If any of you didn't see the author's note, I rewrote the first chapter and started calling the Autobots and Decpeticons by a different name. You'll figure them out soon enough.
*Icestar P.O.V.*
"Decepticat!" Mudflap and Skidz squeaked. Icestar hissed at the tom, who simply snorted.
"Decepticat? Please. I switched sides long ago." The tom said, exasperated. "You see one tom with red eyes, and immediately think he's evil." Jetfire meowed, exasperated.
"How do we know that you switched sides for certain?" Icestar growled. Jetfire rolled his eyes.
"I was put here as a sentry by StarClan to help whatever cat was supposed to claim the stone that could revive someone." The dark gray tom mewed. Icestar's eyes widened, as she realized the tom was telling the truth. "Come on. I was told the battle is near. If you want to revive whoever it is you want to revive, we better get going." Jetfire said, turning around and walking into the darkness. Icestar looked back at the others and shrugged before following the tom. Icestar let her eyes adjust to the darkness before moving confidently through the tunnel to the main cave with the WinterStone in it. Jetfire was waiting for them beside to stone, tail curled around his paws. He stood as the four cats came into view.
The tom led them to a small cavern that branched off from the main one, which Icestar had never noticed before, as it was hidden behind a rock.
"I've never noticed that before." Icestar told Jetfire.
"That's because it only opens the when the time for the one chosen to retrieve the stone comes. It opened only a few days ago." Jetfire mused. The tunnel soon grew pitch black, and Icestar could tell the cats behind her were getting nervous.
"What happens if we get stuck down here!" Skidz called from behind her.
"Oh please. It won't." Jetfire said from up ahead.
"For all we know, he could be leading us into a Decepticat ambush." Mudflap muttered.
"I heard that!" Jetfire hissed. Icestar rolled her eyes, annoyed by the brothers. After a while, even Icestar began to worry whether or not the tunnel would come to a dead end, until Icestar noticed that Jetfire had disappeared from in front of her.
"Bumblebee?" Icestar called. "Mudflap? Skidz?" No response. Icestar tried turning around in the small tunnel, but it was too narrow, and Icestar was forced to continue straight, through the darkness. Icestar saw a faint light ahead, and hurried to it. She hoped for a way out as the tunnel opened up, but instead the glow intensified, and Icestar saw the source if it. The bright light was an ice blue, and Icestar squinted since it was so bright. She could see the clump of gem that was in the center of the light. Suddenly, the a piece of the gem about the size of an acorn broke off of the main gem. Icestar bent to retrieve it and, as soon as she touched it, a voice thundered through the cavern, shaking the ground. The voice spoke in a foreign language, and the ground beneath Icestar shook and cracked, sending her down into the earth.
*.*
Icestar woke up in a pale glade. Objects that looked like fireflies were floating in the air, and as Icestar pawed at one, it softly floated away. Icestar heard a voice from somewhere, and listened.
"This is your trial that you must overcome in order to prove yourself worthy of being able to use the Revival Stone. If you fail this test, you will be killed immediately, with no second chance. If you choose incorrectly at the end of the trial, or be caught by the stones, you will be killed. If you are touched by a guardian, that trial is a failure and you will be killed. What you must do is collect the twelve shards of Revival Stone. You only have to touch them with your muzzle to collect one. Once you find all twelve, you will make your way towards the glowing blue beacon where you will face the final test. If you find any water and happen to touch it, it will alert the guardians to your presence immediately. And remember, once you step out of the dirt circle, the stone guardians will know where you are."
Icestar noticed she was standing in a flat dirt circle. Icestar decided it would be a good idea to look for the hard to reach ones first. She looked around the clearing, and saw one gem leading to a trail and another on top of a pile of rocks. Steeling her nerves, she put a paw out of the dirt circle. Immediately, everything was tinted in an orange color, and something that sounded similar to a bird's scream sounded. Icestar bounded up the rocks, and touched the gem with her muzzle. The world turned back to normal, or at least what was normal in that realm, as everything was tinted blue-green. As Icestar straightened, right in front of her was a stone cat figure with glowing blue eyes, not a whisker length from her nose. Letting out a shriek of terror and surprise, the she-cat tumbled from her perch back into the stone circle. Trembling, Icestar looked back up at the frozen figure. The cat thing was frozen in mid-leap, with claws outstretched and jaw open in a snarl.
Icestar shuddered, and looked around again. She headed in the opposite direction, and when she took a step out, the world was tinted orange again. Icestar sprinted through the undergrowth, and heard the sounds of pursuit as she heard a guardian roar and come after her. She finally found another gem, and touched it, which stopped the guardians. Icestar waited for the world to turn orange again, as she was outside the circle, when she heard the voice again.
"The gems. As you have noticed, when you retrieve a gem, the guardians stop. This creates a very small time limit for you to move freely. But when that time limit is up, the guardians will be on the move again."
"I guess that helps," Icestar muttered. She trotted along, every muscle tense and ready to spring away. She soon walked back and found the first gem she had seen, and retrieved it. She set off along the trail she had first seen. As she jumped over a creek, the bird's scream sounded, and Icestar jumped short and landed in the water. As the voice had warned, four stone guardians burst out of the bushes and roared. Icestar squeaked, her usual composure gone. She jumped and ran, clawing her way up a tree. To her advantage, a gem was placed in a fork in the tree. She touched it with her nose, and the guardians froze. Icestar took a breath. Four found, eight to go. Icestar walked along the branch before jumping down. She then spotted a gem at the bottom of a ravine on a rocked surrounded by grass. Icestar leapt down lightly onto the rock, only to have the world turn orange. The rock Icestar had jumped down onto uncurled itself and took a swipe at her. Icestar ducked just in time and ducked underneath the guardian, managing to just scrape the gem with her nose before the guardian slammed its paws down onto her.
Icestar sat back on her haunches, panting. She sat for a bit before looking for her next gem. She saw her next gem on a ledge. She carefully looked the ledge over, as the last time she hadn't look, she had nearly ended her life. After making sure it was safe, she scrambled up onto the ledge and grabbed the gem. The bird's cry echoed again, and so did the voice.
"You have reached the halfway point. The time you are given after retrieving a gem has been cut in half. Proceed with caution."
When the voice finished, the world was orange, and Icestar sprang into a run, heart pounding as she raced through the forest. The next gem was placed in a crevice, which Icestar had to reach down with a paw and drag it out before being caught by a guard. Icestar continued her search and found another gem, this on hidden deep in a thorn bush. As Icestar pulled out her paw holding the gem, her foreleg was drenched in blood from the thorns. Eight gems found, four to go.
The last four were the hardest to find, as Icestar had expected. Icestar padded along the base of a cliff face, worrying about when her shortened time would run out. She faintly saw the blue glow out of the corner of her eye and looked up and saw noticed the blue light coming from a ledge high up on the cliff face. She sighed and leapt up onto the first ledge. She dug her claws into the rough surface, and hauled herself up the cliff face. As she reached the top, the bird cry sounded, and the sudden sound caused Icestar to nearly fall. Luckily, she grabbed the gem before a guardian caught her. Icestar continued up the cliff face, becoming exhausted as she reached the top and found one more gem. The next gem was harder to find, as it was buried beneath the ground somewhere. Icestar dug until her muscles ached and she was missing a few claws. She finally reached the glow that signaled the eleventh gem.
"Well done. One more to find. But this one is by far the hardest. This one is attached to the guardian's neck that is stationed at where you will take the final test."
Icestar sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time. As she looked around, she spotted that beacon that would aid her search for the last gem. Her trot turned to a gallop as she sprinted through the forest, and after a while, for if she had been searching for a different gem, the time limit would have certainly been up, she found a clearing where a another stone guardian stood. As Icestar entered the clearing, she stopped and studied the guardian. It was no different than the others, except for the fact it had a gem dangling around its neck. Icestar cautiously stalked forward, and as she leaned in to the gem with her muzzle, the stone guardian sprang to life. As Icestar's nose touched the gem, at the same moment, the guardian's front paws came down on her shoulders. Icestar remembered the voice's warning:
f you are touched by a guardian, that trial is a failure and you will be killed…
