Sorry about the double post, but I finished Chapter Three! It's not my best work, but here we go...
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I hissed at Darkpaw. After Fluffpaw left, I padded back into the den. I needed to know what in the great name of Arceus I needed to do.
“Just go find your mentor,” Darkpaw mewed, tired. “And get out.”
“I don’t know where the heck my mentor is!” I yowled back. “If I could find Brooknose, I’d gladly get out!”
It was just Darkpaw, Lionpaw, and I in the den. Mousepaw looked up at me tiredly, and asked, “Why don’t you go find Brooknose? She’ll be in the warriors den.” He had obviously not heard what Darkpaw and I had just argued shortly about.
“But—but!” I stammered. I hated being shown up by some cat, but he had a point. I hissed at the two apprentices, and padded out of the den.
Turns out that Brooknose was waiting for me outside the den. That cat! Couldn’t she have ducked her head in and told me that she was there? She seemed like she had no idea what had just gone on in the den.
“Hi Graypaw!” she mewed cheerfully.
“Hello,” I mewed, annoyance lining my voice.
“Who made dirt in your fresh kill?” Brooknose muttered quietly. She then turned and looked at me with a sterner look on her face. “We’re doing some battle training today.”
“Battle training, eh? What kind of training? Are we gonna focus on attacks that go on the offensive? Or are we gonna work on the defensive?” I asked, licking my paw, hardly paying attention.
“We are just training today. I, and the rest of the Clan, have no idea of your battle capabilities. None,” Brooknose explained. “Anyhow, I have only recently joined this Clan, and where I used to live, I only hunted. In reality, we will both be the ones who are training."
“Whatever, Brooknose,” I meowed. “Let’s go have a fight.”
The she-cat sighed, and padded to one of the walls of the hollow. She began to scale it, and I quickly followed. Once we got to the top, Brooknose looked around quickly, as if looking for someone.
“Hmm…this is odd. The dawn border patrol should have been back by now,” Brooknose muttered.
“Why don’t we go look for them, then?” I asked sarcastically. I was thinking that this she-cat needed to chillax. She was probably getting her fur ruffled over nothing.
However, Brooknose didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm in my voice. Her eyes gleamed with determination. She meowed seriously, “You are right. We need to find them.”
The idiot then raced off into the direction of, what I guess, was the border. I chased after her, yowling, “Hey! I was being sarcastic! Lighten up!”
I ran after her for a while. Really, everything looked the same to me, just a bunch of trees everywhere, dirt on the ground, sometimes with grass underpaw, and the occasional rock.
We finally stopped once we reached a clearing. The clearing had pine forest on the other side of it, which I thought was more ThunderClan territory. However, Brooknose stopped and hissed under her breath, “ShadowClan scum! They are attacking!”
Seeing the scene before me, I couldn’t help but blink in shock. There was a battle happening right now, right in front of Brooknose and myself. I saw Clawpaw and Greystripe fighting a russet colored she-cat while Berrypaw helped. There were more ThunderClan cats I didn’t know yet fighting other cats. Brooknose looked at me, and meowed, “Stay back! I’m going to go get Clawpaw!”
“No way! I’m gonna—” I started to meow, but before I could do anything, I saw Brooknose leap into the mass of fighting cats. Soon after, she dragged Clawpaw out of the fight by the scruff. He looked tired and he was covered in scratches. She set him down and asked us, “Do you know how to get back to ThunderClan territory?”
I shook my head, not knowing, but Clawpaw nodded, “Yeah.”
“Clawpaw, you need medical attention! Can you get back to ThunderClan territory by yourself? Or would you need help?” Brooknose asked.
“I think Graypaw should come with me,” Clawpaw meowed seriously. “I don’t know if I could make it all the way.”
Brooknose nodded. She muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “Please watch over me, Tribe of Endless Hunting.” I had no idea what the hell that was. She then gulped and threw herself into the battle.
* * *
“How’d you remember the way back here? Most of the time, apprentices that even grew up here get lost,” Jaypaw meowed. He had grabbed some herbs and had applied them to Clawpaw’s wounds. Now we were all sitting in the Medicine Cat den. Leafpool was out.
“Well, I have a photographic memory,” Clawpaw meowed. “And a—”
Before he could finish, Jaypaw interrupted, “Photographic memory? What’s a photographic memory?”
“You don’t know?” I asked, stunned. These cats must be really, really stupid if they couldn’t at least use the clues in the phrase to figure out what it meant.
“Well, Jaypaw, a cat with a photographic memory remembers everything that he sees and hears,” Clawpaw explained.
“Really? I’ve never heard of that before,” Jaypaw muttered. “So, many moons from now, you’ll remember our exact conversation, word for word?”
“Yup,” Clawpaw meowed plainly.
I yawned, bored, and asked no cat in particular, “Who would want to be a medicine cat? It’s such a boring job!”
Jaypaw narrowed his blind eyes at me, and hissed, “Do you really think I wanted to do this? No way in StarClan! But some cat told me that because I was so useless and blind I could never become a warrior! So now I’m stuck being a stupid medicine cat! Because of my destiny!”
“’Stupid medicine cat’? Jaypaw, is that how you really think of me?” a quiet voice asked. I looked as a light brown tabby padded into the room. She also had a white underbelly and white paws. Her eyes were an amber color. She had been holding some huge green leaves, and had put them down when she had padded in.
“L-Leafpool! I didn’t expect you to be back so early from herb-hunting!” Jaypaw stammered.
Leafpool sighed. She finally noticed that Clawpaw and I were in her den, and asked, “What are they doing here?”
“Clawpaw got hurt, so Graypaw brought him here!” Jaypaw meowed, trying to get off of the topic.
Leafpool sighed, and turned towards me. She meowed, “Graypaw, go and wait outside. I’ll take care of your brother.”
Before I could do anything, the she-cat nudged me outside.
I was about to yowl something in retaliation, when I realized something.
She thinks that we’re brothers! We aren’t! We don’t even look alike! I thought to myself. Sure, we were like kin, but we weren’t blood-related! We weren’t even the same type of Pokemon!I sighed, and padded over to the apprentice’s den. It was empty. I walked inside and sat down, waiting.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Change of POV to Darkpaw*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
After everyone had finally left, and it was just I in the den, I was bored. I looked around at the den, but there wasn’t really anything interesting in it, just a bunch of nests.
I wondered if I should go and try to find Silverwing. After all, she was my mentor, and I was bored. I guessed that when apprentices were bored they would find their mentors and they would train.
I padded out of the den and saw Silverwing standing near the Warriors Den. She tapped her paw impatiently, and had a worried look on her face.
“Hi Silverwing!” I cried out cheerfully, walking up to my mentor. “How are you doing?”
Silverwing looked at me for a second, her expression unreadable. She then turned her head so she was looking out of the hollow, to the west.
“I’m worried. The dawn patrol has been gone for a long time,” she muttered. She looked at me again and meowed, “We’re going hunting today.”
“Hunting?” I asked quietly.
Damn it. I hate hunting.
“Yeah,” Silverwing meowed. “Let’s go.”
The silver she-cat and I left the hollow. We walked quietly through the forest. Suddenly, Silverwing stopped. She looked at me, and asked, “Do you smell prey?”
I turned my head up and sniffed the air. A scent similar to that of a Ratata’s was in the area. I had heard of mice, the close cousins of Ratata. This must have been what I smelled. I mean, I knew what mouse smelled like, but I had only seen them in books. I had never seen—or smelled—one before in real life.
“I think I smell mouse,” I replied.
“Then catch it.”
I focused in on the scent, let it fill my mind. I quietly followed the scent until I came upon the creature. It had a berry in its little hands and was eating it quickly. I crept into the shadows of the trees near it.
It froze. Suddenly, it dropped the berry. I leapt onto it and quickly dealt out a Fury Swipes attack. It died almost instantly as my claws cut into its neck. It had been paralyzed.
That was odd indeed. I didn’t know any Pokemon moves that paralyzed any Pokemon. Why had the mouse paused?
Silverwing padded up to me and blinked. She asked curiously, “What was that?”
“What was what?” I asked back.
“Well, you just seemed to move so fast and so sneakily. I’ve never seen a cat so stealth-like in the shadows before. How did you do it?” she meowed. I think it was just me, but I almost heard…hostility in her voice.
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “It was luck.”
You’re different, Darkpaw. Different in more ways than you know, A voice muttered. I looked around, but I saw nothing speaking.
You cannot see me now. I am Rock. Leave camp tonight. I shall explain.
The voice vanished with that.
Silverwing tilted her head and asked, “What are you looking for, Darkpaw?”
“Oh! Nothing!” I hastily meowed.
Silverwing narrowed her eyes, but kept silent. She meowed without tone, “Well, now that I know of your hunting skills, we should report back to Firestar.”
I didn’t understand her sudden hostility, but I hastily meowed, “Okay!” I picked up the dead mouse in my jaws and waited.
Silverwing walked off. I followed her.
* * *
When we got back to camp, I saw Graypaw. He was walking out of the medicine cat’s den. He padded into the apprentices den.
I put the prey down in the pile of assorted mice, squirrel, and vole. I was about to go join my brother, when Silverwing walked in front of me.
“We need to tell Firestar about your skills. Remember?” she asked.
“Right,” I meowed. “Can’t I catch up with my friend first, though?”
“No.”
I blinked. Silverwing didn’t seem like the type to be so…cold. She seemed happy enough last night, but now she seemed sort of…negative.
Suddenly, a voice echoed into the hollow, “We’re okay!”
I blinked as I saw Greystripe and a few other cats leap into the hollow. They certainly didn’t look okay. They were covered from head to paw in scratches. Berrypaw, who was with them, had a particularly nasty scratch going down his flank.
“Oh, MY STARS! BERRYPAW!” a voice shrieked. I turned and saw the scared she-cat from when I had first came rush up to Berrypaw.
“Oh, Berrypaw! I’ll make sure you’ll never get hurt again!” the she-cat started cleaning Berrypaw’s head.
“Daisy!” a sharp sounding voice called out. I turned and saw Brambleclaw walk up to the young tom. Brambleclaw had been in the battle as well, but did not have as many scratches as Berrypaw.
“Brambleclaw! How could you let my baby get hurt!?” Daisy shrieked, shaking.
“What am I? Mousedung?” a voice muttered angrily. I turned and saw Hazelpaw as the speaker. She stomped off to the apprentice’s den.
“Daisy…” Brambleclaw sighed. “You know that Berrypaw is going to get hurt sometimes.”
“There’s a hurt cat?” a white-and-brown tabby she-cat asked, as she padded out of a den.
“Well, a lot of us are hurt, but Berrypaw is the worst. Then again, he did give Russetfur a scratch she’ll soon not forget!” Brambleclaw meowed amusedly.
Daisy fainted.
The she-cat sighed, and meowed, “I’ll take care of you guys. Come on!” She led the injured cats into the den. One of them, Lionpaw, dragged Daisy in by the scruff.
“What was the commotion about?” Firestar asked. He must have walked out of his den while everything was happening.
Silverwing walked up to Firestar and yawned. She meowed, “Darkpaw is a very good hunter. See?”
She walked back to the fresh-kill pile and picked up my mouse. She dropped it at Firestar’s feet.
“He caught that. On his first try.”
Firestar blinked with surprise. He looked at me, head tilted. He murmured something I couldn’t understand under his breath.
“Come with me, Darkpaw,” he meowed.
I blinked, but followed him into his den.
The den was spacious and comfy looking. Soft moss lined it. “Take a seat,” Firestar meowed.
I sat.
“Darkpaw, I need to talk to you about something very important. What I say
does not leave this den,” Firestar meowed sternly.
Confused, I nodded.
“How did you do it?” he asked.
“Well…I don’t know. The mouse just seemed to freeze. It dropped the berry it was holding and went all rigid,” I admitted.
“It froze?” Firestar asked curiously. “Just like that?”
“I guess,” I muttered.
Firestar closed his eyes, and sighed. He then opened them and looked at me.
“Darkpaw, you are part of a prophecy.”
“Wha-what? I’m just a normal Purrloin!” I stammered. Firestar seemed unfazed about my saying of Purrloin. Maybe he didn’t notice or something.
“Darkpaw, you and your friends are our only hope. Against what, I don’t know.”
“Wha—but—how?”
“Long ago, I received an omen from a cat called Cloudstar.
‘There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws.’ I suspected that Hollypaw, Jaypaw, and Lionpaw were the cats in the prophecy.
“However, a moon before you arrived; I was given a sign from a cat that showed me you four. That you were the true three—no, the true four. And as I left, I heard a voice in my head say this:
‘Four will come, four who are strangers to your world. They hold the power of the stars in their paws.’ It was similar to the one I had received before, but it talked about four strangers,” Firestar explained.
“But…why? Why us?” I asked.
This was very confusing. Firestar had suddenly pulled me into his den to tell me that I was going to save their world. With Clawpaw, Graypaw, and Fluffpaw.
Why the bloody stars would…well, whoever picks people for prophecies pick us?
“I don’t know. But from what I understand, you each will have powers. Not your normal Pokemon powers—“
“WHAT?!” I meowed loudly. “You know about Pokemon?”
“Yes.”
“…okay then.”
“Now listen, Darkpaw. StarClan might have been mistaken in sending you. So unless we can actually determine if you are really the ones in the prophecy, you must not tell anyone. Not even your friends. The reason I’m telling you all this now, and not when you’ve actually stayed with us for a while, is well—“
“Is it because I froze that mouse?”
“Yes. Darkpaw, you can leave now,” Firestar meowed.
I walked out of the den.
“What did he want?” Graypaw asked as he walked up to me.
“Nothing,” I meowed as I walked towards the apprentices den. “Nothing at all.”
