The thunder shattered my concentration. I gasped and quickly looked up towards the sky. No colors were seen now, save for the dark grey of rain clouds. Taking a deep breath, I slowly gathered up the pent up energy for a spell. I felt the energy course through me, as I tried to gather a critical point on the tip of one of my claws. I felt a slow heat grow gradually on my claw; I kept on forcing energy into my claws. It grew to a blinding heat, and then I forced the energy past my claw, through, and then out. I felt a great release of pent up energy out of my claw. What happened was a bolt of lightning shot out of my claw; and it took all of three seconds. I stopped, and looked up. My timing was impeccable, as a bolt of lightning crossed my line of sight. I held my breath and waited for the inevitable thunder. Sure enough, four seconds later, the thunder crashed in my ears. The rain started to fall. I looked up at it and dared it to soak me. The rain understood me, and fell lightly. I looked to where my lightning struck the ground. There was just a small black mark. Not strong enough. I started to gather more energy in my paw. I felt the energy reach a critical point. More energy. The energy far surpassed the energy I had released earlier. My paw was burning from the heat that I was storing. I kept up the energy, and tried to double it. It didn't work. My strength gave out and the lightning burst from my paw. I heard the resounding thunder in my ears. The only problem was that I didn't see any lightning. The relief that I felt in my paw was gratifying. The coolness of my paw felt extremely refreshing. The rain slowly fell heavier. I guess it was determined to beat my dare. I looked up at the sky and double dared the rain. I looked down to where my lightning struck. There was a small jagged hole covered with burnt marks. A small stream of smoke rose from one of the edge of the hole.

"Misto?" a small voice rang out.

I turned around, but there was nothing to be seen; as the night was pitch black. I waited for the lightning to make its appearance again. The night sky quickly lit up, and I saw the cat who spoke. I smiled, and made my way to the brilliant white queen.

"I heard someone practicing out here, and I…" Victoria stopped short as I embraced her.

The rain was falling heavily now, soaking both of us. I looked up and smiled. The rain had won the dare. Victoria shivered against me. I put my arm around her and slowly sent energy into her body. She stopped shivering, looked up at me and smiled,

"You and your dang magic. You know, I've always wondered what magic was like… So… What's it like?"

"Just imagine, the ability to create anything, control anything that you want." I told her.

"Anything?" She asked.

"Anything." I confirmed.

"Like the weather? You know, to stop it from raining?"

I gave it some thought, "The weather might be too big for someone to change."

"If anyone can, you could." Victoria said, confident.

I just smiled and pulled her closer. We just sat there for a few more minutes. I was just listening to the light tapping of rain on the ground. We didn't speak until Victoria looked up and said,

"You know it's raining, right?"

I looked up in surprise, "Really? How did this happen?"

She giggled softly and hit my shoulder. "Don't make fun of me."

"I would have never of thought of it. At all. Period." I said.

"Victoria!" a young voice called.

Victoria sighed, "That has to be Jemima. I'll see you later."

I smiled as she kissed my cheek, "Bye."

Victoria waved back as she headed off towards Jemima. I watched her until she disappeared. As I watched the blackness, the sky quickly lit up, then disappeared; but not before I saw two retreating cats. One white, one black. I stood back up, ready to continue my practicing. I slowly walked over to where my previous lightning bolt struck. The hole was still black, but no longer smoking. Big surprise. Victoria's question intrigued me. Was it possible? Could someone do it? How would I attempt this? I shook the questions out of my head. I took a deep breath and began to gather energy. I had no clue how to do this, but practice was practice. Maybe if I did enough of it, I would be able to control the weather at will. Instead of focusing all of the energy on one paw, I decided to focus the energy throughout my body. I kept up the flow of energy until I reached the breaking point. My body coursed with heat energy. I tried to multiply my energy buildup. All I could focus on was the heat. Just about when I felt that I was about to die with energy, I loosed all of the energy that I had built up into the sky. The energy was invisible, but I could feel the heat slowly rise up into the clouds. I shivered, without the built up heat, intense coolness surrounded my body. As I was recovering, I failed to notice that the clouds slowly started to lighten in color. At least I noticed that the clouds began to disappear. I looked up at the sky as the rain started to fall lighter and lighter until there was none at all. I continued to look up as blue started show itself through the retreating clouds. I did it! I controlled the weather! I breathed deeply as I wanted to change the weather back. I paused for a moment; preparing for the inevitable amount of heat that was going to course through my body. I started to gather more energy than I usually did. I knew that this would require more energy than taking the thunderclouds away. I took another deep breath, feeling the heat course through me. I tried not to focus on the heat that was building up. I again waited for the energy to reach the breaking point, then uttering a soft cry; I released the energy into the sky. It took about a minute before I saw white clouds take their vacated spots back. They quickly blackened, and thunder could be heard. I could sense it before I saw it. I jumped back quickly as a bolt of lightning hit right where I was observing. Shocked, I looked up into the sky. Light lightened the clouds, and I thought the clouds showed signs of malice. I took a deep breath, preparing to make the clouds disappear, but I had to dodge quickly as another bolt of lightning tried to strike me down. This process repeated quite a bit, until I was speeding on the ground, desperately trying to escape the perspicacious bolts of lightning. I attention was focused skyward, and I didn't notice the protruding root. My paw got caught on it, and I fell. I quickly stood up, but it was too late; pain entered my entire body. More so than anything I've done. I tried to gather energy, or do anything, but the jolting pain kept on shattering my concentration. I desperately tried to claw my way out, but I couldn't feel anything. If someone were to step on me, or a dog bite me, I would seriously doubt that I would've felt it. Once the electricity subsided, I collapsed, trying to control myself. Spare currents of electricity still ran through my body, making it spasm uncontrollably. When I got some decent amount I looked up. Oh no… I did a double take. I closed my eyes. There was white. Patches of red, and red running onto the ground. My paws were shaking in fear. I heard Jemima gasp, and let out a sort of scream.

I lost it. I ran. Out of the Junkyard. Anywhere. I just had to go. How could this have happened? No one was around, especially not Victoria. When did she appear? How did she get so close to me without me noticing? Then I realized it; I pictured the jolts of electricity, how my nerves seemed to ooze with pain, but nothing else. She could've saw me being electrocuted, and ran to me. When I tried to claw my way… I can't think about this. My paws were moving automatically. I had no clue where they were taking me, but I didn't care. Magic. My mind loathed that word now. This disgusting ability that I was forced to take on. It ruined my life. A curse in disguise. That's it. My "gift" isn't a gift. It's a curse. My curse. My paws stopped. I looked up in surprise. I was standing at a bridge. I solemnly accepted what I had to do. Magic shouldn't be in this world at all. It just takes. My claws toed the edge of the bridge. My resolve was firm. No one would see me again. I smiled. Except for Victoria. My mind cleared. Peace.