Face-off [C]

Blackbear seemed to be propelled by the wind itself as she tore out of Fourtrees and into the no-man's-land that was the forest. The pong of twolegs sullied the familiar scent of pine and earth and every fifth step a glimmer of metal caught the molly's eye. That didn't slow her down though, if anything she was spurred on to get out of the forest as fast as possible. Plus, it was nice to stretch her legs again. She hadn't properly let out her energy in... Stars, maybe since the twolegs had invaded. Despite the situation, she allowed herself a short rumble of satisfaction as she pushed herself as fast as she could go.

It wasn't long before Blackbear emerged from the forest, paws meeting pavement. For all her 'exploring' the borders in her apprenticehood, she'd never actually been to Twolegplace before. It reeked. Her lip curled, nose wrinkling as if that would rid it of the noxious smell of twolegs and their monsters. The almost peaceful feeling that the running had brought her fizzled out, replaced by a more routine displeasure undercut with a renewed sense of urgency to find her apprentice. If where he was being kept smelled anything like this, he'd surely go insane within weeks.

Eyes narrowed and ears alert, the large she-cat padded down the strip of hard land next to the thunderpath. It seemed the monsters avoided it, or perhaps they were too clumsy to climb the short edge. Either way, it meant she could mostly ignore the creatures while she searched. She wasn't entirely sure what she was looking for. Crookedpaw, ideally. But he wasn't just going to waltz up to her, that odd grin plastered on his face. She had to find... Leads, or something. A loner, maybe. One of them had to know where the stolen cats were being kept.

It took a mercifully short time for her to catch a scent. Cat, undoubtedly. There was an odd familiarity to it, though Blackbear didn't care to ponder that as she set off, nose in the air to keep the trail. Within minutes, she found the source: a large she-cat, larger than her even, sitting by a wall. Half her face was missing. That was the first thing Blackbear noticed, followed closely by the niggling feeling that she'd seen her before somewhere. Once again, she ignored that particular instinct. Puffing out her fur in an unspoken challenge, she approached.

"You a rogue?" she growled, suspicion evident in her face. A cat with scars like this could hardly be a kittypet.

Beechfang had made her way back toward twolegplace, partly in search of her father, partly to check in on her own little piece of territory, such as it was. Birdchaser would by now, she hoped, have named a deputy and gone to the moonstone to receive her lives, but it was not Beechfang's place to linger, much as she wanted to.

And it seemed that she didn't need to linger, for the sudden scent of Skyclan made itself known to her. Beechfang turned her face to the breeze, single yellow-green eye narrowing slightly at the puffed out fur of the silvery and black she-cat that padded toward her confidently. Beyond the heavy, thick pelt was the build of a Skyclanner if Beechfang had ever seen one.

The question of being a rogue made Beechfang's tattered ear twitch. How she hated being called that... But the she-cat wasn't wrong in assuming it. The scent of Skyclan had long since faded from Beechfang's fur. Had she been sent after her, for some reason? But if she had, Beechfang didn't think the other she-cat would have asked such a question to begin with. And it was not a question worth answering. The only other feline denizens of twolegplace were kittypets, and if this stranger thought she was one of those soft, naive creatures, she must have been blind.

"You're a long way from fourtrees, Skyclanner." She countered evenly. "Clan cats don't drag themselves all the way to twolegplace without a reason. What's yours?"

The larger she-cat didn't answer Blackbear's question. She didn't need to; her response made it abundantly clear what she was. Still, Blackbear found her fur prickling in annoyance that her question was essentially ignored. "None of your business, outsider." she hissed unhelpfully. She stared the rogue down, annoyance mounting as the silver tabby seemed not to back down from her display whatsoever. If anything, she looked... bored? Disinterested. Whatever it was, it made Blackbear want to add to the hodgepodge of scars across her body. It took a solid few seconds of staring before the younger molly even remembered why she was here in the first place. With a great deal of effort, she forced her ears to relax from their backwards position and her teeth to stay hidden.

"Doesn't matter why I'm here. I need to know where the Twolegs put the cats in cages. Tell me." Thinking for a second, she added, "Birdstar sent me." Surely that would cow the rogue into telling her. Birdstar was to be feared. A cat of authority.

"If it's not my business you could've stayed on clan territory, rather than encroach on what I've carved for myself here." Beechfang lifted a shoulder in a shrug. It seemed the other she-cat was quite irritated by her own lack of care, and that was not Beechfang's problem.

Birdstar had sent her? A soft snort escaped Beechfang. Perhaps her daughter had, perhaps it was a cover for a reckless clanmate driven to save her own. It didn't really matter, did it? Birdstar, not Birdchaser... "Birdchaser received her lives? Good. A shame the burden to lead is on her shoulders-" Beechfang cut herself off, shaking her head. This stranger didn't need to hear her wallow.

"I know at least two cats have been taken to the cutter's. I found a Shadowclanner who had managed to escape them and gotten himself lost in the alleys." She'd seen Nightstar out of twolegplace with a young kit, but Beechfang expected that this Skyclanner didn't much care for clans other than her own. "We should all be trying to avoid the twolegs, at the very least. Not run towards them. If cats are taken to the cutter's, chances are they'll be taken to twoleg nests if they don't find a way out fast enough. I escaped from one during the great shake, but twolegs like to keep a closer eye on what they think are kittypets."