A/N: Oh my gosh. I love you all. *hugs* I honestly did not think I would get this many reviews... But let it be known that I do appreciate every one of them. ;) Lol, there are twenty-seven votes in my poll now. Nineteen for DawnXStorm, and only eight for AmberXTiger. ;O; If you haven't voted yet, do! ;3
Happy belated Black Friday and belated Thanksgiving! Enjoy the chapter, guys. :)
Chapter 16: Pounce
"Hello, young Tigerpaw and Amberpaw!" someone calls out just as we step into the training hollow. I recognize the voice before I see or smell him. It's Pounceclaw.
He's sitting against a tree, tail curled around his paws, looking very happy. "You two are the first apprentices to get here!" he crows. "You're early, too. Good job, good job!"
I stifle a chuckle as I think that we would be even earlier if we hadn't paused to scuffle in the snow on the way, waking up a few other cats while doing so. Good job? Well, you're the one giving the compliment. Tigerpaw obviously sees the irony, too, as he nudges me with a subtle snicker.
"So no one else is here?" Tigerpaw asks.
"Nope," says Rainfall. The pretty gray she-cat is sitting a few fox-lengths away, under another tree, with very wide branches that are heavily laden with snow. It dips under the weight and sends a small shower of the white stuff onto her head. She hisses in annoyance and shakes her head to get it off, in an exasperated way that tells me that this has been happening for a while. She confirms this when she looks up at the pine and glares at it, snapping, "Do that one more time and you'll wish that whoever planted you didn't!"
I clear my throat, simultaneously stuffing the laugh threatening to burst out back in. "Um, are we going to wait for them?"
Rainfall snaps her eyes away from the tree trunk, still looking as if she'd like to murder it. "Yes," she answers. "Even Ravenwing and Falconflight aren't here yet, so it appears we're going to have to wait. We're going to do partner work today, so there will still be enough warriors left to hunt and patrol."
Maybe Tigerpaw and I can be partners! I glance at him hopefully, only to find that he's turning at the same time. Our eyes meet.
Pounceclaw catches our shared look. "No, the pairs will be made up of an apprentice who has a mentor attending, and an apprentice who doesn't. Both of your mentors are coming, so that won't be possible. Plus, we're picking the pairs."
"Fox-dung," I hear Tigerpaw say very quietly under his breath. "What about tomorrow?" he asks, louder.
The white-and-brown spotted tom considers. "Perhaps," he says. "Don't count on it, but maybe."
"Hi!" Graypaw, along with Ashpaw, bursts into the clearing. Petalpaw and my sister come rushing in a few seconds later. "Are we late?"
"Just on time, actually," Rainfall replies. "Later than them, though." She nods at Tigerpaw and me.
"We were going to be here later," Petalpaw pipes up, "because we were going to play in the new snow, but someone already rolled around in it." She shrugs her light brown shoulders. "That's good though, I guess."
I notice that Tigerpaw has an expression on his face that half says he wants to laugh and half says he wants to hide. Instead, I tell him he looks like he's a drowned mouse, and to wipe that weird look off his face.
"Here we are!" Falconflight pads into the clearing, Ravenwing at his side. "Amberpaw! You're finally here!"
I purr. "Yes, I'm finally here!"
"What took you so long?" Rainfall asks, smirking. "I knew you were lazy, brother, but not that much."
This takes me by surprise. Though this is a small Clan, and though they do have the same pelt color, I hadn't thought Falconflight had any siblings. This just shows how much I've been missing, being cooped up in the medicine cat's den so long.
"Sleeping," he responds. "A deputy needs a good dose of sleep."
Rainfall rolls her eyes and opens her mouth to say something else, but just then, Cloudpaw tears into the clearing, skidding on her hind paws as she realizes that she's going too fast and needs to stop. "Am I laaate—Aaaah!" Cats scatter, but it doesn't matter. Unable to stop, she crashes into the tree that Rainfall is sitting under.
Almost in slow motion, the tree relieves itself of its entire load with a heavy, creaking groan.
A whole ton of snow falls from the branches and thunders onto the ground, covering Rainfall and Cloudpaw both.
Falconflight steps forward to see if they're okay, but their heads surface before he can reach the giant mound of snow, and the expression on one of their faces is enough to make him stop.
"I'm not sure which one I want to kill first," says Rainfall in a strangely calm voice, spitting out snow. "The tree, or the mouse-brained, cloud-fluff for brains, idiotic, incompetent, foolish, FOX-DUNGING APPRENTICE!" Her voice rises as the sentence ends. She begins to struggle out of the snow. Falconflight takes a hesitant step as if to help her, but she stops him in his tracks with an amber-eyed frosty glare. I've got to try that glare out some time. "Do you think," she hisses, "that Ivyrain will let me maul her apprentice? It'll only take her about SIX MOONS TO RECOVER!"
Cloudpaw has ducked back under the snow, leaving only her two white ears above the surface. The color is so like the hue of the snow that they look like two strange bumps, twin ripples on top of the snow pile.
A sentence forms in my mind, and I can't resist.
I take a step forward, and say in my loudest voice, "In answer to your question, Cloudpaw: Yes. Yes, you are late."
Her head pops back up, and this time it's her giving the frosty, homicidal glare, not Rainfall, and I know I'm going to pay for it later, but I can't help it. And as I begin to laugh, so does everyone else.
Oh, come on.
I know I shouldn't have made that joke earlier!
Is this StarClan's way of punishing me?
"Ready, Amberpaw? Cloudpaw?" Falconflight stands before us, gazing at us seriously as he asks the question.
Shooting one more glance at Cloudpaw, my partner, I push aside my disgruntlement and nod. Yes, I am. I will not allow someone like Cloudpaw to get in the way of my first sunrise back at training.
"Yes, Falconflight," Cloudpaw chirps brightly, the perfect image of an obedient apprentice.
Humph. It's obvious that she's trying to show me up.
I don't think I'm in a very charitable mood today.
"What are we going to be doing today?" I ask.
"I'll be teaching you guys how to pounce on a moving enemy," he responds.
"You mean, like how we catch prey?"
"Kind of, Amberpaw," Falconflight says. "Only, mice don't fight back. Our lesson will deal with pouncing on another cat and then fighting with them." He takes a step back and eyes us, then tells us to turn toward each other. We do so, and he commands, "Leap."
He's barely finished his sentence when Cloudpaw lets out a loud screech and lunges toward me. I rise up onto my hind legs for the second time in as many hours and jump, meeting her in midair and locking my claws into hers. I must have launched myself higher, because when gravity takes hold, it's to slam the white apprentice into the ground on her back, with me standing triumphantly above her.
"Rematch!" Cloudpaw demands once she's discerned that I won, scrambling up onto her paws.
Falconflight purrs with amusement. "Oh, don't worry, Cloudpaw," he says. "We'll be doing this many, many times." He then looks at me. "Wonderful job, Amberpaw." His eyes glow with delight. "You jumped so high, I could have sworn you were flying."
"Really?" My fur fluffs up with surprised pleasure.
"Yes, really," he says. "You do have long legs. Like your grandfather."
"Thanks," I say shyly, peering down at my legs. They seem the same as always, but then, I have had them for every day of myself and never thought much about them, so perhaps it's just Falconflight's perspective.
"How's your paw?"
"Good," I confirm, knowing which one he means, and stomping on the ground with it just to emphasize my point. No pain at all.
Cloudpaw lets out a loud sigh. "Yes, yes, you can jump high, how wonderful. Can we continue now?"
"Certainly, Cloudpaw," the dark gray tabby tom says. "Resume your former positions, please."
Cloudpaw and I face each other once more, and at Falconflight's "Go!" we hurdle at each other with accompanying yowls. Yet again, we crash into the earth with Cloudpaw on the bottom. I'm standing up when Falconflight cries, "Come on, you're not going to let her walk away like that, are you, Cloudpaw?"
I immediately whirl to face Cloudpaw, and almost slam into her face. "No, I won't!" Cloudpaw yells as she tackles me and we grapple with each other. I land a blow on her belly—with sheathed claws, of course. She retaliates with a nip on my shoulder.
"You two are fighting like elderly badgers!" Falconflight roars. "Cloudpaw, cover up that belly! In a real battle, it would get sliced open! Amberpaw, stop hitting her and bite like a real warrior instead! Don't let her get away!"
I am miffed at the "real warrior" remark—was that an insult?—but he is my mentor, and what am I supposed to do but obey? So, I grab Cloudpaw's flailing leg in my jaws and hold on.
"Ow!" She tries to hop away, and then attempts to bite me on the ear to get me to release her, but I have her back leg, and she has as much of a chance of attacking me now as a frog does of escaping from a seasoned CreekClan warrior. "Let me go!" she wails.
Well, that was easy. She just surrendered, didn't she? Still holding Cloudpaw's leg firmly in my teeth, I turn my head toward Falconflight, and he nods at me. I drop the limb.
Almost immediately, Cloudpaw comes at me with an angry caterwaul. She's an angry cloud of white fur, complete with hisses like lightning. She has me flat on my back, mostly with surprise, and try as I might, I can't seem to roll over. There's simply no room.
"Got you," she says in a tone of voice that I think is supposed to invoke fear.
It doesn't.
I remember a move I saw Lilacpaw and Ashpaw practicing while I was in the medicine cat's den. Lilacpaw had tackled Ashpaw to the ground when unexpectedly, Ashpaw went limp under my sister's paws. She'd backed off, looking confused, when suddenly Ashpaw sprang to his feet and barreled into Lilacpaw's side, knocking her to the ground. They'd shared a laugh after figuring out that Ashpaw had tricked her, but it's not the good feelings in this memory I'm looking for.
Instead, I'm trying to remember exactly how Ashpaw leaped to his paws and tackled Lilacpaw.
Once I'm sure I have the move cemented in my mind, I go motionless, closing my eyes. Above me, Cloudpaw doesn't shift a single kittenstep; her shadow still looms, big and dark against my eyelids.
"What are you doing?" she demands, her voice dripping with suspicion. "Don't think you can fool me. Ivyrain taught me that move a few sunrises ago. So if you think that that's going to work, you'd better think again, because—"
Now!
I open my eyes, clench the muscles in my abdomen, and throw myself forward, slamming into Cloudpaw's chest. She squeaks in alarm, and I think she would have scuttled backward as fast as she could, if not for the fact that she's already knocked flat on the ground in a very humiliating position. I'll bet it burns.
"Victory!" I cry, not being able to resist.
"Nice, very nice!" compliments Falconflight in a loud voice. "Amberpaw, fantastic job there pretending to be defeated. Cloudpaw, I applaud you for being suspicious. Nevertheless, you must follow that suspicion up with action. Don't be caught off guard."
"Great StarClan, Falconflight," meows Rainfall, padding to her brother's side. "It sounded as if you were holding a battle between a fox and a badger."
"Cloudpaw's the badger!" I pipe, my triumph making me especially enthusiastic.
"They were learning how to pounce and wrestle," Falconflight explains proudly.
"Still sounded as if a fox and a badger were fighting," Rainfall insists with amusement twinkling in her eyes. "I think that should be enough for today."
"I agree!" say Graypaw and Darkpaw in unison, who have followed Rainfall.
"We worked on landing a blow on another cat without getting hit in return. I got Darkpaw fifteen times!" Graypaw exclaims.
"Wait until next time," Darkpaw promises. "You won't be able to lift a paw by the time I'm done with you!"
I laugh at his inadvertent threat to be very violent the next training session, and Rainfall cuffs the dark brown tom on the ear with her tail.
"Ow!"
"See?" the gray tabby she-cat says. "I landed a blow on you without getting hurt. Now stop your meaningless talk about who's going to beat up who next time before I smack you again."
Darkpaw rubs the side of his head with his paw. "Yes, Rainfall."
"So we can go now?" Petalpaw asks Darkpaw. She's appeared along with Pounceclaw and Ashpaw, who paws anxiously at the ground.
"Apparently so," he says. He looks to Rainfall.
"Off you go!" she meows brightly, nudging him in the side with her nose. Ashpaw lets out a gleeful mrrow and plunges out of the clearing, quickly followed by Darkpaw, Petalpaw, and Graypaw. I stay behind to ask Falconflight a question, but I want to do it without an audience, so I stand silently and awkwardly next to my mentor, waiting for the other cats to clear out. I expect Cloudpaw to be halfway to the fresh-kill pile by now, but she's waiting, too. I realize why when I spot my sister and Tigerpaw padding toward us with Ravenwing behind them, her tail flicking in a pleased sort of manner.
Of course. She wants to talk to him.
My hypothesis is confirmed when the white she-cat rushes up to Tigerpaw and begins talking to him. I find amusement in the fact that he looks slightly irritated. Realizing that if I stand here anymore without doing anything, I'll look stupid, I turn toward Falconflight and ask, "Could I please have some more training? I'm worried that I'm behind."
"Sure," he agrees, looking pleased. "Shall we move out into the more forested area? We can downgrade to hunting mice."
"Whatever you say, dearest mentor," I purr brightly.
"Amberpaw," Tigerpaw says.
I turn to look at him. "Hmm?" I say. Cloudpaw has moved on to talking with Lilacpaw; they're almost back to camp, now. I watch the white she-cat turn and shout, "Are you coming?" at Tigerpaw.
"Nothing," he says to me. Without another word, he pads after Cloudpaw and Lilacpaw.
But as Falconflight and I leave, I shoot Tigerpaw a quick look. It could be just me, but he looks completely miserable.
I bound into camp happily, two mice hanging from my jaws. It was so fun! Falconflight taught me how to get closer to prey without making noise. The snow under my paws helps, too. Now, I can sneak up on Tigerpaw or my siblings!
At Falconflight's nod, I deposit the rodents on the fresh-kill pile. He drops his squirrel in and chooses a bird, padding off to talk with Rainfall. I look around for Lilacpaw, but she doesn't seem to be anywhere. I decide to visit Mousetail, as I haven't seen her in a while.
As I pass the apprentice den, with a vole in my mouth for the orange she-cat, a gray head pops out, followed by a white one.
"Hi, Amberpaw! Where are you going?" Graypaw asks.
"To see Mousetail," I answer through the vole.
Cloudpaw sniffs and shakes her head in a demeaning sort of manner. "Oh, that scrawny old she-cat."
My fur rises. "What did you say?" I demand, taking a step toward the white apprentice. I drop the vole, ready for a fight.
And, of course, she gives me an opening for one. "That Mousetail's scrawny. And ugly, too."
That's the last straw for me. "Don't talk about my grandmother that way!" I yowl, pouncing on Cloudpaw. She lets out a surprised mewl before fighting back.
"Cloudpaw? Amberpaw!" Graypaw's surprised voice cuts into the melee, right next to my ear. I think Cloudpaw must have scratched him, perhaps on accident, because immediately after that, he gives a yowl and jumps back.
"Hey, hey, stop!" A new voice. Familiar, too. At the command, I cease fighting, but Cloudpaw keeps trying to bite me.
"ENOUGH!" Someone takes Cloudpaw's scruff and hauls her away from me. She glares at the cat who dragged her away—Rainfall—and turns her head to spit at me. I recognize that now, we're just outside the apprentice den; we must have fought our way out of there without realizing it. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a couple upturned nests. Oops.
"We're going to the leader's den," Falconflight says, his voice muffled because of his grip on my neck. Nevertheless, I can hear his disappointment.
"Okay," I say in a small voice. He feels let down, I know. That much is clear from his eyes and his tone. But what else could I have done, when my grandmother was being insulted?
Though, I suppose I could have been less violent.