I did mention somewhere along the line that I was about 70% sure that something would get burned. That something was Thunderclan territory. There are some people who wanted the other leaders to get burned, especially Onestar lol. Sadly, Onestar will live to see another day.
How is it that I made this chapter longer than the last chapter(which was pretty important to the plot)
Reviews are super appreciated!
Brambleclaw gave a furious hiss as Onestar lunged at Firestar. What was he doing? Why was he attacking Firestar? The fire was an accident! He was only trying to defend and protect Sandstorm! He rushed forward to help his leader, only to get blocked by a Windclan cat.
"Get out of my way!" he hissed. He tried going around the cat only to be blocked by another Windclan warrior. Everywhere he turned, there was a cat blocking him from getting to Firestar, who was being barraged by countless attacks.
He could see that even though he was being attacked, Firestar didn't retaliate. Even now, he was trying his hardest to hold back, knowing that the leader could easily end the lives of the cats attacking him. He wished Firestar would at least defend himself instead of dodging.
'Why aren't you attacking them back?' he desperately pleaded in his mind. Firestar couldn't be faulted for retaliating if he was just defending himself! He looked around desperately to see if any other Thunderclan cats were trying to help his leader. Surely Windclan couldn't them all back?
Besides from Sandstorm, her daughters, Graystripe, and a few others, most of his clanmates weren't in any hurry to help Firestar out. Most of them were watching with apathetic, accusing eyes. His stomach was filled with dread as he realized that most of the clan blamed Firestar for the fire. They probably blamed him for much more than that, but he didn't want to dwell on those possibilities lest his stomach heave all its contents out.
'Why aren't you all helping? He's never done anything to hurt us! You can't blame him for all that's happened; none of this is his fault!'
But he knew deep down that if Firestar attacked, it would only give Onestar more of a reason in his attempts to drive out the Thunderclan leader.
Nearby, the Riverclan and Shadowclan cats watched in rapt attention. Their faces were carefully blank, trying to appear neutral. Mistystar and Blackstar wore conflicted looks on their faces, knowing that Firestar was extremely dangerous at this point, to start such a big forest fire so easily. But watching Firestar do nothing to defend himself besides trying to avoid the attacks coming at him... he didn't seem at all like the monster Onestar was trying to portray him as. The ginger and black leader looked almost guilty and broken. He was gazing at his deputy, mate and children, desperate to reach them.
"Stop it! Stop attacking him!" Sandstorm wailed. She too was being blocked at all ends, even though she had no desire to fight and only wanted to reach her mate.
Brambleclaw watched with distraught eyes as Firestar finally spread his wings and took off. "Firestar! Please come back!" he called out to his leader. But Firestar continued flying away from them all, making no acknowledgment that he even heard Brambleclaw call out to him.
He couldn't tell if he was crying in his shocked stupor, and if he was his tears were lost within the raindrops that started to fall from the sky, putting out the fire.
Thunderclan territory, as well as some of Shadowclan territory was looking charred, but they had survived two fires before. The plant life would recover in time. The prey on the other paw... all the prey would have either died in the fire or were hiding in their dens. Getting food would be a problem in the coming moons. Especially with leaf-bare on the horizon.
"Good riddance," Onestar scoffed, looking especially pleased with himself. He turned around to face the clans. "Now no one has to deal with that again."
Brambleclaw rushed up to him. "Why did you do that?! He was just about to agree to the compromise and you had to ruin everything!" he growled in the leader's face.
"You should be thanking me Brambleclaw, now your clan doesn't need to deal with that monster anymore," Onestar growled.
"Thank you? You want me to thank you for driving out my leader?" he uttered. "I didn't realize that Windclan had business with Thunderclan's affairs. We were doing fine until you had to make a fuss about it." His voice reached a higher pitch. "Who gave you the right to do that?!" He whirled around to growl at the other clans. "Who gave any of you the right to chase off Firestar?! He wasn't doing anything that warranted him being chased out! He wasn't doing us any harm!"
"He was dangerous," Blackstar tried refuting. "He was about to attack cats."
"Only because you threatened his mate with possible death!" Lionblaze yowled.
"Ever since he changed, his instincts have made him very... protective of certain cats, Sandstorm being one of them," Brambleclaw explained exasperated. "Sometimes he reverts to a primal state if he feels threatened or stressed... or if he feels one of those certain cats are also being threatened. He can't really control himself when he's like that; he goes by sheer instinct."
"So, Firestar only attacked Onestar at the battle because he felt threatened?" Sunstrike asked confused.
Brambleclaw shook his head. "No, he only almost killed Onestar because he believed his mate was in danger of dying," he growled. "And in today's case, he saw the same thing happening again and went with even more drastic measures because it seemed as though those cats didn't learn their lesson the first time."
"He was- he was only trying to defend Sandstorm?" Mistystar whispered.
"You had no right to drive him off like that. Do you really think we would have let him stay leader if he was hurting the clan in any way? Instead you went and decided for us," Squirrelflight growled, infuriated that these cats had the nerve to chase her father away.
"And you all!" Brambleclaw spun around to glare at the assembled Thunderclan cats, who were listening to his explanation/rant in shocked silence. He gave them a heated glare before his tense shoulders suddenly slumped, as if all the energy he had was sapped out of him. "How did you all manage to make me so... disappointed to be Thunderclan right now? There shouldn't have been only a few of us trying to defend Firestar, it should have been the entire clan!"
"But.. but he hurt Cherrypaw! He started the fire!" Poppyfrost retorted.
"He might have started the fire yes, but he didn't do so with malicious intent," Brambleclaw explained tiredly.
"If you hadn't noticed, Firestar was the one to go into the fire and save Cherrypaw. He could have ran away in shame, or he could have done nothing, but he went in and saved her regardless. Now tell me if a monster would try and save a cat like that?" Jayfeather deadpanned.
The Thunderclan cats looked down guiltily.
"He's been trying his hardest to fit back into the clan after his change, but you all had to- had to-" Sandstorm trailed off brokenly. Graystripe pressed his wet pelt onto hers, trying to comfort his best friend's mate.
The gray warrior looked up at his clan, disappointment in his eyes. "Why would you do that? He trusted us to have his back and you all... spit on everything's he's done for us." He turned to Mistystar. "Nice to know that everything we've done for you and your clan meant nothing in the long run." He didn't sneer, hiss, or growl at her. His tone was just heavy with disappointment, and Mistystar lowered her head, knowing exactly what he was talking about.
Firestar and Graystripe had fed her clan against Thunderclan's will, had gotten her, Feathertail, and Stormfur out of the Tigerclan camp before they were killed for being half-clan. And yet, she did nothing as he was chased out.
"I can't believe you all let some scales and wings decide for you that Firestar was dangerous," Leafpool said softly.
Mistystar got up, having enough. She dipped her head towards Brambleclaw. "I'm sorry for everything that's happened. Riverclan will leave Thunderclan alone for however much time it takes for your clan to recover from this." As she led her clan away back to Riverclan territory, she passed by Onestar. "If any of my patrols see a Windclan cat even look at our territory funny, they have my permission to shred them," she hissed at Onestar. It was the equivalent to dissolving their alliance.
"Shadowclan too will leave Thunderclan alone for the foreseeable future," Blackstar murmured. He stared at Onestar. "Get off my territory. And don't ever come to Shadowclan looking for an alliance ever again." He turned away and with a flick of his tail, signaled his clan to return to camp.
Onestar rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you'll be a better leader than that thing could ever be Brambleclaw."
The deputy only hissed at him. "I'm not becoming leader. And stop calling him a thing," he hissed out angrily. He wasn't the only one, as Firestar's defenders also hissed at the Windclan leader for daring to imply that Firestar was less than a cat.
The Windclan cats saw that they weren't wanted, and turned to leave to trek towards their own territory.
"Unbelievable," Brambleclaw muttered. He turned towards the burnt territory of Thunderclan, knowing that there was a lot of work to be done.
"Isn't Brambleclaw our leader now? Shouldn't he be going to the Moonpool soon?" he heard Berrynose ask.
'Firestar is still your leader mouse-brain!' he yelled out uselessly in his head. Outwardly, he gave a tired sigh. "We need to assess the damage done to camp. Let's move it." Not that they should be sticking around on Shadowclan territory anyway. As Thunderclan passed him by, he couldn't help but look into the rain-filled sky in the direction Firestar had flown off to.
'Firestar, please come back. They- they didn't really mean it...' Of course he knew they meant it. But it didn't stop him from wishing the tom would come back to them. He wasn't dangerous, he was just protective. Deep down, even with his changed mindset, he was still the same gentle tom they knew.
He just wished the clans could have seen it.
Regrets are being had. Blackstar and Mistystar know deep down that they just condemned an innocent cat to exile when he didn't deserve it. Now the clans are aware of Firestar's protective but... a little too late for that?
Geez guys, should have let Firestar and Jayfeather explain before you attacked him.
Tell me how I did.