Sorry it's been a while. Like I've said previously, I was on vacation and after that I was busy with the first chapter of Caught in Flames. But I'm back, and I hope you enjoy!

Nightstorm: Destiny does not own Warriors.

Cries of pain echoed through the night like a corrupted symphony as Sunmask sliced her claws across a Black Horror cat's belly. His blood-curdling screech joined the rest of them as he crumbled to the ground, stomach cut open.

Sunmask snarled venomously at the dying cat, wiping her bloody paw in the grass. A group of Clancats and a group of Black Horror warriors had met each other in a clearing just moments earlier, and the hellacious fight broke out immediately. Some cats already lay dead among the clearing, but most refused to fall.

Just as she turned around, a gray tabby rushed for her. Sunmask held up her foreleg at instinct, and was shoved into the dirt forcefully. Claws swiped over her chest, and she inhaled deeply at the agony.

"Looks like it's your unlucky day," the tabby growled sourly, neck fur bristling. "You get to fight with Jaws, the Head recruit around the Black Horror." He slashed at her brutally over the ear.

As Sunmask cried out, she remembered the stories of the first attack. Jaws was one of the three original traitors of the Clan, along with Blackstorm himself and some other tom. She also remembered that he was Soottail's brother.

Soottail... Sunmask snarled and reached up, grasping Jaws' neck. The grip was loose, and Jaws easily shook her off, but Sunmask wasn't finished. She immediately leaped back at the Head Recruit and clawed him only slightly down the flank as he attempted to evade her. Again, the move was quite unsuccessful.

"Are you frog-brained, Clan warrior? I've been training for this moment for most of my life," Jaws hissed. He lashed out, striking her suddenly just above the eye. If his blow had been any lower, she would have lost it.

Suddenly, Jaws gasped. Someone behind him had his throat grasped tightly. The gray tabby froze, unable to deliver the next stinging blow to Sunmask's face. Blood dripped to the ground, forming a pool below him, and the cat killing him.

Jaws collapsed and his attacker dropped him. Sunmask then found herself looking into the eyes of her brother, Shadeglare.

"Thank StarClan you're alive," he said, stepping towards her. "The Clans were heading to attack you when these guys invaded. I had no idea there were so many Clancats that belonged to the enemy as well."

"Yeah, well me either," she said quietly.

Shadeglare bowed to try to catch her lowered gaze. "Hey, are you alright?"

"No!" she yowled, startling him. "I'm not alright, okay? I've had it with all of this. I've been stressing over these stupid cats since I was six moons old, and I still don't even know myself yet!" She closed her eyes and turned away. "This forest is full of idiots, selfish badger-hearts and traitors!"

Silence followed her words,even though battle raged continuously around her. She heard nothing but the quiet, said she was listening for the meaning behind what she had just spoke.

"Sunmask..." Shadeglare whispered. "What happened?"

She looked back at him, trying to hold in tears. His expression was full of concern, and she regretting speaking like that to him. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I feel like...I was trying to have a personal life even when I knew I should have been focusing on this all along. I guess the pressure of trying to keep everything together on both sides has just..." she paused, swallowing. "...fallen down on top of me."

Shadeglare nodded. "I see. Sunmask, what made you realize that?"

Soottail. "Everything around me. I can't help but feel that I should have done more, and now it seems like this is my fault," she replied.

"How is this your fault?" Shadeglare asked, flicking his tail towards a battling pair of tomcats. "You did nothing to cause it. What you're seeing is the Clan fighting for their survival. And for StarClan." He twitched his whiskers as he waited for her response. She didn't say anything. "You couldn't have done anything to change the twisted minds of these Black Horror cats, Sunmask. You could only fight against them for the justice your mother brought to us those moons ago."

Sunmask looked at him. "And to do that she had to fight the cat who was behind it. That ended the entire thing." She ran a few thoughts through her head while Shadeglare looked at curiously. "Okay. Last time, The Black Horror was much smaller and only ShadowClan was fighting them. Now we have all four Clans. If we can just get to the leader of all of this, we can stop them once and for all."

"Of course!" Shadeglare said. "But who is he? I never saw him when they attacked. I had already ran away to look for you by the time they had officially attacked us."

Sunmask closed her eyes. She had seen him before. He killed a cat right before her gaze. She had looked into his eyes. His eyes.

His amber eyes.

...a black tomcat. Images of her apprenticeship came flowing through her mind. The darkness that he carried in his eyes and in the color of his pelt. The way his mother described him when she came to ShadowClan in search of her kits. The ruthlessness to his appearance.

"I will know him when I see him," Sunmask growled ambitiously.

Shadeglare nodded. "Then let's go."

"Where did you last leave your Clan?" she asked him, looking about the clearing they stood it.

"It was somewhere down there," Shadeglare replied indicating to the direction behind him. "He may have moved around but they are only staying within ShadowClan territory. At least for now, they are."

Sunmask didn't wait to hear anything else, she bounded past Shadeglare in the direction he pointed out. He heard his steady paw steps as he followed behind her. On the way out of the clearing, Sunmask dodged the swipe of a Black Horror warrior, and she looked up to the sky.

The sky was pitch black. The stars refused to shine down on a night so deadly and hopeless. Not even the moon was bright enough for it's silver light to glow through the thick clouds that floated among them. Sunmask sighed, and then the sky was lost above the forest of pine branches as they ran.

Sunmask tore her gaze away from above and focused on finding this cat. She had heard his name before. It was a signal of being lost in the darkness. She thought of the prophecy that she had told long ago. The darkness fell when radiance shone thorugh, but now, as the light dies out, only the blazing sun can destroy the night.

Destroy the night.

Midnight.

Sunmask bared her teeth. He was Tigerspirit's brother; she recalled Fawn telling her of both her son and her daughter when she was found in their territory.

"I know who he is," she snarled. "If you look into his eyes, you'll feel a natural hatred towards him. You could feel the evil just by the way he looks at you."

Shadeglare replied with a grunt a sped up. Sunmask matched his pace as they continued to run. As they moved, they passed by several cats, clawing and lashing out at each other. Small apprentices rolling around with full grown recruits. Blood being spilled out of the corners of their gaze. Sunmask ignored the urge to look at a cat twitching on the ground as his life poured out of him.

Shadeglare seemed to be paying attention to everything. "Let's say we win this-"

"We will win this," Sunmask interrupted.

"Okay. When we win this...what do you think will happen to the Clans?"

Sunmask slowed down for a few steps. After all the thinking she had done about the entire situation, she never really put together any scenarios about the aftermath. She never gave a thought about where the Clans will stand after the battle ended. She didn't even know how long the Clans would survive, given the number of deaths she had already seen.

"I have no clue," she told him.

He sighed. "I fear for the other Clans the most. Unlike your Clan, they were unprepared to be attacked by such lethal enemies, and what honor would they have left after this? They should have listened to the Clan they were trying so hard to prove wrong."

Sunmask made no reply, and kept running. Like Pouncefoot had said: Don't think, just fight.

Suddenly, Shadeglare skidded to an abrupt halt beside her. Sunmask slowed down and looked over her shoulder. Her brother stood frozen fox-lengths behind her, eyes wide with shock and horror at something through the trees.

"What?" she asked him, concerned. She padded swiftly up to where he stood and followed his petrified gaze. A cat, overshadowed by the darkness about it, lay still in the grass past a few trees. Dark blood pooled beside it, and wide open eyes showed no signs of life with its clouded depths.

Sunmask tasted the air. Along with the expected scent of blood, was a smell that was distinctly Clan-like, but not just any Clan.

ShadowClan.

Please don't be Pouncefoot. Please, StarClan, please! she begged silently within her mind as she and Shadeglare ran forward. Her claws sank into the ground with each step she took; she was so scared to see who this ShadowClan cat was.

Sunmask sighed when she realized it wasn't her father.

But she grew frozen stiff when she saw that it was Smokestar.

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~Destiny (and Nightstorm)