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Pinwheel and Spot were surrounded by Cats before they knew it. Their pelts . . . their pelts . . . they were weird. Like him.
“What are you doing here?” One stepped forward, bristling.
Pinwheel dipped his head. “Hello. I am Pinwheel, and that is Spot. We were wondering what this place was, and so we came to check it out. Do you think we could . . . stay with you? I mean . . . your coats are unique . . . like mine! I am trustworthy and cunning. Clever and powerful. I could really be useful to you. And so can Spot! She’s fast. Really fast. I really have to run to catch up to her. What I’m trying to say is that me and Spot would like to stay with you, to have you as part of our army,” he explained.
“Of whose army?” The brown cat asked.
“My army,” Pinwheel retorted.
“And what is that armor?” A black-and-white cat called out. Pinwheel looked at the gear on his body. “Oh. This? This is just the armor I got from my leader, Invincible. I can take it off, though.” With a flick of his tail, the armor vanished.
The brown cat smiled. “You have powers? Why didn’t you say so? Hello, newcomer. I am Gaze, and this is the Dewdrop Tribe. We welcome you. Come, we will all introduce yourselves, and get you your Den.”
Pinwheel, surprised at the sudden welcoming, followed Gaze as he leaped atop a large boulder jutting out at the edge of the clearing.
“I warmly welcome you all to sit upon the Dewdrop Rock, for we have a new member...” Gaze turned to him.
“Pinwheel. My name is Pinwheel. Pinwheel and Spot,” he meowed in answer to Gaze's questioning glance.
“Pinwheel and Spot. We will all take the time to introduce ourselves and our powers, one by one to them, to show them what this Tribe is like. And then, after that, we will all give them their Den Ceremony. With all of this aside, my Tribe, let’s properly welcome Pinwheel and Spot into our camp!”
Gaze leaped down from the Dewdrop Rock and the cats parted, making a small clearing for him. Pinwheel cocked his head, wondering what he was going to do.
“I am Gaze, leader of the Dewdrop Tribe. My Power is Sight.” He turned around and his eyes grew big and bright, as if he could see the whole universe. His eyes dimmed after a moment and he stepped back. Pinwheel and Spot just stood in amazement.
A gray she with swirls decorated along her pelt stepped forward. “I am Swirl, and my Power is Mist.”
She opened her mouth and shook her fur, and cloudy pools of mist came from her coat. Pinwheel could barely see, squinting his eyes in the effort. Then it disappeared and he blinked away the tears welling in his eyes. Pinwheel and Spot watched in amazement as each cat stepped forward.
A group of three Cats stepped forward, their gaze excited. The middle one, a white cat with weird gear around his front legs, stepped in front of the other two.
“I am Tuft, and my Power is to grow fur.” He twisted around and caught his group mate, and somehow his fur grew and grew, short-haired to long-haired, a fluffy mane and tail growing, and the cat batted Tuft’s ear with a paw, eyes filled with amusement.
“Ok, ok, my turn now.”
Tuft stopped, and the brown cat’s fur grew normal. Now he stepped forward.
“My name is Buddy, and my Power is durability.” He faced Tuft. “Attack me,” he meowed.286Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡazTu2VBC29
Tuft batted him with his paws, cuffing him on the muzzle and delivering hefty blows in his face. Buddy withstood the blows, looking as fierce as if nothing ever happened. Pinwheel just sat and watched, surprised. A bit like Invincible, to be honest.
Then the black-and-white cat stood up. “My name is Coil, and my Power is . . . well . . . coils.”
The current gear around his paws grew different, decorated with neat designs. Then it went back to normal.
“It’s thanks to him that we have Coils around our paws,” Buddy mewed, and they went back into the crowd of cats.
A tan-and-orange cat replaced the trio. “I am Owl, and my Power is to fly.” He suddenly flew into the air above Pinwheel, walking on air. Pinwheel’s eyes widened in bewilderment as Owl’s paws touched the ground again and he stalked away.
An orange-and-white cat with darker stripes and blue eyes with weird upward chest fur stepped up. My name is Aconite, and my Power is to reshape the fur on pelts.”
She eyed Pinwheel and pointed a paw at him, and Pinwheel gasped in shock as his sleek black-and-white fur distorted into weird patterns. His head became all black while the white streak running along his spine went elsewhere along his coat, appearing as white splotches. Spot was watching the action with the same expression as he felt.
Aconite then put her paw down and his pelt reformed to normal.
Then, a brown cat with amber eyes, a toothed collar, and a weird scar across his face stood in the clearing. “My name is Scar, and my Power is agility.”
He soared over Pinwheel and he whirled around to see Scar leaping ever so gracefully on a tree branch. The brown cat hopped around easily from tree to tree, boulder to boulder, cliff to cliff, his paws making the jumps with incredible speed and agility. Once he finished making a round around the bowl, he leaped back down to the earth and padded into the crowd.
“That was insane,” Spot whispered to him. He twitched his ears to show her that he agreed.
Then, a strange brown-and-tan cat took Scar’s place. He had a blue eye, the other one green and blind with a scar slashed across it. His whole left ear was practically gone, only a torn stump left. Scars were lashed across his side-haunch, not matching the tan fur. The scary-looking cat grinned and held his head high.
“My name is Duck, and my Power is to remove senses.”
He suddenly leaped at Pinwheel, bowling him over and pinning him to the ground. Pinwheel screeched, wrenching his paws away and putting them up to defend himself, preparing for the worst. Duck seemed to stare straight into his soul as he held him down. Pinwheel felt his sense of touch melt away until it was no more.
Duck released him, and Pinwheel stumbled to his paws. He couldn’t feel the ground beneath him. It was as if he didn’t connect to his body. It was just moving. When Duck brushed his tail against his flank, Pinwheel barely noticed. He couldn’t feel the fur ruffling against his haunches. He couldn’t feel the twitching of his ears. He couldn’t feel anything.
He felt like he wanted to collapse to the ground when Duck went away and a white-and-gray cat stepped forward.
She smiled. “My name is Irtu, and my Power is to heal.”
With a swipe of her paw at Pinwheel, invisible magic gained Pinwheel back to his sense of touch. He could suddenly feel the cool earth beneath his paws, Spot’s side against his. He breathed a sigh of relief and amazement. For a moment he thought he’d never get his sense of touch back again.
“Thanks,” he mewed to Irtu.
She dipped her head and the next cat to step forward was another white she, a mix of different-shaded brown swirls and stripes on her pelt, coils around all four paws, green eyes, a long tuft of white fur on the top of her head, and one green and blue feather on her ear.
“I am Melo, and my power is to sense danger.”
As she said that, Pinwheel eyed Scar sneaking up on her, whiskers twitching in amusement. It was as if Melo knew he was there the whole time, whirling around and swiping at him playfully. The brown cat dodged with graceful agility, but Pinwheel gaped in amazement. That power would be extraordinary. Sensing danger? Pinwheel really needed a cat that could do that. I already have Invincible, but this is just . . . incredible.
Next up was a gray-and-white cat with one green and blue eye. It had strange orange-yellow horns jutting out of his head. “I’m Raiden, and I have the Power to hear and pinpoint sounds.”
Tuft and Coil went and placed their paws over Raiden’s eyes, leaving his ears untouched. Buddy and Melo silently pricked leaves and bits of moss. Raiden’s ears twisted toward the sound, to Pinwheel’s amazement, as he couldn’t hear a single sound. Melo and Buddy were touching the forest materials ever so lightly.
“You are touching leaves, moss, and grass stems,” Raiden meowed.
“That’s right,” Melo replied.
They stepped away for the next cat. It padded forward, head held high. It was a tan-and-brown cat with darker patches all over the coat and icy blue eyes. Something was . . . familiar about this cat. Pinwheel shook his head and flicked the feeling off of him.
“My name is Patch. My Power is to tell the truth from lies.” The familiar cat sat on his haunches while Tuft, Coil, and Buddy lined up, one after the other, in front of him.
“Today, I caught two voles and four mice,” Tuft mewed, without looking at the prey stash.
Patch nodded. “That’s correct.”
“I fell out of a tree yesterday.” Coil stepped forward.
“That’s right.”
Buddy stood in front of Patch now. “A thorn is currently in my nest and someone needs to get it out,” he meowed casually. Patch shook his head. “That is not true, Buddy. You lied.” He cuffed Buddy gently on the ear and the brown cat yelped and trotted away.
Why does Patch feel so familiar? I’ve never even met him! Pinwheel thought. But there was no more time to think of that, as the next cat stepped forward.
A brown tabby with amber eyes, a wrap around his neck, and a weird furry thing on his head.
“I’m Cow, and my Power is taste.”
Pinwheel wrinkled his muzzle. “Taste? What’s so special about taste?” he asked.286Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIOejUkH2ox
Cow smiled. “Trust me, you’d want me to be hanging around if you couldn’t find anything to eat. Watch.”
He beckoned with his tail, and Duck strode forward with a small dusty-colored leaf and set it on the ground in front of Pinwheel and then stepped back without a word, a grin on his face. As Pinwheel looked up, confused, at Cow, the brown cat looked at him expectantly.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, dumbfounded.
Cow let out a mrrow of amusement.
“Eat it,” he meowed.
Pinwheel cocked his head. Did the brown tabby really just tell him to eat a leaf?
“Are you serious?” He searched Cow’s gaze.
“Just trust me and try it,” Cow responded simply. Spot was clenching her jaws shut as if trying not to laugh.
Pinwheel sighed and cautiously bent down to the leaf, lapping it up. To his surprise, its taste was splendid, as if he was tasting the juiciest prey in all the forest. “Mmmm!” he exclaimed, swallowing it.
Cow dipped his head. “See? In times of starvation, you could feast on the grass and trees and I’ll make it taste like prey.” Pinwheel nodded, unable to speak as Cow went away.
The next cat to step forward had an extraordinary pelt, black-and-blue with sparkling white star-shaped spots all over the coat, as well as deep, dark blue eyes and a slim blue-ringed tail. She smiled and twitched a whisker.
“My name is Midnight, and my Power is touch.”
Pinwheel cocked his head. Now touch? What could be so unique about that? He shook his head. He was about to find out.
Midnight stalked up to Spot. “Go and hide, Spot. You can go anywhere in the Tribe.” she mewed.
Spot looked at her in surprise, then walked off somewhere in the Tribe while the cats made sure Midnight wasn’t looking. After some time, the starry-pelted cat opened her eyes and didn’t even bother looking. She simply flexed her paw pads as if she was sensing something, then stalked to a hazel bush and pushed away the twigs to reveal Spot crouching in the undergrowth.
The gray cat gaped in surprise. “How did you do that so quickly?” she asked, amazed. Midnight shrugged. “It’s my specialty.” She smiled and stepped back.
The next cat was weird. No, more like . . . not a cat, a wolf. Pinwheel forced his pelt to lie flat and sank his claws into the dirt.
The wolf’s eyes glinted mischievously. “Hello, newcomers. I’m Zoroark. I have the Power of smell.”
Well, that makes sense, for a wolf, that is.
The wolf-cat stalked toward Pinwheel and sniffed him. He hissed and backed away. Zoroark stayed calm. “It’s alright, Pinwheel. You know I’m not going to hurt you, right?”
Pinwheel relaxed, and Zoroark was about to sniff him when the world suddenly turned dark and gloomy.
With a sense of dread, he knew what he was in, and then Red Eye leaped.
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