Fleck ducked her head underneath the thorny branches of the blossoming bramble bush. She shoved the earpiece on in most haste.
“King Ember! Ember, do you read me?” Fleck called, a bit frantically, into the earpiece.
“Oh, Fleck what a pleasant surprise,” her king said in a calm, lazy tone. “I was just about to contact you, you know. Quite a coincidence, hm? Hm. Anyway, I have all of our war troubles solved. Come over here, quickly now. I’ve invented and made some pretty cool guns, and I want you to see them in action.”
“You invented--?” Fleck began, but Ember’s line was already dead.
Both intrigued and annoyed, Fleck turned off the earpiece and shoot out from beneath the bramble bush towards her kingdom. After all, she did kind of miss it. As she was running, she was reminded of her leg, which still remained not fully healed. Seeing as how long it had been since she broke it, she wondered if it would ever heal. Shoving the sickening thought out of her head, Fleck pressed onward.
After what seemed like forever, Fleck arrived back at her home. Ember was there, waiting for her and wearing what he thought was a swagger smile. Behind him, the entire empire of cats was gathered, looking quite eager. Fleck, still panting from her long run, skidded to a halt in front of him.
“Where are the guns?” Fleck inquired tiredly, gasping for breath.
Ember continued smiling and pulled a lumpy hunk of patched-up medal from behind him. The ‘gun’ looked extremely sad, with uneven pieces of different types of medal nailed down to a lumpy frame.
“I present to you...” Ember boomed voice full of pride, trailing off for effect. “The Worm-Shooter!”
“The what now?” Fleck questioned, clearly mortified.
“Demonstration!” Ember cried.
At that, he pulled the rusty trigger and a single slimy worm pelted into Fleck’s unguarded face. It slid harmlessly down her cheek like a pink tear. It landed with a very wet sound to ground and squirmed away.
“I also have the Maggot-Shooter and the Slug-Shooter!” Ember shouted gleefully, pulling out two equally sad and shabby guns from behind him.
“Where are all of these guns coming from?” Fleck asked, puzzled. “And also--” Fleck cut herself off so that she could deflect a speeding maggot-missile with a paw. “--these guns are completely useless! They appear to be extremely fragile, and the ammunition is totally harmless! Honestly, Ember, you didn’t really think that we’d ever win the war armed with these things, did you?”
Fleck kicked the Worm-Shooter and it exploded, expelling a mass of squirming worms. Once they had all hurried away as fast as they could, all that was left of the pathetic gun was a rusty medal shell. Ember stared at the sad, ruined ‘gun’ in stunned silence for a few awkward moments. Then he burst into tears, falling over himself as he attempted to gather up the pitiful remains.
“Why?” he moaned, clutching the cracked medal to his ginger chest. “Why?”
Fleck ignored her mourning king and turned to the crowd of cats. In a pointed, annoyed tone she asked them, “Does anyone have a real weapon?”
A light ginger paw raised from the midst of cats. Abut, other then this, there was only a defeated sort of muttering.
“Come here!” Fleck called hopefully to the dusky ginger paw.
Soon, the owner of the paw emerged. She cut a dainty figure, and was a light, faded sort of ginger shade with a white muzzle, chest, and belly. Her tail was slender and sort of stubby. She had sparkling, faded green eyes.
“What’s the weapon that you have?” Fleck asked, losing hope as she looked the she-cat up and down. There was no sign of any weapons of any sort.
“A gun,” the she-cat said timidly. From behind her, she pulled out a huge gun that was far bigger then any of the hoover gun, and far bigger then any cat, for that matter. Its sleek black, highly-polished surface was quite a pleasant change after the rusty, patched-up Worm-, Maggot-, and Slug-Shooters. “Its called the Motherlord.”
Fleck’s jaw dropped. “What the--?” she needed to ask some questions. “How was that behind you? How are you holing it? And where did you get it?”
“I can’t explain the first two question,” the she-cat told her, “but I can answer the last.”
“Then answer it,” Fleck demanded impatiently.
The faded ginger she-cat cleared her throat, indicating a long tale. “Long ago, before Ember or Firebrand were even born, the two kingdoms had been fighting a war. It was called the Great War and lasted for hundreds of years. But the current rulers, Queen Lilac and King Thistle, decided to call a truce. They gathered all of the scientists from both of the empires to design a great weapon.
“This is the very weapon that they made. It took several weeks, even with the many scientist all working together. They made this gigantic cannon, which was dubbed ‘The Motherlord,’ and its ammunition.
“The ammo was just as impressive as the gun itself. I consisted a huge, explosive medal balls that would turn cats, rocks, plants, other guns and pretty much everything else to dust with one shot.
“The Motherlord was and is and extremely dangerous and deadly weapon, especially as one to be made at a time of truce. But to show that the war was over, Queen Lilac took the gun and Thistle took the ammunition. Each of these things were completely useless by themselves, and so they were left unused.
“Lilac and Thistle swore the most sacred of oaths that bound their kingdoms to eternal friendship. They also swore never to steal either of the parts of The Motherlord from each other and to never use them against their fellow kingdoms.
“The only thing that they could ever use The Motherlord for was if a different empire attacked them. Then, together as one, the friend kingdoms would rise against the enemy, armed with The Motherlord.”
The ginger cat ended her fairly short tale there. She looked quite pleased with herself, and set The Motherlord down gently into the grass without so much as a soft thud. In Fleck’s opinion, the story had risen more questions then answered them.
“Wait--You still haven’t told me where you got it. Also, if its completely useless without the ammunition, then why bother telling me the tale in the first place?” Fleck inquired, quite at the end of her rope with these dunder-brain cats.
“I don’t know where I got it,” the she-cat said simply. “And as for the other question--”
“Wait just a moment!” Fleck snarled. “How can you not remember where you got it? How?”
“Short-term memory loss, I suppose,” the cat said dismissively. “And as for the other question--”
“Stop right there!” Fleck hissed, quite enraged. “How can you remember that whole story and you can’t remember where you got that gun? And where did you learn the tale, anyway?”
“Um, I don’t know,” the cat said, licking her dry lips nervously, fearing another bought of shouting would answer this. “And as for the oth--”
“Wait,” Fleck said through gritted, lowering her voice in attempt to stay calm. “You aren’t going to tell me that you don’t know why you told me the story?”
“Er, no,” the she-cat answered. “The reason why I told you is because you are currently spying on Slate’s cats and have a good chance at getting the ammo, which is located within their weapon room.”
“And how do you know this?” Fleck asked, voice dangerously calm and level. “I suppose you don’t know?”
The timid she-cat simply nodded, looking distraught.
“Ah, well,” Fleck said, looking weary and sighing defeatedly, “that isn’t really important right now. I’ll go to the weapon room tonight and try to steal The Motherlord ammunition and hopefully some guns, too. I’ll need a large sack.”
“Like this?” Ember offered, pulling a perfect-sized woven brown sack out from behind him.
“Yeah, but honestly,” Fleck said, looking awed, “how do you do that?”
“I dunno,” her king said, shrugging.
“Well, I’ll see you as soon as I get the stuff. Farewell, King Ember,” Fleck meowed, taking the brown bag in her jaws and dashing off.
“Farewell, Fleck!” Ember called after her.
She could hear the other cats of Ember’s empire biding their good-byes, also. These friendly caterwauls soon faded into nothingness as Fleck continued onwards, stomach churning with dread, as she had no idea what her excuse for being gone for so long would be and no clue how she was supposed to get past half a dozen guards without being seen. It was a mission that was impossible, and Fleck knew it.
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-KittyLover8
© 2013
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