Zodiac (warrior cats)

Chapter 29

Hollowpaw lay gloomily on the opposite side of ShadowClan camp, her brown head resting on her small paws. It was a cloudy day, a welcomed change to the scorching hot days of Green-Leaf they had experienced.
But Green-Leaf had came and went swiftly, and now Leaf-Fall was washing over the forest. Even the leaves which were once bright green and abundant, were now flashes of golden and yellow.
"Battle training time" a meow came from Redwillow as he padded up to her.
"Okay" Hollowpaw heaved herself off the ground, suddenly feeling nervous.
But this wasn't Lizardstripe she was going to train with, it was Redwillow. And he was a highly respected senior warrior, so Hollowpaw had nothing to worry about!
Exiting the camp with her mentor, the brown apprentice noticed her brother glaring at her.
What? She snapped silently, He probably thinks I'm going to murder Redwillow too! Couldn't Umberpaw just drop it already? He was acting immature!
Furze was scattered across the ground, their yellow petals dappled the ShadowClan territory for fox-lengths. Leaves crackled beneath Hollowpaw's feet as they reach the spot to battle train, and instantly her mottled-brown mentor turned to face her.
"Attack me" Redwillow meowed, flicking his tail for his apprentice to come forward.
Nodding, Hollowpaw honed her senses and bunched her muscles. She longed to use her power in this practice fight, but with the fate of her last mentor, she didn't want to take any chances.
The apprentice sprung forward through the air, but narrowly missed the senior warrior as he flipped underneath her, and came out onto the other side.
"Fox-dung" Hollowpaw swore as she lifted her paw up, "I trod on a thistle!".
"Here let me see" Redwillow moved forward to examine his paw, "It's fine, now come on show me what you've got. And this time don't hold back."
Pulling the thistle out of her pad, Hollowpaw scrunched her face. She was a strong cat, and since Redwillow hadn't seen that yet, she had to prove it now more than ever.
Not giving her mentor even a second to wonder what she was doing, Hollowpaw raced forward and kicked at his back paws, knocking the warrior off his feet.
Redwillow came crashing to the ground, his mottled brown pelt now covered in sand.
"Very good" he congratulated his apprentice, "Your quite a strong cat Hollowpaw, you just need to perfect your skills."
As the two trained for most of the day, Hollowpaw's belly began to growl from hunger. She hadn't even eaten this morning, well she was going to but then Redwillow dragged her out to practice.
"How about some hunting?" her mentor suggested, "Bring back three pieces of prey and you an have the biggest" his gaze held pride for his new apprentice.
Redwillow shared a bond with Hollowpaw, he had been the mentor to her father Grizzlyfur.
"Okay" Hollowpaw meowed as Redwillow went off to hunt for himself, finally she could eat.
Stalking off into the golden forest, the brown she-cat sniffed the air gingerly. The crisp scents of auburn leaves filled the air, along with the smell of honey from a bee hive only fox-lengths above her head.
Hollowpaw noticed a starling sitting on a branch only a fox-length away, but Starling's were far to fast to catch on the ground, or anywhere for that matter.
Suddenly a fishy scent filled the air. At first Hollowpaw thought it actually was fish, but she was nowhere near the lake! And then a thought came into the apprentices mind as she saw a shiny gray tail behind an ash tree,
RiverClan!
"Come our you stupid Otter!" she snapped, fury rose like a burning inferno inside Hollowpaw. How dare they trespass on her territory!
"I'm not here for trouble" the voice, a she-cats, meowed delicately. "I just want to talk" the cat meowed as she slowly backed out of the cover of the ash tree.
That was when Hollowpaw realized this was only an apprentice, probably no younger than herself.
"What are you doing here?" she growled, eying the RiverClan cat suspiciously. The cat was small, and her pelt was sleek and shiny like most RiverClan cats.
But something was different about this apprentice, something wasn't quite right with her eyes.
"You're a Zodiac?" the she-cat asked, as Hollowpaw looked at her incredulously.
Twitching her brown tail, Hollowpaw nodded. "How did you know?" Most of the other clans knew there were two Zodiac's in ShadowClan, but not many knew who they were.
"The eye symbol on the back of your ear" the cat flicked her tail to Hollowpaw's brown ear, "I have a symbol as well." The RiverClan cat blinked her azure eyes, they flickered like moonlight on the waves of the lake.
"I'm Otterpaw" the cat bowed her head in welcome, "And I'm here to tell you that a meeting is going to be held tomorrow at midnight. A meeting for all of the Zodiac's."
Hollowpaw perked her ears, she had never met a Zodiac before, well other than Umberpaw of course.
"What kind of meeting?" she asked with interest, as Otterpaw brightened at the question.
"Well I don't really know, Sprucepaw is going to handle all that. But basically we're going to see if we can change the path StarClan laid down for us, you know about the Omen don't you?".
She knew the omen all to well, Scarletshine often spoke about it during normal activities. But four out of the eight Zodiac's weren't going to die, surely there was a way to fix this!
"I'll come" Hollowpaw meowed without a second thought, "And I'll make sure the other Zodiac, my brother, comes too."
"Great!" Otterpaw beamed as she turned to leave, "We're meeting at the crevice by the lake, in between RiverClan and the Horseplace."
Hollowpaw nodded at the statement, "See you at midnight." She couldn't wait to meet the other Zodiac's, did any of them have a power like hers?
Hollowpaw could only wait and find out, and hopefully the Zodiac's didn't kill each other in the process.