Capture

  CapturE

 First  in the Undefeated series

 By BladeOfHope



"You there!"

Tell me you know the way out!

Please, please, please, you have to get us out of here. You have no idea how horrible it's been. The Underlives hate us. Krilla is getting sick because she doesn't have enough food. Skell is mad at everyone, and even Oburi has started to cooperate with us. None of us can win enough fights to redeem ourselves, and so many cats have died...

What?

You're dreaming.

You're dreaming, and you're not really here. All you have to do to leave is wake up.

So there is no way out, is that it? Have you come here to mock us? Show us where we'll all end up soon, dreaming of things that could be? No more than wandering spirits with no real reason for being? You just wanted to tell me there's no hope, didn't you?

I hate you Overlives. You have no idea what we go through down here.

No.

Idea.

You walk overtop of us every single day. You just go about your normal lives, oblivious to our misery. Well, guess what? We're cats, too. We have lives, too, or at least we used to. Then the Underlives took us, and no one cared enough to save us. You just forgot all about us.

Makes it easier, doesn't it? Just forgetting that there are condemned cats somewhere who need your help? I envy your easy lives.

I'll tell you what. You leave now, without another word, and I'll let your spirit live. I'm sorry you couldn't help us, but I will kill you. I swear it.

Go away. Just go away.

Don't come back.

"No no no no no!"

She kicked and screeched as powerful paws clamped down on her, trying to silence her. "No, I won't let you take me! Go away!"

"Noisy one," a deep voice growled from behind her. Two of the large, dark paws unsheathed their bloodstained claws, pointing them right at her face. She shrank back, but froze when she pressed up against the cat whose paws were threatening her.

"What do you want from me?" she whispered hoarsely.

"That's more like it," someone else said. It was a feminine voice this time, but it matched the other voices in the sense of evil wafting out of it like the stench of a rotting corpse.

The claws sheathed, but the paws still obstructed her view of her captors. A third, younger voice spoke up: "You will lead us to all the other apprentices in your Clan, and then you will help us find the apprentices in the other Clans, too."

She was so shocked, she almost forgot to breathe. Gasping for air, she sputtered, "But why?"

"We can't tell you that," someone else informed her. It was a new voice, someone who hadn't spoken the entire struggle. "Just do it."

Knowing she had no choice against ten mysterious cats, all much stronger than her, she stood miserably and started to walk.

Aaryi woke up.

It's the same cave, she reflected bitterly. ''This is... what, day five?''

She got the feeling that a bed of moss would be much more comfortable. The thought surprised her, and as hard as she tried to trace its origin in the jumbled void of her mind, she couldn't find any reason that the thought should strike her.

So, I am going crazy.

It was something she'd determined the second day, when she got the feeling that somone was missing. Or a lot of someones. But who was "someone"? She couldn't remember ever knowing anyone else. In fact, she wasn't even sure there was anyone else.

Then the light appeared.

Aaryi squinted against the brightness as the rock blocking the cave entrance was rolled aside. After so many days in total darkness, even the early morning light was like torture to her eyes.

"Come out," some cat ordered. Was it one of the voices who had captured her? Someone else? She had no idea. Shuddering at the memory of claws, Aaryi stood and blindly followed the voice out of the cave.

"Meet Krilla and Skell," the voice announced. As Aaryi struggled to see against the light, she slowly began to make out two figures: one tom, one she-cat, both with dark brown pelts and wide green eyes. Siblings, Aaryi figured bitterly.

As the strange voice-cat, who Aaryi still couldn't see, led them over to another cave, the female - Krilla - whispered to Aaryi, "How'd you get here?"

"I have no idea," Aaryi replied, also whispering. "Why?"

Krilla shook her head. "That's what they all say."

She trotted on ahead to join her brother, leaving Aaryi at the back of the group to try and make sense of her whirling thoughts.

''No one knows where they came from? ''

It was an alarming realization. At least she wasn't the only one, but that thought didn't do much to soften the blow of her next one:

''Where are we, anyway? And why?''

They descended.

Cold enveloped Aaryi as the light behind them was swallowed up by the darkness. She cast a longing glance back at the last sunray.

Following the others by scent wasn't easy, and Aaryi kept bumping into Krilla and Skell. "Sorry," she whispered when Skell growled at her. ''Friendly bunch. ''

Finally, finally, they emerged into a half-lit cavern. Looking around, confused, Aaryi searched for the source of the light. There wasn't any fire, or cracks in the stone where light might peer through. Something told her that maybe it would be best not to ask.

"This is where you'll live now," a new voice said, echoing around the cavern.

"For how long?" a younger voice demanded. Startled, Aaryi realized that there were other tunnels leading into the cavern, and other cats - all around her age - standing by the entrances. It was one of the other young cats who had spoken, a tom, and an angry one by the sound of it. Other cats muttered some sort of agreement, until the voice stopped them.

"You will not complain," it boomed, "nor will you question us. Now, your Underlife Guards will show you to your living spaces." The voice stopped then, with not even a last echo to show it was ever there at all.

If Aaryi had been paying more attention, the sudden lack of an echo would have shocked her most. Instead, her brain kept repeating one word, over and over.

Us...

She glared at Oburi.

He glared back.

He was the tom who had spoken out in the cavern. He'd seemed brave, to ask a question like that, but now that Aaryi was actually meeting him face-to-face, she could see what he really was.

"You're a jerk," she informed him, disgusted.

"And you're a shrimp," he returned, curling his lip. "How long do you expect to survive down here? I give you a quarter moon, tops."

"Oburi, don't," Krilla scolded. "We're all down here. We should work together and figure out how to get out of here!"

Skell grunted from his dip in the stone floor. Without saying a word, he turned over in the "nest" and curled up like he was about to go to sleep.

"I'm not working with the likes of you," Oburi scoffed. "I bet you couldn't even fight a mouse."

"I've hunted down plenty of mice," Aaryi snapped, growing hot with anger and frustration.

"Yeah? When?"

"I..." Aaryi paused. She couldn't remember the last time she'd hunted anything, much less a mouse. Her memories refused to work. But was it from anger, or something else? "I... I don't know," she sputtered finally. "But I know I have. More than you, I bet!"

"That's enough!" Krilla cried, stepping between Oburi and Aaryi. "We shouldn't waste energy arguing! We have no idea what they'll make us do down here."

"Krilla's right," Skell muttered. Apparently he'd been listening, not sleeping. "If we're gonna be fighting, we need all the help we can get." He fell silent again, and a few heartbeats later he began to snore softly.

Krilla, Aaryi, and Oburi were just looking at each other until Aaryi's curiousity got the best of her. "Fighting?" she repeated.

"Yeah," Oburi grunted. "You heard him. We're probably going to be fighting to the death come tomorrow." He smirked at Aaryi. "Good luck if you're fighting me, because I'm going to win."

Aaryi was fuming, but at Krilla's warning glance, she claimed the so-called nest farthest from the entrance to their little cave as possible. Skell had already claimed the one deepest into the shadows, but there was no way Aaryi would sleep anywhere near Oburi. The dark gray-and-brown mottled tom had claimed the nest next to the tunnel as soon as they'd stepped into the place.

As she sunk into a sound, dreamless sleep, she had one last conscious thought.

At least I'm not afraid of the dark...

"Owwwwww!"

Aaryi glared at Oburi's blurry pelt as her eyes started to focus. He'd just planted a paw right down on her tail, and Aaryi knew it was on purpose. Still, she did find some satisfaction in glaring at him.

"Get up," he grunted. "We're wanted back in the main cave."

"You could've asked," she muttered, giving her pelt a quick grooming before standing to follow him out. ''Anything to annoy him. ''

They climbed up their tunnel in silence until they emerged into the main cavern, where Krilla and Skell were waiting for them. Then the four of them joined the mass group of cats and waited.

After a long, uncomfortable span of time in which every cat squirmed or sighed or muttered and expressed their impatience in some way or another, the same voice from the last time started up in the room.

"You all must be curious as to why you are here," the voice began.

Immediately all of the cats in the cavern erupted with questions, shouts, and wails. The voice had to yell twice before they all settled down, and even then the annoyance still floated in the air, hanging like a thick cloud waiting to break into an angry storm of rebellion.

"As I was saying," the voice continued with a touch of annoyance, "the reason you are here is simple. We want you to fight each other."

Everyone gasped.

Aaryi stared up at the middle of the cavern, at the tall stone pillar from which she assumed the voice came, even though she couldn't see its source. Everyone else was doing the same. They gasped simultaneously, then fell completely silent, staring.

Then something dawned on Aaryi, and she glanced at Krilla, who had a somewhat resigned look on her face. She couldn't quite imagine the calm, quiet she-cat fighting anyone... and what if Aaryi had to fight Krilla?

She shook the thought away. It was too horrible to imagine.

"Dismissed," the voice said, breaking the silence. Its echoes fell off into its echoless break, and all at once the cats broke off into murmurings. Oburi and Skell, for once in unspoken agreement, padded back in the direction of their den-cave. Krilla met Aaryi's gaze, her own expression solemn, then followed her brother up the stone tunnel.

Aaryi, however waited around to see who else would stay in the cavern.

Only one other cat, apparently had enough nerve to stay after all the others had left, despite the imminent threat of the echoless voice. She had pure white fur, was a bit shorter than Aaryi, and was turned away from Aaryi as the other she-cat walked up to her.

"Um, hello," Aaryi began. "I don't think I've-"

She broke off as the white she-cat turned her head to look at Aaryi.

From a distance, the purity of the white in her pelt was the most distinguished feature. But up close, something else immediately caught Aaryi's eye.

The first thing she noticed was the other cat's eyes. They were... not quite blue, not quite any normal color, really. No, her eyes were a pale violet, not unlike the flowers Aaryi remembered seeing sometime in the past. Where, she couldn't remember, but she remembered seeing them all the same.

Then her eyes floated down to the second thing.

The other cat spoke before Aaryi could fully process what she was seeing. Her voice was high-pitched, kind of scratchy and raspy at the same time, but not altogether unpleasant, just a bit... different. In fact, Aaryi couldn't decide quite what it sounded like. "Your name," the white cat said.

"Wh-what?" Aaryi stammered, distracted.

"Your name," the cat repeated. "I 'sume you have one. Not like some a' the others 'round here." She shifted her violet eyes around a bit, as though seeing all the cats there, even though all the others had left.

Aaryi was confused, but she meowed, "Aaryi. My name is Aaryi."

"Y'sure 'bout that?" the white cat said, pushing her face into Aaryi's so she could clearly see the second thing.

The scar running across the middle of the she-cat's face.

"Y'sure?" the cat repeated. "Y'all have two names, y'know..." She choked out a high-pitched laugh. "I'm no different, really. 'Xcept that I remember mine, s'all." She turned and walked away from Aaryi, up into a tunnel that had no other scents crossing its entrance. No one else ever went down that tunnel. No one but this strange white cat.

As Aaryi retreated across the cavern back to her own tunnel, she finally decided what the white cat's voice sounded like.

It reminded her of a cat gone insane.

"Wake-up call!"

Oburi's voice cut into Aaryi's dreams, forcing her to open her eyes. She'd been dreaming about something horrible. Something that had happened to her... ''before. ''Before they came to this stone prison. She'd been dreaming about...

She couldn't remember.

Next to her, Krilla raised her head from her stone nest. "Training already," she murmured, then stood and walked out of the little cave behind Oburi without another word.

"Training?" Aaryi echoed, confused. She was about to follow Krilla out into the main cavern when Skell's voice rasped from behind her.

"Don't talk to Kayn."

Aaryi turned to see the dark brown tom rising from his own nest in the darkness, not even pausing to smooth out his tangled fur before padding over to Aaryi. He spoke again before the she-cat could ask what - and who - he meant.

"She's dangerous. Fight her, and you'll die."

Without another word, he pushed past Aaryi, beckoning for her to follow him into the shadowy tunnel.

Aaryi's jaw dropped.

The white cat from the night before must have had either some crazy training or some crazy instinct, because her fighting skills were incredible.

That, or she really was insane. Just like Aaryi thought.

Sane or not, the white cat was incredible. Even Oburi, who was standing beside Aaryi, looked a little bit jealous as the she-cat flipped around in all kinds of impossible maneuvers.