This chapter will rather confuse things for you or make everything clearer. You've been warned.
(Edit Note: This chapter originally butchered my timeline. Now, it is cured, by the power of editing!)
~Tobias~
"My name is Buddy," the orange cat introduced himself, "and I have been sent here to be your guide. Let me be the first to welcome you to the outskirts of the Lake Territories, Animorphs."
"I couldn't care less what your name is," I snapped irritably. I tried to pull my wings in tightly, only to remember I didn't have wings anymore. So instead, I bristled my fur and barred my fangs.
If I intimidated Buddy, the other cat hid it well. "The most aggressive one is supposed to be Rachel, but you're obviously not her. Tobias, I presume?"
"How do you know our names?" Jake asked. His eyes were narrowed and his gaze was hard. I knew he was considering ordering us to attack, and I was all too welcome to the idea.
Buddy sighed. "As much as I would like to give you an explanation now, I must insist that we get moving," he mewed. "The cats that live here are out for a walk at the moment, but they'll be back at any minute and I don't think it would be wise to be here when they arrive."
I snorted, knowing that no barn cats could take us down regardless of our current forms.
Still, I could see Jake was deep in thought about our next course of action. Finally, he turned to look at all of us, before facing Buddy again and replying, "Agreed. Lead the way."
We followed Buddy out of the stables, past a fence, and off into the middle of nowhere. The second we exited the barn my senses were overwhelmed. As a hawk, I mainly used my eyes and maybe my ears when searching for prey. As a cat, my eyesight was much weaker, but my other senses were stronger than ever. My sense of smell was overpowering. I could smell the grass underneath me, the horses and hay in the distance, and several other scents I couldn't identify. My sense of hearing surpassed a hawk's ability, I could easily ear the bugs that rustled in the grass, and the sounds of horses at full gallop. I shivered. The sounds reminded me of the time my friends and I travelled into the past. It wasn't pretty. Jake died in the Revolutionary War. I wanted nothing more than to take off and fly to the sky so I could get away from everything. Unfortunately, cats were not quite as good at flying as hawks were, so I was forced to struggle to shut out the majority of what I was sensing.
After walking for what felt like forever, we finally arrived at a large bush. Frankly, I was unimpressed by Buddy's choice of accommodations. While it was big enough for all seven of us to fit comfortably underneath its branches, it didn't seem like anything special.
"You should really consider hiring an interior designer," Marco commented as he scrutinized the bush. "I think some drapes would be lovely over there, and a nice welcome mat would do well over there, an easy chair over-"
Rachel swatted his ear and growled to silence him.
"I believe we should get to business," Jake ordered. The rest of Animorphs suddenly became alert as Jake focused his attention on Buddy.
The orange cat nodded. "I will answer as many of your questions as possible to the extent of my ability," he replied politely.
"Anyone else wondering why the cat talks like a stuffy old English professor?" Marco whispered loudly.
Jake nudged Marco without shifting his attention to the stranger in our midst. "Where and when are we?" he asked.
"South of the local stables, and east of the nearest human city," Buddy replied. "As for when, it's the second month of leaffall." Seeing our confused glances, he added, "That's the terms the locals use. I would normally say: it's the middle of fall. Does that help?"
Cassie nodded. "That means it's probably mid-March to early-April," she clarified for us. We all nodded in understanding.
"Wait, so you can't tell us what state we're in?" Marco asked Buddy.
Buddy looked him up and down. "You seem healthy enough to me," he replied.
Marco stared at him for a moment in confusion, and then sighed. "Never mind," he mumbled.
"What year is this?" Jake asked Buddy, regaining our guide's attention.
Buddy scrunched up his face in confusion. "I'm afraid I don't understand," he replied apologetically.
I growled in frustration. "Well, you're useless!" I snapped.
"Chewing people out is my job, Tobias," Rachel reminded me sharply. I could tell she was only teasing me though. "You're supposed to sit there and glare."
Jake let out a low growl to silence us. "Do you know how we got here?" he asked as he turned his attention back to Buddy.
The feline nodded. "A being who calls himself "The Ellimist" claims that responsibility," he replied.
"Called it!" Marco and Rachel exclaimed at the same time.
Jake frowned, and for good reason. The Ellimist—or just Ellimist, if you knew him as well as we did—was a very tricky person to deal with. No, person doesn't quite cut it. He was not a person in the sense we knew of. Rather, he was an entity, a being with unimaginable power. It was definitely within his power to whisk us away and turn us into cats, though sending another cat to assist us was not usually a part of his plan. And let's not forget the fact that we could communicate with this animal as if we were speaking English. Whatever the Ellimist had in store for us, it was probably pretty big if we had to be put into little packages.
"Did he leave some tips for us?" Cassie asked. "Hints? Advice? Anything?"
"Not exactly," Buddy replied with a small frown. I almost grinned at the sight. "I'm supposed to teach you everything I can, and I know what you are here to do. However, aside from that—"
"Mind telling us what we're doing here then?" Marco asked loudly.
"You don't know?" Buddy asked in surprise.
"I'm afraid we don't," said Jake. "We were simply dumped here without warning or explanation."
Buddy gave us an appraising look. "It appears that The Ellimist is beyond what I had originally thought," he said. "I'm tempted to ask, but it's I who is meant to be assisting you."
"With what?" I asked grumpily.
"More importantly, what are we doing here?" Rachel asked.
"Knowledge of the land, its inhabitants, and their customs," Buddy replied immediately. "As well as skills in hunting and fighting, if the need be. As for your purpose here, Ellimist said that you will be responsible for assisting them in their time of crisis."
"Wait, Ellimist sent us here to help some cats with their fleas?" Marco asked. "We fight aliens for a living! Can't he find a giant mouse to do that instead?"
'Aliens?" Buddy queried, feeling the unfamiliar word roll off his tongue.
"What Marco means to say," Jake said, "is that we're fighters. Or soldiers, or warriors, whatever you want to call it. We spend our time fighting for survival against all odds. No offense, but I'm pretty sure there are better things we could be doing."
"What if this is all a test?" Cassie suggested as she surveyed our faces. "What if Ellimist wants us to be able to adapt to different environments, and this is his way of testing us. After all, this job seems relatively simple and shouldn't take too long."
"We can't morph," Marco reminded her.
"We'll just muscle our way through," Rachel said with a confident growl.
"We'll need to get used to our new bodies," Jake reminded us. "Since my battle morph is already a tiger, I'm probably going to be the best fighter among us. But we all still need to make sure we've fully adapted into these forms."
"New… bodies?" Buddy echoed.
That was when we finally realized that the cat was not familiar with our abilities. "Since the Ellimist trusts you to assist us, then I hope I can trust you to keep our secret," Jake told Buddy. The cat nodded. "We're not normally cats. Four of us are human, Tobias is a hawk, and Ax is a creature that lives very, very far away. We used to be able to change our form at will, but right now… it appears we're stuck like this."
Buddy stared at us. For a moment I thought he was call us crazy, but when he opened his mouth all he said was, "It appears some of the wildest stories have a grain of truth to them. I never thought I'd meet a creature of fables."
"You believe us already?" Ax queried. We all turned to him, and I realized that this was the first time he had spoken since we had left the barn. "And you're not afraid?"
Buddy shrugged, something I found very surprising for a cat to do. "I've seen enough in my life to be a little more accepting of the unusual," he replied. "You can feel that I'm different, can't you?"
At first I didn't catching his meaning, but the more I thought about it, I realized there was something different about him. His presence released a type of aura that was a mixture between Cassie's and Jake's. It made me feel at peace, safe, and secure. He seemed rooted, but flowing at the same time. It was… strange to say the least.
"You're a…" Ax paused as he tried to come up with a word. "What do you say… nature sage?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
"You have a strong connection to the earth around you," Cassie clarified. "I feel it too. No wonder the Ellimist picked you; you're as strange as we are."
"Not to knock you from this delightful conversation," Rachel interrupted. "But can we please can back to the issue at hand?"
"You don't have hands, you have paws," Buddy corrected her.
She made a face. "I'm not going to change the way I speak just because I'm stuck as a pretty feline."
"If you're going to help the cats here, you're going to need to speak like them," Buddy replied. "Luckily, I've been keeping an ear out on the wind. I may not speak the way they do, but I can at least teach you some of their customs and phrases.
Rachel grumbled, but Jake nodded. "There's no time like the present," he said decisively. "What do we learn first?"
One half-moon earlier…
~Dovewing~
Dovewing was excited when Squirrelflight had announced that both she and Ivypool would be attending the gathering. As always, the two littermates were happy to spend as much time together as possible, and attending the Gathering together was a satisfying usage of their time.
"I wonder if Bramblestar will tell the other clans about the rogues," Ivypool whispered to Dovewing as the group of cats made their journey.
Dovewing shrugged. When they had reported as many as four different rouge cat scents north of the clearing, he had taken the news calmly and announced it to the clan the next day. The trails had been investigated, but since none of the rogues had crossed the border, Bramblestar had encouraged the clan to think about the issue too much. "He might consider it strictly clan business," she mewed.
"But the rogue trail led towards ShadowClan territory," Ivypool reminded her. "I wouldn't be surprised if there rogues surrounding our entire border, waiting for the perfect moment to strike."
A warrior in front of them turned around. "Hush you two," he ordered. "We're in RiverClan territory and we don't want to appear weak."
"I doubt rogues hovering outside of the territory makes us weak, Spiderleg," Ivypool commented with an eye roll. "After all, doesn't that mean they're too scared to approach the border?"
The older warrior growled and turned his head back around. Ivypool and Dovewing shared a giggle at the tom's expense.
The fallen log that led to the gathering place was as slick as ever from the lapping waters of the lake that flowed underneath it. The trunk gradually thinned out, but it still made a solid bridge from the shore to the small island that housed the Gatherings. Here, under light of the full moon, all four clans could gather in peace and discuss the events of the past moon.
When the ThunderClan cats finally made it to the other side, they discovered that the other three clans were already there and waiting. Doveing could see the clan leaders atop the lower branches of an oak tree that lay in the center of the clearing. Onestar of the WindClan and Mistystar of the RiverClan greeted Bramblestar warmly, but Blackstar of the ShadowClan was not there to greet him. Instead, his deputy, Rowanclaw, was sitting in his place.
Dovewing frowned. Deputies only took the place of their leaders during gatherings if their leader was unable to do so. The previous gathering Blackstar had announced that the ShadowClan had sickness among its members, but the season for sickness had long since passed. There was very little chance that Blackstar was confined to camp due to something like greencough.
Onestar yowled to call the meeting to order. All of the gathered cats stopped whatever they were doing to turn and listen to the leaders. "Prey in the WindClan is running well!" the WindClan leader announced. "The ending of leaf-bare has brought rabbits from their holes in abundance. Additionally, Sunstrike has moved to the nursery!"
Many cats offered their congratulations before Mistystar stepped up next.
"Prey is swimming well in the RiverClan," the leader proudly announced. "The last of the ice is gone, and we are free to fish again! We also have two new apprentices, Specklepaw and Shimmerpaw!"
The two mentioned apprentice reared on their hind legs to be noticed in the crowd, which gave the pair hearty cheers.
"That is all the RiverClan has to announce."
Rowanclaw dipped his head towards Bramblestar to encourage him to go no next. But the ThunderCLan leader shook his head, allowing Rowanclaw to the chance to speak.
Dovewing played close attention the ShadowClan tom's words, eager to learn the news about BlackStar. "Prey in the ShadowClan is running well!" Rowanclaw announced, though it was clear that his heart was not into what he was saying. "The warmth of newleaf as brought back the frogs and lizards, and all of our warriors have full bellies."
Then Rowanclaw sighed. "Amidst this good news, I am sorry to say that this moon has not come without its share of hardships," Rowanclaw said mournfully. "Blackstar died half a moon ago due to a lingering bout of greencough. He was on his last life." A gasp rang out from the crowd. Blackstar hadn't been without his faults, but he had been the eldest of the four leaders and had made the ShadowClan strong. "One of our elders, Cederheart also passed away this moon." This did nothing to help the mood of the gathered cats.
"I have made my journey to the Moonpool, and I am now Rowanstar. I have appointed Ratscar as my deputy."
Among the cheering for the new leader and deputy, Dovewing could hear a soft hiss from a cat in the crowd. While her superior sense had all but faded away, she could recognize Lionblaze's growl from anywhere. She guessed he still resented Ratscar for beating him up and taunting about it afterwards, but Lionblaze had been the one to provoke the fight and lose it on purpose. She mentally shrugged, hoping that Lionblaze was mature enough to prevent grudges and rivalries from clouding his judgement.
Rowanstar stepped back and allowed Bramblestar to speak.
"Prey has been running well in the ThunderClan!" Bramblestar announced. "Our clan also is thriving well in the warmth of Newleaf!" Bramblestar paused for a moment, and then continued. "However, I'm sorry to announce that there may be trouble for the ShadowClan."
Rowanstar's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Bramblestar shook his head. "It is not ThunderClan that is the cause for concern," he mewed. "Rather, some of our warriors reported rogue scents by the clearing." A collective hiss rang through the gathering of cats. "They did not cross into our territory, but their scent trails showed that they would be skirting the edge of ShadowClan territory. I would suggest you keep an eye out."
Rowanstar hesitated for a moment, and then confessed, "We've scented rougue along our border as well."
Dovewing gasped, as did several other cats. What mousebrained band of rogues would dare travel next to the borders of two different groups? she wondered.
"The RiverClan reports the same," Mistystar added.
All eyes were on Onestar. He slowly nodded. "Rogue scents cover the Horseplace and surrounding area," he announced. "The farm cats even visited our territory to ask if we knew of them."
"Those furballs should think twice about attacking the RiverClan!" one cat yowled.
"No mangy rogue will ever get past our borders!" shouted another.
The Gathering was in an uproar as the clan cats shouted curses against the rogues. Dovewing ducked her down to try to drown out the sound, but almost every cat had caught onto the mob mentality.
It was a long time before the leaders finally managed to calm their clans down.
"It's great that you show courage!" Bramblestar declared. "But if these rogues are an actual threat, we'll need a plan."
"Don't tell me, the ThunderClan plans to organize an alliance between the four of us so we can band together to fight the rogues?" Onestar asked mockingly.
Bramblestar frowned. "That's not exactly what I had in mind—"
"Don't bother lying," Onestar hissed. "My clan has explored the scents outside of our territory. There are barely any more than ten different scents, with most of them in groups of two or three. The ThunderClan may need help from other clans to defend its borders, but the WindClan is strong enough to survive on its own."
"The ShadowClan also does not need help from the other clans!" Rowanstar declared.
Bramblestar nodded politely. "Is there anything else to discuss?" he asked. The other leaders shook their heads. "Then the Gathering is now over!"
Dovewing watched as the leaders stepped down. She could see Mistystar whisper something in Bramblestar's ear, but she couldn't tell what it was. Bramblestar's face showed no change as he led his clan back to their camp.
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