Shadowblaze walked through a forest confusedly, it looked like the forest where she grew up.
Suddenly three kits that were about six moons old ran past her, terror in their eyes. She blinked in surprise, the kits were her and her littermates, which meant that her mother was- as if it was aligned with her thoughts a shriek of pain raced through the forest.
'No! Not again!' Shadowblaze wails to herself as she summons her speed power and races towards the clearing that was her old home. She burst into the clearing and saw her mom feebly trying to fend off the fox, a deep slash in her side dripped blood into the forest floor. The fox swiped at her mother's throat and she fell, her blood pooling around her.
"No!" Shadowblaze yowled, she ran to her mother's side and reached out a paw to touch her side, but as soon as she made contact the vision faded and a new one appeared.
She was standing in a deep valley, she looked up and could barely see the top. 'Why am I here?' she wondered to herself. Just then she realized, this was where Thorn died.
A wail of sadness echoed down into the valley, "No! No, no, no, NO! THORN! THORN!" Shadowblaze recognized her own hysterical cries as they echoed over and over again.
A dark blob was falling towards her. It was Thorn. He seemed so peaceful, as if her were taking a walk through the forest instead of falling to his death. She ran to where he was going to land. She knew that she had no power to stop the death so she just sat there and waited for him to land.
He fell onto the cold rock with a loud 'THUMP' and Shadowblaze could already tell that he was on the brink of death, his mouth opened a little and he whispered, "Live well sister." then his eyes unfocused and the light faded from them.
A tear threatened to fall from Shadowblaze's eye but she held it back. Thorn looked perfectly fine except for the small trickle of blood that came from his mouth. Shadowblaze sighed and walked up to his body and gently pressed her nose to his forehead and shut her eyes as the next vision came.
She saw the cat that she hated with a passion, Sandfire. A small gray kit with orange paws lay at her paws, it coughed and Sandfire immediately grabbed it and raced to the medicine cat's den. She burst in and ran to Birchpaw, who was lying in a nest, "What's wrong with him! Fix him you mousebrain! Fix Foxkit"
He looked up startledly and told her to set the kit down he gently began to check the kit over. Shadowblaze wondered how he managed to concentrate with Sandfire there pacing and occasionally yelping for him to hurry up. But after a few moments he looked up and told Sandfire, "He just has a cold, I can cure it easily, except I need to get some feverfew."
"Well go get it then! I need my little warrior healthy!" Sandfire shrieked. Birchpaw looked startled, "But Skystar says that there's a fo-" "I DON'T CARE! I AM THE LEADER'S MATE SO YOU WILL DO AS I SAY!" Sandfire spat, she looked smug. Birchpaw sighed sadly and slipped out of the den.
Shadowblaze followed him and he went straight to a patch of feverfew, it looked kind of dead because leafbare was almost here. He nudged the dead stalks aside and carefully searched for the new leaves growing under the dead ones. He nips off a few leaves and sets them on a leaf, he then nudges the leaves shut and begins to walk back to the clan.
As he walks past a clump of bushes Birchpaw hesitates, his sniffs the air and then visibly tenses. Fast as a flash, a blur of russet fur barreled out of the bushes and leapt straight at my brother. He turned and the fox landed on him. He tried to free himself, but he had never been good at fighting, the fox pinned him and snarled in his face.
Pure terror flashed through Birchpaw's eyes as the the fox grabbed his scruff and began to violently shake him. Suddenly a loud 'Crack!' rang through the forest and Birchpaw fell limp. Shadowblaze gasped as she realized that the fox had snapped Birchpaw's neck, causing his death. She raced forward, eager to end the horrible visions, but some sort of force was stopping her from reaching her brother. She did what any other cat would do, she started to shove the barrier, even calling up her strength power to shove the wall.
It still didn't give away. She snarled in annoyance and slammed it again. This time something happened, the wall gave a yelp and said, "Ow! What the heck Shadowblaze?"
Shadowblaze jerked awake and realized that the visions were dreams and the wall in her dream… was Hawkclaw. Whoops. "Sorry Hawkclaw! I thought you were a wall!" Hawkclaw laughed, Shadowblaze smiled half-heartedly, her mind was still on her dream, she couldn't help but feel that her brother's death wasn't just a dream.
"I'm gonna go to the training clearing to shake off this dream, I'll be back in a while." Shadowblaze said as she stood and stretched. "FIne but I want to come with you." she groaned at how annoying he was sometimes but she finally agreed to let him come with her.
When they got to the training clearing Hawkclaw was experimenting with his ability to send his thoughts into her mind.
"Hawkclaw! Stop that!" he just smirked at her and began to tell an extremely boring story about something. They walked into the training clearing and found Lunastar already there, practising her moves. "Hey Lunastar." Shadowblaze called as she stepped into the clearing.
"Hey." Lunastar replied.
Lunastar had told the two of them about her family a while ago and well, to put it bluntly, they had been laughing the whole time. No they weren't laughing her family, they were laughing at Thorn. He had connected to their minds and could now talk to them.
At that time Thorn had decided to tell them jokes, he was a surprisingly good joke teller and that caused Shadowblaze and Hawkclaw to burst out into some very disrespectful laughter.
"You wanna have a mock fight?" she asked Lunastar, "Sure." her friend replied.
They walked to the battling area and they began to fight. They had rules for the fights that they fought against each other.
One, Shadowblaze wasn't allowed to use any of her powers during the battle. Two, Shadowblaze wasn't allowed to use founderblood moves. Three, Lunastar wasn't allowed to use her power that let her know every move that her opponent was going to make. Those were the only rules, beside not being allowed to kill each other.
Lunastar made the first move, darting towards Shadowblaze to rake her claw over her ear. Shadowblaze retaliated by flipping and lightly slashing Lunastar's underbelly as she went by.
They continued their battle for a while until Shadowblaze fell for one of Lunastar's feints and Lunastar pinned her, "I won." Lunastar stated happily. "Yes you did. Now let me up!" Shadowblaze said while laughing slightly. Lunastar grinned and let her up.
"We're leaving tomorrow." Shadowblaze told Lunastar as they shook the sand and dirt from their pelts. Lunastar paused and asked, "Why? Can't you stay a little bit longer?" "we've been here for more than two moon Lunastar, we have to get back to our clan. You can come with us to Thunderclan. We can go and kill Skystar for your mom."
Shadowblaze continued to flick bits of sand out of her tail as she waited for Lunastar's answer. Finally it came, "I'll go with you guys, I know a shortcut to the clans, but-"
"Seriously?! That's awesome! My paws almost died on the way here!" Hawkclaw burst in, his eyes glinting with excitement. "Calm down!" Shadowblaze chided her mate as she motioned for Lunastar to continue, " but we'd have to go through Nightmare Clan's territory." a slight flicker of fear passed through her eyes as she said 'Nightmare Clan'.
"Why is Nightmare Clan so bad?" Shadowblaze asked, Lunastar looked at her, "They are scary good at fighting and they know every move that you can make." she said. Shadowblaze sat and digested this new information, "Is there a big chance that we could meet them when we cut through their territory?"
"If we go through during the day we should be fine, they like to come out during the night." SHadowblaze nodded, "Well, let's get going!"
They walk back to the camp and Lunastar goes up to a yellow wolf with brown ears and quietly talked to her for a moment. Then she began to walk back to them.
Just as Lunastar reached SHadowblaze and Hawkclaw a pained shriek rose from the bush that was the nursery. "Starfire." Lunastar muttered as she raced towards the nursery, "Stay here!" she shouted at Shadowblaze and Hawkclaw as she entered the den.
They waited for a long time, quietly conversing with Thorn in their minds.
Lunastar bursts out of the nursery with a worried look on her face. "What happened?" Shadowblaze asked, she knew that Starfire was important to Lunastar, "She just gave birth, she nearly died of blood loss but she had three pups. She told me to leave with you guys. I didn't want to but she insisted that avenge my mother so I decided to go."
Shadowblaze nodded and meowed, "Well then let's go."
They exited the Lightning Clan's camp and Lunastar took them in a sort of diagonal line through the trees.
Soon the air became foggy. "Is this normal?" Hawkclaw asked Lunastar, Shadowblaze had been thinking the same thing, except Hawkclaw had asked first, "Yeah, it's cause we're close to the Nightmare Clan's border." Shadowblaze nodded.
It only got foggier as they trekked closer and closer to the Nightmare Clan border. As they passed a shriveled bush a sense of dread settled into Shadowblaze's soul and she whispered, "Was that the border?" Lunastar just nodded, looking tense.
Shadowblaze's senses were on edge, she paid close attention to her surroundings and for some reason she kept pausing to listen for other footsteps. On one of these pausing trips Hawkclaw crashed into her and he fell on his rear, snapping a few twigs.
Usually this wouldn't be such a big deal, but in the eerie silence of the forest the sound of the twigs snapping rang through the silence much too loudly.
Everyone paused and in that brief moment they heard the hair raising howls in the fog. Shadowblaze looked at Hawkclaw and he looked at Lunastar who in turn looked at Shadowblaze, and in one unanimous action they began to race away.
They didn't get very far when a dark black wolf with some umm… stains on his mouth and paws jumped in front of them.
He bared his teeth at them before raising his head and howling into the fog. Shadowblaze eyed him warily and began to stealthily creep backwards. But before she could actually go anywhere another wolf appeared behind her. She looked around and found that she and her friends had been surrounded by a large group of wolves.
Shadowblaze looked at her companions before launching herself at a wolf. In her peripheral vision she saw that Lunastar and Hawkclaw had done the same. She called up her powers and began to attack the Nightmare Clan wolf, the only problem was that the wolf knew exactly where she was going to strike, even if she threw a few feints.
She did manage to get one blow in, she was aiming for the wolf's leg when she suddenly decided to hit the wolf's chest instead, her claws hit her chest and the wolf had looked extremely surprised.
But sadly that just infuriated the wolf even more and she began to furiously claw Shadowblaze.
Eventually the wolf stopped clawing her and just pinned her. She looked around for her friends and found them similarly pinned, Hawkclaw had a few claw marks on his sides and face. Lunastar had a gash on her left flank and claw marks on her chest and a scratch on her muzzle.
The one that seemed to be the leader stepped forward, "You have trespassed on Nightmare Clan's territory, you have two choices, surrender or die."
Shadowblaze glanced at Hawkclaw and Lunastar, Hawkclaw looked as in the dark about this as she was but Lunastar's expression clearly said, 'surrender, it'll be the better option.' Shadowblaze nodded and called, "We surrender."
The wolves lead them through the foggy forest as if they could see through the fog, they never stumbled, never missed a step and strangest of all, didn't seem to have very many emotions at all.
Soon they reached a barrier of thorns and brambles, the Nightmare wolves slipped through the entrance, taking Shadowblaze with them. Inside the camp she saw a pile of prey, wolves lounging around and pups playing. It looked… normal.
A dark brown wolf padded out of a den and walked up to the group of wolves surrounding Shadowblaze and her friends. He walked up to the leading wolf and asked, "Why are they here?" "They surrendered." the wolf nodded and turned to us.
"I am Night Watcher, the alpha of the Nightmare Clan. you have surrendered to us and so you are now our prisoners, forever."
After the speech he turns away and walks back to his den. The wolves around Shadowblaze began to lead her, Hawkclaw and Lunastar towards a small, dark hole that was in the base of a large tree. They shoved them down the hole and set two guards outside the hole so that they couldn't escape.
Shadowblaze sat at the entrance and looked out into the Nightmare Clan's camp, she sighed, she missed being outside. They had been in this hole for about a quarter moon and Shadowblaze was beginning to believe that she was going to die in that stupid hole.
She glanced around the small hole that had become home. Hawkclaw was sleeping peacefully, Lunastar was clawing at the tree roots that surrounded them, trying to find a weak spot to escape from. They had been doing this for days, one cat would take their rest while another worked on escaping with the last cat standing guard, making sure that the wolves outside don't see the cat making the escape tunnel.
Suddenly a face appears in the entrance of the hole. Shadowblaze leapt back in surprise. The face belonged to a pure white wolf who was apparently a guard. He looked into the den and his gaze landed on Lunastar who was trying to hid the claw marks on a thin root.
He glanced at Shadowblaze and hissed, "I can get you guys out of here." she looked at him in surprise, but she didn't trust him, it was too good to be true. "What's the catch?" she questioned, "There is no catch." he replied, although he looked slightly nervous.
"There's always a catch, now tell me what it is." Shadowblaze deadpanned, "Fine," he sighed, "I want to come with you guys." she looked at him surprised. "Why?" a voice asked from behind Shadowblaze, she turned and found that Hawkclaw had woken up and was sitting next to her. She touched noses with him and he twines his tail with hers. Then they look at the wolf in front of them and he sighs in defeat, "I want to leave Nightmare Clan, forever, I don't fit in, I'm not that good at fighting and if you haven't noticed, my pelt is white. My name is Thornhollow and my father is Night Watcher, I never knew my mother and I have no littermates."
Shadowblaze was no truth-seeker but she decided to believe Thornhollow, he seemed trustworthy or maybe it was because he was like Thorn. She didn't really know.
She looked around and caught Lunastar's eye, she was thinking but eventually she seemed to come to the same conclusion that Shadowblaze had. She nodded at Shadowblaze and announced, "Thornhollow, we believe you. When we get out of this freaking hole we'll take you with us."
Thornhollow grinned and nodded like an excitable kit.
He stuck his head into the hole and whispered, "Dig down till the roots get extremely thin and I'll be doing the same from the outside. When you get to the thin root layer start digging towards the back of the hole. Hopefully my tunnel will meet up with yours and we can get out of here."
They nodded and Shadowblaze volunteered to dig first. Hawkclaw kept a lookout and Lunastar went to get some much needed rest.
That night Shadowblaze woke to a sound of something scrambling around in their escape hole. She jerked up and began to summon her powers. Annoyed groans sounded from around her as Hawkclaw and Lunastar were undoubtedly woken by the blinding blue light. Shadowblaze unsheathed her claws and silently slipped into the hole. She saw a hunched shape wriggling around, she didn't even stop to think, she just pounced on the shape, sinking her claws into it.
The shape yelped and squirmed around, trying to get Shadowblaze off of it, good luck with that. She twisted her neck around to look at what she had found in the tunnel and found that she was clinging, by her claws, to a face, Thornhollow's face.
"Whoops! Sorry Thornhollow! I thought you were another wolf, trying to sneak in and kill us in our sleep or something." she apologized. He just snorted, "I couldn't kill a mouse right now." Shadowblaze looked at him confusedly and seeing her look of confusion Thornhollow explained, "I found out that Night Watcher was getting suspicious of you guys and was going to check on you personally."
"So I came as soon as i could and finished my tunnel, I saw a hole connecting the two tunnels and I thought I could fit… but now, I'm kind of, stuck-" he trails off embarrassedly.
Shadowblaze laughed and removed her claws from his face, "I'm gonna get Hawkclaw and Lunastar to help me with getting you out, stay here." as she finished talking she laughed inwardly at her own stupidity, Thornhollow couldn't go anywhere, he was stuck in a tunnel!
She went back up the hole and was immediately met with Hawkclaw, "What's down there? Did it hurt you?" he questioned, "Hawkclaw, calm down! I'm fine, it was just Thornhollow stuck in the tunnel."
Lunastar looked at her for a moment, judging if what she said was true, then her eye twitched and she burst out laughing. Once the laughing stopped Shadowblaze whispered, "Guys! We have to go! Night Watcher is suspicious of us." Hawkclaw and Lunastar nodded.
"Ok, we're gonna have to dig him out of the wall." Lunastar said, taking charge of the situation, "Shadowblaze and Hawkclaw, you start digging on that side and I'll take this side." they immediately began to work on digging Thornhollow out of his predicament.
As she digs Shadowblaze can't help but admire the beauty of how the leadership in their little group worked, they didn't have a designated leader, so when a problem arose one of them simply stood and took charge of the situation. Most cats would think that this wouldn't work, but for them it did. Right now Lunastar was in charge, but by the end of the day Hawkclaw could be the one in charge.
Shadowblaze quickly shifted her mind back onto the job at paw. She dug through the hard dirt until she felt the whole pile of dirt trapping Thornhollow loosen. Apparently Lunastar felt it too, as she hurriedly told Thornhollow, "Try to get out now."
He slowly began to back out of the pile of dirt and to Shadowblaze's joy, managed to free himself, "Yes! Now we can go home!" she called quietly but happily.
They followed Thornhollow out of the hole and towards the entrance. They were so close. Just as they exited the camp Thornhollow let out a huge sneeze. Immediately everyone turned and glared at him. Thornhollow looked at them apologetically, "Sorry," he mumbled. "I couldn't help it there's dirt up my nose." "Whatever let's just keep moving." Hawkclaw suggested. Everyone nodded and they began to run into the foggy forest.
A/N this was a really long chapter eh? I want to request something from you guys. So, no one besides my family and friends has ever told me how my writing is, and I don't really know if it's actually good or not, so if you guys want to, can you leave a review or something telling me how it is? Like the honest truth, whether you think it's good, bad or somewhere in the middle, don't worry I won't get mad if you tell me that it's bad. If you can, thanks!