Look What You've Done (open for TC)

Cloudstorm looked on again horrified. "H-he doesn't c-care about o-our k-kits..?" She choked out. She felt like her world was ending and her throats was slowly caving in on itself and the only way to save it was speak.

Sandblaze rolled his eyes. "Of course he doesn't. He only had you have kits to spite me! He never loved you either. He'd do anything to keep his friends close even if he has to make them his mate! He was manipulating you the entire time Cloudstorm." The fluffy red tom meowed.

Stonestrike winced at his brothers harsh words. Yes they were true but Cloudstorm was innocent and naïve.

Twistedtail huffed as Brindlewhisker pushed her out of the way of Rockthorn. She considered snapping at the cat for pushing her away as she was protecting her leader, but simply observed their fight from the ground. She didn't know any way she could have contributed to this. Looking around, she noticed Blacktwig coming in. Getting up, she mouthed "Father!" and smiled nervously.

Twistedpaw...? Daughter! Oh, you must be a warrior by now, mouthed Blacktwig back, although the sentence was so complex that he couldn't imagine how Twistedtail would decipher it. He just clamped his jaws shut and regarded her warmly, wishing that he could speak with her personally. Not until this ordeal is over, he reminded himself.

For several seconds, Blizzardshine resembled more an statue than a living being, eyes wide open with shock and mouth half/open with words that would never be formulated by her still tongue. It was true that Rockthorn had done terrible things, that he was a danger for the forest wherever he could be…but death penalty was something that the kindhearted she-cat would had never considered as an option so solve this situation.

Closing her eyes slowly and looking down, she did her best to gulp down the lump that she was feeling in her throat, a bitter taste filling her mouth as her already troubled emotions became nothing but chaos as her own moral code was put to the test. The idea of killing a cat was already bad enough for her, but doing it right in front of his mate and kits? He may not really care for them, he could be more like a monster than an actual cat at the time, but even knowing this wasn’t making it any easier for Blizzardshine.

It took her some time and several deep breaths to recover, her eyes first landing on Darkstar. She was being forced to kill the cat that had been like her very own son, she couldn’t even guess what she was going through at the time…and for the first time her mind was left without ideas and her mouth without words, rendering her unable to help a clanmate. Her gaze then traveled to Cloudstorm, though her eyes avoided her gaze. Losing her mate in such an awful way, knowing that he never truly loved you to begin with, and be forced to watch your own kits grow without a father…

And finally, her eyes fell of Falconpaw and Hawkpaw when the older’s voice reached her ears. She still could remember the promise she had made to him, to help him find a way to help Rockthorn and lead him out from the darkness that was engulfing him. A promise she wouldn’t be able to fulfill…dear StarClan, how she could’ve been so blind to how deep Rockthorn had dug this hole?

With a deep sigh and a conflicted gaze, she sat silently with her long fluffy tail covering her front paws, trying to put her own thoughts in order while watching the events develop in front of her. This event was going to haunt her for the next couple moons, she could tell…

Rockthorn watched in cold silence as Falconpaw spat and hissed at him, he was stiff and everything seemed to fall away. Rockthorn looked down at Falconpaw with a stillness in his gaze, then he smiled. It was genuine and soft for a moment before he nodded and as he turned away from the younger tom his smile started to vanish as he turned to look at Cloudstorm and her brothers. "I was scared to loose a friend, that's right. But now I feel nothing but hate and disgust for you and our kits. I want you and them all to know that daddy will never love them. That when he looks at them he just wants to rid of them." Rockthorn hissed, a false kindness to his voice as he then turned to Lionspark.

"You tried to make me something I was not, I'm not to be fixed now." Rockthorn snorted, his nose wrinkling with his disgust as he padded up to Darkstar. "I've seen you as if you were my mother by blood, but I see now that a mother would not neglect their kit so much as you had. I guess loosing that leg had made you less of a cat." The tom vengefully spat, in his eyes. Everyone that was alive that had done him wrong was here. "Every cat that still lives in some way had done me wrong is here. Hawkpaw, Leopardclaw, Darkstar, Falconpaw, Blizzardshine." Rockthorn turned to Blizzardshine, his fur spiking as he spat her name.

"A cat who defends a cat whom tried to assassinate me! A cat that tried to rake claws through my throat for sins I did not intend to commit seasons ago out of self-defense! Any cat would go crazy when there was no justice to be served to scum like him! Yet here we are, I've maimed an apprentice and tried to commit murder against Leopardclaw and his kitten Cherrykit. And there is justice at the entrance! This system is flawed! If this continues, then there will be more cats like me with the blood lust that there is no mercy for your kittens." The grey tom snapped and raved, his tail lashing.

How Rockthorn spoke sounded eerily like a fare-well, and he guessed that in a way it was but not how the cats of Thunderclan or Windclan would expect. There would be no more of his blood spilled that day. Spinning on his paws he shot towards Ashstar, claws unsheathed he gave a mighty leap his paws smacking against her face as he crashed into the camp exit. He was glad that Windclan was so close to the entrance, due to being so unused to the territory they would block the way and slow down the rest of Thunderclan as he made his escape. He knew where the wild garlic was, so he'd head for that to hide his scent. He'd make sure to get out of the territory as fast as possible, but he was injured so he was going to have to be smart about how he continued.

Rockthorn soon made it into the wild garlic, giving a quick tuck and roll into it before firing off. Making zig zags and making it into the most dense of the undergrowth, diving into old badger and fox sets and collapsing them as much as he could behind him. His heart pounded hard in his chest as his ears tilted back to listen for the crashing of a pursuing patrol of angry cats, he just hoped that he lost them. Logically, he would not be found, the stink of wild-garlic, badger and fox scents enough to loose even the most experienced tracker.

Smokepaw entered the clearing from a patrol with Ambernose "What in starclan's name is all this commotion about?!" he yowled to the fighting cats

Cloudstorm hissed and dug her claws into the earth angrily. She narrowed her eyes and her eyes lost their innocent light and was now replaced with a broken glass type of look.

Darkstar's ear kept flickering towards the medicine den, waiting for Sparkflower to appear, but to no avail. She watched and listened as Rockthorn spilled his sins for all to see. His turn to incriminate her soon came around and she heard what she expected. "What did you expect me to do?" She murmured, gazing at him with a pained look on her face. The leader wasn't as wise as he thought her to be, she was the youngest out of all five, for StarClan's sake! Sure, she'd been in her position longer than Ashstar and Leopardstar, but both were far older. She had no solution to his problems. Alarm shot through her body when he made a dash into the territory and she stumbled to her paws.

He was loose in the forest.

Her gaze quickly shifted to the WindClan leader. "Ashstar, from this moment on I and all of ThunderClan will consider him a highly dangerous rogue. I suggest you do not..." She swallowed. "...Do not have mercy on him." She then turned to the rest of her Clan.

"Even if he was once our Clanmate, if any of you scent Rockthorn, alert me or Blizzardshine immediately. From now on no cat is to leave camp alone, for their own safety." For a moment Darkstar mulled over what to say next. Oh, her son still smelled of ThunderClan for the time being. "Blizzardshine. The other clans must be warned; patrols have to be sent out as soon as possible." She was making her own son the most wanted cat in the forest. 'He's no better than Bear now.'

With a surprised gasp, Leopardclaw jumped to his paws and chased after Rockthorn as the dangerous tom made a dash for the exit. Come back you coward! You need to pay for what you've done to us! Tensing his jaw, the golden tom's hazel eyes narrowed as he was just too slow to catch the gray tabby cat, and watched as his enemy, the cat who had tried to murder him and his family on multiple occasions, slipped away. As Rockthorn charged away, Leopardclaw watched with a furiously lashing tail until the tom's tail-tip vanished into the ferns.

Breathing hard, the young warrior felt a strange numbness rise in his chest, an almost suffocating feeling that he didn't understand. It wasn't anger, or sadness, or confusion; but a mix of all of those that somehow felt completely different. Turning away from the camp entrance, he listened distantly as Darkstar explained the situation to the WindClan cats, not able to take his frantically startled eyes off of his paws.

At the mention of patrols though, he seemed to snap out of his trance and step forward. Though he made an effort to appear calm, the spotted tabby's voice shook with a strange hint of pain, and his eyes swam with the depth of his trauma. "I..I can lead a patrol Darkstar." Taking a moment to snatch a glance over to the nursery, where he knew his mate and kits rested, and the thought that they were so close to danger sickened him. A stubborn resolve flooding onto his expression, it was clear that even if she refused to send him he would go anyway. I will not rest until that unholy beast is driven away from my family forever!

Twistedtail stumbled to her feet in horror as Rockthorn leaped for the entrance, striking Ashstar as he went running into the forest. "A-are you okay Ashstar?" she fretted. Giving a glare towards the entrance of the Thunderclan camp. "I'm going to tear that bloody rogue's pelt apart," she growled as she scraped her claws against the ground. Turning back quickly to Darkstar she said, "Th-thank you for treating us nicely when we came looking for Rockthorn." Turning back, she gave Brindlewhisker a desperate look, seeking the deputy's help for this situation.

"Huh? A-Ah, what is this about?!" asked Blacktwig, alarmed. Ever since his accident, he had the memory of an elder. His ears flattened against his skull. "I can't remember anything nowadays... nonetheless, I'll keep a lookout for Rockthorn." Blacktwig may be forgetful, but he wasn't mousebrained. Rockthorn was dangerous now.

Ashstar was taken aback as Rockthorn leapt at her, paws smacking her face. Her well-trained claws reflexively reached out to tear his pelt even as she recoiled from the pain of the psychotic ThunderClan tom's sudden leap, but- somehow?!- they missed, and the monster ran off scot-free into the forest. No! Snarling with rage, the WindClan leader blinked blood from her eyes and shot to her paws, ready to chase after the monster who had hurt Shadepaw and even his own Clanmates, ready to give him the death he so richly deserved. But Twistedtail was in the way, and the moment was lost. No! No, no, no! The gray-furred she-cat sat back down, staring furiously in the direction the rogue had gone. The words spoken by the other cats slipped past her ears as she berated herself. Mousebrain, mousebrain, mousebrain! You let him get away! Now Rockthorn, that violent, Dark Forest worthy tom, was loose in the forest. Who knew what other havoc he'd wreak? How many other cats he'd hurt? She should have stopped him. I had him! I had him under my claws! Not even wincing at the cuts on her face, Ashstar stood up, spring green eyes flat and emotionless, hiding her inner anger at both Rockthorn and herself. "WindClan, we're done here," she said shortly. "Let's go home." The fluffy gray she-cat walked out of ThunderClan camp without further ado, striding purposefully forward, ready to be out of the stifling forest with its tall, mocking trees. The fox-heart was gone. Only StarClan knew what he'd do next.