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."

Rain nods to the black tom and adds, "If anyone feels unsure about some of their fighting moves, I'll be available to briefly train with them. Other than that, everyone should spread out among themselves to guard all of the tunnels. Meet us by the East Tunnel as soon as the sky starts to go dark so we can split the crew in half. See you later, guys!"

The amount of excitement that is radiating in her blue eyes almost scares me. Why is she so giddy that she will be on a battlefield tonight?

Shaking my head ever so slightly, I listen to the grumbles and complaints of everyone around me as I immediately head towards Rain to ask for fighting training.

~~~~~~~~

Rain and I are alone by the East Tunnel. She's trying to teach me a useful attack move that I can use tonight. (Or at least she thinks the thing she's trying to teach me will be useful.)

"Try again," she meows for the thousandth time. Her high, overly-cheerful tone is starting to get on my nerves.

I grunt as I attempt to forcefully strike my front paw down on the bridge of her nose again. However, Rain easily slips out of the way, and my paw hits the air instead.

I huff, "Out of all of the moves you could have chosen to teach me, why in the world did you choose this one?"

Rain fluffs out her whiskers in amusement. "It's a great distraction technique to make an even more effective move," she purrs, "and it's a great start to make you stop being so clumsy and slow!"

I sit on my butt and swish my tail side to side. "Well, at least you got the last part right," I mutter.

Rain looks like she's going to respond with a clever remark, but she notices something behind me and meows, "Oh, hey, North! Did you come here for fighting help?"

"As if I would," a male voice retorts.

I swivel around and see a rather large, majestic-looking tom. The wind pulls back his long, silver fur. His white, fluffy chest juts out proudly. I catch attention of his emerald green eyes, which have the dark swirl in them, the tell-tale sign that he's a Superior cat. Of course he doesn't need any help with his battle moves; he probably already mastered them all.

Rain exhales deeply and tries to look disappointed. I can see an entertained twinkle in her eyes. "That's too bad, North," she sarcastically whines. "I'm starting to feel dejected that I only had one cat come to me for help."

        "And I hope you're done with that cat by now," North replies in a monotonous, bored voice. He swishes his long, furry tail side to side impatiently. "Ash needs you. He forced me to be his messenger."

        Rain snorts, "Of course he did. Where is he?"

        The silver tom stares at her for a long moment as if she had just asked if it was raining kits. "You really expect me to know where Ash went?"

Rain blinks. Then, she purrs out loud, understanding what he meant by that. "Haha, sorry. I didn't mean to quiz you on where the mysterious disappearing Ash is at this moment. I'll go find him." She pauses and turns to me with an apologetic gaze. "Sorry, Forest."

"No, it's fine," I say quickly. "I guess I'll just try to survive tonight."

"Right. Just use your skills and what I just taught you, and you will probably be fine."

Since when did I have skills at fighting?

"You didn't even look like you were teaching him anything when I saw you in the distance," North mutters.

Rain gives him a cross look. However, her eyes then widen, as if she has come across a magnificent discovery. "Hey, North, since you think I'm so horrible at what I'm doing, why don't you teach him a thing or two? You're not busy right now, aren't you?"

North glares at her and snorts. "Oh, so now I'm supposed to be a teacher of some kind?"

The last thing I want to do right now is to get ridiculed by a rude cat, so I start to say, "Rain, you really don't need to do this-"

However, the cheerful gray tabby isn't even listening to North or me. She speed-walks away, shouting, "Have fun!"

When Rain is in the distance, the two of us stand there in silence. Then, out of the blue, North questions, "What do you expect to learn right now? It's not like you're going to become a master in less than one day." He snorts again. "You must be really bad if you went to her for help."

"It's not my fault I'm bad!" I burst. "Back in Earth, I didn't need to learn how to fight. There were no opponents."

"Huh, so you're one of those soft Earth cats." North tilts his ears back. "Should've told me in the first place."

        A flame of annoyance and anger rises in my chest. Fine, if this random fluffy-butt wants to be rude with me, then I'll be hostile right back. I flatten my ears and give him a sharp glare. "Why are you calling me soft?" I hiss, taking a step towards him. "You barely even know my name."

        North doesn't even twitch a whisker at my anger towards him. For some reason, that seems to aggravate me more. He stares straight into my eyes and says, "It's just something all Earth cats have. The Superiors were complete idiots to send them here to support them. Complete waste of time trying to teach them stuff. Most of them are still pretty useless even after the so-called training. You don't seem to be an exception to that."

       I grit my teeth. "Well, you seem to know much information about the Superiors for a rebel. What excuse do you have for that?"

        "Common knowledge," he responds slowly, looking at me condescendingly as if I were a kit. "All of the Superiors on the rebel side know about cats of their own kind. Most of us Superior rebels, including me, switched sides. You know, I kind of expected you to be smarter than this. Use your brains, Earth Cat. And sheathe your claws. Both of us know that I can kill you faster than you can say rabbit."

        I realize that I'm digging my claws into the ground as he was speaking and sheathe them before firing back, "Well, you know what? In reality, I don't care about rebels or Superiors or the stupid war. I want to go back to Earth. I don't care who wins and who loses because I have enough of this planet."

        "Last time I checked, you're still here on the rebel side, though. And if some loser from the Superior side kills you tonight, it's guaranteed that you will never see Earth again. So if anything, fight on the rebel side for that."

        "I guess.." I trail off, falling into silence. That was actually a good idea. "So that goes with my original plan, which is to survive."

He flicks his tail at me. "Have you ever been on a battlefield before?"

"Yeah, I have once already." At once, a flashback to when Ice made everyone fight against the rebels comes to my head. I passed out and got a scar on my side at that battle.

North tilts his head. "And I bet that didn't go very well by the way you just flinched when you said that."

        My ears shift back. I didn't even notice that I flinched. "Well, you're right," I say. "It didn't go very well."

        "Not surprised. It's obvious that fighting is not your greatest asset."

        A moment later, North arches his back in a stretch and takes a step backwards. "I have enough of talking to you. I'm leaving."

        "Alright, bye," I meow. Part of me is relieved that I finally get to be alone for a while. The cats here have been driving me crazy lately.

        But as the tom turns around to go, I say, "Wait."

        North swivels back around and tilts his head towards me. "What is it?" he groans.

        I hesitate for a split second. However, I end up saying it: the one thought that has been in my head the entire time he was here. "Your tail is so fluffy."

        North glances at his gray-and-white humongous tail and then looks back at me with annoyance. "Shut up. Everyone says that."

        I tease, "Of course they do. Can I touch your tail?"

        He leaps away from me when I ask that question. "No!" he snarls. "Don't even try to touch it or I will rip your ears off."

         "Okay, fine. I'll leave your fluffy tail alone."

        "You better, stupid Earth cat." In a lower voice than before, he growls under his breath, "This is why I prefer my human form."

        Before I comprehend what he just muttered, he turns and walks away.