Soon after leaving the twoleg den the two cats stumbled upon an area that was circled by some sort of shiny twoleg thing. "Great! Now how are we supposed to get past this?" Hawkclaw groaned then his eyes lit up and he started climbing the thing. Shadowblaze just rolled her eyes and quickly found a different way to bypass the barrier. She glanced up at Hawkclaw and muttered, "Good luck with that Hawkclaw," then she swiftly and easily slipped under the barrier due to the large gap that was right there." Once she was on the other side of the fence she went to hunt.
When she got back she found Hawkclaw almost onto the bottom of the barrier, Hawkclaw saw her coming and waved his tail at her in greeting but in doing so he lost his grip on the barrier and fell the last few tail lengths to the ground and landing with a loud "oomph!" Shadowblaze walked over and helped Hawkclaw to his paws while trying not to laugh at his stupidity. Hawkclaw looked at her and asked, "How in the name of Starclan did you get past that barrier so fast?!" Shadowblaze snorted and waved her tail at the hole in the barrier while saying, "While you were mouse brained climbing the barrier, I actually paid attention to my surroundings and found a nice hole to get past the barrier."
Hawkclaw grinned embarrassedly and said, "Well I guess you got me there. I am a mousebrain, a handsome mousebrain." He said the last sentence pointedly at Shadowblaze who gaped at him and the growled, "Are you trying to flirt with me?" She questioned, her voice dangerously low, "Ummmmm I don't think it would be good for my health if I answered that." Hawkclaw replied nervously as he eyed Shadowblaze's claws which were unsheathed and clawing at the ground. "Tell me the truth and I'll let you off." Shadowblaze said, "I swear by Starclan that I won't kill you." "What about severely injuring me?" Hawkclaw asked still trying to figure out whether or not to tell Shadowblaze. "Fine! I promise that I won't, hurt, kill, torture, or shred you, Hawkclaw! Happy? Now tell me!" Hawkclaw blinked in surprise and meowed, "Ok, I'll tell you tonight."
That night Shadowblaze and Hawkclaw decided to spend the night under a thick bush at the edge of a clearing. As soon as they finished their nests (Shadowblaze making sure that Hawkclaw hade his own nest) and ate Shadowblaze sat down in front of Hawkclaw and meowed," Spill." Hawkclaw sighed but nodded and started to talk.
A/N Some lovey stuff goes on as they talk so if you don't like that kind of crap skip this part, I personally would skip writing it but it's kind of important, so I have to. Just skip on till u see all caps that say all clear.
Shadowblaze watched Hawkclaw as he fidgeted and then finally began to talk, "Well I know that you know that when you came into the clan I was really jealous of you." Shadowblaze nods, "and I was jealous because I wanted my mentor to myself and I thought that you would talk all of his attention and he wouldn't consider me his apprentice anymore." Hawkclaw meows hurriedly, "so I tried to do everything to get his attention," Shadowblaze blinked and meowed, "Twigclaw did pay attention to you Hawkclaw, in fact he paid more attention to you than me because I didn't really need his training anymore." "Huh, I never keep new that. But anyway, first I was jealous of you but I began to respect you" (and then blah blah blah blah blah, sorry but this is getting to gross for me)
Shadowblaze rolled her eyes she was getting annoyed by all of this useless stammering so she hissed, "Well just get to the point already!" Hawkclaw began to fidget even more and finally blurted out, "Ihaveacrushonyouandwillyoubemymate!" He finished and sneaked a look at Shadowblaze who was looking completely baffled. "What in the name of Starclan did I just get myself into?" Shadowblaze wondered in her head. Suddenly Hawkclaw's voice cut into her thoughts as he meowed, "Well will you?" He questioned. Shadowblaze fidgeted she didn't want to hurt his feelings but she wasn't ready to have a mate yet so she told him, "not to hurt your feelings or anything Hawkclaw but I'm not ready to accept or refuse that yet, so... give me some time to think and I'll tell you my answer when we complete this quest, ok?" Shadowblaze swore that she saw Hawkclaw deflate a little but he meowed, " Ok, I can accept that." Shadowblaze smiled repeatedly and settled down in her nest calling out goodnight to Hawkclaw. Then she finally let sleep claim her.
A/N EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW that was GROSS. I can't believe that I actually finished writing that section, although admittedly I was tempted to stop writing that chunk when I was in the middle of it, but I managed to finish it! Yay! For the peeps who skipped that part basically Hawkclaw admitted that he has a crush on Shadowblaze and asked her to be his mate, she told him that she would think about it. Oh yeah and for the people who heeded my message from above. ALL CLEAR THE GROSSNESS IS DONE! now on with the chapter. I swear by the River Styx that there will be no more of the crap from above in this chapter.
The next morning the awkwardness from last night had worn off and Shadowblaze and Hawkclaw were eager to return to finishing their quest. They had figured out that the creek that Hawkclaw fell into so often actually came from the mountains so they decided to just follow the creek to get to the mountains. As they walked along they chatted about random things ignoring anything from last night.
By sunhigh the mountains didn't look any closer and the two of them were quite tired and their paws were sore. Shadowblaze was a bit worried about being attacked by foxes or badgers, mostly because if they snuck up on the two of them they would be dead. Hawkclaw had fallen back into the creek and the terrible scent was clogging up Shadowblaze's sense of smell. "Can we stop to eat?" Begged Hawkclaw who's stomach was growling like an irritated elder. Shadowblaze laughed and nodded, "We can stop in that clearing up ahead and find something to eat." She told Hawkclaw.
They padded up to the clearing and were happily surprised to find that there was already a small clump of prey near a hole at the base of a tree. As Shadowblaze ate she kept having a nagging feeling that there was something strange about a nice pile of prey and a hole, but she was too tired to care and the food and warmth of the sun on her pelt was making her sleepy. Shadowblaze let out a yawn and rested her head on her paws and mumbled to Hawkclaw, "Wake me up when it's time to go."
Instead of being poked awake by Hawkclaw, Shadowblaze was woken by a sharp pain in her side. Her eyes shot open and she looked around slightly confused and the first thing she noticed was that she was hanging above the ground, courtesy of the large orange fox that was holding her above the ground and shaking her. 'I am SUCH a mousebrain!' Shadowblaze thinks. If she'd actually paid attention to the suspiciousness of the clearing and if she could smell she would have noticed that the clearing smelled like fox and that the hole was actually a den! MOUSEDUNG! MOUSEDUNG! Shadowblaze spat curses as she tried to free herself. She scratched at any part of the fox that she could reach and flailed around making it hard for the fox to hold onto her.
After what felt like 100 seasons Shadowblaze managed to finally free herself and dropped to the ground. Hawkclaw dropped at the exact same time, 'creepy' Shadowblaze thinks but doesn't delve on it, she just runs toward the creek, occasionally glancing behind her to see if Hawkclaw Is keeping up.
A pain in her side makes her pause for a moment and Hawkclaw streaks past her screaming bloody murder, if it wasn't a life or death situation Shadowblaze would've laughed at how girly the scream sounded, but since it was life or death she didn't laugh, she just kept running. They ran until they reached a thunderpath where they stopped to catch their breath. "Is-is it still following us?" Gasped Hawkclaw, Shadowblaze shrugged since she had no clue whether the fox was still after them or not. A loud rustle in the bushes next to them alerted the two to the approach of an animal. They turned as one to look at the bushes.
The fox leapt out of the bushes and straight at Shadowblaze and Hawkclaw. At the last moment Shadowblaze pulled the two of them down and the fox landed on the thunderpath just in time to be hit by a passing monster. Shadowblaze let out a sigh of relief and noticed that Hawkclaw was padding up to the thunderpath, "What are you doing Hawkclaw?" "The mountains are on that side of the thunderpath." Hawkclaw meowed pointing at the other side of the thunderpath. "Oh" Shadowblaze says as she stands and follows Hawkclaw to the side of the thunderpath. "When I say run, run as fast as you can across the thunderpath." Hawkclaw instructs. Shadowblaze rolls her eyes and meows, "Yes O Hawkclaw the wise." Hawkclaw scowls at Shadowblaze and she laughs.
Then he shouts, "Run!" He bolts but halfway across he looks back for Shadowblaze. Shadowblaze is still at the far side of the thunderpath due to the pain of the wounds that the fox gave her. "Come on!" Hawkclaw yowls. Shadowblaze looks up and opens her mouth to warn Hawkclaw but he already sees the monster. "Why isn't he moving?" Shadowblaze wonders but her curiosity is quickly overwhelmed with the pure fact that if she didn't do something, Hawkclaw would be killed.
Everything seems to slow in Shadowblaze's mind as Shadowblaze throws herself forward ramming into Hawkclaw's shoulder and shoving him off the thunderpath and onto the grass. She tries to run but it's too late already. Then she shuts her eyes as the monster hits her and is swamped by a wave of darkness.
A/N As I finish writing this chapter I realize that there was absolutely no reason for me to add the romancy crap. Oh well, I'm not gonna delete a paragraph of hard work that took me so long to write, while gagging in disgust, I might mention.