The mannequin's head was torn from its battered torso and bounced into the opposite wall. Its cold, plastic eyes looked up in the air in a somewhat bored manner.
"Well, I don't know what you think," said Mistoffelees as he rolled the head back to attach it to the mannequin again, "but you seem ready."
"Is that so?" said Pouncival and sent a pillow flying with a spinning kick.
Mistoffelees grinned. "Yes. You are a warrior now, Pounce. How does it feel?"
The young tomcat paused. "It feels okay." He started to practice a series of battle techniques, punch, kick, punch, kick, pawstand. "I feel like I'm training for something special. A mission." He unsheathed his claws with a swishing sound.
"You are. The Pollicle war, if you remember? That was what the potion was made to prevent. What you were made to prevent."
Mistoffelees picked up a pillow and threw it into the air at Pouncival, almost casually. Pouncival's claws shot out, tearing the fabric and letting the mouldy stuffing out. The pillow fell to the floor with a sad little thud.
"You make it sound like I'm just a tool," said Pouncival. "I know there is a reason that I'm like this now, but I can't get over the feeling of... of not really being a cat anymore. I'm something else."
"You used to be a kitten who played with his brother and helped the tribe magician from time to time. You're not that person anymore, that's just how it is. I didn't ask you to drink the potion, but you did, and here we are. Which reminds me..."
Mistoffelees let go of the pillow he was holding and walked up to the only cupboard he had kept in the hideout. It contained a few of his most precious spell books, and now also a small wooden case, which looked like it might have been a jewellery box at some point. The magician picked up the case and carried it over to Pouncival.
"I hope you have chosen a fourth name for yourself now," he said. "I did my part. This is your disguise."
Pouncival looked at the case. "I'm, what, going to put it on my head or something? I don't think the Pollicles are that gullible, Misto."
"No, you twit, you're supposed to open the case and say your new name. If I did it right, which I hope to the Everlasting Cat I did, the magic I put in it is going to hear you and adapt itself to fit the name."
Pouncival shrugged. "Okay then. I suppose I'm ready."
"Good. Just let me find a place to hide first..."
"What?"
"Oh, nothing," twittered Mistoffelees cheerily, "it's just that I don't want to get caught in the storm. I made the magic in that case just for you, and I don't want to be close enough so that I might contaminate it. Do carry on when I say so." He gave Pouncival a brief, hopeful smile and dove behind the pile of unused boxes. "Okay, go now!"
The young tom took a deep breath and looked at the little case. It had a small metal hatch that he had to pull aside with one claw to get open, and extremely carefully, he did just that. Then he closed his eyes, opened them again, and said, loudly and clearly for the magic to hear the name he had picked:
"Rumpus Cat."
And he opened the case.
It was a strange feeling of warmth. That was what he remembered afterwards. He felt a light surround him, for just a moment he was bathing in it, and it was like lying in the sun on a hot day. He started purring. And then, as fast as it had started, the light and the warmth disappeared. Pouncival stood, breathing heavily, on the floor in the hideout, like before.
Mistoffelees's head poked up from behind the boxes. "Rumpus Cat?" he repeated, frowning. "Well... It's not a name I would have gone with, that's for certain." Then his eyes widened. "Whoa."
"What?" Pouncival looked down at himself. "Oh. Cool." He poked at the black R on his chest and grinned. "I'm a superhero now, aren't I?"
"Let's see, you've got the powers, the name, the ridiculous outfit... Yeah, I'd say you fit the part."
Mistoffelees nodded for him to take a look at himself in the shards of his magical mirror, so Pouncival did. He found himself staring at his own reflection for a while, in shocked surprise.
A stern face looked back at him with red, gleaming eyes. The brown patch over his eye that he had been embarrassed about growing up was gone. His body was covered with sleek, black fur, except on his chest where he had the shield mark and the R. It looked good. He looked very... different.
"Cool," he said again.
"Well, I'm glad you approve," said Mistoffelees and nodded. "Try and turn back now. It should work if you'd just concentrate hard enough on being Pouncival."
He closed his eyes and did. Immediately he felt himself changing, the black fur becoming longer and tufty, his bones rearranging with a dull cracking to make him slightly shorter, and his eyes changing colour from red to yellow. When he was finally ready, he still felt a tiny sting on his chest, as if someone held a warm light to his skin. Pouncival scratched the sting and grimaced at the sharp pain.
"Yeah, you shouldn't touch that," said Mistoffelees. "It's your mark. It'll always be there now. Don't worry, it'll stop hurting in a couple of days. Let me see."
He reached out a paw and brushed away a few tufts of fur from Pouncival's chest, revealing a scar roughly in the shape of an R. It looked like someone had taken a very sharp knife and carved it into Pouncival's skin, and it was slightly red around the edges, but it didn't look very serious.
"So what do I do now?" asked Pouncival.
"I guess this is when you find out if you can use your new powers for something," said Mistoffelees and shrugged. "Go out and be the hero. Save some damsels in distress. Fight some baddies. Hey, you could always go out and wreak vengeance on Macavity for being a meanie and killing you." He paused, serious for a moment, and looked at the barred-up windows. "The sun is coming down. They'll be some people out in the need of protection."
"You really think I'm ready?"
"You've got to start somewhere, Pounce."
Pouncival looked at his paws and shuffled nervously. "Ehm... I'm not supposed to kill anybody, am I? Because let me tell you the truth, I don't think I can."
"You do what you think is right. Just help people. That's what a hero does. I'm convinced you'll pull it off, so don't worry about it." Mistoffelees waved a paw dismissively. "Just go out. You'll probably catch on quick. You're good at catching on."
Pouncival smiled. "Thanks, M."
Mistoffelees frowned. "M.?"
"It suits you."
The superhero gave the magician a little wave. Then he started running. He ran out of the room and dove head first over the metal fence that surrounded the staircase. In the air he changed into the Rumpus Cat, and landed on his feet, perfectly unharmed. Mistoffelees followed him with his eyes he casually dusted himself off, and took up the casual run again. When the Rumpus Cat had disappeared out the warehouse, the magician chuckled a little to himself.
"I'll be M., then," he smiled. "Good luck, Pounce."
The Rumpus Cat soon noticed that being a superhero wasn't really what it was cranked up to be. First of all, it was dull. He had expected the bad guys to be waiting for him as soon as he exited the warehouse, but the streets were deserted. The setting sun cast an orange light over the cracked pavement, and a Pollicle barked somewhere, but otherwise London seemed completely calm as it awaited the evening.
"Here goes," the hero murmured to himself. "Off to find employment, I guess."
Every muscle in his body felt tense as he clung up the wall of a building, to get as high up as possible. As he reached the roof he found himself momentarily stunned by the strange beauty of the city that lay in front of him, his own for tonight. The Thames glittered in the light of the dying sun, and a few street lamps had been lit, their pale yellow light gleaming like stars in the shadowed parts of London.
'How am I supposed to protect all this?' thought the Rumpus Cat, staring with a mixture of admiration and fear at the city. 'It's so huge, and I'm quite small.'
He let his red gaze sweep over the buildings, in search of a place to start. His eyes fell upon a dark figure moving towards the streaming river. The figure was carrying a large sack over his shoulders, and was looking around to see if anybody saw him. When it seemed like no one did, it swung the sack of its head a few times, and let it go so that it soared through the air and landed in the water with a splash. Almost immediately the Rumpus Cat became aware of the weak, heartbreaking screams of kittens, and he was running before he even knew it.
He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, his eyes firmly fixed on the sinking sack. It was quite far out in the water, and it was being thrown from left to right by the current. The Rumpus Cat wasn't sure how he was going to get it up, but the screams had quieted a bit so he knew he had to think fast. As he ran, he looked around in the hope of finding something to use...
A crane stood not fifty meters away, its long metal bar reaching out across the water. The crane was of course unused, since the human handling it had gone home for the day a long time ago, and a steal wire was hanging from it, perfectly placed. The Rumpus Cat grinned. He looked at the sack, calculating how long it would take for it to float over to the crane, and figured out that he had about three minutes to set his plan in motion.
Not time to lose, then. He didn't bother to run up the stairs to the crane operation booth, but simply jumped down from the rooftop and landed on the top step. He jumped up and broke the glass to the booth with one hard kick, surprised at how easy it was, and so managed to get into the booth. There he hesitated for a moment. He didn't understand a single one of the buttons and switches on the dashboard, but he did recognize the arrows on one lever. One went up and one went down. Right. Then at least he had a guess. The question remained, how was he going to start up the crane? He, of course, had no keys.
"Think fast, think fast," he murmured, and suddenly caught sight of his own claws.
He smiled.
One claw was unsheathed, and carefully inserted into the keyhole. The Rumpus Cat had to experiment for one lifelong minute before he got the movement right, but then with a roar the machine started.
"Yes!"
As fast as he could with the claw still in the keyhole to make sure the crane didn't die, the Rumpus Cat reached the lever that controlled the crane, and gave it a hard kick so that it would start lowering the bar. It did, but it went very slowly. The bar would not reach the kittens in time to stop them before they'd already floated by, and the Rumpus Cat couldn't leave the booth if he wanted the machine to keep going. What was there to do? What could he do?
With a groan he removed the claw from the keyhole, and the machine stopped immediately. He left the booth and ran, as fast as he could, along the heavy metal arm across the river until he came to the place where the sack would float pass. With a heart that was pounding furiously he climbed down until he hung from his hind legs, head down.
He could see the sack, rushing closer and closer, sometimes bobbing underneath the surface. To his immense relief he could still hear the kittens, although their terrified screams were almost drowned by the sound of the water and the wind.
"Come on," he muttered. "Come on, come on..."
The sack was not far away. The Rumpus Cat made a tremendous effort, stretched his entire body to reach, and...
The sack was just out of his reach. He felt the roughness of the fabric brush his paw, but he couldn't grab it, it was too far away. The sweat pearled down his face, and he grimaced. 'It has to work...'
And suddenly it did. The sack turned around, and its opening, which had been sealed tight by lots of tough string, was suddenly above water. It was just enough for the Rumpus Cat to take hold of, and with a triumphant shout of "Yes!" he managed to pull the sack closer to himself and hoist it up on top of the crane. He was exhausted, but the knowledge that he had succeeded gave him strength to carry the sack to the shore. The squeaks from the kittens were clearer here. The Rumpus Cat made one last effort and tore the sack apart, freeing the little creatures.
He was surprised at first about how many of them there were. He counted to seven of them, although one or two seemed to be unconscious or worse from the cold. The kittens were of different age and colours, the smallest only a few weeks and the oldest probably around three months old. They were all soaking wet, and shivering.
"It's okay now," panted the Rumpus Cat. "You'll be fine. I can take you to a safe place."
One kitten opened its eyes. It was a little tom, no more than a few weeks old.
"Mama?" he asked weakly.
It nearly broke the hero's heart. The kitten reminded him a little of Tumblebrutus.
"Not mama," he said softly. "I don't know where your mama is. But I'll take you to somewhere where you can get warm and have something to eat. Does that sound good to you?"
The kitten sniffled something inaudible and curled up close to his... siblings? No, they couldn't all come from the same mother, that was impossible. But why had they been thrown in the river? Who could be so cruel to tiny little kittens? And how was he going to get them to the junkyard? They weren't strong enough to walk there themselves, and carrying them there one by one in his mouth would take too long.
Finally the Rumpus Cat decided to drag them there on the torn sack. It was probably not the best way to transport them, but it was the only thing he could think of.
Jennyanydots lay curled up on the passenger seat in the TSE 1, happily enjoying the warmth of the car. Next to her lay Jellylorum, seemingly also quite content. They had just put the four kittens that slept in the TSE 1, Etcetera, Tumblebrutus, Admetus and Victoria, to bed, and were enjoying some quiet time, when suddenly Jennyanydots raised a head. She had heard a scratching on the window, and if she listened for it, she could even hear a heartbreaking wail from outside.
"Jelly?" she mumbled to her friend. "Do you hear that?"
"Hm?" Jellylorum sat up, suddenly completely awake. "Yes, I hear it. I can go and see what is the matter, if you stay with the kittens."
Jenny nodded, and Jelly crept out through the exit at the front of the car. Her green eyes scanned the junkyard for the source of the wailing, and immediately they fell on a pile of what appeared to be old rags. The strange thing was that she had known that those rags had not been there when she had went to bed. She snuck closer, and when she saw what was lying there, she gasped.
Among the rags, carefully wrapped in old clothing to keep warm, lay seven young kittens, meowing pitifully and looking up at her with large, pleading eyes. There was a note attached to a ratty cardigan, which Jellylorum picked up and read.
"'Be kind to us,'" she read out loud. "'The Magical Mr. Mistoffelees pulled us out of a hat, and now we're all alone.'"
She looked at the kittens, and then at the note again. Then she picked up the smallest kitten by the neck, hurried to get him inside, and woke up Jennyanydots.
