own."
"Yeah, you need to work on it more," agreed Victoria and yawned. "You know... show some dedication. Don't just sit around and wait for him to come to you!"
Etcetera sat up. "Dedication, huh?" she said slowly. "Okay. How do I show that?"
Victoria sighed. "It's easy. Just... you know, show him that you're both interested in the same things. Be were you know he will be. Talk to him. And lie down again, you're blocking my light."
Etcetera obeyed. Her mind was already working fast. If her Rumpus Cat wanted dedication from her, then that was what she was going to give him. She would be the best girlfriend he'd ever had, and then they would live happily ever after! They would fight crime together, side by side, and save each other's lives on a daily basis! That kind of thing must strengthen a relationship.
Besides, every hero needed a sidekick. That was basically in the rulebook. Happy with this new idea, Etcetera purred herself into a half-sleep.
