Forest's Fate

Chapter 23

The next day, I am walking next to Rain with many other cats behind me (the same ones that I woke up the night before to chase off Ice). We are rotating to a different tunnel for another meeting. It seems like Rain and Ash have finally decided on a battle plan based on all of our input from last time.

"Nice job on catching Ice," Rain meowed, opening the topic of last night once again, "but, you know, just for next time, you didn't need to wake up everyone. Five cats would have been more than enough to chase him away."

"Sorry," I apologize for the millionth time. Many cats were annoyed with me this morning because I woke up all of them just to get rid of Ice.

Rain purrs, "It's fine. Ash already looked like he was on him, anyway."

"Yeah. He was there even before I noticed Ice."

I open my jaws again to explain what happened between my seeing them and my alerting everyone else, but I stop myself. There is no way I'm telling her that Ash gave me a power. What if she gets mad at me for becoming something resembling a Superior cat? Or even worse, maybe she'll even try to make me use my ability to change into a human. Rain doesn't have to know anyway because I've already decided that I won't be using my power. Humans are strange, and I don't want to be one.

We finally stop walking as we meet a bunch of rebels who are already waiting next to another underground tunnel. "Hey, guys!" Rain meows cheerfully to the entire rebel group. "In case you don't know, we're by the East Tunnel."

However, there are more cats than our last meeting. That's because at a small distance away from everyone else, there stands another group of cats- about ten of them- closely clustered behind what appears to be their leader: a small, bony cat with brown tabby fur like mine. I can't figure out the gender of him or her. Either way, his or her amber eyes are narrowed and warily staring at all of us as he or she is crouched towards the ground in a sort of hunter position. As the pair of eyes slowly starts to point in my direction, I quickly look away and focus on Rain and Ash, who are standing next to each other.

Ash starts to speak. "Tonight," he announces, "we are going to launch an attack on the Superior cats." There are meows of surprise and shock that echo throughout.

"Yep! And we have added more cats to our rebel group." She gestures her tail towards the small, segregated cluster off to the side away from the entrance to the tunnel. Everyone turns to look.

The brown tabby growls in a ragged, female voice, "We, the Killers, have endured an extreme defeat against the Earth-Superior army two days ago. It has resulted in fifteen deaths and many injuries. Because of this, we have decided that it is best to team up with Rain's group to help defeat the Superiors once and for all without getting completely obliterated."

A short silence passes by after her speech. I fully notice for the first time that some of the cats behind her are seriously injured. There is a cat behind her with a gory, deep scar down his or her side. It looks badly infected. Another is leaning on someone for support.

"Thank you, Red," Rain says. "I promise that you will not regret your choice."

Red silently sits down and directs her gaze to the ground, showing no response. Her muscles are still tense. For some reason, something tells me that she looks doubtful that Rain's promise will be fulfilled.

Ash paces around us as he explains, "When the sky reaches its deepest shade of indigo, we will separate into two groups. The first one will attack where the Earth-Superior army resides. The second group will attack Camp Six, which is the camp that Ice leads. This is all we will be able to do tonight, considering our time and resources. After tonight, if enough cats are in a good condition to fight, we will invade Camp Three. If you don't remember, that is where the other Superior leader is."