TITLE: Lost Kitty On A Mission (part 1)

***

(Sunnydale, September 13, 2000)

Three candles were the only light in the small, cold room. They casted shadows on the wall, like dancing ghosts.

Two figures could be seen in the shadows, one of whom, the taller one, spoke quietly, yet harshly.

"Now you shall learn the consequences of disrespect. I will send you to a place where you will be nothing, nobody."

Silence filled the room for a few minutes, and then, a loud roll of thunder, followed by a bright flash of red light.

"This is your task," said the taller figure. "You have one year to kill the Chosen One. And then, if you shall succeed, I will reverse the harsh punishment I have given you. If not ... you shall stay as you are for eternity."

***

(Sunnydale, November 21, 2000)

Buffy sat on Willow's bed, watching Miss Kitty Fantastico, Tara and Willow's new kitten, messing with a ball of yarn. The kitten had managed to unravel almost the whole ball, and was now frantically twisting the soft pink yarn around Buffy's feet.

"Will, this kitty is one smart kitty, and I get the feeling she doesn't like me too much. She's ... I think ... trying to tie me up?!"

"Buffy," Willow laughed, coming out of the bathroom, "kittens can't tie people ..." Willow stopped laughing when she saw her still very wild kitten doing what looked just like tying Buffy's feet together.

"Wha...?!" Willow said, confused. "Miss Kitty, what are you doing, you silly little thing?" Willow started laughing again. "She's just playing. She probably thinks your feet are a bedpost. I think that the whole Slayer thing has made us all a bit paranoid." She smiled at Buffy, who was now giggling too.

"I guess you're right. I mean, it's not like she's some demon out to kill me, right?"

Willow and Buffy looked at one another, worried for a minute, and then laughed when they realized how paranoid they were really being.

"Well, I'm finished tidying up the place. We can leave now." Buffy and Willow were on their way to the Bronze to meet Tara, Xander and Anya. Spike would probably also find a way to show up, especially now that he had let his cat out of the bag about his feelings for the Slayer.

Buffy, who was now all tangled with the pink yarn, bent down to free herself, but when she put her hand near the kitten and the yarn, Miss Kitty jumped onto Buffy's feet, scratching her ankle deeply. "Ow!" Buffy yelled, drawing Willow's attention. "You stupid furball!"

Willow panicked a bit. "Oh, God, Buffy, I'm so sorry, I don't know what's gotten into her, I'll get something to clean up that scratch." Willow walked towards the bathroom, picking up Miss Kitty on the way. "Bad girl!" she scolded her. "Bad!"

***

The Bronze was full that night, since it was pouring rain outside, and also since it was the only normal hangout in Sunnydale. By the time Willow and Buffy had arrived, Xander had already managed to swallow down two batches of fries.

"Xander," Buffy started, "couldn't you have left me just a few fries? I'm starving. I haven't eaten anything since ... well, since I got to Willow's, but still ..."

Xander just shrugged.

"Well, if it isn't the Scoobies. I'll be damned. I'd have thought you'd all be slaying som'f my kind." Spike sat down on the nearest empty chair, and shot a cocky smile straight at the Slayer.

"Why go out in the rain when we have plenty to slay right in here?" Buffy answered in her usual sarcastic tone for Spike.

"Now, now, luv, lets not get all hasty. I was just making conversation."

"Do us all a favor and go make conversation somewhere else. I'm sure there are some drunken, schizo, crazy people in here that wouldn't notice you ranting at them."

"What does a bloke gotta do?" Spike mumbled under his breath.

"A lot," Buffy shot back, smirking.

Instead of leaving like he did every time he tried to sit with Buffy at the Bronze, Spike decided to stick around for a change. He was bored, and sick of the Scoobies humiliating him and then chasing him off. Sometimes, he thought that if he had the bloody chip removed, he'd kill the gang, turn Buffy, and flea Sunnydale. But then he thought about the nibblet, who he was, for some reason, quite fond of. He also about the witch, who always seemed to accept him slightly.

After staring at Spike for a moment or two, Buffy realized that he was staying, so she decided to ignore him. Instead, she talked to Xander, telling him about her brush with Miss Kitty. Anya, who was sitting beside Xander, suggested that maybe a rabbit spirit had possessed the cat, but Willow, Tara and Xander all agreed that the kitten probably did not realize that Buffy's foot was Buffy's foot, and that she meant no harm.

The rest of the night went by pretty well, besides Spike's cocky remarks. After a short sweep over the graveyard when the rain stopped for a bit, the Scoobies each went home to get some rest, before another day of demon slaying and other normal stuff.

***

The window was open, and a cool late night breeze blew the curtains slightly, making a quiet noise. The two young women who lived in the small dorm room were deep asleep.

In the corner of the room, something was moving. It was a kitten. The small black and white creature made her way through the shadows, and jumped onto the windowsill. There, she stopped for a minute, and swept the room with her eerie green eyes, as if looking upon it for the last time.

***

Willow awoke to the sound of hard raindrops on her windowsill. Realizing that the window was wide open, freely letting the wet rain and cold air in, she crept quietly out of her bed (so not to wake Tara), and closed the window. Figuring that there was no use in going back to bed, she decided to make coffee. But first, like every morning, she walked to the corner of the room, where there stood a small basket, to check on Miss Kitty Fantastico.

Willow was surprised and a bit nervous to find the basket empty, and the blanket not even warm. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty ..." she called out quietly. "Miss Kitty ..." Nothing.

After searching around the room and in the bathroom, and finding no sign of Miss Kitty but an old, chewed-up toy mouse, Willow was very disturbed. She decided to wake Tara.

"Tara ... Tara, honey ... wake up. I cant find Miss Kitty."

"Hmm?" Tara mumbled, half asleep. "She's probably in her basket."

"I checked there already, and in the bathroom, and in the closet. Tara, she's gone ..."

"Mmm ..." Tara stretched her still sleepy body, yawning, then got out of bed. She looked around the room, and also saw no kitty.

"Well, maybe she went out the window" she said to Willow, after brushing her teeth.

"It was open when I woke up, but she's slept here with the window open a lot already and never ran away." Small tears formed in Willow's eyes when she thought of Miss Kitty out in the rain. She was only a little kitten. OK, she wasn't so little, but she wasn't a fully grown alley cat either.

"I think we should go look for her. She couldn't have gotten far." Tara was also upset, but she kept her cool for Willow's sake. She hugged Willow lovingly, and then they both got ready to go on a search for a lost kitty.

***

The rain was hard, and the wind was cold. The small cat had managed to walk all the way to the park. Miss Kitty's fur was wet even though she walked under cars and outer shop roofs.

The kitty caught some fast movement in the corner of her eye. It was a cockroach. Being fast and smart, she was able to catch it. A roach was nothing compared to the meals she got at home, but it was food.

After walking the whole night, Miss Kitty was tired, so she found the nearest shelter, and curled up like any other cat would do. Her eyes closed slowly, and her ears twitched as she fell in to a deep cat sleep, like all other strays in the rain. She looked like them, acted like them, just like all the other cats, but she was surely different from them.

***

Willow burst in to the magic shop. "We can't find Miss Kitty Fantastico!" she announced. "We thought maybe she jumped out the window, but we didn't find her anywhere on campus."

"Maybe it's better she's not found." Buffy said. She still held a grudge against the "furball" since the yarn incident.

"Buffy!" Willow said, a bit of hurt showing in her voice.

"I'm sorry, Will. I wasn't thinking. Actually I was thinking out loud. Way too loud. I'll help you look for her."

"Count me and Anya in," Xander added.

"Xander!" Anya exclaimed, a bit too loud. "I don't wanna go out in the rain just to search for a cat!"

"Ahn ... Shut up," he mumbled back.

"It's OK." Willow said. "She doesn't have to come."

Anya didn't really like Willow's remark, even though she was just being polite. "Are you saying that I'm not capable of finding a stupid lost kitty?!"

"No, Anya. I'm just trying to be nice. Why do you always take ever..."

"Come on, guys," Xander said, cutting her off.

Anya just rolled her eyes and continued counting her money as usual.

"I'm afraid I can't join you either," Giles added suddenly.

"That's OK." Willow smiled.

Dawn, who was deep in the books, came alive suddenly. "I can help!"

"NO!" Buffy said angrily. "You have homework!"

"Yes, mom!" Dawn answered sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

"Well! On that happy note, shall we leave?" Xander suggested.

"We shall!" Buffy replied.

***

"It has been almost three months and she has done nothing whatsoever. Will that girl never learn? What does it take to teach her a lesson?" The man sounded angry.

The room was dark, and quiet. The only noise besides the voices of the man and the woman was the steady sound of the rain.

"Do not blame me for this, Deorin. I did all I could. I told you so many times in the past when she only started the trouble. Kill her!"

The man growled angrily. "She is one of ours! I could not kill her!"

"Then live with the consequences!" she scolded. "Live with darkness, humility. We cannot leave this building any more; we were almost discovered by the mortals."

"A day will come when all will bow down to us, and then we will be able to let ourselves be known," the man spoke confidently. "We must wait patiently until the Chosen One is dead."

The woman, already raging with anger, left the room, slamming the door loudly.

"You shall see, Sharion," the man said. "We will rise, and then we will free all our children and conquer. One thousand and six years after the last child is born. That is the time. Now is the time. All that is left is the death of the Chosen One of this time. Then, you will see."

***

Night fell over the still rainy Sunnydale. A long day of cat hunting finished unsuccessfully, much like Buffy's patrol. "I guess vamps don't like the rain," she said to herself out loud, and made her way home.

***

Buffy left her window open a bit to let some cool air in while she slept. The rain had stopped a bit earlier that night (after she came home from patrol and got inside, of course), so it was okay to leave it open.

The trees outside Buffy's window casted shadows on the wall, and the wind whistled through their leaves, making a quiet howling sound. In the shadows, a black and white kitten was climbing the tree outside Buffy's window. When she got to the top, the kitten looked around her, as if to see that no one was waching her. The furry animal's ear twitched as she heard a noise from below her, on the ground. She hesitated, but then continued on, and climbed quietly into Buffy's bedroom through the open window.

For a while, the kitten just sat on the inner windowsill, and with her bright green eyes, stared at the sound asleep Slayer. Another sound from below made the cat's ear twitch again. It sounded like whistling. The cat felt no threat from the faint whistle, however, and now started slowly walking towards Buffy's bed.

When the kitty was standing beside the slayer's pillow, she stopped to make sure everything was quiet. Nothing sounded suspicious. The wind blew, and small drops of rain started to come down again. Someone was still whistling outside, but again, this did not bother the cat.

The black and white creature crept slowly on to Buffy's pillow, and raised her sharp claws above her neck. Everything was still quiet. The Slayer showed no sign of being woken. The cat looked around once more, and then, with one quick slash of her claws, got Buffy right in the neck.

The Slayer's eyes flew wide open. Red blood flowed on to the white sheets. Satisfied, the cat jumped off the bed, and back onto the windowsill.

Buffy grasped her wound tightly, and turned slightly to see Miss Kitty Fantastico hopping out her window.

T.B.C.