Chapter Two: Poof!

Poof!

"-mean? …AGH!"

He was on the ground. He was yelling. And he was furious.

When "he" is Jayfeather, that is not a good combination.

In fact, it was such a not-good combination that it actually took him a second to realize he was no longer in StarClan's sacred realm. But when he did, he freaked out.

Hence the "AGH!"

He jumped to his paws to spin around and search the area.

Which was when he realized something was really wrong.

Because he didn't have paws.

He had feet.

This discovery was what made him screech like a kit with its whiskers pulled and spin in circles, desperately trying to get a good look at himself. (At least I can see, he noted. I guess this is sort of like a dream.)

He soon ascertained that he was, indeed, a Twoleg. He was a little older than a Twoleg kit, yet younger than the parental Twolegs who raised the kits. He supposed this was a translation of a youngish cat like himself- a fairly new warrior, had that been his path.

He was wearing Twoleg clothes: a dark blue- wait, wait, wait, he thought. Clothes? They're removable furs! But his subconscious mind seemed to think that 'clothes' was the appropriate term. Perhaps that was what Twolegs called them. No matter; he decided to let it go for the time being and continued his assessment. Before long, he was thinking more words he didn't really know.

He was wearing a dark blue t-shirt with a whitish-yellow star on it, loose black pants, and black sandals with black socks underneath. There was a bag or pouch of some sort attached to his right thigh by a white band wrapped repeatedly around his leg. He made a mental note to check it later to see if it contained anything. His hair appeared to be gray and shoulder-length (hair? he found himself thinking. Hair? Am I insane? It's fur! FUR!), but more than that he could not tell. When he studied his hands, he found them to be rather fine-boned, like the rest of him, he noted, and they were encased in fingerless gloves that matched his shirt. Also, his wrists were wrapped in similar gear- arm warmers. Comparing himself to a nearby tree, he decided that he was around five feet (tail-lengths? he wondered) tall, and also that he was rather thin.

Having completed his self-examination, he sighed and stared up at the noontime sky. "Well, what now?" he muttered, staring up at the clouds.

As if to answer his question, he heard a poof! behind him and a very familiar voice crying "Wait! Spottedleaf, please-!"

He spun around. In front of him was a very confused and dazed-looking human (Twoleg! Twoleg! TWOLEG! he mentally berated himself) girl, visibly younger than himself, with soft blue eyes and silvery hair that fell just past her shoulders. She was as tall as him, but no more, equally thin, and dressed in a layered top that was green and orange, black capri pants, and laced brown leather boots that reached up to her ankles. The shirt consisted of a green t-shirt underneath a cropped pink tank top that would have exposed her stomach were it not for the green shirt. The pink shirt had a little version of the star on Jayfeather's chest up in the upper right-hand corner. She wore no arm or hand gear, but had a pouch just like his on her leg.

Then she spoke again. Well, actually, screamed was more like it.

"AAAAHHHH! Human! I mean, Twoleg! I mean- wait, why is it so- wait, why am I- AAAAHHH!"

Yep, no doubt about it, Jayfeather thought exasperatedly. That's her, all right.

"Dovepaw?" he said carefully, stretching out his arms to try and placate her.

She jumped and stared at him suspiciously, but slowly, carefully lowered her guard as she recognized his voice. "Jayfeather?" she asked relief palpable in her tone.

He nodded at her, and she relaxed completely, even smiling at him a little.

"Well," she said, "I do feel a lot better knowing you're one of the other three. But, StarClan could have warned us a bit better, huh? I mean, what's with being…"

"Human?" he supplied quietly. She blinked, surprised. "How do you- I mean, we- know that wo-"

Poof!

"…GaaaAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"Lionblaze?" Jayfeather and Dovepaw said, with classic anime sweat-drops, as they turned to face the newest arrival.

The boy blinked owlishly at them, his warm brown eyes as wide as the moon. His hair was a matching brown, with vivid orange streaks, and spiky. He wore a black jacket with white stripes several inches thick on the upper arms, just below his shoulders. Above these stripes were two miniaturized stars, like on the other two's clothing, arranged so that you could only see the entire star if you were standing facing his shoulder. His pants were black, he too had a pouch on his leg, and he wore simple, all-purpose black shoes.

"Jayfeather? Dovepaw?" he gasped, then grinned. "Oh, good! I almost-"

"-thought you came to the wrong place?" Jayfeather completed. Lionblaze nodded, still smiling widely. "But you two are here, so… I mean, three StarClanners couldn't have screwed up… right…?"

There was a rather foreboding silence. But then they all shrugged and knotted together under the tree.

"So," Lionblaze said as they all settled down under the leafy foliage. "Obviously we were three of the four. Do either of you know who the fourth is?"

Dovepaw shook her head, eyes thoughtful, but Jayfeather remained silent, glancing away. Lionblaze narrowed his eyes and studied his brother intently. "Jayfeather?" he asked pointedly. "Do you know something?"

Jayfeather stayed mum, staring into the distance with a slightly guilty look on his face.

Lionblaze saw this and pounced, ruthlessly tickling the shorter boy as he screeched "Who is it, you? Tell me, tell me, tell meeee!"

"I won't tell you, I won't tell you, I won't-!" Jayfeather screeched, gasping for breath as the tickling increased in intensity. But he was cut off by-

Poof!

"Wait- Tallstar, I-!"

There was utter silence as the Three and the new arrival stared each other down. Then two jaws dropped to the floor as two voices scattered the birds for miles around.

"NOOOOOOOOOooooOOOOOOooooo!1!1!11!one!"

Jayfeather sighed, looking over the newest- and final- member of their party.

He was tall and lean, but with clear evidence of toned muscles, especially in his long legs, which were clearly built for speed. He had stormy gray eyes and shaggy black hair, with bangs that flopped down to completely cover one eye. He wore and ensemble nearly identical to Jayfeather's, except that his pants were roughly cut (or perhaps torn, as they appeared) just above the knee. Also, he wore a collar much like a dog's, except it was studded with sharp metal bits. Two like it adorned his wrists in lieu of Jayfeather's arm warmers, and another pair was visible just above the tops of his shoes.

Lionblaze, having by now recovered from the shock and regained his ability to speak coherently, turned to face Jayfeather with a look upon his face that could have sent an entire horde of badgers, foxes, dogs, wolves, and rogues running to their mothers. "You knew?" he hissed, his eyes blazing. "You KNEW and you didn't tell me? I mean, the WindClan stench I can handle, but… but HIM?" He turned to glare at the unlucky source of his fury, who was also seething.

"Look, I'm not too happy about it either," Breezepelt snarled. "But it's not like-"

"Yes, well, we didn't expect you'd be pleased," broke in a new voice.

All four heads whipped around in a comical manner, but only one face lit in recognition.

"Yellowfang!" Jayfeather cried, his voice permeated with relief.

"Yellowfang?" echoed the other three.

"She was one of ThunderClan's previous medicine cats," Jayfeather explained, eyes shining.

The woman nodded, her yellow eyes amused. (Actually, dear reader, it was very lucky that Jayfeather, being blind most of the time, was an expert at voice recognition, because the grinning platinum-blonde vixen, aged about twenty-five, who was standing before them wasn't exactly the first image that came to mind when one thinks of a human Yellowfang.)

"But," she said, "I can't stay long. So all four of you need to shut up, put your differences aside for a moment, and listen."

Though Lionblaze shot one last glare (returned, mind you) at Breezepelt, they all nodded and stared at her intently.

She smiled quickly, then assumed a more serious demeanor, beginning to speak quickly. "All right. First off- on behalf of myself, Spottedleaf, Feathertail, and Tallstar, I apologize for our inability to warn you prior to your arrival here about the… side-effects… of your journey. But the simple truth is, we couldn't tell you much and we… still can't tell you much now. But I'll try to tell you what you need to know.

"Secondly, there is some information you need about where you are- or rather, the people here. Now, I don't know how much the three of you," she said, gesturing to Lionblaze, Dovepaw, and Breezepelt, "were told, but I told Jayfeather rather a lot, so he can fill you in later. In addition to the information he has, though, there is a bit more I can tell you about the warriors here." She paused for breath, cleared her throat, and then continued. "As I'm sure you're by now guessed, the warriors in this world aren't cats, they're humans- that is to say, Twolegs. They also don't call themselves warriors- they go by shinobi. Or… ninjas.

"And they don't fight like you do. They use weapons- things called kunai, shuriken, swords, and others. I'm sure you'll learn all about those in time.

"Thirdly," she said, then paused a moment for another breath before hurriedly going on. "There is something I must give you." She reached down to the pouch attached to the belt that ran along her waist, bringing her loose white tunic to hug her body there. From this pouch she extracted a small roll of what looked like white cloth, which she handed to Jayfeather. "Don't read is yet, there isn't time!" she told him hastily when he began to unroll it curiously. "Which brings me to point number four," she added. "These bodies have many skills that are not instinctive to humans, yet we felt that you would need but didn't have time to learn on your own. Therefore, we- as in, StarClan- saw fit to equip you with these skills. They include things like reading, writing, extensive "human" vocabularies, and two-legged fighting and transportation skills- you know, walking, running, jumping, things like that. Believe it or not, it can actually take Twolegs more than four seasons to learn to walk! So we gave you that one." At this point, she sighed, closed her eyes, and thought for a moment.

"Hmm," she muttered, but then shook her head and opened her eyes. "Now, I think that's all the information I can give you. I do, however, have some instructions." She raised a single finger and smiled a bit. "One. From here on out, you are to go by the first halves of your names only. Until you return to our world, you are Jay, Dove, Lion, and Breeze. Understood?" They nodded, and she continued.

"Two. You are not allowed to tell anyone the truth, save four special people. So if anyone asks where you're from, tell them you are nomads whose teacher has told you to visit the Village Hidden in the Leaves and find someone. Which brings us to three: walk-" she pointed to the east, down a small dirt path- "that way until you reach said village. And four: once you are there, you are to find someone named Sakura Haruno. She is one of the four you are allowed to tell your true story to. However, you mustn't tell her right away. She may not believe you, and if she doesn't you're in trouble."

"Um, Yellowfang?" Jayfe- Jay broke in.

"What?" she asked sharply. He simply pointed at her.

She was literally fading, so that you could begin to see the tree she was standing I front of through her shoulder. Glancing down at herself, she cursed and then whipped her head around to stare at each of them in turn. "One last thing," she said quickly. "The village is lead by someone called the hokage. The one who lead before the current hokage was a man named Danzo. He was forced from power and is presumed dead, but he isn't. He's still out there, and he fights against you! Listen to me: never, ever trust him, or believe that he's gone! He's just hiding in the shadows, biding his time. Do you understand?"

"Yes!" Jay said. Then he gasped, alarmed. "Yellowfang!"

She was almost completely faded. He reached out for her instinctively, but he seemed to be grabbing at thin air. A moment later, she was gone, but all four heard her last warning ring through the air. "Time is of the essence, you four! Hurry!" But it was followed by a most uncharacteristically tender whisper: "Take care."

.x.x.x.x.

Well! There you have it: chapter two! What do y'all think? :3 I'll try to make and put up ref sheets for our four kitty-ninjas, as well as Yellowfang, pretty soon. Oh, and by the way, the words in italics in the descriptive paragraphs were words that StarClan gave the group… of course, they didn't know that until the end of the chapter. But still.

-cough cough- Well, then. Both -sama and Mossnose correctly guessed (by the time of this writing) that Number Four was Breezey-kun. :D So, hugs and cookies to you two. Yay!

Well, then, that's all for now! Reviews = love, guys! Ciao!

-Dawny