Guess what? I have exciting news! I'm not dead!
Yeah. I was really struggling with this chapter, and what really pushed me to finish it was reading the reviews. I looked at a review, and I suddenly felt really bad about not updating… Anyway, here you go!
Disclaimer: I do not own Warriors.
Mistystar nodded cheerfully. "I knew you'd believe me!"
Willowshine padded away, shaking her head. It appeared that her Clan was slowly going insane. That's when the horrifying thought hit her. What if she went insane? What if she already was going insane? What if she already had gone insane?
This was a disturbing revelation for Willowshine. Insanity was not her ideal way of life… But it might be okay as long as she didn't realize her insanity.
She started pacing the medicine den, but stopped to take some poppy seeds and thyme to calm herself down.
"Is something wrong?" Mothwing asked.
Willowshine took a deep breath. "I think I'm going insane." She looked at Mothwing, only to find that the medicine cat had fallen asleep. "Great," she muttered. "I have no one to listen to me. They'll just think I'm paranoid, anyway…" With that thought (which was spoken aloud), she curled up in her nest and fell asleep.
Willowshine woke in a clearing. She looked around. Surrounding her were her Clanmates, decorated with strange leaves and the bones of small mammals, and they were chanting. "Mice, the plant, and little ants, mice, the plant, and little ants," over and over and over… And she realized that they had ants crawling all over them too.
Mistystar stepped forward. "Mothwing, join us, and together we can-! Um…" She tipped her head thoughtfully. "We can… Destroy the ant hills! Yes, that's it, destroy the ant hills! And we will rule the ants!"
Mothwing approached, something curved and yellow in her jaws, which she set down (no, she didn't put down her jaws). "This is what the twolegs call a banana, if we peel off the yellow shell and leave the insides on the ground, ants will gather from far and near to take parts of it to bring it to their homes." She sliced open the banana with little difficulty, and suddenly even more ants were swarming the clearing. She was drowning in them! She- Willowshine woke with a start.
"And that's how it 'appened!"
The warriors in front of Purdy looked confused. "How what happened?" One asked.
Purdy replied with a tone of disappointment. "You weren't listening when I began my story, were you? Must be suffering from brain damage, memory loss, everyone loves listening to my stories, because they're amazing."
The warriors nodded in agreement because they didn't know how to answer that, then ran off to tell the other WindClan-ers that it was safe and that Purdy had been telling a story.
They emerged, trembling, from wherever they had been hiding, and padded over.
"S-so h-he's not going to d-do what he s-said he was going to d-do?" BreezeSTAR stuttered.
"No, it was just a story," the warrior who had fetched the other warriors said gently. "We weren't listening when he started and we got brain damage, so we don't remember anything."
"Oh… That makes more sense, I always thought Purdy was nice."
"I am nice."
BreezeSTAR looked around. "Oh, Purdy, when did you get here?"
The elder blinked. "I'm not quite sure… Guess I'm going senile! I met a senile old cat one time, he was leading me around a twoleg place, but forgot where he was going, and we ran into a dog. Its twoleg caught it before it got to us, though, and-"
At this point, everyone stopped listening and started playing with the grass, wondering why there's no underline under their name, and poking the ants that were crawling in a line through across the ground.
No one noticed the hawk circling overhead.
Mosskit bounded after her mother. She could just see the older cats tail ahead of her, but it was pulling forward, further ahead, and she would soon be unable to catch up. In a stroke of desperation, she leapt forward, landing on a stiff fern which threw her forward onto Bluestar's back, to which she clung lest she fall off. "Bluestar!" She found herself clinging to the older cats back as she bounced up and down. "Can you hear me?"
Bluestar showed no sign of having such an ability.
The kit who was riding said cat growled in frustration. She needed to get her mother to listen… But how?
She let out a yelp as she was nearly flung from her ride's back. "Bluestarrr!"
Finally losing her temper, Mosskit screamed into the former leader's ear. "BLUESTAR!"
Said cat jumped about a tail-length in the air, screamed, and crashed into a tree.
Meanwhile with Yellowfang…
The last thing she saw before her vision was flooded by insane cats was Echosong slowly fading from StarClan with a look of utmost horror on her face... And then everything went black.
The insane cats of StarClan watched as Yellowfang rose… And they began plotting a prank on Bluestar.
The ShadowClan warriors watched the cats of ThunderClan leave with crestfallen expressions.
The battle had been going splendidly, they could have sworn they were winning, but then the ThunderClan cats retreated, and the fun had ended.
Blackstar flopped down on the middle of the camp. "Someone go on a hunting patrol. Littlecloud, heal my non-existent wounds."
Littlecloud padded over to Blackstar with stevia leaves clutched in his mouth, disregarding the kits, elders, warriors, queens, and apprentices that were stampeding out the camp entrance to go hunting. Sitting down beside his leader, he began to chew the leaves into a poultice, which he "accidentally" swallowed, and he had to go back to his den for more. When he returned, he avoided chewing them, and just gave them to his leader to eats in the hopes that it would heal all his nonexistent wounds. He wouldn't want his leader to bleed to death.
After much eating of stevia (Littlecloud was sent back to his den multiple times to fetch more), Blackstar stood up and licked a paw, waiting for the cats who were hunting to return.
When they did, they dropped in the middle of camp several squirrels and a great deal of stevia.
Blackstar leapt onto the boulder he had dubbed "my rock" and announced, "You, kits, elders, warriors, queens, and apprentices, have brought home a magnificent feast, you may each have a squirrel and two stevia leaves. Then bedtime, kits, elders, warriors, queens, and apprentices must all be asleep while I stay up for the rest of the night and eat the leftover stevia and squirrels."
"But we want more stevia than that!" an apprentice protested.
Blackstar bristled. "No buts! I get as much stevia as I want because… I'm the leader!"
The kits, elders, warriors, queens, and apprentices settled down with much grumbling, occasional stealing each others stevia leaves. The kits did the majority of the stealing, causing small arguments here and there if one warrior thought an apprentice had stolen their leaves. Once everyone was sleeping soundly, or so he thought, and stalked to the middle of camp where all the stevia was.
Something small scurried into his path- a kit!- and he tripped over it, landing on a warrior who yowled so that the rest of camp woke up, and chaos ensued.
The ThunderClan warriors met up at the border between their territory and ShadowClan's, shushing the crazed Squirrelflight and others who were trying to climb the challenging pines and repeatedly falling down on twigs, which snapped, and yelping.
"Be quiet!" Firestar hissed. "We're still on ShadowClan territory."
Squirrelflight nodded, then crossed the border and started trying to be as loud as possible. She bounced around, snapping twigs, yowling at the top of her lungs, and when the other warriors crossed the border she bumped into them on purpose, causing them to yelp or yowl in surprise.
"Squirrelflight, stop this at once!" Firestar barked (can cats bark?).
She grinned, even though cats can't grin, and calmed down. "Fine, O great and mighty leader."
Firestar rolled his eyes and they continued their trek towards camp.
Back at ThunderClan camp…
"Um… Brightheart?" Cloudtail asked.
"Yeeeess?"
"Have you been avoiding me? I mean, I haven't been seeing you around much."
She blinked. "Oh, when did you get here, Cloudtail?"
He looked around. "Well… I have no idea. I thought I was back at the ShadowClan border with the other cats who were getting the insane ones back from ShadowClan… Oh well, I guess I'm here. Now answer my question, have you been avoiding me?"
She thought for a moment. "Yes, I think so. Why, did you want to go hunting for Firestar's ears? I heard that Squirrelflight stole them, but it turned out she didn't."
Cloudtail looked confused for a moment, but then it seemed to dawn on him. "You're insane!"
She nodded cheerfully. "Yup! It's quite fun, you should try it sometime."
"No thanks," he muttered.
Brightheart put on a mask of sadness and stared at her mate with it. Once he had let his guard down, she pulled a pawful of stevia out of… Somewhere, and stuffed it into his mouth. He had no choice but to swallow.
Mapleshade stalked through the Place of no Stars and into a flowery meadow. She was pretty sure Hawkfrost had met someone here once, but she couldn't quite remember. Whatever.
Anyway, it was the perfect area to make good impressions. She dashed into the middle of the field, as far away from the Dark Forest as she could get, caught and ate a mouse, then sat down and tried to remember how to summon a cat from the living world. Once she had, she began. Just think of that cat's name… Brook Where Small Fish Swim. It's too long. Oh well.
Brook Where Small Fish Swim woke up in a flowery meadow. It was quite beautiful, the sky was clear and almost cloudless. In the distance she could see what looked to be a leafless forest. Odd, she thought. But this is a nice place.
She turned to look the other way and was startled to see another cat, one she didn't recognize.
"Hello, Brook. I am Mapleshade of StarClan, and I have come to give you a message."
She tipped her head. "Shouldn't you be giving this message to a Clan cat? Or Stoneteller? Why me? Why are you see through?"
"Slow down! Let me answer all the questions. I can't send this message to a Clan cat for the reason that I've come to you. To answer your next two questions, you know them better than Stonteller. I am see through because I'm so old I'm being forgotten."
"Ah." Brook nodded. "Carry on."
"The Clans have been infested by some sort of plant that is driving them insane. You need to cure them. This is the antidote." Mapleshade held up some stevia, which, unbeknownst to Brook, was the very plant that she needed to "cure" the Clans of. "You must travel to the Clans with a few other cats. At the edge of the lake territories, you will find several patches of this plant. Take a good look at it and memorize its scent, because I won't be able to visit you a second time."
Brook nodded, and once she had thoroughly examined the plant, the field began to fade, and she woke up.
Echosong woke with a start. I need to find that plant! We must save the Clans! She sprang to her paws and dashed to her leader's den. "Leafstar," she hissed, nudging the lump of warm fur on Leafstar's nest. When it didn't wake up, she repeated the cat's name, louder this time. "Leafstar!"
The other she-cat's head shot up. "What?"
"We've received a mission from StarClan."
Leafstar was instantly awake, and listened intently as Echosong explained the details that their mission entailed. "Okay, but we don't know where the Clan cats are.
If Echosong was a twoleg, she would have paled. Instead, her eyes widened. "Oh no, she didn't have enough time to tell me before the other cats got her and she was force fed that plant!" Before the medicine cat could panic, Leafstar rested her tail on her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find a way. Perhaps Yellowfang will guide us subconsciously."
Echosong nodded. "Let's go call a Clan meeting." She and Leafstar padded out of the den, Leafstar with a call of "Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather beneath the high rock(?) for a Clan meeting!"
Slowly, cats began trickling out of their dens, along with grumbling about the time of morning.
These grumblings mysteriously disappeared once Echosong had explained their situation. "We need to gather a patrol of those cats willing to go on this mission. I know I'll be going, because I'm the only one who can interpret any signs from StarClan."
A few cats stood up and padded to join them (Leafstar and Echosong), and the medicine cat nodded at each of them. "Right. That's enough." She turned to Leafstar. "When do we leave?"
"The sunrise after next."
I'm so proud of myself! This chapter is roughly 2,157 words long, not including the Authors Notes. :D
I hope you liked this chapter, as I said, it was really hard for me to write it. Please leave a review! That sentence probably did nothing to motivate you to type a few words and click a button…
-Leafdapple3