Rusty was excited. To be fair, he was always excited when his big brother came around, yet the thought of battle training made his spine bristle in excitement. After all, they had only been doing mock hunting. He padded over to his food bowl, hoping that Scourge would bring some kill from the Twoleg place over so he could eat that, but on the off chance he didn't- Rusty took three big mouth fulls of the bland 'kittypet food' as Scourge called it and washed it down with the water from his bowl. The water always tasted bitter. He only once drank the water from the metal box- it was crisp and clean- yet he had to drink from the tap.

"Ruuuussty!" Rusty perked up as he heard his best friend, Smudge, yowl out to him. "Quit mucking about in there and get out here, Princess and Scourge are nearly here!" Ever since Rusty moved into his garden, Smudge had been there. Probably because the plump tom had been about one moon older than Rusty and Princess.

"Coming!" Rusty shouted as he padded through his cat flap.

As Rusty hopped up onto his fence, he saw his sister and brother halting to a stop just outside of his garden's fence, both of whom were panting. Only Scourge seemed happy about it.

"Crazy…" Princess wheezed, her voice sounded dry, as if she was running so hard that her throat had become dry and scratchy. After three heartbeats, she had to restart her sentence. "You crazy bastard." Princess swatted her older brother in the face with her tail.

"Maybe… Maybe if you trained your endurance… you wouldn't be… practically dying!" Scourge panted as he responded to Princess, an impressed look on his face.

"Do you guys need a minute to recuperate? 'Cause I'd be more than happy to-"

"Smudge, don't you fucking bail on us." Smudge froze up. Scourge didn't like the fact that Smudge had good potential but decided to waste it. Thankfully, the story about Scourge scaring a dog away was enough to scare Smudge into obedience, as if the dog claw extensions and sharp dog teeth in his collar didn't already scare the shit out of Smudge already.

Scourge took a good few heartbeats to catch his breath properly. "Prepare, because today we're doing battle training and I'm not going to go easy on you kits." Scourge padded in the direction of the forest. The first time Scourge took them to this training spot, Smudge had some reservations regarding the rumors he had heard about the forest cats.

While Rusty didn't know much about Scourge's life before he was born, he had heard that Scourge was attacked by wild cats in this very forest, but Scourge said that he's now stronger than ever and could easily overpower any wild cat, this had relieved Smudge of his concerns.

Even though they only started doing this about a moon ago, the three found this routine to be comfy and it brought them together. Scourge and Princess would race to Smudge and Rusty's Garden, Smudge would complain about something and try to get out of training, Scourge would lead them to their training ground and on their way, the three would gossip.

Rusty looked longingly over at the looming forest, it was full of wonders, mysteries, noises, smells he wanted to know, but as his eyes glazed over at the forest, his eyes locked on another pair of eyes, they were sharp and yellow, once realizing they were spotted, they slinked silently back into the overgrowth.

Rusty almost stopped, but looking over at his older brother, he continued with knowing the fact that Scourge was more than strong enough to protect them all.

Life was perfect.

Rusty panted and licked a scratch on his forepaw as his lungs heaved, working overtime in the hot New-leaf sun. He knew battle training today would be rough, but not this rough.

"Alright, kits, I've finally sparred all three of you and observed how well you work together- and alone. I'm ready to evaluate each one of you. Starting with the weakest link and working up, Smudge." Rusty was half certain Scourge only ever evaluated them as an excuse to insult them.

"For someone of your pudge, you are rather fast, but if you remove the 'S' the statement is still true." Smudge always sulked when he sat, making himself seem as small as possible, while Scourge on the other hand always asserted himself. This gave the illusion that Scourge was taller than Smudge.

"Fast and heavy are a deadly combo. Despite the fact that this was merely practice and I wasn't expecting you to use your full strength, you still pulled your hits!" Noticing Smudge wasn't giving his full attention, Scourge decided to kick things up a notch. "If I were a forest cat, you would be dead! Not just dead- but decimated!" Once he knew he got Smudge's attention, Scourge softened his tone up. "Put your potential to use and maybe you won't be forest cat food!" Even though Scourge's words eased up a bit and had a proud undertone to them by the end, Smudge still flinched at the harshness of the other black-and-white tom's words.

"Princess," Scourge padded over to his little sister. He had to look up at her as when she sat, contrary to the cats next to her, she erected herself to sit as tall and proud as she could.

"You're clever and incredibly strong, yet you lack stamina and most importantly you can't improvise for the life of you. You think fast and you plan before a fight, but if an enemy does something you don't expect, you get sloppy. Not to mention, the only reason you were even able to plan in such crucial detail is because you know these two boneheads like the nose on your muzzle. Try thinking about that." Scourge snapped his neck to Rusty, trying to catch him off guard.

"Rusty, your skills are rather evened out, you're not bad at anything, but you're not good at anything either. You're just… mediocre, but you have great potential in you to be great. And this isn't just about your fighting, this is about all your skills," Scourge craned his neck over to Princess and Smudge. "That includes you two kits as well."

By the time training had finished, night was approaching and the three kittypets would have to return to their respective owners. Yet Rusty stayed behind a bit to make his dirt in the forest.

It was a half-truth. Scourge had told the kits that because of how close they were to the forest, the cats of the forest may attack them if they decided to hunt real prey, which made them do a mix of hunting and fighting training, but the fight training only ever came in the form of watching out for the others who were trying to pounce on you- but Rusty figured that they wouldn't notice one measly mouse.

…

The forest was just about the most beautiful place Rusty had ever seen. From the outside, the forest was ominous, the sounds of wild animals that Rusty didn't know the names of fighting each other and crying, they had scared him at first, but those feelings left him the second he had entered the beautiful undergrowth.

The birds chirped, the water crashed wildly, yet in such an orderly manner that his ears couldn't help but listen for the sound. The smells- oh the wondrous smells! Away from the smog, the smoke, and the sweat. He took every opportunity to sniff out the smells, until one caught his attention. It smelled like a small piece of prey.

Rusty dropped to the forest floor and crept towards his fuzzy little snack, trying to copy exactly what Scourge told him to do, however, his paws were heavy on the floor and the small creature was spooked and dove for cover. Just as he was going to complain out loud to himself and go home, he was pushed to the forest floor and felt a pair of sharp jaws in his flank.

Rusty cried out in pain. Yet- not wanting to die, he rolled onto his back, unsheathed his hind claws, and with all his might kicked his hind legs into the belly of his attacker. He pushed himself back to his paws and rushed to make sure his attacker wouldn't continue to assault. He only saw the shadow of his attacker come towards him, and as fast as he could, Rusty got ready to pounce. He jumped over his attacker who skidded to a halt, expecting Rusty to have pounced on him. In these short moments of confusion, Rusty unsheathed his front claws and pounced. He sunk his teeth into his attacker's neck, his claws tearing at whatever thick fur or skin that he could grab onto. As a result of this, he clawed up the muzzle and nose of the other cat and heard a howl of pain.

Rusty was able to distinguish some notable features of his attacker. He was a thick furred gray tom, was about the same age as Rusty himself, and he smelled of fear. Rusty didn't care too much about this as the gray tom was screaming and crying, trying to buck off the smaller orange tabby. He sunk his teeth in tighter until he was bucked off, the smell of his attacker's blood in his nose and mouth as he ran as far from his attacker as he could possibly get.

He's gonna' kill me, wait, why am I running? He'll follow me and attack both Smudge and Princess if they try protecting me!

Rusty skidded to a stop and bolted back towards his pursuer, but before he could get far, the other tom detoured and rammed into the smaller. The gray tom picked him up by the scruff and as best as he could, tried tossing Rusty into a tree- but when that didn't work and Rusty got up, his attacker ran at full speed to tackle the orange tabby in the ribs. Within the few heartbeats that Rusty was being tackled to the tree he desperately tried getting the larger tom off by kicking him in the muzzle with one of his hind legs. However, the orange tom's attacker bit down hard on the leg that Rusty kicked out. A horrific CRUNCH resulted, and Rusty yowled in pain. Once he had made contact with the tree, Rusty's gray attacker backed up and away from the smaller ginger, and Rusty had no choice but to lay down and let out silent yowls of pain. His ribs ached, and his leg pain pierced any thoughts he might have, added with the air being knocked out of his lungs.

The pain was ever so slightly dulling, the adrenaline pumping in his blood prevented any movement of his from being too painful. Careful not to upset his nervous system, Rusty turned his head up at the other tom. The moon light shone through the treetops, all he could smell was blood and his ears rang. He got a good look as his attacker panted and stumbled towards Rusty.

The sun was starting to warm the frosted-over earth, Rusty had heard of this. Nutmeg called them seasons, and according to her this would mean that it would get warmer from here on out, and then cold again. Knowing this, Rusty was happy, for the few days through Leaf-bare he was able to scent out more things than ever before. What made his nose feel happy was when the breeze would bring the scents of the forest to him and Smudge.

Rusty hopped onto the top of the fence bordering Smudge and his own gardens from each other. The plump, black and white tom was basking in what little sunlight he could catch. At least Smudge appreciated something about the outdoors.

"Morning, Smudge!" Rusty almost lost balance and would've fallen over, but he began tinkering with where he distributed his weight, and he kept on top.

"Morning!" Echoed back his best friend.

"Wanna go to my mom's garden? I think my big brother's gonna be there!" Rusty's eyes shone at the thought of his cool, big brother. Yet, Smudge didn't seem to share this testament.

"No offense, Rust," Smudge sat up and began scratching a spot behind his ear. "But Scourge is scary, I'm fine staying here, you can go alone though, right?" Smudge tilted his head.

"Oh-uh well… okay then, I'll see you when I get back!" Perplexed but not wanting to push his friend, Rusty gingerly crawled to the edge of his fence and hopped down to the ground and set route to Nutmeg's.

It was the smell that got him, the lingering scent of fear, salt- no, iron- no, blood , the smell of two strange cats and his big brother, Scourge. His mom's scent was present, but when he hopped to the top of the fence, he saw Nutmeg. Her eyes widened in fear, her belly clawed open, and entrails spilling out and soaking into the grass where she lay.

Scourge was staring down at her, cold, lifeless corpse, but once he realized his little brother was there, whether it was due to the noise he made or his scent- Scourge knelt down and pressed his nose against his stepmom. He hopped onto the fence with Rusty. The both of them ran back to Rusty's den once Nutmeg's Twolegs started shouting at the brothers. They were probably just horrified by the loss of Nutmeg just as the two brothers were.

About half-way to Rusty's garden, the two toms stopped.

"Scourge, what happened to mom?" Rusty was trying to hold in his tears to sound strong in front of his big brother, until he realized Scourge was crying too.

"Some cats from the Twoleg Place are upset that I've been getting so powerful, but instead of fighting me head on, they're trying to take me down from the inside, like cowards." Scourge choked it out, somehow without stuttering.

Oh mother, I'll see you sooner than I thought I would.