Ponies Will Save the Clans

"We'll join." Twilight answered. The rest quickly nodded their accent.

"Smart choice." Tigerstar said. "Hawkfrost! Escort them to their mentors." By the way he said it Applejack knew he was poking fun at something or other.

Another cat that looked just like Tigerstar, instead with ice blue eyes, presumably Hawkfrost, stalked into the cave. As he motioned with his tail for them to follow, Applejack wondered if this Tigerstar guy was who they were supposed to be defeating. If so, she didn't think that they stood much of a chance.

They came to a stop in front of the cat Applejack remembered to be Frostfoot.

"Frostfoot," Hawkfrost addressed her, "This is Applepaw. Make sure she'll become one of our warriors."

"Yes, Hawkfrost." Frostfoot replied. "Come with me, Applepaw." With that she padded away without even looking over her shoulder to see if Applejack was following.

With a nervous glace at her friends, Applejack began after Frostfoot.

As Hawkfrost approached another cat, Rarity fervently hoped that this one was not her mentor. The she-cat she was lead to had black fur with white stripes, hardly a becoming look, not to mention that she had the look of a hardened killer.

"Whitepaw, you're now Stripeclaw's apprentice." Hawkfrost gave a pointed glare at the she-cat, Stripeclaw. She glared straight back at him.

Rarity said in dismay, "There must be some mistake, this cat can't be my mentor!"

"There's no mistake." Stripeclaw replied. "The great Tigerstar doesn't make mistakes."

Hawkfrost noted her sarcasm and hissed, "Don't get any ideas, Stripeclaw."

Stripeclaw just turned and motioned with her tail for Rarity to follow.

This time instead of Hawkfrost approaching another cat, the other cat approached him.

"Hawkfrost, Mudclaw said you wanted to see me?" Asked a voice. It belonged to a light grey tom with a white face.

"Yes, Fernface. Tigerstar wants you to mentor this apprentice. Cherrypaw! Come meet your mentor!" Hawkfrost yelled at Pinkie who was investigating a wilted flower.

"Sir, yes sir!" She replied as she bounced over. "I'm Pinkie P-"

Rainbow nudged her.

"I mean, I'm Cherrypaw!"

"Nice to meet you, Cherrypaw. How about I show you around the territory?" Fernface asked.

"Okay!" Pinkie bounded after him.

"Nightpaw, your mentor's sitting over there." Hawkfrost flicked his tail towards a cat that was sitting near the entrance to the camp. "Go over there and tell him that he'll be mentoring you."

"Yes, sir." Twilight headed towards the cat. As she got closer, she saw that it was Coldheart, the cat that had originally attacked them. He looked up as she approached.

"Um… Hi, I'm Nightpaw." She introduced herself. "Hawkfrost said that you were to be my mentor."

"Great." Coldheart said. "Now I have to train a mousebrained kittypet."

Twilight didn't know what a kittypet was but it didn't take much thinking to figure out what mousebrained meant.

"I'm not mousebrained!" She said indignantly.

"Just stop talking and follow me." He replied coldly, stalking out of camp.

"Come on," Hawkfrost ordered. "Cloudpaw, your mentor should be in here." Hawkfrost padded into a cave in the side of the ravine.

Giving a supporting look at Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash nudged 'Shy in before following herself. She felt bad that Fluttershy had to be the last, which meant she would have to face her mentor on her own. Also… Dash remembered that cats were carnivorous.

"Ugh, really? What? Does he think this will keep me out of trouble? 'Cause if so, he's wrong." As Rainbow's eyes adjusted to the dim light in the cave, she saw Hawkfrost standing next to a light grey she-cat with blue eyes. The cat turned in Rainbow and Fluttershy's directions. "Which one?" She asked with a sigh.

"Cloudpaw." Hawkfrost nudged Rainbow forward from behind her. She jumped mentally. How did he get behind her without her noticing?

"Why me?" the she-cat mumbled under her breath as Hawkfrost herded Fluttershy out of the cave.

"I'm Glassflower, and unfortunately I have to mentor you to please our bossy, self-centered leader." Another sigh.

"Jayfeather," She called over her shoulder, "I'm gonna show Cloudpaw around the territory. Anything you need?"

Then Rainbow finally noticed the grey tom in a far back corner of the cave.

In a grumpy tone he replied, "Nothing except marigold. Then again, we always need that, so no."

"Stop moaning. At least you aren't the one who needs it. Come along, Cloudpaw. If you're curious about anything just ask. I don't have anything against new apprentices."

Fluttershy cowered inwardly as she followed Hawkfrost. Why did she have to be last? She wished that at least one of her friends were here with her. Then at the least, she would have someone there to reassure her.

Snap out of it, Fluttershy. She told herself. You might be in a strange world with carnivorous cats, but it's nothing you haven't handled before.

Most ponies at home thought she was squeamish about anything that had the slightest bit of blood. They even purposely went out of their way to make sure she wouldn't even hear about such simple unpleasant facts. Like bears eat meat, or that manticores sometimes eat ponies. But the truth was that she knew all of this and accepted it. It was the way that nature worked. And if being a cute kitty meant eating a bunny, she also accepted that. The fact that she was fine with this didn't mean that she was any less nervous about meeting a cat that would be in charge of her and would be supposedly teaching her everything that she was supposed to know.

"Birdpaw, this is your mentor, Breezepelt." Hawkfrost interrupted her train of thoughts.

She started. "Um, uh, he-hello, uh, Bree-Breezepelt."

"Terrific," the black tom snarled darkly. "I get a mouse-heart as my apprentice."

"Stop complaining. She's the least trouble out of all of them; I thought you'd be glad." At that Hawkfrost turned and left.

Fluttershy wondered what a mouse-heart was, it didn't sound so bad.

Applejack padded after Frostfoot with out a sound. She had no clue what was going on and being seperated from her friends had put her on edge, she didn't feel like having any sort of conversation with this cat.

She had been gazing at the ground as they walked, but looked up quickly when Frostfoot spoke. "This is the lake."

Applejack saw a lake in front of them, she didn't get it. It was just a lake.

"I'll take you around the lake a different day. For now, all you need to know about it is that no one touches it. Do you understand?" Frostfoot looked at Applejack intensely.

Applejack nodded automatically. Frostfoot turned back around and started walking away from the lake. Applejack stared at the lake for a moment more before following. She shivered as she gave one last glance behind her. She could've sworn she had seen something strange move in it's shadowy depths.