[Phoenix]

Hailstrike
Paws moved quietly, careful not to disturb the numerous pebbles that lay under the layer of snow. This was the first decent-sized mouse that she ahd seen in a long while, and she was determined to catch it. She had the ability and the determination; it was not going to get away. And yet, something tipped her prey off and it skittered away, narrowly avoiding the unsheathed claws that had swiped at it in a last ditch effort. Cursing under her breath - she had long since learned to not shout lest she chase away even more prey - Hailstrike rose from her crouch, thoroughly irritated and ready to flay whatever had ruined her hunt. Because it most certainly had not been her fault; she had not moved a muscle.

A louder sound, reminiscent of a cat's yowl, reached her ears and the she-cat narrowed her eyes, turning a proud head toward the source. Was that...? It sounded again, but long strides already carried the she-cat toward the noise. Claws temporarily sheathed so that they would not catch on any rocks, Hailstrike loped toward the sound, senses on high alert as she neared StarClan's Claws. It sounded like fighting, but she hardly recognized the scents. Unsheathing her claws, she rounded the nearest claw, its silouhette looming high above her. She stopped dead as icy eyes surveyed the scene, coming to two conclusions almost instantly. Rogues. And that's Granitepaw!

Honeynose
Long and sharp, claws dug into her shoulders, bringing forth another cry from the she-cat. Reflex had her swinging her own paw around, and her blow connected with the side of the rogue that had pounced on her. Honeynose righted herself quickly, fighting to ignore the pain in her shoulder while simultaneously compensating for it, and launched herself at the tom. Claws met flesh as she landed half on top of him, and she lowered her head, fangs biting down on the tom's shoulder. Unable to get a solid hold on her flailing opponent, she grappled with him, fur flying as they tumbled, until he finally shook her off. Landing awkwardly on her side, Honeynose was stunned for a moment; she was still for a moment too long. The shape flew at her again, and she barely managed to avoid the killing bite, rolling to the side at the last minute and scrambling to her paws. Teeth dug into her haunches and she whipped around, claws scoring long marks across the face of her opponent.

Released from his grasp, she doubled her attack on him, fighting with a determination and ferocity that was alien to her. It took two more swipes to the face until the tom fled, blood spilling down his dark fur, and Honeynose could pause and analyze the rest of the situation. Almost instantly, yellow eyes lit upon the rogue who was currently engaged in battle with Eagletalon. The warrior looked as though he had seen better days, and she decided in an instant to take advantage of the situation. The rogue had his back to her, and it was simple enough for the she-cat to sneak up and pounce on his back. A battle cry left her mouth and claws hooked themselves into the rogue's shoulders, and she clung to the flailing form beneath her.

[Fawn]

Mosspaw yowled in panic. Granitepaw, for all his swiftness, had not been fast enough to bowl the NightClan tom out of the way - but he didn't need to. Clamping his jaws around the last few inches of Shadeclaw's tail, Granitepaw bit down as hard as he could, yanking backwards as though wrestling with a stubborn root, worrying it with needle like teeth. It had the desired effect. Shadeclaw nearly screamed in pain, and whipped around, aiming straight for Granitepaw's eyes, which the apprentice had closed, feeling the tom's paw rush past his whiskers and he swerved as necessary, biting down harder.

A weird mixture of blood and fur was starting to fill up Granitepaw's mouth, and he inwardly shuddered at the thought of swallowing it, but Shadeclaw suddenly flying himself at him quickly drove any more thoughts of his head. Apparently Granitepaw had done more than just mangle the warrior's tail - it didn't look right, the tip didn't look capable of standing up properly, as though Granitepaw had damaged a nerve in how ferociously he'd been biting down.

Shadeclaw's eyes were practically red with rage, and he hissed death threats at his former apprentice even as the younger gray tom was recollecting himself and preparing for a counter attack.
"I'll FLAY you, you little maggot!"

Granitepaw, surprisingly, didn't feel afraid. Perhaps it was the fact that he had hit rock bottom and had only now started clawing his way back out for the second time that he no longer knew things like fear of failure. His worst nightmare had come true, he would have to fight Shadeclaw again, but somehow, that wasn't as terrifying to him as it had been three minutes ago. Being confronted with an enraged, fully murderous version of Shadeclaw was blood-curdling, but Granitepaw felt a strange sense of peace as he ducked another fatal slash towards his face, and retaliated with a rolling tackle that bowled the NightClan cat over.

Somehow, being thrown in the midst of his nightmares had brought him clarity. A thousand times this scenario had played over in his head whenever he went to sleep, a thousand times in a thousand day dreams, and even if he had died a thousand times in those figments of his imagination, Granitepaw had done something here in reality that he hadn't been able to do in those other situations.

He had unsettled his ex-mentor.

It was as though roles had been reversed, and Shadeclaw was the inexperienced, emotionally-damaged apprentice trying to get at his tormentor, and this sudden feeling of superiority put the fire back into Granitepaw's limbs. "C'mon, are you really so vain that a little damage to your tail makes you fly right off the handle?" mewed the warrior to be, the mortal enemies sent tumbling off a boulder and into the snow below. Shadeclaw answered him with a vicious bite to the shoulder, causing Granitepaw to yowl in anger.

Blood pounding in his ears, Granitepaw rammed his shoulder back into the other tom's mouth, momentarily stunning him, and, after breaking away and making to pounce on the tom a second time, he spotted something that could possibly end this fight for good.

He aimed at the warrior's tail.

Eagletalon looked up as a blood curdling yowl nearly rent the skies apart, his amber eyes, his own blood dripping into them from a cut just above his left eye, noticing the startled apprentices first. Mosspaw looked worried and worn out, and Granitepaw... He looked... surprised, and then disgusted as he dropped something bloody and tufted out of his mouth, backing away with disgust.

The battle-scarred warrior watched as the NightClan cat, Shadeclaw, ran yowling off into the bushes with half his tail missing, bleeding from both shoulders, with a sliced ear and a broken pride. The remaining rogues - one or two - that hadn't already bit the dust had taken flight, Eagletalon's ears pricking forward to catch the sound of their heavy footfalls fading away into the distance. He shook the blood out of his eyes, looking up in surprise to see a familiar frost-blue gaze staring out over the carnage.
"Hailstrike! What are you doing here?"

[Phoenix]

And then, just like that, it was over. All of the screeching yowls that had shattered the air were silenced, and the peace was broken only by the sound of panting and the patter of paws from fleeing rogues. It took a moment for Honeynose to adjust from the abrupt switch from battle to victory, and the silence that came with it seemed just as deafening as the din from the previous moments. Deep yellow eyes looked out over the scene, dismissing the corpses in order to focus on her clan mates. Eagletalon was practically drenched in blood, and Honeynose hoped that it belonged to their fleeing opponents rather than himself. Granitepaw's features were twisted into an expression of disgust that would have been humorous in nearly any other situation. As for herself, Honeynose did not quite know, and she did not have any time to dwell over her own thoughts. A startled call split through the air, and her head snapped up, landing on an impassive feline with ice blue eyes.

Hailstrike's gaze flicked briefly from Grantiepaw to Eagletalon, ears twitching in acknowledgement of her name. Taking it as her cue, the she-cat moved forward toward her three clanmates, questions nearly tumbling over each other to escape when she began to speak. "I was hunting nearby," She explained briefly to Eagletalon, "I heard the yowls and decided to investigate. But that doesn't matter - what happened here? Why were you fighting rogues?" Her eyes moved from the cut above Eagletalon's eyes to Honeynose and her rather distant expression before finally resting on her apprentice. And it was the sight of him that filled her with the most pride.

She had seen his victory over Shadeclaw, and she chose to not focus the odd coincidence that their earlier discussion had applied later in that same day. It was impossible to hide the smile that tugged the corners of her mouth upward, nor the satisfied glint that shone in her eyes. He had done it. He had finally done it and beaten his demons. The tables had finally turned, and Granitepaw had unnerved and defeated his former mentor. Better yet, he had left the traitor with a permanent reminder of his defeat, and the message it left resonated throughout all of StoneClan. Do not mess with us.

A vicious glee filled her, and the force of the powerful emotions made her feel like a kit again, just about to step up and become an apprentice. Words could not do it justice, and she did not even try to verbalize the rush of feeling that tore through her. If she directed her gaze toward Eagletalon, surely she would see the same overwhelming emotion reflected in him. Pride, and probably a variant, at least, of the same glee born of a fulfilled desire for revenge. Shadeclaw had, after all, betrayed every cat in StoneClan by leaving. Instead of giving in to the kit-like urge inside of her and bouncing up and down, Hailstrike managed to keep a firm grip on her composure. Holding Granitepaw's gaze, she nodded, and every intonation of her voice held merely a fraction of the pride she felt. "Wonderful job, Granitepaw. You've beaten him."

In their victory, none of the StoneClan cats noticed a wiry, dark furred tom lurking in the shadows just inside NightClan territory. Green eyes peered out from the darkness, analyzing and surverying the scene, and his busy mind spun rapidly, figuring out numerous ways he could use this knowledge to his advantage while launching on the idea of recruiting rogues as a fighting force. He had seen the whole fight, watched with apathy as the disgraced ex-StoneClan warrior fled, leaving half his tail behind. Surely that would bring up some awkward explanations, and surely the tom would come up with some half-decent cover story. But he knew the truth, and if used correctly, it could become one of the most dangerous weapons. His lips parted in a wide grin. Luckily, Ratfur knew exactly how to weild it.

[Fawn]

The full weight of his victory had yet to hit the younger gray and tan tom, and he dipped his head to Hailstrike respectfully, his eyes still glazed with disbelief. "I...I did." He had beaten Shadeclaw! And Shadeclaw would never forget this battle, not in a million years. Momentarily interrupted the complete and utter triumph he was starting to feel once he was coming back down to earth, was a tinge of apprehension that Shadeclaw would likely want payback, and would only be happy if he could carry Granitepaw's head back on a pike...

But that fear was washed aside when he met Hailstrike's eyes again. He smiled, his tail held high. Let him come then. I can beat him once, I can do it a hundred times more!

It was so hard to believe that just hours ago, he'd been...well...a wreck, he'd been a wreck for almost a whole half moon, and then fate had suddenly decided to throw this at him. But he'd learned how to dodge and give back just as good as he got, thanks to the she-cat standing in front of him. Briefly remembering what had made him attack Shadeclaw in the first place, Granitepaw looked around for Mosspaw, spotting the she-cat looking at Eagletalon as though she'd never seen anything quite like him.
"Are you okay?" mewed the tom, and Mosspaw turned lamp-like eyes to gaze at him in surprise. She smiled and dipped her head gratefully. "Yes, thank you! You were very brave."

The severely blood-dampened Eagletalon chuckled just behind them, shaking droplets of blood out of his pelt. The majority of the wetness wasn't actually due to his personal injury, but rather the wounds inflicted upon his enemies. Granitepaw's ears twitched in slight apprehension. "Well don't you look...er..."

Eagletalon grinned wolfishly, before flicking his tail towards Hailstrike.
"Lead the way home, champion. You get to tell Fallingstar & Falconleap all about this little skirmish."

Granitepaw felt his skin flush red beneath his pelt at all the attention he was suddenly getting, and he dipped his head gratefully, accepting it as an order while he rejoined Hailstrike. His whiskers twitched, his tail swayed from side to side with pensiveness. Yellow-green eyes met with frosty blue ones, and Granitepaw was at last able to convey how...thankful he was towards Hailstrike, how grateful and how indebted he was to the mentor who saw a diamond in the rough and had refused to give up on him, even when he'd already given up on himself.

"I couldn't have done it without you, Hailstrike," spoke the almost-warrior, leaning over to press his nose to her shoulder in gratitude. It was quite possibly the first time he'd ever been so openly grateful towards her, but that didn't make this situation any less...special. If anything, it signified the final growth spurt between a youth who was unsure of himself, a warrior who was ready and beginning to live up to his full potential.

Eagletalon brought up the rear, watching them both with battle-gleaming amber eyes. He smiled inwardly to himself, leaving dark red tracks in the snow in his wake.
A job well done, you two. A job well done.

[Phoenix]

The change that went through her apprentice was instantaneous. Suddenly he was brimming with a confidence that she had not expected to see in a long while, and triumph shone brightly in his eyes. Her tail flicked through the air behind her, that foolish little grin still on her lips. As Granitepaw turned his attention toward Mosspaw, Hailstrike's ice-blue eyes settled on Eagletalon, unable to ignore the worry that flickered through her at the sight of him practically drenched in blood. If the grin on his face was anything to go by, the tom himself appeared as though he could take on a few more rogues and still walk home with ease. Still, she could not tell how much of that blood was his and how much belonged to his opponents; having focused on Granitepaw during the small bit of the fight she had seen, Hailstrike could only base Eagletalon's health on her knowledge of his fighting abilities and his body language. Though knowing him, he probably would not show any sign of weakness, especially so soon after a fight.

Fondness toward both toms flashed through her at Eagletalon's words to the now embarassed apprentice. She hesitated as Granitepaw made to join her, watching him. Was this what a parent felt like when she watched her kit become a full warrior of the clan? Hailstrike felt as though she could empathize with all of those parents; she could hardly believe that her chest had not burst from all the pride that it held. He had come so far in the few moons she had known him. The change was obvious and amazing, true proof of StoneClan's resiliance and strength of character. Had she not seen the growth occur, she would not have connected the Granitepaw of a few moons back to the Granitepaw that stood beside her now. They were practically two different cats, and it was for the better. It seemed as though the subject of her thoughts had similar musings, an event that occured more often than not. As blue eyes locked with the familiar yellow-green ones, the amount of emotion that she could read in those luminescent depths was incredible. She did not need to be a master at judging character to know that the overwhelming emotion was gratefulness.

Granitepaw's nose pressed against her shoulder, and her tail flicked at his words. Accepting the words with a dip of the head, she turned and looked back at the tom who would very soon become a warrior. His soft words touched her more than she could ever bring herself to admit, and they also strengthened her belief that Granitepaw was now ready to become a warrior. He had defeated his demons and matured into a fine, young tom. He was ready to tackle and handle the responsibilities that came with being a full, capable member of the clan. "Thank you," Hailstrike responded, a small smile ghosting over her lips. "But I do not think you give yourself enough credit. You ability was there all along; you just needed help finding it." Pausing as she often did, the warrior took the time to enjoy the sight of Granitepaw basking in the triumph and victory of his accomplishment. With his head held high and his eyes alight, he looked more like a warrior than ever. It was something she would remember for the rest of her life. "Let's get home, Granitepaw. You have a story to tell." And a ceremony to attend.