I followed her farther into the forest, where Ivy and Alder laid gently batting around a green and purple beetle watching it struggle to get up again and swatting at it once more. "Hey! Look! It's your name sake!" purred Ivy before her eyes went round again and she pounced.

"It's so big and fat!" cooed Alder, "Can you believe it?"

This was the interesting thing we had all come here for eh? It was pretty cool though, it had a cool sheen to it and stag like horns. "Should we take it back?"

"Nah," said Ivy pressing her face right next to it, "I just wanna look at it!"

"You can look at it, but just back at our Housefolks place. Just pick it up."

"What if it bites my tongue? We haven't even been out here that long, let's keep going!"

Alder and Ivy took off, I exchanged a glance with Frost but she had too the three of them racing off into the dense woodland ahead of us. With a regretful glance back at the Twoleg place I darted after them, the forest did look a little less frightening now that I was older and it was day time.

"Come on! I want to see where these tracks go!" yelled Ivy bounding ahead following a trail of pawprints leading us farther and farther away, as we continued I felt my pelt begin to prickle.

Thankfully Frost seemed to be thinking the same as me. "We don't want to run into Thunderclan, they left for a while but they are back now. Falcon was talking about it. Nasty bunch. Let's head back and mess with the woodworker, do you think we can get him to drop his axe on his foot again?" She was well respected among our neighborhood. Unlike me, I was just a "Mama's Boy" or a "dum kitty pet". Frost was cocky, confident clearly not from around here just by the way she held herself and always seemed to know what to say. Everyone adored her for it, including me. Hopefully the others would listen to her if not me.

Alder sniffed doubtfully, "I don't smell any Thunderclan. It smells like forest, no stinky mean cats anywhere." Ivy meowed in agreement.

Frost rolled her eyes, "They don't literally leave a stench, they smell like well… forest. Which is what we are surrounded by, they could be sneaking up behind us as we speak!" Their eyes went wide scanning the forest.

"Maybe we should head back…" relented Alder running a paw over her whiskers, "I really wished we could hunt a mouse but I'd rather not be eaten!" He gave a meow of laughter.

Before any of us could even move an inch a large white cat came out of nowhere. .

"Kittypets," they snarled a growl built up in their throat, piercing amber eyes boring into our skin. Behind them was a black cat not much younger than us, they gazed at us curiously but their gaze was cold as if they didn't care if we lived or died.

"What should we do with them?" they meowed, examining us closer, "They don't look like a threat."

The older one lashed their tail, "These kittypets think you can waltz around wherever they want." Then turning her attention back to us. "If you weren't so young I'd rather like to make examples of you." Her front claws slid out.

"We aren't scared of you!" hissed Frost puffing up her tail and taking a step forward to stand in front of the rest of us. The hulking white cat merely looked down in amusement at the cat who didn't even reach her head.

"We are so sorry, we didn't realize your clan was back in the forest," I meowed trying to placate the white cat, Frost thought with her heart rather than her head more often than not, there was no way she would win this battle. "Please accept our apologies, we didn't mean any harm." My voice shaking a whole lot more than Frost's.

They continued to eye us suspiciously circling around us like waiting jaguars, I didn't exactly know what a jaguar was but they were scary so… "Nightpaw, take the rear, we are taking them back to Thunder Clan camp,"

"Wha?" exclaimed Ivy trying to back away before bumping into Nightpaw.

Our eyes went wide and Nightpaw shoved us roughly forward. "Don't even think about getting away, my mentor could easily snap your necks!" said Nightpaw proudly from behind us, her tail held high in the air.

Frost hissed at Nightpaw but complied and with that followed them further and further into the woods, the smoke of our housefolk's home disappearing under the thick canopy. My Mother was sure to punish me severely if we ever got out of this mess… why did I ever let myself get bullied into this situation?

I wanted to run, flee, hide but the farther we went the less likely I'd succeed, soon I didn't even know where we were all the towering trees and grass looked the same. Eventually we came to a stop at a ravine where I could smell and hear the sounds of unfamiliar cats. Too many cats. "Be on your best behavior," warned Nightpaw as the white cat disappeared down a tunnel.