A thousand thoughts raced across Soulfaith’s mind in a single instant. So many cats talked about fight, flight, or freeze, but why had none of them ever mentioned “freak-the-Stars-out”? Because right now, Soulfaith’s adrenaline was still racing around his body, trying to find a place while leaving Soulfaith severely disoriented and afraid. But one thing cemented itself into Soulfaith’s mind. This fox had a thin scar across its muzzle, a thin scar Soulfaith still remembered leaving. They had met. And the fox looked like it wanted this meeting to be the last. As the two creatures stared each other down, Soulfaith’s rush of adrenaline hardened into the sharpened obsidian of resolve. He squared his paws, spreading them out slightly. He could run. He should run. So why was he instead falling into this fighting crouch, raising his hackles offensively? Was his pride simply too large to allow a retreat? Of course not. Soulfaith knew, if he didn’t handle the situation now, it could pass to someone smaller, someone weaker… Soulfaith wasn’t a Starclan warrior for nothing. The code called him to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, and that started with this. single. fight. It was strange, a feeling Soulfaith couldn’t have explained with moons to do it. Every time the dreaded foxscent had found him, haunting him like a ghost long gone, Soulfaith had fled in terror, hoping he could escape the horrors of his past. But now, as he stared down the fox, his heart racing, his body screaming for action, Soulfaith felt as though running was not an option. Fear was not an option. Death was not an option. There was a heartbeat of understanding between the two. One, fighting for honor and revenge, the other fighting for hunger and rage. Soulfaith slowly lowered himself to a crouch as the fox slunk forward. Then, with the call of Starclan beckoning him forward, he took the offensive. He wouldn’t allow himself to fall prey to hesitation again. He wouldn’t allow himself to lose again. Hardly a second into the fight, and Soulfaith had already made his first mistake; he assumed this was a catfight. When Soulfaith pounced, he expected the fox to evade or counterattack. The fox, rather than trying to avoid his strike or knock Soulfaith off course, simply pounced into his attack, meeting him mid-air with far more strength than the loner could ever muster. As the two collided, Soulfaith’s raging adrenaline wavered for a moment as he came face to face with the Dark Forest incarnate. Their eyes locked, and Soulfaith saw no emotion, no sympathy, no hint of regret or sorrow in that fox’s eyes. With embarrassing ease, the fox killed the momentum of Soulfaith’s pounce, tackling Soulfaith right into the ground. Soulfaith flinched as he thudded into the dirt. He could feel a stinging pressure on his body, he could feel the grass swaying against his back. Almost afraid to know, Soulfaith opened his eyes, and looked up. Black-footed paws were resting against his chest, tainted with mud and grime from moons of harsh living. The fox snarled, saliva dripping, dripping, dripping down its muzzle. A single drop fell from the fox’s maw, landing with a sickening wetness onto Soulfaith’s chest, marking Soulfaith as the fox’s meal. The fox stared down at Soulfaith, hate in its eyes. Soulfaith had been tackled. If it were a playfight or a spar, the rules would’ve called Soulfaith to surrender. Stars, he had lost. Soulfaith didn’t like rules much at all, though. He didn’t trespass because he loved rules. He sure as Starclan wasn’t surrendering after one pounce. Soulfaith reached up, pressing against the fox as it tried to leer in to snap at Soulfaith’s neck. The two were locked in a momentary power struggle, Soulfaith fighting to keep those jaws of death away from his tender flesh. With a frustrated snarl, Soulfaith found the strength to push the fox off of him, and with one final burst of energy, he shoved the fox away from him. The fox hissed, and like a hunter refusing to release its prey, the fox dug its claws into Soulfaith’s chest. It tried to cling, but Soulfaith managed to throw the fox off… and the fox took some of Soulfaith’s chest with it. Soulfaith screamed into the silent gathering grove. Agony ripped through Soulfaith, burning like a Pyrocat against his chest. His brown fur was quickly turning red as his lifeblood spilled out of him, leaking down his chest, running down his legs, pooling around his paws. Soulfaith tried to rise to his paws, now relinquished of the fox’s pressing paws, but his legs buckled beneath him as he fell to his knees, gasping for breath. It hurt; there was no doubt about it, but Soulfaith was breathing. He wasn’t hacking up blood. Nothing vital had been hurt. However, judging by the speed at which blood was gathering on the ground, Soulfaith knew one thing. This fight needed to end soon.
The fox clearly had the same idea. Seeing Soulfaith fall to his knees, it snarled victoriously, taking a step forward, then another, then a pounce. Black-footed pelt extended towards Soulfaith, bloodstained claws glimmering briefly in the moonlight. The moment was framed in the hallowed light of the moon. A loner, collapsed to their knees, fighting to find the strength to rise once more. A fox, the symbol of the overpowering, going in for that one final kill. That pounce felt as if it were moving slowly, ever so slowly. Soulfaith knew he couldn’t give up, but what exactly could he do? He hardly had the strength to stand, much less fight off a fox. He needed an idea, a strategy, something that could give him an edge over the merciless monster. Then, as if the sun had risen over a foggy night in Soulfaith’s mind, inspiration hit him. Soulfaith kicked off the ground, unseemly strength finding him by way of adrenaline, pouncing towards the fox, claws extended. But he didn’t aim to match the fox’s pounce. He aimed just a little bit over. *Daybreakstar, don’t let me down.* Soulfaith landed on the back of the fox, thumping slightly as the orange-pelted creature landed as well. Soulfaith ferociously grabbed at the fox’s scruff, biting hard enough to elicit a pained yelp from the beast. Not even an ounce of pity resonated from Soulfaith. Like an executioneer preparing to exact a final judgement, Soulfaith unsheathed his claws, his own blood dripping painstakingly onto his claws. Red ichor gleamed in the light of the moon, and Soulfaith clawed, rage and pain boiling over into a relentless assault on the fox’s back. For the first time in moons, Soulfaith’s claws drew blood. And stars above, was it a rush of power! Almost enough, but not quite, to drown out the roaring pain in his chest. As he ripped and tore at the fox’s pelt, a vague voice, warning and instructional, reached his memory. Daybreakstar, reminding him– if you use the scruff grab, you have to watch out for… Oh yeah. A back roll. The fox rolled onto the ground, and Soulfaith was forced to abandon his perch, landing with an ungraceful stumble. The snarl on his expression was impossible to mistake for anything except for the gleam of a fair fight. Sensing even the slightest of advantages, Soulfaith spread his paws and pounced again. He really should’ve stopped doing that. The fox, quickly regaining its standing position, responded with a heartless slash right across the face. A thick, deep gouge that was certainly going to leave a scar made its way across Soulfaith’s left cheek, digging relentlessly into Soulfaith’s face. Soulfaith could only yelp, the pain too consuming to force out a proper scream. Soulfaith stumbled back, now bleeding profusely from two places. Soulfaith snarled, reaching up to wipe at his cheek. The pain was nearly unbearable. As he pulled his paw away, he saw it was drenched with his own blood. For a moment, Soulfaith thought about how frustrated Scandal would be if he saw Soulfaith had gotten blood all over his fur. Soulfaith hissed. He needed to abandon this fight, Soulfaith needed to run while he could still hold himself upright. As much as Soulfaith would’ve wished to stand and face the odds, the fox was still prowling, seeming hardly perturbed by Soulfaith’s slashings. Soulfaith, on the other hand, felt as though a Cavernclanner clawed him every time the fox struck. Soulfaith needed a distraction for his escape. His eyepatch tingled slightly on his face, although that could’ve been his body trying to numb the pain across his body. The fox was prowling closer, snarling softly. Soulfaith had only ever tried this once, and it had almost blinded him. He almost– but not really at all– felt a little bad for the fox as he whispered the frightening words, “suno ale”. The Light of Everything. Even he had to flinch away at the ensuing blast of light that emanated from his eyepatch. Brilliance that rivaled the sun, a beam so forceful and all-consuming that it burned to even be in the presence of. A blast of energy that often left his Flashpatch dimmer and weaker for half a moon. It was brief, and had it been directed at Soulfaith, he probably would’ve been blinded, at least for a moment. Which, fortunately, seemed to have happened to the fox. The orange demon-spawn was dazed, stumbling slightly from the bright flash. It whined in a high-pitched tone, hissing and blinking unevenly. Soulfaith turned on his paws and ran. He was a Dustrunner after all. If he could make it to the Barrens, even with all his injuries, he could blitz the fox… but would he risk letting the fox into Falconclan’s territory? What if he crossed through Falconclan’s territory and the fox abandoned his trail to chase someone else…? Would he be able to live with himself if this horror caught Milkweed? Or Abby? No, Soulfaith needed something else; he needed something drastic. (Part Three continues here: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1304356763/ )
