The Rise of Scourge is an original English-language manga

Original English-language manga

Original English-language manga or OEL manga is the term commonly used to describe comic books or graphic novels in the "international manga" genre of comics whose language of original publication is English...

 book written by Erin Hunter

Erin Hunter

Erin Hunter is a pseudonym used by the authors Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, and Tui Sutherland, along with editor Victoria Holmes. Under this pen name, they have written two series of books. They are best known for the Warriors series, but the authors have also created another similar series called...

 and Dan Jolley as part of the Warriors series. The Rise of Scourge is a stand-alone manga that details the rise to power of the BloodClan leader, Scourge. It is drawn by Bettina Kurkoski.

Plot summary

The book begins with close ups of Tiny, and his brother and sister, Socks and Ruby. After several complaints from Tiny's siblings that they don't like to play with him, as well as the kit's first journey outside, Quince leaps onto a couch and reminisces over her litter's father. Quoted, "Strange that none of them have your ginger fur...". This is an important clue that Tiny is, in fact, Firestar's half-brother. Later on, when Quince takes her kits outside, Tiny notices a hole in the fence and wanders out. After looking around and playing, Tiny runs back to his family, where he then tells them he went into the forest. However, he greatly exaggerates things and is yet again ignored. Coming back inside, several Twoleg kits looking to adopt kittens come into the house, and before adopting Ruby and Socks, Ruby frightens Tiny by telling him that unwanted kits get thrown into the river. Believing his sister's lie, Tiny flees the house. Venturing into the forest, Tiny encounters a ThunderClan patrol composed of Tigerpaw, Bluefur, and Thistleclaw. Tigerpaw, as ordered by Thistleclaw, barrels into Tiny and nearly kills him, but he is stopped by Bluefur, who yowls at them to stop, and the patrol heads back into the forest. Tiny, consumed by fear and the need for revenge, flees to Twolegplace. Upon arriving, Tiny survives by accepting a share of chicken from an elderly she-cat. Wandering aimlessly, Tiny attempts to take off his collar, but end up impaling an old dog's tooth in it. Hungry, he finds a group of cats eating, and asks if he could join them. Being questioned about the tooth in his collar, he lies and says that he took it from a dog's mouth that he killed; the cats do not appear fully convinced, but allow him to feed. The next morning, however, his lie comes back to bite him, when he is visited by Bone and Brick who ask him if he will drive out a dog that is guarding a dumpster and cutting the cats off from access to food. Terrified of the dog, but realizing he will be exposed as a liar and driven off if he refuses to fight, he reluctantly enters the dog's premises. The dog seemingly prepares to attack, before it goes whimpering off, spooked by Tiny's enlarged shadow; Tiny is clever enough to manipulate the situation to make it appear he fought and drove off the dog. The onlooking cats are incredibly impressed. Before this point, no one has asked for his name; rather than telling them his name is Tiny, on the spot he comes up with a name that was once used in a sentence by Quince — Scourge. The other alley cats treat him with great deference and fear, and begin to seek his advice; he gradually becomes the de facto leader. Scourge realizes that he enjoys the power he holds, and perhaps more importantly, enjoys the fact that these cats fear him. Soon, a gang of rogue cats from the forest arrives and bullies the local cats (from the images, these cats appear to be Brokenstar and his followers, driven out from ShadowClan; as one of the cats is a tabby with a crooked tail — just like Brokenstar). Scourge's followers ask him to protect them. Scourge cannot trick or bluff these cats as he did the dog, and they openly mock his small size and threaten him, challenging his authority in front of his followers. Unwilling to back down in front of his followers and lose the power, respect and fear he has worked so hard to earn, Scourge reaches a turning point, violently killing one of the rogues in cold blood; this rallies his alley cat followers behind him, and the rogues flee. By now he has been completely consumed by hatred and a desire for revenge; in an internal monologue, he comments to himself that the chill in his blood grows, yet he welcomes it. After killing the rogue, Scourge begins tightening his hold over the alley cats, becoming more and more of a dictator. Later he is visited by his siblings, who say they were abandoned by their Twolegs; as dependent housecats, they never learned to take care of themselves. Scourge allows them to eat his food, and then banishes his own brother and sister from his territory. The book draws to a conclusion as Tigerstar, guided by Boulder, comes to Scourge and asks for his alliance (as seen in the Prologue to The Darkest Hour). Tigerstar clearly does not remember nearly killing Scourge as a kitten; Scourge sees an opportunity, and decides to play along with Tigerstar's offer for the moment, while waiting for the opportunity to take his revenge. Fast forward the amount of time before he leads BloodClan into the forest, Tigerstar and Scourge face off, and the book ends with Scourge standing triumphant after killing Tigerstar.