Shadowstorm's Rescue

Edit by Dragonclaw:

The basic story outline so far....

Shadowstorm is captured and poisoned by Monkeystar. IceClan is allianced with ThunderClan. Monkeystar moves Shadowstorm to IceClan fortress. The remaining Clans are in distress. RiverClan, ShadowClan, AwesomeClan, and FireClan join up to save Shadowstorm. Monkeystar's plot is revealed! He wants to take over the entire forest and is starting by using poor Shadowstorm as a decoy. As Shadowstorm gets weaker and weaker, the Clans combine and prepare for rescue. A strange group of cats and animals arrives from a Distant Land. The RiverClan, AwesomeClan, ShadowClan, and FireClan alliance plans a daring rescue with the welcome strangers. The Allied Clans travel up the mountain. Meanwhile, WindClan has apparently allied with IceClan and ThunderClan! Lotus-star regrets her decision and does not like how Monkeystar is pushing her. She meets with Tobi the dog from ShadowClan and is planning to see him again. Meanwhile, the "good side" recruits wolves and other animals along the way to defeat the battle hardened IceClan members. What will happen in this final episode? Will Shadowstorm be saved? What will Lotus-star ultimately choose? Will the forest become under the rule of Monkeystar or will he be brought to justice? It begins here!

[continuation of Shadowstorm's Peril begins here!]

Monkeystar had noticed Lotus-star's disappearance. Again. But he didn't think much of it. She wasn't taking her Clan and she being WindClan, probably needed some exercise. Besides, if she planned to ditch him, Monkeystar didn't care. WindClan didn't make much a difference anyway. Monkeystar padded to Shuriken. "Do you have what I suggested?" Shuriken looked at Monkeystar then stepped back to the show a pile of shark's teeth, glistening in the dim light sunlight that broke just through the clouds and illuminated the sharp, jagged edges of the teeth. Then the clouds came and covered the sunlight once more.

Fireheart knew the sisters probably wanted to chat, so he waited for Sagedapple to finish her conversation with Fernleaf so they can head out to gather some herbs for the clans.

Sagedapple nudged Fernleaf on the shoulder. "I'll be fine," she meowed. "But would you go tell Owlflight or Lotus-star for me?"

Fernleaf fluffed up indigently. When she saw the stubborn look in Sagedapple's eyes, she knew the argument had been lost. "Very well," Fernleaf sighed. Shaking her head, she plowed back up the trail, struggling through the snow.

Fireheart wanted to at least say goodbye to the warrior but he was to late. So he remembered it was time to move on. "Alright then, shall you lead?" Fireheart asked Sagedapple.

Sagedapple touched her muzzle to Fireheart's shoulder. "Okay." She stepped ahead,trying to stay at the surface of the snow, not plowing and struggling through it like Fernleaf had. Stopping beside a thick, waxy leafed bush, she plucked out some leaves and wrapped it around the leaf packet. "So it won't get torn when I'm dragging it over rocks," Sagedapple explained.

Hazeldust was impatient. The cats were preparing o continue with the long trek that awaited them before they could reach the IceClan fortress, and they needed to get to Lotus-star soon. "Where's Tobi?" she growled quietly under her breath. Perhaps she should go by herelf. Or maybe Honeytongue-his scent wouldn't attract as much apprehension as her own.

Snow was beginning to fall again, and the light flakes caught on Hazeldust's long fur. Let's get this over with soon, she thought.

Darkfire sat impatiently. "WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?" he screammed down the mountian. "SLOW POKES! COELCANTHS! BASHIBAZOUKS! CARPETSELLEERS! THEIVES! BUTCHERS! SAVAGES SAVAGES SAVAGES! DIPLADOCUSES! WORMS! VULTURES!"

Lotus-star padded next to the rock where she had met Tobi last night. She shivered. It was colder than before and the snowfall began to pick up. The clouds seemed darker than usual. She glanced around quickly, hoping for Tobi to appear quickly. She continuously glanced behind her as if Monkeystar or Pain would appear right there. "Where is he?" she thought. She decided it would be safest to hide first. She padded into the darkness. She would see his approach from here.

Hazeldust heard faint yells that made no sense. The voice was vaguely familiar, but she shook it off (Darkfire-I don't think we're the savages, because after all, didn't ThunderClan poison another warrior? )

"It's time when Tobi met Lotus-star," she muttered. Hazeldust decided to go by herself-she had a vague idea of where Lotus-star would be. The cats were starting to move-It takes longer for a whole group to get started than a smaller group of cats, she thought-and then slipped away unknowingly.

~So, if you want to follow me without telling me...(which isn't the nicest ) you can. Because no one else is coming on!~

Hazeldust wrote:Hazeldust heard faint yells that made no sense. The voice was vaguely familiar, but she shook it off (Darkfire-I don't think we're the savages, because after all, didn't ThunderClan poison another warrior? )

"It's time when Tobi met Lotus-star," she muttered. Hazeldust decided to go by herself-she had a vague idea of where Lotus-star would be. The cats were starting to move-It takes longer for a whole group to get started than a smaller group of cats, she thought-and then slipped away unknowingly.

~So, if you want to follow me without telling me...(which isn't the nicest ) you can. Because no one else is coming on!~

However Tawnypelt saw Tobi ahead (). Tobi was on the move! "Hey Tawnypelt," said Tobi. "We agreed that some cats should come, but I guess everyone is resting now and I can't be late to catch up to Lotus-star. But it's great that you're coming Perhaps we want to wake Honeytongue as well?"

~ Yay, Tobi, you're here. And, uh, my name changed to Hazeldust. ~

Hazeldust sighed in relief. At least Tobi wasn't missing. "Sure-I'll go get Honeytongue-and I think Brightstar wanted to come too. You go on ahead-we'll be able to follow your scent."

Hazeldust trotted away, looking for Honeytongue and Brightstar. It was hard to tell, it was a large blob of cats in the snow.

Shuriken saw Darkfire's rant out the window. Shuriken shook his head. "Darkfire, get your frostbitten hosehead outta there! Go and play in the snow." Shuriken padded away to his own room. Contrary to what most people think of IceClan as cold and hard and mean, Shuriken's nice bedroom was the exact opposite. It was cheerily lit and one of the warmest rooms in the Fortress. It was fluffy too.

Hazeldust wrote:~ Yay, Tobi, you're here. And, uh, my name changed to Hazeldust. ~

Hazeldust sighed in relief. At least Tobi wasn't missing. "Sure-I'll go get Honeytongue-and I think Brightstar wanted to come too. You go on ahead-we'll be able to follow your scent."

Hazeldust trotted away, looking for Honeytongue and Brightstar. It was hard to tell, it was a large blob of cats in the snow.

Brightstar padded up to Hazeldust, yawning. "Is Tobi ready to go?" she asked, shaking snow off her tabby fur. "Lotus-star is going to be worried soon."

"Yup-he already left a few moments ago. We can follow his scent-there's nothing else around to mess it up. Is Honeytongue going? We can't wait that long, Lotus-star might have to go soon," Hazeldust worried.

Deep in a heavy state of meditative contemplation (almost to the point of falling asleep), Honeytongue was awoken by a soft gentle nudge. Opening his eyes he found no-one around him, save other sleeping cats. He was about to go close his eyes (this time to sleep), when he noticed what looked like a cat out in the distant snow. Its pelt seemed to glisten with it under the moonlight. But as he got up, the cat had disappeared. Then he noticed Hazeldust was also up (and she seemed to be looking for somebody). After stretching himself (and shaking some of the snow off his fur) he walked on over to the AwesomeCan Deputy.

"Finally," Brightstar grumbled. "We can leave." Glancing at Hazeldust, she added. "Do you mind if I run ahead?"

"Let's go!" Hazeldust mewed, bouncing around with unused energy. She let Brightstar run ahead."We need to catch up with Tobi-he already left to see Lotus-star. And we need as much time as we can to talk to her-if she even will," she added after an afterthought.

She leaped into the air-only to fall in a deep pillow of snow, making it go poof like a mushroom cloud. "Well, that didn't go very well," she muttered dryly, and started ploughing through it.

~Snow sounds like a very good idea. Because it's about 40 degrees celsius outside here...but I'm inside with the AC blasting so it's ok. ~

Brightstar bounded ahead, running lightly over the snow, following Tobi's distinct scent trail. There! She could see Tobi's great lumbering shape as he trotted toward a pile of rocks.

Tobi was crouched. He was approaching the forest. "Hello, it's Honeytongue. Glad to see you out of bed old man!" said Tobi cheerfully. "We'll have to go across this pine forest to get where Lotus-star should be waiting. There might be some good prey here, so we can take a few stops."

Brightstar eyed Tobi with amusement. "You're always so cheerfull," she said dryly, "even when your best buddy is poisoned." She turned back toward the pine forest. "So..... is the pine forest big? Do we have to walk or run far to get to Lotus-star?" Squinting, she added, "I think Tobi should go first, and the cats--us-- should stay back several fox-lengths. Lotus-star still has her sense of smell."

"You want to see old, Chang Boda was at least 70 full seasons before departing from this world."

Hazeldust cocked her head at that fact. "That is old," she remarked, twitching snow out of her ear. She tried Brightstar's method of running lightly across the snow, which worked a lot better. She sniffed.

"There's prey around.."