(The Debate)

[Gosh]

"A rat hunt," Spiderpaw echoed. Had she not just thought about going on a rat hunt before she decided to hunt for a cricket or two? But she surely could not fight as well as most of the cats here. She would be a hindrance and surely she would cause herself and the others to be in danger. She frowned. "I don't know," she said lamely.

[Gosh]

"A rat hunt?" Bronzefoot looked up idly from where he was sitting not so far away. "We could pull off a rat hunt," he meowed, gazing at the cats gathered. "There's more than enough of us to do so." He got up and stretched. "We could eat real food for once. Come on, there must be some of you who are tired of crickets and the like."

"Well," Spiderpaw meowed quietly, "I suppose you're right. But not everyone here is that good at...fighting." Her voice lowered and she fought to keep from whimpering. She wondered whether the brown-furred tom would ridicule her.

[Ten]

Having observed them from a distance, a large, white tom discerned that this group was considering a hunt. Frozenheart padded toward them, tail low and flicking due to annoyance at their indecision. He wasn't hungry, true, but he wasn't doing this for himself. He was doing this to help them.

The tom walked through their midst, gave each of them a taste of his blue stare, and proceeded forward.

His message was clear: "You want to hunt? Let's hunt."

[squid]

Crickets.
Stupid little insects. Why did they feel the need to sing at exactly the same time Barkface tried to sleep every single night? It was annoying--then again, pretty much everything was annoying to Barkface. Today's particular annoyance was trying to catch these ridiculously small bugs. He would eye one that was actually staying still. Sneaking up behind it, instead of pouncing on the creature, he would mash his short face into the ground, chomping at the ground. However, though he wildly gnashed his teeth to try and crunch the cricket, when he pulled up his face the insect fled, returning to its friends. He saw them stop in their tracks, conversing with each other with flicks of their antennaes, mocking him for his different way of hunting. Though some called him crazy for it, he knew that the crickets made fun of him behind his back. He watched the entire little group of annoying insects flee out of sight, feeling a dent in his pride.

"Stupid little bugs...I'mma eat every last one of 'em..." he muttered. More grumbling was heard as he privately tried to boost his ego.

Soon enough, though, he heard the possibility of a rat hunt. Rats: now those were a decent meal, and you didn't have to mash your face into the ground to eat them. The brown tom couldn't help but snort, amused that they thought they could actually kill rats. Shaking his head, he simply thought the idea was too amusing not to comment on.

"Oh sure! Of course you can kill rats!" Barkface said with a few chuckles in his fakely-optimistic voice. With that said, he gave them a glance before mashing his face into the ground again, trying to catch an annoying cricket.

[Gosh]

"Yes," Bronzefoot meowed simply, turning to the speaker. "Of course we can. I've done it tons of times, and rat meat is much better than crickets. With a party this large, we might even be able to bring down two." He glanced at the cat mashing his face into the ground. 'Maybe he's crazy,' he thought. 'Surely he must have at least heard of cats killing rats? If not seen?'

[squid]

'of course we can'. Arrogance was something the tom hated. However, Barkface simply lifted up his face, spitting out the sand. Giving a suspicious glare at Bronzefoot, he retorted, "Sure you have. Sure..." Grains of sand were stuck in his already rough, dirty fur, and the tom looked like a mess.

Pfffft, bring down two rats. How ridiculous!

"Even if you did somehow manage to catch one," Barkface said, emphasizing certain points to the point of being humorous, "they'd bitecha!"
As he finished the sentence, he jumped, imitating a rat's lunge for the throat, scrambling sand everywhere in the process. After that small fit was done, he simply sat down in an ironically dignified pose despite the sand sprinkled on his face. "Kill the bunch of ya, they would. They'd bitecha all and you'd all die. I say you all should just stick to crunching crickets."
And thus the pessimist was done speaking.

[Gosh]

Bronzefoot scowled. "Cats catch rats all the time," he meowed. "And if we had a party large enough, I do think we could bring down two. Have you never been on a rat hunt before?" His scowl disappeared. "If not, well, we must change that."

Spiderpaw stammered, "I-I think that we should stop arguing and j-just hunt. Or not hunt. Whichever." She glanced at the large white tom who had padded through them a couple minutes ago; the two brown toms speaking seemed not to have noticed him.

[squid]

Barkface turned back to face Bronzefoot, his frustrating cricket-hunting once again interrupted by an unfavorable voice.

"If cats catch rats all the time," Barkface began,"wouldn't that mean they got bit all the time?" The dark brown tom gave him a nasty glare. With the mentioning of him hunting rats, the cat couldn't help but let out a mrrrow of laughter. "Me? Hunt rats? They would all come to surround the biggest threat--me--and soon enough I'd be dead on the floor from the nasty creatures scratching and biting me and giving me diseases!"

Then he turned to Spiderpaw. "I say, stick with me. We'll be the only ones who don't get disease-ridden."

[Gosh]

Spiderpaw was bewildered. "But..But...You just said...Oh, never mind." Hadn't he just said that the rats would attack him and bite him?

Bronzefoot looked at him coldly. "Yes, many times cats get bitten. When you agree to go on a rat hunt, you take a risk. Besides, who's to say you're the greatest threat?" He scowled inwardly, not liking this arrogant cat who picked apart whatever he said. "But wouldn't it be nice not to have to spend ages trying to catch a cricket, when it won't take too long to catch a rat? Also, cats usually aim for the young or the old, and not a whole bunch at once."

[Ten]

Frozenheart noticed that the group was still dawdling behind and looked back, observing the dialog between the two toms and pinpointing it as the hindrance. By this time the rising sun was approaching its peak, making his fur sweaty and his temper short. Despite this, he kept a cool exterior as he approached Barkface, the ridiculous one.

That cat was making a fool of himself and he needed to mind his own business. He should keep out of it - if not for the good of others, then for his own.

Frozenheart communicated his thoughts with an icy glance at the meddler, his scowling countenance cold and cautionary, then turned to Bronzefoot. Was he coming or not?