A/N: This is another pretty long chapter… I really didn't intend for it to be this long! Also, I made an avatar for myself! It's fanart of something that isn't warriors, so you probably wouldn't recognize the characters, but let me know if you think it looks good, okay? Okay, enough about me, let's see what these crazy cats are up to now…
The little twoleg-made structure that the birds would flock around was filled back up with seeds, so it was an ideal time to catch a few of the unsuspecting creatures before the structure was emptied out again. Using the wooden seed-filled structure to his advantage while hunting was convenient, but it did require hanging around right by the twoleg walking trail, so Rubblepaw always had to be careful when doing it. Honeypool was with him, and he was more than happy to take the opportunity to show off to her a little, even though catching a bird while it was busy eating wasn't exactly the most skillful way of hunting.
"Are you sure this method really works?" Honeypool asked as they approached the wooden structure, making sure to stay low on the side of the walking trail. "I mean, is the risk of getting spotted by twolegs really worth it?"
"Oh, don't worry," Rubblepaw assured her confidently. "The twolegs that come by on this trail are more likely to be looking out for particular kinds of trees than for wild cats, anyway."
"That's a good point," she agreed. "So, is that the structure you were talking about?"
Rubblepaw looked up. Honeypool was angling her ears toward a large piece of twoleg furniture. It was soft and made a good nest, but it wasn't good at attracting prey. He shook his head, nudging her head over to the structure that the birds were pecking at.
"That's it over there," he told her. "Twolegs come and fill it up with the food that birds and squirrels like, so they flock around it, making it easier to catch them."
"It looks like a twoleg den," Honeypool observed. "I've only seen twoleg dens myself once when we were on the trip from the place I was born to the rock-wall-cave, and again on the trip from the rock-wall-cave to here. I don't remember the first trip very well, but when I saw a twolegplace the second time, I recognized it for what it was instantly."
"It sure is interesting that RogueClan is nomadic," Rubblepaw noted. "I've heard a lot about Clans form cats that have passed through my forest, but the ones they described weren't anything like ours. For instance, they apparently have special cats who heal other cats but aren't allowed to fall in love but they usually do anyway, and they can even talk to spirits sometimes! It would be cool if we had a cat like that, but I guess we don't. We don't have a cat who's second-in-command, either, but if we did I think it'd be you. You'd be a natural."
Suddenly wondering if he'd said too much, he dropped into the hunter's crouch in order to drop the conversation. There were a few chickadees on the ground around the structure, but there was a nuthatch perched on it. Rubblepaw decided to take a chance and jumped up to the nuthatch, taking it in his jaws and knocking into the structure, which swung back and forth violently while Rubblepaw clung to it, the still alive bird struggling in his mouth. He bit down harder to kill it and awkwardly dropped down from the structure. Usually things went a bit smoother than that.
Honeypool certainly seemed to be enjoying his mishaps. Her whiskers quivered with amusement, but she did also seem somewhat impressed by Rubblepaw's skills.
The chickadees on the ground had been frightened by Rubblepaw's disruption of their feeding, and they flew off in different directions. Amazingly, Honeypool jumped up and managed to nab one out of the air as it fled.
"That was cool!" Rubblepaw squealed, immediately cringing at his overly enthusiastic voice. "I mean, it was pretty neat how you caught that chickadee."
"Thanks."
They headed back to camp with their fresh-kill, talking and purring and having a nice conversation. It wasn't until they reached the no-longer-a-tunnel that they realized something was wrong. Some of the saplings had branches broken off, and one of them had been knocked over altogether. There hadn't been any heavy wind storms in a while, so it couldn't have happened naturally.
That on its own was unnerving enough, but it got worse; the RogueClan camp had clearly served as a battlefield in the time that Rubblepaw and Honeypool had been out. There were patches of snow stained red with blood, and scraps of fur snagged on the bramble patch that served as the apprentices' den. The air hung heavy with a scent that Rubblepaw recognized from Mist and Mothpaw- the Alliance had attacked.
Shocked, Rubblepaw and Honeypool buried their fresh-kill in the snow to preserve it for a few minutes while they went to investigate the ruined camp. Braches and rocks littered the ground, as well as scraps of the hard twoleg material that Rubblepaw had used to make a barrier. He'd been mouse-brained to think that barrier would work, but it had seemed like a good defense system at the time. He'd obviously been wrong.
There didn't seem to be any cats in the clearing, alive or dead- not out in the open, anyway. Rubblepaw padded slowly through the camp, looking around at the mess that had been made. He could hear some of his Clanmates talking from a few fox-lengths away, under the branches of the tree where the warriors slept. He went over to the tree and slipped under the low-hanging needled branches, with Honeypool following behind him.
"Who's there?!" Strikestar whipped around, teeth bared and claws unsheathed. He had a deep gash running down his side, and his already V-marked ear had been partially chewed off at the tip.
The leader relaxed when he saw Rubblepaw and Honeypool, retracting his claws and flattening his fur.
"Oh, good, you're back," he said, sounding truly relieved that the two young cats were back in the camp- since the Alliance had obviously attacked, he must have been worried that they'd encountered them as well. "Well, I would say that you might as well make yourselves useful, but I don't think Rubblepaw should be put in any potential danger. Honeypool, you can go scope out the surrounding area for remaining Alliance cats; Rubblepaw, you stay here with me where it's safe."
Rubblepaw was glad that his brother cared for his well-being, but he didn't want to put Honeypool in danger while he was kept out of it.
"I'm sorry, but I can't do that," he meowed, puffing out his chest and trying to seem braver than he really was. "If she's doing it, so am I!"
"Rubblepaw, you're just an apprentice," Honeypool told him softly. Then she turned back to Strikestar. "But he's right about one thing: I'm not going to put my pelt on the line for no good reason! Rubblepaw and I didn't see any sign of the Alliance while we were out hunting, so they're probably nowhere in the vicinity."
Strikestar reluctantly agreed. With him hiding in the warriors' den were Emberfur, Bearpelt, Darkstep, and Squirreltail. Frostglaze was crouching in a little alcove that had been scooped out of a snowbank trying to treat Specklestone's wounds-she had taken the most damage out of any cat while protecting her mate- as well as preventing Fishpaw from doing anything rash.
"Maybe Frostglaze could be the cat who heals and talks to spirits for our Clan," Rubblepaw suggested casually upon Strikestar telling him this. "He sure is good with herbs and stuff, and he's very patient and friendly. The only problem is that he has kits, but since he doesn't have a mate anymore, maybe it would be okay to ignore that rule?"
Strikestar looked at him like he didn't know what he was talking about.
"Other Clans have special cats who heal them all the time instead of fighting," Rubblepaw explained. "I learned it from a loner who said he was descended from a Clan cat!"
"We don't have any spirits to talk to, do we?" Emberfur asked curiously.
"I don't see why we would," Bearpelt muttered. "Spirits are the stuff of legends and myths. No cat can really talk to the dead. That's like saying cats really have nine lives."
"Oh, and that's another thing," Rubblepaw went on, determined to educate these cats as much as possible. "Clan leaders are supposed to get nine lives form the spirit cats! That way, when they die, they keep coming back to life! Do you have that, Strikestar?"
"Of course he doesn't," Bearpelt scoffed. "No cat does."
"Having so many lives would be nice, though," Darkstep chimed in. "I wouldn't always have to fear for my survival, because I'd know I could just come back to life. The same goes for my reckless apprentice."
"Hey, that's our son you're talking about," Bearpelt reminded her angrily.
"She's got a point, though," Emberfur reasoned. "He's always getting himself into trouble. It's gotten even worse since Mothpaw ran away. I just wish… I just wish bad things didn't have to happen so often."
Rubblepaw hadn't expected things to take such a personal turn. He wondered if it would be better for him to leave.
"I'm going to step out and try to patch things up," he murmured to Honeypool. "The sooner we clean this mess up, the better. It'll show we can make a quick recovery from anything they do to us."
"I'll help," she offered. "I want to check on Specklestone first, though."
"Can I go with you?"
"Well…" She hesitated. "Yeah, I guess you can."
In the little alcove in the snowbank, Frostglaze was applying some sort of plant-based paste to Specklestone's leg while his kits watched with rapt attention. Fishpaw was sitting in the corner, sulking.
"I could kill them all!" he was claiming. "Those Alliance cats wouldn't know what hit 'em! Just let me go out there and I'll show you!"
"I don't think so, Fishpaw," Frostglaze said, not even bothering to look up from his patient. "If you really want to help, stay right here and fetch me some more clean snow."
Fishpaw reluctantly complied.
"Is she alright?" Honeypool asked from outside the alcove.
"She will be if you leave me to my work," Frostglaze told her curtly. "I'm sorry, Honeypool, but I don't want you hanging around here if you're not going to help out."
Rubblepaw could see that his friend was disappointed that she couldn't visit her mother, but it made sense that Frostglaze wouldn't want to be disturbed. Maybe he really would make a good healer-cat- whatever the proper term for one of those had been.
Clearing all the sticks and trash out of the camp wasn't particularly hard, but it felt like Rubblepaw really had to be careful the whole time, since the Alliance could strike again at any moment. Although their recent scent still lingered, there was no sign that they were still nearby, but Rubblepaw couldn't help feeling paranoid. He and Honeypool hadn't seen them leaving, even though their hunting trip had taken them in the same direction that the old twolegs shack that the Alliance apparently called home was located in…
Maybe it would have been better if he'd been there to see the fight himself. He didn't doubt the word of his Clanmates, of course, but not having seen something himself always made it seem like no cat could ever really prove it was real, despite the injuries that suggested it was.
At one point, Frostglaze left his little working area and padded over to the warriors' den, where the rest of the Clan was still in a heated discussion about what to do next. Rubblepaw couldn't hear all of what the white tom said, nor could he make out the entirety of Strikestar's response, but it was clear that Frostglaze thought that Strikestar need medical attention, and Strikestar thought he did not.
While in the process of dragging a branch that had been ripped off a sapling over to the edge of the clearing, which was drawing a line in the snow behind it, Rubblepaw heard twigs snapping above him. He glanced up, alarmed. To his relief, there wasn't a cat in the tree, glaring down with gleaming eyes and glinting fangs. But just the knowledge that there easily could have been was enough to leave Rubblepaw feeling shaken. RogueClan life would constantly feel a lot more dangerous from now on, it seemed.
He got this sensation again when he was moving a boulder, and he heard the snow crunch behind him. Even after he turned around and saw that it was only Honeypool offering to help, his heart was pounding inside his chest and echoing off the inside of his skull. Rubblepaw had to shake off this feeling off paranoia, but he just couldn't. He knew that something bad would happen again very soon, and next time there would be even more serious consequences.
By the time the RogueClan camp was all tidied up and back to normal, Rubblepaw was exhausted and the sun was low in the sky. He went back for the fresh-kill that he and Honeypool had caught earlier, digging it up from the snow and bringing it over to the fresh-kill pile. Rubblepaw would have expected the Alliance to have strewn bits of fresh-kill all over the camp as well, seeing as to what they did with the rocks and branches, but apparently they hadn't laid a paw on it. Maybe they just hadn't spotted it over in the corner, next to Rubblepaw's nest-ladder-tree, which was one of the only trees within a tail-length of the camp without claw marks running down it.
Even his ladder was intact, and his nest, although Rubblepaw still hadn't gotten around to fully fixing it from the damage caused by the wind storm the night before he'd met Honeypool, hadn't been damaged any further by the Alliance.
"I wonder why they didn't harm my tree," Rubblepaw mused as the cats settled down to eat dinner and share tongues.
"It's because you're their heir," Strikestar said matter-of-factly. "Since I'm older, I'd normally be their heir, but they don't know I'm still alive. They know you're still alive, though, so they're going to try to get you to join them so they can have their King."
"They didn't know you were still alive until today," Rubblepaw corrected him. "Because they saw you when they attacked the camp, right?"
Strikestar didn't respond.
"He hid away in his den while we all fought for him!" Fishpaw announced loudly. "The scratch he got on his side- he got that form slipping and falling onto the sharp twoleg garbage while he was running away!"
"That's not true," Darkstep said sharply. "Strikestar stood his ground and did his best to fend off the first wave of cats. He only ran when back to his den once the second wave came."
"Wait…" Rubblepaw's brow furrowed in confusion. "You guys didn't tell me there were multiple waves! And if Strikestar did fight, then some of the cats must have seen him! So how come he still thinks the Alliance doesn't know he's alive?"
"RogueClan is a small Clan; you already know and understand that," Strikestar explained, and Rubblepaw suddenly noticed just how tired and worn-down he looked. "But what none of us knew until today was just how big the Alliance is. When I was there as a kit, it was a lot smaller. But even back then, a system was in place that they probably still use today: a rank system. Lower ranking cats are the ones who made up the first wave, and none of them report back to Mist, and Mist doesn't tell them anything. Sure, she addresses them in extravagant meetings and gives over-the-top speeches, but those cats don't really know anything about what's going on. They probably don't know who I am, and if they do, Mist probably won't end up finding out they saw me."
Rubblepaw was always impressed by how much his brother knew about the Alliance. He'd been even younger than Rubblepaw was now when he'd left, so it was amazing how clear his memory of being a part of the Alliance was.
And the fact that there'd been so many cats… it was a wonder how RogueClan had survived; they'd been so outnumbered. Even if the "waves" had only comprised of two or three cats each, it would still mean a heated battle, and b the sound of things the Alliance would still have had many more cats to spare.
"How did you ever manage to fend off so many attackers without even a single cat dying?" Honeypool asked, echoing what Rubblepaw had just been thinking. "I mean, Specklestone's leg is in pretty bad shape, and Strikestar has a nasty gash on his side there, but everyone's still alive. How did you manage to drive them away so fast, for that matter?! Rubblepaw and I were only gone for a half hour or so!"
The other cats exchanged a few guilty looks.
"We didn't defeat them," Emberfur admitted after a moment of hesitation. "We drove off the first wave, but then the second wave came… I kept fighting; so did Squirreltail, and Specklestone, even though she had to stop fighting after he leg was mangled. Frostglaze wanted to keep fighting, and so did Darkstep, he had to protect his kits and she had to prevent Fishpaw from being too reckless. Bearpelt persuaded me to hide with him and Strikestar, and before I knew it, we were all just running and hiding for cover. By the time the third wave came in, they couldn't find us, so they just trashed the place until they got bored and left."
The deeper meaning to what Emberfur had just said hit Rubblepaw like a falling boulder.
"So then, if the Alliance attacks again, and we can't run or hide this time…"
"We'll make sure they won't," Strikestar stated firmly. "Because if they do, we're finished."