Warriors: Secrets Beyond the Stars: The Prophecy

~Chapter 20~

"Keep your ears sharp, we need as much prey as possible in order to feed RippleClan" Rainpelt meowed in a quiet voice. Mousepaw looked over at the deputy, "Rainpelt, I don't mean to bother you but, why do we need to hunt for prey? Why couldn't we just fish like we always do?" she asked. "Because the fish in the rivers are slowly dying for some reason. Smallfoot says it could be from Twoleg polluting the rivers with their trash, so it might be dangerous to feed them to the clan" Rainpelt said to her. Mousepaw nodded then turned to Branchpaw, who was crouching right beside her.

"Do you think their will be any prey left on the ground? It's close to Leaf-bare and I haven't seen a mouse sense" she whispered to him. He nodded slightly, "Shush!" Whitepaw said as he flicked Mousepaw's ear with his white tail. Mousepaw looked back at the deputy, who was slowly moving towards a rock. Is she insane? She thought. The deputy sprang at the rock and pinned it, then raised her paw and sliced down hard on it. Mousepaw rolled her eyes, she rested her gaze back on Rainpelt, who was padding back to them with something with a brownish, reddish pelt. Mousepaw squinted her eyes to see a watervole in the deputy's mouth, she dropped the prey and dug a little hole in the ground, then she dropped the vole into the hole and buried it.

Rainpelt turned and started creeping away, Mousepaw, Branchpaw, and Whitepaw followed. Mousepaw looked around, seeing if she could see any signs of prey. Nothing came into her line of sight, she took a deep breath through her nose, drinking in all of the scents around her. She could smell Whitepaw, who was moving a few rabbit-lengths away from her, Branchpaw, who was slowly creeping up on a small mouse, Rainpelt, who was slowly moving towards the river, and a less powerful smell of... rabbit! The scent of rabbit, and it seemed to be close! Mousepaw tried to find where the scent was coming from, the scent of rabbit was coming from what smelled like the river.

She raced towards the scent as it flooded through her nose, she felt her mouth water a bit. It's close! It's scent is getting stronger and stronger! She thought, she stopped as she saw a white ear twitch above a fern. She crouched and slowly moved to where she could see the rabbit, it's small white fluffy tail was all Mousepaw could besides the rabbit's ears. The creature looked to be lapping water from the river, the dark she waited for the rabbit's nose to touch the water, then she sprang at her prey. The rabbit twitched it's ears then raced off, Mousepaw landed where it was lapping then dashed after it. The white rabbit swerved around logs and holes in the ground, Mousepaw followed the pattern of the rabbit's pawsteps, the prey stopped at a hole then squirmed into it.

Mousepaw halted to a stop at the edge of the rabbit hole, she moved her head closer to the entrance, looking in to see if she could see the rabbit. It's white pelt was hidden in the hole, surrounded by darkness. She reached her paw in trying to scoop out the rabbit, she felt her paw barely touch the rabbit's fur when the moving of a bush drew her attention away. Mousepaw slowly moved towards the bush, her tail straight out. A scent flooded through the apprentices nose, the scent of blood was one of them. As she realized what was making the bush move she padded up to the bush to see a red pelt, black paws and tail. Fox! She thought, she took a few steps back to step on a dry leaf. She looked at the leaf then back at the bush, a low growl slowly came from the bush, then the fox leaped out from it. It landed right in front of Mousepaw, it's ragged pelt showed that it was a working fox, it's slender and smaller body showed that it was a she. The fox barked at Mousepaw, she let out a hiss and leaped at it.

"Mousepaw what are you doing?!?" yowled a voice, Mousepaw turned to see Branchpaw along with Whitepaw and Rainpelt. Mousepaw hit the side of the fox, who then kicked her away. She landed right in front of the cats, when she looked up to see Rainpelt talking to Whitepaw, "Go and get the other hunting party. We need as many cats as we can." Rainpelt turned to the fox, "I'll deal with this mouse-dung" then she leaped at the fox. The deputy landed on the fox's back and started clawing it, Mousepaw got up and joined with her deputy as well.