A/N: Sorry I haven't updated in a while!!!! I just updated my other story, explaining everything, and I'm too lazy to type it all again...

Enjoy chapter 21!! The end is coming soon!!!!!!!!! Not to sound pessimistic, or anything...O.o

"Cherrypaw?"

Cherrypaw opened her eyes to see Threetrees surrounding her. She was seated below the Rock, which was what the Packs called it. She also learned that the Twoleg inventions surrounding the Rock were called benches. Funny name, really.

"Who's there?" she called blindly, looking around her.

"Cherrypaw," the voice came again, and a large ginger tom padded out from underneath a bush. "You don't know me, but I'm sure you will recognize my name. I am Firestar, a friend of Skyfeather and Stormstar."

Cherrypaw did a double-take. "What?" she stammered. "Firestar? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in StarClan?"

Firestar chuckled. "This is a dream, Cherrypaw," the ginger tom replied. "Skyfeather requests that I tell you something." He paused. "Pass this information on to Snowstorm and the others. Cherrypaw, Valley—"

"Come on, you lazy furball! I never thought it was possible for a cat to sleep forever until I met you!"

Cherrypaw shot open her eyes and jolted to her paws. Feather was standing beside her, jabbing a paw out at her with sheathed claws.

"Feather!" Cherrypaw exclaimed in exasperation. "Firestar was just trying to tell me—" She stopped herself at the look of confusion on Feather's face. "Right," she muttered. "You don't know who Firestar is."

The two cats padded out of the fighters' room and walked into the hot, damp air.

Cherrypaw shook herself in annoyance. "Ugh!" she hissed. "It's official. Greenleaf is here."

Dustcloud padded up to the cats. "You're right," she agreed. "It must be."

"Greenleaf?" Feather echoed in confusion. "You mean summer? It's summer. Spring ended yesterday, I think."

Cherrypaw cocked her head to one side. "Summer? You call greenleaf summer?"

"I guess so," Feather responded. "It's summer, or greenleaf."

Snowstorm and Speck trotted up to the cats. Cherrypaw wanted to tell Snowstorm about her cut-off dream, but she didn't want to say it in front of all these other cats.

"Today we'll take a tour of the Packs' territories. When we pass Diamond Pack, I'll introduce you to Valley," Speck meowed.

Cherrypaw motioned to Snowstorm silently and padded over to a clump of ferns up against the barrier. Snowstorm followed her.

"Snowstorm, Firestar came to me in my dreams last night," Cherrypaw mewed, right to the chase.

Snowstorm widened her eyes. "Did he?"

"He was about to tell me something about Valley when Feather woke me up," Cherrypaw murmured, working at the ground with her claws.

"Are you sure it wasn't just a dream, or something?"

"I'm sure. He said that Skyfeather requested that he tell me."

Snowstorm nodded, thoughtful. "All right then," she finally meowed decisively. "Just keep an extra eye out on your surroundings. Maybe he'll come back tonight."

Cherrypaw nodded and the two cats padded back to the others. Cherrypaw highly doubted that Firestar would come back to her, but she had to be optimistic. If Skyfeather wanted to tell her, it must be serious.

When Cherrypaw was finished gulping down the remnants of her small pigeon, she padded up to where Frostfur and Whitepaw were, sharing tongues in the hot greenleaf sun.

"Are you coming along to meet Valley?" she asked the two basking cats.

"Of course we are," Whitepaw replied. "We were sent to meet him, we might as well."

Cherrypaw nodded. She opened her mouth to say more, but was cut off by a yowl from the Rockpile (A/N: xD) near the centre of the clearing. That was Coal Pack's form of the Highrock. Speck was on top of it, Snowstorm right next to her.

"Cats of Coal Pack," Speck called out, "today I will be taking the Clan cats along with two other fighters and a trainer out to Diamond Pack's territory. We will stop by Gemstone Pack's territory, but not today. I would like Bella, Star, and Alice to come."

Cherrypaw blinked up at the First. Bella, Star, and Alice. What was Feather talking about? What kind of specialty did Bella or Alice have? They certain weren't very specialized names.

The group of nine cats filed one by one out of the Pack home. Speck briefly exchanged words with Butterfly before heading out into the forest beyond.

Seaspray caught Cherrypaw before she vanished out of the clearing. "I'm sorry about Feather," the she-cat meowed softly. "She can be kind of loud and imaginative. She likes to think that she's fast and light like a feather, but that's really not the reason why Pack cats are given names. My name is Seaspray because my mother named me that, not because I can jump high."

Cherrypaw chuckled and nodded. "I figured," she meowed. "I was thinking about Speck's name, and Alice's."

Cherrypaw slithered out of the opening in the boundary and followed the patrol of cats away from the home. Eventually, the ravine wall came into sight and Speck began leaping nimbly up the clay rocks, the other Pack cats hard on her heels.

Snowstorm hesitated before scrambling up the wall. Frostfur helped her when she stumbled a few times, but Cherrypaw knew that she was going to be made an elder soon in RainClan.

When the cats reached the top, Speck didn't stop the check on the others. She immediately padded onward. When they made it to Threetrees, she turned left and disappeared in between two enormous bushes laden with sweet-smelling flowers.

Beyond the bushes, the ravine turned into a giant cliff face, which Cherrypaw knew as Cliff Peakson. She looked down cautiously only to see dark blue, slurping waves sucking at the bottom of the drop. Shivering, Cherrypaw quickly dashed away from the edge and to the safety of Snowstorm's side.

"How are the Packs' territories divided?" Snowstorm was asking Bella.

"You'll be able to scent the boundaries," Bella replied. "They're diversely strong."

Snowstorm nodded. As the patrol trudged onward, a new scent caught Cherrypaw's attention. It was clean-smelling, almost with no scent at all. It was much different from that of the Coal Pack's scent, which was strong and pungent.

As the clean, fresh scent grew stronger, Speck stopped. She leaned down and sniffed at the trunk of a tree twisting up from the cliff.

"Here's the border marker between Coal Pack and Diamond Pack territory," she explained. "And here comes a Diamond Pack patrol."

As if on cue, a group of three cats padded from behind the tree. The head was a dark brown tabby tom with matching-coloured eyes. The second was an all white tom, and the third was a ginger tom with green eyes. Cherrypaw instantly saw many traces of Firestar in the Diamond Pack tom.

"Greetings, Stripe," Speck meowed warmly. "And hello to you, Snow and Ginger."

Cherrypaw stifled a snort. Even though these tough-looking, obviously fighters were toms, their names sounded exactly the opposite, besides Stripe.

"Hello, Speck," Stripe welcomed. "I see there are some unfamiliar cats with you. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Speck replied. "These unfamiliar cats are Clan cats. They live in the forest far from here." The tortoiseshell turned to Cherrypaw. "This is Cherrypaw, a RainClan apprentice. They call trainers apprentices. This is Snowstorm, Cherrypaw's teacher. They call them mentors. The others are Frostfur, Dustcloud, and Whitepaw."

Stripe nodded in welcome. "It's nice to meet you," he meowed.

"Snowstorm, Frostfur, and Dustcloud are all warriors. They call fighters warriors. Cherrypaw and Whitepaw are apprentices."

"May we come and introduce them to Valley and the rest of Diamond Pack?" Star asked, getting to her paws.

"Of course," Stripe mewed. "Follow me."

The cats turned around the padded beyond the big tree. On the other side, the cliff jutted out some, and the big bushes disappeared. A Twoleg nest was waiting calmly for them, but there were no others in sight. The cats plodded on.

Eventually the Diamond Pack patrol led the cats down a grassy slope to the sandy beach below. The waves sloshed back and forth from the sea, spraying Cherrypaw. She shook her pelt uncomfortably. The last thing she wanted was to be plunged into the dark depths of the deep water (A/N: Once again, xD).

The large group of cats padded along the sandy beach until a forest of Twolegs came into view. Then they lunged into the trees opposite the water and trotted along in the safety of the wood.

Eventually, they crossed the Twoleg path in the middle of the trees and bounded up the forest slope. Cherrypaw cherished the feeling of undergrowth on her paws as they raced up through the trees.

When the slope levelled out, another boundary wall came into view. It was made of torn-apart ferns and twigs twined together.

Stripe, Snow, and Ginger slipped through a gap in the wall, followed by the Coal Pack cats. Snowstorm hesitated once more before disappearing in the ferns. Cherrypaw followed her cautiously, unsure of what she'd fine.

When they made it inside, the camp, or home, was busy with activity. Cats, mostly toms—in fact, all of the Diamond Pack cats were toms, as Speck had mentioned—were shuffling in every direction possible. Stripe weaved his way in and out of them without faltering or hesitating.

"Valley," the striped tabby called into the middle of Diamond Pack's Rockpile. A light tan tom emerged from the tumbled rocks. He had a jet-black tail, as Whitepaw and Skyfeather had described.

"Valley!" Whitepaw exclaimed, rushing up to the Diamond Pack First.

"Lucifer?" Valley questioned.

Instantly, something felt odd about Valley. Cherrypaw felt it in her paws, which were itching to leave this strange place and go back to the Coal Pack home, where she knew all of the cats. Valley seemed…wrong. She didn't know why, but something about him made her want to pelt off into the undergrowth, away from the clutter of toms.

"What are you doing here?" Valley asked the black and white LightClan apprentice.

"My name is actually Whitepaw now," Whitepaw responded. "And I'm here to find you! Wow, it's been such a long time."

Valley blinked. "So…Whitepaw…why are you here?"

"Let me explain," Snowstorm meowed, stepping up in front of Whitepaw. "My name is Snowstorm, a warrior—er, fighter—of RainClan." She sat down on her paws and explained the Clan customs to the listening Pack First. She explained the differences between terms, and Clan life.

Valley nodded thoughtfully. "So one of your RainClan queens had a dream from StarClan?" He nodded once more. "We call StarClan Night Pack (A/N: Or, do they??? I can't remember...T.T). Just like StarClan, they are descended fighters, trainers, and seniors of the three Packs."

"I understand this," Snowstorm mewed. "Skyfeather is the queen who received the message from StarClan. Whitepaw here told us of a cat named Valley with a black ending, a black tail. That's you. Do you think you could come back to our forest with us and help us against the Two—humans?"

Valley looked down, thoughtful. "May we talk in private, please?" he meowed eventually. Snowstorm nodded and got to her paws. The two cats padded into the Rockpile and disappeared, out of sight.

Alice turned to Cherrypaw. "What's it like in the forest you live in?"

The unexpected question took Cherrypaw by pleasant surprise. "Um, well," she stuttered, "it's a lot like this forest, except there are more Twoleg nests, and more Thunderpaths"—she rethought her sentences—"There are more human houses and roads."

Alice nodded. "Oh," she mewed. "Was it always like that?"

Cherrypaw shook her head. "When the ancient Clans of ThunderClan, ShadowClan, RiverClan, and WindClan lived in the forest, there were no houses or roads in sight."

Alice nodded taking in all the information. "It would be fun to live there with you."

That reminded Cherrypaw of Snowstorm's offer. What if Speck and the rest of Coal Pack decided to come and live with them in RainClan? The Clan wouldn't suffer from lack of cats—Icepaw was probably given a full medicine cat name by now. That meant RainClan no longer had any apprentices, and there weren't a lot of warriors to begin with. Hopefully these cats would agree to help and live in their forest.

Just then, Valley and Snowstorm reappeared from the First's den. Snowstorm had a grave expression on her face, and Cherrypaw feared that she might have felt the same way as her when she entered the Rockpile.

"Cats of RainClan, LightClan, and Coal Pack," Snowstorm meowed over the cluster of bust cats. "Valley isn't the cat. Speck is."

A/N: If you're reading my other story, you'll understand the multiple "xD"s. Also, the descriptions of Diamond Pack's territory is exactly what I saw when I went to Portland, Oregon. My brother tried to climb up the slope where the Diamond Pack's camp is, and when he came back down (well, stumbled), he said he saw a clearing with rocks and bushes around the edge. I was like, "Was it a Clan camp?" So I based that area around Portland. AWESOME PLACE!!