Feathers opened his eyes as a small yawn escaped his jaws. His blue eyes narrowed as he looked at the rising sun. "Alright. Time to go bring some food back," He mumbled to himself. The blue-gray tabby cat stretched before he leaped off of a small ledge and began to trot to a small group of buildings.
After a few minutes or so, Feathers stopped at a structure that smelled of fish. He jumped up to the window and slid under it. The feline sniffed the air and navigated through the house to find where the smell was coming from. Then, on the table, he spotted a big tuna fish just lying there. The human who owned the house walked away from the table, talking to someone on the weird phone device that people used.
*Perfect, a golden opportunity,* Feathers thought with a smile as he jumped down from the window and onto the table. He grabbed the fish in his mouth before walking out happily as the weight of it was making his head sag a bit. All was going perfectly well for the small cat until the man who owned the house turned to see him.
"You dirty rotten feline! Taking food from me just like the others!" The person ran off to go grab a knife that he had used to take the scales off of the fish. "Alright. Drop it, or I'll eat tuna and cat for dinner!" He ordered firmly.
Feather's eyes widened as he looked at the man holding the knife. *Haha, to me I should not be able to understand you.* He thought as he pushed his worries away and purred quietly. He held his head high with slight difficulty and then ran as fast as he could, making sharp turns and quick jumps to get back up to the window.
Feathers slid out of the window he had come in through and began his run back as he felt very pleased with himself.
After a while, he dropped the fish on the ground and looked up to the small ledge where he had spent the night. "Silver! Tetra! I got fish!"
Two gray-toned cats jumped off different ledges somewhat near the middle ledge. One was a black colored tom with a yellow eye and a blue eye. The other cat was a silver molly with green eyes.
"Wow! Good one! I'm glad the human saved us the hassle of taking all the scales off," Tetra complimented smiling. "Starling would've been so proud of you, Feathers," the black cat continued to look at the ground with a long sigh.
"I wish your brother would be here too to share my first fish with us," Feathers replied, closing his eyes and sitting down next to Tetra. He stroked the black cat's back with his tail to comfort him, it had only been a few months since Starling had been killed.
Silver joined them in grieving once again. She licked Feathers over and over before starting to speak, "He died an honorable death saving you Feathers. It was the way he would want to go out, saving another cat. Even though he is no longer standing beside us, he will be remembered forever."
After a while, they all started to eat the tuna fish that Feathers had brought back. Not having eaten much for a while, the tuna fish was soon history. The cats finished it in a matter of minutes.
"I need to say something... I know that it took a lot of energy to get to this small little house with friendly people... mostly... and this town full of happy, well-fed cats, but I know I'm breaking my promise that I made to Starling..." Feathers trailed off, thinking carefully about what he wanted to say next. He opened his mouth to continue, "Starling said that he wanted me to save other cats from Lightning, but we are walking away from the problem. We need to go back to the city and save the street cats there."
"Alright, I get where you're coming from, Feathers. But you're still so very young. You barely made the journey here! Besides, where would we stay?" Silver asked, tilting her gray head to the side. The look in her green eyes was questioning.
"I'm older now. You don't have to worry about me, I can take care of myself. Also, a place to stay wouldn't be that much of a problem. Younger groups of cats would probably accept a few older cats into their group in the city, right? Especially if we told them our plan," Feathers responded, smiling confidently. Over time, he had grown to be more confident about his skills and his way of executing plans smoothly through things such as hunting and crossing roads.
"What is the plan though, we've never even talked about doing something like this before," Tetra responded, licking his paw and cleaning off his ear as he watched Feathers think.
"We'll come up with a plan along the way, or something... It'll take probably over three months to get back," the blue-gray tom responded, his smile still sticking to his face, "who's in?" He asked.
"I'm in," Tetra responded, "let's make Lightning and his cats pay for taking my brother's life. Let's make sure he hasn't died for nothing, Feathers. He knew what he was doing and wouldn't make a mistake dying for a cat without potential."
Silver hesitated for a while, "I'm in to save the innocent street cats. You have many plans Feathers and big dreams too, I can tell, but remember that you can't do everything by yourself, and some things are just impossible."
"Alright. Got it, Silver, Tetra, we leave in a month so we have time to rest." The small cat decided before jumping up on a fence.
"Alright, nobody made you the boss but ok. Maybe we should plan this out first though as we'll probably have four months until we're there to do what needs to be done, but we need a smart way to do it," Silver meowed, jumping up on the fence next to Feathers and watching Tetra do the same.
"Umm, alright. So, by then we'll be older and we'll be able to do more things. Like you Silver... I'm guessing you'll be around three seasons old. Tetra... I'm pretty sure you'd be about ten months," Feathers thought out loud, "And I'd be close to eight months."
"We get it that we'd be older, so move on to your thoughts about a plan," Silver hissed impatiently as soon as he was done speaking. "Like, would we want to do this silently or make a big appearance?"
Tetra spoke up, "Making a big appearance would do us no good. Lightning has so many cats, and he'll have more later, that it wouldn't surprise him. It would just get us easily killed for giving away where we were."
Feather's tail swished back and forth as he thought. "My idea was we could find a group of friendly cats that are on the street but not on Lightning's side. The surroundings would probably have changed in the alleys and streets because we've been gone for so long so we would need to find a cat who's knowledgeable about his or her surroundings. We definitely would need more information before we made a full plan," he explained to both of the cats beside him.
"But one thing is for sure," Tetra said, looking at Feathers and Silver. "We need to train and be good at fighting because I know as a fact that when we get back to where we used to be we'll need to be great at combat. That is what Lightning and his cats rely on, they don't rely on knowing skills, tricks, and thoughts, they just rely on combat."
"Wait! But doesn't that mean that we should try to use a different strategy for him? If we use combat we are sure to die because he and his cats have probably practiced for years," Silver added, shaking her head, not understanding.
"I think he's trying to say that we already know how to use thought and words on our side. Tetra probably thinks that we need to know combat in case that plan were to fail, to win a battle we would need more cats so... What if we gathered an army and used that to start?" Feather asked as his jaws opened at his amazing idea.
Silver and Tetra turned to each other before they spoke in unison, "Let's do it."
The three cats talked for the remainder of the day and they were starting to get things figured out. It was now night and Feathers was going over what they had discussed.
"So, We find a group of cats and find a smart cat who can tell us more about the surroundings and everything. Then we'll adjust the plan as needed. The plan we have now is to gather an army and try to use the power of words to get Lightning to stop. If he doesn't, we resort to combat and if we are being beaten we run away and think of a different plan. Correct?" Feathers asked as he had finished speaking.
"Yep, you got everything right. Silver is already asleep and I'm pretty sure we should also be asleep too," Tetra yawned, rolling onto his back in the soft grass copying what Feathers was doing. He glanced up at the stars with a small smile.
"Why are you smiling?" Feathers asked curiously looking over at him.
"Look up Feathers. Look up at the sky. Somewhere up there Starling is watching. He'll watch us save the cats of California and by the stars above, he'll be so proud of you," Starling replied as he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Feathers rolled over to the black cat and curled up against him, just as he had done with Starling when he was that helpless little kitten thrown outside with no idea of the dangers of the street. However, the dangers there were nothing like the dangers that would await when he faced Lightning in battle...