-Lionblaze-

Blinking slowly, Lionblaze returned to consciousness. His vision was blurred as he slowly returned to the waking world with a loud yawn.

Another day.

Lionblaze stretched before sitting up, only to realize he wasn't in the warrior's den as his vision cleared. He was surrounded by dirt, which was different to the interwoven bracken and brambles that made up the walls of the warriors den. Then, he recalled the day before.

The Reaping.

Lionblaze sucked in a sharp breath, claws digging into the uncomfortable, strange pelt he had been resting on. The entrance to the small, dirt cave was blocked of by a large piece of silver mesh.

 It was incredibly dark, like the underground tunnels back home. Lionblaze shook himself, pausing when he saw his reflection in the water out of the corner of his eye. Except it wasn't water and was mounted on the wall. It reflected Lionblaze's confused, golden face back at him.

"Lionblaze?" Said tom turned his attention to the mesh at the mouth of the cave where a she-cat currently stood, groomed to the point of shining. Or, she would, if there was any sort of actual light that didn't just seem to be a haze in the environment was reflecting on her pelt. 

"Breakfast?" Lionblaze asked, his frown deepening into a scowl as the she-cat rolled her eyes before pushing the silver mesh aside. She gestured with her tail for Lionblaze to follow as she turned and walked away. Lionblaze followed, noticing how there were more openings blocked off with silver mesh. How these cats managed to make this so quickly, he didn't know. 

"I'm Willow, by the way." The she-cat introduced, earning only a shrug from Lionblaze. "I'm a previous victor of the Games." Lionblaze turned his head to properly look at her.

"But I thought this was the first one?" Lionblaze said and Willow chuckled in a slightly hollow way. 

"There have been five other games in some place called BloodClan. Fang would drag loners into them most of the time. Then he found that cats had started avoiding the city. So I was the last game's victor. My brother, Oak, won the third one."

Fang must be the rogue's leader.

Lionblaze stared at her. This silver tabby had been through the Warrior Games? Had she killed any innocent cats in the arena?

"I know what your thinking." Willow huffed, suddenly sounding tired. "I did have to do a bad deed or two. But unlike you Clan cats, we had no code binding us together. No rules of conduct. It was just you and your moral code and those are far less consistent compared to your guys' code." Willow turned a corner and Lionblaze watched as she climbed upwards before following. 

Lionblaze rapidly blinked the light out of his eyes as they left the underground tunnels, the exit leading to a fenced in clearing filled with cats.

He recognized a majority of them were the tributes. In the center of ring of a few tributes was a large assortment of different items. Lionblaze followed Willow to the large assortment and she picked out a scoop-shaped leaf with a strange smelling liquid in it and set it down in front of her.

 Willow took a sip of the liquid and pushed it towards Lionblaze. He hesitantly took a sip, the liquid burned his throat and sent him into a series of sputtering coughs that Willow watched with a slightly amused expression.

Lionblaze looked back to the assortment and Willow pawed at something else. Lionblaze hooked his claws around a random item, dragged it over to himself,and took a bite of it. He chewed slowly, unsure of the slightly tangy taste.

"Do you like the fish?" Willow asked and Lionblaze looked at her, swallowing his mouthful before speaking.

"That was fish? It looked, smelled, and tasted nothing like fish!" Lionblaze exclaimed and Willow shrugged.

"Its cooked. And its got a few tangy spices." Willow explained while Lionblaze pondered how the rogues had managed to do this. 

"Alright. Is there anything else?" Lionblaze asked and Willow nodded, pawing out a large leaf which held chunks of different looking things.

 "We have cooked rabbit, some venison -very, very hard to get- and duck." Lionblaze took a bite of each chunk of meat. It didn't taste that bad, although he hardly recognized the rabbit flavor.

"Lionblaze!" He turned his head to see Dovewing and Hollyleaf heading towards him. Dovewing's cheeks were puffed up and a small tendon of something was hanging out of her mouth. She was clearly enjoying the food.

"Have you tried the food here? Its great!" Hollyleaf spoke up and Dovewing said something that was muffled by her mouthful of... Whatever it was, Lionblaze wasn't sure.

"A few mouthfuls, actually." Lionblaze replied and Willow peered around the golden tom at the two she-cats.

"Oh, and this is Willow. She won the previous game." Lionblaze flicked his tail in the she-cat's direction. Hollyleaf looked at her and Willow began to explain.

"To put it simply, I'm your trainer." Willow added at the end as Bumblestripe walked over.

"The most normal piece of prey I found so far was a cooked squirrel." He announced as Lionblaze looked over at Willow.

"Well, why not try something new?"

Bumblestripe grumbled slightly before following Willow.

"Alright. Now, you have five days to train. There are plenty of sections for different skill set." Someone announced as the tributes were led to a large abandoned twoleg building. "The main rule is this; don't injure any of the other tributes."

 Inside was filled with things Lionblaze did not recognize. One section reminded him of the scents of a medicine den and he wasn't that surprised when Willowshine was the first to run to it. 

Lionblaze walked over to the section where some things were lined up in front of a rogue cat.

"These are the weapons that will appear in the arena." The cat stated, now noticing the small collection of tributes. First, he directed to something that looked like hollowed-out claws. "Metal and Bone claws. They're much sharper and longer and will deal much more damage to your opponent." 

After giving the cats a moment to observe the claws, the rogue gestured to another item.

"This is a tail slasher. They are rather difficult to maneuver, but, you should be able to learn."
The cat gave a demonstration on how to attach the two weapons he'd already introduced and how to take them off.
"Then there are some sharp sticks. Pretty good for just stabbing into your opponent." The cat picked the stick up in his mouth, making a few battle stances before setting it down again.

Lionblaze wandered away from the weapons section and peeked into another interesting section. Whitekit was there, gesturing to different plants and small animals while a cat across from her would nod and pull them off the wood slab.

"Nightshade... uhh...." She paused to think and Lionblaze walked away. 

The next section was a patch of dirt, underbrush, and overgrown plants. Certain cats were burrowing under thorn bushes or tree sapling roots while others were digging holes. Lionblaze looked over and saw Boulderpaw, his tail lashing in frustration.

 Lionblaze wandered over to see that the apprentice was glaring at a thorn bush that was twined with the side of a thick sapling. The bush was covered in mud, leaves and twigs. 

Boulderpaw was attempting to turn a thorn bush into a shelter.

"Huh. How about you don't put as much mud in there? Or just twine the twigs with the branches?" Lionblaze suggested as he passed. The apprentice shrugged, scraping away the mud and leaves. Lionblaze smiled as the mess began to turn into a decent-looking shelter.

"Thanks, Lionblaze!" Boulderpaw called as Lionblaze moved over to the weapon training section.

Nightcloud was using a sharp stick on what looked like a fake cat with red paw prints on certain parts of the body. Lionblaze realized they were vital points which were covering all the dummies, some with more than others. 

Heathertail was using bone claws on another dummy and Graymist was trying to help Rushpaw work out how to use the tail slasher.

Lionblaze shrugged and slipped on a nearby set of metal claws and walked over to a training dummy. He jumped around and slashed down the dummy's flank, then at the side of its head. He rolled under the dummy and slashed at the stomach before leaping up and slashing the throat with an upwards swing of his paw. Dried out weeds drooped out of the rips in the dummy, but Lionblaze didn't care.

Feeling a little satisfied, Lionblaze walked away to look at a far off section. Skypelt, Crowfeather and Tawnypelt were in it. 

Skypelt was digging a hole while Crowfeather was tugging on a bracken tendril in front of a fox hole. Tawnypelt was messing around with fox traps. Lionblaze walked over to the herbs section. He found that Hollyleaf was there, sorting herbs and naming them to a cat who only nodded a response.

"Burdock is for rat bites." She murmured before noticing her brother approaching her.

"Hey Lionblaze." The tom nodded his greetings and sat down beside her.

"I haven't seen any Tribe Cats yet. Have you?" Lionblaze asked and Hollyleaf shook her head.

"I think the guards said something about a night delay." Hollyleaf said as she sorted out more herbs to the graying rogue cat across the slab from her. Lionblaze nodded.

"Hey. Are we allies?" Lionblaze asked and Hollyleaf looked at him. 

"If you can learn how to fix a shelter and use all the weapon options. Then yes." She said with a smile and Lionblaze set off to continue his training.

- Jayfeather -

"N-no....I-They.." Jayfeather was at a loss for words.

 The list of tributes had been told for the first time that day. Jayfeather was horrified to learn that not only his litter-mates had been taken for the games, but that Dovewing, one of the three, had also been taken. The three would no longer exist after these games had ended, no matter if any of them survived. 

He was even more distraught with the fact that the Tribe of Rushing Water was being forced to offer tributes. Half Moon's Tribe....

"Jayfeather...I'm so sorry." Birchfall murmured his condolences. Jayfeather turned away towards his den, ignoring the senses of pity and grief that echoed off his clanmates and filled the hollow with the most unpleasant atmosphere Jayfeather had ever experienced. He slipped past the tendrils before falling into his nest.

 He heard Briarlight's legs dragging along the floor and her warm fur brushing against his side as she laid down beside him. She didn't give off the same sense of grief, but Jayfeather felt (nearly tasted) the pity. 

"I'm sorry about your brother and sister." She murmured, nuzzling his side in a form of much-needed comfort that Jayfeather was too drained to deny.

"I wish I could have helped." Briarlight murmured into his fur and Jayfeather sighed, shuffling into a slightly more comfortable position.

"You being here to comfort me is good enough." Jayfeather assured in a slightly unusual moment of calm, falling asleep to her rhythmic licking.