Omen of the Sun Book Three: Dusk

Chapter Forty-Five

Cinderstorm

Cinderstorm stood at the border, shoulder to shoulder with FlowerClan warriors she didn't know the name of and watched as cats came over the slope. Nobody spoke.

Finally, CloudClan drew to a stop. Cinderstorm realized that CloudClan had more cats than them, because, as Sunpool had predicted, they had BreezeClan on their side, too.

However, as her eyes flicked over the faces of her former Clanmates, Cinderstorm couldn't see Applestar. She saw plenty of other familiar faces, like Greenflower, her former mentor, and Amberclaw, her father (skim, skim, skim), and - she swallowed hard - her sister, Frostcloud. All these people important to her past were suddenly on the opposite end of a battlefield from her. She had never thought she'd be in this situation. Even when she joined Sunpool's group, she hadn't realized that one day, soon, she might have had to fight her family. To hurt them.

She almost turned, but held her ground. This was important. They were choosing to stand on the side of Applestar, who killed and hurt and betrayed. They had made their own decisions. She had made hers.

Steeling herself, she continued down the line, recognizing every CloudClan cat she saw, and even a few of the BreezeClan cats. Finally, she landed on the middle of the line: Applestar.

They reached the border, and Applestar moved closer, malice shining in her eyes. "Why, hello," she said smoothly, a smile not reaching her eyes. "I see you've anticipated us. Great. But where is Sunpool? Is your fearless leader hiding at home?"

"Actually," came Sunpool's voice from behind them, "I'm right here."

Cinderstorm fought the urge to turn, knowing that would just make her look bad. Sunpool broke through the line, her head high, her tail whipping from side to side. Her eyes shone in the half-light. The sky had stopped exploding, but Cinderstorm swore she could almost see the cacophonies of booms and collection of colors in them. Sunpool raised her chin at Applestar. "The half-moon or so away's been nice. Too bad I have to see you again."

"I could say the same about you." Applestar smiled again. Then her expression grew more serious. "So, are we going to end this now?"

"I suppose we are," Sunpool purred, and the lines exploded.

Applestar had clearly told her cats to attack when Sunpool replied to her statement, because they moved as one. They leaped onto Sunpool's lines, and Cinderstorm found herself locked in battle with a gingery tom from BreezeClan. She didn't know the cat, so she was able to attack without guilt. The tom was bigger than her, so when he leaped on her, his weight made her fall back. She hissed with pain as his claws dug into her side, and aimed her paw at his head. She had been going for eye, but he jerked back just in time, so her claws only hit his nose. Even though they didn't hit his eyes, blood welled up on his nose. He snarled, but recoiled slightly. Cinderstorm pushed her advantage and wriggled out from underneath him while he was distracted.

He pounded after her, rearing up onto his hind paws and slashing out. Cinderstorm's eyes flicked to his legs and wondered if she could unbalance him. Resolving to try, she ducked beneath him. She had meant to preform the move so quickly that he wouldn't be able to do anything, but he saw her move and dropped down to crush her. Cinderstorm was trapped under him as he began to rip his claws across her exposed tail. Clumps of fur were ripped out, and Cinderstorm yowled into his fur. That was a bad move, she realized after a moment, as it cut off the last bit of air she'd had. And it wasn't like she was going to get any from his pelt. Quickly, she clamped her jaws shut, and a bit of his fur got caught between her jaws and tickled her mouth.

Bite him! She realized, and hurriedly went through with the plan, twisting her neck so she could bite harder and sinking her jaws into his soft underbelly.

The tom let out a howl, and blood pooled onto Cinderstorm. He jerked off of her, letting out low whines of agony. Cinderstorm sucked in a breath of air and turned, darting into the fray. She knew the tom would realize he was too badly injured to continue with the battle, and set off to find someone she could help.

Wasp was screeching as two cats attacked her from either side. Cinderstorm, without thinking, leaped into the battle, attacking the cat on the right. The fur color looked familiar, and suddenly, she realized that she was attacking Skypelt: Sunpool's old mentor.

Skypelt snarled as Cinderpelt thudded into her. Cinderpelt hoped Skypelt wouldn't recognize her, but just in case, she moved as fast as she could. Her tail throbbed where the BreezeClan cat had sliced it, and she knew she was bleeding from cuts, but she darted around as quickly as she could. She moved in once, and aimed a blow at Skypelt's ears, then moved back. She moved a little to the right, then moved in again, this time with a slice to Skypelt's stomach. Skypelt snarled, and leaped at Cinderstorm when she was moving back. The force of her leap and Cinderstorm already moving back made it easy for Cinderstorm's head to thud hard into the ground.

Cinderstorm blinked hard, seeing stars. She moved her head to the side as Skypelt sent blows to her face, and summoned as much strength as she could. She whipped her hind legs upward, slamming her hind paws into Skypelt's chin and snapping her head back, then rolled back into a standing position.

Skypelt snarled, and her eyes met Cinderstorm's. Suddenly, Skypelt seemed to recognize Cinderstorm, and her eyes narrowed even more. "I remember you," she hissed. "It should be easy to kill you."

She lunged for Cinderstorm again. Cinderstorm, however, had anticipated it, and acted on a thought that had struck her when Skypelt had spoken. Just leap up. She pushed her legs downward and gathered energy, then released and lifted into the air. Skypelt, who had been aiming for her, stopped almost directly under her. Cinderstorm dropped down onto Skypelt's back, and thought that would be the end of it.

However, Skypelt rolled her over, letting out a hiss of pain, probably at Cinderstorm's weight on her back. And there they were again, with Cinderstorm under Skypelt.

Skypelt smirked, and raised a claw, and Cinderstorm knew it was going to be a killing blow. This wasn't the Skypelt she had known for moons and moons, who had trained her best friend. This was a colder, different Skypelt.

As Skypelt's claw came down, Cinderstorm jerked to the side and a desperate bid to avoid it, but the blow never came fully down. Suddenly, Skypelt's weight was removed from her, and Cinderstorm scrambled to her paws.

Wasp had come in and intercepted it, and her jaws were at Skypelt's. Blood was seeping onto the ground, and it was from a wound in Skypelt's neck. Stepping back, Wasp watched the blood flow onto the ground. Skypelt twitched once. Then she was dead.

Cinderstorm tried to feel something, but all she felt was a small prickle of betrayal. She had never thought Skypelt would try to hurt her. Ever.

She blinked at Wasp. "T-thank you."

"You're welcome. She was going to kill you," Wasp replied.

"I know," Cinderstorm said, nodding once. She averted her eyes from Skypelt's body. "She trained Sunpool."

Wasp's eyes went wide for a moment, then returned back to normal size. "Well, I hope Sunpool didn't turn out like her."

"She didn't," Cinderstorm promised. "Oh no. She didn't."

Let's count the amount of times I wrote Cinderpelt instead of Cinderstorm!

(There shouldn't be any because I caught myself.)

I dunno though, I was pretty out of it today with writing, I keep miswriting things and just generally failing. Nice job, Holly!

I'll try and do another update today, it's not like I'm doing anything anyway XD

~✨🐱✨ Rainfeather ✨🐱✨