Well hey. As you might expect this is going to be dark again. It's not my fault I'm better at dark stuff and enjoy writing it more! This is a Five Times One Time: five times something happens, and one time it happens differently! The POVs of the third and fourth arcs:

What lies in the shadows

Ivypool, Lionblaze, Jayfeather, Dovewing, and Hollyleaf walked through the forest, casually strolling and talking of days long past.

StarClan's forests were beautiful, shimmering with stars like its inhabitants' pelts, shining with light from within. Dovewing looked around, wondering why she had never noticed after so many moons living there. As if it had started shining just then, when she began to care.

She'd been such a self-centered brat when she was alive. She wasn't saying she wasn't anymore, in fact that was the insult Ivypool used the most when they argued. But it was better than before, at least.

She gazed around, her head turning to follow the brightest stars, as her companions idly exchanged words and memories.

"What's that over there?" Hollyleaf's meow shook Dovewing out of her reverie. The jet-black she-cat was pointing with her tail at a darker place - wait, no. It wasn't darker, it was completely black. Cold, sucking blackness. Terror, horrifying things seemed to emanate from it, energy Darker than anything she had ever felt before.

"It's the old border." Jayfeather's voice was quiet.

"The border with what?" Lionblaze didn't sound like he wanted to know the answer.

Jayfeather's fur spiked. Hollyleaf's tail lashed. Lionblaze, the bravest warrior, shook in his pelt. Ivypool crouched to the ground, ears flattened and claws out, sheer terror in her blue eyes, quaking. Surely not-

"The border with the Dark Forest." Jayfeather spoke heavily, the weight of his words pressing down on all the other cats.

Ivypool whimpered softly, swallowing it quickly as Hollyleaf's green gaze was drawn to her. She stood up, still shaking slightly. Dovewing felt pity for her, despite the knowledge that her sister would hate it. She had the most traumatic memories associated with that horrible place, the subject was always avoided in her presence.

That was why she was so surprised when Ivypool said, in a steady voice:

"I want to go and see."

"What?" Dovewing couldn't say anything apart from that. She stood there, dumb, with all the other cats. Until Ivypool started moving, as if in a trance, towards the darkness.

She leaped towards her sister, pulling her back by the scruff. "What in StarClan do you think you're doing?" Hollyleaf screeched, echoing Dovewing's thoughts.

"Let me go! I need to know what happened to it!" The Dark Forest walls had fallen seasons ago, inexplicably. StarClan hadn't told the living. The seniors, like Firestar, claimed it was because they didn't want to alarm the Clans. Dovewing found that hard to believe; she thought it was more because they didn't want their descendants to know how clueless about the issue they were, and how powerless to find out more.

"Ivy..." Dovewing began hesitantly. "I- I'll go if you want." Ivypool stared incredulously.

"You would really do that for me?" Her eyes were round.

"Yes."

"Wait a second!" Lionblaze interrupted. "I am not letting anyone go there. There's no way."

Hollyleaf laid a calming tail on his shoulder. "Dovewing will be fine. You need to remember that she's not your apprentice anymore; she's a warrior." Lionblaze nodded reluctantly.

Jayfeather turned a blue gaze - its sight restored - towards the darkness. "Farewell Dovewing. The prophecy may be over but the rest of us need you here."

Ivypool nodded vigourously. "Thank you so much Dove."

With a dip of her head, Dovewing turned and, before she could think about it, before her head could tell her it was wrong, dangerous, she plunged right into the darkness.

She couldn't see-

It was so dark, not even a speck of light. Like when she'd fallen into the tunnels so long ago, the blackness of surprise attacks, anything lurking in the shadows, death. She pushed through cobwebs, tripping on roots that she couldn't see.

She could hear her own breath in the silence.

She could feel her own pawsteps vibrating through the ground.

She could taste rot and muck and dust.

She felt a burning gaze on her back, and turned around in a flash to see - by instinct. Her whiskers picked up the air rippling as if something was moving, her pelt rose on her shoulders.

Then, she saw eyes. Cat eyes, red, like blood. Gleaming in the darkness.

After that - nothing.

Nothing at all.

2)

Lionblaze paced the clearing. "Where is she?" Dovewing had been gone for a long time now.

"Be patient," Hollyleaf pacified him. "I'm sure she'll come back soon."

"No!" Lionblaze couldn't wait any longer, and, without warning, twisted backwards to face the cold, sucking darkness,and looked straight into it. He felt himself shiver, and shook himself. I'm the bravest warrior! I'm never scared.

He bunched up his muscles, and jumped in.

He instantly regretted it.

The Dark Forest was a ruin - a ruin of fire. Embers burned in every corner, lighting his way with a chilling light.

Fire. Just like that night on the cliff with Ashfur. The night he'd tried to forget so many times. He leaped away, and found he could only go forwards. So he did.

He prowled carefully through the ashes of the forest, the charred trees, the burned away leaves, small flames still flickered in corners, licking up tree trunks and naked thorn bushes.

A flash of movement surprised him. He wasn't alone.

No, there was something there. It was... Watching him. He whirled around to catch a glimpse of it, but failed.

Then an atrocious heat enveloped him. He yowled.

"Show yourself!"

A low voice snarled. "You may regret that wish."

Lionblaze widened his eyes in horror. He couldn't see! Scratch that, he could see, but he wished he couldn't. There were red eyes, shining in the gloom.

That was when he remembered nothing.

3)

Jayfeather was clapping his tail against the ground in nervous expectation. Where were they? He was beginning to worry, as were the two others.

"Hollyleaf, Ivypool," he began, getting their attention. "I'll go get them."

"Is that wise?" Ivypool said. "It's dangerous - I'm not joking."

"You can't just... Go there." Hollyleaf was trying to protect him again.

Jayfeather sighed. "I can. I will." After a pause, he added. "I have to."

And he did. Barely waiting for his sister's nod of consent, he ran into the circle of darkness.

He was cold, so cold.

So, so cold. Cold, like he'd been when he'd plunged into the freezing lake to save Flametail, when he'd let his fellow medicine cat - his friend - drown. He shook off the terrible memory. It shouldn't have happened.

He fluffed out his thin fur against the chill and stubbornly went on, through the forest of icicles, frost-bitten leaves, and thick descending snow. He still hadn't picked up a trace of a single cat - living or dead.

Soon, a blizzard had started, the snow raining down. He shivered. Vague memories of a journey through the same kind of snowstorm flooded his mind.

Fear spiked through him as the cold burned through his fur, seeping beneath his pelt like freezing water. He attempted to keep his calm... Until he started to feel observed... Watched. He ran, pelting through the frozen fragments of their fiends' former forest. Only to attempt to skid to a stop as he was encountered with a barrier of ice.

He crashed into it face first. The only thing that registered was a pair of gleaming red cat eyes.

Then the darkness came.

4)

"I can't stand this anymore!" Hollyleaf burst out. "The uncertainty, the fear. I'm going."

Ivypool made a sound of protest, and the older warrior's eyes softened.

"I'll be right back with them, I promise."

She took a run-up and launched herself into the darkness.

She made a splash as she landed.

Water!

She tried to step away, but soon realised. The Dark Forest was flooded! Algae had overgrown the trees and the brambles, and a murky lake swamped the entire expanse of land. She gasped in terror, remembering being swept into the underground river in the tunnels with Breezepelt, Lionblaze, Jayfeather, Heathertail, and the kits they were saving. The memory of water sucking her under, ducking her head beneath the surface, swirling into her ears, her mouth...

She tried to stay upright, paddling with her paws to find solid ground under the water, and finding she couldn't.

Hollyleaf panicked. She messily attempted to swim, not thinking that she was getting further and further away from Ivypool and safety.

Until she saw it. Eyes. Blood-red, like Ashfur's blood staining her paws.

She tried to scream. But her head was underwater...

5) Ivypool couldn't stand it anymore. She stared in apprehension at the black hole before her, and realised in horror that there was something in there... Calling her.

It wasn't Hawkfrost's voice, thank StarClan. But it was from the Dark Forest, it had to be dangerous in some way. She knew it was stupid, but she listened.

It was telling her to come closer, closer to where she came from. Closer to where she belonged.

Foolishly, she jumped right in.

The Dark Forest was the same as she's always remembered it, the same as the way it was when it haunted her dreams as an apprentice. When it still haunted her dreams.

Silent as death, the evil energy still burning on the trees, enveloping everything like a thick coating of frost, the scent of muck and rot flooding her senses like water, the darkness pressing in with no stars to light the way.

She regained her calm. I know this place like I know my camp. I've been here before.

Ivypool kept walking, slowly, deliberately.

Until she heard a scream.

She began to race towards its source. "Dovewing! Hollyleaf! Jayfeather! Lionblaze!" She yowled. There was no answer.

Apart from a low growl coming from behind her. She was met with nothing - absolutely nothing. Nothing, that is, but a pair of gleaming red eyes.

Then shadows.

The darkness. It gets everywhere, can never be completely dispelled. Yet it is very hard to find.

The darkness is an old ally of evil, of many fiends, traitors of the worst kind. They find it fascinating. It draws them in. The blacker, more bitter, the soul, the more irresistible the call.

They hide in shadows. They slink through the night. They prowl through the gloom.

They're always there, like the darkness they have come to love as an old friend.

Eventually, everything ends. But not forever.

It comes back.

Just like Dovewing, Lionblaze, Jayfeather, Hollyleaf and Ivypool never will.

1/

Hollyleaf shook her head. "We're not going in. We'll report to Bluestar or some other senior cat and see what they want to do about it."

Lionblaze nodded. "Seems like a better idea than charging in without thinking." He'd had his dose of that.

"Okay," Jayfeather agreed, not without a curious, appealed glance at the blackness.

Dovewing couldn't be more relieved at their choice. "Great."

Ivypool hesitated. "I... I don't want to leave."

"But you will." Hollyleaf pushed her away from the black circle determinedly. "We're not losing you to the darkness again."

Not certain about this ending, but it should be fine.

So just so you know HollyXIvy is OTP!

So somehow I can't help having a mysterious voice that interrupts and talks in italics...

B

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~Crystalshine of LightClan (REVIEW)