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The Adventures of Raven Bitca, Part II
The Jellicles didn't know how well they wanted Raven. All of them wanted to be near her splendidness, even Tugger's fangirls abandoned him to sit by her feet. But Raven only had eyes for Tugger. That was until Munkustrap and Demeter caught sight of her and gasped simultaneously.
"Oh my!" squeaked Demeter and grabbed Munkustrap. "Can it be... Can it really be..."
She did not finish the sentence; she simply dissolved into sobs and clung to her mate's shoulder. Munkustrap patted her absentmindedly on her golden head. Slowly, while supporting a crying Demeter, he walked up to Raven.
She got to her feet and met the pair halfway. This was the greatest moment of her life.
Raven looked at Munkustrap. He was just as handsome as he was in the movie. His coat was a matted silver with darker grey stripes, his eyes a stern but kind green. He looked at her with all the sorrows of the world shimmering in the green orbs.
Raven looked at Demeter. The golden queen was, despite the fact that she was sobbing so violently that she could barely stand, a very beautiful cat. Munkustrap had his muscular arm wrapped around her in a protective gesture, and he stroked her calmingly.
"It is all right, my love," he whispered so faintly that only Raven's extraordinary hearing picked it up. "It will all be fine now that we are all together again. Sssh, don't cry..."
Finally Demeter looked up and met Raven's eyes. The black cat calmly met her gaze, but inside she felt like she might break down and cry just as hard as... as...
Her mother?
"Oh, my darling little baby girl, you are all grown up, and look how beautiful you are!" sniffled Demeter and started wailing again. "Oh, you must forgive your father and I, my precious, we did not know any better! We wanted to keep you so, so much, but ack, for we knew that you were meant for great things, and Macavity would certainly come after you, so we asked the Twins and Mistoffelees to put a spell on you so that you would become human and forget your life as a cat, and we are so, so sorry, and we know you cannot EVER forgive us but please try? We only want to be a family again!"
She dissolved into sobs once more.
"Yes," said Munkustrap and held out one arm for Raven to take. "My daughter..."
Raven stared. How could they do this to her? How could they just... assume that she would...
But of course she would. She had always known that she was special and not like other humans. Not even Wannabe had fully understood her, not like her CATS DVD had. She had always, always known!
She fell into her father's arms and wept, and not a single eye was dry in the junkyard. Even Cassandra shed a tear before the happy family scene. All was well with the world!
--
Or so they thought.
Ekwy Fields, Mary-Sue Assassin for the PPC, was not happy. She didn't like to be alone on a mission, no she didn't like it one bit. Curses upon Gecka for getting sick!
But maybe it was for the best. After all, from what Ekwy had gathered, Raven Bitca was supposed to hook up with the Rum Tum Tugger. Considering what Gecka had done to Serenity Deuteronomy, who hadn't even been after the maned cat in the first place, introducing her to Raven would be a very messy affair indeed. Ekwy didn't like messiness.
But that did leave only her to take care of everything. It was not the killing she had a problem with. She'd been killing Sues for nearly a year now, and she was getting pretty damn good at it. It was just that she was out of ideas for how to do it. She liked to be creative. So far, she hadn't killed two Sues in the same way, and she wanted to keep it that way.
'Perhaps I shall let wild Pollicles rip her apart?' pondered Ekwy as she strolled around the shadows of the junkyard. 'That would save me the trouble of finding a place to dump the body as well. And the poor dears gets so hungry if I don't feed them...'
She smiled fondly as she thought of the Pollicles. Ekwy wasn't really a dog person, but they did have their uses sometimes.
Yes, Pollicles. She could use that, if she didn't think of anything better to do with Raven Bitca. What kind of name was that, anyway?
She regarded the Sue critically, as Raven was fawned upon by her newly discovered mother.
A cat-person. How she detested cat-people. Whiny little brats they were, the lot of them. "Oh I am so alone, nobody likes me because I have funny ears, wha wha wha..." Please. If they wanted kids to hate their Sue, then they only had to give her a tail. People would get over the fact of her pointy ears rather quickly, but it was harder to ignore a fully-grown tail.
At least she didn't work in the Lord of the Rings fandom. The Elven Sues showing up there were even worse, she'd heard. Multicoloured eyes and long golden tresses and mysterious magical powers... It was enough to make you sick.
Oh, well. Raven Bitca would be dead soon, thank goodness. Humming No One Mourns the Wicked silently to herself, Ekwy went to get some sleep. She'd need it. Tomorrow would be worse.
--
Raven Bitca opened her eyes and wondered briefly where she was. And then she remembered, and she smiled.
She stretched her lovely, slim cat-body and yawned lazily. She could get used to this. Being Munkustrap's daughter, and thereby also the heiress to the throne of the Jellicle Tribe, did have its advantages.
She gracefully jumped down from the giant tire, where she had been sleeping, and went to examine her new kingdom. This was her place. This was where she belonged. She couldn't even remember what those other people, the ones that had called themselves her adoptive parents, had looked like.
Raven strolled around for a while, without really having a goal. She was looking for someone, she knew that. But whom?
It was not until she found Tugger sitting in a corner, looking rather sad, that she knew whom.
"Hello," she said softly and sat down next to him.
He jumped. He hadn't seen her coming. Her movements were so swift and elegant that he hadn't even noticed!
"Hello," he answered.
It was the first time he had ever spoken to her. Raven allowed herself to melt into his voice for a moment before speaking again.
"You don't look so good. What's the matter?"
He looked up to meet her gaze. "It's nothing," he muttered. "Nothing at all. Just something silly, that your father decided when you were a small kitten, just before they... found out how special you were."
He gave her an adoring glance.
Raven frowned. "What did father decide for me?"
Tugger sighed, mentally preparing for what he would reveal. The air hummed with excitement. The junkyard held its breath.
"He decided... that you and--and I would be..." He blushed, and Raven's fangirlish heart squealed with excitement.
Who would've known that the macho Rum Tum Tugger would be able to blush?
Tugger faced the ground, not able to look at her. He was too embarrassed. How could he even believe that this--this goddess would ever even look twice at him? At last he decided to just blurt it out.
"He decided that, when you were old enough, we would become mates."
It became very, very silent. Only the sounds of Raven's suddenly pounding heart were heard in the entire junkyard.
"Mates?" she repeated finally. "You and... and I?"
"Of course, you don't have to," Tugger stuttered, in hope that she would not be angry with him or reject him right away. "It was a stupid idea of Munkustrap's, he shouldn't have... Please don't be mad!"
He looked pleadingly at her. To his surprise, Raven only smiled sweetly.
"Oh Tugger," she fluted. "I have loved you since the first time I laid my weird-looking eyes on you! We are soul mates! There has never been anyone else but you!"
He stared at her. For a moment there was a flicker of horror in his eyes as the real Rum Tum Tugger -- the one who had not been possessed by the Sue -- gained control of his own body in a futile attempt to get as far away from Raven as possible. It did not last long. Two nanoseconds later, the mind of the Suvian had control over him again, and made him smiled stupidly.
"Really?" he asked. "Do you really, really mean that, my lovely, darling, sweet little schnickerdoodle?"
"Oh yes, I do, love-buns! Kiss me, you fool!"
Obeying immediately, Tugger took her in his arms and dipped her backwards. His mouth closed in on hers, Raven's heart squealed incoherent net-speak with a lot of exclamation marks, and...
"STOP! Stop stop stop stop stop stop stop!"
Tugger dropped Raven on the ground. There was a THUNK as she hid her head on the asphalt.
"Ow."
The Sue rubbed her head and looked up. In front of her stood a black cat, who was panting slightly as if she had been running.
"Who are you?" whined Raven. "You're not supposed to be here! He was just about to kiss me!"
"Yeah, what was up with THAT?" asked the black cat. "Cats don't kiss. They nuzzle, they pounce, they butt, but they don't bloody KISS. You just went a leeettle bit overboard there, sweets."
She grinned, showing off a little more teeth than was strictly necessary. Then she picked up a piece of paper and cleared her throat.
"Raven Bitca, you are charged with all the following crimes against canon: Being a cat-person; pushing the Rum Tum Tugger, Alonzo and Tumblebrutus out of character... Probably Demeter too, she doesn't cry quite as much as you want her to. Wait a minute while I write that down." There was a few scratching sounds. "There. Now where was I? Oh, yes. Ahem. Writing angsty and extremely bad poetry; having natural blue streaks (yes, that IS a charge); thinking that being Goth is just listening to Evanescence and wear too much mascara; having a Tragic Pastand angsting about it; being able to kick Macavity's ass without even breaking a sweat; breaking up a canon romance (i.e. the relationship between the Rum Tum Tugger and his fangirls) just so that you can get together with him..."
The cat paused to take a breath.
"Causing the Rum Tum Tugger to act like a lovestruck fool over you; being the un-canonical offspring of Munkustrap and Demeter; altering the nature of cats by snogging the Rum Tum Tugger as if you were both human; using a bad plot device by making Munkustrap marry off his only daughter..."
The cat turned silent. And then...
"Eww!" She looked at Raven in disgust. "You are aware that Tugger is your uncle, right? Gross!"
Raven didn't miss a beat. "That's not proved! It's just something that people say!"
"No, it is a common opinion that he is," the cat corrected her. "So common, in fact, that it's basically canon. Anyway, the PPC counts is as canon, and believe me, Toots, when I say that you do NOT want to mess with the PPC. You're in enough trouble already."
"But it's FANFICTION!" whined Raven and stomped her foot hard on the ground. "I can do what I WANT!"
Ekwy winced. "Oh, you REALLY shouldn't have said that... I am afraid I have to kill you a little harder than usual now."
Before Raven noticed what she'd said, Ekwy had head-butted her and smirked in satisfaction as the Sue went down like a ton of bricks.
Tugger blinked a few times. "Who are you?" he finally demanded to know.
Ekwy turned around and smiled at him. She had put on her black sunglasses and held up the neurolyzer in front of him.
"Who, me? Just a dream, Tugger. Just a dream."
Flash.
"Go back to sleep now. This was all a very strange dream that you don't want to remember and which will be gone in the morning. Go now. Shoo. Scram."
Tugger obeyed dazedly. Ekwy regarded the fallen Sue for a while and sighed.
"Right."
She picked up Raven and threw her over her shoulder, not caring much that the Sue's head just accidentally happened to bang into things as she passed them. It didn't take Ekwy very long to get to the alleys where the stray dogs hanged out. She was a little nervous, she was in the body of a cat after all, but not scared. She knew that the Pollicles wouldn't see her unless she chose to reveal herself to them, which she wasn't planning on doing.
This particular alley was a cul-de-sac, surrounded by garbage and dirty brick walls. As far as Ekwy could see, it was a fitting place for Raven Bitca to end her days.
She dropped the Sue on the filthy ground and lithely jumped up to view the spectacle from a safe distance. She didn't want to miss this.
She drew a breath and shouted at the top of her lungs:
"C'mere all Pekes and Pollicles and Pugs and Poms! Dinner's served, my sweets! Come and grab it!"
Her voice woke up Raven, who moaned and rubbed her wounded head. Ekwy grinned, and it wasn't very pleasant. Her eyes glinted wickedly.
The first dog had just woken up, and to Ekwy's delight it was an Alsatian.
Very slowly, Raven turned around. The very large teeth of the dog glimmered in the faint light of a nearby streetlamp.
"Show him your black belts!" Ekwy called down and giggled. "I'm sure he'll be VERY impressed."
She watched the whole thing with some interest, but then she got bored. Before she left, however, she just couldn't resist rubbing it in further. She looked down. Raven was still alive. Barely.
"Oh, and one more thing?"
Raven looked up, her yellow/green eyes wide with pain and terror.
"John Partridge is gay. He is the gayest of the gayest of the gayest. Sorry to burst your bubble. Bye!"
And Ekwy chuckled to herself, turned around, walked through a newly opened portal, and left Raven to her fate.
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A/N: Remember that it is nice to review. The Author will love you if you review. Do you not want the Author to love you?
Also, if you have an idea for a special Sue-archetype you want me to... dispose of, let me know!