BraveClan's touching story/(3): Rediscovering Wonders from Darkness/12

## Part 12: Dark Prophecy and fury

This part is two moons earlier than the current SunClan timeline: Darkstar was solemnly listening to cats chatter while he was lying down on Highrock. He went into his den, not wishing to hear so much noise. He wondered, what happened to the cats I sent to go after those two stupids? He just groaned, thinking this stage of his life was too empty. He wished he'd still have some entertainment in the age he would be an elder.

The six cats happened to return. Bronzeslope, the deputy looked melancholy after not being able to chase them down. Neither of the cats wished to tell Darkstar about their loss. They just didn't have the heart. Smokyleap just took Frozenbreeze into the med. cat's den and started treating him. Lostpaw also watched him, even though he wasn't her mentor.

Darkstar saw them come back, but they weren't telling him anything. He was confused. What happened to them. He decided to ask the deputy, he must have led the group. "Bronzeslope, are you going to tell me anything that happened? What happened to Destinyflower and Warmtail?" Bronzeslope's reaction wasn't anything he'd expected.

Bronzeslope broke into sobs and yelled, *"FORGIVE ME, MY LEADER! PLEASE MERCY!"* He fell down to Darkstar's knees, and hugged them tight, as if he was begging. It came down onto Darkstar. Destinyflower and Warmtail had escaped DarkClan's grip. "What?! *What?!"* hissed Darkstar, in his most dangerous voice, which kept rising. "HOW DID YOU LET THEM GO?! *I SENT* FIVE *WARRIORS!"*

Bronzeslope cried even harder, tears streaming down his face. "*FORGIVE US, MY LEADER! THEY WERE TOO-*" Darkstar interrupted his sentence and kicked him off his knees. He wasn't sure how Destinyflower and Warmtail escaped. It was too highly improbable. He had sent five warriors to go sneak up on them, perhaps the best he knew... and the two brats should have been captured. Maybe even killed!

*"ENOUGH. YOU STUPID WARRIORS DON'T KNOW HOW TO CAPTURE TWO NEWBIES! IDIOTS!*" Darkstar screamed at his highest and most dangerous voice which everyone in the Clan heard, and some kits got scared, some apprentices ran into their mentors' arms.

Out of rage, Darkstar suddenly lunged forward and tore off the throat flesh of Bronzeslope. Bronzeslope screeched and fainted. Everyone saw that happen. "What?!" asked Lynxmoor, another medicine cat. "He's the deputy."

*"SHUT UP, SON,"* replied Darkstar. Everyone became paralyzed in fear, except for Lynxmoor. He just shrugged, and pulled Bronzeslope away. He was bleeding heavily. In a few minutes, he was dead. Darkstar got calmed down by his mate, Purpleslash, the one person he'd never even yell at while he was enraged.

"Well, if Bronzeslope is dead, then you got to pick a new deputy," said Purpleslash. "I'll think about it," said a calm Darkstar.

He fell asleep along with his mate in the leader's den, the one person who'd be allowed to sleep in there. Darkstar imagined he'd wake up immediately, and it'll be day, but no, it went slowly. After a minute into his dream, he seemed to be in a very dark forest, where everything was bare even in green-leaf. "What? Where am I?" he demanded.

A cat came to him. It was Shrewspeck. "Hello, there," he replied.

"Hi," grunted Darkstar confused. "I thought you were dead?"

"This is the dark forest, dad. The perfect place for powerful cats to be," Shrewspeck replied. "When you're dead, anyway." Darkstar blinked a few times to see if where he was was true.

"I have to tell you something," Shrewspeck said. "Yes?" asked Darkstar.

While Purpleslash was awake, she heard Darkstar say in his sleep, "Light may be so intelligent and clever, but dark has the most strength and power. May light end."

"Dark, Darky?!" Purpleslash was saying quietly, but in a trembling voice. She usually called Darkstar by his pet name, and Darkstar called her by her pet name, Purple (which were their rogue names).

Then it all stopped. Darkstar felt like he was falling down from the mist. "AHHH!" he was screaming in terror. Then he landed in somewhere which looked like a battle. He didn't get hurt. But he saw Warmtail and Destinyflower. To his horror, he saw Fierylight perfectly alive and against DarkClan. He was utterly shocked. He also saw his SunClan enemy, Marigoldstar. But he saw Longpaw (as a warrior), Oakbush, his daughter, and Auburnfur, one of the evil cats from SunClan also there on his side, and with some weird looks on their faces.

Darkstar saw they were getting ready to fight. To his most dreadful horror of all in this vision given by the Dark Forest, however, he saw BraveClan, pretty much restored to its original power before their civil battle. They were equal to DarkClan, almost.

"STOP! I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE! I'M NOT READY!" Darkstar yowled in panic. His son took him out of there and back into the mist, and looked quite curious, as if he didn't know his father could ever be so wimpy like this.

"Father, you had to be shown this cruelty to understand what was coming next in Clan history," replied Shrewspeck calmly. "Yes, of course," said Darkstar, taking a deep breath. But it didn't seem very convincing to him. "But can I go now?" he continued.

"Well, it's sun-up, anyway, so time for your waking," was Shrewspeck's rather strange last words. Darkstar woke up, and Purpleslash immediately told him about his words of the dark version of the prophecy. "I know," said Darkstar, to a quite perplexed Purpleslash. "I thought you don't dream-"

"Of course I don't," hissed Darkstar rather calmly. "That message I got was supposed to deliver a prophecy, like the ones StarClan gives." Purpleslash stared at him for a few seconds, and it looked like she was going to talk about the prophecy, but her answer was just, "I'm going to eat a mouse, and then tell stories to the apprentices."

Honestly, Darkstar had no idea what was going on. He knew that StarClan gives prophecies, but he never recalled the Dark Forest doing such sort. And he also saw three other cats from his Clan, and they looked like they were ready for eradication. It was awkward for him, so like Purpleslash, he didn't think about it.

But someday, he thought, Oakbush, Longpaw and Auburnfur should be warned of this, they may be the other four.

### ~~Two moons later~~

Bluntgaze said she was going to go out on patrol, and that was fine for Darkstar. She also said she was going to fight cats. Darkstar had been thinking about making Highjump a deputy. She was good, he thought, but is she as good as Bronzeslope used to be? He had no idea if so, but she did her best to represent her Clan.

So Darkstar did a ceremony, and he chose Highjump as the new deputy. "HIGHJUMP! HIGHJUMP! YOU ARE TO LEAD US!" the Clan chanted. The last part was a DarkClan saying.

Later that day, Bluntgaze didn't come back, though. Darkstar sent a warrior to go check what happened, and he came back saying he found Bluntgaze's dead body in a bush. Darkstar got shocked, and was confused why warriors were dying quicker and getting hurt easier. They are so vulnerable, he thought.

Oakbush picked up a flower, and suddenly, it started shriveling up right before her eyes. The leaves and petals fell off, and turned colorless. The stem looked like it would exist in the undead world. For a moment, Oakbush felt joyous while watching it die, as she loathed plants, she felt like she was powerful among them, until she realized it didn't do that by itself.

"Wait, what? This flower just..." Oakbush was saying, really shocked. She threw it down, inspecting it. Then she looked at her paws. She held onto a leaf on a oak, and thought about that flower which died in her paw, and slowly, the leaf looked like it was in leaf-fall, then it went off the tree. She touched the bark of the oak, and it also looked like the bark was falling off. Then she touched a bush, and the leaves she was touching also withered away.

"Oaks and bushes are fallen plants," said Oakbush, almost maniacally laughing because she can celebrate her severe hatred of plants.

"All cats come for a meeting, please, under my eyes!" boomed Darkstar's voice. *Well, guess I should go back to the camp,* thought Oakbush.

"I forgot to say," started Darkstar, "that I got a message from the Dark Forest." There were gasps and shrieks from the rest of the Clan.

Oakbush recognized she had that dream. Auburnfur and Longpaw confessed they also had that dream. Darkstar looked pretty shocked, and the rest of the Clan stared at the two of them. Oakbush looked back at everything, then she said, "Whatever message the Dark Forest told me, they gave me the power to wither plants." Everybody grew even more wide-eyed.

Later on, Longpaw was training with Purpleslash, his mentor. Halfway into training, she said, "I'm going to get a mouse for each of us. Snack break."

Then Longpaw saw a cat come towards him. It was a rogue. *"HEY! APPRENTICE! HAVE ANY LOOT?!"* it said, and it immediately pounced on Longpaw.

Longpaw yowled at the rogue and stabbed the rogue into the heart. The rogue faltered, and seemed to have died.

"Eh? How'd that happen?" he asked himself. He just shrugged, and scratched the rogue more. It made deep cuts, apparently.

Purpleslash looked shocked when she came back, and immediately left Longpaw and a mouse behind. She told Darkstar, and he was impressed. Longpaw became a warrior, Longfang, even though he was only ten moons old, going on eleven.

Darkstar understood these powers came from the prophecy. While sleeping, he was thinking about the prophecy. *If BraveClan's here, well, this Clan will show them a second time. And we'll check where they'll think we never check if they hide. BraveClan should have disappeared, so we will use our powers... together...*