`Sun and Moon by InsaneSnakeJig

Authoresses notes - That hibernation was well needed! Sorry for not updating in such a long time. I was reuniting with ICP's 'Carnival of Carnage.' *Sigh* Such a great CD....

10. Pyrolite was running at top speed through the woods, almost gliding. She wasn't getting too worked up now about everyone just dying. The survival mood was kicking back in, and that meant alot of steam to blow off. She saw the familiar mountain and slowed down, then jumping up on rocky... rock. (O_o) She pushed and made another leap, gradually getting up.

The six horse shifters were out on the mountain when they noticed Pyrolite making her way up. The Pinto, Morgan noticed her first and peered over the ramparts to get a better look. "Oy, that person a part of the Cosmos clan?" she asked Huttser. He too looked over the ramparts and nodded. "Yup, she's not wearing those ugly cloaks the Reguba people have." It was quiet for a while.

"HEY, YOU! YES I'M TALKING TO YOU! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Morgan suddenly blurted out. Pyrolite stop jumping and cocked her head to the side. "WHAT?!" "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"OH... MY NAME'S PYROLITE AND I'M BACK FROM THE PARTY THAT WENT TO THE REGUBA CLAN!!"

"OH, OKAY PYRODUCK! WANT ME TO GET COSMOS?"

"IT'S PYROLITE! AND SURE!"

"AIGHT, PYRODUCK... I'LL GET 'EM."

"HEY, YOU'RE A HORSE!"

"SO YOU NOTICED?"

"YEAH!!!!"

Shortly after Morgan left, she and Cosmos came back. Pyrolite was waiting with Huttser. "Where are the others?" he asked. Pyrolite growled. "Clan got 'em."

"Right..." Cosmos said and averted his gaze to the side breifly. "Did you find anything?" She shook her head. "Nothing."

Back at the Reguba clan, the three captains were now attempting to 'train' them. Khaz, a coyote P-shifter was almost dancing around their 'students' whirling his oh-so-deadly knife around. "You all are just a bunch of idiots who think they know alot about fighting, but I'M the real fighter around here so I get to shape you up... WHAT'S WITH THE JAVELIN?! You think wood's gonna help us win a fight?" he continued pacing, not noticing that Mara had come out.

She gripped his shoulder. "Every weapon counts. You don't seem to notice that particular shifter can throw javelins as far as the distance an arrow can cover." (That is a looong distance people.)

Khaz tried to smile. "I was only trying to show them the difference metal and wood make..."

A shifter walked out into the yards. "That guy is here... again."

Mara headed back to see Drakken, and gave Khaz one last glare before getting inside.

"The girl got away and is back at the Cosmos clan." Drakken informed her. Mara was looking out through the window watching Larka show a group how to use throwing daggers. "What did she know, anyway?" Mara asked, not bothering to look at him.

Drakken had to come up with something quick. "She knows where the sigil room is?" Mara practically whirled around wide-eyed. "Sigils?!"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah... sigils..." "Do you know what this means?! It means we can easily take over the fort using sigils. All we have to do is find ours! It may take a while but it's worth it..."

"Why do you want their fort so bad, anyway?" Dr. Drakken asked.

"Because theirs is hard to conquer and has a treasure room... full of treasure. (-_-)" Mara replied, now pacing with her hands behind her back. 'But the treasure room is just the sigil room,' Drakken thought and added, "But Pyrolite says that the sigil room is the treasure. She just won't tell anyone where it is." Mara stopped and looked at him. "Since you don't know anything about shifters, listen. Alot of people think that shifters don't exist. Some people consider us werewolves or whatever. I don't know, but you might think that. Shifters aren't just animal people. We have ancestors. Some people think it's the head hunters, indians or whatever. But they had some practices that no one could really explain. In almost every fort you can find strange drawing on rocks, walls and other places. They somehow know that we'll be here, and they are like messages. They tell something. For instance, the drawings found around the fort say that I was going to be the new leader. You'll never know how they figure out. One of our shifters used to be a part of that clan. They saw paintings with treasure and a dead shark. That shows we'll win, why do you think I'm being so confident?"

Drakken just shrugged. "Anway..." Mara continued. "They have treasure. Sigils aren't just all magic. They can be explained somehow by our ancestry. Who knows what they did. So as shifters we respect them, and try to listen to whatever they try to say. They know everything. The paintings show they have treasure, so I beleive it. The reason why I want their fort is to find it. It isn't like the Cosmos clan is going to let us walk on in and start searching! So the sigil room obviously isn't"

The 'they know everything' was a little creepy to him, but she started to open her mouth to continue when her ears slightly wiggled. She walked over to the windows and looked down to see all the shifters press themselves aganist the walls. A helicoptor passed by overhead, not seeming to notice anything. That seemed to get Mara out of her trance, so she turned to Drakken. "Can't you go now and find out something?" she asked, which sounded more like a command. "Whatever..." Drakken replied and stalked off, not noticing the toothy grin Mara gave him behind his back.

Kim was talking to Wade on the Kimmunicator with Ron hovering above her shoulder. "Wade, I don't think we should get caught up in this whole war thing. So far five people here have been killed." Kim told Wade. "I agree, but it just doesn't seem like you to let this stuff happen. I'm not encouraging you to risk your lives by helping a bunch of people you don't know or anything, though." He replied. Kim twirled a lock of hair with her finger as she thought. "I want to help, but I just can't. It's one of those things I just can't handle."

"I get it. So, do you want me to find a ride?"

Kim looked at Ron, who was watching Rufus twirl around a deadly feather (Guess he found it from where one fell out of someone's hair.) and making a sound affects. "Nice one Rufus, you'll have to show Kichen that one!" Kim turned back to Wade. "I'll think about it... Call you back later."

Just as she began to put away the Kimmunicator there was a knock at the door and Ron opened it to see Pyrolite. "Er.. Hi."

"Hi... Cosmos wants EVERYONE, including you, to get to the Great Hall. Now. Yeah." she informed them and whirled around on her heel but fell. "I'm okay!" she announced and continued on her way. "Come on Ron. we better not upset cave woman over there." Kim said and they both went off to the Great Hall.

Once there, it was crammed. Shifters were pretty much standing ontop of eachother's heads for enough space, and not to mention almost everyone had grabbed any food they could get their little claws on. Kim and Ron were shoved up against a wall with about ten shifters rubbing their backs against them (on accident!) and they all had managed to grab some kind of sticky drink, they called it cordial whatever that was. Finally, everyone shut up as soon as Cosmos was in veiw.

"No offense to any of you... but you all suck at fighting. So what do you think that means...?"

No one said a thing, and at this time Drakken slid in unnoticed and leaned his back up against a wall and listned carefully. Cosmos continued, "About only a dozen of the two hundred shifters in here don't know how the heck to even hold a sword! So the least we can do is help, because fighting on a slope isn't too easy and if they make a big attack we'd have no chance. And for you two, (he turns in Kim's direction.) if you aren't going to fight, you're leaving. At whatever time you want, get down to the orchards so you can learn some stuff from EXPERIENCED people. And we will need some people to actually help make some weapons." With that he left, and the ten shifters infront of Ron and Kim jumped on eachother, spilling the cordial all over them, and the two right behind them. "WOO-HOO!!! WE'RE GOIN' TAW WAR!"

"What are we going to do, KP?" Ron asked by Kim's side as they made their way down the mountains to where they thought the orchards were. Kim sighed. "Ron, I'm staying here. I can't help but feel useless during this and people are dying. Do you know how that must feel for others? You can go, but I'm staying."

Ron was first driven to say, 'Okay, see ya!' but he felt concern for his friend. "I go where you go. And plus, I want to learn some spiffy sword move!"

Dr. Drakken obviously wasn't wanting to learn some spiffy sword move. Instead he went down the halls to 'report' back to Mara. He was liking her more and more every time she pulled some move on the Cosmos clan. He was making his way into the cavern when he saw a soaking horse shifter trying to towell off a wet mane as he made his way through the halls. The horse stopped and stared at him. "Wow..."

"What?" Drakken asked, not in the mood to be talking to him, not that he was ever in 'the mood' anyway. "You have blue skin..." the horse shifter said with his jaw hanging open. "Shut up..." Dr. Drakken mumbled and continued on his way when a second horse came clopping into view. "Heeeyy!" then she stopped in her tracks wide-eyed. "You have blue skin."

"CURSES!" Dr. Drakken shouted and shoved her out of the way.

Outside in the orchards in wasn't as cold as it was inside the fort and people were relaxing even though they really shouldn't be. Two horse shifters joined with the other five and began showing off for admiration. "You see people... a spear isn't your everyday weapon. Ya need SKILL to just hold it right!" Elora said and Frisco rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes. ANother thing that's hard is the weilders head."

She didn't seem to notice. A shifter with a cougar tail came out of the woods with a bunch of long branches and was then followed by another only carrying small stumps of dead trees. He placed them down in a line and went back for re-fills. In front of the line a Raven shifter was trying to show his little group how to aim bow and arrows. He pulled back the string and released. The arrow hit the stump in the center. "The object is to aim, target, and release. Now all of you try that."

Arrows whizzed by and almost all of them missed. Cosmos was giving Pyrolite her familiar sword, and she got all hyper. "'OL FAITHFULL! WE MEET AGAIN MATE!"

Cosmos rolled his eyes. "How about you just show some people how to use them?"

Ron pretty much jumped over. "I'm a quick learner! EDUCATE ME!" She nodded, feeling speical. "Alright, young one. First step- become one with the weapon."

At the Reguba clan, things were going alot better then the Cosmos clan. People were actually fighting eachother and not using targets. As Dr. Drakken made his way to Mara's room, he watched as some shifters had to pull one of of another, driven to kill him. The sound of metal clashing against metal was all he could hear, and the whistles of arrows and javelins soaring through the air. He finally came to the door and knocked. The two regular guards by the doors were bowled over as Mara swung open the doors. "News already?" she grinned evily.

The guards were just getting up and using the doors to lean on when she pulled Drakken in, along with doors and they fell again. "My spine..." one whimpered. "Everyone is getting ready for a big fight, and now they're all training and stuff and some of them are pretty good." Drakken informed her and she nodded, eyes closed. "Heh. They don't know what's comin'." she said and then pointed her clawed finger at the door. "I HAVE MUCH WORK TO DO!"

Once again, back at the Cosmos clan things were getting a little better.

About three fifths of the archers have gotten used to firing so quickly, and alot could throw javelins far. The thing people weren't used to were the heavy scythes. Kim was watching with interest as Ron swong a big sword around, nearly chopping off Pyrolite's head. "Watch it!" she said and then noticed Kim laughing at Ron trying to lift the sword up again. "Oy, Kim! Want to try?"

Kim first wanted to, but remembered that she 'hated' Pyrolite. "No."

"Oh, come on KP! It's really fun!" Ron persuaded her, and she couldn't help but smile at his attempts of pointing at her with the sword. "Well... alright."

Ron handed Kim the sword slowly and she grabbed it, and swung it around twice like it was a feather. "For something I never used this is pretty fun." she said and Pyrolite immediatly was jealous. It took her a month to learn how to spin it like that. "Try hitting the wood while it's in the air." Pyrolite said, grabbing a peice from a shifter running pass. She threw it underhand and when it was level with Kim's head, she swung out and left a good, deep scratch into it's side, and it was propelled at Pyrolite. She hit the deck and it went soaring over her head. She quickly scrambled up and didn't notice Ron was throwing it again for Kim to hit. "THAT WAS NOTHING!"

*Whap*

Alot of people were having fun either 'accidentally' hitting another or just fooling around. People amazingly were hacking up the stumps of wood, and they were constantly being replaced. Tons of wooden weapons like arrows, javelins, spears and pikes were all in a big pile about five feet high. To the side of the mountain Cosmos was talking to another shifter out of veiw. "We have all the wooden weapons we need so far, but it still isn't enough. The Reguba clan has mastered forging like it's as easy as cooking. We can't beat their metal by a chance. So that's why I want you to get to the full weaponry. I couldn't use it until now, because the clans gotten so used to not using weapons they would just hurt themselves. Can you gather them all up and put them in the weaponry?" The shifter nodded her head.

"Alright. Make sure no one finds where the full weaponry, Shima. You're the last one who even knows about it other than me."

Shima once again nodded, and set off. She was around twenty and was one of the feline shifters, who had hte phenotype of a snow leopard. She made her way up the mountain no sweat and went on inside. It was empty except for the occasional shifter too lazy to move his butt and train.

She entered the weaponry and her eyes trailed to the tapestry of Hethulsah. ('Member him?) Shima walked on over, grabbing a spear as she went and brushed the tapestry away. A hardly visible doorway could be seen, and she jammed the spear underneath it and pushed down. With a crumbling sound it slowly opened. Shima grabbed a nearby torch and headed in.

Using the fire's light, she made out more torches on the walls and lit those. This room was huge. It was rectangle-shaped and was dusty. The thing first noticed was the glimmer of metal from the fire. She silently walked over and caight sight of alot of swords bundled up. She grabbed them and made her way back to the weaponry. There were battle axes and tomahawks also, so she got them on her second trip inside. She continued her work unnoticed.

Authoresses notes- Howd'ja like it? This wasn't my favorite of the bunch. Poo. Well stay tuned for next time. Mmm-hmmm.