Hey guys, I'm back with a new oneshot! I was really bored so I read Sunset and I got to the part aat the end where Brambleclaw thinks, "I won, but what will me father do to me now?" I always wondered what Tigerstar thought and if Brambleclaw would cave again. This is what I got! Enjoy!
The Last Confrontation
Brambleclaw blinked his eyes open. He was in a dark clearing, surrounded by trees with and eerie green glow, the constant night sky expressing no light.
He sat up quickly and scrambled to his paws. Here again?! He thought he had put this place behind him. It had only been three sunrises since he had freed Firestar from the fox trap-- and killed Hawkfrost in the process. Though it had been just about worth it, he never wanted to think about his half-brother again.
A snarl sounded behind him, and Brambleclaw whipped around, already tensing in a fighting stance. He was too late; a giant tabby object launched into him, shoving him backwards and pinning him on the black ground. Brambleclaw looked up to find himself staring into the hate-crazed, furious face of his treacherous father. Tigerstar.
"What were you thinking?" he hissed in Brambleclaw's face, his lips curled back to reveal sharp, bared teeth. "You could have had everything! Everything!"
Brambleclaw threw up his hind paws, rocketing Tigerstar into the air and landing him on the other side of the dead clearing. He spun around, ready to pounce back into the fight, but Tigerstar stayed where he was, crouched with his fur bristling.
"Not everything," Brambleclaw stated firmly, his eyes cold and determined. "I would have been missing one thing, and I would have never gotten it back!" Tigerstar yowled in frustration and anger and hurled himself at his son again.
Brambleclaw was ready this time. He dodged to the side and snagged Tigerstar's fur in his claws. The older tom pulled away and twisted his direction at the last minute, landing Brambleclaw's back and holding him down again.
"What are you talking about?" Tigerstar spat in his ear. "There was nothing left to have! You'd have led ThunderClan and WindClan alongside your kin, power beyond comprehension! What could you have possibly lost?!" He let his kin go with a jerk, but let Brambleclaw stand up and face his father.
Brambleclaw stepped back a few paces and took some breaths before answering. "Her."
Tigerstar's face wrinkled in confusion, but then he narrowed his eyes in anger when he realized who Brambleclaw was talking about.
He went on. "She would have never, ever forgiven me. I did everything I could to get her back the first time, and I'm not letting her go again."
Tigerstar began to pad around the edge of the clearing. Brambleclaw did the same in the other direction. He snorted angrily. "She was nothing! She is nothing! You don't need her!"
Brambleclaw's eyes flared with his own anger. "How would you know? You gave up Goldenflower; you'd never know how I feel about Squirrelflight!"
The young cat's father rounded on him, but did not make any move to attack him again. His voice dripped with fury and hatred "I needed followers, is what I needed. You could have been one!"
Brambleclaw's voice rose until he was yelling. "When will you stop obsessing over what I could have been and just realize what I already am?!"
The small clearing quieted. Father and son battled on silently, their gazes of fury putting up resistance against the other. The air crackled with a hushed tension and even the leaves on the trees seemed to stop moving in anticipation of what was to come next. Finally Brambleclaw broke the deadly silence.
"I don't care what punishment comes to me. Today this ends." His amber eyes glittered with determination, know that what he had done on the lakeshore three days earlier had been right. "Squirrelflight is everything to me. You will never make me give up her or my place in my Clan. The life I've built up from the ashes is getting higher. Stay away from it." He turned to leave, his back to his father, and looked back for one last word. "I'm sorry I can't be perfect for you…" He paused, wondering if he should, and decided yes. "…Father."
He turned and left the Dark Forest for the last time.
Brambleclaw eyes opened. He froze, terrified that he would be in the night-engulfed forest again, but relaxed when he recognized the walls of the warriors den in ThunderClan camp. He smiled and got up, padding into the sunlit clearing.
He sat at the edge of the stone hollow and thought about what had happened the night before. He sent a small prayer to StarClan that Tigerstar would never summon him to that cursed place again. Brambleclaw knew that he had left his mark, and as much as he could threaten him, Brambleclaw wouldn't ever back down.
He looked around and spotted Squirrelflight coming from Leafpool's medicine cat den. He smiled and padded over, purring when their muzzles touched. It was moments like these that would happen everyday. Brambleclaw was glad that he had turned Tigerstar down for this.
Then Squirrelflight told him something that made him even more happy that he had chosen this over everything that evil had offered him. Brambleclaw hoped his kits would look up to a father that had put all that aside.
***SPOILERS FOR SUNRISE***
Yeah, yeah, I know that the three are actually Leafpool and Crowfeather's kits but I don't care! I really wish that they were Squirrelflight's cause that's just so much better! Well, tell me what you think and let me know if you have any other ideas for oneshots you would want me to write. Thanks!!
