Icy: Hahahahahahahah! Wingpaw, you're a fool!
Flarepaw: Geez, Icy, what did she do?
Wingpaw: Shush... Just don't ask...
Stonepaw: Is it that bad?
Icy: She got Rickrolled!
Flarepaw: Bwahahahahahahahahah!
Mistypaw: Rickrolled? What does that even mean?
Icy: Don't worry about it... Okay, okay, let's stop laughing enough to get on with the chapter...
Chapter 09
Tooth and Claw
Mosspaw groaned as Mistypaw prodded at her side with a paw.
"Come on," Mistypaw whispered, "we've got to go. Patrol!" Mistypaw was trying to whisper, but by the time her voice and excitement combined to one, her voice was loud enough to wake up a cat in WindClan.
"Mistypaw!" Stonepaw spat.
Mistypaw turned. "What?"
"Shut up!" Stonepaw spat.
"Stonepaw..." Mistypaw began, fur bristling.
Stonepaw's ear twitched.
Oh, that's just great, Mosspaw thought, grudgingly getting to her paws. They've gotten into another argument.
"Come on, Mistypaw, let's go and leave Stonepaw to his grumpy self," Mosspaw meowed, forcing herself awake.
"Thanks, Mosspaw," Stonepaw meowed, ignoring the end of her comment. Stonepaw lay his head back down on his nest and quickly fell back asleep.
Wish I could go back to sleep, Mosspaw thought.
"Don't worry," Mistypaw meowed, her eyes bright and shining. "We'll be back soon before you know it, and then you can go back to sleep, if the effect of the poppy seeds isn't gone by then."
Mosspaw muttered a half-thoughtful thanks, but really, she wished, just as much as Stonepaw did, that her sister would shut up for once! It was too early to listen to her sister's excited rambling...
Mosspaw sighed as she padded over to Thistleclaw, who was standing with Thrushpelt, Robinwing, and Frostfur.
"You ready?" Thistleclaw asked.
Mosspaw nodded, not feeling comfortable under Thistleclaw's steady, unmoving gaze. That's my mentor! Mosspaw reminded herself. But that didn't comfort her at all; as a matter of fact, it made her feel worse by the moment, enough that the sickness in her stomach was beginning to fight against the numbing sleep in her mind.
"I'm hungry," Mistypaw confessed, clearly being as rabbit-blinded as usual. She's so clueless sometimes! Wait, Mosspaw quickly reminded herself, no, not sometimes, all the time. No exceptions.
"Well, hurry up and eat, would you? The other Clans aren't going to wait for you to eat before they show up to make their scent-marks," Thistleclaw snapped. Then, he turned to Mosspaw again. "You hungry as well?"
"Not really," Mosspaw meowed, holding her gaze steady to his. I can't keep this up... Yes I can, I have to! Mosspaw kept arguing with herself.
Within moments the poor mouse had been devoured by her sister. Mistypaw bounced up onto her paws.
"Okay, let's go!" Mosspaw wondered how long her sister had been awake. Was she always this chatty in the morning? I can't remember...
Mosspaw twitched her tail-tip as the patrol padded out of camp.
Mosspaw was trailing behind as the patrol moved forward. Her paws weren't moving as well as she would have liked them to. They were clearly stiff.
Robinwing must have noticed, for she was between Mosspaw and the patrol. At last, forcing her paws to move faster, she caught up with ginger-patched brown warrior.
"Robinwing, have you ever had a sense of... fear?" Mosspaw asked.
Robinwing stopped walking and stood still, looking her in the eyes. "Of Thistleclaw?" she asked.
Mosspaw forced herself to nod. "How did you know?"
"Trust me, I know all about that. As an apprentice, he defeated a dog all on his own. When he was a young warrior he let his apprentice, Tigerclaw, who was Tigerpaw at the time, hurt an innocent kit. That cat is dangerous, I'll tell you, but Sunstar is blinded by his own eyes—he doesn't notice a thing. I heard about what happened yesterday. Thistleclaw was bragging to me about it, about having more apprentices than me." Robinwing snorted. "I feel sorry for you, honestly. Come on, let's keep going before he notices we're gone," Robinwing added.
"Alright," Mosspaw agreed.
She forced herself to rush forward and soon found herself caught up with Mistypaw, Thrushpelt, Frostfur, and Thistleclaw.
"Where were you?" Thistleclaw snapped.
Mosspaw shuffled her paws, thinking of the perfect excuse. "I had to make dirt," she meowed, staring at the ground.
"And as a new apprentice, I couldn't leave her on her own," Robinwing added.
Thistleclaw nodded to Robinwing. "Good decision. If only ThunderClan had more warriors like you."
They do! Mosspaw exchanged a glance with Robinwing. If only Robinwing was her mentor, and not the Clan deputy! She knew she should have been lucky to have the Clan deputy as her mentor, but she still didn't like it. Not one bit.
"Cats! I see cats!" Mistypaw cried excitedly.
Mosspaw sniffed the air. Mousebrain! They're ShadowClan cats!
"Hello, Fawntail," Robinwing meowed coolly, walking to the border to greet them. Robinwing was the oldest warrior in the patrol, so she took the role of saying hello before Thistleclaw could take it. Mosspaw was impressed.
"Robinwing," Fawntail nodded back. "Meet my apprentice, Sparkpaw," the large pale-brown she-cat with tabby-striped paws pointed to a pale-ginger she-cat with light gray paws. "These are Cloudpelt, Hollyflower, and Hollyflower's apprentice, Antpaw," She then pointed to a white tom, a dark gray-and-white she-cat, and a small dark brown tom, clearly the apprentice.
Mosspaw twitched her ears. The stench of these ShadowClan cats had started to annoy her, but she was fighting to keep quiet.
"Why do you smell so smelly?" Mistypaw asked.
Mousebrain! Mosspaw wanted to claw her sister's ears off. Did her sister not have any sense? At all? Obviously her sister had neither common sense nor respect for others.
Antpaw glared at the blue-gray apprentice. "You think we smell bad? Well, it's hard for us to have to smell you, you know! You hate our ShadowClan smell just as much as we hate your underground stench!"
"It's undergrowth! Not underground!" Mistypaw snapped.
You deserved that comeback from him, Mistypaw... Mosspaw couldn't help but think.
"Stop it!" the large white tom meowed. "This is a pointless argument. Robinwing, Thistleclaw, I wish you would teach your apprentices to behave better."
Now I'm getting scorned at and I didn't even do anything! Mosspaw glared at her sister. This is your fault, mousebrain...
Thistleclaw looked over at Thrushpelt. "Blame Thrushpelt, not me. He's the father and mentor of that kit," Thistleclaw meowed.
Well thanks for throwing my father under a monster, Mosspaw retorted. Does the deputy take no responsibility?
"I'm not a kit!" Mistypaw spat.
Not you, too...
"Mistypaw, just—shut it!" Mosspaw spat at her sister, slapping her tail over her sister's mouth to keep it shut. She had lost her patience.
"She's got sense, you know. You should listen to her," the pale-ginger apprentice with light gray paws meowed.
"Yeah, whose apprentice is this?" Fawntail asked.
Mosspaw looked at Thistleclaw, who nodded to her. Mosspaw looked back, and said, "Mosspaw, apprentice of Thistleclaw." The words felt foul on her tongue, but she forced herself not to react.
"No wonder she behaves so much better!" the pale-ginger apprentice cried.
"Yeah, unlike her sister," the dark brown tom snickered.
"Hey! I heard that!" Mistypaw snapped between the fur on Mosspaw's tail. Disgusted, Mosspaw drew her tail back and slapped it against the grass to get rid of her sister's spit.
"Hey! Don't come onto our land!" the dark brown tom spat back as Mistypaw took a step onto the Thunderpath.
What in the name of StarClan does she think she's doing...? Mosspaw twitched her ears. If anything happened, it wasn't her fault. It wasn't her responsibility, either...
Thistleclaw took a step forward. "Hollyflower, what are you doing on ThunderClan territory?" the deputy snapped.
Mosspaw felt her fur rise. Hollyflower had run over the Thunderpath and started to take a walk around the edge of ThunderClan territory.
"Just taking a walk in my future territory," Hollyflower meowed coolly.
"No! Attack!" Thistleclaw yowled, leaping at the she-cat, claws unsheathed.
Seriously? You're going to jump into battle that fast? No one's going to follow you...
Mosspaw took a look around her. Sure enough, her Clanmates had jumped into the battle. She was the only one standing still.
No! Mosspaw looked at Robinwing, who was fighting the annoying dark-brown tom. Mistypaw was fighting Sparkpaw and Frostfur was fighting Cloudpelt.
Does no one else have the common sense that I do? Oh wait, I have no one to attack, Mosspaw realized, settling to make herself feel comfortable. They're too busy to call me out on it, right...? She wanted to watch Thistleclaw's fighting, but more importantly, she wanted to watch his actions. Besides, her senses were still numbed by the poppy seeds. She was aware enough to watch, but not to fight.
Her mentor began ripping Hollyflower's fur off, hair by hair, blood drop by blood drop. Mosspaw snapped to her senses, suddenly horrified as she saw Thistleclaw's true nature.
No! Mosspaw was about to run forward to stop her mentor from murder, but a loud cry stopped her.
"Robinwing, no!"
Mosspaw whirled around to see Robinwing lying in the middle of the Thunderpath, a monster stopped a couple of foxlengths away. A Twoleg began to get out of the monster.
"Run!" Hollyflower shrieked, running back onto her own territory and far into it as fast as possible.
"This has gone beyond a border skirmish," Thistleclaw spat.
Another monster came and Antpaw looked horrified as he tried to pick up Robinwing's body.
"I didn't mean... I didn't want... I didn't mean to..." Mosspaw could hear his whimpering. Had Antpaw killed Robinwing?
No. It was the Twoleg monster, Mosspaw told herself. It was, right? It couldn't have been Antpaw... No...
"It was the monster!" Mistypaw cried, running over to Thrushpelt and pushing her nose into her father's fur. Thrushpelt's eyes glimmered with the pale tint of sorrow. There was nothing he could do to comfort his daughter.
"Mother!" The grass was becoming wet and soggy from the tears of Robinwing's white-furred daughter. Frostfur didn't even seem to see the Thunderpath. Thistleclaw ran forward to keep Frostfur from running onto the Thunderpath where her mother's body was.
"Antpaw, watch out!" Mosspaw looked back to see Sparkpaw and Fawntail standing at the border of the Thunderpath. Antpaw was frozen from head to tail-tip and was hit as another monster was raced across the Thunderpath.
"We have to get out of here! Now!" Thistleclaw cried. "Otherwise we'll never make it! Run for your lives!"
Mosspaw watched as Antpaw's body went flying across the Thunderpath and landed right at Fawntail's paws.
She doesn't deserve to see her Clanmate die like this. Antpaw didn't deserve to die like that. No one did. Mosspaw felt her paws begin to tremble. Why did it have to be Robinwing who had to die? She was the only one who understood!
"Come on!" Mistypaw hissed, running away as quick as she had hissed at Mosspaw.
Mosspaw chased after her sister. When they both got far enough away, they stopped.
"Antpaw didn't have to die like that," Mosspaw began.
"Are you kidding? A ShadowClan warrior is dead! Isn't this awesome?" Mistypaw exclaimed, her voice quivering with not fear, but excitement.
Mistypaw! Mosspaw's jaw nearly dropped in shock at her sister's ignorance. She wanted nothing more than to knock some sense into her sister. Why couldn't Mistypaw make some sense?
Icy: And there we have it! Endeth the chapter!
Mosspaw: Endeth?
Icy: Endeth!
Stonepaw: Let's ignore Icy. Mistypaw, do you not have any common sense...?
Mistypaw: I totally do! You just haven't seen any yet...
Flarepaw: When will we?
Wingpaw: That's up to Icy. Icy?
Icy: Eh heh... About that, uh... Spoilers...
Mistypaw: What?! Icy!
Icy: Ah hah hah... Uh... Look forward to next chapter!
~Icy and the crew