A/N: Thanks to Catney for being an inspirational force while the writer is experiencing writer's block. In fact, she suggested the title for this part. Thanks again, Catney!

"My Prince!" Ja-Kal shouted, reaching for Presley. He tried to summon his armor, but when nothing happened, he realized that the wild magic must have done something to his amulet. Draining it of magic, if nothing else.
Presley wasn't really scared, for some reason. He had the feeling that they'd survive the impact, actually. He was wondering more where the portal was dropping them.
"What in Heaviside...?" one Jellicle trailed off, looking at the guardians as they fell towards them. They didn't get a chance to say much else, though.
"Jellicles, run for cover!" Kahti shouted.
The shout itself was unnecessary. When they snapped out of their amazement, all the Jellicles, kittens, toms, queens and elders, scattered for a hiding place as much as cover.
Presley was the first to hit the ground, though he actually landed safely in a junkpile, made of papers, old clothes, plastics and boxes. When he landed, he immediately rolled to the side as Ja-Kal came crashing down right after him.
Rath landed not far away, and, like Presley, he had to roll to the side, or end up being flattened by Armon. Corryn had taken to flight as soon as she was free of the portal, and landed without any danger, while cat-Cal was clutching to Kalia, yowling his displeasure at this. Satyre and Samuel had landed in another junkpile together, as had Shade and Meccha, and Nefer-Tina landed like a cat, her patron animal.
"Rath, any idea where we are?" Nefer-Tina asked the sorcerer as he stood up on his feet.
"I...honestly have no idea, Nefer-Tina." was Rath's only answer.
"Kahti!" Presley started shouting over the Junkyard, "All I can tell is that we're in a dumpster. And I know no dumpster in San Francisco is this smelly."
Presley missed a hissing sound from a nearby junkpile, though Ja-Kal heard it loud and clear.
"Kahti!" Presley shouted again. He couldn't help getting a strange feeling every time he shouted her name.

***

"Kahti!"
I perk up on hearing the voice. Despite being held back by the Matrons, I manage to get them to let go of me. Looking out of the portal of the nursery, I see what I hope to see.
"Kahti!" Presley shouts again.
"Presley!" I immediately run from my hiding place and jump into my human's arms. I've never been happier to see the tom-kitten.
"Easy, Kahti, easy." Presley pets me, and I return the gesture, gently butting his shoulder and rubbing against his chin.
"I think it'd be best if I took that amulet off her now. We might be able to use it to get back, especially if it's magic still works." Rath says, reaching for the amulet around my neck.
However, he hasn't even touched it when it begins giving off a strange golden glow. He and I are both startled by it, then, after pulsating for a few seconds, there's a blinding explosion and all of us are thrown to the ground.
Thankfully, Presley rolled with the force of the explosion while still holding me, so I haven't been injured in the blast. Still, I wonder why it did that at all, no one's bothered to do anything to it.
I also noticed that the amulet is no longer in existence. It was destroyed in that blast. Or was the amulet simply turned into the energy of the burst?
"Mistoffelees, can you try to send them back to wherever they came from?" I hear a tom's voice asking.
"Sorry, Munk. I don't know where they came from, and I'd need a lot of energy that I don't have to do that, anyhow." I hear the answer from the magician.
Nefer-Tina looks towards the direction of the voices. She heard them?
"Ja-Kal." Nefer-Tina shakes the hunter's arm to get his attention. "We're not alone. I heard someone talking."
"She heard us?" "Don't worry." "She couldn't have understood us."
Ja-Kal turned his attention to the direction of the voices. He barely takes a step towards the junkpile when the entire Junkyard burst with furry masses all over the place. Within a second, the guardians and their allies are surrounded by the Jellicle tribe.
Closest to the guardians are some of the toms of the tribe, those still in their prime and fit to fight. I notice Munkustrap's look of fear and hesitation, and try to calm him down, seeing as how his fur is bristling.
"Don't worry, keeper. They're my humans. And they're not like most other humans, they're very different, I assure you." I tell him from my perch in Presley's arms.
"Keeper? Why do they call you that?" Nefer-Tina interrupts. I look at Munkustrap's face to see a distinct look saying something to the effect of 'Oh, #$@!, now we're in trouble!' to a human observer.
"She *does* understand us!" "How?" "What'll we do about them?"
"Nefer-Tina, what are you talking about? They're not saying anything." Ja-Kal says. He's answered by a loud hiss from the assembled tribe.
"As crazy as this sounds, Ja-Kal, I can understand them. It's just like listening to a normal person." She turns to face the hawk guardian. "They're speaking, Ja-Kal." Nefer-Tina whispers.
"Of course we're speaking!" squeals a kitten, a pure white tom-kitten named Marzipan. Immediately, his mother, Victoria the white queen, claps a paw over his mouth.
"Do you humans really think you're the only species with a language?" I ask, finally infuriated at their concept of my race. "Our ancestors were the same size as you, they gave your species, those in Egypt, their language, their faith. So, too, do we have ours."
Nefer-Tina looks at me in pure shock for a moment. Then, walking to Presley, she plucks from the relative safety of his arms and holds me up so we're face to face.
"Kahti?" she asks, when she finally recovers from her shock, "Kahti? You can speak, too?"
"Of course I can speak, Nefer." I tell her, using the First Name she had in Egypt, "I've always been able to. They can also speak because they are my descendants. I, and they, are Jellicles."
"Um, Nefer-Tina?" Presley interrupts, "would you like to explain what you're hearing to the rest of us? We can't understand them like you can."
"My question is, *how* can she understand them, if they're really speaking?" Kalia asks. She backs further into the crowd when she hears the hiss of a Jellicle, this one a fairly large Abyssinian by the name of Admetus.
"I have an idea about that." Rath interjected, "I believe she can understand them since Bastet is her patron goddess, and Bastet *is* a cat, after all..."
"Bastet?" I hear Cassandra, the Jellicle, not the human, asking.
"The human name for the Everlasting Mau." Seeing her strangely blank look, I try again. "The human name for the Everlasting Cat, to your tribe, anyhow."
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that Cassandra has one hand on the thigh of her white queen-mate, Victoria. Victoria is also in the arms of Munkustrap, one of their shared tom-mates, as I understand it.
Oh, my eye, Where am I?

***
Some of the kittens, and more than a few toms and queens, were utterly baffled by the arrival of the guardians. And all of them more than a bit scared that one of those humans could understand every word they said.
"Poppa? What'll we do about the humans?" asked one kitten, tugging on the fur of her sire. The tom, a tuxedo named Mistoffelees, patted his daughter on the head.
"I'm not sure, Misty. But I'm sure we can do something about them." Mistoffelees told her.
"I'm more worried about the human who understands us. What if she's as stupid as the large tom looks?" asked a tom-kitten, almost a tom, really. He looked to the guardians, who began talking amongst themselves. The tom-kitten shifted from one hindfoot to the other, and the kitten moved from her sire to be hugged and comforted by the tom-kitten.
Some of the breed kittens, breed generally means 'crossbreed' to non-human races, moved towards the guardians, curious. However, just when the guardians or their friends were about to touch them, the kittens were pulled away by their Jellicle parents.
Perhaps the most violent reaction to the guardians and their friends was from Tantomile, the mystical female twin. Her breed kitten, Crysalis, tried to approach Rath, when Tantomile suddenly jerked her daughter away and hissed loudly at him before running with the kitten in her arms. That left the guardians dumbfounded.
"I still worry about how we're getting back to San Francisco. Rath, I noticed the portal drained our amulets of magic, do you have anything left?" Ja-Kal asked the sorcerer.
Rath held up his hands and a shower of meager green sparks flew into the air before disappearing. "Nothing. Whatever drained our amulets also drained most of my magic. We have no way of getting back."
"Misto, can't you send them back?" Munkustrap whispered to his little brother.
The magician's gaze went from his eldest brother to the humans with large green eyes, larger than normal for him. "Munk, I can't send that much mass anywhere. We don't even know where San Francisco is, and even if you put all the magical power we have together, there's still the danger of us being drained, and something even worse happening to them." He shook slightly from ears to tail before his white queen began rubbing against him, hoping to comfort her tom.
"What if we had you guys and Rath combine your magic?" Nefer-Tina asked the Jellicle magician, almost making him start in surprise. "That might be enough to get us back home, wouldn't it? Or maybe to better communication, at least?" she suggested.
"I've seen how much magic he has left. It'd be easier for us to channel it than for him to actually use it himself. If he's willing to lend us what he has left, we might be able to bridge the communication gap." Mistoffelees looked from Nefer-Tina to the sorcerer, with a touch of apprehension on his white face.
"Misto, be careful. Remember what I told you?" Tantomile whispered to the tux.
Mistoffelees patted her white forepaw gently. "Don't worry, Tanti. We'll be fine, I promise." Mistoffelees gently told the queen, one of his queen-mates and Companions.
The tuxedo looked around at the few faces who peered at him with understanding, of any kind, of what was going on. "Heaviside help me." he whispered, barely enough for anyone else to hear.

***

I watch as blue light, the magical signature of Jellicle magic, begins to glow around Mistoffelees' paws. Likewise, Nefer-Tina tells the sorcerer to bring his magic to the fore, and green light begins to glow around Rath's clawless, furless hands.
An internal alarm starts going off inside me, as if warning me about something. I don't know what it is, but I know something is going to happen.
The sound of howling, almost like a Pollicle, the Jellicles later tell me, fills my ears, though I can't tell if the noise comes from my own throat, or another's. It doesn't matter, though.
The blue and green lights mingle, briefly drawing away from each other before matching, meeting, fusing. The combination of magic and light and energy becomes brighter than anything I can remember, and I feel searing heat slide across my skin and fur.
The next thing I know, I'm on my back just barely darting out of the way as one of the guardians, Armon, crashes down where I was moments before. Bolting to my feet, I look around as I stand, taking in the scene that's changed notably from the one before.
The guardians and their friends, Samuel Hawkes, housing the spirit of Ja-Kal's son Padjet, the werewolves Shade and Meccha, the living guardian Cassandra, and the 'half-imp' Corryn, all scattered around the junkyard, in fact, Corryn was knocked unconscious, and I see a crimson gash in Shade's dead-white flesh.
The Jellicles, to my other side, are likewise almost scattered, with kittens hiding behind their parents or grandparents. Between Mistoffelees and Rath are the tuxedo's eldest brother, Munkustrap, and Tumblebrutus, his brother-in-mating, hissing at the sorcerer. I can't blame them, really.
"Well, *that* was a waste." I hear a voice saying from behind Mistoffelees. Coricopat, Tantomile's twin and Lifemate, naturally, the tone of his voice makes clear his dislike for the sorcerer.
"Perhaps not."
Mistoffelees does a double take, a human expression, but fitting here nevertheless, at Ja-Kal. Here, there is no dislike on the part of the Jellicles, only confusion and caution.
"It worked?" he whispers.
"Obviously, it must have, if I can understand you." Ja-Kal says. For a moment, mummified guardian and magical Jellicle can only stare at each other in shock, being able to understand each other for the first time, with blue eyes meeting green.
I clear my throat to get the Jellicles' attention. "If the guardians can now understand all of us, I'll take this time to remind all of you to be careful about your names. You know that the human myth about names being used against someone is true, don't you?" I remind them.
I see Mistoffelees and Coricopat with faces becoming very pale, amazing, for Mistoffelees, as his face is white enough naturally. I make a gesture to them in an effort to calm their fears, though I doubt it's worked.
I also notice other things. Munkustrap turns to his brother, Alonzo, and his son, Michael, and starts telling them something, something not to be heard by other ears, human or Jellicle. After a bit, Alonzo nods and half-pulls the younger tabby tom with him.
"I'm still worried, though. For one, the Ball is only a few days away, what are we going to do about the humans then?" Munkustrap says, partly to me, and partly to anyone else who's bothering to listen.
"Oh, I'm sure the answer will come to you, gray one." I return. He rolls his eyes in a gesture I know is one of joking annoyance.
All of a sudden, Mistoffelees and the mystical twins perk up. "I believe it is Old Deuteronomy."
The musical tone of their voices rings in my ears. Why am I here?

***

The guardians couldn't help feeling especially out of place as they watched the Jellicles, adult and kitten, greeting the large furry patriarch. When this was over, Old Deuteronomy slightly tilted his furry head and looked at the guardians and their allies with a look of slight amusement and curiousity.
"Well, what have we here?" Old Deuteronomy asked himself out loud, before turning to his youngest son. "Mistoffelees, how did they get here?"
Mistoffelees couldn't help smiling despite himself, Old Deuteronomy always turned to him for an explanation first, if he couldn't answer, it would usually fall to the twins to do so.
"It was a magical storm, sire. Their owner arrived here by accident when they, and I, were performing magic, at the same time, apparently. Unfortunately, the storm drained most of their magic, and I would need their help to get them...back to wherever they came from." explained the tuxedo tomcat.
Old Deuteronomy turned back to the mummified guardians and their friends with a thoughtful look on his face. Then his eldest son, Munkustrap, spoke up.
"We've also been wondering what we can do about them in the meantime. The Ball is in a few days, and..." Munkustrap trailed off, he said more than enough for Old Deuteronomy to understand.
"I see no reason why they can't stay here. They wouldn't tell them of what they see here, because no one would believe them. Besides, they're different, as we are, though we still should be cautious for the most part." The furry patriarch then turned to some of the toms. "Pouncival, Tumblebrutus and Admetus. Find some shelter for these visitors to stay, at least until we can do something to get them home."
The three named toms nodded, and scrambled off before anyone else could speak up.
"Um, sir? If we're staying here as...guests, it would help to learn your names. I imagine it wouldn't be a good thing to simply refer to you as 'cat', would it?" Ja-Kal asked in an uncharacteristically timid, almost submissive, tone of voice.
"Of course, as along as we know your names as well. We can't simply call you 'human', can we?" Old Deuteronomy said. He had a twinkle in his eye that showed he was impressed what the respect most of these humans were exhibiting for his kind. He was also waiting for Ja-Kal to begin, it was only fair, to him.
"Very well. My name of Ja-Kal. Rath is the sorcerer, the others are Armon, Nefer-Tina, Kalia, Satyre, Samuel Hawkes, Corryn, Cassandra, Cal, Shade and Meccha." he said, gesturing to each as he named them.
One of the kittens looked over the guardians, and a few snickered to themselves. One kitten spoke up.
"I wanna call her Cassie. We already have a Cassandra." this kitten, later, they learned, named Ziraza, said, pointing to the human guardian.
The other kittens murmured and nodded in agreement, and Old Deuteronomy had nothing against this. He began to chuckle when some of the kittens began pouncing on Cal, and chasing the green cat.
"I see. Then we can do no less by giving you our second names, the names we're given at birth. I am Old Deuteronomy, the Jellicle leader. My sons," here, Old Deuteronomy gestured to the silver-gray tabby and the tuxedo, "are Munkustrap, my eldest, and Mistoffelees, my youngest. You'll meet the others later, if they wish to say anything about themselves, I'm sure."
After some time, Tumblebrutus, Pouncival and Admetus came back, and Old Deuteronomy instructed them to take the guardians to shelter, though Ja-Kal stayed with Old Deuteronomy and Munkustrap. The guardians didn't ask why, it didn't really matter to them.

***

I rest uneasily next to Presley, it's almost dawn, and my humans aren't nocturnal as Jellicles or ordinary felines are. They need their rest, besides, I can spend my day resting as well, and not being bothered by them, for which I am grateful.
Still, as I prepare to spend my day sleeping, I feel a sensation of uneasiness, almost a feeling of sudden, unexplainable terror and fear. I can't explain it.
Then again, I'm also not interested in doing so. I think I have an inkling of what the source of the feeling is, but I'll know soon enough. For now, I'm content to merely rest and prepare myself for the coming days, because I know that chaotic is perhaps the mildest word to describe them.

***

"Kanoi, dearie. You can come out now, you're all patched up, and no one will be able to tell the difference." Jennyanydots tells me.
I peer around the doorway to see the Matron almost staring at me. I can tell what that look in her eyes means, and I'm not sure whether to laugh myself silly or run away screaming because of it. However, now is not the time to worry about that.
I manage to pull myself upright to my feet, the bandage around my chest would cut off air if I still was breathing, and the wrapping around my right arm dulls the sensation of touch from the shoulder down, especially below the elbow. Still, not a problem, I have been known to be ambidexterous, as humans call it.
"Kanoi, I was wondering-Oh, oh, my."
I come face to face with the other Matron, Jenny's half-sister Jellylorum. She has that same look in her eyes, one that tells me what I'll be in for if I stay. Part of me wants to lose control and run away screaming like an idiot human, but another part wants to find out what that look will offer, though I have some idea what the nature of that 'offer' is.
"Jelly, now would *not* be a good time to say what you're thinking. And before you even ask that far, remember that I *am* the ancestor of your tribe." I tell her. I see the corner of Jellylorum's mouth twitch, and I mentally gulp to myself.
I step outside without waiting for a verbal answer from Jellylorum, and I immediately notice a few versions of the same look from a few other Jellicles, be they tom or queen. Most of the toms just have a stupid grin plastered on their faces, and most of the queens just have what humans might call a 'Mona Lisa' smile. Well, it could be much worse, at least the past behavior I am so accustomed to is openly practiced. I feel considerably more at ease, for the moment, at least.
"Kanoi, I hope you're up to the challenge. You're going to have to help Mistoffelees with this...spell, you understand?" Victoria tells me. I look into the white queen's aquamarine eyes, and see a twinkle of...mischief?
"Of course. And you shouldn't worry, I don't think your mate will waver in his loyalty to you." I smile. Victoria's face flickered with confusion for a moment before she returns the gesture.
*After all,* I add, with the power of my mind, *he is the sire of your kittens. That alone is living proof of his loyalty.*
Victoria, the white queen, leads me over to her mate, a tuxedo named Mistoffelees. However, he looks different now. No longer does he have the white-tipped tail or the three white paws. The only white he now has are his face, chest and the white pads on his paws. Interesting transformation, must be new in recent generations, I suppose.
I begin to summon my own powers to the fore, hoping I can help to get myself back to San Francisco. I'm no Magical Cat, but I have powers, you humans might call them psychic abilities, and some mystical talent. I know full well what I am doing, as I should.
However, when my power intertwines with that of Mistoffelees, I immediately sense something is amiss. There is alien magic in the air, one that feels vaguely familiar for one moment, then not, the next.
I feel my muscles beginning to tense, and a familiar tingling in my whiskers. A storm, that's what it is. But no ordinary storm, I can tell that. It's linked to that magic in the air.
A deep rumbling from the sky catched the attention of myself and the Jellicles present. As I watch, a funnel-cloud, or so I think you humans would call it, begins to form, and energy flares. A portal.
The rampant magic in the air twists and pulls at the natural forces, human magic. It strains the very forces of reality, having been dormant for centuries and given little chance for nature to adjust to its presence.
A deafening clash of thunder makes me turn my head away from the sky, then I feel the earth rumbling in protest to all the chaos. Looking back towards the portal, I finally see something that is familiar.
At first, I see a figure in purple swirling in the wind, then its flung far away from the portal, beyond even the sight of a Jellicle. It was Scarab.
Next, I see a figure in light clothes, and a gleam of a gold amulet, rectangular in shape. It's Presley! My pet!
Behind the tom-kitten, I see his guardians and allies following. How did they get here? Better still, how will we now get home?

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