CHAPTER 5
A muscular blazing red male cat shoved Arrow away and took his place. He bent down and gently licked Fiona's ears, infuriating Arrow, who was already growling. He tensed, about to spring, but then the red cat threw him back right into Ivy.
"Get away from my fiancée!" He snarled. He was huge, looming over Arrow, who was already shrinking back even though his fur was fluffed up. "Don't you touch Fiona." He bared his teeth at Arrow.
Fiona stared adoringly into the red cat's copper eyes, sighing dreamily. She licked him back, waving her tail and purring tenderly. "Blaze, I missed you so much!" She gushed. "Where have you been? I had to hang out with these puny cats with literally no fashion sense." She shot a dirty look at Arrow, Ivy, Bella, Luna, and Angeline.
"Did they hurt you?" Blaze grunted, whipping his tail at Arrow, who dodged away, but still hissing with jealousy. Ivy looked hurt and depressed. Blaze looked over them. "Oh, they are puny. And disgusting. You should've gone to the party. Lion, Tiger, Orchid, Snapdragon, Pine, and Razor were waiting patiently there for you."
"Orchid? Then I should've gone!" Fiona whined. "She's my best friend! I remember she told me she'd get me my favorite flower halo. I was really looking forward to that. Blaze, take me next time! I need to get away from this filthy animal group."
"Next time, I promise, my catnip. C'mon let's get back to our expensive mansion," Blaze said. The pair padded off out of Ivy's sight. Ivy was furious. She did not want to be called a filthy animal. She did not want to be picked on for having dirt on her fur. "I mean, Luna's pretty good!"
Wait, how did he know Luna's name if he just met her? Bella thought suspiciously, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she sniffed the house cat scent. Maybe they know each other, and they're conspiring with each other! Luna could be spying on usright now!
"Aw, squirrel-vomit!" Arrow sighed sadly. "I actually thought that Fiona liked me. We were actually so close! But she betrayed me. She tortured me. She's such a phony! A pathological liar!" He murmured something that Ivy could not hear.
"Don't worry, Arrow. There are many mice in the forest. Like me!" Ivy exclaimed, her eyes bright with hope. "We'll have lots of fun. C'mon, stop thinking about those vicious foxes."
"Guys, I have an idea!" Arrow perked up. His eyes brightened. "We should follow them and ruin their perfect wedding! They'll be so angry and humiliated. We'll give them a piece of their own medicine."
"Arrow, that's the best idea ever! I love pranking!" Angeline exclaimed, and Luna nodded approvingly. "We should get a whole bunch of worms and dirt and throw it at them. They'll be so freaked out!
"Okay, let's do this," Ivy whispered. "Angeline and Bella are our fastest runners. You'll send signals like yowls to us when you find them, but be hidden. You'll follow them and when we get all the supplies, we'll come after you. We need Arrow and because he is strong, so he can carry a lot. I'll get pinecones and acorns from the trees, and Luna will be our guard, because she won the battle against Bella." She shot an apologetic look at Bella, who looked pissed off.
"Great plan, let's go!" Angeline bubbled eagerly, her tail wagging so hard that it looked like it was going to pop off. She and Bella took off, sniffing the scent trails as they shot into the woods, disappearing soon after. Ivy, Arrow, and Luna could hear them squealing in excitement, and when they heard that, they felt very amused.
"Luna, you'll guard here, okay? We'll put our supplies here and then go back to get more. If anything tries to take it, fight them off," Ivy commanded while Luna nodded determinedly, trying to look very innocent instead of guilty. She didn't feel sorry for them at all, she was just doing her job to get much richer and more famous. Hey, being a world-famous celebrity was her dream job, and with Fiona's gang, that was the path paved with gold that led to that! She would just betray some people, walk away, impress Fiona and her gang, and backstab them. Then she would be a TV star. Win–win!
"I think this is going to work!" She muttered.
Arrow went to scoop piles of dirt and earthworms. "Ugh," he grunted. "They're wiggling all over the place! This is so hard." He scooped up a mound of dirt and made a barrier of pinecones around it so no earthworms could escape. But he wasn't that smart, so all the earthworms escaped by sliding under the barrier, eating dirt and pooping it out afterwards. Then they squirmed away as fast as they could, and went to celebrate their awesome victory.
Ivy nimbly leaped onto a tree and grabbed a few pinecones, then added some cracked acorns. Hmmm, she thought. I think I'll get the worst pinecones and acorns so they'll be more humiliated. She grabbed them quickly.
They came back, threw down their stuff, and ran back to get more, tails swishing eagerly as they whispered good luck to each other. Their feet thumped rhythmically away into the forest, out of Luna's sight, and got to work again, humming softly to themselves while gathering materials.
Now, Luna was pretty wicked, and you see, she loved betrayals. I mean, wasn't her dream job a world-famous celebrity? Well, if she did this, she'd be successful but hated by certain people. She wasn't thinking too much because she was excited, so she didn't realize these certain people would actually tell everybody else, so she would be hated and infamous. She was actually a fake friend of Fiona and her bad buddies, so she quickly scooped up the stuff, looking left and right frantically to make sure nobody was watching her and then she ran away, cackling on a secret shortcut to Fiona and Blaze's mansion.
Arrow and Ivy came back, looking for their organized piles, but the piles were gone and Luna was gone, most importantly. There was literally no trace of her, no scent, no footprints, nothing! She must have rolled in the mud and kicked dust all over the place. Sneaky little cat. She had betrayed them!
"Oh no!" Ivy cried, devastated. "We'll never achieve our plan! Luna's probably been kidnapped! Who took her? We're never going to achieve our plan!" She started to sob, and Arrow wrapped his tail around her and comforted her gently, purring to calm her down, but Ivy was still weeping.
"We'll just take our supplies right now, and then we'll find another way to humiliate Blaze and Fiona," Arrow growled determinedly, angry at all the animals who betrayed them. "We can do it, with or without Luna. Let's go, just take all the materials we have so far, and we'll find a way to make this happen."
"Okay, fine. But that means we don't have as much supplies," Ivy mumbled glumly, sighing. She shook away from Arrow, and they both picked up their supplies. "Okay, we'll go, you don't have to push me around." She gave Arrow a huff and a mocking stinky look, harrumphing at him.
"Can I tell you a story?" Ivy asked him, looking innocent. "Pretty please? I'm very wise, you know. If I'm wise, then the story is really good, and you won't regret it at the end, I promise. You'll be proud that you chose this choice. Now, Arrow, please say yes! Or I will kick you!"
"Alright, fine, to avoid being kicked, Madame Convincing!" Arrow joked, but seriously nodded his head. He was pretty curious, wondering what Ivy would tell him. Would it be cool, funny, scary, mysterious, or boring?
"Okay, so it all started on a stormy day," Ivy began, sitting down and tucking her tail around her paws. "I was taking a walk, and then I saw a cat who looked a lot like Luna. She was signing autographs, and I saw a cat like Fiona walking beside her, yelling at everybody that she was the white cat's manager. Then some cat that looked like Blaze came, and the cat that looked like Fiona started acting all mushy."
"Well, that's pretty interesting," Arrow observed, curious to learn more. He decided that Ivy was talking some sense, and it was the right choice to listen to her. After all, she was the clever one. "I bet it was them!"
"Yeah, I know," Ivy meowed, rolling her eyes. "Doesn't everybody? I mean, isn't Fiona and her group so…blech, I don't want to talk about this! They make me sick! But I'd love to get revenge!"
"We'll find some place to put these materials in when we find the others and Fiona's gang and we'll go for more, deal?" He shot Ivy a sly, clever look, and as he expected, she grinned back, letting out weird high-pitched giggles, and she stomped her paws on the ground.
"Deal, bro. Let's go," Ivy chuckled as they bounded away side by side, tails twining. "Dude, we got this!" They both cracked up, racing up the hills and slopes, tracking the scent trails their friends left behind.