Echoes Off The Wall - Warriors.

Chapter Six

When Skypaw awoke, he awoke surrounded by that same, dark misty aroma that had haunted him the night before, and left him with quite the scar on his side. The wound was still there, as expected, and looked even more gruesome in The Dark Forest than it did in the wakening world. He grimaced as he forced his eyes to get used to the misty area. All he could see at the moment was the dark, blackish silhouettes of the trees, and a few bushes. Frowning, his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he could finally see. Well, better than he could see before, anyway.

There was no cat in sight - no white and black tom by the name of Swiftstar, or any other Dark Forest warrior that he could make out - however, he did hear some voices and a few painful shrieks that even hurt his ears. It, however, was not as if this was unusual. Skypaw would expect this to be happening in the Dark Forest. He sighed slightly as he followed the trace of the voices that he had heard just a few minutes ago, and when he got there, he hid in some bushes. It would be terrible to be caught eavesdropping, however, isn't everything legal whenever it comes to The Dark Forest? He grinned a bit at the thought.

Skypaw could make out a familiar, ginger-cream she-cat with green eyes that twinkled in the darkness of a place such as The Place of No Stars. He watched her, and soon enough he spotted two other shapes apparently dissolve out of nothingness, and they striked up a quick conversation with her, from as far as he could tell. The smaller of the two was a gray she-cat with white patches, while the other was a white tom with gray patches. They both had blue eyes, and both were scarred, however, the she-cat had a rather peculiar scar on her shoulder, and Skypaw had to force himself to look away from it. It wasn't as if scars would be deemed odd in such a cruel, brutal place like this. He'd be considered strange if he was caught staring, he knew.

Skypaw, however, wasted no time by paying attention to the tom and the she-cat, who looked to both be littermates by their eyes and their fur colors. Skypaw saw the she-cat turn her head, and it looked as if her penetrating, ice cold, blue eyes were staring at him. Or straight through him, was more like it. Skypaw moved a bit in the bushes, causing them to rustle. Honeypaw took a step closer to him, and then peered through the bushes to see Skypaw. "Didn't think you'd be able to hide for long, did you, Skypaw?" she chuckled, glancing at the slight smaller apprentice.

"Uhh ... " Skypaw blinked, trying not to sound suspicious. "Why are you even here?" he asked Honeypaw, whose face, in turn, became confused and puzzled before clearing off again, back to her normal expression.

"Ask yourself the same question," she replied calmly. "We're possibly going to have close to the same response, if you think about it." Skypaw pondered this for a second. What was Honeypaw suggesting, and had she actually meant to show up here in the first place? Of course, Skypaw couldn't deny that he wanted to become a Warrior, even if that meant having to secretly train in a place as brutal as this, but Honeypaw, now ... she just sounded suspicious, if you decided to ask him. Which no one ever would, and that was quite obvious.

Finally, Skypaw responded to Honeypaw's retort. "It's because I'm wanting to become a Warrior, Honeypaw. What else do you think it would be?" The sparkle in Honeypaw's eyes came back, and it looked exactly as it did before he went to sleep that night, whenever they had been talking to eachother. Had she known that he's ben training here all along? And if she did, how could he have not happened to have realized the fact sooner?

Honeypaw chuckled. "That's close to my answer, except, I'm not wanting to become just any other, regular old Warrior ... " she paused for dramatic effect, and that made Skypaw blink. "I'm wanting to become the Leader someday. I'd be even better than Loststar, y'know," she chuckled. Now then, Skypaw hadn't exactly been the friendliest to his mother ever since he appointed him to become Toadleap's apprentice, but, his mother didn't deserve to be insulted and treated so lowly by that, even by his crush. She was like a hero amongst MapleClan, and even some of the other Clans as well.

Skypaw growled a bit, which just made Honeypaw laugh even more. "Don't insult Loststar like that, Honeypaw," he stated, thinking that maybe Honeypaw wasn't so sweet afterall. He glared at her coldly, and she glared back in the same way. Finally, the gray-and-white she-cat interrupted them.

"Alright, alright!" she hissed. "Stop with the petty fighting. Swiftstar will be here soon, and you know he wouldn't want to see such pathetic arguing whenever he shows up!" she pointed out, and that comment simply made all of them shut up. "Anyway," she started again, this time in a much calmer tone. "My name is Ivymist, and my brother here, is Fogsecret. He can't talk, and no one knows why. Apparently it was a birth defect, or something, I don't know," she gave a shrug, and Fogsecret just nodded. Whenever they finished talking, they heard a deep gruff voice behind Ivymist and Fogsecret.

It was Swiftstar, and he had a few other Dark Forest warriors and apprentices trailing behind him. He cleared his throat and sat down, while Ivymist, Fogsecret, Honeypaw, and Skypaw all turned to look at him attentively. "I have a plan to discuss with you ... "