Riversplash's Defeat (plan on finishing soon)

Chapter thirteen

Darkness encased the cats near the river. Riverpaw shivered with the cool air. The Leaf-Fall weather wasn't anything like the warm, sunny weather of Green-leaf. Riverpaw was thankful for his warm thick pelt. If not for it, he would be as cold as a block of ice.

"We appreciate your help, Riverpaw. Hopefully with the fish you provide some of our nursing queens can feed their young, and hopefully we can all have fuller bellies too. You're saving a ton of cats today, Riverpaw." Gecko meowed, flicking her tail to the rogues behind her.

Whale nodded her head, dipping her tabby head to the earth, gratefulness being expressed in her eyes as well as humility.

Riverpaw glances down at his paw, feeling waves of embarrassment course through his pelt. "It's nothing." He mumbled. "Any noble cat would do the same."

Zinnia purred with amusement at Riverpaw's embarrassment. "Don't be so modest. You're becoming one of us—er, well you're becoming a friend to us. Pretty soon you'll even know Stripes well enough he will have to come out his shell!" Zinnia meowed, shoving him affectionately.

Out of the corner of his eye, Riverpaw could see Pearl rolling his eyes before shaking his head with disapproval.

Stripes snorted as if that was the most mouse-brained thing he'd ever heard.

What has Riverpaw ever done to him to make him this grumpy?

It was strange for a cat he never met once in his life to just snort as if he was better off not talking to him.

Even Deeppaw talked to him more than this tom. This tom would barely even greet him.

But, there was something about Stripes that made Riverpaw curious about him. Their fur color was the same. That didn't mean anything on its own, but there was something familiar about that pelt color, and those eyes...they reminded him of someone back in RiverClan, but he couldn't place his paw on it.

He really wanted to know what it was, but he couldn't just ask this tom for the answers. So he would have to do the investigating on his own.

For now, he had to hone his focus on helping these cats.

The cats of the rogue group crowded the river, staring into the pool of water. Green eyes, blue eyes, Amber eyes, and yellow eyes of all kinds reflected off of the big stream of water.

Pearl's tail waved in air as he paced back and forth, his eyes showing how nervous he was about them doing this. "If you get caught it you will be having a really bad time." He meowed. Panicky, he added, "Are you sure you want to do this, Riverpaw?"

Kelp snorted, mocking the young tom.

Riverpaw didn't understand why Pearl was so anxious. Getting caught? They wouldn't get caught now that the sun was barely peeking at them. It was their only witness to this break in the code.

Well, Riverpaw wasn't sure if it was breaking the code. More or less it was bending the code slightly to help cats in more need than the clan.

Peering into the river he saw all the big and small fish swimming around in the river. The water in the river seemed higher to Riverpaw than it was earlier.

Seeing the river swell like this made the young apprentice shiver. It didn't look fun to drown in such an river when it was swelling. Even if it was only beginning to get swollen.

He had heard stories of a couple of cats drowning in this river. For StarClan's sake! I've even heard of a young ShadowClan medicine cat apprentice drowning in the lake!

Such a fate was unfortunate. He shivered again.

I pray no one drowns in this river when I'm alive! That would be tragic! He thought.