WHEN last we saw our brave feline heroes, the evil Chillwave descended on their woodland retreat, encasing it in a glistening sheet of ice.

UNFAZED by the sudden frozen shell surrounding them, Void Cat and Shadow sprung into action, and swiftly broke out of the back of their sylvan abode, unbeknownst to the nefarious Chillwave.

CLIMBING the nearest tree, the pair sprinted to the front of the building and stealthily waited to pounce.

CELEBRATING early, their fiendish foe was unaware of the feline force about to befall him….

Void Cat glanced at Shadow, who stared down at Chillwave, her green eyes piercing through the darkness. Her growl was low and deep, rhythmically rising and falling as she breathed in and out quickly. Her tail flipped back and forth over the branch they sat upon, her claws digging into the bark.

Void Cat, unable to contain herself, chittered at the human holding the ice pistol, her body twitched, preparing to strike t any moment.

“Vat are wik waiting for?” Shadow asked, her voice deep.

“One more second toots, I want him to think he really won this time. It will make it all the sweeter.”

Despite her body vibrating like a piano wire, Shadow let out a soft laugh.

From below them, Chillwave cackled as he sprayed layer upon layer of ice over the house. “My master will reward me for this, all will see how superior I am. Together, Chillwave and Doctor Snowstorm will return the world to a Snowball Earth! We will be victorious! We will show the rest of them…”

“Dat’s it!” Shadow growled and jumped from the branch.

“Wait!” Void Cat yelled, grabbing her sister’s tail and pulling her back to the tree. The force of Shadow moving through the air was almost enough to pull her off the branch, and she dug her claws into the bark to keep from sailing into the air with her.

“Cool it, he’s saying something,” Void Cat hissed. The pair clamped onto the branch and listened.

“That fool Greenhouse thinks he can change the world to what he wants. Make it hot all the time. He is mistaken, he will never do that.” Chillwave walked to the front for the door and put his freeze pistol in its holster on his hip. “Cold is the absence of heat, and that’s what I will do. Make him… absent.”

Chillwave stopped for a moment as if he were unsure his previous statement made any sense, even to himself. After a beat, he shrugged his shoulders and reached for the doorknob, the only spot in the entire ice barrier still not frozen solid.

“NOW!” Void Cat yelled, and the pair flung themselves off the tree wrapping around Chillwave’s head, hissing and scratching. He screamed and threw his hands up attempting to pry the felines off.

Swiftly dodging, Void Cat climbed up and down Chillwave’s body, deftly avoiding his hands, biting and scratching as she went. Shadow reached down for his pistol and knocked it out of the holster; she followed it to the ground and aimed it at their struggling foe.

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“Geet off him, I will use the gun!” she yelled to her comrade, who alighted off the man in less than a heartbeat. Shadow stuck the handle in the ground for stability and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

“Shoot!” Void Cat yelled, arching gracefully across the sidewalk leading up to the house.

“I DEED! VHAT HAPPENKED?”

“You fools!” Chillwave yelled, adjusting his blue coat and fixing his goggles. “Your engineered brains may make you smart, but they haven’t given you opposable thumbs!” Chillwave gave them the “thumbs up” and then wiggled it back and forth to illustrate the point.

“I see!” yelled Shadow, “Like dis!” she held in the trigger with her right paw as Void Cat bounded off the ground, arched low, just high enough to slap the “armed” button on the pistol with her paw as she flew over. The blue beam leapt from the gun catching Chillwave in mid-laugh, his face barely registering his miscalculation of the teamwork of the pair that allowed them to overcome any physical situation.

“Ve may not have thumbs…” started Shadow.

“But we have each other!” added Void Cat, winking her amber eyes at the now motionless Chillwave, encased in ice.

“You got that right, sis,” Void Cat said, winking at her much larger companion. “Now, how do you suppose this mug found us? Didn’t we cover our tracks back to the house? How’d he finger us?” Void Cat scratched between her ears, eyes narrowing in thought.

“I don’t know sestra, maybe he saw dee car, or followed Sifu to dee house?”

“Nah, Sifu’s too fast for this palooka. She’s too careful.”

“The professor?” Shadow asked, circling around their enemy, disdain on her face.

Voice Cat didn’t even bother with a reply. The thought was too outlandish. After a moment she broke from her reverie. “I don’t know, sis, but it’s a good bet he’s not going solo here. We’d better hit the bricks before anyone else comes calling. Leave everything, and use bug-out plan delta.”

Shadow sprung into action and ran around the house in a grey blur. Void Cat stared up to the frozen form of Chillwave and wondered if he could see her moving below him. She could hear his heart beating, albeit slowly.

“Looks like we put you on ice this time. Don’t worry your pretty little heart, Mac, I think you’ll thaw… eventually.”

Void Cat followed Shadow to the back of the house and up a large oak tree where she ducked into an old owl’s nest. Inside the tree, a dark passageway ran down into the root system, and then into the basement of the now-frozen house.

“We don’t have too long before that bruiser thaws, you got everything we need?“ Void Cat asked Shadow. Both were quickly gathering supplies off the many shelves lining the walls of the concrete basement.

“Da, I have everythink I need. You can let them know.” Shadow slipped into her backpack that fit over her back and all four paws. Made of leather and custom fit to her muscular frame, it fit perfectly and gave her a feeling of security.

Void Cat nodded and opened a box bolted to the wall. Inside of it, a red button pulsed with a dim light. She extended her paw, wrapped her webbed toes around the button and pushed. The house rumbled as shutters closed over all the windows and doors, sealing the structure from the outside world; a double barrier against the ice on the outside. A panel next to the box slid open, displaying a blue light that flashed quickly.

“Okay, I let them know not to come back to the house. They know to meet us at the joint. Let’s take a powder while the gettin’s good.” Void Cat looked up to the wooden rafters. Above them, the living room where they spent countless days both training and relaxing, was now cold and dark, sealed in its steel sarcophagus beneath a tomb of ice.

The pair ran back out through the tree and across the field behind the house, the pale moonlight casting their dark shadows against the blue snow, the only sound was their paws crunching.

Unseen by them, back at the edge of the forest, a fox watched with calculating eyes. It blinked quickly, then ran back into the cover of the underbrush. It yelled like a woman in danger.

Can the Ferocious Felines reconnect with Sifu and the professor before they leave from dinner? How did Chillwave find their secret hideout so quickly after years of cover? Who was the mysterious fox and what was it planning? Find out in our next exciting episode, “Reunited, and It Feels So Good!” On the “Adventures of Void Cat and Shadow!”