Fox Magic

Chapter 18

Blaze's pov

It's been five days since the run in with the groundhogs. Five days of living with Swiftheart. Five nights of dreaming of that stupid rock finally breaking the tree and squishing us like bugs. Like seriously, it still hasn't even creaked in the wind or anything. It's kinda creepy, really.

But I have been creaming Twister and Aurora in battle training. Well, most of the time anyway. Twister has managed to memorize every nook and cranny of our training ground, so there's no sneaking up on him, no matter how quiet I am. And Aurora is difficult to counter because of her crazy, straight-up-in-the-air jumps. I gotta admit, for an odd vixen, she's got some moves.

I'm resting in one of the tunnels, trying to catch my breath. Swiftheart has shown us a lot of moves in his eagerness to teach, and I want to be the first to master them all. So of course I've been working extra hard.

I hear the dirt shift slightly, somewhere behind me. I run out the exit in the opposite direction, then jump over the hole and wait for whoever's down there to come out. That's one of the moves Swiftheart taught us.

As soon as I see the tips of Twister's gray ears, I pounce on him before he can even exit the hole. Unfortunately, he ducked down at the last second and I landed on nothing but dirt. That's another move Swiftheart taught us. As I slid in the dirt, Twister leaped out of the hole and landed right on top of of me. I let myself fall to one side as I turned and bit down on Twister's neck, my weight helping me throw him off as I flopped down on the ground. As soon as he was off, I pounced on him, pinning him to the ground.

Twister then rolled onto his back and kicked me in the belly hard enough to knock the wind out of me. As I'm catching my breath, I see Aurora appear out of nowhere and tackle Twister to the ground. Her thicker fur gives her an advantage, as no matter where we bite her, she easily slips away and we're left with a mouthful of fur.

I run behind her and bite her tail. When she turned to bite me back, Twister kicked her as I ducked down, tripping her. Then, Twister jumped over me and pinned Aurora to the ground.

"Hey, tag-teaming isn't fair!" Aurora said angrily.

"We've gotta practice it somehow," Twister replied, getting off of her.

"Besides, you tag-teamed me first!" I reminded her.

"Why are you guys arguing?" Swiftheart said, appearing out of nowhere, as usual, "You were all great! That was very clever how you modified my moves like that!"

"Two against one still isn't fair," Aurora complained.

"How do you think I felt when you started it yesterday?!" I reminded her of how we came up with that move.

Actually, Twister and Aurora had just attacked me out of nowhere. It was my idea to remember and repeat what they did.

"We're taking turns, remember," Twister said, rolling his eyes.

"How about I practice with you? We could form teams and make a game out of it!" Swiftheart suggested.

"That could work," Aurora agreed.

"Swiftheart's on my team!" Twister blurted.

Aurora and I both looked at him in shock. It's not like him to call out like that.

"What? You two weren't saying anything," he said.

"Alright, Aurora and Blaze are a team, then," Swiftheart said.

"Great," I mumbled.

"Don't act like you don't like me," Aurora replied.

"Alright, here's the game. First team to make it past Stonetree wins! But of course the other team has to try to stop them," Swiftheart explained without missing a beat.