The Cat Clan: PROTECTERS

Chapter 2

"Goddess, where are they?" Cheetah moaned impatiently, pacing up and down the carpet.

"Can't you just calm for a minute?" Leopard snapped at her. She was trying her last nerve. "It's only been five minutes!"

Cheetah cowered back when Leopard spoke, but replied, "I can try." She sat down. Minutes later, her foot was jiggling like crazy.

"What is your problem?" Leopard said, turning around.

"I'm sorry," Cheetah groaned dramatically. Leopard sighed and crumpled up her last piece of paper, throwing it into the garbage. She pulled out a crisp, fresh, new, sheet and a new pen, inserting the end into her mouth and chewing. Cheetah stood up and started pacing again.

"I'm sorry, too, Cheetah," Leopard said. "I just can't think."

"What're you doing, anyway?" Cheetah said, walking over to Leopard and looking over her shoulder. Leopard sighed.

"Trying to plan," she said. "But I'm not good at coordinating whatsoever."

"Trying to plan what?" Cheetah asked, staring even more intently at the empty sheet of paper. It was almost like she was trying to decipher something written in it and she'd only find the answer if she stared at it long enough. Leopard instinctively covered the paper up with her hand.

"Nothing. I just have a feeling we're going to need to be prepared for something. That something bad's going to happen. And that we're not ready," Leopard sighed. Cheetah shrugged.

"If you don't know what's going to happen, how can you plan for it?" she said logically. Leopard sighed again.

"Good point, Cheetah-" Cheetah looked extremely pleased with herself "- but I feel like I can be, you know?" Cheetah shook her head.

"Uh, nope," she said. Then there was a pounding on the stairs. Cheetah shot straight up into the air like she'd been shot and landed in a defensive pose facing the door, muscles flexed and her whole body tensed. Leopard watched, amused.

Jaguar and Lynx burst through the door and Cheetah relaxed visibly. "Goddess, I have to relax!" she said, smacking herself on the head. "But, you know, I have this feeling something's watching us," she admitted.

Nobody was listening to her; everyone was focused on Lynx as she panted out, "Leopard, I realized something really important-"

"That she won't tell me," Jaguar butted in cuttingly. Lynx rolled her eyes at her and continued.

"-from all that mythological reading I was doing and Leopard, oh, it's really important," Lynx finished. Leopard looked amused again, like a mother watching her child tell her proudly that two plus two equals three.

"So let's hear it," she said, the maternal-ness creeping into her voice this time.

"Great," Jaguar sighed. "Finally, you know this has been plaguing me ever since she started to sprint back here."

Lynx smacked Jaguar with the back of her hand lightly. "Goddess, Jaguar, just listen," she reproved.

"I can't listen to something you won't say," Jaguar said.

"Well, I'd say it if only you'd shut up and listen, Jaguar, why don't you just-" Lynx started in a heated tone, but Leopard raised her hand.

"Stop. Just stop it," she said in a commanding voice. They shut up and listened. "Jaguar, I take it that your mission went poorly?"

Jaguar nodded, abashed.

"And Lynx, why can't you just calm down for a second. You're almost as bad as Cheetah, getting all fired up like that." Cheetah brightened at the mention of her name, coming out of the corner where she'd been sulking and said perkily,