Echoes Off The Wall - Warriors.

Chapter Two

Skypaw "awoke" to find that he was in the midst of a dark, dark forest ... it was nighttime, yet no stars were up? No moon ... huh. That was weird. He could understand there being no moon in the sky, Loststar had told him that was a "new moon" when he was still a young kit and had once asked about it, but no stars? No. That was impossible. The stars were always up at nighttime. It represented StarClan. Every star in Silverpelt was a dead ancestor watching over their former Clan from high up in the sky.

Unless ... unless. No, that was impossible as well! Why would he be ... there, of all places? The Dark Forest? The Place of No Stars? Whatever it was referred to as. No, just ... no. That wasn't happening. And he wasn't going to let it. He was about to turn and somehow leave this place, when all of a sudden he heard slight rustling in the bushes, and a figure popped out. A white-ish brown cat with gleaming amber eyes approached him - there was a long scar coming from his right eye down to his neck. Skypaw tried to ignore it, though it was a tad hard when maintaining eye contact.

"Skypaw," the cat meowed. His voice sounded like metal grinding together, Skypaw noted. Splintering ice, perhaps. This tomcat was large-framed. Not fat, but muscular, his muscles bunching with every pawstep he took. Obviously this cat wasn't one to be messed with, and Skypaw couldn't help but to wonder how he ended up here. His gaze trailed down from his eyes to his body, seeing that he had multiple other similar scars forming light pink markings all over his white coat. They were all quite noticeable as well.

The cat was about to speak again, but Skypaw interrupted, "What am I doing here? I shouldn't be here! If anything, I should be in the forest of StarClan, not the forest of this forbidden place!" He saw the older cat wince and close his eyes, before slowly peeling them open once more as soon as Skypaw had finished his statements of confusion to the tomcat.

"Don't say that word," the cat growled softly.

"Huh? What word? StarClan?" Skypaw asked, confused. What was wrong with the word? Nothing, he didn't think. It represented the actual good, noble cats whom had passed away, not the dark, evil ones like this cat and everyone else who he resided in the Dark Forest, the Place of No Stars, whatever the proper name of this forbidden place really is ...

The unknown tom winced again. "Yes." He responded, then mouthed the word - StarClan - over and over. It was easy to pick up what exactly he was mimicking, and a tad bit strange. This stranger could mouth it but Skypaw couldn't say it? Yes, there was a difference, but ... he was also confused about another thing. Why was he mouthing it? From the cat's facial features, it seemed as if the only reason he was mouthing the word was just because he was trying to get a feel to it ... what? Was he unfamiliar to the word StarClan? Well, probably, considering he lived in a place that didn't even contain stars in the sky.

"Why am I here, anyway?" Skypaw asked, angry now. Why had he showed up here instead of an ordinary, regular dream? Nevertheless, if he wasn't going to have a normal dream, why couldn't he have at least ended up in StarClan?

"I am aware of how much you dislike your new career in MapleClan. You will be stuck with that job for the rest of your life, Skypaw, unless you do something about it, and quick. Now, tell me ... what is the one thing that you have always dreamed of becoming?" The cat asked.

"A warrior," Skypaw responded quickly without even the slightest hint of hesitance.

The white cat nodded, slowly, his amber eyes gleaming as he watched the cat. "Anything else?" He questioned. Skypaw glared at him questioningly, before realizing that he also wanted to become the deputy, perhaps leader sometime ...

"Um, deputy. Maybe leader one day." Skypaw answered, wondering what he would do with that information. He had heard about the fight between StarClan and the Dark Forest once before, a long, long time ago, and wondered what this cat would plan on doing with this information.

"Good," the cat nodded with agreement, his eyes shining in the ... er, slight lightness of the forest. "You want to become a leader ... " his eyes glowed. "Ah, so rude of me!" He suddenly said. "I have forgotten to tell you my name, haven't I, young Skypaw? Well, my name is Swiftstar, leader of MapleClan before Froststar. You have heard of him, haven't you?" He asked then.

Skypaw nodded. "Yeah, of course. He was the leader before my mother." He said. The white cat smiled at the response, then suddenly frowned.

"Yeah, that's right." The cat whom claimed himself to be Swiftstar answered. "Let me tell you this, now, Skypaw - Frostsar was a weak leader. That was why he had died so early on into his leadership - after only fifteen moons of his leadership? Pathetic! It wasn't a surprise when the badgers killed him." He smirked slightly, then frowned again as if he was becoming increasingly troubled by each passing minute. Skypaw was shocked - how could this cat speak so lowly of a, from what he could tell, great leader like Froststar? Shaking his head, he decided to ignore it and get on with it all.

Everyone had their own opinions, and so, even if he thought Froststar had been a great leader from what Loststar said about him, he decided to respect Swiftstar's opinion on Loststar's precedor. "Now then," Swiftstar began again. "I suppose I can teach you a few battle moves, if you like?" He suggested, in which Skypaw happily obliged to it, nodding his head excitedly. Swiftstar smirked. "Alright then," he said. "I suppose I will start with this one. Now, mind you, it does not have a name, though I prefer to call it the Underbelly Slash ... " he said. "Are you ready?" Swiftstar asked, seemingly unsure whether he should start or not.

Skypaw nodded. "Of course," he said, then stiffened, thinking that he'd probably know how to deal with this move Swiftstar was about to do. However, before he could react, Swiftstar darted underneath his legs - how, he didn't know - and began slashing at the back of his forepaws ... with unsheathed claws. Skypaw felt the sharp pain hit his legs, though ignored it, biting his lip and waiting for Swiftstar to come out from the other side. Though he did not, and before he could react, Skypaw felt Swiftstar's curved claws hook into his left side. Shrieking with immense pain, and proceeded to drag him to the ground. All he saw before he w0ke up was Swiftstar's heavy smirk as he looked down upon him.

Skypaw jerked awake with blood staining his side and his forepaws. His mossy nest was wet - he could feel the sick smelling blood coddled up against his body, sticking to his fur and the moss below him. He squeezed his eyes shut in pain and mewled, having never felt anything as physically painful as this before. A few minutes later, Toadleap appeared, and gasped with shock as he noticed Skypaw was bleeding severely. "Skypaw?! What happened?" Toadleap asked, rushing over to his herb storage.

"I ... I don't know." Skypaw lied. "I really don't know." Of course he knew ... he wasn't a mouse-brain. He had heard, once, that everytime you receive a wound in The Dark Forest, you also received it in real life once you awoke, and would still be capable of feeling it ... only now had Skypaw realized that whatever cat had made that up was actually being true all along. He flinched and closed his eyes as his mentor dabbed some kind of juice on his wounds before beginning to wrap them up in cobwebs.

"I was planning to take you out to tour the territory this morning, but I'm not so sure ... " he could sense Toadleap scanning his body for any more wounds before seeing the ones on his forelegs and grabbing more herbs. "That couldn't have been thorns, you know. I don't know what could have happened to you. I've never seen anything like this before in my entire lifetime." He was shocked still.

Skypaw laid his head down on the ground, flicking his ears. "I don't know what happened, either," he lied, once again to his mentor, sucking in the pain and quite clearly trying to ignore it. He heard the rustle of bushes, and then, Toadleap had left the medicine cat's den. Skypaw could tell because of the silence and the simple emptiness of the atmosphere around him.

He couldn't wait to learn another fighting technique.