Macavity!

A thunderous crash interrupted the performance for the third time that evening. The calm, starry spotlights of the stage blazed to dark flashing blood-red and black that danced across it, creating an image of fire that licked the feet and legs of the costumed dancers and singers. Police sirens screamed beyond the range of a hawk in the audience's ears, who sat watching in tense, awed silence. A horrendous laugh, a cackle filled with menace and belligerent evil, cut the air in the thunder's wake as would a hot knife through butter. The dancers on stage started and whirled about, trying to look in every direction simultaneously to seek out the source of the laugh, staring in mock fear and suspicion. The cackling died away with the sirens, and the dancers waited tensely for the next moment.

But at a mere glance one could tell these were no ordinary dancers. Their padded feet made no sound as they stalked weightlessly across the stage, eyes wide and curious as they felines they portrayed. Their movements were liquid, as if made of water themselves. There were over a dozen of them, all clad in skin-tight unitards that fit gracefully over their sleek forms. The most obvious one stood boldly out in front, protective and watchful of the others that crept behind him. His unitard was a cool silver covered in various lengths of dark gray and black stripes. His shins and forearms were covered in fuzzy gray and black warmers, giving his sleek limbs the look of paws. Around his waist was a thin strand of wrapped rope, matching the unitard colors, that led off into a flowing silver-gray tail that hung limply behind, billowing out behind as he ran across the stage. Lifting your eyes you might notice the black leather collar studded with metal around his neck, tight yet comfortable enough for him to sing in a perfect tenor voice. His face, brave and concerned, had been covered in various shades of gray and black, eliminating any trace of humanity and replacing them with genuine feline features. Encircling his head like a flexible helmet was an equally colored wig made of yak hair, where the tops had been twisted together with bits of wax to make designs that might have been ears, had they been genuine. He stood tall and proud on his toes, displaying his 'unashamed felinity'.

The gray tabby cat dancer's feet moved silently, touching the ground only when the music would allow to fit his steps. The cat dancers behind him matched their movements to the music as well. The music played from two loudspeakers on either side of the stage in slow, enigmatic notes, starting low and slowly getting higher with each sound before dropping low again with the last two beats. Another crash of lightening and thunder, followed by another evil laugh. For a fleeting moment, a vague figure could be seen among the garbage of the junkyard-designed stage. The gray tabby leaped toward the figure with a violent hiss and flex of his claws before it disappeared again. Another period of slow music and slinking dancers ensued.

The tension in the theatre as well as the droning silence were snapped like a taut wire as the music turned bold and aggressive, blaring powerfully over the speakers and bringing with it a creature from the depths of a nightmare.

He appeared in a flash as if straight from the fiery pits of Hades, another blood-curdling laugh pouring from his throat like warm red wine. He wore a unitard, as the other dancers did, but no leg or arm warmers were to be seen on this cat. His unitard matched the baneful demeanor and evilness that hung around him in a stifling aura: a base of white covered in streaks of the fire colors red, gold, rust, and blood, outlined with heavy stripes of black. Covering his unitard was a layer of hairy material that stuck in odd directions and looked in desperate want of a brush and soapwater. His black-gloved hands flashed before him, showing each long, wickedly-curved claw at the other dancers; his face twisted in corrupt evilness so that he didn't look remotely like a car or dancer, but a malformed gargoyle monster. With another sinister laugh, his lean-muscled form leaped into the crowd of frightened dancers, who parted before him like water. His form flashed as he backflipped in the fiery light, as though possessing some divine power all his own.

The dancers' chorused voices rose as one, shrieking in horror as they cried in unison: "Macavity!"