Chapter Three

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Cedarpelt had already sent out the morning hunting patrols and the dawn patrol, so the apprentices and their mentors had formed two groups, Dustpaw and Copperpaw, the older apprentices, with their mentors, Badgerwhisker and Hawkscar, made up the first group. Gorsepaw, Sunpaw, and Mistypaw were going with Cedarpelt, Frostnose, and Curltail as the second group. The two groups were challenging each other to a hunting contest. They waited outside the camp's wall of brambles, facing each other, as the last details were sorted out.

Sunpaw bounced around her siblings excitedly as the warriors talked. "Lets hunt at the Gaps Tree!" she squeaked, looking up at Frostnose. "No one has hunted there in a quarter moon!" The pretty golden furred green eyed she-cat summersaulted over her front paws and jumped up, quivering impatiently. Her tail flicked back and forth, stirring the air like a whirlwind.

Cedarpelt shook his head. "I sent Eagleclaw, Amberbreeze, Hollystep, and Mousesplash there this morning."

There was a coughing sound as Mistypaw unluckily caught a mouthful of her sister's tail in her mouth. Choking out her sister's tail fur, she laughed. "We're already swallowing enough dust to fill the camp with it being greenleaf, do we really need to eat your tail as well?"

Gorsepaw crinkled his nose. "I hop not. Dust is bad enough."

Sunpaw smiled sheepishly. "Sorry." She jumped on her brother, waving her fluffy golden tail in his face.

"Gah! Gah!" He spat, going along with the game. "Its awful! Gah! I can't breath!" Gorsepaw flailed his paws in the air wildly, sending dried, dead leaves and dust everywhere.

"Watch it!" shouted Frostnose as a paw hit his side. The green eyed warrior jumped back, glaring at his apprentice and her brother.

Curltail smiled, managing to look stern and kind at the same time. "That's enough." she said.

"Sorry." Sunpaw jumped off her brother, somehow managing to keep still as she padded back over to her white mentor's side.

Gorsepaw hopped to his paws and sat, forcing a sorry expression onto his face, though Copperpaw was pretty sure Curltail could tell he was trying hard not to break out laughing.

"You're like a bunch of kits!" Dustpaw exclaimed, shaking her head but grinning.

Copperpaw staid silent and turned her attention to her group as the mentors finished. She looked up at her mentor, Hawkscar, who was opening his mouth to speak. "I'll lead." he meowed, waving his tail for the other three cats to follow.

As the four cats headed out of camp, heading strait, the direction of the moor border, the other group of six turned right, in the direction of the twolegplace border.

DuskClan camp sat in about the center of the territory, surrounded by a moor and horseplace, twolegplace, thunderpath, and gorge and river. Snakestones, a group of rocks full of prey and snakes, was in the corner of the moor and twolegplace border. Towards the corner of the twolegplace and thunderpath border but deeper into the territory there was a huge ditch in the ground were a group of foxes and badgers lived together. Beginning about halfway between the moor and thunderpath border was the pine trees. The pines ran along the edge of the gorge. They reached about a third of the way from the gorge to the twolegplace borders, but went all the way to the moor.

Copperpaw was barely nine moons, and because a cat had to be a apprentice for at least three moons before visiting the pines and the ditch, Hawkscar hadn't had a chance to show her either place yet. The training clearing was close to the camp and almost strait in front of it. It was full of thick, soft green grass with rocks of various sizes running along one side of it. Nearby the training clearing was Gaps Tree. Gaps Tree was a tree full of holes from a woodpecker, no cat in the Clan knew what that was, other than it was some type of bird who used to live there. A huge tree, the biggest oak in the forest called Tall Tree, sat almost directly between the edge of the pines and the twolegplace border and the training clearing and moor and horseplace border.

The only other landmarks Copperpaw knew of was a partly hollow tree and some sort of beach, but she had never seen either of those because they were both in the pines.

"You coming?" asked Dustpaw, the thick furred, brown, eleven moon old apprentice asked her friend.

Copperpaw nodded, realizing she had fallen behind, and hurried to catch up, falling into step behind Hawkscar and next to Badgerwhisker and Dustpaw.

~•~

Moving silently and carefully, inching slowly forward, the cat was surprised the beating of their heart wasn't heard by their prey. Sliding their paws carefully over the grassy ground, not making a sound as they crept closer and closer towards a unsuspecting target, they prepared to pounce. Crouching into the well known and practiced hunting crouch, they readied theirself, leaping gracefully, they breathed a sigh of relief as the squeak of their target was cut by a quick bite to the neck. Scooping the squirrel up in her jaws, Mistypaw turned to face Sunpaw.

"Great catch!" said Sunpaw, the slightest hint of jealously creeping out over her voice.

Realizing her sister was envious of her forest hunting abilities, Mistypaw meowed, "Don't worry, Sunpaw. You're probably the best moor hunter in the whole Clan. Plus, you beat me at that battle the other day."

"I'm probably the only one! No one else even hunts there! It isn't even really part of our territory! That was just once and I haven't beaten Gorsepaw at anything sense we were kits!"

"What's this? Does someone not feel worthy of their place in the Clan?" the sweet voice of a she-cat asked. A amber eyed torbie stepped out of the bushes, a freshly killed mouse dangling from her jaws.

Mistypaw sensed her sister's fur grow hot, but she couldn't tell if she was embarrassed or mad or both.

"You fight like your mother and have the same agile build as her, but are still much like your father. No apprentice has ever had such good speed at such a young age. Gorsepaw might be able to squash you, but by the time he is a warrior he could probably do that to a full grown cat. As for your moor hunting abilities, it is true that very few cats hunt there, but that does not mean that makes chasing rabbits any less useful. If anything, it makes it more."

Sunpaw's fur lay flat and her temperature returned to normal. Mistypaw felt herself relax as well as her sister calmed. She had never seen Sunpaw in such a bad mood. Sunpaw nodded her yellow head. "I guess so." she said.

Cloverstem purred. "Great. Now I better get back to the patrol before I loose my ears to Twilightleap. Purring, she turned and disappeared into the forest.

_________________________________
June 3, 2015

I got Pokemon X, but don't worry, I have finished it and I don't know of any other Pokemon games that I would enjoy, so I shouldn't disappear again. Hopefully. But a lot of people have been coming over and there are plans for vacations, so if I take this long again, those are my excuses.

This is a bit random, but did you know that (Spoilerish Alert for Pokemon fans) if you go to Lumiose City in Pokemon X and probably Y and go to the second floor of some 3 floored building, the first time you enter a Hex Maniac with none moving legs floats by you and then vanishes into thin air after saying, "No, you're not the one."? That isn't all, in Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and probably Omega Ruby, there is a Hex Maniac who says the same exact thing to you on Mt. Pyre, except she stands still and doesn't disappear. And then there is the Hex Maniac listening for the elevator and the writing on the board in the TMV station, along with Hoopa, but if you care about random creepy Pokemon stuff all you need to do is search up something along the lines of, "Pokemon X and Y creepy floating Hex Maniac, what is a Hoopa, what is with the elevator, and where is "the usual place.""

(Spoilerish Alert for Pokemon fans over) I hope you enjoyed my writing and pointless Pokemon rambling. I'll stop talking now. - Katty

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