(ROUGH DRAFT) Endless Sky ~Elemental Chaos~

Chapter Seven

Avaro doesn't recall what happened. All he knows is that one second he was standing, the next second he was sprinting through the woods. Heading directly to the sound that broke the air.
Thoughts were flashing through his mind, a battle, a wounded cat, a corpse. Avaro had no idea what to expect, he just know's he'll keep his word. Kill on sight. A flash of yellow caught his eye and he quickly turned twords it. Already he could tell this wasn't Sunset. Whoever this was had a pelt of yellow, writhing in pain on the ground. Avaro stopped and stared at him, looking for flashes of scarlet blood, but there was none. "Hey, yo, you alright? What happened?" He attempted to ask, but the elemental just whimpered and whined. Avaro looked around, trying to find some indication of an attack. Maybe something fell from above or was thrown at him. But everything was either too big or too small. Unless this cat was highly sensitive to touch, Avaro doubt a small twig he can snap under his shoe would cause that much pain.
"You alright?" He tried again when he noticed the whimpering was quieting down. Still no response though.
Avaro tried to keep from getting irritated. He was worried some of the others would come, take this elemental away before Avaro could question him. He couldn't have been the only one who heard his shriek.
Silence.
Avaro looked back at the cat, he'd gon quiet, but was still curled up on his side and shaking.
"Hey, I'm not here to hurt you, just tell me what happened," the dragon said, walking over and kneeling down next to the yellow fuzzball.
His voice was low, spiked with fear as Avaro strained his ears to hear him.
"It's not going to last much longer," the cat whimpered through chattering teeth. "It's going to collapse with all of us inside it,"
"Collaspe? What is?" Avaro asked. The yellow elemental slowly turned to look at him. His eyes yellow and red with flecks of black under them like freckles. He opened his mouth to reply, but flopped back and grew limp.
Avaro just stared at him at first, bewildered.
"Did he just die?" He thought, alarmed.
Just then he noticed the slow rise and fall of the cat's chest. He'd just fainted.
Avaro heaved a sigh and sat back, frowning. The feline was clearly a fire elemental, heat radiating from his yellow fur with flecks not only under his eyes, but also along his back and tail. His paws black as well.
Avaro could vaguely reconize passing by him once during one of his visits, but didn't know his name.
"What happened though? What was falling apart? Collapsing?" His thought, focusing his attention on the very ominous message this cat had given him. Avaro automatically went to the invisible wall, but couldn't be sure why. The wall looked fine, no cracks or scuffs, no signs of instability. In fact he doubt any cat here knows about it, it was a detail he never gave to give Zeru.
Putting that idea aside, he focused on the community, assuming perhaps that was going to collapse. Sunset being the culprit. Avaro predicted the foul beast attacking, slaying Zeru and putting everything in chaos. He shivered.
"Why am I thinking too deeply in this? This cat is a fire elemental, not a prophet! He probably had a bad dream or panicked and ran off when he heard about Sunset," Avaro thought with a huff, feeling that to be a much more acceptable and understandable reason. Noises indicated new arrivals to the scene. Avaro watched as three mud colored cats circled around them. At first their fur was spiked and lips drawn back into snarls, but once they noticed Avaro they seem to relax and become more curious.
"What happened here?" The larger one asked. His fur a murky grey brown color with patches of darker grey. One of his hind legs had a chunk missing out of it, giving him a slight limp that clearly didn't slow him down. The second was a tall very lean dark brown she cat, ragged torn ears and a missing tooth. Her form clearly meant for speed and dodging rather than taking hits. The last cat was slightly smaller than his partners, wide paws and sharp claws with a thin long tail that waved like a whip, the end of it bent as if broken and healed incorrectly. All three cats stared at him with bright green eyes.
"I heard a cry so I came here to investigate," Avaro explained as he motioned to the yellow elemental. "I didn't see nor hear anyone else. I don't know what made this cat pass out."
The limping cat padded over to examine the fainted one, frowning.
"Eh? Ain't that Cinder? The nipped lunitic claiming everyday that the world was gon collapse?" He exclaimed, looking at the other two.
"It looks like it," the she cat meowed, circling around to look at the red pads on the bottom of Cinder's paws. "You think he hit his head? Maybe heard about Sunset and fled with his tail between his legs," she added with a snicker, the larger cat barking out a laugh.
"Most likely! Not the first time he ran into a tree," he shook his head as he chuckled.  "Nothing we can do bout it besides take him back to his father, that ol' folk is too nice on him. We should tell Zeru too,"
Avaro shifted uncomfortably, he didn't like the two cats who were speaking. They made him think of the dragonets that bullied him years ago.
"He was rolling around in pain when I got here," he decided to point out, not wanting this cat to be wrongly accused of cowardly running off. "Maybe he was attacked,"
The larger tom frowned. "Is there any blood?" He asked.
"Well no, but-"
"Then he wasn't attacked. Snag, help us take this guy back,"
The small tom nodded and hurried over next to the she cat. Avaro felt anger swelling up as the large tom moved over to the other two, letting them heave Cinder onto his back.
"If he hit his head he would've instantly been knocked out! Not knocked out a minute later!" He snapped.
"No, but this cat has been known to get hurt and freak out before fainting, so yes," the murky grey tom sneered back, limping off before Avaro could say anymore. Snag gave him an apologetic look, getting a snarl from the she-cat, and proceeded with helping heave the yellow cat onto the larger one's back.
Avaro fumed, he wanted to smack some sense into the two bigger cats, their sneering faces and mocking laughter. He hated it. He heard it far too much.
Lucerne's voice spoke up from the back of his mind. "It's not worth it, they're just looking for reactions, don't give them any," he said, making Avaro take a deep breath and relax.
The she-cat had also managed to slip under Cinder to help carry, leaving Snag to just exist off to the side.
Together, the four managed to rather quickly pad off, the elemental's tail dragging. Avaro didn't proceed after them, he stayed where he was. Wanting to thoroughly examine everything around him. Just in case he missed something.
Once the bright yellow pelt had vanished behind leaves and trees, Avaro started circling around. Taking in all around him, each leaf and branch, the bugs and critters. Trying to find anything that may look adnormal. At some point he's dropped to his knees and looked closer at the ground, especially where Cinder had writhed in pain. But nothing. There was nothing but a few loose yellow and black fur.
Avaro got up, dissapointment weighing him down as he frowned. He could almost hear those two cats mocking laughter, teasing him for wasting so much time only to end up with nothing. Rage started to boil once more, Lucerne's voice echoing again, making him breathe and relax. Deciding to hear the real thing, Avaro went ahead to look for his friend. The only person who can really keep him from lashing out in anger.
It shouldn't be too hard for him to find a blue-white sparkled human wandering around. Or at least someone who had seen just that. So Avaro wasn't too worried about not finding Lucerne.
He found the entrance, now guarded, and was easily allowed back inside. Wondering briefly how Cinder was feeling and when to meet him again. Avaro was also curious how Lucerne would react to what had happened. Would he take Cinder's omnious message seriously?
"Most likily," Avaro answered himself, quickly spotting the familiar glowing white hair.
Quickening his pace, he stalked up behind his friend, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Hey there," Avaro said, Lucerne yelping at the sudden contact and voice.
"Avaro! Where did you come from?!"
"Behind you,"
Lucerne frowned at his friend's grin.
"Anything I missed?" Avaro asked, changing the topic.
"I should be the one asking you that, some cats came back with a fainted fire elemental. They said you were there," the Celestial Beast answered, motioning Avaro to follow. Both of them sitting on a log to talk.
"Well they weren't wrong with that, I heard him cry in pain and went to investigate,"
Lucerne's eyebrows raised, clearly that detail was left out.
Avaro then went into detail on all that had happened, what Cinder had said, what the others had said, how he felt.
He told him everything he could, not leaving a single thing out.
"I couldn't find anything, so I decided to head back," he finished with a sigh, shrugging his shoulders.
"At least you tried to look, better than not at all," Lucerne responded, patting his shoulder for reassurance.
Avaro just made a small nod.
"We... We should look for Cinder, see what really made him say all that. Maybe there's something we don't know," he added.
"I was thinking about meeting him later, I just don't know when. What if he refuses to tell us?"
"He'll tell us, I'm sure he will,"
Avaro nodded, trusting his friend to be correct. He had no idea who Cinder was. The most he knows is that the cat is known to be a lunitic, at least in the eyes of those two other cats. Avaro doesn't know his personality or anything. Would Cinder be willing to talk to complete strangers? Does he even rememeber what happened before he'd fainted?
"I'll just have to figure that out later," Avaro told himself.
"We should do ot tomorrow though, when he's completely recovered," Lucerne said, getting up.
"It's been awhile since we last ate, come on,"
Avaro stared at his friend for a second, wanting to protest and look for Cinder today, but held back and just nodded. "Alright," he answered, starting to feel hungry now that it was mentioned.
Lucerne gave him a smile and headed off, expecting him to follow.

The rest of the day dragged on.
Blaze having been filled in on all the current details and the danger with Sunset. The kit was reasonably alarmed, but not paniked. It was almost as if she was thrilled to finally have something serious happen at her home, just didnt think it would be this serious. By the time night came, Blaze refusing to sleep until near midnight when she finally succumbed. Leaving Avaro and Lucerne still awake.
"She's asleep," the celestial whispered, in his fluffy beast form to give Avaro a comfortable place to sleep.
"Finally, thought she was going to pull an all-nighter," Avaro chuckled quietly, letting himself melt in the soft fur.
"Avaro,"
"Hm?"
"Do you really think Sunset is that evil?"
Avaro frowned, wondering where this question came from. "Eh? Yes? Why?" He answered, sitting up a bit to look at the beast's head.
"Well... Zeru said its been many years... And she never attacked you. Maybe there was some misinformation?" Lucerne explained quietly, not wanting to wake the sleeping elemental.
"Her pelt is one of a kind, hard to mistaken that,"
"Maybe she had a kit?"
"And taught it her ways to attack,"
Lucerne sighed, feeling it to be useless to try and get Avaro to understand.
"Just... Dont kill her if you see her," he requested, practically having read Avaro's thoughts.
"Well there goes kill on sight," he thought with disappointment, wanting to avenge everyone she'd killed all those years ago.
"Fine, I wont, just hurt her,"
"Not too much,"
"Alright, alright, just enough to keep her from escaping,"
"Thank you,"
Avaro laid back, slightly irritated, but understood where Lucerne was coming from. People would want to know why she came back, her plans, finding her dead wouldn't answer that.
He also wasn't sure how he would react upon killing someone, even a criminal. He's never done it before.
Avaro shivered, remembering the fights he refused to hold back on when he was still young. Before Lucerne showed up. Would he have killed them if it wasn't for Lucerne?
Too many questions for one day.
Avaro closed his eyes, ready to let himself sleep. His wings carefully settled in a way the fur wouldn't rub too much and make him sick.
Tomorrow he would question Cinder, maybe find out some things no one else knows.
Maybe.