Ivypool chapter is important. Oh, btw - the prophecies at the beginning of the chapters from here on out are like very small chapter summaries. Lol.

I don't own Warriors. Enjoy!

Chapter 28

Ivypool

StarClan is calling you…do not be afraid. ~Forest of Secrets

The power of the stars. Did stars have power? All she had ever known was the darkness. As an apprentice, she had wandered between the moss-covered trees and found that Hawkfrost was waiting for her. He gave her the only power that she had ever really known how to use. Sniffing back her tears, Ivypool gathered Bluekit and Greykit closer to her.

"I love you," she said quietly. She didn't know such love for these two tiny bodies was possible, but every time she heard their little whimpers or felt their contented sighs against her stomach, she felt the urge to protect them, no matter what. She had always been so powerless, and now Jayfeather came in with his dark prophecy predicting that she was special. Ivypool didn't want to be special, not if it meant that the kits were special, too. Was this why she had always been targeted? Not because of her actual merit, but because of the gift StarClan had given her? She had always wanted to be different, special, treated wonderfully like Doveheart. Perhaps she had finally gotten what she wished for, but this wasn't at all what she had hoped it would be.

Somewhere after moonrise, Ivypool drifted into sleep, and her misguided feelings brought her to a swirling world of grey and white. It was a constant atmosphere of static – nothing was clear, but nothing was concrete, either. She walked alone in this empty, half-a-world. What was it?

There was a rip in the world up ahead, so Ivypool picked up her pace until she stood on a carpet of grey-and-white, surrounded on all four sides by grey-and-white, with grey-and-white forming the roof above her head as well. It was all the same swirling monochrome, but for this tiny rip in the world's surface. What…?

She bent down to observe, batting it with a paw, and then there was a hissing noise as the world ripped open. Ivypool screamed and backed away quickly, slashing furiously at the single inky vine that slipped up towards her in order to break it. She backed away quicker, keeping her eyes fixed on the thin black smoke rising from the crack in the world. It was growing thicker, taking a form, and then –

"Oh, what a good she-cat you are," said Mapleshade as she stepped out of the ink-black smoke and dissipated it. "Thank you, Ivypool, this is precisely what I wanted."

"What you wanted?" said Ivypool. "You don't know anything." She let her claws dig into the surface-that-wasn't-really-there, surprised when her claws made impact.

"Yes, what I wanted," said Mapleshade with a wink. "I've been keeping an eye on you, Ivypool. Just to make sure you're holding up your end of the deal."

"Our deal means nothing to me," said Ivypool. Out of the corner of her eye, there was motion, and she spun around in time to see a shade, thin and indecipherable but perhaps a cat, flit through the shadowy world around her. "Our deal is nothing."

"All deals you make with me are binding," said Mapleshade in a dangerous voice. "Are you ready to lose, Ivypool?"

Ivypool gritted her teeth.

"I won't lose," she said. "I won't."

For Bluekit. For Greykit. She couldn't afford to let them die, to live forever in their place. She would live, for them, but she would protect them. They were hers, and they were the only ones she wanted bound to her.

"How can you guarantee that, when you're stuck?" said Mapleshade. Ivypool narrowed her eyes and looked down with a gasp, finding that her paws had somehow sunk into the swirling shadowy world around her. "Oh, don't struggle too much."

"Fine, then, let's fight," said Ivypool. "Let's fight to win this game."

"Oh, dear…" said Mapleshade, her eyes going wide. "I forgot to specify, didn't I? Darling Ivypool, did you honestly think that you were playing a game with me?"

"What?" said Ivypool. She tried to pull on her paws, but claws light as hair held them tight. It was a painless capture, but she could not move. "What do you mean?"

"I put my own spin on the game Hawkfrost and Brokentail play," said Mapleshade with a soft laugh. "It's much more interesting that way."

"Breezepelt?" said Ivypool with narrowed eyes. She tried to think about her kits, tried to think about her warm nest, but there wasn't a rip in the fabric of the world that she could find. The only one seemed to be that one between Mapleshade's paws, but it wasn't where Ivypool wanted to go. She couldn't tell what unforeseeable dangers were in that hole, where there was only darkness.

"Close, but how could I possibly compare you to Breezepelt?" Mapleshade laughed at this. "No, no, Ivypool. Your real competition is Breezepelt's adorable little mate. Her name is Sunstrike – she's quite a darling little thing."

Ivypool had spoken to Sunstrike at Gatherings, seen her on border patrols, knew her to be a dazzlingly bright she-cat, pretty, but clumsy. Was she even a worthwhile warrior? Ivypool sniffed at the idea, remembering that Sunstrike had been in the attacking WindClan party the night they had killed Crouchpaw. It had been Sunstrike and one or two of her friends to try and rip their Clan-mates away from Crouchpaw's suffering body…no, that wasn't right. Sunstrike had backed away, her ears flattened. A coward.

"I can beat a silly WindClan she-cat," said Ivypool hollowly.

"Can you?" said Mapleshade. "You're perfect competitors."

"I'm ten times the warrior she is," said Ivypool confidently. She didn't know much of what it meant to be a warrior abiding by the warrior code, but that didn't mean she was weak. She was strong – or she would be, because Bluekit and Greykit needed her.

"Oh?" said Mapleshade. "To me, you're just the same. Two young warriors, both struggling with the Place of No Stars. You struggle for your own neck, she struggles for Breezpelt's, but you're struggling all the same. Two pretty she-cats who fall in love with the cat they aren't supposed to love. She, full of light, loves a cat full of darkness; you, full of darkness, love a cat full of light. Two terrified queens, suddenly given the two most beautiful bundles of fur in the world and being told to protect them. She has had medicine cats and warriors sacrifice themselves for her, just as you have. What's the difference, then? It's a perfect game."

"You're sick," said Ivypool, hissing and lashing her tail. She tried to move once again, but her paws refused to budge.

"Perhaps," said Mapleshade as if she was really giving this some thought. "Everything is sick, Ivypool. Everything is dying. I just don't want to die forever."

"Let me go," said Ivypool. "If it's Sunstrike I have to fight with, let me take this up with her."

"Tsk, Ivypool," said Mapleshade, her eyes flashing. "You have too many cats to protect, don't you? All she needs is to save one."

Ivypool tried to feel her paws, tried to dig her claws in, but every sensation in her forelegs was hard to place. It was as if she was truly being stripped of feeling, getting lost in the grey-and-white fabric of this world.

"Then I'll protect them," Ivypool said, spitting her pain. "I'll protect them. I'll protect Bluekit and Greykit, no matter what." Mapleshade chuckled. "I'll protect Bumblestripe and Doveheart, too, and I'll even protect Jayfeather and Lionblaze. Whoever you need me to protect, I'll do it." She fought for a footing, this time finding it, and with all her might, she shoved up. It wasn't enough, but one paw came into visibility again. Mapleshade didn't move an inch. It was as if she had expected all of this.

"I don't matter anymore," said Ivypool. "Reputation, alligience, what does it matter? I won't let you kill them, any of them. They are – fine, they are bound to me. And I'll protect them. I'll never let you win. Never! I won't ever give up. I don't want to live together, and I won't let them…I won't let them die!" Her last word turned into a screech, and she dragged herself out of the fabric of the world and charged at Mapleshade.

"Hm," said Mapleshade, easily dodging her attack. Ivypool landed roughly, feeling as though she had been running for days on end. Her legs wobbled, not quite ready to hold her up, but she staggered around to look at Mapleshade again. "Here's the question, Ivypool." And then Mapleshade pounced, knocking Ivypool backwards. Ivypool yelled out as her paws gave out, and she was falling into a darkness so piercing and deep she wondered if she would ever stop falling. Mapleshade stood above her, the grey-white background still swirling.

"Can you protect yourself?" taunted Mapleshade, and Ivypool hit a hard, slimy surface. It hurt to touch, it felt like death itself, and Ivypool screamed as she tried to writhe away. She couldn't see her paws in front of her face, but it felt as if something was wrapping around her middle and squeezing life out of her. She screamed, slashing out to unseen enemies with her claws, but they just kept coming, one after the other, with jaws that fastened into her shoulders and claws that swept her paws out from under her. She felt a lash against her back, and as she faded to the fate that had always been waiting for her, the fate of darkness, she felt a tiny paw poking her in the side.

So small, it reminded her of Greykit's paws, which were too big for him. She could imagine him in a matter of days getting up and teetering around on unsteady legs, collapsing in the dust as Bluekit bowled into him. She would laugh as he tripped over his paws, and he would leap back up and spring at her, until they rolled around in the dust and got their pelts all dirty. Bumblestripe would come back from a hunting trip, and before Ivypool could even reach a paw out to stop the kits, they would have charged across camp and dug their tiny kit claws into the fur along his back. They would play with the other kits in the nursery and look over with big, awestruck-yet-lonely eyes when the older kits moved to the apprentice den. Ivypool would lean into Bumblestripe as she watched them get their warrior names, and all of the clouds in the sky couldn't have blocked out the brilliant sunlight she felt.

It was all slipping away from her now. She would die and live forever, bound here in the darkness until something strong enough to truly reach her could blow away the shadows. Her heart would fall forever, lost of all memories, and she would be nothing but an onlooker with no thoughts – someone fallen victim to watching generations live and die without hope of fading. On and on…on and on…

When Ivypool thought about death, she had never really thought about StarClan as other cats did. As a kit, as an apprentice, maybe even in the first days as a warrior, she had wondered what StarClan was like, and if the cats there were really everything Jayfeather and the elders claimed them to be. But now – now she kind of wished that she, like her Clan-mates, had ever daydreamed about what StarClan would be like. She would die and live again, here in the darkness where they could not find her, without hope of reaching the surface. She could never leave, never set paw in another realm. This was her final resting place.

"StarClan doesn't want me," said Ivypool. "The warrior code has never been forgiving to me. Nothing has."

"StarClan chose you," said Jayfeather. "Like it or not."

StarClan had chosen her. So where were they now, why weren't they looking out for her? What had made her so special all along, and where was that mystical magical power when she truly needed it?

She closed her eyes, and there was a light. The smallest of lights, so hard to reach, so far away, but Ivypool identified it instantly. It was a pathway to something, perhaps to a future unknown. She reached out towards it as the heavy darkness pressed her closer and closer to her death. Maybe it was death? No…it felt too familiar, like when she was reaching for the Dark Forest.

But I'm not going to give up on you, either. I won't let you drift off without a fight.

Dammit, Ivypool was fighting! She would fight this surface, this heavy weight, the darkness Mapleshade had prescribed her to! She wouldn't lose, not when Jayfeather and the others had somehow put their faith in her. She didn't know why they trusted her, but they did.

"Mapleshade!" she screamed, and her screech was enough to push back the shadows that had been clawing into her sides. She felt it release, she felt the light close enough to reach a paw into, and then she was dreaming, begging, reaching for a world far away. It was as if she was flying, not falling, rising to the heavens for every moment she moved. Somewhere far away, she could still hear Mapleshade's screams. Ivypool laughed, the noise feeling foreign and unknown. She hadn't heard the sound of her own laugh, but now the feeling of victory was filling her up as light engulfed her.

She fell with a squeak onto grassy fields, and when Ivypool looked up, the moonlight was bright and lovely on her pelt. She sat up as all pain faded away. There was a cat before her, idly flicking her tail back and forth. It took Ivypool a moment to identify the eerie glow to her light-colored pelt and the way her blue eyes looked like the heavens.

"Crouchpaw?" she said.

"Ivypool?" said Crouchpaw. She took a step back. "Wh-what are you doing here?"

"Ivypool…" She turned around and saw a beautiful tortoiseshell she-cat. At Ivypool's bewilderment, the she-cat hesitated. "It's alright, Crouchpaw. Ivypool is allowed to be here." She stepped forward. "You don't need to worry about anything. My name is Spottedleaf."

"Spottedleaf?" said Ivypool. She had heard the name before. "I don't understand what's going on."

"You're very welcome here," said Spottedleaf. "These are StarClan's hunting grounds."

Ivypool's eyes widened, and she stared at the former medicine cat.

"The battle," she stammered. "The battle. It's happening."

"Yes," said Spottedleaf. She turned her head away. "Such a terrible, terrible battle. So many new souls to look after, but at least you are alive."

Ivypool looked down at her body, at the shadowy grime that still stained her pelt. But yes, she felt alive.

"I…what happened?" said Ivypool. "Where was I?" She described the shadowy, grey-white-swirling world hastily, telling Spottedleaf everything. When she had finished, Spottedleaf was thinking intensely.

"That sounds scary!" said Crouchpaw.

"It's okay," said Ivypool. "I'll beat the mean Dark Forest cat." She meant it, too. If she ever laid eyes on Mapleshade again she would rip her to pieces.

"Hm…" said Spottedleaf. She opened beautiful amber eyes and observed Ivypool pityingly. "I don't know what to make of this. We need to take it to the others right away."

"The others?" said Ivypool. "What about the battle?"

"Yes, it's such a shame," said Spottedleaf. She sighed. "Come on, Ivypool. We must figure out what Mapleshade is planning."

She leaped to her feet and started off, looking back to make sure Ivypool was coming.

"Good luck, Ivypool!" said Crouchpaw, her little eyes wide. Ivypool smiled at the small apprentice for another moment before a weight in her heart turned the smile into a frown.

"I'm sorry," said Ivypool. Crouchpaw tilted her head. "For letting you die."

Crouchpaw paused for a moment, and then she smiled.

"It's okay," said Crouchpaw. "I know you'll save everyone else."

Huh? Ivypool must have looked confused, for Crouchpaw flicked her tail and laughed a little bit.

"You're a member of the Good Four," she said. "You're the dark prophet Ivypool! You'll save the Clans. I know you will!" She seemed calm about the subject of the great war raging below them. "You and Lionblaze and the others will save my sister and Icecloud and everyone else. I just know it."

"Ivypool!" Spottedleaf calls. Ivypool was still staring at Crouchpaw, who seemed to be wondering if she had said something out of place. So much blind trust in a cat she had barely met. Hadn't Crouchpaw been there when Ivypool had ignored her and mistrusted her and caused other cats to hate her? She didn't seem to care, and now the trust of a cat Ivypool had already failed was riding on her shoulders. If she couldn't do this one thing for Crouchpaw, what good was she?

"I won't let you down," said Ivypool, and she took off after Spottedleaf.

Ivypool followed Spottedleaf down a rise in the moonlit forest, ducking under a low-hanging branch and finding herself in a stone-lined clearing. There were other cats there talking in quiet voices. Swallowing, Ivypool padded forward and looked around at them as they caught sight of her and fell silent. There were seven cats in the clearing, eight when Spottedleaf joined their ranks. She only recognized one – Leopardstar, former leader of RiverClan.

"So the Dark Prophet has come," said a slender blue-pelted she-cat. She stared at Ivypool with wary eyes. "Bringing with her what terrible tidings?"

"The battle has begun," said Ivypool. "The Place of No Stars is attacking. I must go back."

"I suppose you want us to fight," said a mottled light brown tom. "That's why you're here. You want us to fight."

"We need to discuss Mapleshade first," said Spottedleaf hurriedly. "Ivypool says that Mapleshade ambushed her in a place I've never heard of before and dragged her into a hole of slimy darkness. Right, Ivypool?"

"Yes," said Ivypool. "But I want to go back. I'm the Dark Prophet, like you said. I have to go back and save the Clans."

"Or destroy the Clans," said a black-and-white tom, giving her a wary glance.

"I wouldn't do that," said Ivypool. She paused, looking back at the light brown tom. "Why are you reluctant to fight?"

"This is not our war," said Leopardstar softly, but she stared at her paws. "This is not our fight."

"The Dark Forest has made it their fight," said Ivypool. "You mean that you could fight down there, too?"

"Now that you've arrived, yes," said Spottedleaf. "And I for one say that we should!"

A grey-and-white cat across the clearing sniffed as if clearing away a cold.

"The Place of No Stars has power that we cannot counter," he said tiredly.

"It has power that we used to be able to counter," said Spottedleaf. "Please, Runningnose. Ivypool needs our help."

"I agree with Mudfur and Runningnose," said Leopardstar. "The Clans have not asked for our help on this matter. We need to discuss what is ahead."

"We don't have much time," said a short-tailed dark brown tom. "Things are already out of our control. We cannot control what comes ahead."

"What comes ahead?" said Ivypool. She shook her head violently, suddenly realizing what she had been brought here to do. "There won't be an ahead if you don't fight with me."

"Fighting is not something we are meant to do," said Runningnose. "We are guides now, not warriors."

"You were leaders!" cried Ivypool. She could imagine her sister and Bumblestripe and everyone else on the battlefield, fighting for a life that they couldn't dream would be ripped away from them. They would be out-numbered easily; Ivypool knew very well that Mapleshade and the others had full control over the shadows.

"Our greatest concern is Mapleshade," said the one cat who hadn't yet spoken, a ruffled brown tom with fur that stuck out everywhere. "Her actions are too bizarre."

"She is up to something greater than this battle," agreed Mudfur quietly. "I should like to find out what it is."

"What Mapleshade does regards this battle," said Ivypool. She took a deep breath. "She has made a deal with me and Sunstrike of WindClan to protect the things we love the most. I fear for what the loser will have to endure. If this battle ends poorly, I'll lose it."

"Then we must stop her," said the dark brown tom. "One of you will lose, this we know. That means that Mapleshade is the priority."

"Please," said Ivypool.

"You are brave to come here," said the blue-ish she-cat. Ivypool could hazard a guess at who she was without fault. She had named her kit for the same reason. "Especially seeing as you were one of those who caused this battle."

Ivypool cringed at the insult as the leaders and medicine cats of the Clans turned to face her with unforgiving eyes. There was some certainty wedged in her chest that told her that she had to enlist their help.

"I am prepared to give my life up to stop the Dark Forest cats," she said.

"With our help, we could end this feud now," said Spottedleaf urgently.

"Are you suggesting we cast down the cats of the Place of No Stars?" said the matted tom. "Strip away their power and submit them to a fate worse than death?"

"The Place of No Stars is a fate worse than death," said the black-and-white tom. "But all the same. We are guides, not gods. We cannot give out punishment without thought."

"Look," said Ivypool, gaining their attention. "I don't quite understand what you're saying, but it sounds important. You can send back the Dark Forest cats?"

"We can bind their spirits to the shadows," said Bluestar. "It takes cooperation between StarClan and living cat. The only other way to send a Dark Forest cat back is to force them to retreat back to their abode. They are trapped there."

"Then how did they get out?" said Ivypool.

"I would expect you," said the black-and-white cat harshly. Ivypool stood there, staring at them. "While Mapleshade held you hostage in the grey-and-white world, I expect it opened some sort of channel to the living world. It allowed the cats of the Place of No Stars to escape."

"So…so I can do the same for you, too," said Ivypool. "I can bring you to the living world and give you a form that will actually do damage. You could save the Clans."

"We have done our saving," said Mudfur. "Now we guide. We cannot fight."

Ivypool saw the leaders and the medicine cats nod in an agreement she didn't know how to break. She needed them. Out there, in the world of the living, her littermate and her mate and Jayfeather and Lionblaze needed her, because she was a cat of a prophecy. She had to clean up the mess she had made, but she needed them to do it. How could she, a cat so dark and alone, ever convince them to change their minds, when they rejected her very presence?

Freaking StarClan always causing trouble...

Review, please! I greatly appreciate it!

~Elsi