AN: Yeah, the last chapter wasn't so great. There's not a whole lot ya can do with a ceremony, ta?

CHAPTER 4

That night, Kitepaw left the camp for the first time, following Yellowbelly. It was the first time she had ever seen what their territory looked like; it was lush forest, with soft, almost spongy earth, and prey-filled; several times Kitepaw simply stepped on a mouse without noticing.

All too soon, they came to the edge of their border. Kitepaw blinked in surprise.

"Is our territory really narrow?" she asked Yellowbelly. Yellowbelly snorted.

"No, it's circular," she meowed.

"But…why's it so small?"

"Because we only wanted the best forest, silly, and our awesome deadly waterfall camp, too," Yellowbelly purred. "Besides, this is the only clump of forest in the whole forest!"

Kitepaw blinked again. "That doesn't make any sense, Yellowbelly."

Yellowbelly sighed. "To our right, the forest ends; it's nothing but wasteland out there, DoomClan lives there and mopes around in their grand total of five trees, or something. To the left is DazzleClan; they live in caves full of beautiful gems and things, although food is hard to come by and you can't exactly eat gems."

"But doesn't this put us in a bad tactical position?" Kitepaw inquired. Yellowbelly simply stared at her.

"I don't think any leaders in this forest even know what tactics are," she replied, "and besides, if we didn't live in the center, how could we be called CenterClan?" She swatted Kitepaw's muzzle with her tail (which really sort of hurt) and continued padding forward. Kitepaw felt as if all of her fur had been stripped off as they left the safety of the forest. Above them was a large stone ridge.

"Is there some sort of ancient stone there where we can speak with StarClan, touched by the moon and stars?" Kitepaw asked.

Yellowbelly just laughed.

They began climbing up the ridge, ignoring the clearly-defined paths that some mighty creature had once outlined.

"Can we just walk on those?" Kitepaw wheezed, pulling herself up onto a ledge. "I'm not used to this."

Yellowbelly rolled her eyes. "Haven't you ever seen that lion movie, where the one lion climbs that big rock thing? Totally dramatic."

"It was only dramatic because he died," Kitepaw pointed out, but Yellowbelly appeared to have momentarily gone deaf, as she continued to climb.

Kitepaw finally managed to hook her claws onto the top of the ridge. Yellowbelly loomed over her, an evil grin on her face. Kitepaw let out a loud yelp of pain as Yellowbelly slammed her claws down onto Kitepaw's paws.

"I killed your father," she whispered in Kitepaw's ear.

"What?"

"Oh, wait, that's not right," Yellowbelly said with a frown. A contemplative look came over her face. "I am your father, maybe? I think I was thinking of the wrong part, hmm…."

"You're really hurting my paws," Kitepaw whimpered, hooking her back claws into the side of the ridge so she wouldn't fall.

"Eh, we can do it right next time," Yellowbelly decided, letting Kitepaw go and padding away. Kitepaw clung to the rock, trembling as she looked down, and then pulled herself up.

"StarClan, Yellowbelly, you made them bleed!" Kitepaw growled, licking her paws. "What's wrong with you—"

She stopped speaking, as she saw what loomed before them. It was an empty field, utterly desolate; the earth looked almost as if it had been scorched. Curiously, she followed Yellowbelly. A large structure of some kind stood at the edge of the field, covered in Twoleg scribbles.

"Cat-ion," Kitepaw read, "Rad-e-o-ak-ive."

"What was that?" Yellowbelly asked absentmindedly.

"That…." The word suddenly came to Kitepaw, "Sign. The sign says those weird words."

"You got a sign from StarClan?" Yellowbelly asked, turning quickly. There was almost a jealous look on her face.

"No, the Twoleg one," she mewed, pointing at it. "That's what it says."

"You can read it?" Yellowbelly asked. "That's something I've never heard before."

"The prophecy was about a kit with Twoleg things, right?" Kitepaw asked eagerly. "Maybe it's about me!"

"Ha!" Yellowbelly scoffed. "If it didn't mention you by name, it can't be about you; prophecies love being obvious that way. If it doesn't mention your name, it's just one of those little prophecies that serve no real purpose other than to be understood looking back after some minor event." Yellowbelly snorted. "You've got a lot to learn, little one!"

They continued walking, with Kitepaw looked around nervously. She felt queasy, somewhat sick to her stomach.

A pale, sickly light shone just ahead of them. Yellowbelly seemed pleased, padding forward quickly. A large green stone appeared, letting off a soft pulse of light. Just looking at it made Kitepaw feel sick.

"Is that the GreenStone?" she asked. Yellowbelly rolled her eyes.

"No, there's a ton of other green glowing stones," she replied. Kitepaw glanced around, and counted at least three others, varying in size.

"We just touch it and pass out!" Yellowbelly declared.

"That sounds a bit dangerous," Kitepaw meowed. "Maybe we shouldn't'—" She broke off as Yellowbelly drooped herself over the stone. Her eyes closed and her tongue lolled out of her mouth as she fell to the side. Kitepaw winced. Was that how they were supposed to speak to StarClan? It seemed a bit…awkward. And why weren't the other medicine cats here?

Kitepaw reached out a paw nervously, and tapped the stone. Her paw suddenly felt like lead, and she fell on her side as her conscienceless peeled away.

The first thing that hit her was the noise. There were hundreds of birds singing, but they were all keeping the same beat, a sort of strange pattern that made Kitepaw's paw thump against the ground. Lights danced behind her eyelids, which she assumed were stars, but when she opened them she saw the lights were in fact thousands of fireflies flitting around, casting glowing patterns on the forest floor.

"What's going on?" Kitepaw yowled above the din, but when she turned to Yellowbelly, the she-cat was doing something rather strange, twisting her body and moving with the music.

"Welcome welcome to StarClan, where the party is hearty!" a voice howled. Kitepaw turned and blinked at a large black tom padding towards them.

"Yo Yellowbelly! Rock the dance!" the tom trilled, and smiled at Kitepaw. "Hey little lady, how come you aren't grooving?"

"I-I don't understand! What's going on here? Are we in StarClan, or did we take the wrong turn somewhere?" Kitepaw asked. This was nothing like the quiet, starry forest she'd expected.

"You're in StarClan alright, where the party never stops because we're already dead!" The tom grinned, flashing white fangs at her. Kitepaw simply blinked, and he sighed.

"We were once the boring StarClan you were thinking of, until the mighty original Rockstar died and came here. He declared that StarClan must 'Let it rock', and so we have in mighty style! My name on earth was Ravenstar, but I prefer to be called Ravestar nowadays, alright?"

Kitepaw blinked, still not understand. Ravestar glanced at Yellowbelly, who just rolled her eyes.

"She's a newbie," Yellowbelly purred. "I'll set her straight."

Ravestar nodded, and directed his gaze towards a pair of StarClan cats that were obviously sneaking into a little burrow. "If the nest's a rockin'," he yowled to the, and one of them yelled back,

"Don't come a knockin'!"

Kitepaw watched with bewilderment. "I really don't understand."

Ravestar smiled broadly. "All in good time, dear. Just enjoy yourself until you wake up; it's time to party!"

"Shouldn't we get a prophecy, or something?" Kitepaw asked. "Isn't that what we came here for?"

Ravestar laughed again. "We'll come to you when it's time for those things," he purred. "You're just here to enjoy yourself, for the time being, and keep your Clan's hopes up."

"Just relax," Yellowbelly meowed. "The little prophecies that we were talking about earlier always come in our dreams, so we can ignore them and see how things work out!"

"But what about the big prophecies with our names in them, like the one Mossstar received when she was only a few moons old?" Kitepaw asked desperately. Mossstar had been Kitepaw's idol, when she was younger. She had wanted to be a great cat, just like the legendary leader.

Ravestar suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Funny story, that," he meowed. Kitepaw's eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean?"

Ravestar shuffled his paws. "It was all just one big misunderstanding, you see. Mosskit was a very sickly little kit, and she was on the verge of death. One of our cats went down to meet her and guide her to StarClan, but she sneezed, and the StarClan cat said, 'Bless you.' And well…things got a little out of hand. Mosskit took it to mean something completely different, and…you know."

Kitepaw felt as if her world was crashing around her. "So Mossstar wasn't really chosen by StarClan? She didn't really carve our dens through sheer will, and kill her enemies just by looking at them?"

"No no, she really did that," Ravestar insisted. "We had to cover up our mistake, you see. I mean really, which sounds better? Mossstar-who-was-just-a-mistake, or Mossstar-who-was-seriously-really-chosen-by-StarClan-honest?"

Kitepaw's ears flattened. "That's horrible! You lied to everyone!"

Ravestar waved his paw at her. "We have a very delicate balance, here," he meowed. "You may not quite understand it, but life's actually pretty good for everyone. Mossstar was a valiant leader, made better by the power we gave her. Starstar is conceited, Pinkstar's more concerned with the toms of his Clan than ruling, and Stonedstar is an addict, but at the same time there are no wars, right? No battles? And once you get to StarClan, all you have to do is party. It's better than you might think."

Kitepaw frowned. "But what about the warrior code? What about our entire way of life?"

"Think of it more as a set of guidelines, than actual rules," Ravestar purred with a wink. His ear twitched, and he blinked. "Time for you two to go."

"But we just got here! We didn't have any words of wisdom, any prophecies…anything!" Kitepaw protested. "Yellowbelly, don't you think—" She blinked, realizing her mentor had gone missing. Kitepaw looked around anxiously, finally spotting Yellowbelly on top of a large rock, with a group of cats listening eagerly.

They actually care about her flair in StarClan, Kitepaw thought. At least that's something.

"Fine," Ravestar meowed, rolling his eyes. "Come here then, picky."

Kitepaw blinked, taking a step towards Ravestar. His warm breath tickled her ear.

"The kite must fly, the rock must fall, or else the stars shall lose it all," he whispered, and then took a step back. "Happy? Good. Goodbye."

Before Kitepaw could protest, the dream faded away, leaving Kitepaw with birdsong pounding in her ears and fireflies dancing behind her eyelids.

AN: What do you MEAN things don't glow green with radiation in real life? It always happens in the cartoons!

Also, how many movies can I reference in a single chapter? I think I've gotten three so far~