A/N: Heya, so this is a birthday present to my ever-lovely partner in crime, TCRMommaBear, which got a little out of hand and ended up as a small (I hope) multi-chaptered fic. It shouldn't be as long as my regular fics (under 10 chapters, fingers crossed) but, honestly, who knows? Anyway, weekly updates, yada yada yada, chapter two will be coming next Sunday.

This AU is mainly based on a great little animated show called Emara, which you can find on YouTube for free and I would thoroughly recommend you do. (Is part of the reason I wrote this a shameless attempt to get more people to watch Emara? Yes. Next question.)

For anyone wondering about The Bureau Files – it is still being worked on! I just needed a chance to refresh with something new, and this AU gave me the perfect opportunity.

Enjoy!

x

Chapter 1: A Dark, Dark Night

It was a dark, dark night in the city of Little Cattmere,

Someone had sabotaged the streetlamps.

Again.

In the stillness of the night, a shadow perched atop one of the defunct lights. It wore a top hat and a morning suit and a tail that swept meticulously from side to side. It also looked like it should be far too heavy for the lamp to support, but the evidence proved otherwise.

Movement skittered inside Magpie Jewellers, a business that wasn't particularly noteworthy except for being the sole one of its kind on this side of the city, and even that was only a recent claim to fame. (Engel's Gems had been broken into last week.)

Correction: It did have one other striking aspect, and that was the even more recent alteration in the removal of its front door.

The figure straightened, revealing to be an individual of six foot. Its coat tails rippled in the night breeze in a suitably dramatic fashion – because of course it did – and they stepped off the lamppost.

Dark leather shoes landed soundlessly on the pavement, nine feet below, and carried their stride as if they'd simply moved from one room to the next. They approached the entrance. Passed the door lying against the wall. And tapped the wooden cane once, twice, against the floor.

Light flooded the room, every lamp, light, and bulb flaring into life, and the two individuals currently clearing the displays of every shiny object released a barrage of curses and dropped their loot. Hands flew to eyes and they fumbled in temporary blindness, while the newcomer hooked the bags with the crook of the cane and gathered them up.

He eyed the contents, and then the thieves. "I believe the opening hours are quite clearly marked on the front door. How you've managed to miss them, I shall never know."

The nearest thief – a woman in her early twenties with alarming golden-yellow eyes – blinked and her sight returned just enough to focus on the newcomer. He saw the recognition enter her eyes, half-blinded or not. He could understand why. He was kind of unmistakable, between his feline appearance and somewhat outdated choice of attire. "You're the Baron."

He resisted the temptation to bow. Demeter called him out enough for his dramatics as it were. He did, however, dip his head, his emerald eyes never once leaving the scene before him. "Just Baron, please. And you two, if your spoils are anything to go by, must be the notorious duo responsible for the recent jewel heists. I don't think we've met before – call me Baron. Although most people in your line of work tend to prefer less flattering names. And you are…?"

The other thief – male and possessing the same peculiar eyes, her brother, maybe? – regained his bearings and eyed Baron with a sure confidence that somewhat dented the reputation Baron felt he'd earned. "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser," he said. He sounded young. Maybe even still a teenager. Just. "And you're coming with us."

Baron cocked his head. "Unique names. Also, I believe that's my line."

"Any more unique than 'Baron'?" Mungojerrie shot back.

Baron considered this. Then shrugged. "Touché. Now, all humour aside, I don't suppose you'd consider cutting straight to the foregone conclusion here and handing yourselves in? Perhaps we can skip all the unpleasantness for once."

"Why would we do that when we outnumber you?" Mungojerrie asked, and all at once Baron realised he'd made the rookie mistake of focusing only on one of his opponents. He swung round to see the woman – Rumpleteaser – leap at him with a grace that belonged to an acrobat or a cat.

Luckily, Baron fell into the latter category. He ducked back to avoid the twin daggers that whistled inches above his whiskers, vibrations tickling his fur, and a shadow came at him from the other side. He rolled his shoulder to the left, his body following through the movement and staying a heartbeat ahead of Mungojerrie's accompanying attack. He swept his leg round in the same movement, momentum lending force to the foot he hooked around Rumpleteaser's leg and the hook of his cane around Mungojerrie's wrist and with a wrench he brought them both down.

He plucked the dropped daggers and plunged one into the jacket of each thief, carefully avoiding flesh and blood but pinning them to the floor regardless. He stepped back to admire his work. "Now, if you would be so kind as to stay there until the police come to pick you up, that would be much appreciated…" He turned his back on them to collect up the loot bags when a sudden gust of wind ruffled his ginger fur.

Most people couldn't recognise magic without seeing it – whether it was flashy light shows (as was his forte), or shapeshifting, or portals – but to those well versed in it, it was possible to distinguish between the air vibrations that sudden magic gave off and, say, a light breeze.

Baron paused. Closed his eyes. Muttered a curse under his breath at the obvious signs he'd missed – their unusual names, their uncanny agility, their eyes – and turned back to the offending duo.

Correction: The absent duo.

Correction Number Two: The tabby cat duo that were leaping towards him and shifting back to their human forms, Rumpleteaser pulling out two more daggers from her jacket (seriously? Baron had time to lament. She had more?) and he didn't have time to register anything else because the next instant she'd sunk them in and through his arms and fixed him to the wall.

His legs buckled, but he stayed in place, an animalistic sound ripping through him that died away into a whimper. He sagged, and then dragged his gaze up to the thieves. "At least," he rasped, "I only stabbed your jacket."

"I liked this jacket," Mungojerrie muttered.

The woman (cat?) motioned for her brother to quit grousing. "Now," she said to Baron, "if you'd be so kind as to wait there until we can collect the bounty, it'd be much appreciated."

"Very funny." Baron exhaled, feeling already draining away from his pierced limbs, to be replaced with a discomforting numbness in its wake, and took note eventually of the other part of Rumpleteaser's gloat. "Wait – bounty?"

"Of course," Mungojerrie said. "You've made a lot of bad people your enemy. Sooner or later it was bound to catch up with you."

"Seriously?" Baron continued. "A bounty? There's an underworld bounty on my head? Does it come with a wanted poster? I've always wondered what it'd be like to have one of those. Who's paying?"

The twins exchanged glances. "You seem very unconcerned by this," Rumpleteaser said.

Baron shrugged – or did his best approximation, stuck as he was. "This is not the first terrible odds situation I've encountered. It is, however, the first time I've been immobilised to a wall with daggers as the choice of restraint so, make of that what you will."

Rumpleteaser shook her head. "Just call it in," she told her brother. She rounded back to Baron. "And could you at least stop looking like we've just invited you to tea? You're our prisoner, not our guest."

"What is a prisoner, other than a guest with the doors barred?"

"You are a very strange person. And why are you still smiling?"

"You've made a miscalculation."

"I really don't think we have."

"You thought I was outnumbered."

Both thieves froze and then turned as one as a figure sprung through the doorway and planted a metal foot into each face. One cacophony of bodies hitting the floor later, Demeter – fellow vigilante and half-Creation – spun in mid-air and landed neatly among the chaos.

"You just had to let them know I was there."

"You still had the element of surprise, didn't you?"

"No thanks to you." The cat mask she wore – fake, unlike Baron's true feline face – tilted as she saw the extent of the predicament Baron was in. She swayed on the spot. "Are-are those…?"

"Daggers? In my arms? Yes."

She continued to sway. Baron hoped she wasn't about to faint; he wasn't in any position to catch her.

He wiggled his fingers. "Hello."

"Stop that."

He stopped. "Sorry."

"Why…?"

"Creative restraints." He barely resisted the urge to wiggle his fingers again, instead opting to nod his head to the weapons in question. "If you wouldn't mind…?"

"If I wouldn't mind…?" She tensed as she realised his request. "Oh. Oh, you want me to…"

"If you wouldn't mind," he echoed.

"I really kinda do," Demeter muttered, but she approached him, albeit with the same level of caution one might approach a bear with a toothache and a restraining order.

"How did you find me?" Baron asked. If she was distracted, he hoped, she might not think too hard about the job at hand. He offered a roguish grin that she missed. "Are you following me?"

"Don't flatter yourself. Those two have been terrorising jewellery stores across the city for months now; this was obviously going to be their next target. And you can thank your lucky stars I turned up when I did."

"How does one thank their lucky stars for sending deus-ex-machina heroines to one's aid? I'm thinking fruit basket."

Through the mask, Baron could see Demeter's dark eyes crinkle. Possibly in amusement. But more likely, in his experience, in disbelief.

"Trust you to keep your sense of humour even now," she admonished. "You've been stabbed, for goodness sake."

"Lightly stabbed."

"You have a knife in each arm."

"I am aware."

She eyed the daggers, visibly collecting her nerve together to do the deed.

Demeter was an interesting individual, one he knew as little about as she did him. She was human, probably, given her form, but no glimmer of skin could be seen beyond the feline mask she wore or the sleeves and gloves that hid her arms. And then there was the small matter of her clockwork Creation legs.

The rest of her was unlikely to be clockwork too, Baron had decided – her eyes betrayed an organic origin, if nothing else – but from the hem of her mid-thigh shorts to the base of her metal toes, she was a being of mechanics and magic. From this proximity, he could hear the gentle whirr of cogs and hum of magic emanating from her. Her gloved hands – black material, a stark comparison to Baron's white ones – gripped the dagger sticking from his right arm and, after a heady breath, heaved it out.

The blade came away clean.

"See?" he asked. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"I hate you so much," Demeter muttered.

Baron flexed his freed hand and used it to remove the other dagger. It came out equally bloodless, and he dropped it to the floor. Demeter was, he noticed, doing her very best not to look at the wounds, but her eyes kept tripping back to the open slits with morbid curiosity. Again, she swayed.

"Miss Demeter, you know I don't bleed–"

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"Only for the first few minutes." Baron brushed the ginger fur away and eyed the wooden skin that lay beneath. The daggers had left thin tears in the otherwise unmarred grain. "But after that, my magic recedes enough to remove all feeling from the affected areas." He tapped the wounded wood. "See?"

"Oh my god, please stop."

"Nothing."

"I will literally put these knives back in you."

"No pain."

Demeter made a strangled sound in the back of her throat and turned on her heel. Her hands were up about her mouth, breathing heavily through her nose. "You're a horrible person," she whispered. She froze. "Uh, where did the thieves go?"

Baron looked up from where he was smoothing his fur back. He snapped his fingers. "Oh, I knew I was forgetting something. There's one more thing you should know about our criminally-inclined acquaintances. They're cats."

He finished just as twin yowls echoed from across the room and two tabby cats pounced. Baron tossed his cane up, catching it and smacking it into one cat, while Demeter threw herself backwards, landing on her hands and delivering a solid kick to the other before following up the motion and landing back on her feet.

"You couldn't have started with that?" she snapped.

"What difference does it make?" he retorted. "You knocked them out!"

Both felines shifted into human form which, while it removed the threat of claws and fangs, left their agility and added height and daggers to the mix. Baron snagged Demeter back just as one such dagger came for her.

"Okay, where do you keep pulling these blades from?" he asked. "Genuinely curious now. Are there secret compartments in the jacket, or…?"

"Baron!" Demeter elbowed him away from a kick from Mungojerrie that would have buckled his knees.

"What? I'm asking a professional question!"

"Not the time!"

"Oh sure, so you have time to judge me for getting stabbed, but I have one question about practical clothing choices, and suddenly it's not the time." He swayed out of another attack, and even he had to admit he'd cut it close. He was too accustomed to the pace of humans; it had been a while since he'd met someone as fast as him – or two, to be specific. He tapped his cane against the floor, once, twice–

Mungojerrie slammed a foot into the cane and it went spinning before the spell could be completed. Baron leapt back to avoid the kick that followed. His knees hit a low cabinet and his rhythm slipped. Another attack came, too close. He forwent grace entirely and let his momentum carry him, feet slipping from the floor, back hitting the glass cabinet – smashing the glass cabinet, going through the glass cabinet – and rolled back. His hands found the floor beyond the display and he continued, head over heels, and staggering back to his feet.

"What's the matter, Creation?" Mungojerrie spat out. "Where are all your quips now?"

Baron could feel where the glass had cut into his jacket, splintering into his back, the numbness already creeping in to silence the pain. He looked a mess and he knew it. Still, he straightened. Smiled as if his back hadn't been shredded to woodchip ribbons. "Is that the best you've got?"

Mungojerrie tilted his head. Baron recognised the look he was receiving. It was the 'that move would have stopped any human in their tracks' look, that he got on a regular basis. His opponents tended to forget one very important detail, however: He wasn't human.

There was a yelp to his left, and the sound of metal meeting metal, and Baron made the mistake of glancing to where Demeter was facing off Rumpleteaser, her clockwork legs whirring with uncanny speed to fend off the encroaching blades. His attention was diverted for but a moment – instinct, really – but when he looked back, Mungojerrie was wearing a knowing smile.

"Stop me if you can," he said, and blurred into action.

He didn't run at Baron. And that, of all things, gave the Creation just a fatal moment's hesitation. Then he saw Mungojerrie's target, and Demeter's name ripped from his throat in warning. He started for her, too slow, she turned, too slow, and Mungojerrie's kick caught her beneath the ribcage and sent her flying into a display case that she flipped over, caught, and brought toppling down on her right leg.

She screamed, a bloody, raw sound, rough and ragged from the breath Mungojerrie had kicked out of her and, if Baron had had any doubt over her human status, it was silenced as she buckled in a terrifyingly mortal way.

Now it was Rumpleteaser's turn, and this time Baron saw the intent before the dagger even flashed. He jarred forward, hand reaching out to catch the throw, misjudging, and the dagger slammed into his palm instead. But no farther. No farther and Demeter was still alive.

He barely registered the pain or the surge of dulling magic, bringing his other elbow round and cracking it against Rumpleteaser's jaw. She collapsed, and in the heartbeat of stillness that lingered, there was a soft shwup and a breathless gasp.

Baron turned to the source and saw Mungojerrie behind him and swaying slightly. There was a glassy glaze to his feline eyes, and then his legs buckled and he hit the ground beside his sister.

Behind him, Demeter was now revealed, her left leg raised and mutated to the muzzle of a gun. She was breathing hard, her chest heaving and her eyes diluted from the pain, but the gun-leg was held steady and sure.

Baron eyed the felled Mungojerrie. "Did you…?"

"He's alive," Demeter said. She dropped her hand from her thigh, and the limb shifted back to an acceptable leg shape. "Knockout dart. He'll wake with one hell of a headache, but he'll wake." Her eyes narrowed. "Did you get stabbed again?"

Baron remembered the dagger still embedded in his palm. He tucked his hands behind his back. "No."

The distant sound of sirens cut off Demeter before she could call out the outrageous lie, and the snappy comeback died on her tongue. She tapped the fallen display case. "Get this thing off me and let's move. And take that knife out of your hand."

Baron followed her instructions, faltering for only a fraction as he saw the state of her crushed right leg. It had been a thing of mechanics and magic, but now it was a mangled mess of misshapen cogs and sparks. She motioned for him to help her to her feet, only the tension running taut through her frame betraying that she wasn't as nonchalant about the result as she appeared.

He didn't know much about Demeter. Sometimes that didn't matter. They both had their secrets, and that was fine. But sometimes he felt he could really do with knowing just that little bit more – like if the magic running through her clockwork legs had the same pain-dulling instinct that he had. By the way that she held herself, it was not nearly enough.

"What are we going to do about those two?" she asked, nodding to the unconscious thieves.

"I think we can safely leave them to the police."

"I mean, someone needs to know they're cats. Or they'll just shift as soon as the police's backs are turned and escape. And, as fun as tonight has been, I don't exactly want a repeat for the hell of it."

Baron considered this. "You may have a point."

"Of course I have a point. Now, see if you can locate any pens and paper so we can leave a note–"

"No need." Baron tucked his foot beneath his dropped cane and flicked it up, catching it with his spare hand, and tapping it once, twice, against the floor.

Instead of the blinding flood of light from before, the tip of the cane gave off a glinting shimmer that, when he raised it, left a line of starlight wherever Baron pleased. Like sparklers on a November night, he trailed his cane through the air until "warning – cats" with a helpful arrow gleamed above the offending duo.

"A pen and paper would have worked just as well," Demeter muttered.

"Yes, but that wouldn't have been nearly as fun."

Demeter rolled her eyes, betraying the fact that she couldn't argue with that point but she'd really like to. "You can let me go now, by the way."

"But your leg–"

"Is what? Broken? Shattered into a hundred tiny pieces? Oh, thank you for reminding me, I'd completely forgotten about the spine-tingling pain until then."

"No need for the sarcasm," Baron muttered.

"You have your humour, I have mine." Even so, when Baron gently released her, she stayed balanced, her right leg mangled but still aiding support, despite no longer able to move it. In the mechanisms of her remaining whole leg, she pulled out what appeared to be two batons that, when she pressed a button, extended out into metal crutches.

"Exactly how much do you have stored in those legs?" Baron asked.

"Oh, you know – the usual. Torch, batteries, snacks…"

"You don't have snacks."

"No, but you almost believed it for a moment, didn't you?"

The sirens were getting dangerously close now, unmistakeably heading for their direction, and Baron almost worried that Demeter was in no state to move when she propelled herself across the room like a three-legged mountain goat, only stopping by the broken door to glance back his way. "Hey, thanks for stopping Rumpleteaser back there. We make a pretty good team."

"I suppose we do."

She lingered for a few more moments and then, in the ensuing silence between them, gave a curt nod and turned back. "I'll see you around, Baron." Her left leg whirred, springs and cogs tightening before releasing in a sudden burst of energy and boosting her into a superhuman leap that landed her onto a nearby roof on all threes.

She threw back one last salute to him, and vanished into the skyline.

ooOoo

In the crimson glow of the rising dawn, half-human, half-cat figure dropped down from the rooftops and stepped through the back door of a small café. As he entered, his feline form melted away, fur and wood giving way to flesh and blood, his suit shifting to something more befitting the 21st Century, until all sign of the Creation he was had faded away.

Baron was gone, and Humbert von Gikkingen remained.

ooOoo

"Miss Haru, I must admit that I am disappointed with the progress of your mission." The gaunt ginger cat turned his sunken eyes from the report to Haru. His tone was light, despite the contents of his speech, a half-smile lighting on his face. "How many months has it been now? Two? Three?"

"Five," Haru amended quietly, fully aware that he knew the exact date.

"Five," the cat echoed. "Five months of undercover work and this is what you have to show for it? I had expected more from you, Miss Haru."

Haru kept her face still, her tone meticulously level. "This is a delicate task, sir. Despite his humour, Baron is… surprisingly wary. He gives very little away."

"Which is why we supplied you with your legs," he reminded her, uncannily cheerfully. "He perceives you to be like him, a Creation, even if only partly. If you think that won't be enough, we'll have to move onto more… extreme methods."

"It will be," Haru promised. "He's finally starting to trust me. I just need a bit more time–"

"And how much time would that be, Miss Haru? A month? Two? Another five?"

Haru was silent. Her fingers fiddled nervously at the intersection above her knee between flesh and clockwork, an anxious tic. She willed them still. "If that is what it takes, then that is what it takes," she said eventually. "Sir. Some things you cannot rush."

"Only if you're not trying hard enough."

"She's right, Macavity." A long-haired Persian cat approached from the shadows where she'd been wordlessly watching the exchange. Her white fur shimmered in the golden light of the Cat Kingdom's eternal sun. "If we act too rashly, we risk scaring off the Baron."

Macavity's smile didn't wane. "I don't tell you how to do your job, Griddlebone."

"I can't do my job until you've done yours," Griddlebone returned. "When the time comes, I'm sure you'll be poking your whiskers where they're not wanted. For now, we stay with our current plan." She dropped the feline mask on the table in front of Haru. "You'll be needing that, Miss Yoshioka. And see Quaxo. Your legs are a mess."

x

A/N: If you have questions about this world, I promise answers are coming in later chapters!

Also, as people may have noticed, several names were borrowed from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (and, in tangent, the musical Cats), which I've been dying to do for a long time, but haven't had a story with enough cat OCs until now. Haru's alias as Demeter was simply because of the associations with the season of spring for both, and is not foreshadowing the same relationship that Demeter and Macavity are insinuated to have in the musical.

Additionally, the "lightly stabbed" line was borrowed from Brooklyn Nine Nine, and the "I'm thinking fruit basket" comes from the podcast: Wolf 359. I would really recommend people check out Wolf 359, especially if you like light stories that delve into heartbreaking narratives later. (Please. This podcast needs more love.)

Until next week, my lovely readers.

Cat.