#I'm rewriting Firestar's whole nine lives ceremony as its own post so things will be explained more there

[warriors-rewritten-chaos]

Detailed Rewrite Plot Summary: The Darkest Hour

We’ve made it to the first arc’s grand finale! 

Fireheart, now Firestar, becomes ThunderClan’s new Leader and journeys to the Moonstone to receive his nine lives from StarClan. The lives he receives are: Courage (Lionheart), Justice (Redtail), Loyalty (Silverstream), Protection (Brindleface), Love (Spottedleaf), Joy (Rosetail), Selflessness (Swiftpaw), Compassion (Volewhisper), and Faith (Bluestar). However, his ceremony is interrupted at the end by a colossal hill of blood-soaked cat bones erupting from the earth around him. Bluestar gives him a foreboding prophecy: “Four will become two. Lion and Tiger will meet in battle, and Blood will rule the forest”. Firestar returns to ThunderClan, stomach churning with anxiety and dread.

Once he returns, he names Whitestorm as his Deputy, performs a renaming ceremony for the cats Bluestar cruelly named, and names Willowmoon’s kits apprentices at long last. Brightheart, Snowpaw, and Cinderspark’s names are cheered by the entire Clan. So are Sorrelpaw, Sootpaw, and Rainpaw, who are given Cloudtail, Cinderspark, and Brightheart as their mentors. Firestar also names Bramblepaw and Tawnypaw apprentices, but the Clan is much less enthusiastic and happy about the two of them. The two of them are disliked and distrusted for being Tigerstar’s kits and having a strong resemblance to their biological father. Firestar declares that he will mentor Bramblepaw personally, while he chooses the unenthusiastic Willowmoon to mentor Tawnypaw. Before the ceremony ends, Lynxtuft and Ashfur approach and ask for their names to be changed to Lynxswift and Ashface in honor of their recently deceased loved ones. Firestar happily does so.

Also around this time, Firestar confesses his love to Sandstorm. She admits that she feels the same, but she cannot become his mate. She tells him that it’s obvious Firestar still harbors romantic feelings for Graystripe. It isn't that she has an issue with polyamory (such relationships, while rare, are considered perfectly normal in the Clans) but she does have an issue with the fact that Graystripe is now a RiverClan cat and their relationship would thus break the Warrior Code and get the three of them into major trouble. She tells him to figure himself out first.

At the next Gathering, Tigerstar and Leopardstar ask that WindClan and ThunderClan join their new combined version of ShadowClan and RiverClan, dubbed TigerClan. Naturally, the other two Clans refuse and a fight ensues that nearly escalates into a full-on battle before a storm comes rolling in and blots out the moon, ending the Gathering early again.

To try to clear his mind, Firestar goes for a walk by his old kittypet home. What he discovers are terrified kittypets refusing to leave their homes due to the threat of a violent group that now fully controls Twolegplace- The Coven of Blood, and stray cats fleeing the city en-masse. Firestar checks on Smudge, Hattie, and Princess to make sure they’re safe before he heads to Henry, Ferris, Pollyanna, and Xena’s home. The first thing he notices once he gets there is that the two sisters are heavily bandaged and smell like Twoleg medicine and that their parents are nowhere to be seen. They begin sobbing when he asks them what happened and where Ferris and Henry are but he learns the horrifying story through their tears.

Around a week ago, the family had gone out by the forest for their morning walk and had been accosted by a strange tom who smelled like the forest. None of them knew who the tom was themselves, but he seemed to have recognized them. He was hostile from the get-go but became enraged when they told him they had no idea who he was when he asked them. He tore up Xena and Pollyanna, but didn't kill them. Instead, he told them to leave, never approach the forest again, and that “this is what the Clans do to traitors”. The sisters had been forced to leave their fathers behind to flee for their own lives as they were viciously torn apart. When Firestar asks what the cat looked like, the description they give is of Tigerstar in everything but name. Firestar then returns to camp more concerned and troubled than before.

Also around this point is when Tawnypaw vanishes and reappears in ShadowClan, having chosen to try to find acceptance through joining a Clan that reveres her father after reaching her breaking point in ThunderClan. Firestar and Goldenflower comfort the devastated Bramblepaw.

Soon after, Ravenpaw comes hurrying into the ThunderClan camp asking to see Firestar. Apparently, they had gone to RiverClan to see Graystripe and his now apprenticed kits after paying their respects to Bluestar but instead stumbled upon a terrifying sight: Stonefur, Mistyfoot, Graystripe, Featherpaw, and Willowpaw are being held prisoner in the RiverClan camp. The group managed to sneak a message for help out via Ravenpaw, which is what he’s delivering to Firestar. Firestar mounts a rescue mission and when the group arrives things are just starting to go sideways.

Tigerstar and Leopardstar are putting the five prisoners on trial, denouncing them as half-clan cats (non-RiverClan in Graystripe’s case) and therefore Codebreakers and traitors who must be harshly punished. Stonefur and Mistyfoot are ordered to execute Graystripe, Willowpaw, and Featherpaw to put themselves back in TigerClan’s good graces, but they refuse to do so. Tigerstar then orders Darkstripe to kill them, but Darkstripe is a wimp and Stonefur and Mistyfoot are still formidable opponents despite their weakened state and together they fight him off. Tigerstar then calls in Blackfoot to finish the job. While this is happening, Firestar’s patrol consisting of himself, Ravenpaw, Sandstorm, Cloudtail, Thornclaw, and Dustpelt creates a diversion and manages to successfully rescue Mistyfoot, Graystripe, Willowpaw, and Featherpaw. Stonefur chooses to remain behind to buy them enough time to flee and is slaughtered by Blackfoot as the others make their escape.

While the four refugees are recovering in ThunderClan and mourning the death of Stonefur, Firestar gets another urgent message, this time from the WindClan Warrior Runningbrook who was sent as a messenger. WindClan is under attack by TigerClan, who have mobilized and are attempting to force them to join under threat of destruction. While Firestar gathers another patrol and rushes to their aid, by the time he gets there TigerClan has gone. While WindClan had managed to fight them off somehow, Tigerstar had publicly killed Gorsepaw, who Firestar had an attachment to, as a warning of what was to come if they didn't join TigerClan peacefully. Grief-stricken Onewhisker snarls at his former friend, telling Firestar that his apprentice would still be alive if Firestar hadn’t gotten unnecessarily involved with WindClan and says he’ll kill him if he ever sees him on WindClan territory again. 

TigerClan sends messengers informing ThunderClan and WindClan that they have just three days left to join TigerClan and avoid a deadly battle.

Tallstar, Nightoak, Whitestorm, and Firestar meet and discuss what they’re going to do. Neither WindClan or ThunderClan has any intention of joining TigerClan, but all agree that if they fight alone they will be overwhelmed and destroyed. They make the decision to temporarily combine their fighting forces into one that they name LionClan. On the dawn of the third day, Firestar and Tallstar mobilize their Warriors to meet TigerClan head-on.

Upon reaching the battlefield, they find a third group has joined forces with TigerClan- The Coven of Blood, the bloodthirsty group that has taken control of Twolegplace. Their Leader is a cat by the name of Scourge who explains that his group is assisting TigerClan as mercenaries on the condition that they are given territory and resources. The battle is set to begin, but the Coven cat’s don’t move when Tigerstar calls his cats to fight. The battle abruptly stops as Tigerstar rounds on Scourge to demand he mobilize his cats to fight. Scourge’s only response is to laugh and say that he's waited for this moment for a long time. Before any cat knows what’s happening, Scourge lunges at Tigerstar and uses his dog tooth and glass-tipped claws to tear him open from chest to tail.

TigerClan and LionClan look on in horror as the wound is so severe it is unable to close even with the regenerative power of a Leader and Tigerstar loses all nine lives all at once. As his convulsing body goes limp for the final time, Leopardstar and many of the Clanborn TigerClan members. He then tells the Clans that he and his fighters will kill all of the Clans and take the forest themselves. With that, The Coven attacks.

At first, the remaining Clan cats (LionClan and the remaining TigerClan cats that have joined them now that Tigerstar is dead) think this will be an easy fight since The Coven no longer has the support of ShadowClan and RiverClan and thus has lost the advantage of greater numbers. This is before an avalanche of hundreds of Coven cats pour from the shadows into the battlefield, having been hidden until Scourge gave a signal. The battle begins.

Predictably, it is an absolute bloodbath. Cats are dying left and right. Firestar, Sandstorm, and Graystripe team up to take on a massive group of cats and do well before they’re separated. Firestar watches in horror as Nightoak is basically decapitated in front of Ashfoot and their children. Whitestorm, who had joined up with Firestar after he’d been separated from his partners, is attacked and killed by the Coven cat Bone. Before Firestar can avenge him himself, apprentices and young Warriors of all four Clans mob Bone en-masse. The last Firestar sees of Bone, he is being torn and crushed by the mob.

Firestar finds Scourge standing over Tallstar with his claws near the old tom’s neck. Firestar flings the smaller tom off and the two begin to fight to the death. Firestar gets the upper paw, believes that he will be the victor... but Scourge tears his throat out and he crashes to the ground. He dies and awakens in a place that isn't StarClan. It is a a void of pure darkness, with no light but he can feel jagged stones pressing into his back. A cave, then. A translucent being that resembles a cat but not quite is crouching in front of him. It has no eyes and is devoid of fur, and just looking at it makes Firestar’s vision swim and his head ache.

The thing reaches out its paw to Firestar’s still-bleeding throat and as it touches him, he sees everything. Every moment of his life up to this point, and things that have never happened but are meant to, he can feel it. He sees it all and forgets just as quickly as battle-sound feels his ears once more and the pitch-dark cavern fades away. The last thing he hears is words spoken by many calling voices that he’s never heard but knows all the same in his ear telling him one simple thing.

“Not   yet.......”

And then, he is back in his body with his throat healed and Scourge walking away from him. He jumps to his feet and catches the tom off guard. Scourge barely gets out a “how?!” before Firestar crushes his small throat in his teeth.

With their Leader now dead, the Coven flees. Groups of Warriors pursue the stragglers as the surviving Clan cats return to their homes to rest and bury their dead. Firestar bows his head to the other Clans as he and his clanmates return to ThunderClan, with both Graystripe and Sandstorm pressed tightly against him, tails entwined, and followed by Bramblepaw who keeps stopping to look at his sister headed towards ShadowClan.