Twenty: The Mistoffelees Mystery
Mistoffelees was one nervous cat. He had tried to prepare himself for it, had gone through meditation and long talks with miss Minnaloushe about his safety, and still he was nervous.
"And now are you sure that they won't attack me?" he asked miss Minnaloushe for the third time that morning.
"Yes, Mistoffelees," she answered patiently. "I told Ekwy and Gecka to stand guard, and you have your minis. You will be fine. And what do you worry about anyway? You have your powers to protect you, should anyone of your bodyguards fail."
"They're fangirls," said the Jellicle and sighed. "Who knows what they might be up to? Tugger told me..."
Miss Minnaloushe frowned. "Tugger told you what?"
Mistoffelees, who had caught himself from saying what was on his mind, that no less than three fangirls had snuck into the Heaviside Lair just the other day and glomped the Rum Tum Tugger, who was using the place to take a nap. Miss Minnaloushe didn't know about that, and it was probably for the best if it stayed that way. Ekwy and Gecka still hadn't figured out how the fangirls had gotten inside, but they were working on it.
"Nothing," he said smoothly. "Nothing at all, miss. This will go well. I'm just being stupid."
The course coordinator hmm'd and left. Mistoffelees was alone. He took a few deep breaths.
"Steady yourself," he mumbled. "Stay grounded. They can't hurt you. You are a strong, confident tom, and you will be fine. Think pretty thoughts, think of a happy place..."
He stood still for a moment, imagining himself in the Jellicle junkyard alone, with the full moon shining above him, calling to his inner self and making him strong. Then he looked at his paws, to make sure that he could still shoot blue sparks from them if the need should arise. He could. No problems there.
"Okay," he muttered. "Here it goes."
He held his breath and walked into the junkyard, where the students already sat, eager to listen to whatever he said.
Joanna's heart stopped pounding for a second, and then it started up again, much faster. She felt her cheeks turn red.
Mistoffelees walked into the classroom shyly, with his entire squad of minis trailing behind him. They were glaring at the fic-writers with venom. Apparently they had heard about the attempt to steal their name-sake's magic books, and were not happy about it at all.
"Hello," said Mistoffelees and waited patiently until the squeals from his fangirls had died out. "Welcome to my seminar. I would greatly appreciate it if you didn't try and glomp me today. It would make things a lot easier for all of us." He smirked suddenly, and a few students passed out. "In return, I won't fry you into a crisp and feed you to my minis. Do we have a deal?"
"Yes," muttered the class.
"Wonderful. Okay. Now, my first question that we're going to try and answer today is this one: Who is Quaxo?"
"Oh, I know!" exclaimed Joanna. "It's you! I mean, you when you're not all sparkly and magical!"
Mistoffelees nodded. "Yep, that's me. Can I do any magic while in 'Quaxo mode'?"
Joanna shrugged. "I don't know."
"Yeah, you can!" said Misty eagerly. "You made the trunk of the TSE 1 open to reveal Jennyanydots in The Gumbie Cat with magic!"
"True. And I'm glad you remembered that. It is safe to say that I do have some powers as Quaxo, but as Mistoffelees I can do basically anything. That would explain why I stay Quaxo up until Old Deuteronomy disappears and Tugger starts praising me." Mistoffelees grinned somewhat bemused at the thought of it. "Now, have you done your homework and listed the powers I possess in canon?"
Joanna perked up. She had studied this in great detail. "You're telekinetic," she said. "You can move things with your mind, just like Misty said. And you can shoot lightning out of your paws, of course. Make people disappear and reappear in another place. You're psychic; you knew that Old Deuteronomy was about before anyone else did, except possibly the Twins. Oh, oh, and those tricks that Tugger sings that you can do, like cards and dice and..."
"Yes, yes, that's quite enough," said the magical cat, but he was smiling. "As I said, basically everything. I'm very powerful. More powerful than Macavity, no matter what he says. I did manage to get Old Deuteronomy back from right under his nose, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you did!" cheered Ratha.
Mistoffelees ignored her. "Yes. I'm good. My powers are greater than Macavity's. Now he's a grown-up tom, and I'm just out of kittenhood. I'd say that's very impressive, no?"
The only answer he got was from his fangirls, who sat at the front of the class, sighing adoringly.
"Show-off," muttered Lyra, one of the two Macavity fangirls at OFUC.
Mistoffelees gave her a look. "I'm repeating this to make you get just how utterly fabulous I am at magic. To make you understand, that it really has to take something for anyone to be better than me. Okay? I'm the best. And your Mary-Sue is not better than I am!" That last part he shouted, and added a few blue sparks for good measure. "She may be a bigger flirt than Bombalurina, a better dancer than Victoria, have a lovelier voice than Jemima, and be wiser than Old Deuteronomy, but she is. Not. More. Powerful. Than me. Okay?"
He glared at the class.
"Yeah, okay, whatever," mumbled someone. Joanna didn't dare turn around to see who it was.
The magical cat took a few breaths and mumbled something about a "happy place" before continuing.
"I'm glad we cleared up that little... misunderstanding," he said. "Moving on. What are my characteristics?"
"You're shy!" said Charlicopat and grinned. "That's what you say in your song, anyway."
"And you're quiet and aloof, too!" added Pussy. "Tugger said so. Tugger never lies!"
"That can be discussed," muttered Mistoffelees. "But yes, you're right. Although Quaxo tends to be more outgoing, actually. He seems to like hanging around with the other Jellicles more than I do as Mistoffelees. Which cats do I hang out with?"
"Victoria!" cheered Jinzatti. "Mistoffelees/Victoria hooray!"
Mistoffelees blushed a bit, but managed to hide it superbly well. "Well, ahem, yes," he said and coughed. "We might be mates or siblings, but it's obvious that I'm close with Victoria. Anyone else?"
"You're friends with the Rum Tum Tugger," said Misty. "Anyone can see that."
"Yep," nodded the magical cat. "I tease him a lot because he's so popular with the queens, and he has his bad sides of course, but he's a real good friend, and I like him a lot..."
Then he noticed the wide grins of the slashers in the junkyard.
"Not like that, you perverts!"
The slashers kept grinning. Joanna rolled her eyes and decided to come to Mistoffelees' aid.
"You're friends with Alonzo, Tumblebrutus and Munkustrap as well," she called out. "And you're probably a relative of Bustopher Jones'."
Mistoffelees smiled fondly. "Ah yes, good ol' uncle Bustopher. Or something like that anyway. Who knows, he might even be my father. Contrary to popular belief, he's not a bad guy. If he was, Quaxo wouldn't dare to try and pull his tail in Bustopher Jones. If Munkustrap hadn't stopped Quaxo there, he would have pulled the tail. And I've got a feeling that Bustopher wouldn't have been mad, had he done that. Bustopher is a merry old fellow, he's not Macavity."
"He really should loose some weight, though," said Tabis the Tabby. "It's not healthy for a cat to weigh 25 pounds."
"You try and tell him that," sighed Mistoffelees. "He doesn't listen. Tell you what, you can bring that subject up on his seminar. Who knows, miracles happen. He might listen to you."
He leaned against the TSE 1. He seemed a little bit more relaxed now for some reason. Perhaps it was because he was having what probably classified as a civil conversation with people that usually spent their time trying to get in to his pants. Metaphorically speaking, of course. As a cat, Mistoffelees obviously didn't wear pants.
'Mmm, pantsless Mistoffelees...' thought Joanna and sighed lustingly.
No! Bad brain! Don't go there! This is good, don't go ahead and spoil it now!
She settled with looking at her Lust Object, and trying to stop drooling. That wasn't so very hard, because now he started to hand out papers to everyone.
"Now talk amongst yourselves," he said, "and write down situations that you've seen me in on stage. We'll discuss them later on, but I want you to prepare for it right now. And yes," he added with a smirk, "there will be a test on this. So get to work!"
It was later that day. Joanna and Misty had just left the cafeteria and were on their way back to the TSE 4 to rest, do homework, and generally be good little students. The sun had gone down, and it was getting very cold. They were both shivering, and hurried into the car to warm themselves.
Polly and Alida of course started to bang their tiny fists on the glass of their aquarium the moment their owners entered.
"Yes, yes, we know you're hungry," sighed Joanna and threw a few treats into the aquarium, which the pixays immediately dug into with great energy. "Here you go."
Misty curled up underneath her blanket. "I don't like the cold."
"That makes two of us, then. This is one of those days when you really just want to stay inside where it's somewhat warm with a cup of hot chocolate and a book..."
"Yeah, and some treats!" added Misty with a grin. "Hey, do we have any more of those Shrimp Delights left?"
Joanna shook her head absentmindedly as she rummaged through her pile of books next to the aquarium in search of her copy of The Task of Imperfection: Your Guide to Not Write CATS Mary-Sues. "I think I just gave Polly and Alida the last ones, sorry."
"Oh, okay..." There was a short pause. "You what?"
Joanna looked up. Misty looked shocked. "I'm sorry, I didn't think it'd matter," she said. "I mean, we can get new ones from the kitchen if we'd want..."
"That's not what I meant, silly!" Misty hurried up to the aquarium and stared at the pixays. "That's Bustopher Jones' Shrimp Delights! That's canon food! You gave the pixays canon food! They've never touched anything like that before!"
Joanna's mouth formed a surprised 'o' as she joined her friend in looking at the Jellciles. Both Polly and Alida seemed rather pleased with their food, and they were smiling enigmatically at their owners. They were much calmer about life and everything now than they had been when they first arrived from the Heavyside Layer. Polly even waved merrily at Joanna and Misty from the other side of the glass.
"I... think they're okay," mumbled Misty. "You think they're... evolving from being Bad Ideas to Good Ideas?"
Joanna shrugged. She still couldn't take her eyes off of Polly. "I don't know. Maybe. It seems that they're on the way to, anyway. Maybe we should get someone? Like Jennyanydots, perhaps? She might know what's happening."
"Yeah, maybe. But I'd say that our best bet would be to go to the PPC Agents. They ought to be more informed about the matter of pixays than the canons..."
"They seem okay to me," said Gecka after peeking through the glass of the aquarium. "Except those smug little grins of theirs. Makes me very nervous, actually."
"I don't think you have to worry about them," said Ekwy and shrugged. "Pixays are sturdy creatures."
"We actually... thought that they were... you know, evolving into Pollciles or something," mumbled Misty. "They've never been this calm before, you see..."
"Oh, it'll take a while before these pixays'll turn into good ideas," smiled Ekwy. "This is just a step. You're gonna have to take extra good care of them now. They'll at least be nicer to you now. They won't try and bite you, at least. Be thankful for that."
She put on her beret and gave Misty and Joanna a merry wave. "See ya later!"
The two Agents left the TSE 4, leaving the students alone.
"Well, good news at least," sighed Misty. "We don't have to worry."
Joanna didn't answer. She looked at Polly with her heads cocked at one side.
"Hm," she mumbled. "Hm."
A/N: You were all very good to figure out that the giant cat was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell. Is it just me, or does he remind you of Hagrid, from Harry Pottter? Anyway, cookies and Jellice for all!
Answers to Reviews:
Krissy4: Yep, now Jerrie and Teazer have the same amount of minis! Hooray for them! And yeah, I know some of the cats in the mysterious seven are just other names for some of the males... But they don't get much attention under those names, now do they?
Tera Earth: I don't know, I was just sure that I'd written you in before. The Misto Squad will always try and get Misto! Sure, Mystitat's plan failed once, but they're not going to let such a minor thing as being dead get in the way of getting their beloved magical cat!
Jemima-luvah: Nah, little mcvity'll probably consider Macavity as something of a father-figure, but not an actual father. He's more of a... charge than anything else. Someone to protect. It's different with minis. They are smart in certain ways, but they couldn't care less about things that we might consider very important. Like family. They have their name-sakes and their siblings, and that's that.
Just A Girl In A Crystal: Yep, Jellico is really a city. Google it if you don't believe me. :)
Eponine: Yep, Skimble fangirls do exist. Fanboys too, actually. :)
Korora: .:wails:. The minis are taking over! Hm. Mistfellis... And I thought "Mistofyleis" was bad... And I have a roster like that, but I don't know if I'll post it. Only a few students have roomies. The ones who do either know each other, or I thought they'd fit together. :)
Rafe: Thanks. I'll change it. .:makes a note out of it:.