You aren't a rabbit... (closed for Grey and Ink)

Aspenkit was tussling around in the dust with his littermates when he realised his mother wasn't watching over them. In fact, she was snacking on a piece of fresh-kill. Aspenkit realised that this was the best moment to run off, and explained to the kits that he had to find someone. He snuck into the rocky territory, slowly moving away from the camp. Every paw-step he took shook with excitement, as he made his way over to a large, split boulder. "This must be the Half-Rock the elders always talk about!" Aspenkit exclaimed happily. He spotted a rabbit only a few tail-lengths away, snuffling in a tuft of grass. Aspenkit readied himself, closing his eyes, then pounced with all his might. But when he opened them, he didn't see a rabbit in his paws. What he did see, though, was a huge fire-red fox, it's brown marbles staring at the young ginger kit, bloodthirsty and starving.

Aspenkit mewled helplessly and squirmed as the fox clamped its jaws hard onto his tail, ripping into him as if he was fresh-kill. Crimson blood stained their coats and covered the foxes muzzle as it shook its head around wildly. Aspenkit gasped in pain, not able to convert the horrible burning feeling into emotion, as a bit of his tail was torn off his body. His blood and body was spread across the leafy floor, and the foxes fangs sunk deep into the rest of his tail, again and again. The foxes claws were in front of his face as his tail was ripped apart. He felt an immense burning pain in his left eye, and his vision began to fade. He had fainted once the ravenous creature pricked his ears as he heard something in the undergrowth around him.

OOC: I completely forgot to ask, are we supposed to fight the fox through battle system or we just rp it out without the system?



Hawkstrike was walking across the territory, ears high as he looked around for some prey or intruders. He hadn’t been let out from the Medicine cat’s den long ago, but he was already doing as many tasks as he possibly could. It was then when he heard it, the tiny mewls that can only belong to a small kit, but at the same time were full of pain and terror. What could be going on? And unless the kit was a rogue, what was he doing so far from camp on their own.

His eyes landed on Lilyheart for a couple seconds, as she had decided to come with him on the patrol, before he headed towards the noise quickly. And just as he found himself the most confused, the smell of fox mixed with blood was carried to his nose by the soft breeze. He almost felt his blood boil with rage, fur standing on end and face contorted in an enraged expression. He hated foxes with his whole body and soul, they had taken away one of his biggest friends and now, judging by the noises, they were trying to kill an innocent kit.

He just hoped the fox they were going to face was the same that killed Webtail, then he would be able to avenge his fallen companion at the same time he saved the kit.

ooc: we'll probably do it without the battle system, as it would probably slow the topic down and it's more similar

Lilyheart realized just as Hawkstrike as, bile quickly rose up in her throat as she came across the horrific sight. Lilyheart in all the time she had been alive had never seen something so terrible, hackles raising and tail lashing with anger. Crouching to the ground with claws unsheathed she fired towards it like a Windclan on Catnip, much of a black and white blur as she collided with the fox with a screech of rage as if this was her kit that was injured.

The fox hardly had anytime to react as she collided with it, snapping her jaws around its scruff she heaved with powerful thigh muscles and threw it into the dirt towards Hawkstrike it's red body kicking up dust as it fell with a whump. Lilyheart, for good measure and to vent the rage so furious that she had never felt before wrapped her teeth around the muzzle of it and lashed her head side to side, only dropping it to rear back and slam her paws against it. It wasn't safe and it could have snapped it's teeth around her paws and flung her around like fresh-kill but she didn't care.

Stepping around as it was probably struggling back to its paws with rage in its eyes she turned to look at Hawkstrike with a snarl. "Kill it, give it your worst for all I care. Make it suffer." She snapped before trotting quickly to the kit with a huff and flopping beside it, pulling it into her paws with a soft hum and a whisper. "It's okay Aspenkit, Hawkstrike and I are here, he's taking care of that mean ol' fox. You'll be back in the nursery before you know it, okay?" She softly promised, concern and grief in her eyes.

Aspenkit had awakened from his short collapse as he heard rustling in the undergrowth, and felt complete numbness in his tail area after the fox had chewed and maimed it. All he could feel was the warm, sticky blood covering his pelt. His right eye weakly stared forward as a black-and-white she-cat burst out of the bushes, tumbling the fox over and digging her teeth into it's scruff. When she comforted him, he could only nod his head, his eyes reflecting immense fear.

Hawkstrike barely heard Lilyheart’s voice as she spoke to him. As soon as the fox got close enough, something within the warrior finally snapped and the mask that he had been wearing for so long shattered into a million pieces, revealing the rage that made up most of his personality and the ruthless fighting style he was trained to use. It could be interpreted by the two cats near him as attempts to save them for the fox’s wrath, only those that knew him well enough being able to guess otherwise…and all of them were dead by now.

Hawkstrike and the fox rolled on the dirt in a storm of fangs and claws, growls and hisses filling the air around them. It took several minutes or Hawkstrike to do it, given how unused he was to fight this kind of predator, but he didn’t give up even when the growls of the fox turned into whimpers. It was like if he was possessed at this point.

In the end Hawkstrike stood over the limp body of a fox, panting heavily and with a couple of new wounds caused by the times when the fox managed to be faster than him. Luckily his quick movements had managed to save him from wounds that would leave behind scars this time, and his long fur hadn’t allowed the fox to properly calculate where it ended and where his body started.

He looked at the fox under his claws with a hate-filled glare without moving for several seconds, claws and muzzle stained with its blood, before turning his head to look at Lilyheart and the kit she was comforting. His eyes still held some of the wild rage that they held while fighting the fox, but it was slowly vanishing as he forced his true self back to the darkest depths of his being, the lair where it had been hiding until then.

“Are you two ok?” His voice was deeper than usual and unusually serious, and the part of him that started to remember how he was supposed to act, gathering the pieces of his shattered mask, hoped he could find a way to explain it late without suspicion “Lilyheart, what kind of damage the fox did to the kit?”

Lilyheart was almost deaf herself to the fighting going on behind her, she had placed so much trust in her clan-mate to chase off a fox it was almost astounding to her. But that was behind the point, the kit would probably bleed to death soon if that wound wouldn't clot. Fur bristling and eyes wide with distress she looked to Hawkstrike almost like he had all the answers, huffing she turned back to the kit. "I'm fine, why wouldn't I be? But the kit... I don't know what to do, he isn't looking too good. I don't know if we should move him now or get cobwebs and move him then. The wound isn't clotting and - and.." Lilyheart spluttered, pressing her paw to the mangled tail pity making her want to cringe away.

"Do you think you can find cobwebs for me? Please?" She requested, quickly as she herself got to her paws, a solution working her way through her head. "I'm going to go on ahead, follow the blood trail. The sooner we get to camp the better, with cobwebs on Aspenkits tail will hopefully help the blood flow on the way." Lilyheart huffed, grasping the kit's scruff and lifting him high in the air as she softly padded towards camp urgency in her step and the urge to run almost impossible to withstand. For if she ran, she'd jar the injury and probably make the bleeding worse.

Aspenkit was completely blind. His vision had faded away a little bit before Lilyheart had returned to camp. He didn't know what the fox had done to him, but it must have not been noticeable, at least compared to his tail. He mewled helplessly, shaking his head around. He was searching for his mother. He wanted to feel her warm, red fur against his ginger pelt, although he couldn't see her beautiful face anymore. He wanted to play with his siblings like he always did, although he wouldn't see their playful expressions again.

He wished this day had never happened.

Hawkstrike grumbled softly before nodding, quacking some dirt on the fox’s body with a snot before starting to look around for the cobwebs “I’ll gather as many as I can, but you better hurry, the kit is clearly half-dead by now and needs immediate help from the Medicine cat” He meowed, grabbing each cobweb he could in the most careful way he could in the hurry he was currently in. Each second was precious, and he couldn’t care less about bothering the spiders that made these at this point. If any bit him or started to crawl on his long fur he would later take care of it later.

It took him a bit longer than he would’ve liked, but lack of training on the area made it almost impossible for him to locate these quickly, however, once her thought he had enough he rushed towards Lilyheart and Aspenkit, following the blood trail like he was instructed to do.

As soon as he caught up with them he gave a gentle nudge at the she-cat so she knew he was back before offering the cobwebs he had managed to gather and hoping he didn’t do an awful job at picking those up.

Lilyheart paused for a moment to allow and help Hawkstrike to place the cobwebs around the worse of the kits injury before continuing on her trot, a nervous whine was itching to emit from her throat a need to expel energy and communicate her worries. But to do that would give concern to the kit, and maybe make her something less to Hawkstrike. She didn't want to seem like a lesser cat to anyone, but that didn't matter, as long as they got Aspenkit to a medicine cat in time it would be okay. "Thanks, can you run ahead to camp and get Rabbitfoot or Oceanlight?" She mewed through fur her voice slightly muffled.

Aspenkit wriggled in Lilyheart's grasp as Hawkstrike placed what felt like old moss or cobwebs on his tail. He guessed it was the latter, and squirmed as more was stuck onto his tail, which made his wounds sting. He attempted to open his eyes, but all he could see out of them was grey fog. 'Why can't they see my eyes?' he wondered. He tried to move his tail, but it hung limp like a branch on a willow tree. Had it broken all the way through? He felt warm sticky blood forming up around his eyelids, and blinked, sending searing pain through his body. He flinched, then shook his head madly, trying to shake the blood away.

To speed up the pace of this plot, i'll just say they got back to camp and fixed him up.