"Redwhisker-sensei, Redwhisker-sensei, Redwhisker-sensei!" chanted a loud voice.

The fire-furred tom turned around, his starry pupils twitching. "Yeah, Nighty?"

The small black cat bounded up excitedly, his eyes shining. "Tell me a story, Redwhisker-sensei, please! You said you would!"

Redwhisker cleared his throat and sat down in the leafy foliage. "That I did, didn't I," he grumbled to himself, thinking on what he had promised that morning.

Nightbolt sat too and stared hopefully at his former mentor.

After a moment, Redwhisker sighed and smiled at the cat before launching into his tale...

"It was a dark and stormy night," he began, then paused. "Wait, no, that's not it." He tried again. "A, B, C, D-" He mumbled something else and shook his head. "Let me try again! Dora, Dora, the explorer!"

Nightbolt shifted his paws nervously at Redwhisker's continuous false starts.

"All you gotta do is think, think, thiiiink! We can use our minds, take a step at a time, and we can do anything- that we wanna do!" He barked in a weird way.

"Redwhisker-sensei," interrupted Nightbolt, rolling his eyes. "This isn't a very good story..."

The red cat snapped, "I'm working on it!" Then, he had an idea and a lightbulb clicked on over his head. He reached up a pink paw to switch it off, and turned to Nightbolt. "Let's make our own story!" he mewed excitedly. "It will have lots of adventure, romance, treasure, and... and... adventure!"

The smaller cat's eyes lit up. "That sounds like fun! But... how will we do that...?"

Redwhisker smiled grimly. "Never fear, the Imagination Choo-Choo is here!"

…

"So, how does this work again, Reddif-sensei?" Nightbolt whined, looking dubiously at the big shoe they were sitting in.

"The Choo-Choo Shoe will take us to Candy Mountain!" Redwhisker chirped in a high voice.

"What."

"Candy Mountain, Charlie! Candy Mountaiinn!"

Nightbolt hopped out of the shoe. "What about making our own story," he complained. "I want it to be original, not a rip-off of Secret Agent Bob from Youtube!"

Redwhisker clambered out too. "You're right, Nighty," he said in a normal voice. "Time for Plan B!"

"What's Plan B?"

"Come with me!" Redwhisker yowled and dashed off through the forest.

Nightbolt ran after him, struggling to keep up because he was so short. Eventually they came upon a big building with open doors. It looked like a train station but nobody was there and the ticket booths were closed. There were cobwebs everywhere and it looked like it had been abandoned for years. "R-Redwhisker-sensei," Nightbolt whimpered, staying close by his side. "Where... where are we?"

Redwhisker grinned at his charge and took his paw, dragging him forward. "This is the Crossingroads between reality...and fantasy," his dark eyes glinted and he padded up to a closed ticket booth and pounded on the wall: "Hey, open up, Rocky! It's me, you doofus!"

Immediately, the shutter slid up and a buff, mean-looking Rottweiler peered out, and when his eyes alighted on the tom's face, he broke into a wide grin. "Red! Hey," he bruffed happily. "What brings you to this neck o' the woods?"

Redwhisker patted Nightbolt's shoulder and showed his razor teeth in a wide Cheshire Cat grin. "I promised Nighty here a story this morning, and he's gonna get one!"

"Oh ho ho, a story, eh?" Rocky scrutinized Nightbolt closely with one eye. "Looks like a good little 'un. Your son?" he added to Redwhisker, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh, no, no, no," Redwhisker laughed, holding his paws out in front of him. "He tagged along with me after I was run out of my Clan, he was my apprentice."

Rocky's eyebrows inched higher. "Looks like a lot has happened since I saw ya last," he said gruffly. He looked a bit sad, or so Nightbolt thought, but the dog brightened up again and tapped at a keyboard just inside the window. "So, where you off to, Red?" he asked. "Tickets are on me!"

Redwhisker smiled at his friend. "Thanks, pal, two one-way tickets to Hollow Central, please."

The dog tapped another button and two tickets slid out of a slot and he handed them to Redwhisker, who nodded his thanks. "Your ride leaves as soon as you're ready, just go through that door, you know the one." Rocky murmured good-bye and the cat and dog shook paws warmly. Then the metal grate slid shut and the two companions were on their own again in the spooky empty building.

Nightbolt was bursting with questions and stared wide-eyed at Redwhisker. "Who was that? Where are we? Where are we going? How are we-?"

An annoyed glance from Redwhisker shut him up for the moment, and they padded over to the door that Rocky had indicated. Redwhisker rested his paw on the doorknob, and turned to Nightbolt. "What do you want to go on? It could be anything: horse-drawn carriage, bus, train, plane... anything. Use your imagination."

Nightbolt was taken aback. "Er, anything?" Redwhisker nodded. "How about... on an elephant?"

Redwhisker smiled and nodded, then opened the door. Nightbolt's jaw dropped. An elephant was kneeling in the middle of a huge room and it was garbed in elegant cloths and diamonds and a royal seat was draped over its back with a purple velvet canopy for shade.

"This...this is...what is this place, sensei?" He turned to Redwhisker in wonder.

The tom merely smiled and said, "A place where your dreams come true."

…

The ride on the elephant was pleasantly smooth, not at all bumpy the way Nightbolt had thought it would be. When they'd exited the room through a tall set of double doors, the black cat found they weren't even in the forest anymore. Instead, they traveled through a boiling desert devoid of any life, with large sand dunes as far as the eye could see. The sun was high in the sky when they'd started their journey and slowly set as time went on. Luckily though, they had plenty of refreshments atop the elephant. Nightbolt's glass of water with cold ice cubes never seemed to empty and the canopy brought luxurious shade underneath the otherwise sweltering sun.

When Nightbolt started to feel hungry, he said so to Redwhisker, who pointed behind him with a lazy smile on his face. Nightbolt turned and saw a platter of food that hadn't been there before. There were dark hunks of meat (his sensei called it "chicken"), and delicious-smelling white sticky stuff with a salty black liquid dribbled over it (it was "rice" with "soy sauce"), and even more pieces of meat that Redwhisker-sensei said was called "beef jerky"!

Nightbolt scarfed it all down and serving after serving kept reappearing whenever he thought he wanted more. After he was full, the platter disappeared and the black cat contentedly fell asleep next to Redwhisker.

Hours later, Nightbolt opened his eyes and sat up sleepily. The sun had set just below the horizon and the sky was streaked with pink, purple, and orange. Stars were starting to pop out and the black cat looked at Redwhisker, whose whiskers were twitching excitedly as he stared over the elephant's head.

"Are we almost there?" Nightbolt asked curiously, climbing over the velvet spread cautiously to sit beside his former mentor.

Redwhisker nodded. Then he gasped and pointed. "Look! I see The Tower!" he exclaimed.

"Where? Where?" Nightbolt strained his eyes but all he could see was sand for miles all around.

Redwhisker quivered from ear to tail. "You'll see soon! We're getting closer, I can feel it!"

Nightbolt decided his friend was crazy and curled up for another nap to await their arrival at this... Hollow Central place.

Several more hours had gone by when Nightbolt finally woke up. He took a sip from his glass of water and turned drowsily to Redwhisker. "Are we there yet?" he mumbled. A shadow passed over the elephant and the canopy and Nightbolt peeked behind them. They had just passed under a gate! He gasped. They were here! Nightbolt scrambled back to Redwhisker who was sliding off the elephant. Nightbolt followed, his hind paws thumping into the soft sand.

Redwhisker patted the elephant's trunk and it brayed happily, waving its snout in goodbye. Then it turned around and lumbered away. Nightbolt tried to look around to see where it had gone, but it had disappeared into thin air.

Redwhisker beckoned Nightbolt to come with him and they trotted up to the city gates. A leopard was sprawled in a chair in the gatehouse and she peered out the window to look at the two arriving cats.

"Hullo, may I help you, sir?" she purred.

Redwhisker blinked warmly at her. "Yes, we would like to enter Hollow Central."

The leopard pursed her lips and stared suspiciously at them. "The mayor says no one is to be let in after curfew," she growled. "Didn't you know that?"

Redwhisker shook his head. "No, ma'am, we're just visiting, this is the first we've heard of those terms."

The leopard's eyes softened. "Well, if that's the case, I'll let you two in, but just this once. Got it?"

The toms nodded and the leopard wrote something down in a notepad, then clicked a red button. The inner gates creaked open and Redwhisker led the way in. "Guess the mayor is a new thing here," Nightbolt heard Redwhisker muttering to himself as they walked down a rocky path beside a tall building. The red cat entered the building through glass double-doors and Nightbolt followed.

This was a hotel. Nightbolt could see that because the words 'Central Hollow Hotel' were engraved in the wall behind a large round clerk desk. A tired-looking white cat wearing small rectangular glasses was sitting behind the desk in a short spinny chair. The cat pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose and perked up, looking warily at the strangers. "Er, yes?"

"How much is a room for one night?" Redwhisker asked, pulling out his wallet.

"Seventy-five dollars. Four hundred for a full week, if you so choose." He ticked away at an old monitor, squinting his eyes to look closely at something on the screen.

Redwhisker slapped his credit card on the counter. "Just one night is all we need, really," he assured the white cat.

The cat nodded and scanned the card, typed something and printed out a receipt. "Here's your room card," he meowed, sliding a piece of plastic onto the counter. "Your room is on the fourth floor, room 450. Have a nice stay."

Redwhisker smiled, stuffing the card into his wallet and sauntered off to the elevator. Nightbolt padded after him and they went up to the room. Redwhisker let them in and Nightbolt bounded in, flinging himself onto a bed.

"This is great!" he hooted, bouncing on the edge and did a somersault.

Redwhisker grinned at the playful kitten and slid onto the other bed. "Better get some rest, Nighty, we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow." He lay his head on the pillow and closed his eyes.

Nightbolt quit bouncing and sprawled on top of the blankets, flailing his limbs in excitement. "Okay, Redwhisker-sensei," he chirped.

"Sweet dreams."

The next morning, Nightbolt got up early and made his bed dutifully. Then he jumped on top of Redwhisker to wake him up.

"Get up, sensei, get up!" he sang.

"Oof! Gerroffame!" Redwhisker grunted, and fell off the bed as Nightbolt wildly bounced on it. He peeked over the edge and hissed at the smaller tom who then jumped off and raced for the door.

"I'm hungry! Let's go hunt!" Nightbolt squealed.

Redwhisker shook his head and narrowed his eyes. "There's no hunting in Hollow Central, it's against the law."

Nightbolt looked crestfallen. "But what will we eat?" he cried.

"We can go to IHOP!' Redwhisker grinned. Pancakes! Waffles! French toast!

The black tom was puzzled, for he had never heard of IHOP before. "What is… I hop?"

Redwhisker led Nightbolt out of the hotel. "You'll see," he simply replied.

And Nightbolt did see. The cats traveled a few blocks deeper into the city, which was slowly starting to buzz with more civilians, and they finally reached a one-story white building with a blue roof. A sign just outside the window said, "IHOP - Open."

The bell jangled as they padded in the door, and a pretty pink poodle with a curly afro and a nametag that said 'Pippi', immediately greeted them and showed them to a vacant table. It was early enough in the morning that the restaurant was hardly a quarter full, with business men enjoying a cup of coffee before work and a few early-rising students getting to work on their studies before the school day began.

Redwhisker picked up his menu and looked through it. Nightbolt flipped his open and looked at the choices as Pippi poured cold water into their glasses. "Any drinks I can get for you, boys?" she drawled in a distinct Southern accent, taking out a pen and a notepad from her apron pocket.

"Coffee'd be nice, extra creamer if you please," Redwhisker muttered from behind his menu.

The poodle scribbled something on the notepad and turned to Nightbolt. "And you, dear?"

Nightbolt glanced up. "Er, orange juice, please," he said, smiling shyly.

Pippi winked and padded away, stowing her pen and pad back into her apron.

Nightbolt turned back to his menu and squinted at the choices. "What do you recommend, sensei?" he mewed. "There are too many to choose from!"

"I would go with the Mickey Mouse pancakes if I were you," Redwhisker replied. "Those are delicious!"

Nightbolt looked at the picture and nodded. "Well, I do like chocolate," he conceded.

"Everybody does, hon!" Pippi had come back. "Here are your drinks, m'dears." The poodle set the glasses by the respective customers. "Are y'all ready to order now?"

Nightbolt nodded and pointed to the pancakes. Pippi scribbled in her handy-dandy notepad, grinning. She must like chocolate too, Nightbolt thought. Redwhisker ordered his own breakfast and off Pippi went to the kitchens, the now-unnecessary menus tucked under her arm.

Nightbolt leaned his chest into the edge of the table, and stared intently at Redwhisker who had busied himself with his coffee. "So, sensei," the tom began uncertainly.

"Mhm?"

"What are we...doing after this?" He was curious.

Redwhisker finished getting his coffee ready and took a sip. Putting the mug down, he arched his back in a tight stretch. "I think we'll start the day off by going to see my friend, Heatclaw. He knows a few stories that we can take inspiration from."

Nightbolt's eyes widened and he crossed his arms, leaning back. "What's Heatclaw like?"

Redwhisker winced a little. "He's, uh, quite eccentric. I'm sure you'll find him very interesting."

"What does he do?"

"He's deputy of his Clan, and I expect he'll become leader eventually; the current leader is very old and down to his last two lives." Redwhisker took another sip from his mug.

Nightbolt stared out the window. Cars were zooming past, on their way to work or some other place. Buildings soared into the sky on either side of the street and the air was hung with a quiet coolness. It was as if the city wasn't in the middle of the desert at all. What was this place, Nightbolt found himself wondering again.

"Sensei, does Heatclaw live very far from here? Is there a park or something nearby that is his territory?" Nightbolt asked.

Redwhisker nodded, paused, then shook his head. "Heatclaw lives very very far," he murmured. "But it won't take long to get there."

Nightbolt gestured out the window. "This city is so big, I bet there isn't a peaceful place for miles. How will we get there?" He picked up his glass of orange juice and took a hesitant sip.

"By portal."

Nightbolt spewed his juice into Redwhisker's face. "B-by what?" he spluttered, hurriedly grabbing some napkins and handing them to his former mentor, mortified to have gotten his sensei's fur dripping. Redwhisker wiped himself off calmly, smirking at Nightbolt's shocked expression.

"Hollow Central is a gateway to all kinds of worlds," he explained, putting the damp napkins to the side. "It's the place you go to when you need a rest between worlds and meeting up with friends from other worlds. Not a lot of people really know about this place."

Nightbolt gestured out the window again. The street was jampacked with morning traffic now. "Not a lot of people?" he echoed.

Redwhisker nodded and smiled mysteriously. "Hollow Central is a funny place," he said. "Not all of the creatures out there are real, living beings."

Nightbolt tilted his head. "What?"

"At least fifty percent of the people out there," Redwhisker pointed out the window, "are what some call NPCs. They are essentially robots with a personality chip installed inside their programming. They act just like real animals, like you or me, but they lack the capacity to have real feelings." The tom curled his lip in disgust. "It may seem like they do, but they are only going through the motions. In reality, they are just cold unfeeling pieces of metal."

Nightbolt gaped at Redwhisker. "So, the poodle-?" he turned around and looked at the doors that led to the kitchens.

"Oh, she's not one of them, thankfully," the red tom assured him. "She's breathing. Same with the leopard and the white cat. They have special tags, so you can tell which one they're dealing with."

Nightbolt stared into his glass of juice. Now that Redwhisker was explaining things...he felt more intrigued about this place.

"Here's your breakfast!" came an ecstatic yip. Nightbolt glanced up; Pippi had returned with their food!

Nightbolt pointed at Pippi and meowed in a hushed voice, "Can I see your tag thing?"

Pippi lolled her tongue out and laughed. "Oh, honey, only the NPCs have the tags," she explained.

Redwhisker smiled at the poodle. "I've been meaning to ask someone, but how are things here?"

Pippi was caught off-guard for a moment. Her tongue slurped back in and she coughed a little. "In Hollow Central? Er, not as bad as it used to be, the new mayor has managed to keep things under control so far. You haven't been here in a while, have you?"

Redwhisker shook his head. "Not for years."

The poodle shrugged. "You probably haven't read the New Laws then. I'd advise you to go down to the Council Hall and borrow a copy of the pamphlet. Enjoy your food!" She turned and walked away.

Nightbolt stared from her to Redwhisker, a forkful of pancake halfway to his mouth. He set the utensil down and frowned a little at his companion. "New Laws? Mayor?"

Redwhisker shook his head. "You don't need to worry about all that. It's grown-up stuff."

"What about going to the Council Hall? You probably should read up on the new laws…" Nightbolt trailed away and watched as a small gaggle of dalmations crossed the street, dodging inconsiderate taxicabs and impatient commuters going to work.

"I will later. But first, we're going to see Heatclaw," Redwhisker said firmly.

Nightbolt shrugged. "If ya say so, sensei." He eagerly inhaled more of his delicious chocolatey pancakes.

The two finished their meal, Redwhisker paid with his credit card and then they stepped out the door onto the sidewalk. "Where do we go, Redwhisker-sensei?" Nightbolt asked, looking back and forth down the street. A mean-looking pitbull leaned out the back window of a truck and called, "Strike a pose for me, pretty boy!" Redwhisker narrowed his eyes as the vehicle zoomed away, the dog and his buddies laughing raucously and high-pawing each other.

"Taxi!" Redwhisker called, sticking his thumb out, and a yellow taxicab pulled up in front of them.

"Where to," grunted the driver and Redwhisker told him to take them to Portal Square.

A half hour later of winding through traffic-ridden streets, they stopped at a park. "Fifteen dollars," the driver grunted, holding out a grubby paw. Redwhisker gave him a crisp twenty and the two clambered out onto the fresh springy grass.

"Huh, this is nice," Nightbolt said, impressed. He never thought such a vibrant park could exist in a large drab city like Hollow Central.

"It has to be," Redwhisker muttered.

They trotted past the fence and onto a path that led into a little wood. The red cat eyed a clump of bushes as they walked past and then bounded up to a gnarled old tree. He touched a knob on the trunk and there was a clicking noise.

Password? something unfamiliar said inside Nightbolt's mind and he jumped.

"Heatclaw forever," Redwhisker murmured, his eyes darting nervously from side to side.

Very good. You may proceed.

A door swung open that was made of the tree's bark and Redwhisker nudged Nightbolt and pointed inside. "Go on," he encouraged.

Nightbolt obliged and stepped cautiously into the dark trunk. All of a sudden, he was falling down a pitch-black tunnel. "Help!" he screamed.