Hi again! Thanx to all my rviewers, I really appreciate it. This chapter is pretty different from the last one, but don't worry it's still the same story! I hope it's not too confusing. Anywy, enjoy!

"Sillabub! Wake up you lazy kit!"

Sillabub groaned and buried her face further into the pile of old material thet served as her bed.

"Come on. He wants to see you." The unmistakable voice of Fanika interrupted her attempt at getting back to sleep.

Silla opened one eye blearily and looked at the sleek brown queen.

"Now? Whatever for?"

"I don't know, but we can't keep him waiting now, can we? Up you get!"

Silla however, did not like the thought of getting up at this time of day to have an audience with the #1 most hated cat in London, especially after spending all of last night working her tail off for him.

"Tell him I'll see him later," she mumbled and rolled over.

"Taiku said it was urgent. Now get up before I do it for you," Fanika ordered icily.

Silla knew that her foster mother wasn't joking, so she sighed and reluctantly got up.

Fanika, seeing that the kitten was finally obeying, stalked out of the large cardboard box in which they slept.

Silla groaned again and stretched before giving herself a good grooming. If she was going to see The Most Honourable Napolean of Crime, as he was known in this area, she may as well look presentable. Also, it had been a while since she had given it a proper clean, and the black, white and red coat was starting to resemble a stray pollicle that had recently been done in by Macavity.

Once she deemed herself presentable enough to face the rest of the world, she stretched again trotted outside to meet Fanika, who was standing near the entrance.

"You took forever. Now you'll have to run there. And your coat looks like that of the pollicle your father killed last week," she said critically, eyeing the kitten up and down.

Silla rolled her eyes. "I just spent all that 'forever' grooming it," she retaliated, ignoring the way Fanika reffered to Macavity as her father. He was her father, but Fanika wasn't her mother. She didn't know who her real mother was, or what had happened to her. She supposed that she had been one of Macavity's queens, probably one he had disposed of when she had displeased him. Silla didn't really dwell on it. After all, Macavity killed all manner of creatures, cat, rat, dog, or even (it was rumoured) human, but no one questioned it. It was just the way things were in the maze of downtown London streets known to most as Macavity's 'Empire'.

Fanika ignored her and gestured to a couple of rats lying near her paws. "I had to catch your breakfast too, seeing as you won't have time," she said in that same icy tone.

"Right. Thanks," Sillabub replied, trying not to eye the scrawny, undernourished things with distaste, knowing it wouldn't improve Fanika's frosty mood to complain.

Silla had always thought of Fanika as unhappy and snappish, but it was only since being removed from her title as Macavity's Head Queen that her foster mother had acted like that. She'd been replaced with some younger cat, as Macavity preffered them to be young and didn't usually keep the ones that had become pregnant more than twice. The Head Queen always lived with The Hidden Paw himself and didn't have to hunt for food, his personal henchcats always bringing it to her instead.

Once denounced from her title, the former Head Queen was still counted as one of his queens, but had to find her own home, hunt her own food and looke after any kits that she might have spawned from her time with Macavity. It was a difficult life, particularly since the Empire was was occupied by so many cats and competition for food was plenty. But Empire cats were born and bred the tough way, so only the very old or very young didn't survive. Even so, such a life didn't suit Fanika, and she relied on her children to try and get back into Macavity's good books.

Sillabub had only been very small when her foster mother had been Head Queen, and didn't know any other life than the one she led now. Her foster sister however, did remember, and was just as eager to regain the favour of her father as Fanika was.

"Where's Lishren?" Sillabub asked now, noting the absence of the older queenkit as she chewed on what little meat the dead rat had.

"Lishren got sent on a mission last night," Fanika replied smugly while devouring her own breakfast.
"The one Mac's been talking about for months?"

"Do not call him that! Show some respect! And yes, that's the one." She began grooming one paw before stopping to stare at Silla in the eye. "He would have chosen you, were you not so clumsy."

Silla just shrugged. She didn't really care anyway, much as Fanika had wanted her to. She ignored the clumsy comment as well, despite feeling rather stung. She wasn't clumsy! She was one of the best young thieves Macavity had. It was just her unwillingness to perform particular stunts, like killing dogs that got in the way of her and her loot, or hurting someone just to get out of trouble. Lishren on the other hand, was willing to do this and more to get her way. Fanika's real daughter looked a lot like her, with her sleek brown fur, dark eyes and a lot of sexual appeal for one her age. Most of the toms of the Empire often lusted after her and would have liked nothing better than to extract pleasure from her. But besides her beauty and charm, Lishren had also inherited some of her father's magic powers. She could hypnotise any living thing, create illusions, hover in the air and dissapear whenever she wanted. As such, if she ever gave a tom pleasure at all, it would be one of her choice.

Sillabub wasn't jealous of of her foster sister, and after years of living in the same box as her, she'd gotten used to her rather arrogant attitude. She just found it annoying that one queen could have so many wonderful traits and use them for such horrible purposes. Everlasting Cat, if Silla was that talented, she'd get the hell out of this Bast forsaken place and find a new life somewhere else. Still, each to her own opinion, she told herself.

She pushed these thoughts out of her mind and answered Fanika as lightly as she could. "Well, you never know, the reason he might want to see me now is because he wants to send me on an oh-so-important mission." Yeah. Right. The reason he wanted to see her was because she screwed up yet another thieving expedition. It wasn't her fault that the humans she'd been trying to steal off had a human kitten that had bawled it's eyes out when seeing Silla's presence. To tell you the truth, she hadn't thought that there was much point in thieving such an obviously poor house anyway, so why go killing an innoccent youngster (she could tell it was young and innoccent no matter how hard it could pull tails) for nothing? She knew the Hidden Paw would disagree, but there was no help for it now.

Fanika seemed to be thinking along the same lines. She also seemed to think, however, that punishment by Macavity was enough and didn't hound her foster daughter about it.

"Well, you'd better get a move on then. You're obviously not going to eat any more," she said, eyeing the half chewed rat at Silla's paws.

Silla nodded and gave her face a quick clean before standing up. "See you later," she said and bounded off.

She waited until out of sight of Fanika before slowing down to a trot. Like hell she was going to run the whole way there. It was obvious she was in for it badly so being a few minutes late wouldn't hurt. Deep in her mind she knew that she'd regret it later, but, still being a kitten, natural instinct came before thinking ahead. So Sillabub set her out at her own pace through the old abandoned streets, passing various cats that looked like all their insides had been sucked out of them, leaving just the skin and bones. Most of them were still asleep after a hard nights work and she envied them. A few were scrounging around in the dark, dirty corners of the area in search of food and looked up as she passed. She ignored them. It was common for most queens to stop and exchange pleasantries with every other tom she met on the streets no matter what their age was, but Silla's unusual cold attitude towards the cats of the Empire was well known and no tom bothered with her. In fact she was probably the only queen of her age who still had her innoccence. And she didn't want to give it away to just anyone.

She had just reached a part of the Empire which was very unpopulated (by cat or otherwise) when a blueish coloured blur streaked past her face. She blinked and turned her head to see what it was. A butterfly! she thought delightedly. Butterflys never came down this end of town. What was it doing here?

It flew past her face again, making her giggle, before heading down the street. Still smiling, Silla bounded after it. "Hey, wait," she called out. It wasn't every day you saw such a pretty thing in the Empire, and her kittenish mind didn't want to lose sight of it.

She followed it through the jumbled maze of alleyways, darting back and forth between old boxes and crates.

It turned yet another corner, which she knew was a dead end. Smiling evily, she bent her legs to spring around and catch it. "I've got you now," she thought. Silla was just about to pounce when a dark shape came around the corner and stood above her. She looked up in shock, which quickly turned to enbarrasment.

Taiku, Mesenger of the Empire and one of Macavity's pernonel henchcats, smiled crookedly as she got up.

"Ah, Miss Sillabub. Nice of you to finally arrive."

Silla didn't say anything. She hated the scruffy grey cat more than any other cat in the empire. He was smelly, stupid and sleazy git who loved to brag about being one of Macavity's most trusted henchcats.

His smile grew wider. "I suggest you come with me. The Boss isn't too happy with you." He turned around and walked off. Suddenly full of dread, Sillabub followed Taiku to Macavity's Lair.

Reviewers:

Desert Thief: Sure I'll bring it over, it's not that hard to understand once you've seen it a couple of times. Cya tomorow!

Mystitat: Hmmm, that's my second mini pollicle. My last one was Mistoffolees. Kinda enbarrasing, since he's my Lust Object, but oh well. Yeah, the new queen is evil, but there's more to it than that. Glad you like the story, even if it is funny for the wrong reasons!

Eponine: Well, I think it's a good twist. And I know Jemima and Sillabub are the same character in the musical, butmy story's going to be different, as you can see from this chapter. Keep reading!

Don't forget to review! See you soon.