Once the moon started to rise, Flarestar held her tail over her back, signaling for Sootwhisker and Lakegaze to follow her through the underbrush.

As the heavily scarred leader took the duo further away from camp, she felt herself internally grow anxious, but she could not let her clanmates know, Weakness is a horrible quality to show, after all.

They arrived in a small, lush clearing with a tiny stream cutting through it, most likely connected to the far off quickening rivers. 

“This is where the rogues were spotted last,” Flarestar meowed, “stay alert.”

Both warriors nodded, listening for every little sound. Soon, a rustle from atop a nearby tree brought the clan cats attention.

Lakegaze was the first to to actually see the cat, or rather cats in the oak tree. There was two of them, a light ginger tom, and one of the strange scorpion cats, the yellow and brown one.

“We a-aren't here for a fight,” The monochrome she-cat called, her clanmates quickly spotting the rogues shortly after.

Flarestar continued for the much younger warrior, “we just want to talk, don't worry.”

The yellow cat looked at the orange tom, waiting for a command. once the tom quietly mewwed something to it, it leapt down, it's leader following behind.

Now that the cats were closer, it was much easier to tell what they looked like, the ginger one seemed to be... young, maybe a few moons older than Lakegaze. 

And the scorpion cat, well, the eight, caramel colored eyes were enough to think about. 

“Greetings trespassers,” Sootwhisker growled, his eyes narrowing distrustfully at the strange cats. The scorpion cat growled back at the dark colored tom, but did not speak.

Flarestar glared at Sootwhisker, silently telling him to be quiet. “Rogues,” she addressed, “it appears that you have been trespassing on our territory for some moons now-”

“W-we aren't exactly r-rogues..” the younger tabby squeaked, clearly nervous and afraid, “We prefer the- the term travelers.”

“Right.. travelers then,” Flarestar huffed, “as I was saying, you have been trespassing, stealing prey, and according to my warriors, spying on us.”

The yellow scorpion cat scoffed, “and what gives one group the rights to own a large territory? Shadows sake, who gives you the right to claim live prey and-”

The orange tom quickly slapped his tail over the scorpion cat's mouth, “Coileyes! Hush!” he commanded, anxiously looking back over to the clan cats.

Coileyes, huh... It sounded like a clan name, the leader didn't dwell too long on it though, these cats clearly had not heard of clans before!

“But- uh- we aren't spying! Not purposely, if- if we were, that would... Be bad..” The young tom stuttered, struggling to find words that wouldnt be suspicious.

Flarestar hummed, staring the shorter tabby down, her orange gaze feeling like fire against his fur, “well, since you have not shown yourselves as threats,”

Sootwhisker glanced at Flarestar, she wasn't going to let these cats stay, right? Or ask them to join? They couldn't support more cats! 

“We will be kind, and give you and the other "travellers" that follow you untill sunrise to leave our territory,” the way she spoke was sickeningly sweet and condescending.

“Wh-what! But we don't have any where else to go right now- and one of our cats is going to have kits soon! We can't just leave..”

“Well you will, our territory can't support two groups at the same time,” Sootwhisker hissed, “so either you leave peacefully or we'll make you.”

The young tom grew completely terrified at this. Coileyes took this as a chance to attack, throwing itself at Sootwhisker.

Flarestar intercepted the scorpion cat before they could sting her deputy, getting stung instead, She hissed and doubled over in agony, the damn thing had hit her directly in the chest.

It felt like fire was surging through her veins! She placed her paws over the wound, snarling at the cat who had put her in this intense pain.

Both Sootwhisker and Lakegaze lundged at the scorpion-like feline, tackling it to the ground. Coileyes struggled, attempting to sting on of them but Lakegaze noticed and pinned the tail, keeping it from moving.

“Honey, RUN!” it yowled to it's leader, putting a name to the orange feline's face, And Honey did as told, fleeing into the trees.

-----------------------------------

Oleanderpaw startled awake, again, panting. He still felt like he was falling into the gorge- the darkness consuming him..

The brown tom shook his head, it was early enough for Spiderpaw to be awake, considering she wasn't in her nest. He stretched, trying to force the fresh terror out of his mind.

They glanced over to the other nests, Fennelpaw and Rushpaw were both asleep, and Stormpaw was sitting?.. was she awake? Oh, no she was just sitting while sleeping, face pressed against the wall as she slept.

Oleanderpaw squeezed through the den's entrance as he did every morning. They saw Spiderpaw sitting on a small rock in camp, talking to Owlsoar, who seemed very interested in whatever the younger she-cat was talking about.

He trotted over happily, “Morning, Spiderpaw! And.. Owlsoil? Is that right?.” they guessed.

Spiderpaw snorted at Oleanderpaw's incorrect guess, but Owlsoar didnt seem to get what was funny, and decided to correct Oleanderpaw, “Its Owlsoar, but Good morning anyway!”

Suddenly, two cats bursted into camp, both having to carry the long, ginger she-cat on their backs.

“Flarestar is hurt, We- we need the medicine cats! Immediately!” Lakegaze exclaimed, almost falling over but regaining her stability.

Strawberrymane and Lightningwing, who had been grabbing some prey for the sick cats in their den, rushed over to their injured leader, carefully lowering her off the other cats backs.

“What happened!?” Strawberrymane questioned while lightningwing looked over the passed out body. Lightningwing spotted the wound on her neck, and sniffed it; the potent scent of venom overwhelmed her senses.

“One of those scorpion cats got her..” Sootwhisker explained, ears pinning back while mentioning it.

Starwberrymane was about to ask more questions, but acidflick, who had been nearby growled and spoke up, “ofcourse one of those things attacked her! We shouldve been sent on a battle patrol to chase them out- not just talk with them "peacefully"”

“Acidflick! Shut it,” Sootwhisker commanded his former apprentice, “yelling won't help, nor change what happened.”

Acidflick was about to say something else; Sootwhisker beat hir to it, “now, please, back off.”

Acidflick huffed, but backed away, turning around. The green eyed cat noticed their sibling, and padded over to him.

The two apprentices, and warrior who watched the scene unfold(but hadn't been close enough to hear much), looked worried at the sight of flarestar, and the brown tom approaching.

“What happened to flarestar!? Is she okay?” Spiderpaw questioned.

“No, one of those scorpion tailed foxhearts attacked her! Probably without reason too!”

Oleanderpaw's long ears pinned back, so one of those... Things could've attacked me?.. thought the young apprentice.

“So did one of em... sting her? Honestly, I thought their tails were more for show rather than anything,” Owlsoar commented, tilting her head.

Acidflick ignored Owlsoar, tail lashing, “Ugh! It's just so unfair... It feels like Flarestar has no confidence in us- and other warriors too I guess!”

Oleanderpaw listened to his sibling's rant, he didn't really disagree with Acidflick, but he didn't think that Flarestar didn't believe in her clan, she seemed reasonable and caring from the few interactions he had with her.

Spiderpaw rolled her eyes at Acidflick, she thought the warrior was just spitting non-sense, even if she didn't like Flarestar, what he was saying didn't make much sense. honestly, to spiderpaw, Flarestar was overconfident in her clan, despite having the smallest amount of territory compared to the other two clans.

The dark colored she-cat looked over to oleanderpaw and made a gesture, quietly asking if he wanted to ditch the ranting warrior.

Oleanderpaw nodded, while they cared for and looked up to their brother, he was getting a bit... Aggressive.

The two apprentices quietly, but quickly walked away, Acidflick didn't seem to notice, still mindlessly ranting about the scorpion cats and Flarestar's "poor" decision.

This proved to be a good time, because Rushpaw and Stormpaw were emerging from the apprentices den. “Dont be mad that your snoring woke me up!” Stormpaw swiped at Rushpaw's ear.

“Well, you didn't have to wake me up, you could've just, oh I don't know, leave me alone and let me sleep peacefully,” Rushpaw grumbled, annoyed by his sister.

“Hey Stormpaw, Rushpaw,” Spiderpaw greeted the freshly awaken siblings, “Im assuming you don't know what happened to Flarestar unless you have secretly been space cats this entire time, lurking among us and gaining information for your clan in the stars that ISNT starclan-” Spiderpaw was starting to ramble, so Oleanderpaw nudged her, snapping her out of it.

“Flarestar got attacked by the rogues, she's in the medicine den,” Oleanderpaw simply explained.

“Thats terrible!” Stormpaw meowed, Rushpaw looked... Unfazed, and shrugged.

Fennelpaw approached them, he had also just woken up, “Spides, you owe me half-a-mouse,” he said, giving her a his smuggest look.”

The black she-cat gasped in mock offense, “We made that bet sunrises ago-”

Rushpaw, Oleanderpaw, and Stormpaw were all confused, but Fennelpaw explained once he noticed, “Spiderpaw and I made a bet, if the rogues were peaceful, if Spiderpaw win, and got half of my freshkill, and if the rogues were violent, I win, which I have.”

“Ohh, that makes sense,” Stormpaw meowed, seemingly forgetting about the whole... Flarestar getting attacked.

---

A/N: sorry that this chapter took so long! I kept losing motivation and getting distracted, hopefully the next chapter i write won't take as long. As usual please inform if I made any spelling errors or anything other mistakes!