The five Warrior Clans are going extinct. Gatherings and Moonpool visits are inacessable, with leaders falling left and right. The lake territories are being wiped out to the brink of extinction by new, large predators that have migrated into their...
"Stay still, Rowanpaw! We have to get her out before those Twolegs see us."
But Rowanpaw began trembling. Crescentpaw's eyes widened as her sister turned towards her, removing her paws from the metal sheet and letting it fall several inches lower.
The brown she-cat's mouth was open with shock but no words were coming out.
She's going to flee again. She always does! Rowanpaw had always been a fight-or-flight kind of cat, who predominately preferred flight.
"Rowanpaw, stop! Grab the metal so Tinypaw can get out!" She almost screeched at her littermate, but Rowanpaw was already turning away. Her sister's tail bushed with fright, and it was swallowed up with the rest of her by the mass of weeds all around them.
Rowanpaw had fled. Her retreating pawsteps were soon unheard over the rambling of Twoleg voice, growing steadily louder as they came closer.
They're coming straight for us.
Panicking, she tried to lift her forelegs and push against the flap above her shoulders. Without Rowanpaw to provide leverage from the bottom edge it hardly moved. The metal sheet simply craned upward a few centimeters, but did not angle inward like it had with Rowanpaw's aid.
Crescentpaw tried something else. She moved into Rowanpaw's previous position, grabbing the metal sheet's edge with her paws and dew-caws. She swung it inward as hard as she could, but there was nothing to force it high up enough. Increasingly desperate, she pushed her head against the ceiling. But it was too far from the sheet's center to properly move it.
Something crashed against the low-lying square plate, causing the entire box to shudder. As the cage rattled it ripped at their claws with it's metal wires below. Crescentpaw flinched away, but was fast enough not to let the flap fall fully back down. Tinypaw had one foreleg stretched partway underneath it, and the fish still in her jaws.
"Just let the fish go!" Crescentpaw snapped impatiently, worry crawling up her spine like worms. Her thick neck-fur was fluffed and her blue-and-yellow eyes stretched wide.
Tinypaw dropped it and kicked it behind her in one fluid movement, where it smacked the back of the box-trap. She flattened her entire body and tried to push her face beneath and through the flap but it only let her muzzle slip through.
"Starclan, no!" Crescentpaw wailed with fright as a Twoleg's heads came into view. Then another. There was two of them; one was only about half of the first's height- but both moved rather slowly through the grass, as if they weren't in a rush. As they advanced towards the cat's hiding spot, more and more of the colored pelts covering their bodies became visible.
It was clear that the Twoleg's knew the cats were there, because as Tinypaw scrabbled with her claws against the metal flap, and Crescentpaw pushed upward with all her might, they bent their heads around the tree to look.
Some sort of gibberish was still coming out of their mouths, but this time the cats knew that it was directly about them. This can't be happening. They must have heard Tinypaw crashing into the plate. With the edge of the metal door now cutting deep into her flesh, she gasped and fell back.
"Crescentpaw, wait! Don't leave me!"
One of the Twoleg's stepped towards the back of the trap, while the other held its place a few paces away. Both had trampled the grass leading directly to the cats, stomping over it while both Crescentpaw and Tinypaw cringed with terror.
Beneath the golden-washed ivy-trendils, the silver birch trees that they were trapped around, and the cobalt chalky-pale sky, the Twoleg reached out a wrinkled paw and grasped the contraption. And somehow young Crescentpaw knew what would happen next. They would take her sister away. I'll never see her again. Her heart plummeted.
Wish a rush of adrenaline Crescentpaw responded with her first impulsive reaction. She flew forward before the box had lifted off the ground, tumbling her way into the flap. Her body pushed through it until she hit Tinypaw with a responding "oof!"
That was so easy, she thought in disbelief. How was it so effortless to push the flap inward to get in, but not inward to get out? Dumb twoleg tricks!
The little apprentice's eyes were wide as moons as she stared back at Crescentpaw. "Wow. Okay, just... wow. I figured you would scratch them, but-... that's something too."
And yet Tinypaw had a teensy weensy smile of relief on her face. Crescentpaw curled her tail around her sister's back as they were lifted up and carried away.
What Tinypaw and Crescentpaw got trapped in:
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The box swayed gently back and forth as the older Twoleg marched out of the grass, plodding up to meet the younger one that was standing near the path. Crescentpaw stared at the ground blurring beneath them as the Twolegs walked. She could see the tiny dirt-Thunderpath from between the twisted wires. Unsettled and almost nauseated, she wondered what would happen next.
The cat's were carried for about half of a mile. The second twoleg accompanying the first eventually split off and took a different path. It was not long after that the cats were turned in an opposite direction and carried straight through Greenleaf Twolegplace. Several other long-legged Twolegs walked among theirs, until they thinned out and a black-top before the lake came into view.
"There's so many Twolegs here, right on our border and Shadowclan's. We should've kept well away," Tinypaw whispered, her large blue-ish eyes round as she stared around at the odd sights.
Crescentpaw murmured agreement. She knew that was true. However, the she-cats were prevented from further discussing it when the Twoleg stopped beside a monster that was shiny and black.
Bewildered and certainly a bit petrified, the two apprentices felt their hearts drop. The Twoleg opened a flap on the side of the monster and set them inside. She then rounded the bend of the monster's sleek metal frame and climbed into it from the other side.
