Nothing Can Stop Me Now[OPEN]

Beepaw was angry. At Blizzardshine, at Marshstorm, at Leopardstar, and especially at Bearpaw. Sparrowfeather the NPC had gone off on her own to hunt and now here they were at the river. "Hey, Bearpaw," He called with a come-look-at-this voice. He could sense Bearpaw walking closer, interested. He whirled around and tackled the tom with all of his strength. "You need a lesson." The white cat snarled. "You think you can come sauntering in and steal into my family, my Clan, my home? You're not worthy of being a Clan cat. Look at you! Seven claws and those stupid fangs?" He spat. "You were obviously sent here by the Dark Forest. And I'm here to send you back!" As he spoke, his fury only got larger.

The massive tabby apprentice was skilled at doing his duty. That was what he managed, what he did. Day in and day out, Bearpaw did what needed to be done. He usually ran extra patrols, Marshstorm willing, and cared for the elders in the last strands of daylight while he could still manage to stand on all four paws. It was because of this that his path often crossed with many other cats from the clan. His adopted siblings were not exempt from this. Much to his dis-ease, Beepaw or Pricklepaw were usually accompanying him. Not that he held disdain for them, but they for him, and it was unpleasant.

Today was one of those days. So far, with the warrior accompanying them, things had been decent. Although Beepaw seemed like he had something stuck in his fur, the anger was palpable in the air. Bearpaw shrugged it off and kept to his tasks. When Sparrowfeather padded away, he thought nothing of it. That was, until, the white apprentice was barreling into him spitting in his face. Stumbling slightly, it took a moment to regain balance. He hadn't noticed the initial words, distracted. The tom's ears flattened involuntarily. It was unexpected. As the other cat went off he said nothing and maintained a neutral expression. He always knew Beepaw hated him but this was a lot. His chest felt uneasy at the venom directed towards him but he showed no outward expression.

"Beepaw, I have no idea what you're going on about. But we are clanmates. You do not fight with clanmates." With a low tone, his claws tensed into the ground and he tried to force himself to relax. This wasn't an enemy cat, this was his adoptive kin, his clanmate, right?

Beepaw hissed, seething and unwilling to see sense. "Sure, and I'll just let you go then. Because you're no danger at all. Yeah, right. No, I'm smarter than that. I don't fall for this little innocence game." He refused to let up. Bearpaw was evil, and remarkably kept his cool, but it wasn't musch longer. Surely he'd be angry to have been caught.

The tabby wasn't sure what had prompted this. But his claws found their place in the soft earth, holding in feelings of confusion and frustration. He tried to force some concern into his normally unreadable expression. Bearpaw's voice was honest as it rumbled, "What do you think I did?" His mind raced. For a moment a laugh almost escaped from the side of his mouth. Was this all a joke? Beepaw's rage was normally there but not this volatile, boiling. The anger seemed to burn irrationally throughout his chest. Flicking the tip of his tail, the apprentice glanced around hoping to catch sight of the patrol leader. But there was no such luck.

"We have to finish our patrol. This can wait." Outside of border skirmishes, Bearpaw had no idea how to handle confrontation. It was simply something that he did not know what to do with. Although the tom turned to leave, he kept his side turned towards his adoptive sibling and kept his guard up. If only Blizzardshine were here to dispel the tension. He had never prayed to Starclan before like most cats but he found himself considering it now. There was no way he wanted this to escalate.

"No, it can't!"

Beepaw wasn't going to let him get away. Not for another day. That would not be tolerated, and the white tom knew exactly how to fix that. He would kill Bearpaw. It was that simple. And to justify it, he'd put other, shallow scratches on Bearpaw, to show he didn't want to hurt him. And use Bearpaw's finally dead claws to scratch himself. And the Clan would know that Bearpaw had tried to kill him. It was only a matter of time, anyway. Beepaw just saw it clearly. So to save himself and many other cats, he was doing this, now. The tom launched forward to make a killing blow, but before he could make it the other tom just... turned away? Confused, Beepaw opened his mouth to breathe in and speak. His foot fell down an old snake hole, stuck firmly. And he had just breathed in the water of the river. That stupid tom! That stupid seven-clawed murderous foxheart had done this on purpose! He was... Making him drown... Beepaw tried to pull out and get free, but he was stuck tight. The panic of his last moments left his lungs screaming in pain, and his brain screaming in fury. And the first of Blizzardshine's kits had died. The tom had gone limp, and the world went on. The dark red sunshine drenched the area in place of blood.

Beepaw stood up, furious. He had died! He had died! Whatever. He'd just watch it all from Starclan, licking his paws and saying he'd called it.

Life sucked. Not only had his mentor been exiled, so he had to train mostly on his own, but that idiot Bearpaw had been getting more and more friends beside just his mother and the deputy, plus more things besides. The faint red glow on the sky made him feel unsettled and threw off his hunting, and worst of all, Chervilpaw was... dead. The usually upbeat tom felt dark and brooding as he strode through the forest, barely sparing a passing glance for the border line. He loved his Clan, but serving it was becoming more and more difficult. He was just an apprentice! Why did life have to be so hard? Little did he know how much worse it was about to get.

The overly large tom was shaken out of his mood as he heard a familiar voice yowl. What- was that Beepaw? Suddenly filled with an overwhelming alarm, he raced in the direction of the sound, noting that it came from the river. Was his brother fighting intruders? Maybe a fox? He could lend him a paw! Nothing prepared him for the sight he walked in on, one that made him atop short in astonishment.

Floating in the river, ears barely above the surface, was a strangely familiar white body. Limp. Dead. His brother.

"Beepaw!" Pricklepaw's agonized yowl strained the thickly silent air as he began racing towards the tom, filled with some vain hope that maybe he could still save the tom. This couldn't be happening! He couldn't lose two cats that he loved! But before he could reach the river, he ran straight into another cat that he hadn't seen in his panic. His green eyes blinked twice before seeing who it was. Grotesque mouth, overlarge fangs, extra toes- it was Bearpaw. But... why was he walking away? Why did he look so shaken, almost guilty? Why had Beepaw been shouting? Why had he gone into the river? Heart pounding, blood boiling, the apprentice looked back and forth from the waterlogged white body to the tom who had always been at odds with them. None of this made sense, unless... unless it wasn't an accident.

Realization set in. "You killed him!" Voice breaking with emotion, Pricklepaw backed up in horror, eyes wide with disbelief. He'd never liked the tom, but he never would have thought this of him! His own Clanmate- his family, if Blizzardshine was to be believed. What sort of monster had shared his mother's nest?! "You murdered him! You murdered my brother! You fox-heart! How could you, Bearpaw?!" Yelling louder than his voice could bear, all his pain and rage and grief hurled through the air in a deafening roar towards the big brown tabby in front of him, the fluffy tan tom's eyes filled with blinding tears. His claws unsheathed, ready to defend himself if necessary, he stood rooted to the spot, staring with revulsion at the tom who had been his Clanmate. How could he? Beepaw, oh, Beepaw was dead... and he had been right all along.

His chest tightened as Beepaw yowled. The last thing he wanted to do was fight a cat he considered his kin, even if that same cat wanted to claw the ears from his head. Bearpaw's tail flicked once again and he considered running off to find the patrol leader. Infighting was not to his liking. Before he could turn away there was a splashing sound. Whipping his head around, the bulky apprentice's eyes widened in horror. Among the rushing current was the now soaked form of Beepaw. Words almost formed on his maw but at the terrible sight before him, nothing came. For a moment his ears pounded with the sound of the water as he stared on. How had this happened? It was simply supposed to be a patrol, not this.

To make matters worse, the scene was interrupted by the presence of another cat... Pricklepaw. Bearpaw wanted to groan aloud, a mixture of pain and fear coursing through his veins, but instead his claws just dug deep into the soil. A slew of accusations flew from the mouth of Beepaw's brother. Bearpaw didn't move a muscle and allowed the words to die out into the light breeze. Ice froze his body and he simply stared at the late Beepaw. This couldn't be real. No way. He blinked slowly. Everything was still there. His eyes darted to Pricklepaw's unsheathed paws before glancing up to meet the eyes of the other apprentice. Despite body language or expression not revealing much of anything, the green of his eyes was almost pleading in nature. Begging Pricklepaw not to attack.

"I didn't do anything. I don't know what happened." He confessed, not quite choking on the words but each seemed to stick on his tongue. What would Blizzardshine say? The thought of her grief and that of his other siblings was almost too much to even consider. The patrol leader was not far off either. Would this be considered her fault? He never thought too much about anything but all at once the tabby tom's mind was wrought with worry. So many concerns of the things that would be over what just happened. Shock crowded his mind and made it difficult to move so instead he just fixated back on the limp frame of Beepaw. Please believe me.

He didn't even try to offer an explanation or justification! The blatant lies that found their way out of Bearpaw's mouth just made him more certain of the tom's guilt. His brother deserved more than this... an undignified death at the paws of a mere apprentice. Beepaw had been destined for greatness, and now he would never have that. Because of this mongrel. But despite the rage and grief flowing through his veins, he couldn't make himself attack the large brown tom. He just couldn't do it. Everything inside him was screaming for there to be justice for his brother, blood for blood and death for death, but... something stopped him.

This wasn't his place to decide. He didn't have the right to offer justice for Beepaw's life by claiming Bearpaw's. As much as he disliked the tom, and hated him for the abomination he'd committed, he refused to sully his claws with the filthy blood that ran through his veins. Leopardstar would throw him out for that, and he would deserve it. Blizzardshine's heart will be broken enough to learn about Beepaw, and Bearpaw's crime... don't make her hurt more. Despite his often unkind and abrupt nature, he loved his mother. He loved his family and his Clan with a fierce passion that was integral to his being, even now, when sorrow and anger threatened to overtake every one of his senses. He couldn't kill Bearpaw. It was wrong.... But so was what the fox-hearted tom had done. Immediately, a solution became clear.

Pricklepaw's eyes narrowed, and he moved past the long-fanged tom towards the white form floating slowly down the river. Using all his not-unconsiderable strength to hoist the tom's body out, he turned and glared at the other apprentice, eyes white-hot points of fury. "I'm going to bring him back to camp so that he can be mourned, so that Blizzardshine can know her real son is dead," he growled quietly, voice barely audible. "So that Leopardstar and Marshstorm know what you've done." Grieving silently, the tan apprentice grabbed his dead brother's scruff in his mouth and began the long march back to camp. There would be justice for Beepaw, if he had anything to say about it.

And believe me, I do.