WHOOT! i've got another chapter of Fan in Felidae done, and holy crap, this is a LONG one! dang, it took me a couple hours to finish it, as i've had the first bit done for a while. anywho, this chapter contains a lot of added material, i'm surprised that i wrote so much extra stuff. but i hope you enjoy, and please review!

DISCLAIMER: i DO NOT own Felidae, or any of it's characters. i only own Julia

I didn't even realize I was screaming until I heard Francis yell my name. "Julia!"

I snapped out of it then, my screams ceasing into sobs. We were on the roof of Felicity's house, right outside the skylight. I had looked down through the window, even though I knew what I would see. But I hadn't known that it would be quite that horrific. It had been bad enough seeing it on a computer screen, but seeing it in reality, knowing that it was real now… it was just too grotesque to bear. Her decapitated body, her head on one the side of the rug she was lying on, her body on the other, surrounded by a pool of blood. "Felicity's gone Francis, she's gone!" I fell to my stomach, my legs giving way beneath me.

Francis knelt beside me. "There's nothing we could have done…"

"Yes there is, we could have saved her!" I yelled. "I should've stayed here with her, I never should have left her alone!" I moved away from Francis, sniffing as tears blurred my vision. "It should be me down there, not her!"

Francis suddenly got right in my face, looking angry. "Don't say things like that! Listen to you, do you realize what you're saying?"

"Yes of course I do!" I yelled. "And I mean it, it should've been me!"

"No!" Francis sighed. "Damn it, how do you think Felicity would feel if she heard you saying such things? She wouldn't want you to think like that…" he sighed. "And I don't either" he added softly, placing his paw over mine. "Julia, I promise you we'll find whoever did this, and he will pay… with his life, if that's what it takes" I sniffed, blushing as Francis reached out and wiped my tears with his paw. "We're in this together, right?"

I sighed and nodded. "Yes Francis" I said quietly. He smiled sadly and put his arm around me, pulling me into a hug. I snuggled into him, thankful that I wasn't going through this alone.

...

"her eyes were wide open as though, even with her last breath, the one thing she longed desperately for was to see"

it was about an hour later, and Francis and I were lying underneath an old dead tree, Bluebeard lounging on the trunk in front of us. "It's sad, but life goes on guys" the old Manx said.

I glared at him. "Easy for you to say Bluebeard, you didn't know her like Francis and I did!"

Francis put his paw over mine, and I sighed, taking a deep breath. "Did you find that cliché in the one and only book you boasted that you'd read, Bluebeard?" he snapped.

The older cat almost looked hurt. "I was just trying to help"

Francis sighed, closing his eyes. "I swear that whoever murdered Felicity is going to pay for it" he stood and looked skyward. "You hear me, you bastard?" he yelled. "I'm going to make you pay!"

I nodded. "I will too, ya hear! I won't rest until we find you!"

Bluebeard decided to join in the threat shouting. "We'll get ya Shithead!"

"Forget what Pascal says" Francis said, going over and jumping up onto a low stone wall. "Felicity was killed because she knew too much"

I nodded, jumping up beside him. "She did seem very knowledgeable"

Francis and I walked together along the wall, Bluebeard trailing behind us. "Was it because she talked to us?" Francis pondered out loud. "If so, it means the murderer was watching our every move. This wasn't just a nutcase, but a cold blooded killer"

I nodded again. "Yes, it certainly seems that way"

Francis sighed, shaking his head in frustration. "Well, I don't know about you two, but I'm exhausted"

I nodded. "Yes, I'm tired too"

Francis turned to me. "Where do you live? We can meet back at my place later"

I blushed, lowering my eyes to the ground. "Well, I… I don't have a home" and I realized in that moment just how scared I was. I had no home, no family… for all I knew, my family back in the real world was worried sick about me. I felt tears well up in my eyes, but I quickly brushed them away.

"You can stay with me for the night if you'd like" Francis said.

I looked up at him. "But Francis, the human that you live with…"

"Gus won't find you, we'll sleep on the bed in the guest room… at least, I think it's the guest room… kind of hard to tell, what with all the renovating still needing to be done" he smiled at me. "Come on Julia, I won't be able to rest knowing that you don't have anywhere to go"

I sighed, hesitating. "Well… all right, if you're sure it's ok"

"it'll be fine" Francis said, and I followed him back to his place. We went in through an old open window and Francis showed me the guest room. He jumped up onto the old mattress. "Come on, it's not much, but it's actually quite comfortable" I hesitated before jumping up onto the bed. I found a spot near one of the pillows and curled up, wrapping my tail around my body as I'd seen other cats do. I was surprised when Francis laid down beside me. I smiled slightly as I closed my eyes. It didn't take long for me to drift off to sleep.

...

I awoke to the sound of a cat yowling. I blinked and lifted my head. Francis was gone. "Francis?" I called, standing and jumping off the bed. I walked out into the hallway and saw light streaming from one of the rooms. "Hello?" no answer. I slowly walked into the room. I instantly recognized it as the old laboratory where Preterius used to conduct his inhumane experiments. "Is… is someone in here?" I walked further into the room, looking around cautiously. I jumped when I saw movement in the windowsill. I turned and saw a cat sitting in the windowsill, but it wasn't Francis. The cat looked familiar though. He had thick, fluffy orange fur and a few scars on his body. My eyes widened when he turned to me, his golden eyes burning into my brown ones. "Claudandus!" I breathed.

He smiled slightly at me. "Julia" he said quietly. "How nice it is to see you my dear" he motioned for me to come closer. I slowly walked toward him, my legs trembling. I hesitantly jumped up onto the windowsill beside him. "Oh my" he smiled more. "You're just as lovely as…"

"Please stop" I said quietly, tears welling up in my eyes. "Please, don't talk like that"

he frowned slightly and sighed. "Oh how I wish things could've been… different" he looked at me. "How I wish you could've known me then, as you see me now"

I nodded slowly. "I know you weren't always so evil"

a look of pain crossed his face. "When I was Claudandus, I was not the same cat as you know… not the same as Pascal"

I nodded. "I know"

he sighed, his long fluffy tail swishing back and forth. "I was driven to madness by man, by Preterius. I thought for so long that he was my master, but…" tears brimmed in his eyes. "… He was only a monster" he looked at me and placed his paw over mine. "You are so gentle and pure… I love that about you"

I smiled slightly. "I'm almost sorry that this is a dream"

Claudandus nodded slowly, leaning forward and nuzzling me. When he pulled back, I gasped sharply, pulling away from him. His flesh was melting away, falling off in chunks, slipping to the floor with horrible squashing sounds. My stomach churned as I saw what was appearing beneath the peeling flesh… in no time, Pascal stood before me, Claudandus' flesh lying in a pile around him. "We may appear to be one and the same, but we're not" Pascal said, his voice echoing, as though he were far away. "Claudandus is the good half, and I…" Pascal's expression hardened. "I am the half of evil"

...

I jumped up, my eyes widening and my breathing heavy. "What the crap!" I yelled, jarring Francis awake. He looked freaked out as he woke up. "Francis, I… I'm sorry I woke you…"

"No, don't be" he said, sounding a little relieved. "i… I had a horrible dream"

I nodded. "Me too… I dreamed of Claudandus"

"really?"

I nodded again. "Yes"

"wow" Francis stood, shaking as though he had water all over him. "Come on" he said, jumping off the bed.

I followed. "What are we doing?"

"What I always do when I need to put my mind at ease" Francis turned to me, smiling slightly. "We're going hunting"

...

"Francis, are you sure about this?" I whispered. We were both hunched down, watching a small group of rats scurry about in the attic.

"Yes, I'm sure" he turned to me. "Don't tell me you've never hunted before"

I blushed. "Uh… I've never hunted before" I said, smiling weakly.

Francis blinked, looking surprised. "Oh. Well you're in luck"

I smirked. "Oh really?"

"Really. You are in the presence of a rat hunting expert"

I giggled. "Oh my, how exciting!" we both laughed quietly.

"All right, the first thing you have to do is be very very quiet" Francis said, lowering his voice to such a whisper that I had to strain slightly to hear him.

I nodded slowly. "Okay"

"second, you have to remember that rats are fast, as fast as lightning it seems sometimes"

I nodded again. "Okay"

"you got that?"

I chuckled. "Yeah Francis, I got it"

"okay… pick your target"

I scanned the area and my eyes locked on a fat, grey rat, one of the larger ones. Francis followed my gaze. "Jules, don't you want to try something a little…?"

"No way, that one's mine!" I whispered, smirking again.

Francis nodded. "All right, go for it!"

I took a deep breath and slowly slunk forward, careful to be as quiet as possible. My eyes stayed on the old rat. "I am not going to embarrass myself in front of Francis!" I thought. Unfortunately as I was thinking that, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I stepped out where the rats could see me. They instantly scurried off in all directions. "GAH! Oh darn it!" I said, growling as I leaped forward, trying my best to keep up with the grey rat. I almost had him… and slid to a stop to avoid crashing into the wall. But it was too late, my nose smacked the wall hard, while the rat scampered into a hole in the wall right at my feet. "ow" I groaned, rubbing my nose with my paw.

Francis walked over. "A-Are you o-ok?" I could tell he was trying not to burst out laughing.

I glared at him. "Hey, it was my first time hunting! Give me a break"

Francis chuckled. "You were keeping up with him pretty well… I'd say that you would've caught him if that wall hadn't been in your way"

I smiled a little. "You think?"

Francis nodded. "Yeah, I do" he chuckled again, reaching out and playfully batting my cheek with his paw. I giggled and crouched down, wiggled my butt, and pounced… only for Francis to leap gracefully out of my way. We started chasing each other, laughing loudly. I noticed an old pile of junk in the corner and ran for it. Francis was right behind me. I heard him hit something and I jumped as a static-like noise blared out of nowhere. Francis and I stopped and turned. Francis had run into an old VCR player and had accidently turned it on.

"Smooth move Frankie" I said, smirking.

"Frankie?" Francis swatted at me, but I giggled and ducked down. A few seconds later, a video started playing on the TV that the VCR was hooked up to.

"Given funding that will support the project for a year…" a voice was saying. "… This lab is my dream. My assistants are Ziebold and Gray" Francis and I looked at each other before we jumped up in front of the TV. The video was showing men working in a lab, which looked like a room in Gus' house. "I know that my tissue bonding glue will revolutionize medical science" the man, whom I knew to be Preterius, took a grey cat and strapped it down to an operating table. My eyes widened as one of his assistants took a scalpel and slit a small cut into the back of the cat's head where a patch of fur had been shaved off. Then Preterius used a dropper and put some sort of chemical onto the wound. "The first experiment had failed. Instead of bonding the edges of the wound together, the mixture etched its way through the skull to the brain. I can only conclude that the acid solution must be diluted further" the video showed two more shocking, inhumane experiments, which I could hardly watch. "It simply defies logic" then suddenly I saw a cat that looked familiar.

I nudged Francis. "He's the one I saw in my dream!" I whispered. Francis looked intrigued, but we both continued to watch the tape.

"This morning, a strappy young stray found his way to the lab. We've made him our mascot" the tape suddenly jumped to what appeared to be several months later, as Preterius and Ziebold were experimenting on the fluffy orange cat. "so many experiments, so many failures" Preterius was saying. "Now we have only our nameless mascot as a subject" Preterius took a drink from a wine bottle, nearly dropping it in shock as he looked at the cat's wound. "A miracle! I applied the mixture and it worked! It seems that our stray has performed an incalculable service to medical science!" Preterius said, picking up the cat and putting him in a cage. "I have named our successful subject Claudandus! And he will go down…" the tape jumped suddenly to the scientists surrounding Claudandus, who was strapped to the operating table. "We've had to perform a dissection on Claudandus. Some factor in his genetic makeup enables him, unlike the other subjects, to absorb the mixture without ill effects… he must be a mutant" the tape jumped once more, showing the lab in a state of disarray. "Our funding has been cut by a third!" Preterius slurred, obviously very drunk. "But I am Professor Preterius! A shortage of experimental animal…" he chuckled slightly. "… No problem!" the tape then jumped again. "Sacrifice! Scientific progress demands sacrifice!" the tape jumped for the final time. "Thanks to my ingenious breeding program, some of the females have produced kittens! Thus, ensuring a supply of subjects for the future" Preterius approached Claudandus' cage. "I wonder if you're still capable of producing offspring Claudandus! Suddenly, I have a vision of a new, entirely unique, extraordinary race of cats! A super race!"

Francis and I looked at each other in horror. He slowly stood and turned the VCR off. I felt tears sting my eyes. "No wonder Claudandus did what he did" I thought. "No wonder he's so lost" Francis and I looked at each other again, our good mood from before wearing off instantly.

"ARGH!"

I jumped when I heard something behind us. Francis and I turned and saw Kong, Hermann, and Hermann climb in through a window. "Oh snap" I mumbled.

Kong crushed a rat beneath his huge paw, laughing. He looked at Francis. "Hello, I promised you that we'd have another get together in the not too distant future…" he stopped as our eyes met. "Well now, where'd you find this sweet little thing?"

I growled, backing up slowly. "Back off Jerkwad" I snapped.

Kong roared with laughter. "Feisty, eh? I like that in a woman…"

"Eww!" I said. "Dude, get your mind out of the gutter!"

by then, Francis and I were slowly circling around Kong and his thugs. "We'd love to stand around and chat, but we've got more important things to do" Francis said.

Kong smirked. "Well, you're gonna squeeze me into your busy schedule"

"Kong, don't you think we should talk seriously about what's important?" Francis asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, like, gee, I don't know… THE PSYCHOPATHIC MURDERER THAT'S ON THE LOOSE!"

"Excuse me, so you've got something serious on your mind?"

"He means the MURDERS, YOU IDIOT!" I yelled. "God, are you really as slow as you look?"

Kong glared at me. "I'd watch my mouth of I were you Sweet Thing"

I rolled my eyes.

"We need your help to find the crazy man who's killing all our brothers" Francis said to Kong. By then, the ridiculously large cat had us backed up against the wall. He laughed. "Ha! You've already found him Cutie"

I snickered. "What is he, Bi?" I thought to myself.

Francis gasped. "You! But Kong, why you?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I hate to admit it, but that makes no sense"

"Why?" Kong laughed. "Well let's just say that, like you two, they didn't show me respect"

"I'm not denying you're a tough guy, but your motive doesn't convince me" Francis said.

I shook my head. "Me neither"

"oh, then let's see if I can convince you in some way"

Hermann and Hermann cackled like the typical evil henchman.

I snickered, looking up at them. "Let me guess, Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber, right? Or maybe Tweedle Ugly and Tweedle Uglier?"

Hermann and Hermann growled, glaring down at me.

Francis glanced up at the twin cats, then looked back at Kong. "Is this fair?"

Kong laughed. "Fair? Hell no!" Hermann and Hermann cackled again. Then Kong leaped at Francis and me. We jumped out of the way, and ran up an old pile of books and to a window… that was covered with thick mesh.

"Crap, we're trapped!" I said as Kong, Hermann, and Hermann came up behind us.

"Leave him to me!" Kong said, smirking at me. "We'll save the little lady for later"

"Hey!" I snapped, glaring at him.

Hermann and Hermann leaped at Francis just then. He jumped up and slashed at them. I felt a little nauseous at the sight of blood, but everything was happening so fast, I barely had time to register anything.

"Julia, come on!" Francis said, leaping over Kong.

I smirked. "See ya later you Butt-faced freak!" I said, leaping over Kong and following Francis. Kong was right behind us and pounced on Francis, grabbing him by the back and picking him up in his teeth. I gasped. No one was going to mess with Francis as long as I could help it! "Hey, leave him alone!" I tackled Kong, biting him on the neck as hard as I could. I startled him, making him drop Francis before he could do any damage. I looked up and saw a window. "Francis, this way!" I yelled. We both ran for the window, Kong and the two dumb bells right behind us. We leaped up and Francis managed to claw his way outside. "Almost there…!" I thought as my claws dug into the windowsill. I felt something grab my leg just then. I turned and saw Kong, his paw grasping me.

"Julia!" Francis said, leaning down and swiping Kong in the face with his claws. Kong yowled, letting go of me. Francis then grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pulled me out the window.

"th-thanks" I stammered as we ran.

Francis smiled slightly. "No problem"

a rumble of thunder made me jump, and a heavy rain started pouring down. "Oh great, I forgot about the rain" I grumbled as Francis and I leaped up over a stone wall. We stopped and turned just as Kong and the two Hermanns were scrambling over the wall after us. We jumped over a few more walls and ran across the rooftop of an old building before landing with a thud into a large, unkempt yard with overgrown weeds and dying grass. There was yet another low wall up ahead, but the two dunderheads were sitting on top of it, smirking at us. Francis and I jumped up and crashed right into them, sending the four of us over the wall and into a small fountain. Francis and I scrambled out of there and ran. "Oh crap" I thought, remembering what was waiting for us up ahead. We scaled two more small walls before we came to it. Francis cried out in surprise and I screamed as the dead cat lay before us, her throat torn and her torso gutted like a fish, her unborn kittens strewn around her bloody body. My legs trembled and gave way beneath me. the last thing I heard was Francis calling my name…

and then the world faded into darkness…

well, how was that one? man, my fingers are about to fall off from all the typing! hopefully i'll have the next chapter up soon, so be on the lookout for it! and don't forget to review!

-FreddysNightmare1984