Chapter One
A golden, tabby tom cat tossed and turned in his bed of moss. His paws churned in the air. Lionblaze was dreaming.
***
Lionblaze was standing in an empty classroom. "Welcome, class!" was written on the blackboard. A clock ticked somewhere nearby.
Oh, no, he thought. I'm back at school. How much longer until I'm out of here? Lionblaze glanced at the clock. He gasped.
The clock was ticking, but the second hand wasn't moving. It vibrated repeatedly, but stayed stubbornly at the twelve. The hour hand was on the nine, and the minute hand was on the twelve. Time was forever frozen and nine o'clock AM, the time that school started.
"Aaaaaaaah!" Lionblaze cried, and the dream changed.
He was sitting at his desk in his room. His bed of moss sat to one side. Lionblaze looked at it longingly, but he knew he had to get his homework done before he could sleep. The tom's pencil zipped across his paper.
Suddenly a shadow loomed over the desk. "Jayfeather?" Lionblaze asked. His brother usually came into his Lionblaze's room during homework time for help. The golden tom turned and gasped.
A mass of white sheets of paper loomed over him. At the top of each paper was Lionblaze's name, and over that a bright, red F-. Red X's dotted the sheets.
The papers swirled and formed a black hole-like shape. A strong wind filled the room. Lionblaze's pencil cup tipped over and ten sharp pieces of wood shot straight at the tom. He ducked, and they were sucked into the "paper-hole". Then Lionblaze began to feel the pull of the hole. He dug his claws into the desk, but he was slipping. The golden tom lost his grip, and Lionblaze went plummeting into the hole.
The dream changed again.
Lionblaze was sitting at a different desk. He was in a long row of desks in a classroom that seemed to go on indefinitely. In front of him was a paper: a math exam. Lionblaze grinned. Aside from P.E., math was his best subject. He had averaged a B- in it during his year at Apprentice Academy.
He picked up his pencil mechanically and started writing. Each problem was easy! I can't believe this, Lionblaze thought. Everything is so simple!
Then a foul scent hit his nose. Fox! The reddish-brown creature stalked up to Lionblaze's desk. It opened its mouth. Lionblaze flinched back, preparing to feel the creature's awful bite.
Then it began to speak in the language of cats: "Sorry, Lionblaze, I gave you the wrong test. That one is for the preschoolers." It took the sheet of paper and replaced it with a longer one with more print on it.
Lionblaze's jaw dropped open. What was with all of the x's and y's? All of the little numbers suspended over the big numbers? The letters and numbers on both sides of the equals sign?
"Uh, Mr. Fox?" he called. "I think I'm in the wrong class."
The fox turned. "Oh?"
Lionblaze nodded vigorously.
"Do you know what I do to students that aren't in my class?" it asked, stalking towards the golden tom.
"Let them run free?" Lionblaze swallowed nervously.
"No! I eat them!" The fox lunged for him.
"Aaaaaaaaaaah!"
***
"Ahh!" Lionblaze woke up with a jolt. He screeched again, as he was staring into a pair of bright, blue, sightless eyes.
"Good morning, Sleepyhead!" Jayfeather meowed. The eyes vanished from sigh, replaced by a pair of bright green ones.
"Come on, Lionblaze!" Hollyleaf mewed cheerfully. "School starts today!"
Lionblaze groaned and rolled over. "I'm sick. Tell Squirrelflight I can't go to school today."
Jayfeather froze. He sniffed the air. Was Lionblaze's moss dirty? "Really?" he asked. "It's only early leaffall, a bit soon for the annual outbreak of greencough. Do you think you have a light cold?"
"Of course not!" Hollyleaf cried exasperatedly. "He's fine! He's just trying to get out of going to school."
A plan began forming in Jayfeather's mind. He turned to Hollyleaf. "Let's go downstairs and get some breakfast. We'll just leave Lionblaze here."
His sister looked at him quizzically. "Wait," Jayfeather whispered quietly.
He mewed more loudly, "It's a shame Lionblaze isn't going to school today. I heard HEATHERTAIL is going to be there today." He raised his voice at the name of Lionblaze's crush.
The golden tom was out of bed in an instant. "Hey!" he cried, realizing at last that his siblings had tricked him.
"Relax, Lionblaze," Hollyleaf mewed, flicking him with her tail. "It's about time you got up. We'd been listening to your yowling for ages!"
"Heathertail will be at school, you know," Jayfeather pointed out. "You haven't seen her all summer."
"Yikes!" Lionblaze yowled. "What if she's been seeing someone else?"
Hollyleaf rolled her eyes and stalked out of the room. "Boys," she could be heard muttering.
The golden tom turned to his brother. "She hasn't, has she?"
Jayfeather shrugged. "I've seen her about as much as you have, Lionblaze. But I'll tell you if I dream anything."
"Thanks," Lionblaze mewed honestly. "She's really important to me, you know."
"I know." Jayfeather rolled his eyes, and together the two toms went down to breakfast.
***
Within an hour, the three warriors were sitting in a large, mainly-white room on a hard tile floor with the rest of Warrior High's freshman class. It was the start-of-the-school-year assembly.
To Hollyleaf's dismay, Onestar stood at the front of the room wearing the principals' uniform. "As Firestar is still teaching at Apprentice Academy," he was meowing, "I will be principal here at your new school. My vice principal is Ashfoot; you can go to her if you have any disciplinary problems, but I will warn you, punishments are not administrated lightly. If you got detention, it's because you deserved it. Firestar has been far too soft on you at that old school. At Warrior High, our motto is work hard! Slacking off will not be tolerated. Anyone with an average of a C or lower will be kicked out."
A grim silence fell over the auditorium at these last words.
"Have a nice year," Onestar said, smirking. He bounded off of the stage as the bell rang, signaling the start of their homeroom period.
Hollypaw lagged behind until her Willowshine caught up with her. The light grey RiverClan tabby had been her friend since the end of the last school year, when Minnowtail had revealed that she was not as great a cat as Hollyleaf had thought her to be. The other RiverClan apprentice had wanted to pull a prank on Graystripe, their former biology teacher. Hollyleaf and Willowshine were the only ones who hadn't planned to participate, but a raging fire had distracted everyone from taunting their teacher.
"Who do you have for homeroom?" Willowshine asked.
"Homeroom?" Hollyleaf meowed, diving into her bag for her schedule.
"It's the class you have before your real classes. I think the homeroom teachers take attendance or something like that."
"Oh," Hollyleaf mewed with a sigh. It seemed like her first year at Warrior high would be starting out like her year at Apprentice Academy: her friends knew more about the school than she did.
"Mothwing told me," meowed Willowshine, which made Hollyleaf feel slightly better. "So who do you have?"
"Um…" Hollyleaf scanned her schedule. "Sandstorm, I think."
"Really? Me too!" Willowshine exclaimed. "Isn't she Firestar's mate?"
Hollyleaf nodded. "It's weird that she's not teaching at his school."
Willowshine shrugged. "Maybe all of the spots were full by the time she applied."
"Maybe," Hollyleaf agreed. "Come on!" she mewed excitedly. "Let's go see what she's like!"
***
"My name is Sandstorm," Sandstorm mewed, introducing herself, "and I will be your homeroom teacher for this year."
A warrior behind Hollyleaf must have raised their tail, because Sandstorm called on someone. The ThunderClan warrior was disappointed to hear Minnowtail's voice.
"Is this all you teach?" Minnowtail asked. "What do you do all day?"
"My main subject is physics," Sandstorm explained. "I teach it here in this classroom. I suspect some of you will have my class during your sophomore and junior years at Warrior High."
Willowshine flicked a note to Hollyleaf. Must be a hard class, she wrote, if only the older warriors can take it.
Makes me a little scared,Hollyleaf wrote back.
Yep. What do you have after this?
Geometry, just like last year. You?
Mouse dung! I have history.
Oh, well. Maybe we can compare schedules at lunch?
If we don't see each other before then.
Let's hope we do!
Suddenly Sandstorm loomed over Hollyleaf. "I called your name three times, Hollyleaf. Are you present or not?"
"Uh, present, I guess," Hollyleaf mewed, not really knowing what it meant.
"Good. So I will see you and your friend Willowshine in my classroom at lunchtime for a lesson on attendance-taking?"
"Yes ma'am," Hollyleaf mewed, ducking her head.
She'd received her first punishment. Her first year at Warrior High had officially started.
***
A/N: For all of you Apprentice Academy fans, I present Warrior High! I couldn't resist delving back into the world of our favorite ThunderClan warriors. Please excuse any mistakes I'll make in the first chapters like "the apprentices", etc. I'm still getting used to the fact that they're warriors.
I'll try to make it longer than the last one, but I'll make no promises. I'll also promise nothing about updating quickly, because school has started and I'm easing into the whole notion of homework again.
Anyways, I hope all of my great Apprentice Academy reviewers will like this one as much as they like the other one!