Aha! You want my first one-shot? You got my first one-shot! A challenge for the marvellous forum Blazeclan, this is about Redtail's death in Ravenpaw's eyes! Human warriors one-shot. On with it! (loud applause)

One-shot #1

Raven's Plea

It was a chilly autumn evening, the kind when you feel as if magic and terrors can unfold. The wind was whistling in the cold bare trunks of the maples stuck at odd angles on the sidewalk, and the orphans of Thunder Orphanage were bubbling in the dormitory before they went to bed. Excitement spread like a wave inside Dormitory 6, the stories unfolding of the recent events and secret rumours being whispered through the children's ears. It seemed no-one was going to contemplate the horror of what had just been discovered in the nurse's office; only the thrill and excitement of murder and mystery. Out of all of them, only one of the orphans was shaking in terror, their skinny pale knee bones knocking, their bony fingers clutching the white bedsheets. Didn't everyone else realise what this meant?

'Psst!' the little shaking child whipped their head round to see who had just spoken to them. 'Raven!'

'Oh Fire!' the skinny child sighed in releif. 'I thought it was Tiger who had just spoken to me!'

The child opposite who had just spoken, who had tufts of red hair, frowned. 'Come on, Raven. Mr. Tigre ain't gonna slice your arm off! His bark is worse than his bite, you could say. No need to be scared of a teacher!' In the bed opposite Raven gulped and nodded, furiously trying to convince himself that his friend Fire was right.

'Anyway,' Fire hissed to Raven as one of their dorm-mates, Bracken, got close enough to overhear, 'we need to get to the bathroom on the landing! It's way too noisy in here to think properly. Get Grey. He'll want to hear this too.' Fire glanced back to make sure no-one was in a bed-length of him, and went on. 'We need to talk about you-know-what.' Raven nodded desperately, and scrambled out of the top bunk of his bed, frantically dodging a pillow-fight between Swift, Dust, Cloud and Thorn. He shinned up the ladder on the bunk bed on the other side of the dorm, and found himself face-to-face with Grey arguing ferociously with Birch.

'White's gonna be deputy; I know it! Grey announced triumphantly.

'Him? Mr Bianco ain't gettin' elected nothink! Too old, I say. Na, Tiger's a far better bet!' Birch argued. Inside his nightie, Raven shivered. He prayed that Birch was wrong. If Tiger became deputy of Thunder Orphanage tomorrow...

'Come on Grey!' Raven tugged at his friend's nightie. 'Fire wants to speak to you and me!' Grey looked back, for the first time noticing Raven, and shrugged. 'Fine.' They clambered out, and tip-toed to the dormitory door. Fire was already there. On his signal, Raven opened the door a crack and the three of them slipped out. Then they bolted to across to the girls' bathroom and shut themselves into one of the cubicles, panting.

'Well?' Fire broke the ice and asked the biggest question. 'Who d'you think's gonna be deputy tomorrow?'

Raven opened his mouth to speak but closed it when Grey spoke first. 'I think it's gonna be old White. He's the nicest teacher by far, except for Willow when she feels like giving sweets to the class.' He cocked his head back thoughtfully. 'I always thought the banana ones were the best.'

Fire whacked himself on the forehead. 'It always comes back to the food topic with you, Grey,' he sighed. 'Anyway, Raven, what do you think?' Raven ducked under and mumbled something that sounded like, 'hope not Tiger.'

'Well, I think it's gonna be Tiger! He's not very nice, but he's popular among the teachers.' Fire nodded thoughtfully.

Raven shivered, his raven-black hair shaking. He wished he could just tell his friends everything he knew. Should he right now? It wasn't like Tiger was listening. But if, say, Fire or Grey blabbed accidentally... No, it was too dangerous. Tiger had made it clear that if Raven told anyone, anyone, then there would be trouble. It would be Raven's last breath. No, he had to keep quiet.

It was just then that Grey inturrupted his thoughts. 'Don't you think it's weird? The deputy, Red, or Mr Rojo or whoever, gets killed by a River Orphanage teacher, and then the new one, Mr Leon, drops dead of a heart attack a week later?' The body had been found alone in the nurse's office less than three hours ago, and everyone had been sent up to bed early. 'I mean, Mr Leon I can understand, he worked himself way too hard, but I don't think Oak or whoever killed Red would have the heart to do it. I mean, Red's just friendly! Don't you think maybe someone else with a motive would be more likely?' Raven felt his already churning stomach do a flip; Grey had just hit the bull's eye without realising it.

'Oy!' The door of the girl's bathroom opened and a voice sounded from the archway. 'Boys! In the girls' bathroom! What d'you think you're doing?' Raven, Fire and Grey scrambled out if the cubicle to come face-to-face with a cross-looking girl from the girls' dormitory next door.

'We're sorry,' Grey mumbled. 'We'll get out.'

The girl still glared. 'What's wrong with your bathroom?'

'Out of order,' Fire lied sheepishly. In truth the toilet seats on the girls' bathroom were more comfy to hold a meeting.

'What, all of them?' she pressed suspiciously

The boys grinned like idiots and nodded at full speed.

'Fine,' she muttered disbeleivingly. 'Come over to my dormitory though. Sand, Bright and Cinder are arguing about who the deputy's gonna be and they look like they want to kill each other.' she stormed off and Raven, Fire and Grey followed. They knocked on the girls' Dormitory 13 door and an exhausted-looking girl with green eyes and tawny hair opened the door. From the dark circles under her eyes, Raven figured he wasn't the only one who wanted sleep right now.

'Cinder's already got a black eye,' she blurted out.

'Don't worry Tawny; I'll see if these three can knock some sense into them,' the girl from the bathroom marched in, and Fire and Grey followed. Raven peered around the door. From what he could see, the situation in the girls' dormitory was as bad as the one in the boy one. Girls were arguing, shouting, throwing pillows, whispering, gossiping and in the middle of it all, three of them were fighting ferociously. A blonde had a silver-haired girl pinned to the ground, and another was aimlessly whacking. Nearby, another was shrieking about curses. The five of them hurried in.

'No! Stop it, Sand!' a black-haired girl panicked and waved her handes around. The fighting made Raven think of the battle with Red, Oak and Tiger. The battle... The blood... No, he must tell someone!

'Fire!' Raven tugged at his friend's shoulder. 'There's something you should know-'

Just then there was a high-pitched alarm sound piercing through the air - the fire alarm!

'Get down!' Raven screeched. Everyone panicked; they spilled out of the dormitories and trampled down the stairs, pushing and shoving. Raven lost sight of Fire, and Grey and Tawny and the other girl. The whines of the alarm pierced through the midnight air, drowned by everyone's shrieks. Everyone tumbled into the front play ground where the headmistress, Miss Blue, stood on a podium.

'Please do not panick!' her yowl silenced everyone. Teachers panted. Orphans froze. 'There is NO fire in the school,' she went on, 'but instead something else has happened. Several members of the staff have just found the school nurse, Miss Spottyleaf, murdered. The police have just arrived. DNA tests prove it was a member of staff from the Shadow Orphanage in the nearby neighbourhood, though the exact identity of the killer is unknown. But,' she waved her hand dismissively. 'I cannot put off naming my new deputy any longer. Instead of tomorrow at Thunder Assembly, I will do it right now!' she announced. Raven felt his heart pounding in his chest. Please, no please...

'Thunder Orphanage's new deputy shall be Mr Tigre!' she announced triumphantly. Raven felt his heart plummeting in his chest. No, it couldn't be...

'Fire!' Raven hissed through the noise of the crowd cheering as Mr Tigre stepped up onto the podium to receive his badge. An evil glint glittered somewhere in his eye. 'Fire!' Raven hissed louder this time. Fire swung his head round. 'What?' he whispered.

'Please...' After the battle with Red, Oak and Tiger, in which Raven himself had participated in, Tiger had been much respected. Everyone found out from Tiger that Oak, the River Orphanage deputy, had cruelly killed Red, the Thunder Orphanage deputy, in cold blood. In revenge, Tiger had killed Oak. Now everyone thought that Tiger was loyal and brave. But that wasn't true. 'Please...' he repeated. 'It- It wasn't Oak who killed Red and then Tiger who killed Oak!' he panted. 'It... It was Oak who accidentally killed himself, and then Tiger who killed Red!' Raven doubled over in terror and let his eyes glaze over - what had he done? He'd just told someone! Now Tiger was going to carry out his threat and kill them both!

Meanwhile, Fire gasped. 'Really?' But there was no doubt in Fire's voice that he believed Raven - if someone only took the time to figure it out, it was easy to see that Tiger had evil ambitions behind his strict-teacher cover.

Raven glanced at the podium in terror - and his gaze met Tiger's. The new deputy's eyes narrowed, and Raven knew at once that he had guessed that Raven had just blurted out the secret.

There was going to be trouble.

Finished in one go! Woohoo!

Crystal

:)