Fight Fire with Fire [CLAN MEETING - EVERYBODY]

"May I come?" Asked a soft voice. A young, eight moon old she-cat moved from the crowd over to Acidclaw, staring at him with her delicate green eyes. She was, as always, ready to shrink away from all the cats that surrounded the den. The little blue tabby moved slowly towards him once more, hoping she wasn't being an annoyance.

Dark padded into Windclan camp and went right up to Acidclaw, "Hello, my name is Dark. I want to join your clan. No I am not old enough to be a warrior. I am 8 moons old. I need a mentor." he meowed dipping his head.

Mossbreath padded in after Dark and nodded.

Scent of an approaching cat put Morningdew on edge. Was it one of the Elite that she had heard of? Were these cats fast approaching, even while WindClan was just now beginning to up the security of their borders?

The approaching forms revealed themselves as two cats. The cream-tabby warrioress bared her fangs at them, watching them for any sign of hostility. Some tense few moments later, she sensed none. So they did not intend to attack? Why had they come into WindClan's camp, then?

They wanted to join, they said.

"If you want to join the clan, you should probably consult with Gravelstar," Morningdew was the first to address the newcomers. "We're about to leave on a patrol. Neither of us has the authority to admit you into the clan." Calmly, though still on edge, Morningdew gestured toward the den where their leader resided. "Gravelstar is that direction. Please, be careful. Our clan is at war; if you aren't cautious, you might be attacked."

The she-cat smiled at her new mentor, Acidclaw. Not long after being assigned a Mentor, young Satirepaw had lost him to a border skirmish. An easily avoidable death.. But, after going a few days with no mentor, she had been assigned Acidclaw; and this would be her first patrol with him.. Well, more like her first contact with the tom. "Thank you, Acidclaw." The Apprentice whispered, her eyes staring at the ground that they walked upon, and not the older tom she stood beside.

It wasn't long after the young she-cat arrived that Sablepaw recognized her as one of the many other cats she shared the apprentice den with. Satirepaw, was it?

Either way, Sablepaw dipped her head to the apprentice, acknowledging her with no words before she took the initiative to step forward. Why? Well, she was, quite frankly, growing impatient. Three apprentices and two warriors should make a more than adequate patrol for a border, especially if something, by chance, happened there.

"Shouldn't we be going? I think we've sat around on our paws long enough."

The warrioress nodded her acknowledgement of these orders. 'Check the ShadowClan border.' Keeping them in mind as yet another apprentice joined them, it was shortly after that they departed camp. "Yes, we've been idle long enough. We should go."

When departing camp, Morningdew stayed close beside the leader of their patrol, Acidclaw, always keeping her jaws slightly parted to take in the scents of the moor and plains. Nothing here seemed out of the ordinary. She could pick up the trail that the two strange cats from before had taken, but aside from that, the she-cat could smell only WindClan and prey. She looked back to the apprentices accompanying their patrol; "Keep your eyes open for anything, you three."

They hadn't even arrived at the border when Morningdew was overpowered by the stench of the thunderpath. Her fur ruffled with disgust at the twang that not only stung her nose, but left a rank taste on her tongue. She hated the wretched things. She had to scent deeply here just to catch the lingering trace of ShadowClan underneath the stinging, overwhelming smell of monsters and their dirty pathway. As far as she could tell, there was nothing out of the ordinary here... although she would be the first to admit that detecting anything was difficult.

"Do either of you smell anything?" The cream female swept her azuline gaze back to the three apprentices, "Make sure to keep some distance between you and the thunderpath." Then she glanced back to Acidclaw, politely requesting, "May I renew the scent markers?"

Dark got annoyed, "Who is going to be my mentor then?" he meowed louder. His dark blue eyes shining.

Goldenpaw thought she saw Lightpaw scowl as she walked up behind Dark. The golden apprentice bowed her head in apology to her friend and dashed after Acidclaw. Goldenpaw opened her maw and flared her nostrils. "I don't smell anything," she meowed.

The same as Goldenpaw, Sablepaw approached the empty Thunderpath, her nose scrunched, attempting to smell anything other than the terrible odor of the monsters that commonly passed through the area. In fact, the scent was still somewhat new to the she-cat. Sure, she came this way on occasion -- on patrols with her mentor -- but Morningdew was always cautious. She wondered if she should explore it on her own sometime, though during a war was definitely no time to do so. Or even consider it.

"I don't smell much of anything, either," Sablepaw mewed in agreement with the apprentice beside her, backing away from the gray stretch of hard pavement. "Honestly, I can't scent anything other than that... stench. Ugh."

Goldenpaw gingerly set a paw on the hot pavement, then drew it back when a monster with shiny red skin raced by, growling as it went. Its bright yellow eyes temporarily blinded Goldenpaw, and she stumbled onto the Thunderpath. Another monster was zooming down the street, skin as blue as the daytime sky. Goldenpaw's eyes grew as wide as saucers.

If she hadn't held a conscience, the she-cat would have snorted and called Goldenpaw a mouse brained fool for being stupid enough to wander onto the Thunder path without a warriors word. But, instead her words came out panicked, and as always, soft like the wind. "Are you okay?" She gasped, green eyes wide with her blue tabby fur bristling.

Did Goldenpaw... really just do that?! What in StarClan's name was she doing that for?

"Y-You mousebrain! What were you thinking?!" Sablepaw screeched with some panic. And to think, she almost considered the same thing. Her fur bristled a little, but she calmed herself as she approached the panicked she-cat. "Are you okay, Goldenpaw?

At Acidclaw's word, Morningdew had wandered some tail-lengths away to begin marking the foliage along the border, rubbing her body against them and digging claw-marks into the dirt. A male's scent-markings would be much more effective, she knew, but at least her small contribution would make it obvious that WindClan was upping the security of their boundaries -- a clear sign to the ShadowClanners, warning them that trouble would follow them if they so much as sniffed outside of their own territory.

It was on her way back toward the group of apprentices that she saw Goldenpaw stumble out onto the thunderpath. Panic immediately set in like ravenous claws raking at her composure; the she-cat snarled out a warning to the apprentice, bolting forward, but Acidclaw had beaten her to it. He managed to bring her back to safety just as the monster was roaring by, risking his own inevitable death by a hair, and leaving all of them with their fur puffed out in fear and shock.

"I told you to stay back away from the thunderpath!" The cream tabby she-cat's voice took on a harsh tone, a rarity for her. But through that tone was an obvious worry that showed itself through her actions, as she nudged Goldenpaw a good few pawsteps from the road and started to lick her forehead in attempts to console her. "You're lucky Acidclaw saved you. You should remember to be more careful from now on, okay?"

Giving herself a few licks to calm herself, too, she assessed that there didn't seem to be any sign of ShadowClan invasion here, and looked back to Acidclaw to lead them on.

Goldenpaw sighed. "Yes, I'm okay." She turned to Morningdew. "I know to be careful!" she snapped. "That first monster, the red one, it blinded me!"

"Don't take that tone with me!" Morningdew pinned her ears back with the retort, "If you knew to be careful, you wouldn't have stumbled into the thunderpath! Be more careful!" The growl that started to seep into her throat was cut short just following her words, though; she knew the apprentice must have been frazzled herself. Trying to reprimand her so soon after she had almost been hit by a monster was insensitive on the warrioress' part.

"I'm sorry. I admire your courage. But in the future, try to keep a further distance. If it helps, try not to look at any monsters head-on. It can be an important lesson to you so that it never happens again, when no one else is here to save you."

Honeypaw:

Honeypaw wondered when she would become a warrior. She was 14 moons old. She had to become a warrior soon!