Author's Note!

MAJOR SPOILERS for "The Sight" – Read at your own risk!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own or write any of the "Warriors" series books – obviously I am not Erin Hunter! ;) Any related material/characters to the Warriors series are owned by Erin Hunter...please don't sue me for using them!

This is an alternate version of "The Sight", first in the "Power of Three" series. In my story (started long before "The Sight" came out), it skips one year (or four seasons) from the end of "The New Prophecy" series. Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw's kits are almost warriors, and Graystripe did not return so Brambleclaw is the new deputy. Jaypaw is not blind, and Cinderkit became Leafpool's apprentice. She is now named Cindertail, and is the full medicine cat – Leafpool is with the elders now because of her deafness. Hollypaw is an empathetic young she-cat who is destined for greater things than any other cat in past and present, and Lionpaw is a huge, slightly arrogant, tom who is a forbidding foe in battle but bumbling on the hunt. Jaypaw, however, is one of the best hunters ThunderClan has ever seen – even greater than Spiderleg!

Prologue

Firestar touched his nose gently to Sandstorm's. He needed not to murmur any spoken words – everything he would convey to the ginger she-cat was in his touch. She understood immediately. His beautiful mate twined her tail with his, and they slunk to the leader's den together.

Once inside, Firestar turned to her. His eyes held concern, and he unlaced his tail from hers, lashing it restlessly from side to side. "Sandstorm," he murmured, catching her eye and holding it to show how serious he was.

The light orange she-cat's eyes widened slightly in questioning as she sat down and curled her tail neatly around her paws. Firestar mimicked her, but his tail continued to flick in unsettlement.

"I had a dream last night," he finally meowed, after several more heartbeats of strained, tension-filled silence. Sandstorm flicked on ear back, just to be sure there were no cats listening at the entrance behind her. "Yes, and what did this dream…well, what warrior visited you?"

"That's the thing…I was not among the ranks of StarClan in this dream. I…I don't know where I was, or who the cat was that talked to me.

"I'll start at the very beginning, I guess. I woke up and I was in a dark cave…

Firestar's eyes flew open as a crack of thunder echoed in his ears. Wondering what caused the resounding echo, he looked around in confusion. He realized that he was in a place he had never visited before – a shadowy cave, with condensation dripping slowly down huge spikes hanging down from above. At first it reminded him of the cave behind the waterfall that housed the Tribe of Rushing Water in the mountains, but as lightning flashed outside, he knew that was not where he was. A forest, unlike any other he had ever seen before, was illuminated in that briefest of heartbeats – towering trees, with trunks that all the ThunderClan warriors wouldn't fit around standing head-to-tail. A river flowed by at the mouth of the cave, and Firestar realized that the rushing sound was a branch of it running a few tail-lengths away from him.

Another rumble of thunder, this time right overhead, made Firestar blink and flick his ears uncomfortably. As a flash of lightning lit up the cave, he jumped to his paws in anxiety. A cat stood before him – not just any cat, but a warrior, with fiery eyes blazing in the darkness, a warrior that seemed to shimmer with every passing heartbeat. The starry cat stood, absolutely without moving, just staring at Firestar with those burning eyes that seemed to look through the leader as if he were made of smoke. Then the cat began to speak.

"Three will come, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws. There will be the lion that roars, the jay that flies, and the holly with roots that nothing can upset."

Firestar's eyes widened in bewilderment as the warrior shifted in front of him. The cat seemed to change colors every time he rippled his coat, or flexed his muscles. He had gone from pure black to glittering silver in only a few heartbeats. Firestar opened his mouth to speak in astonishment, but before he could say anything the starry warrior had begun to speak again.

"Above all, Firestar, believe in yourself for who you are, not who you seem to be."

The image of the warrior began to fade as he spoke these last words. Firestar had finally had enough with this cat's mysteriousness, and meowed loudly, "Wait! Don't go. Who are you? Where are we? And what is this prophecy? Why has it come to me?"

But the cat simply took a step forward, and, to Firestar's astonishment walked right through him. He spun frantically around, looking desperately for the starry warrior. He turned in several dazed circles, then suddenly felt as if his paws were made of lead. They slipped from under him, and he was lost in the roar of the river and the storm outside the cave. The sounds began to fade, and then he woke up...