If I offer my hand to you, will you reject it?
If I say I'll share your troubles with you, will you say you alone will handle it?
I don't understand why you want to be alone.
Nobody wants to be alone.
Not I.

CATNIP IS A DANGEROUS WEAPON

To understand why it became necessary for the twins (specifically Luna, as she was the one who disturbed Moon's patient guardianship of the Yoshioka abode and approached Kei to ask for his assistance) to reveal themselves to Machida, the clock must be turned back a few hours, to approximately nine and a half in the morning of that fateful day in the Cat Kingdom.

------oOo------

The Baron of Cats looked down from his mountainside seat at the disaster unfolding below him. He was alone; he would allow no one near him, not even Haru, as he contemplated on his next course of action.

They had found the radio room they were looking for, amidst much running and fighting, and he had promptly gotten word to the Cat Kingdom soldiers that everything was compromised, that they should pull back. In return, they had received bad news: there was going to be no retreat, even if it was necessary, for Lune and many of his troops had been captured by the robots that had issued forth from openings in the mountain and proceeded to spray a catnip-like chemical in the air and, as the cats lay there twitching and helpless, injected them with a potent tranquilizer and carried them back to the pirate lair, to meet with an unknown fate.

The Baron had cursed and signed off when a new voice came laughing over the radio room's intercom. "Liebchen, is that you? I was wondering where you went after you escaped. I wanted so much to talk with you."

Everyone in the room—Muta, Haru, the cat commandos with them—had looked at each other. A Stormy Cat beckoned to the Baron and pointed him to the intercom panel.

"And I you, Louise... or should I say Doctor?"

There was a pause. "Oh, so you've figured it out, eh? Well, it won't help you, dear."

"Why not? I won't have any more compunction killing you, now that I know that you're in a fake body."

"A fake body?" There seemed to be a sort of cut-off laugh before the voice returned. "Oh, you still don't get it, do you? Come on, listen to me, you stupid fool: I am Louise and I am the Doctor. Or rather, I am the Doctor, who is in control of your fiancée's body. She so kindly lent it to me for my experiments, and who was I to refuse such a noble offer? But I couldn't kill her, so she's still here with me. You kill me, Baron, and you'll be murdering her as well."

"What? I don't believe you."

"Very well then." There was a period of silence. "Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn?" the voice, somehow subdued, recited. "Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn­­–" There was a loud sob. "Humbert? Humbert, it's me."

The Cat nearly crushed the intercom button into bits with his finger at the bit of Goethe. "Louise?" Deep in his heart he already knew the answer. There was no way the Doctor could have known of their walks, of the bits of poetry they said to one another. He usually said those lines to her, and she would reply with–

"Dahin! Dahin! Möch ich mit dir, mein Gelibter, ziehn!" he shouted.

"Oh, Humbert. I want to see you so much. But if it will endanger you, then I would rather not. Don't worry about me, dearest. Kill this awful beast who resides within me..." There was a strangled sound, and when the voice came back it had a different tone to it.

"Well," it said, "even after all these years she causes me no end of trouble. I too would like to meet you, von Jikkingen. I presume you know where I am, since you and your friends obviously know your way around if you've managed to reach the radio facility. It was that tanuki, yes? He gave you all the information you needed."

Baron impatiently pressed the button. "Yes."

"Too bad he never got to know about my little mechanical pets. Too nervous and impatient, he was."

"I'll be sure to tell him that after I take care of you, you fiend."

"You flatter me, Humbert. I'll be waiting. Of course, so will dozens of Phaecis' henchmen. And just to give you an added incentive..." There was a scrape, and something sharp—like a slap—sounded, and a new voice came over the speaker.

"Baron?"

"Shizuku?" the Cat asked in alarm.

"Yes, it's me. Seiji and I... we got caught when we tried to enter... we were going after Haru... my magic doesn't work, the Black Cat's done something to me..."

In the silence that ensued the radio room was filled with whispers and mutterings.

"Haru's with me, Shizuku. She's okay. What about you?"

There was a series of noises that sounded like a scuffle, and Shizuku screamed "Don't come here, it's a trap!" before she was silenced.

"Ah, women," said the Black Cat. "Fickle, fickle. I'll be waiting, old friend." Then the connection was broken.

The Baron yelled into the microphone for her to come back, but there was no reply. Finally, he dropped his hand and said he needed to think for a little while, then exited the radio room through the huge window carved out of the rock of the mountain.

It was peaceful enough out on the slope. The sounds of battle were carried up from the fields below by the cold wind, and from where he sat he could see the entirety of the conflict. To his left, lying on the distant beach as so much metallic flotsam, or like a beached whale, was the smoking hulk of the Longshallows. The Cat had heard over the radio that Captain Loriel opted to beach her, rather than have her sink, and she succeeded in bringing down the two giant mechanical nightmares playing havoc with Lune's troops. But not without great cost; before they were brought down the pirate mechs savaged the monitor with repeated barrages from their arm cannons, and turned her into a heap of junk and killed many of Loriel's crew, who refused to leave their stations—some out of loyalty for their vampiric leader, and some out of the desire for revenge at the sinking of the Albedo, which had fallen victim to another submarine even as the Longshallows raced towards the shore.

The cat with whom Baron conversed over the radio spoke of that battle as a short, violent one, and the ultimate proof of it stuck out of the water beyond the landing beach, to the right of the Longshallows: the front of the older monitor, sticking up to the uncaring, slate-gray sky as a monument to her demise. Wrapped around it lay bits and pieces of the pirate submarine that had attacked her. The Albedo had managed to sink the very ship that had brought her to her final resting place, for even as she listed in the water, mortally wounded, her dying captain ordered the crew to fire her guns point-blank at the pirate submarine just under the surface. Her volley had hit, and Cat Kingdom sailor and Phaecis Gang pirate died as both vessels went to their watery graves.

The outlines near the horizon marked the position of the Neko Umi-Maru and the Conquistador, which had, on the orders of the Albedo's captain, fled the field of battle. The only ship left in the vicinity was the Matatabi, since Oh'Sesu had refused to leave, but her guns were long silent, her duty long since changed from fire support to hospital ship. Lune's troops were now so mixed with the enemy that any fire support she could give would only be counterproductive.

The Baron sighed. Everything had seemed so focused and elegant on the drawing boards back at the Cat King's Castle. Now they had only managed to prove the truth of the saying, that no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

Never mind about the soldiers of the Cat Kingdom, what are you going to do about Louise? he asked himself. It was hopeless. He could see no other way to resolve the problem, other than to do what she requested...

"Baron?"

The Cat looked up. "Haru? Didn't I tell you no one was to disturb me?"

"I hoped I could be of some help," she said, ignoring his reprimand and sitting down beside him. "The Stormy Cats are saying they can't hold the corridor for much longer, dearest, even with all the garbage and booby traps we placed in it."

"What am I going to do, Haru?" the Baron asked in anguish, unable to restrain himself any longer. "Louise is so near, yet still so far... as long as I thought it was only the Doctor in that body, I felt I could handle it. But now... I don't know what to do." He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. To his human friend and lover it seemed that he was perilously close to shedding tears. She knew she would have, out of sheer frustration. She had been listening to the exchange on the intercom.

"I wish I could help you, Baron," she said. "I had a plan, but since sensei's been captured by the Black Cat, it won't work now... I can't think of another. I wonder, though, how the Doctor managed to put himself in Louise, so to speak. It's my guess that we must know that first, and only then can we put together a plan of action."

The Baron lifted his head and looked her way. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this. In the space of a few weeks I've managed to sully your innocence with all this treachery and drama."

"Baron, whatever sins you've committed against me, you're more than paying for now... Still, I was glad I came when you needed me. I stayed because I'm more than fond of you... Sir Cat."

Sighing, the Cat hung his head. "Shizuku... I wonder if she and Seiji are all right."

"It's my fault," Haru said quickly. "If I hadn't been so reckless, they wouldn't have been caught."

"And you wouldn't be here as well, in harm's way. But that's past and done, Miss Yoshioka. I guess there's no choice but to fight my way down to the Black Cat's lair, and take the bait she offers."

"'My way,' Baron? You mean 'our way,' don't you?"

"I really can't ask you to risk yourself on what is essentially a suicide mission, Haru." The Cat saw a fireball blossom down below, and watched as one of the Doctor's robotic flyers caught some bullets and described a graceful arc over the battlefield before exploding in a fiery shower. "You've done more than your share in keeping my spirits up these past few days." He drew himself up and thumped his cane on the ground. "Now is the time for Baron Humbert von Jikkingen to stop acting like a lovesick mule and pull his own weight."

Haru chuckled.

"What's so funny?"

"I'm trying to imagine you with grayish skin, long ears, buck teeth, and going 'hee-haw,' 'hee-haw.'" She gave the nearer of Baron's knees a slap. "Cheer up, kind sir. You'll find some way to rescue Louise. It's what you heroes do."

The Cat slowly swiveled his head to face Haru, and one of his rare smiles for that day emerged on his face. "Yes, you're right," he agreed, as if a revelation had just come upon him. "That is what heroes do. But I have to tell you this, Haru, before we go back into the fire–"

"Don't say it. You know you shouldn't say it."

"What? That I do care for you, deep in my heart? You know that. But I must pick, and Louise is the one I choose. But that doesn't mean I can't love you as a friend, Haru. A very good friend, who chose to share a little of herself, against all reason and good sense."

Haru blinked. "Pick whom you must, Baron. But shut up, or you'll—or I'll hit you!"

They sat silent for a few minutes, not looking at each other, listening to the sounds of fighting below, until the shell of their awkwardness was broken by a thin, high-pitched voice.

"Baron!"

They both looked up and saw a black winged shape flying up the mountainside towards them. It wasn't Toto the crow who had spoken, however. It was his passenger.

"Cameron?"

Toto landed nearby on the steep slope and the little orange tom hopped off him. "I came as quickly as I could," he said as he ran to them. "It's about Shizuku. I got a message from her, saying she was in trouble."

"I know," returned the Cat, "I just heard from her myself. But what are you doing here?"

"I was trying to track her whereabouts down, but couldn't, so when I saw you I decided to join you."

"You couldn't find her?"

Cameron shook his head. "No, Lady Yoshioka. There is something blocking my magic. Even her message to me sounded strained and was cut off prematurely."

"We were just going to rescue her," said the Baron. "But Cameron, I think you can serve in a better way."

"Oh?" Eyebrow-vibrissidae went up. "How, Baron von Jikkingen?"

The Cat fished inside his trousers and brought out his wallet. "I have with me a list of people I was supposed to contact for the Christmas Party," he said, taking a small slip of paper from the wallet and, with a pen from inside his black tuxedo, scribbling an additional something on it. "I have a hunch we could use their help. Could you be so kind as to go to the Cat Business Office, inform the ones you'll find there of our predicament, and ask them to call on the people on the list? I'm sure Toto can bring you there," he added as the crow hopped to them.

"Baron, did you hear about Lune?" Toto asked.

"Yes, I did."

"I saw it myself. I was just returning to the Matatabi because Cameron had called me, and when I looked back Lune had fallen off his horseclaw, and one of the robots that looked like a spider walked up to him and stabbed him in the chest with a long spike hanging from its belly. Then it put him on its back and took him away. That happened to a lot of the other cats as well. It was a horrible sight."

"How many of the cats are left, Toto?"

"I don't know. A fair number, but they're all gathering near the beachhead and setting up a defense. Most of them are the ones who aren't responsive to catnip."

"Good gravy, this is really a terrible disaster," Cameron said. "Worse than Desert Song, nineteen fifty three."

Baron looked at him. "The one with the doily cart?" He knew what the servant cat was talking about, having read about the event in one of the history books in Fort Lorum's library.

"Yeah."

The Cat shrugged. "Well, this isn't Desert Song. Would you please do as I asked? I'll see to Shizuku. You must hurry, though, or they probably won't get here in time to save anything but our corpses. If we fail," he amended hastily.

Cameron nodded, and Baron gave him the small folded slip of paper. The servant tucked it away in his vest and levitated himself aboard Toto.

The Cat turned to Haru, who was still seated on the rocks. "Last chance for you to go home and stay safe."

She just shook her head.

Baron nodded at her and looked up at Toto. "Take Cameron to the Cat Business Office, my friend," said he. "And if Moon and Luna aren't there, go look for them somewhere near Haru's house! This is a matter of life and death!"

The crow nodded and took off, and the Cat shouted after them, "Fair winds and weather!" There go the last of my hopes, he thought. If I fail, they'll surely know what to do.

Haru stood up and walked over to him. "What was that business about my house?"

"When I had Moon and Luna forge that email to your mother, I told them to watch over her as well, just in case the Phaecis Gang ever tried something against her. It was highly unlikely that they would, but then, a lot of highly unlikely things have been happening these past few weeks."

Haru linked her arms around the crook of the Baron's elbow. "I know. Like me, and you, and finding Louise, and Shizuku-sensei as well."

"Yes." The Cat patted her hand. "Let's go. We have to rescue Shizuku and Seiji. Maybe we'll find a way to free Louise as well."

Haru, wanting to comfort him, impulsively kissed him on the cheek, an act which earned her a frown.

"Sorry," she replied meekly to his reproving but still beautiful Engel's Zimmer-laden eyes. "Last I'll ever give you, I promise."

"I should hope so. I don't think I want to be caught between you and Louise, you know. She can be... pretty possessive at times."

Haru's mind went back to her encounter with the Black Cat, to when the tabby had shaken her by the shoulders and accused her of stealing Baron away from her. At last she understood.

"I think I know that now, Baron." She kept her hold on his arm, though, as she went back with him through the hewn rock window, back into the radio room and the depths of the mountain.

------oOo------

Down in the Black Cat's chamber, things were far less amiable.

"Oh, quit yer whining!" the buccaneer mutt holding Seiji yelled, opening the cell Shizuku was stored in and pushing him inside it. "Sheesh! You humans sure know how to make a racket!"

Seiji turned on him, his eyes blazing with anger. "You know, I never understood why people in some countries ate dogs," he said. "But when I get back home, I'll be sure to try one of you myself!"

The mongrel made a disgusted sound. "Cannibal," he muttered as he left.

Seiji ignored his comment and hurriedly sat down by his wife, who was slumped against the side of the cell, moaning. "Shizuku?" he said tentatively, gently wiping the blood running down from her nose. There was a livid bruise on her left cheek, where the Black Cat had struck her a powerful blow after she had tried to warn the Baron of what was waiting for him.

Her eyebrows lowered and she tensed, and he knew what she was about to do again.

"Stop doing that!" Seiji pleaded. "You know your magic won't work! You'll only hurt yourself even more!" And because the Black Cat had confiscated Shizuku's bluestone, he was worried that she was putting herself in real danger by trying to use her own unmagnified powers. Still, she kept persisting. At first she had faded in and out of existence, shrieking in pain; then the fading had stopped, the shrieks turned into groans, and blood had started flowing out of her nostrils. That was when Seiji began to beg their captors to transfer him to her cell, so he could look after her.

Shizuku opened an eye. "Anata, I've got to stop her, no matter what. It's all my fault," she whispered. "Everything that's happening is all my fault."

"What are you talking about?"

Shizuku shut her eye and wouldn't explain.

"Is it that 'my creation' thing again?" Seiji guessed. "Shizuku, talk to me, damn you."

"I don't understand what she meant by that," the Black Cat said from her seat. She had been watching the couple, the way a butterfly collector would observe a prospective catch—all avid gleam in the eyes and no sympathy for the specimen whatsoever. "From what I know she only managed to chronicle a part of the Baron von Jikkingen's life, that's all. It's the extreme height of hubris for you to claim you created us, dear lady."

Shizuku opened her eyes again. "A one-track mind like yours could never understand, Doctor," she croaked. "Why did you kidnap Louise? I could never understand that, even back when Grandfather Nishi tried to explain it to me."

The Black Cat blinked her eyes repeatedly. When she answered, the humans knew it was Louise who was talking, and not the Doctor.

"He is jealous, Shizuku. He wanted..." The Black Cat stopped talking and sat there, her body rock-still. The conflict of wills inside her was expressed in the quick succession of emotions that chased each other across her face.

"Gott im Himmel! You must forgive the Baroness. She can be very rude at times."

"What did you want, Doctor?" Seiji prompted.

"All in due time, young fellow, all in due time," the Black Cat said, recovering some lost confidence and leaning back in the seat. "I would like the Baron to be here, before I explain how things stand to all of you. In the meantime, please tell your wife to stop trying to use her magic here, will you? There's no way she can defeat my anti-magic machinery." The cat gave a malicious little titter. "And I wouldn't want her to die without giving von Jikkingen a chance to watch her doing so."

------oOo------

They fought their bitter way down to Phaecis' main hall, to where the only entrance/exit to the Black Cat's lair was located. They suffered a lot of wounds, and would have slain a lot of pirates on their journey, if they hadn't come across a robot carcass lying in the corridor—the apparent victim of one of the other Stormy Cat sabotage teams—and one of the commandos with them hadn't examined it, and had the brilliant idea of pulling the canisters from the automaton's catnip-chemical spraying system and using them against the pirates. The other Stormy Cats with them weren't concerned about being affected by the substance, as their retrieved kit included masks, since they had been originally fragged to use gas and smoke grenades themselves in their bid to cause confusion and chaos within the pirate lair; Muta, by his own admission, was only sensitive to catnip for a very short time (despite the tales Toto tried to sell back at the Cat King's Castle), and the Baron was totally immune to it, since he wasn't really a cat. So they made free use of the spray, filling the corridors they were to pass though with the misty aerosol, and then clonking the cat pirates they found twitching on the floor on their collective bonce and tying them up with the incredibly sticky tape Baron had stored in his carpetbag for such an occasion. The dogs were a different matter altogether; with them it was fight, fight, fight, and there was no way around it.

But in the end, wounded and tired, they managed to win their way through to Phaecis' main hall, and the primary entrance to it now lay in sight.

Haru, breathing heavily and almost at the end of her endurance, looked at the doors and the line of guards strung across it like a welcoming committee.

"Just a couple of more foes," she panted. The sting and burn of her various wounds she forgot in the heat of the moment, in the anticipation of reaching their goal. She was about to charge them herself when Muta held up a paw.

"I'll handle this," he said, walking forward to the guards. The gas canisters they had salvaged had run out a few minutes back.

Not a single one of them could hear the few words Muta said to the pirates, but whatever they were, they made the guards scream and yell and disappear into the hall.

The giant cat rubbed his paws in satisfaction as he returned to his friends.

"What in the world did you say?" the Baron asked, mystified.

"Nothing. I just told them who I was."

"Aw, shucks. We were hoping you'd leave some for us, Renaldo Moon," joked one of the bemused Stormy Cats.

There was a loud grumbling, and a flood of pirates emerged from the hall, filling the wide corridor with their hostile presence.

Muta blanched underneath his dirtied cream fur. "Well, there you go, be my guest," he told the commando. "I'm not greedy. They're all yours."

"How can we ever repay you?" said another Stormy Cat as he blankly stared into the toothy throng.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll think of something."

They were getting ready for the fight of their lives when a voice behind them shouted, "Baron! Renaldo!"

Everyone in the little group turned. "Edeline! What are you doing here?"

The Captain, in her torn velvet uniform, separated from the group she was leading and surged up to them on her metal legs. "I'm here for revenge!" she shouted, looking past them at the members of the pirate gang. "These good-for-nothings killed most of my crew. Now I'm going to take their lives as payment!"

The crowd of felines behind her murmured in agreement. Some of them were the survivors of the Longshallows; others were stragglers from the battlefield who had somehow managed to survive the onslaught of robots and the gas and joined up with her, displaced and lost infantry and cavalry riders.

"Captain Loriel, calm yourself," the Baron whispered evenly, as the two sides started to pin their ears back and bare fangs and growl and hiss. "They can pay for their crimes in a court of law. It's not necessary for you to kill them."

The Captain turned her cold, fish-white eyes on him. "Leave me to my grief, von Jikkingen, and I'll leave you to yours." Her voice became almost inaudible. "Use us as a distraction to get inside the Black Cat's lair."

The Baron stared at her for a long time. Then he nodded.

"Forward!" Loriel shouted, brandishing her rapier. "To battle!"

And the huge fight began. It was a milling, bloody affair fought deep in the earth, furry body pressed against furry body, sword against sword, spear against spear, axe against axe. There were a few shots fired, but the close quarters rendered firearms highly unsuitable, and these quickly stopped as the fighters exchanged their muskets and pistols for hand-to-hand weapons.

Baron blocked a number blows with his sword-cane and pulled Haru after him. Beside them, Muta laid about himself with a captured rifle, like a farmer at threshing time, and foe after foe fell to him as sheaves of grain to a scythe.

Loriel was also pushing her way through the fight, trying to assist the Baron through the crowd. When they finally reached the door to Phaecis' hall she stopped short.

"This is where our paths diverge, Baron," she said over the din. "I know you're not going to kill the Black Cat, despite what you told Lune and Gabriel. I can see it in your eyes."

"So why don't you stop me? Or why don't you come with me and do it yourself? You are King Lune's vassal."

"I am no one's vassal. If I chose to serve Lune, it was of my own free will." Her eyes flicked back into the crowd. "Besides, I have my own fate to meet here. Good luck."

"Thank you, Loriel." The Cat tipped her his hat, and the Captain managed a small curtsey before plunging back into the fray.

Muta watched as Edeline started to trade blows. "Baron, I know I promised to help you with Louise... but I can't just leave her to fight by herself."

The Cat looked up at his long-time associate. "Then I release you from your promise. I'll see you later, Muta."

"Yeah. Likewise." Muta smiled down at the couple and waded into the conflict with his musket-club.

The Cat turned and looked down the long, empty hall, past the huge table laden with food of every description, to the open, unlit tunnel waiting behind the throne at the other end. "That leaves just us, Haru. Will you come with me?"

"I will come with you, Baron. It's the end of the road for us, but it may just be a new beginning for you."

They looked long and deep into each other's eyes, and then, still holding hands, still tired and sweaty and blighted with a hundred little wounds, took off running, heading for the darkness, hoping somehow to find the light beyond it.

Author's Postscript: The lines in German are from Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre.

Knowest thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom?
The golden oranges glow in the dark foliage,
A soft wind hovers from the blue sky,
The myrtle is still and the laurel stands tall—
Dost thou know it well? Thither, thither
I would go, O my beloved, with thee!