A/N: Sorry it took so long, I'll be trying to post up the chapters more quickly. This is a pretty long chapter (for me) and I did many drafts because now I'm trying to put in more of an effort to get all spelling and grammar mistakes correct.

Disclaimer: If I'm Erin Hunter why was I the first costumer at Barnes & Nobel's to buy Dark River this morning?

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Chapter 8: First Day of Training

"Firepaw! Firepaw wake up!"

Firepaw slowly opened his eyes to see Hazelpaw on top of him. He looked out the entrance of the apprentice den to see that the sky was still dark.

"Hazlepaw! Why'd you have to wake me up in the middle of the night?" Firepaw whined and rolled over in his nest to go back to sleep.

"Firepaw, it's not the middle of the night, it's just before sunhigh!" Hazlepaw nudged him with her nose.

"Mmhm…." He answered, flicking his paw at his sister's head to shew her away like fly.

"Firepaw," she was now using a calm, soft voice with a hint of annoyance in it. "You don't want to be late for training. What woul-"

Firepaw sprang out of his nest –completely and rudely cutting his sister off in the middle of her sentence- and ran into the clearing of ThunderClan camp, leaving Hazlepaw in the dust. He had almost completely forgotten Jaypaw's first and most important rule. NEVER be late for training.

After breathing in some nice fresh morning air, the newest apprentice made a bee-line for the fresh kill pile. He quickly chose a nice, plump, juicy vole that should have gone to the elders, but Firepaw would need all of his strength for his first training session. A hunting patrol was going out soon anyway. The elders could wait.

"'Morning Newbee!" Jaypaw greeted Firestar just as he had found a nice spot to eat his breakfast.

"Hi Jaypaw," Firepaw answered with a mouth full of vole. "Newbee" was the name that Jaypaw had come up with the night before. "Guess what Newbee?" the tom's eyes were full of excitement.

"What?" Firepaw tried to sound as enthusiastic as his denmate (which was pretty hard).

"You're training with me today! Won't that be great Newbee?" Firepaw's heart sank. He liked Jaypaw, but he was looking forward to training with Hollystar today.

"Perfect! Great! Just wonderful!" Firepaw answered with a giant fake smile. He should have known that the leader of ThunderClan would be too busy to train an apprentice. She probably had better things to do then train a crippled apprentice.

"You ok Newbee?" Firepaw nodded with a blank look on his face. "Ok Newbee, if you say so. See you at training!" Jawpaw dashed away to the fresh kill pile, leaving a lump of dirt on Firepaw's half-eaten vole. He pushed it to the side; he wasn't very hungry anymore anyway.

Suddenly Firepaw felt a soft tail curl around his head. He jumped, only to find out that it was Morningpaw.

"Oh, sorry, did I frighten you?" The ginger she-cat said in her soft voice.

"N-no. Not at all Morningpaw." He lied.

"Good luck on your first day of training! Hope you do well." She walked away with Cindertail, her mentor.

"Good luck for you too! I mean, not for your first- never mind…" why did he even try? Firepaw tried to make himself as small as a mouse. He took one last nervous glance at Morningpaw who turned to face him with a reassuring smile on her face, and she waved her tail goodbye.

Firepaw looked around the clearing. It became more visible as the sun rose higher. He soon found Hazelpaw and Mistpaw sitting in front of the nursery sharing tongues. He slowly limped over to then, carrying his dirty vole.

"Anybody want a vole?" He joked.

"Firepaw no! That's gross!" Mistpaw replied with a slight giggle, while Hazlepaw rolled her eyes. Mistpaw had always loved jokes and goofing off, but Hazlepaw had to ruin the fun with her more practical view of things.

"Shouldn't you be training?" Hazlepaw asked with a look that seemed like a queen who knew that her kits weren't telling her the whole story of their adventure. Almost at perfect timing, Fernpelt, Jaypaw's mentor, called for Firepaw.

"Firepaw! It's time to train! NOW! Come on!"

"How do you know these things?" Firestar asked Hazlepaw as if she had telepathically told Fernpelt to call for him at exactly that time.

"I have my ways." She answered with a slight smile on her face. Firepaw turned to leave but stopped when he realized that his sisters weren't at training either.

"Why aren't you guys training?" He asked with eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"FIREPAW! COME NOW!!!!!!!!!" Fernpelt ordered.

"Elder duty, blech!" Mistpaw quickly replied. "Better go now, I hear Fernpelt can be pretty strict!"

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When Firepaw finally limped/ran to Jaypaw and his mentor, they started walking into the forest. They were all quiet for a while, until Jaypaw –who must have gotten bored- rapidly started talking about what he had learned so far…..for what seemed like a moon.

Firepaw turned to Fernpelt and gave her a look that said Help me!!!!. She replied with a gesture that seemed to say you'll see .Firepaw didn't know what that meant, but he shrugged and went back to the torture of listening to Jaypaw.

After a while, the three cats approached the river.

"Ok, our destination is right beyond this river. It's not that wide, so you can just jump over." Fernpelt said quickly to the two apprentices.

"But, Fernpelt," Jaypaw objected. "That's WindClan territory!"

"Exactly! You passed your first test of the day! Today, Firepaw, you will be learning about the borders of our clan. As you just learned, beyond the river, is WindClan territory."

"Ok," Firepaw said. River, wind, river wind, river, wind. He repeated it in his mind so he could remember the border.

Next, they traveled to the other side of the forest, to another river near a halfbridge.

"This river separates us from ShadowClan." Fernpelt stated. "ShadowClan is one of our biggest enemies, so I would suggest not even-" She was cut off by a giant "snap" noise that sounded like someone stepping on a twig.

"Jaypaw, Firepaw, get down. Oh, it's only you Smokeclaw." An ash-grey tom walked out from behind the shelter of the trees. He had bright green eyes that could stun a mouse to death.

"What do you mean, only me? I happen to be deputy of ShadowClan! Do you think Nightstar chose me for nothing?" Smokeclaw objected.

"Well, everyone knows Nightstar doesn't have the best judgment in the clans," The light brown cat answered, rolling her eyes off to the side. Smokeclaw let out a slight growl.

"Come, meet my apprentice." He continued, ignoring Fernpelt's last remark. "Blackpaw?"

Firepaw remembered that name from somewhere. Yes! That was it, he appeared in one of his dreams with Leopardpaw and Onepaw! Blackpaw emerged from the same place his mentor entered from. Now that Firestar really got a good look at him, he realized how big he was. He was almost taller than Jaypaw! Also, he was almost a sleek and muscular as Tigerpaw, maybe even more.

"Blackpaw, these are ThunderClan cats. Remember their sent." Blackpaw took a quick wiff of the air. "I don't want you to socialize with them, unless necessary." Smokeclaw gave an evil look to Fernpelt, and she gave one back.

"Come, Firepaw, Jaypaw, we still have one more border to go over. Hopefully we won't meet up with anymore cats like him." She made her last words the loudest so Smokeclaw could clearly hear. Then she swiftly turned and walked away up river, and motioned for the two ThunderClan apprentices to do the same.

As they started walking, Firepaw put everything that just happened behind him, and started memorizing, halfbridge, shadow, halfbridge, shadow.

Finally they got to an old rundown twoleg nest. "This," Fernpelt said, "is abandoned twoleg place. It marks the end of our border. You must never go past here. You don't know what could be beyond here."

Twoleg nest, end, twoleg nest, end. Now he knew all of the ThunderClan borders, and they headed back to camp.

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"Badgerstripe! Badgerstripe!" Mistpaw yelled as Firepaw, Jaypaw, and Fernpelt entered the camp.

"What's wrong Mistpaw?" Badgerstripe asked.

"It's Squirreltail! She must have eaten a bad mouse or something, 'cause she says she's hurting real bad!"

Badgerstripe rushed into the elder's den.

"What do you think it could be Jaypaw?" Firepaw asked.

"I don't know." Jaypaw answered slowly. "Let's go get a closer look."

They rushed to the entrence of the elder's den. Hazlepaw and Mistpaw were in the den with the elders and Badgerstripe. Jaypaw and Firepaw strained to look into the den, and soon found Squirreltail's yellow pelt lying in her nest.

"What is it Badgerstripe?" asked Bluefoot, one of the oldest elders.

"I don't know. I've never seen this before. Get her to my den quickly." Badgerstripe ordered.

Mistpaw and Hazlepaw stayed behind in the elders den. "Oh it's all my fault!" Mistpaw said.

"Why would you say that?" Hazlepaw asked.

"Because I was in charge of her today! I was getting annoyed because she was ordering me around so much, and when I went to get her some food I got it from the bottom of the pile! Oh Hazlepaw, if she dies it's all my fault!"

"No it's not. And, hey, she might not die. Badgerstripe hasn't identified what she has yet. It could be anything!" But Hazlepaw's words weren't convincing enough for her sister.

"Might not die. That doesn't mean she won't!" Mistpaw laid her head on her sister's shoulder and started to cry, Firepaw walked in to help comfort his sister.

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A/N: So…how was it? R&R please! And tune in next time to see if Squirreltail lives, or dies. DUH NU DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!