Chapter 73: Exorcise Your Demons

With five days until the Gatheriing, Darkstripe had some time to relax. He had the patrol system memorized. He now knew who liked who and which cats were typical for border patrol. He still had a rotation to give each cat a time to work on hunting or patrolling, but he'd largely gotten a schedule down. Leopardstar also seemed to be in a much better state now. Darkstripe had been purposefully shirking his duties onto her given she didn't have a real deputy. She was starting to understand his patrol scheduling and was almost independent of him. Leopardstar still didn't understand the finer points of negotiation, but she'd made progress to the point where he doubted she'd fall for Tigerstar's words again.

Darkstripe was out solo fishing. It was a typical thing. He hadn't even considered the stress he'd been suppressing or how his own trauma was starting to make a resurgence. All's it took was one missed catch. He struck at a fish, missing, and splashed himself in the face. Somehow that was the last straw. Everything came boiling up. As tears flooded his eyes, he lashed violently at the water repeatedly, kicking up a spray. The splashes slightly helped with his now unchecked emotions. Soon he was soaking wet. Each spray felt like a relief and like a counterstrike. He could not sense the outside world. To him, the water felt like blood, sticky and thick. His splashing was him mentally flaying and shredding Tigerstar.

Unfortunately, the scene wasn't all relieving for Darkstripe as his mental Tigerstar began reforming. It padded towards him with those dreadful yellow eyes. It taunted him in his failure.

"Congratulations. You've killed me once. Let's see you do that another eight times."

Darkstripe froze in fear. The illusion of his mind was terrifying. He panicked and for once, his body chose flight over freezing. It was a miracle that Darkstripe hadn't stumbled into any patrols in his madness, but all he knew was he was scared, and he needed to keep running. He ran and ran. The trees he could see stopped looking so lively. They looked dead and warped. The ground felt sticky and loosed him with a sickening pop each step. He didn't know where he was. His run was turning into a miserable frantic walk. He was thoroughly exhausted.

He collapsed into that mud, feeling it wrap around his face and his fur become further marred with mud on top of the illusion of blood. Then the Tigerstar illusion appeared again. It wasn't even rushing. It just stepped pawstep after pawstep like Darkstripe was a piece of prey in the freshkill pile. It knelt before him with a sinister smile. The thing Darkstripe realized was this cat thing wasn't Tigerstar. It was something simpler and eviler. It was his trauma given form.

"Darkstripe, why do you run? Don't you like the attention I give you? We could have more fun, just me and you. How does that sound? I loved how much you hated it when I took you, that feeling of grime and discomfort. We can have it again, but this time I won't go so easy on you. You and I know the places to hurt a cat to make them wail worse than a kit. Doesn't that just sound delightful?"

Whatever the thing was that was wearing Tigerstar's face, he did not want to give it what it wanted. He could only tremble violently before a feeling appeared in the back of his mind like a faint glow. He felt a small form press against his side and the feeling of sticky mud and blood turned to just the regular feeling of being wet. He looked for who came to his aid, but there was no cat there. The imposter Tigerstar was still there, but he looked angry. Something had disturbed the thing and it was afraid.

Despite his fear, Darkstripe willed himself to stand. The imposter took a hesitant step beck before bristling. Was it afraid of him?

"You pathetic sniveling coward! Go back to being a stepping stone! Your life is worthless, and you'll die in anguish as you deserve!"

Darkstripe felt another presence and looked to his side. It felt like Firestar, but it looked like Lionheart somehow boosted in size until it could rival a horse. Its mane was made of fire and sparks raced along its pelt. Darkstripe had to touch the cat and he felt it envelop him like a second pelt. That fiery mane was his. Those sparks that raced along its pelt were now his. He felt… unafraid for the first time in his life. The thing that was the mass of his fear and wore Tigerstar's face was now cowering, from him. He wanted to destroy it, shred it, scatter it across the world to never be seen again, but that wasn't right. He was a monster, but he didn't need to stoop to its level.

He knelt to its level and… licked it. The thing was so afraid. He curled around it with his massive form making a protective barrier from the world outside. The thing trembled fiercely like he had only moments before. It didn't have a monstrous lion to protect it, or maybe it did. Darkstripe had realized the thing that had taunted him was just something lashing out trying to protect itself.

He gently groomed it muttering reassurances. "It's ok. You're safe now. Whatever happened won't happen again."

It felt like a lifetime, but the thing settled down and Darkstripe could finally get a good look at it. It wasn't Tigerstar. Instead, it looked like him. It couldn't be, but it was. It was his sister. He hadn't borne his traumas alone. This whole time his sister and twinsoul had been taking the burden on herself to prevent him from breaking down. Now it was his turn to protect her. He unwound himself from her, and she looked up at him.

"Are you ok now?" He asked gently.

The kit looked up at him and nodded.

"Then I think it's time we leave this place."

She clambered onto his shoulders as he raised a paw. He struck at this desolate world and was blinded by a flash of light. He opened his eyes, and he was not even ten tail lengths from where he'd had his splashing fit in the river. The fiery mane and sparking pelt were gone, but he felt like he was more than he was before. Darkstripe knew that what had all happened had been just his mind trying to recover from all he'd experienced, but at the same time it felt more meaningful. He felt whole. Whatever vestiges of fear towards Tigerstar were destroyed. The final confrontation was coming and he felt ready.