Meanwhile, in the real world,

Fireheart is teaching Cloudpaw to not be so awful.

It isn't working.

Fireheart then does a terrible job of organising patrols filled with cats

that are more intelligent and experienced than he is.

Whitestorm tells him not to worry, because his clanmates are just being edgy.

Thanks, Whitestorm.

Then Fireheart shouts in surprise because he had to see Tigerstar junior's hideous face.

Goldenflower appears, telling Fireheart not to beat up her children.

Fireheart reluctantly agrees.

Whitestorm shows up and tells Fireheart to apprentice the serval moon old kits in the nursery.

Apparently nobody told Bluestar, because Bluestar doesn't love them anymore.

He brings this news to Bluestar, who suggests that he just take two more apprentices.

So instead he asks everyone in the Clan who they think the mentor should be.

But they all respond with "Ask Bluestar, LOL!"

He eventually finds out that 9/10 doctors agree that Dustpelt and Darkstripe should apprentice the kits.

Fireheart then brings this news back to Bluestar, who yells at him for 40 minutes.

Fernpaw is reasonably horrified that her new mentor is Darkstripe.

Then Cloudpaw comes back long after his curfew.

When asked about it, he just says, "I was at Cindy's house, jeez man!"

That night, Fireheart has another dream about Spottedleaf,

who has decided to start playing hard to get.

It's doesn't last long, becouse Bluestar wakes him up for a suprise road trip.

They need to go to the magic rock for no specific reason.

They get stopped by the Windclan cats that they saved two books before,

so they turn around. Exciting.

Getting back, Cloudpaw is being a rebel again immediately.

Fireheart sends him to bed without dinner for 17th day in a row.

He goes to announce who's going to the Gathering,

but baby Murderface scares the cat out of him once again.

They announce that Brokentail is dead, and Tigerclaw is gone, but they give no details,

starting an ongoing trend of lack of transparency ruining everything for everyone.

An impossible to determine amount of time later, they catch two Shadowclan cats in their territory.

They're both pathetic as heck. And also sick.

And also hungry.

And also dying.

They shoo them away.

Then they follow them, just in case these scrawny, pathetic cats have something up their sleeve.

They lead them to a hole under the Thunderpath,

which they, of course, immediately tell Bluestar about,

because Sandstorm is always aware of new ways to attack the other clans.

But Bluestar barely cares thanks to the power of depression,

and Fireheart instead takes a moment to be completely unaware that Sandstorm wants his booty.

So Cloudpaw has gotten chubby and nobody has any idea how.

Fireheart lets him go on his own, but follows him

because that's just what we do in this book.

Cloudpaw goes into Twolegplace.

"Well, maybe he's just visiting his mom!"

"Uh... well maybe he's just catching birds."

Fireheart learns that Cloudpaw has been ordering McDonald's every day.

Just like Moonkitti.

He lies to Princess about her son for a few minutes and then goes home.

Fireheart confronts Cloudpaw, who responds with:

"Whatever man. You're not my dad."

He has him choose between the clan and kittypet life, but honestly doesn't make a very convincing argument.

Fireheart and Cinderpelt go to visit Willowpelt who's the proud mother of two side characters and a love interest.

Dustpelt is seemingly upset that the only girl in his age group is only interested in the kittypet.

Because he's in the nursery, it's extremely important that we're reminded of how much Bramblekit freaks out Fireheart.

But he doesn't think about it long and instead thinks about how much better Graystripe was than Sandstorm.

Dustpelt is suddendly really, really into Fernpaw.

"Ah, well."

Fireheart is still pining for the sweet smell of Graystripe, so he's about to break into Riverclan territory,

when he smells some garbage instead.

The garbage was actually just Littlecloud and Whitethroat again. Whoops.

Cinderpelt has been trying to cure their rat poisoning in secret.

Fireheart leaves them to get better, because as the main character, he can be cruel to no cat.

But when he gets back, Cloudpaw is gone.

Fireheart and Sanstorm go to Cloudpaw's kittypet hangout, only to find him being taken away forever.

"Now that Cloudpaw is gone, nobody loves me," says Fireheart.

"I love you," says Sandstorm.

"LOL...WHAT?" replies Fireheart.

Sanstorm is bothered by this for two minutes.

Ashpaw, a normal and healthy teenager, is wondering where Cloudpaw went.

Fireheart tells him, as the only cat in the clan who can tell the truth.

He also tells Bluestar about how Cloudpaw got abducted by aliens who lured him in with junk food

and she's at least vagulely okay with it.

Spottedleaf, who is perfectly capable of holding normal converation, shouts "Beware!" over and over again, while Fireheart sleeps.

The *medicine cat* doesn't take Fireheart's dreams seriously, so obviously, we shouldn't either.

Cinderpelt tells Fireheart to stop having dream dates with Spottedleaf and get a real girlfriend.

"Oh, boy!" shouts Fireheart, learning Sandstorm is into him secondhand from another cat who was into him.

He countinues to be afraid of the four inch tall Tigerclaw clone.

Twolegs supposedly chased Brackenfur around on golf carts,

so Fireheart goes on a solo mission to get his friends a glass of tap water.

While peeking into holes to make sure the Shadowclan warriors aren't around, Graystripe attacks him.

Fireheart tells him that he misses him, but Graystripe reasonably cares more about his babies than he does Fireheart.

Note: the book points out here that the cats are raised by queens, and not their fathers,

and makes it seem weird that Graystripe wants anything to do with them.

Another note: Graystripe uses the phrase "I reckoned".

Fireheart brings the queens their water and simultaneously gets unnerved by little Evil Face.

Again.

He decides that he's attracted to Sandstorm, even though she's not a hot tortoiseshell like Spottedleaf.

A patrol then tumbles into camp a bloody mess. Somehow they've completly lost Runningwind.

They go to look and find harmless cat #2 standing over his dead body.

Fireheart chases him into a car.

Whoops.

Suddendly, Tigerclaw is behind him.

Fireheart attacks him, but Tigerclaw, being one big block of muscle, doesn't retreat until Graystripe appears with the Riverclan club.

When he gets home, he tells Bluestar that Tigerclaw wants everyone dead.

"He can kill me. That's fine," says Bluestar

Fireheart takes the time to make sure we know he's afraid of Bramblekit in the middle of the clan mourning Runningwind.

He goes to visit Bluestar who was decided to stop bathing all together. She has nothing to say to him.

Every ginger cat in the clan goes hunting together.

Ravepaw finds them and tells them about this living massive of cotton balls he saw in Twolegplace.

So they take off to save Cloudpaw, but they get chased by dogs 20 seconds in, like the noble warriors they are.

It's revealed to us that the only reason that Fireheart ever left home was eating low-quality, grain-based cat food.

Cloudpaw sees Fireheart at the window and screams.

The Twoleg opens the door to approach them and leaves it open,

even though he has a housecat that isn't allowed outside, and prediactably, he loses his living marshmallow forever.

Coming home, Windclan decides to prove to them for a second time that they're the biggest jerks in the forest.

But they get themselves beaten up, almost embarrassingly.

Cloudpaw arrives and tells everyone about how he only left with the Twolegs because they held him hostage at gunpoint.

Everyone but Darkstripe believes this.

Fireheart and Bluestar then have a small disagreement over if it was Ravenpaw or God who found Cloudpaw.

Spottedleaf lights the camp on fire as revenge for Fireheart spending too much time with his new girlfriend.

Almost everyone is safe when Fireheart realizes he has to choose between saving the loyal and intelligent medicine cat,

and the Devil in Diapers.

"Yellowfang, you're Fired!"

And then Patchpelt dies, even though Fireheart dragged him uphill 30 miles to get to his friends.

They're about to prepare for more fire when rain comes like 3 minutes too late to help anybody.

So all of Thunderclan goes for a swim.

Fireheart takes just a moment to think about how attractive Sandstorm is during the most dangerous point in his life.

Everyone is just kind of flailing around in the water, so Riverclan comes and gives them swimming lessons.

So they all go to Fishland to recover from almost burning to death.

Graystripe shows his Toddlers in Tiaras to Fireheart for a few minutes while the clan pretends their camp isn't destroyed.

Then they go back to camp after the fire is out and find Yellowfang.

"Come closer, Fireheart," she says.

"What is it, Yellowfang?"

"I.. I actually Do eat babies," she confesses.

"That's BS," says Fireheart, but she dies laughing ominously, so Fireheart isn't really sure.

Upon finding Yellowfang's body, Bluestar decides that atheism is the way to go.

Everyone is miserable, their home is destroyed, and there is nothing to eat.

Also, Tigerclaw could be anywhere.

They then decide, "Hey, maybe telling the clans about Tigerclaw is actually a good idea!" and head for the Gathering.

But not before Fireheart takes the time to be unsettled by Nightmarekit.

So he gossips with Onewhisker until the Gathering starts, and he's faced with the terrible realization

that Tigerstar's been crowned the new queen of ShadowClan.