A/N: This is my first time writing a story like this and I dont have a beta, so please be kind. This is a Lone Wolf/CATS crossover and I'm not sure it will ever be finished. The Lone Wolf bits are based on the novels rather than the adventure books.
Lonewolf Timeline: I dont have an exact timeline that the story takes place, but for the purpose of the story it's after the darklord Haakon has been slain and Qinefer has left to follow her own path. The war to save the lastlands is currently in remission. For the purpose of this story both Viveka and Petra have permanent residence at the Kai Monastery and Banedon just so happens to be there as well. The gestalt entities have yet to make an appearance. Please forgive any mistakes because it's been a while since I read the books.
CATS: The timeline is irrelevant, though characters have been revamped a little. Etcetera is exciteable, but not a ditz. Munkustrap is not the jellicle protector/guardian and he's in no way related to Dueteronomy. For the purpose of this story Mistoffelees is both older and more experienced than he is protrayed in the musical.
It was a balmy day, the sun had been shining all afternoon and the shadows that marked the evening were just beginning to fall. Etcetera was in the happiest mood she'd been in since the Jellicle Ball and she wasn't afraid to let the world know. Her smile seemed to illuminate the area around her, white teeth flashing brightly as she spun around chasing butterflies, insects and tall peices of grass. In the absense of those items she would resort to chasing her own tail.
The result was so ridiculous that the tom walking with her had to laugh.
It was rare these days that Munkustrap would laugh, though when he did it was always around the 'kittens' and the silver tabby was glad to walk Etcetera home if only for the chance to watch her play in that way that only carefree kittens could. (Though he had to admit she wasn't exactly a kitten any longer.)
"Munkustrap, I have to talk to you."
The voice spoke up behind him and Munkustrap looked over his shoulder to see Mistoffelees trotting to catch up with him. The silver tabby paused a moment to let the smaller tom catch up before he replied. "Mistoffelees. What brings you out to this part of London so late in the afternoon?"
The conjurer cleared his throat, seeming to wonder the same thing for a moment. His ageless face - not quite that of a kitten, not quite that of a tom - looked puzzled for a moment. "I wanted to discuss a certain phenomenon with you."
"'Phenomenon'?" Munkustrap asked and he let his mind drift away from Etcetera and her gleeful games in order to scrutinise the other tom more carefully. "A magical occurence?"
"It's almost spiritual... Yes, no..." Mistoffelees sighed. He was obviously frustrated, "I don't know what it is."
The silver tabby tilted his head to the side. "Surely it would be better to discuss this with one of the twins? Or Cassandra? Cats that have studied the mystical arts. I dont think I'll be able to help you."
"I was curious to know if you felt it too," Mistoffelees told him with a strange look on his face.
"Magicians," Munkustrap shook his head. He turned to look at Etcetera who had taken the opportunity to stalk what a frog through the grass. "You're all irrevocably cryptic."
"Irrefutably," Mistoffelees replied, rapidly becoming agitated. The conjurer's ears twitched in this direction and that, his tail gained a life of it's own. "Munkustrap, I can't help but sense that something is about to happen. I came to you because you of all the jellicles seem to have a sense of the city itself. I wanted to rule out plain paranoia before checking with those of the tribe versed in the mystical arts."
"Something," Munkustrap frowned, his whiskers twitched, "something about to happen. No, there's nothing I can sense, or I would have told Etcetera to stay in the junkyard rather than offer to walk her home..."
"You care about the tribe's kittens, dont you?" Mistoffelees said softly and a small smile crossed his face. "Especially one in particular."
However Munkustrap wasn't listening. Instead he tilted his face towards the wind, eyebrows drawn close together in a queer sort of frown. The tip of his nose twitched. "And yet... there is something that I'm missing. I feel I haven't got the whole picture. As though something were about to happen that I can't quite grasp."
Mistoffelees felt it then. The tingle underneath his fur that told him when the forces of magic in the air were particularly potent. "Munkustrap!" He warned, a second too late for the silver tabby was already on his guard. Even Etcetera had ceased in her playfulness and had started to look about with a wary expression upon her face.
In the ice caps of the far off Kalte which was separated from this world by so many layers of ice and cold magic, the fabric of time was stretching. An entity that had once been dead and gone stirred to life and even in the sulphur-laced air of Helgedad a chill seemed to shiver through the air. Darklords - who were separated from the truly living by their soulless evil - felt something in the air shift.
A magic ripple interrupted the meditations and machinations of those in Toran's Brotherhood of the Crystal Star and even those of the Elder Magi felt the shift in time.
Lone Wolf's head raised slowly. He sniffed the air. He could smell those scents that surrounding his very bare room in the rebuilt left wing of the monastary. An itch in the back of his mind, much like those he felt whilst being probed by magic, alterted him to the fact that something was happening. He glanced at the Sommerswerd where it lay peacefully in its scabbard. The soulstuff of the sword lay dormant. Surely if there were to be another attack the sword would have been giving off some sort of vibration. Nonetheless he took up the scabbard in his hand and stalked outside, ready to call the alarm should he have to.
And in the vast beyond where she lay dormant, then entity known as Alyss swore. "Blast him!"
Then Munkustrap woke up from where he was lying on the grass. His head felt strange, clogged up somehow and fuzzy. Nearby, Etcetera made a soft noise as she woke up in a similar situation. Munkustrap looked around for any sign of Mistoffelees. He saw the conjurer seconds later, standing at the edge of an unusual looking stream. The small black and white tom turned to look at him and regarded him with lamplike blue eyes that seemed unusually guarded.
"Munkustrap," he said softly, "I think we might be in trouble."
Munkustrap nodded dumbly. He was unable to make his mouth work quite the way he wanted it to. It took him a long moment to speak and when he did the words were near frightening. "Yes. I dont recognise this forest at all."
The three jellicles were silent a long time. Finally Etcetera spoke; Her voice was hushed in a manner that made Munkustrap's heart break to hear it so devoid of the happiness he'd seen in her earlier. "I dont like this. Can we go home, please?"
"Soon, Etcetera," Munkustrap told her, knowing it was a lie just as she did. "We'll be back in the junkyard in no time."