A passerby would have been forgiven for believing that the mouth of hell had opened up and spilled out onto the battlefield. It had been an age since all five Clans had marched to war, and the sea of writhing teeth and claws stood testimony to why.
The loyalists were outnumbered, but that very fact appeared to be spurning them onward with greater vigor against the dissenters. Being the underdog had its own appeal. A confirmation bias that they were in the right for standing by their Leaders. ShadowClan and ThunderClan were no shabby fighters beside, but with RiverClan still on the mend they were not an insignificant barrier to peace. Shrill cries and the tang of blood filled the air, viscera mixed with the trodden muddy earth, still damp from the prior night's rainfall. Pelt colors became smeared and indistinct, the dirt concealing even scent so that Warriors could scarcely tell friend from foe. A moment to look in their eyes was all one had to make the call.
Copperheart surveyed the chaos with a curled-lipped satisfaction. They were going to lose, he knew full-well. But the cats below him were pawns in his truer aims, and just as easily disposed of. He scratched absentmindedly at his ill-fitting skin with a hind leg. It was pulling up around the ankles, from which spectral white paws sprouted. His paws. He’d almost forgotten the look of them. Today he would shed this mortal coil, and don another, and another, for as long as he needed to. Holding this body had been a valuable learning experience at the very least, he’d do better the next time around.
At long last he finally zeroed in on what he’d been searching for. It was tricky, amid the sea of writhing browned bodies, but there was no substance on earth that could truly mask that fiery fur. Indeed, his size alone marked him on the field, if nothing else.
The bigger they are the harder they fall, Copperheart thought as he plunged down the grassy knoll to brace the fighting below. He cut a savage path through the crowd, going for eyes, throats, all vital points without any consideration if they fought in his name or against it, until he found himself before the great orange brute.
“Hello, father.” He leered, his twin gaze shining from within Hawkstar’s twisted features. “It’s been…far too long.”
Rebuffed, Copperheart fell hard against the mucky earth. Blood and mud had mixed together in a rusty slurry which painted his body where it lay. It took him several attempts to get to his feet, though his adversary seemed in no hurry. Firestar’s outward calm, his slow procedural body language. It flooded Copperheart with fury. It was as though he were a child again, being scolded by a looming authoritarian figure who knew far better than he.
“Oh this is too far along to be stopped now. Do you think for a moment that if I called off my troops, it would erase the injustices of the Code? The way it punishes good and rewards the greedy and complacent?” He shook his head. His ire with the code was mere window dressing, but it was what his supporters fought for, in the end.
“You’ve made your nest father, it is time to lie in it. Take heart, any children you lose today I’m confident you’ll replace within a month. Your whore never takes a night off, does she?” He sneered.
“Will you even remember their names?”