The rain continued all night.

This inspired Jade to make some sort of cover to block the rain so that she and Delta could hide under it and dry off.

Delta preferred to be out in the rain, it was much better than the stuffy and dry fortress she had been in for her whole life.

Jade began building.

Delta, having been trained in stealth for five months, helped to gather building supplies.

"Who knew your evil training would come in handy!" Jade said on the first occasion Delta did this.

Eventually their new fort was finished.

 On the day after the fort was finished, Delta noticed a stray umbrella. She went to fetch it, and brought it back without a tear.

"What's this?" She asked Jade when she got back.

"Something humans carry around to block the rain. I call it a portable roof."

This gave Delta an idea.

She leapt up onto the unsteady board that Jade had taped to the wall of Ebony's house, and immediately regretted it.

"Ew it's all squishy!" She exclaimed. The rain had wrecked the wood.

Delta jumped off.

"I bet the portable roof wouldn't do that." She told Jade.

So Jade reluctantly removed the splintering wood board and taped the umbrella to the dry section of the alley, so that it wouldn't blow away.

Apparently, the city's police had been alerted that a Magic Cat was living in that alley. Because one day they found that their section of the alley had been closed off so that no car would come through and possibly run them over.

 The rain didn't stop.

One July morning, Delta woke up to find that there was water up to the top of her toes.

"You should be careful." Called Jade from the top of Ebony's roof. "Sleeping that deep could get you into trouble. You even slept through the thunderstorm earlier."

"There was a thunderstorm?" Delta asked, confusion evident in her voice.

"Yeah, I just said that. It was before the flood started."

"What's a flood?"

"Wow, you really didn't learn anything about outside in all your time in the fortress did you." Jade said with pity. "Well a flood is what you see at your paws. When it rains so hard that there's water all over the streets."

"And what's a thunderstorm?"

"There's a thing called lightning that's really hot and it comes with the rain clouds sometimes and when it comes there's a really loud sound called thunder that would wake almost any cat. I don't understand how you slept through it."

Delta glanced down at her paws. The water had risen above the white markings on them in the time Jade had been talking.

 The water didn't get very high, it only made it to Jade's elbows.

Delta decided this was a good time to learn how to swim. She loved the water and wanted a way that she could stay in it if the flood got too deep.

Jade couldn't teach her how to swim, as she didn't know, herself.

So Delta had to find someone who could teach her how to swim.

Ebony was her first choice, but he was locked inside because of the flood. She knew Shadow would probably still be locked in her house. So her only options were Suki and Misty.

Misty lived on a hill, so she wouldn't be locked in.

But when Delta arrived, Misty was sitting on her back porch, underneath an umbrella.

Misty growled to herself, getting up and spinning in circles around the umbrella handle.

Delta could tell that Misty wouldn't be much help with learning to swim. So her next option was Suki.

Suki lived at the bottom of the hill, where the water was up to Delta's shoulders.

Delta didn't think Suki would be out, because of how deep the water was. And she was getting cold and starting to shiver. So she gave up and headed back to the alley.

 Suki, however, had a flood escape that her humans had prepared incase of weather like this. It was higher than the rest of the house, and just big enough to hold all the essentials and the things that would be ruined if they got wet. There was a wall of glass so that Suki could watch the rain and everything else outside.

Suki's bed, food and water bowls, treats, and catnip had been moved here. As well as Suki herself. The humans' things were high enough to not be touched by the water, and their bedroom was upstairs.

Suki had overheard the humans saying that during the thunderstorm Shadow's humans' tool shed had been struck by lightning. There was a chance that Shadow could have been in the shed at the time that happened, so Suki vowed to herself that she'd visit as soon as the rain was over.

 The rain continued all month, and the next. The flood drained quickly once the humans took care of the road drains.

It was October when the rain finally stopped. The weather got colder and the rain turned to snow.

Everyone seemed to agree, without even seeing each other, that they would all go see how Shadow was doing.

Suki and Ebony were already there when Jade, Delta, and Misty arrived.

Shadow was let out of her house. She spotted them and with a quick "Hang on a moment." She turned around and headed back inside

When she came back she was carrying a small black kitten in her mouth, and two others on her back.

 "Mama, let me down!" Whined the smallest one.

Shadow put her kittens down gently. "This is part of why my human had wanted me to stay inside." She admitted, "The smallest one is named Sunlight and I was going to have Ebony name the other two."

Sunlight glared at her mom the whole time.

After a while, Ebony settled on Oak for the tom-kitten and Willow for the other. Oak was the biggest, he looked almost exactly like Ebony. Sunlight, the smallest, looked almost exactly like Shadow, but with Ebony's eye colour. And Willow was a perfect mix between, right down to the paw pads. Willow's tail had a kink halfway down and her left ear was bent at an odd angle at the top.

"I'm cold." Willow complained.

Shadow wrapped her tail around Willow. "None of the other kittens are that cold, she even feels cold to the touch." She said. "She was fine when the shed was on fire."

Her fur spiked and she stepped away from Willow, removing her tail, which was now on fire. She put it out and glared at Oak.

"You said fire!" Oak tried to explain.

"I didn't tell you to light my tail on fire." Shadow told him.

This was confusing to Delta who had never heard the legend that apparently was about Sunlight, Oak, and Willow.

"As you can see, their powers don't require gems." Shadow told them all. "That must be the part about being more powerful than all the other Magic Cats."

Oak smiled mischievously.

Willow crept over to Ebony. "You're soft and warm." She told him as she lay next to him.

Ebony shivered. "And you're soft and cold!" He exclaimed softly. "Cold as winter!"

"What's winter?" Delta and the kittens asked.

Jade had the answer for this, she had been born in December the previous year. "Winter is cold, and white. Kind of the opposite of summer."

Delta was almost going to ask what summer was when she realized that summer must be hot and stuffy like her fortress.

"Winter must be great! Especially when compared to the fortress I lived in!"

Ebony shook his head, and Shadow did her usual attempt at a shrug.

Sunlight tried to imitate her mom's shrug and promptly fell on her face.

 Next month the kittens saw their first snow. Willow thought it was too cold, and she preferred to stay by the fire made by Oak.

The humans got a flier in the mail that had an advertisement for a kitten camp.

Kitten camp™ (details below) FREE

Kitten camp™ is for 3 - 5 month old kittens

It lasts all of November

Kitten camp™ will help your kittens to embrace their inner wildcat and learn to hunt, fight, and survive by themselves if they need to

It will also help your kittens build confidence and be able to meet new people without hiding in a corner in fear

They will be well protected and will be in a controlled environment replicating a forest

We will make sure that kittens will be able to survive the camp and will pay for anything that might happen to them if anything goes wrong, we know that no amount of money could replace your kitten so the charge is up to you if your kitten dies and we will do our best to pay it (But death is indefinitely not going to happen)

We will also give all the kittens colour-coded collars so that no kittens get mixed up with other kittens on the journey home

The collars will have tags with the kittens' names on them and their address so that we can return them home

The name tags on the collars will also help your kittens learn their names

Camp starts November 5th

At the end of the list was a number to call if they were interested.

Willow was quite a scaredy-cat and Oak was too stubborn to learn his humans' name for him.

And over at Shadow's house the human needed a break from Sunlight's powers because Sunlight kept creating snow clouds over the table and wouldn't listen to no.

The humans still had time to sign up so they did.

 On November 4th the humans put the kittens into the carrier and they drove to the building that the camp would take place in.

The party building, now that all the Magic Cats had been found, had been replaced by the kitten camp and the sign now read: kitten camp™ new location!

 Oak and Willow were confused at first but an adult cat, who happened to be the pet of the human running the camp, explained everything that the advertisement did.

Sunlight found them, looking as angry as always. And the adult cat called all of the kittens telling them to pay attention as she was going to explain more.

"I will introduce you all after I say one quick thing." She began. "And that quick thing is the rules. Be careful around fire. No biting, scratching, or otherwise harming the humans. Do not mark territory, this is a camp, not a new home."

Everyone meowed their approval and began wondering why she didn't say not to harm the other kittens.

The adult cat interrupted their worrying, "The humans say it builds character."

"Why can't we build the humans' character?!" Argued Oak.

As the humans began putting on the colour-coded collars the cat said the names of the kittens.

Willow got an orchid pink-purple collar, Oak got a cerulean blue one, and Sunlight's was forest green.

A kitten named River got a sky blue collar, and another called Melody got a navy blue one. Courage, a fluffy white kitten, got a flamingo pink collar, Fern, a calico, got a lemon yellow one. Then there were Sonic, Juniper, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune.

The other kittens were given collars and had names called out and soon there were so many names that Oak lost track.

They had to sleep together all in one box that night but they were promised individual boxes for the rest of the camp.