Darkness engulfed the dead forest. A dark gray tabby, however, seemed quite at home as he glided through the skeleton trees on lifeless dirt; as a matter of fact, his amber eyes were gleaming with excitement of the meeting that was yet to come. Shiny powder may have been lodged in his pelt, but he was dead, which justified this.

"Where were you, Discordfall?" a black she-cat demanded. She was tall, surrounded by other cats. One was a very thin black she-cat with green eyes of hatred, along with one smaller black cat. There was also a brown she-cat with blank eyes and a scarred muzzle. "We've been waiting forever!"

Discordfall straightened himself, slowly trotting closer before tapping her nose with his narrow, snake-like tail. "Same to you, Nightmaremoon," he politely joked before ignoring the she-cat outright. Turning to the thin one, he added, "What's happened so far?"

"Waiting for you is all," she admitted, some kind of permanent savageness in her tone, "but this will benefit us so."

Discordfall smirked evilly. "So you mean that Clawstar has become the leader and we're simply waiting?" he asked.

"That would be the case," Nightmaremoon affirmed. "And, I must say that he is ambitious. We hardly need to twitch an ear to do what StarClan had forbidden and recruit him to our ranks." Nightmaremoon stamped a paw in the earth.

"Uh, Spiderfang?" the small black one asked. "Can I help?"

"Oh, but of course, Shapeshifter, my number one assistant," Spiderfang smirked. "You can go do what you wish." Shapeshifter dipped his head before dashing off.

"We're agreed," Nightmaremoon affirmed. "The clans' doomsday is nearly upon them. The Six won't know what hit them." She majestically trotted away before Spiderfang trudged out in another direction. DIscordfall glided back the direction in which he came, and behind the brown she-cat, a cat apparition appeared; one of a silver-colored one.

"You see, Yellowspots? The Dark Forest plans to do away with the clans. And unsaid here, they plan you and your friends first!" The brown cat morphed into a smaller cream-yellow-colored she-cat with huge teal eyes, which were now dark and fearful.

"You're right, Featherflight!" she gasped in her quiet, whisper-like voice. "What do we do?"

"There will be six, stronger than the stars, who will banish the darkness."
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Yellowspots awoke with a start.

A bluish she-cat stretched awake, her pelt shining like the stars in a twilight sky. Twilightsparkle felt her eyelids lift open to scan the early morning of the camp she endorsed. The sun was only just rising, and directly across from the rosebush and bramble-covered warrior den was the prey rock, which was barren of any scraps from last night.

That it, would have been.

A half moon ago, a new leader from DarkClan, she reflected, declared war on the clans. Every cat believed that he was spouting hot air, making threats. But last night, he'd attacked. And disheartening that had been. She winced at a sudden pain in her shoulder. They were lucky that no cat had died in the attack... well, except for their stomachs. I'll go on dawn hunting, she decided, jumping over Orangepelt, a strong orange she-cat. The clan could really use the food. Twilightsparkle's ears pricked, and she tensed at a sound of paws. "Who goes there?" she asked, trying to sound somewhat threatening as her tail sliced the air.

However, she stopped when all she saw were two of the apprentices, one orange with amber eyes and the other fluffy and white with pale green eyes like moss. "Firepaw, Sweetpaw, what were you doing out this early?" she gently scolded the two apprentices, while she felt relief that there weren't any DarkClan warriors coming.

"We were just... uh... going to do something," Firepaw stammered, her eyes darting around nervously.

Sweetpaw sighed. "Firepaw tried to drag me on a mouse-brained mission into the DarkClan camp to kill Clawstar," she replied, honesty and integrity in her tone.

"You can't go there!" Twilightsparkle exclaimed, fear sending poison through her body. "What would Rareshine and Rainbowdash say if their apprentices were mauled by Clawstar?"

Sweetpaw sighed again. "As if Rareshine would care," she grumbled.

"Of course she would!" Twilightsparkle gasped. "Who put that idea into your precious little head?"

Firepaw sighed. "It's obvious for both of us. Anyway, we won't do it again, Twilightsparkle, but please don't tell them!" Her eyes became pleading.

"You're secret's safe with me," Twilightsparkle assured, not wanting to be a bad friend. "Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a porcupine in my eye." It was the Pinkchaser promise.