Grizabella had indeed come, and not without Macavity's aid either. Munkustrap's eyes sharpened as he beheld the pair, she walking proudly ahead and he supposedly hidden behind. She was not the Grizabella he remembered, though. Her face seemed somehow renewed, her colors more vibrant, her stride surer and her gaze absolutely overpowering. Disturbed as he was, he steeled himself for the confrontation ahead, and as soon as Grizabella rounded an alleyway corner to the festival square he pounced toward the errant Macavity with alert aggression.
Macavity, who had been walking the trim of a darkly-lit brick buidling, leapt to the ground as soon as he beheld the black-and-white cat vaulting skyward. They nearly caught each other mid-air, but Macavity merely sneered as Munkustrap's claws whiffed through his overgrown mane. It had been years since Munkustrap had even seen this legendary criminal, and he had only grown more sinister since. Their eyes locked as they circled each other, prepared for a struggle that would tip the balance between good and evil in their fair city streets.
His zealous heart afire in this opportunity for vengeance, Munkustrap nearly tripped across the battlefield, striking nothing but the dark night air as Macavity danced around him. The villain began to taunt him, twirling and leaping about as if engaged in some fatal ballet. Munkustrap hung back for a split second, following the flicker of flame-like fur across his peripheral vision in an attempt to predict Macavity's next move. The Sorcerer leapt again, this time into a kick delivered just in time. He tumbled to the ground, where Munkustrap landed atop him in a firm grapple.
While Munkustrap was determined to detain his assailant, Macavity had no such desire to be detained, and bucked violently against him. His claws whipped backward and sliced at Munkustraps sides, drawing first blood. He struggled still to hold him to the ground, until Macavity jerked his head backward unexpectedly and slammed into Munkustrap's lower jaw. His teeth clattering together, he could hardly scream as he was thrown from Macavity like a rider is thrown from one of those large bull-riding games he'd seen in a local human bar. He rolled a few times on the ground, and when he regained his perspective Macavity was standing above him, claws poised to deliver a killing blow.
But first, he paused. Macavity was a proud cat, it seemed, and like himself perhaps he preferred verbal to physical violence. He hissed and growled out a mad rant, and with Munkustrap's ears still ringing he could only make out a few phrases. You're no better, perhaps, and what do you think happens to those cats you fire off to space? Surely those years in darkness and solitude had gone to his head, and now he conspired even against those things most sacred.
But before Macavity's claws came down, and before he could say another word a flash of white crossed his eye as Alonzo entered the fray. His trusted companion, of course! The young athlete twirled and clawed, that same body he knew only in the tranquility of the bedroom now weaponized for good. This glorious sight invigorated Munkustrap, who flanked Macavity and caught him unawares. Surrounded by the two Jellicle Knights and drowning in the holy light of the Moon, their infernal enemy stood no chance, and he was tossed between them like ball of yarn. He toppled to the ground again, where Alonzo pinned his arms behind his back and held him in place.
Defeated and struggling just to glare upward, Macavity let a few final words slither past his fangs and into the night air. You're no better than I am. Our power flows from the same source: the blood of chosen cats. Think of all the lives your precious Deutoronomy has lived. Who could those lives have belonged to, if he had not gobbled them all up for his own? And Mestophiles! My once true friend, who died so long ago but was reborn. Where could that new life have come from? We are the same, we who tamper with life and death; only you have the gall to call it a miracle, and I the humility to embrace the name Sorcerer. You are a liar, Munkustrap, and you grovel before an altar built by thieves and liars, so tall it could reach the Moon itself.
His babble concluded, Macavity hung his head in shame and allowed Alonzo to apprehend him. Whatever his past, his future condemnation would be decided on the morrow, after the true traitor had been given her due.