A/N: An extra long chapter, to make up for the waiting. Also, it may interest you to know, that OFUC turned one year old on the twelfth of February. My baby is all grown up!

Thirty: Arrival of the Mirages

"What's happening?" someone whispered near Joanna, and she jumped.

In the half-darkness she could see a dark shape with pointy cat-ears and large, glowing eyes. Joanna squinted.

"Mrs Norris?"

"Yes." The Potterverse queen shivered. "Who are you?"

"I'm Joanna. A student," she added, to clarify. "I don't know what's happening. Can you see anything?"

Mrs Norris looked around, her eyes picking up what little light there was. She hissed softly.

"There's something approaching."

They didn't say anything else. The wind, which was increasing in strength, would have carried their voices away so that they wouldn't hear each other anyway. Joanna tried to see something, anything, but her eyes were too weak. She cursed her decision to put "human" on her enrolment form; with cat eyes she would at least have been able to see.

"Jo!"

She felt a warm body next to her, and her hand grasped after fur. "Misty? Is that you?"

"Yeah. I'm glad I found you."

The two females, one human and one Jellicle, huddled together. They heard others around them, running around and whispering amongst themselves, wondering what was happening and why it was suddenly so dark.

"I think the ward has shattered," mumbled Misty in Joanna's ear. It was the only way to make herself heard through the wind. "That was that thunder we heard."

"Are we going to fight now? I don't think I'm ready to fight." Joanna hesitated. "What if there are... monsters? We haven't got any weapons."

"Shall we find someone? Miss Minnaloushe? An Agent?"

"Okay."

Joanna grabbed Misty's paw in one hand, and the two set off, relying solely on Misty's night vision. They found others on the way. Several students had calmed down as the minutes passed without anything dangerous happening, and they were wandering aimlessly around the junkyard, the humans clinging to the Jellicles for guidance. Someone was freaking out, Joanna and Misty heard her shout and sob and plead for the light to come back while her friend tried to calm her down.

"Everybody chill!"

Suddenly there was a bright light. Someone mechanical had managed to get the flashlights of the TSE 1 working, and the white glow illuminated around 60 pale, scared faces. Joanna squinted. Someone was standing on the hood of the car. From the wings she made the conclusion that it was miss Minnaloushe, although he voice that had told them to chill was Ekwy's.

"We are not going to panic," said the Ironwing calmly. Her voice was somehow distinguishable despite the wind. "It is only darkness, and now we have light. So take a few breaths and calm down. This is nothing." She turned to the Agents. "What is it?"

"It's what we've been waiting for, all right!" shouted Gecka with a frown and read off some mechanical device she was holding. "The CAD is taking up some pretty interesting readings... Apparently the entire junkyard is out of character!"

The device suddenly started shooting off sparks, and Gecka dropped it before it burst into flames. Ekwy helped her kick sand over it to put out the fire.

"We should get ready," continued Gecka. "They should be arriving anytime!"

"They?" repeated Misty loudly. "Who are 'they'?"

"The mirages," said miss Minnaloushe softly. She seemed to contemplate something, and then she sprang into action. "Everybody prepare for something out of the ordinary! Stay together and keep alert!" Her wings unfolded and the feathers stood out like small daggers around her head. Her eyes had turned red.

The wind stopped. It was without warning, and it got very quiet. The students came closer to the light; the shadows in the corners seemed to be hiding unspeakable horrors. In the silence Joanna viewed her school-friends. They seemed so lost and frightened, and suddenly so young. Here and there she could also spot a crossover. Mrs Norris had crept as close to the light as possible, and it shone spookily in her lamp-like eyes. Garfield had fallen asleep on the tire, not caring about all the commotion around him. Salem Saberhagen was constantly looking around, his ears stroked back and his claws out.

Something was missing. It hit her unexpectedly that no canon Jellicles were present. She was not the only one to have noticed. The other students started looking around as well, frowning and muttering to themselves.

Miss Minnaloushe also saw it, and her eyes widened. "Anyone's seen..." she began, but she never completed the sentence.

A light came from the sky, blinding light, burning light. A few students screamed and clutched their eyes since they had gotten used to the darkness, and the others were warned and looked away as fast as they could. Joanna was seeing spots. The light went through her hands that she kept covering her eyes and made them glow pink. For a moment she thought she heard music playing somewhere far away, but later she came to the conclusion that she must have imagined it.

The junkyard shivered under one final, major quake, and the light faded somewhat. It was still visible as a glow from somewhere. For a moment it was so quiet that Joanna could hear her classmates' breathing beside her. She rubbed her eyes to rid herself of the dancing spots, and then she looked.

And there they were. The mirages, or what miss Minnaloushe had called them. They were the ones omitting the light, which was visible like a halo around them. Their faces were difficult to describe. One second Joanna saw a hint of Munkustrap's stern gaze in one, but in the next she saw Etcetera's smile on the same face. It was hard to keep track.

The mirages opened their mouths at the same time and spoke. Their voices sounded like all the Jellicles combined, which was strange to hear when they were not reciting the Naming of Cats.

"We seek our tribe."

Miss Minnaloushe stepped forward, in full defence position with her wings still raised. "What do you want with them?"

The mirages looked at her, unimpressed. "You are not belonging to our tribe. You have no place here."

"Neither do you."

"We belong here. This is our home. It is tainted by others, but it is our home. We seek our tribe."

Miss Minnaloushe snarled. "You will have to go through me."

"You've got us too, miss, don't forget about that," mumbled Ekwy, but she looked a bit nervous as she regarded the mirages.

The Ironwing seemed not to have heard. She eyed the mirages angrily, as if they had personally insulted her by showing up.

"We offer you the chance to leave without harm," they murmured. "War is not our wish."

"Nor mine." Miss Minnaloushe slowly crouched down, not taking her eyes off the strange creatures in front of her. "But that's what's going to happen unless you go away."

"I don't think this is such a good idea, miss," muttered Gecka nervously, but she was wasting her time.

What came next happened so quickly no one noticed it until it was over. Miss Minnaloushe became airborne with a few strong beatings of her wings, and attacked the mirages. The second after, she was violently thrown aside, flew in an elegant arch across the junkyard and landed with a crash in a pile of garbage. There was a collective gasp from the students. Joanna felt a lump of ice in the pit of her stomach. Miss Minnaloushe was one of the strongest staff-members they had, and she had been defeated so easily. What else was there to do?

She looked at the Agents. They were staring at the fallen Ironwing as well, unable to grasp what had happened. Ekwy's hand grasped her weapon so tightly that her knuckles turned white, and Gecka looked uncertain. They did not seem able to decide what to do next. Charging the mirages seemed unwise, since they would probably be cast aside as miss Minnaloushe had been, but they couldn't very well sit idle and do nothing. Finally they reached a decision, and exchanged a look. Then Ekwy, being the eldest, stepped forward.

"What do you wish from... from your tribe?" she asked.

The mirages looked at her. "That is none of your concern."

"It kind of is. We only want to know if you are going to hurt them."

"They might feel pain. But we shall try and see that they don't suffer."

Joanna gasped, and she was not alone. All around her, her comrades started mumbling to each other anxiously, worried about their favourite characters. It sounded like something bad was going to happen, something so excruciatingly horrifying that they could not even imagine it, and they could do nothing to prevent it. In that moment Joanna felt something change in the atmosphere. It became openly hostile, and one or two Jellicle students hissed at the mirages.

The mirages didn't seem to notice the change, and did not even pay attention when a couple of students took a few steps forward. Apparently they considered the students to be so little a threat to them that they didn't even bother.

"We seek our tribe," they murmured again with their joined voices.

"What do you want with us?"

The mirages' heads whipped around and looked at someone behind the students. The crowd recognized the voice, of course. How could they not?

Munkustrap.

He stood there, unmoved as a mountain, looking the mirages calmly in the eye and waitng for their next move. All the mirages smiled as one as they spotted him.

"We have searched for you, Tribe Protector."

"What do you want with us?" he repeated in a low, growling voice.

Behind Munkustrap other Jellicles showed up, the toms in front of the queens and kittens to protect them. Jemima and Etcetera were huddling together, staring at the mirages. They could see their own faces in the changing faces, and that frightened them more than anything.

"Are they... us?" Joanna heard Jemima whisper to Etcetera, who just whimpered something.

Jennyanydots seemed torn between her fear and sense of duty to stay behind Munkustrap, and her desire to run up to see how miss Minnaloushe was faring. The course coordinator had awakened from her fainting and was now lying on the ground, half-conscious and moaning in pain.

From the corner of her eye, Joanna saw how a few students left the crowd and gathered around miss Minnaloushe, murmuring amongst themselves about what to do.

The mirages didn't care. Their attention was on Munkustrap and the other Jellicles. Now something else started happening. The mirages began glowing, and their features steadied somewhat, until they were like the silvery reflections of the Jellicles standing right in front of them. The Munkustrap-mirage smiled, which made the real Munkustrap stroke his ears back and hiss.

"We are not going to hurt you," said the mirages calmly. "We have come to offer you something."

Their voices had changed as well. Now it sounded as if only one was talking, but the others were backing him up.

"You should listen, Tribe Protector," said another mirage, one that looked uncomfortably a lot like Demeter.

The real Demeter gasped and took a step back, walking straight into Old Deuteronomy, who smiled soothingly although his kind eyes were troubled.

"Can't we do something?" whispered Misty.

"Like what?" Joanna whispered back. "You saw what they did to miss Minnaloushe. How can we possibly compete with that?"

"Still, we can't just stand here and do nothing! They're not looking our way. We could... form a line of defence or something."

"We haven't got any weapons."

"Don't be so negative! Come on!"

Joanna was dragged along as Misty hurried further back in the crowd. Some people were staring at them, wondering what they were doing, but most of them were uncapable of looking away from what was happening in front of them. The mirages were talking, but Joanna could no longer hear it.

When the two had gotten away from the scene and stood hidden behind a dumpster, Joanna managed to get free from Misty's paw. Here where the light from the mirages weren't as strong, she could only see the Jellicle's eyes as thin yellow slits in the darkness, and she glared at them angrily.

"What exactly are you planning to do?" she asked. "What can we do? Pounce and scratch their eyes out? I'm not even sure they have eyes."

"The Headmasters," said Misty.

Joanna frowned. "OFUC has Headmasters?"

"It's a school, isn't it?"

"I always just assumed miss Minnaloushe made the decisions. But yeah, now that you mention it..." Joanna suddenly thought of something. "But if I didn't know about that, how come you did?"

Misty shrugged. "I heard the Agents talk. Is that important? We just have to find out where they are, and maybe we can ask for help there. This is out of our league."

"You don't have to tell me. But how are we supposed to find them?"

"Miss Minnaloushe would know."

"She's in no position to tell us, if you remember?"

"Fine, then you think of something!"

"She doesn't have to."

Joanna and Misty froze. There had been a new voice there. It was male and sounded hoarse, as if the person speaking had been smoking for a big part of his life. They turned their heads as one and looked behind them. The face of the one the voice belonged to was shrouded with smoke from his cigarette, but they both instinctively knew who he was.

He sat in an armchair, comfortably leaning back as if he didn't have a care in the world. On the table beside him was a large mirror with a golden frame; it cast a shining reflection against the ceiling.

Joanna and Misty looked around. They had been certain they were not standing in a room with walls of gleaming wood, a fireplace with flames dancing merrily on the hearth, and a smell of cigarette smoke and sandalwood, yet that was where they were now. There was no sound other than that of the fire and the occasional cough from the speaker.

"Are you... the Headmaster?" asked Misty uncertainly.

He nodded. "One of them."

"Can... can you help us then?"

"It is not necessary. The decision has been made. There is nothing we can do, not anymore."

Joanna felt how the blood drained from her face. "What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean that it is forfeit. There is nothing to do. They have won." He gestured towards the mirror beside him. "You can see for yourselves. It will happen soon."

Nervously, not knowing what was going to happen, Joanna and Misty stepped forward. They found themselves looking into the mirror, although Joanna couldn't help but thinking that it felt a little silly. Magic mirrors were, when it really came down to it, very much a cliché these days.

In it they saw, as clearly as if they had still been standing there, the Jellicle junkyard of OFUC. Munkustrap still stood there in front of the mirages, glaring at them, with the rest of the Jellicles behind him. A number of other toms, among them Tugger, Alonzo and Mistoffelees, had gone forward until they stood next to him, prepared to leap into battle at his command. Even Macavity seemed ready to abandon all thoughts of bad-ass pride and fight alongside them. The students had evidently come up with some sort of strategy, having grabbed whatever weapon they could find and braced themselves. The image was so clear that Joanna could see a few of them mouth the words "if I die they'll resurrect me, if I die they'll resurrect me" over and over again.

"Sir?" she murmured and looked up to find that the Headmaster was looking at the scene in the mirror as well. "What exactly..."

"Shh, child," he said and waved a hand. "Just watch."

"Shouldn't we leave and help them?" asked Misty out loud.

The Headmaster shook his head. "It is too late for that now. Be grateful instead that you are not there."

Joanna stared at the reflection in the mirror. Something was happening. She could see the ripple going through the mirages and how the Jellicles stiffened momentarily. The tremor spread across the junkyard, and she felt how the floor in the strange room vibrated for half a second. Then it stopped. The Munkustrap mirage opened its mouth.

"We are ready."

The voice sounded tinny, but it made shivers run down the two girls' spines. They saw how the light coming from the mirages seemed to expand and contract in a steady rhythm, like heartbeats.

Joanna felt her own heart skip a beat when Mistoffelees stepped forward. He was staring at the light as if it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. His eyes seemed... distant.

"I don't like this," they heard him say. "Munkustrap..."

He didn't finish. Suddenly, without warning, a mirage had loosened itself from its brethren. It circled Mistoffelees a few times, and then it pounced.

There was light. When it faded, Mistoffelees was lying lifeless on the ground.