Warrior Cat Clans 2 (WCC2 aka Classic) is a roleplay site inspired by the Warrior series by Erin Hunter. Whether you are a fan of the books or new to the Warrior cats world, WCC2 offers a diverse environment with over a decade’s worth of lore for you - and your characters - to explore. Join us today and become a part of our ongoing story!
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The NightClan camp was alive with cheering, a wild, messy crowd gathered in a close-pressed circle. Sneakysnap was at the centre of it, chugging the most disgusting concoction the toms of the Clan could make for her: snail slime, and algae goop from the bottom of the river, and liquid squeezed from a squirrel’s eye, and a dozen other awful things — she didn’t need to know what was in it; she just drank, because she loved the disbelief and the disgust and the hysterical cheers. She never backed down from a dare, from someone saying she wouldn’t do something — she’d do it a hundred times harder and strip for the cameras at the top of the Eiffel Tower. You wouldn’t, someone had said; make it, then, she’d snapped back. She was often aggressive — only in the glow of an audience did her smile become something that could be called radiant. It was hot and sweaty, and Sneakysnap was alive as the centre of attention — she loved the noise; she loved the eyes staring at her, the teeth snapping for her; she loved spinning about in a stumbling, unsteady circle and seeing nothing but a blur of bodies, all watching her. And when she slurped down the last of the foul liquid from the giant snail shell someone had found and handed to her with the juice slopping over her paw, she tipped her head back for the dramatics, and slammed it down on the stone floor so hard it shattered, and wiped the back of her mouth. For a second, her audience fell quiet, waiting. She let them. And then:
“Wasn’t even that bad!” she erupted with a screaming laugh, and the crowd lost their minds, shrieking and cheering in equal parts disgust and adulation. Kier had been watching with amusement from the doorway of his den; now, with the question answered, he turned and disappeared back inside, leaving the rowdiest of the Clan to their frat party revelries. Laughing along with them, a hundred times louder because this was for her, she let them accost her for a little while, answering questions like a limelight celebrity and telling raucous stories and briefly breaking into a mock wrestling session with a warrior; until, finally, still laughing, she pushed her way through them to get some fresh air. As soon as she stepped out of the circle, the camp was colder, damper. With a crooked, volatile grin still on her face, she padded over to the pool and leaned down to splash water over her face, another leftover laugh bubbling up her throat. She was just beginning to catch her breath.
To the lanky black tom that sat at the front of the circle, this was exactly what had been needed in NightClan. To him, it was good, carefree fun, something so simple and bloodless, something he lived for. It was something he hadn't been a part of in a long time, and he reveled in the laughter and cheerfulness of those around him that he had grown to be so miserable around. Most of all, to Satyrsong, the she-cat that had created this atmosphere he felt so comfortable in was the highlight of it all. The sense of freedom that seemed to drip from her drew him in, the way her eyes shone with how alive she felt, the daringness and not caring at all.
It was no surprise then that as she padded away to wash her face the tom was pulled to her, like magnets unable to pull apart, and soon he was right in front of her again. "You know, you're something to behold," Satyrsong greeted lightheartedly, his own grin stuck to his face.
Sneakysnap stepped back from the pool, raising her head and shaking the water from it. “Yeah?” she asked, finally looking up at him for the first time past the water dripping into her eyes; if she could’ve, she’d have been slinging a damp towel round her shoulders, or lolling her inner elbows over a baseball bat running across the back of her neck. She grinned back, but it was the sort of grin someone would give as they uncaringly signed an autograph and then continued on to lunch. She was one of the first round of Kier’s apprentices to have been made a warrior — the only she-cat so far — and she was incredibly proud of that fact; she’d dove headfirst into life among warriors, immediately carving out an easy place at the centre, and though some might have been intimidated by suddenly being an equal to those older and more established, she was right at home, with that forceful, careless arrogance. Because everyone knew being established in NightClan was an insult — it meant you were old, you were out of touch, you were from before. Once the other apprentices — the future of NightClan, the real NightClan, the great experiments so close to graduation, and wouldn’t the world tremble then — started being promoted, then the warriors would become something new and vicious; until then, she was the golden, elite girl among a world of has-beens and tolerated servants. She wasn’t intimidated; she owned the joint. And good thing, too — she’d already shoved older warriors out of the best spot in the den and taken it for herself. She had to get in quick; Oleanderpaw was injured now, but she’d be back on her feet and promoted, and then she’d want the spot Sneakysnap had claimed for herself. Well, shouldn’t have gotten injured, then. She felt camaraderie with toms; with other she-cats — and ’other’ was a strong term, she was nothing like them — there was just belittling competitiveness.
“Good thing I’m at the centre, then,” she went on, with that same locker room ease; in another world, she was tossing the damp towel at Satyrsong’s face. “You just like bein’ in the audience?” she asked, maintaining lazy eye contact as she bent down again to drag water over the back of her neck with her paw. “Always need that type, too — who else is gonna do the cheering.” It was a very NightClan way to think — the ones who cheered, the lower classes, the Inferiors; they tolerated them because they were necessary, because someone had to change the bedding. It bled into every other part of life, that sense of hierarchy. Sneakysnap didn’t intend to be mean, but she also didn’t intend not to be; she was always mean, to friends just as much as the ones she hated. Nasty bantering, bullying, insults that landed that bit too close to home — that was how she bonded, and she laughed along just as hard to insults levelled at her as she did to ones she threw across the table at someone else.
It was true that Satyrsong really had no place in NightClan. He had come here as a "warrior", with a family that only seemed to break apart as they arrived, and quickly found himself at the bottom, his face being repeatedly shoved into misery as he tried desperately to hold onto the values that he held so close to his heart. It was true that most nights he considered simply leaving, slipping away and never looking back, leaving behind his remaining kits who took no interest in him or his values. So, to be expected, that change in scenery he had witnessed tonight, just for a brief moment, had drawn him in. His heart had begun to feel light, like it had once, and tragically, it seemed to drop back into shadows as Sneakysnap continued speaking. Though he wanted to believe that it was all bantering and camaraderie, deep down Satyrsong knew the truth behind it all. The way of life Kier brought to NightClan seemed to be planted into these cats, groomed into them, fed into their bloodstream. It was all too much for him.
Uncharacteristically, Satyrsong could muster up no response. It truly seemed the past few moons had taken the life right out of this tom that once seemed so carefree and full of hope, kindness, and free will. There was nothing left but a husk of who he'd been. Without another glance, he turned and walked away from Sneakysnap, slipping back into his own head as he made his way towards the camp exit.
-
Ratsneer, on the other hand, had eyed the encounter with a normal grimace on his face. Though Sneakysnap was obvious competition to him, the brazenness of the Inferior that had approached her left a sour taste in his mouth. His beliefs held true in everything Kier spewed from his mouth. It was almost like a religion to him, really. It was all he believed. He had already began stalking towards the two when Satyrsong turned and left without a word.
"Yeah, why don't you fetch us some food?" Ratsneer yowled after him, a twisted smirk making its way to his maw as he came up beside Sneakysnap.
let's pretend i didn't take a MONTH to respond <3 faeish
Somewhere deep down, something like guilt nagged at Sneakysnap, a faint, uncertain sadness like one might feel for just a second looking at a mouse writhing in a glue trap and tearing its skin from its bones. And then Ratsneer was at her side, like an angry male chaperone chasing off brazen rival who didn't know his place in the pecking order, and the resolve returned. She was most at home being treated like that, somewhere between an unconventional, tomboy equal and something to be guarded. It made her feel far more important than any other she-cat in NightClan. Sneakysnap smiled, crooked and thin as she watched the Inferior pad miserably away, all the fight trickling out of him like visible tar on the stone floor.
"You gotta be such a bastard about it?" she asked Ratsneer, turning to him with a lazy-eyed grin, but there was no heat or accusation to it; it was just boys' banter. "He wasn't doing any harm. They're old and half senile — must be rough, cleaning bedding all day." She laughed loudly, the sort of loud that was made to assert utter dominance over a place — this camp isn't for you, it's for us; there was no sympathy to it. They weren't old at all; most were barely over a year and a half. But to a Clan of teenagers, they were from an old order. "What, you jealous?"
For Ratsneer there was no such guilt. The sight of the older warrior pitifully meandering away did little more than disgust him and brought him joy when his pointed yowl was met with no resistance; it was just as it should be, in his opinion. Sneakysnap's voice brought him out of his thoughts, and he turned her attention to her, maybe for the first time really looking at her. His main objective had been to put Satyrsong in his place when he was oh so far out of line, and a sense of smugness had followed; now that he was alone with her, he felt a bit awkward. That was until her words came out.
"I think the worm needed to know what's what, don't you? I mean, he didn't even try to fight it. It's kinda pathetic." Ratneer responded, rearing his head higher as if he had all the confidence in the world yet with the same sour expression trapped on his face. Her next question seemed to throw him off guard though, and his usual expression faltered if only for a moment before he gave a scoff. "Jealous? He is literally nothing at all, no power or respect, no one looking up to him. He's carrion compared to me." His lip curled into a snarl as if her question had left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Yeah?” Sneakysnap replied, just as fiery and sneering, taking a step closer till she was all in the other warrior’s face; she just liked goading toms. “Beatin’ up worms make you feel like a man? Real tough.” As Ratsneer went on, she laughed, a doubtful sort of scoffing designed to rile him up. “And everyone looks up to you? Why aren’t you a Royal Guard yet, then?” It was a thing with her, reaching Royal Guard — she felt like she was locked in competition with all the other young warriors and apprentices, and that made Ratsneer her rival; only one per cohort usually made it, and she was obsessed with it being her. She was going to make Royal Guard if she had to slaughter half her peers — if she had to put all their heads on pikes and line the way to Kier’s den just to grab his attention.
She was still all up in his face, her eyes wild and daring; she was brazen enough herself that she felt no fear of him — she’d known him when he was just Ratpaw, posturing for pride of place, and no one who’d seen a psychopath with pimples was ever scared of their adult violence. They’d seen too much of their childhood to have that illusion.
His confidence easily rolled into anger as Sneakysnap continued to prod him with her words, shoving a stick into the tiger cage with no fear whatsoever; some would call it brave, others stupid. Though Ratsneer's main objective throughout his life has been to revel in the fear in other's eyes, he had a deeper ambition layered underneath it all - he wanted to be the right hand man, the one to carry out all the dirty work that he would take so much joy in, he wanted to be the most feared - and for good reason. As he looked into her eyes he saw the same fiery, wild ambition there, no fear, plenty of bloodlust, that do whatever it takes.
The tom's skin felt on fire with rage and disbelief, yet at the same time he felt hot with excitement, perhaps even curious to hear this cat's real thoughts instead of the hard tough guy banter that was plastered around her. This strange feeling he'd never really been confronted with before only seemed to fuel his fire, and a snarl contorted his face before he bowled her over, struggling to come out on top.
sneakyrat and ratsnap and sneersnap are all unfairly cute ship names
Sneakysnap lived up to her name enough that she managed to twist to the side the second she felt her back thump against the dusty stone floor, hardly there at all before she was rolling out from under him. Keeping one paw's claws hooked into his side, she snapped herself atop him and immediately jabbed an extended claw towards his eye, hovering it close enough that with every natural waver of her paw she felt the tip bump against the achingly sensitive sclera. Where he was all muscle, she was all speed — but their tempers were evenly matched. Looking down at him with wide, wild eyes that were as thrilled with their violent little competition as he was, she jerked her head to the side and grinned down at him, claw still hovering. "You've been the same since you were my size," she gloated. "All brawn, no brain. Just a big, dumb idiot." As if she were any smarter.
No one ever stopped cats fighting in NightClan; it was how they kept the hierarchy an organic and vicious thing — your position was secure today; it might not be tomorrow. Almost nightly there'd suddenly erupt a chaos of screaming and hissing that lasted only half a minute — some squabble over prey, or room to sit, or something just as meaningless. Everything meant the world when you'd been raised in a place of such classism, favouritism and vicious fear. And she thrived in it.
As the leverage was ripped away from him it ignited his skin even more, infuriated that the she-cat had pulled a quick one on him and now it was he at mercy, a sharp claw skimming his eye. Rumbling growls had been emitting from him long ago, completely unintentional, seemingly just a part of himself as he struggled to come up with his next move. His gaze bore into hers, fiery ambition smoldering, unhinged rage seeping in as she began to talk.
Ratsneer loved the way of life that had ravaged through NightClan like a plague. It felt to him a place that he could do far more than survive in, where his sick urges fit in as if they weren't wrong in any way. A place where it was acceptable- no, encouraged- to act just as he was now. He let himself go a bit slack for a moment, letting a tinge of defeat touch his face, just long enough so maybe Sneakysnap would think she had won, before he pushed all his power into his hind legs and kicked directly into her belly, feeling confident that she would get propelled off of him in a rather funny way, and he could get that sorry claw out of his face. "You talk a lot of shoot, huh?" He heaved, having a hard time catching his breath but nowhere near giving up.
Sneakysnap let out a sharp, startled cry that was cut off and winded as soon as she thudded onto her side, sending up a thick plume of dust. Regaining her bearings, she growled just as steadily as him and pushed herself up, her back half still on the ground and her front half propped up as she looked at Ratsneer, panting with her lips pulled back into an exhausted half-snarl. Really, though, this was thrilling for her — it would certainly good look on her NightClan resumé, to be tussling with one of their most fearsome warriors and holding her own. She hadn't kicked his ass, he hadn't kicked hers; they had drawn, brute force meeting speed, and she loved that.
"Oh, you can understand me?" she shot back, voice still undercut every so often by a growl — mostly on the exhales of her panting, like the growls were natural afterthoughts. "G'job, sneery. Y'know, there's this rumour that you actually can't speak our language, that your mother did something to your head when you were born and now you're just some ugly, hulking idiot. This has, like, half proven them wrong." She called him ugly, because that was always an easy insult, but truly he was handsome behind that snarl — because of that snarl, to her, his muzzle all cut up and wrinkled. He would almost have been pretty without it. Pushing herself up, she shook her fur out. She hadn't been able to draw blood and that frustrated her; it felt like the fight was half finished. "I'm gonna go kill something," she growled. Not waiting for a response, she stalked past him, heading for the slope that rose out of camp. A rabbit, that was what she wanted — something quick and difficult to take her mind of things and challenge her.
Ratsneer pulled himself quickly after her weight was lifted off of him, keeping a close eye on her. He half expected her to try to pull a quick one on him and attack once more once he'd slackened, but soon realized she was finished with the tussle, and just as frustrated as he was. Though, neither of them won, a fight seemed to be just the thing he needed; it was an entertainment he hadn't had much of lately and he was grateful for the opportunity.
As Sneakysnap began hurling insults at him again he felt another flare of anger, especially so since his intelligence seemed to be a bit of a sore spot for him. It was often pointed out to him that he wasn't very smart or witty, but it had only pushed him harder to ensure his strength could never be questioned. As for being ugly, he knew she was full of it. "Ah, whatever. I've never been ugly, and I think you know that." He jeered at her, knowing the truth behind her lackluster insult and wanting to see her face falter, if only for a moment. When she began heading to the entrance in search of a victim he sat still for a moment, looking around as if someone was going to be there to tell him to follow her. His hard headedness made him want to leave her to herself, so she could think about what she'd done as if she deserved punishment, leave her all hot and bothered when he had a feeling she wasn't quite done with him yet. After a moment he picked himself up and began trailing behind her, probably looking like a wild animal stalking his prey.
“Oh, great!” Sneakysnap exclaimed, stalking more heavily as the other Executioner trailed her. “He’s full of himself, too. What, did your mama tell her special baby boy,” she cooed the words mockingly, “that he was just the handsomwest thing in the world? Please. You’re, like, a six at most.” She often sat with the other toms — other, because she considered herself one of them — and rated passing she-cats; Oleanderpaw was an eight, Cascadepaw was a nine (mostly because everyone was obsessed with fantasising about what really lay under the demure elegance, Kier included), Duskpaw was a two (which wasn’t really true, it was just the ongoing joke — she was at the bottom, so her looks had to be, too). Her wolf whistling, her unbearable, jockish laughter when she and the toms fell over each other in their hysterics — it was just as loud as theirs. When Brat passed, they all went awkwardly quiet and looked around and murmured among themselves like they’d all decided the game was over, because no one dared give Kier’s daughter a number.
“Are you just gonna follow me now? Do you not have anything better to do?” And then a grin was spreading across her face. A squirrel darted from the ferns beside the earth path and hurried across it, almost over her paws — but she had no interest in hunting anymore. Not in hunting squirrels. Still grinning a challenge, she turned to face Ratsneer, the look in her eyes all hateful, cocky daring. “Would you follow me anywhere?”
Her grin lingered for a moment, and then she slowly scraped it away and turned away again, changing their direction. She led them through the tall, dripping pines, her pace gradually quickening to a trot, and then to an almost-run. Past the rickety, swaying bridge that spanned the canyon and the rushing river below; past the ramshackle twoleg den with its overgrown garden tended to by Twilightdance; through the muggy, grey air of the mid-summer storms. The damp, dark lushness of the wet forest slowly gave way to dryer stretches — dry pines in arid, bare earth and great slabs of stone — and then to tall arches of red rock. Until, finally, they were at the old SunClan border. Beyond, the landscape was desolate and red, turned to a cool, dark, endless moonscape by the night. The columns of rock scattered amid the sand dunes looked alien. It seemed to go on forever; the volcano that had destroyed this territory was just visible in the distance, standing murky and black and silhouetted against the night sky. It looked like an ominous monster, like it was still bubbling. Sneakysnap turned her head to grin at Ratsneer, leaning up to get close to his face, eyes hooded. “Dare ya to go over there. Kier’d have your head.”
Ratsneer could tell he'd gotten under her skin, at least a little. It felt satisfying to him, knowing he had gotten her riled up and continued to keep the show going. It wasn't his favorite thing to do, but if he was honest with himself, he found the constant jabbing banter entertaining, and knew deep down he wanted to be around her, and he was oh so curious to see what was hidden beneath the hard exterior. "Oh, sure. And what are you, then? So eager to dish out ratings for everyone else, but I have a feeling all that bravado is a thick mask to hide behind." His anger had mostly simmered away, knowing that this was how she spoke, and it was to be taken with a grain of salt. After all, it was all just her sour opinion on it, and that didn't really matter.. Did it?
He lengthened his stride to catch up with her, a smirk playing on his face. "I never said we were finished earlier, so yeah, I'm gonna follow you. Who's to say I'm not waiting for the perfect spot to take you by surprise and do what I want with you?" A soft chuckle followed the threat, one that felt like it was probably hollow but considering the context, it had to be taken into consideration. He didn't think it would throw her off, but it was worth a shot.
As they marched along, he wondered where she was taking them, but figured it didn't really matter. When they finally stopped at their destination, he took a moment to survey the area around them; it wasn't a landscape he was a fan of, all desolate and dry. Ratsneer was just about to prod her about why they were here when she proudly announced her dare, and he took his eyes off the land to look at her. "The volcano?" He scoffed, not sure where this was all going. "What, you think I'm gonna go over there while you lay here and take a nap? I'll go, I'm not scared. But you're coming too. Or are you chicken?" It was a stupid thing to say, but the best he could come up with on the spot. He was a bit surprised at the outcome of their adventure outside but fully prepared to meet it head on. She wouldn't be seeing fear in his eyes today.
