Chapter 2 - Fire and Non-Tytos

The moon hung low in the sky and the tree limbs creaked in the breeze; it was quite peaceful, but Soren could not focus on the tranquility when he once again nearly fell out of the fir tree. Kludd came swooping in much more gracefully, and landed softly next to his brother, a look of concern on his face.

"Soren, could I just show you how? Without you being so—fidgety?" Kludd suggested softly while trying to find the right words without offending his younger brother.

"Alright—show me how," Soren sighed reluctantly, knowing he certainly wasn't making any progress on his own.

Kludd turned and smiled, as his mind wandered deep into his imagination, "Well, before I leap, I picture myself standing on a great perch in the Pure One Fortress, ready to annihilate any infiltrating owl of the Impure Army. And I leap down with my fellow Pure Ones, our fire claws outstretched as we-."

"Just stop!"

Soren had only meant to hit Kludd on his back with a light swipe of his wing, but he didn't realize his own strength until it was too late. Kludd gasped from the impact and tilted forward and then back, and smacked back into Soren. The next thing they knew, gravity acted upon them mercilessly as the clawed at the branches with their talons, but their efforts to stay up were futile.

Both owlets plummeted through the branches of the fir tree, hitting a few limbs on the way down. Kludd screamed his brother's name in terror, but smiled when he suddenly unfolded his wings and managed to float for a mere second. The joy was very short-lived, however, when another branch came and flipped Kludd upside down and sent him into a spiraling bundle of feathers.

He shrieked as the ground finally came to him with a hard thud, but despite the odds, not a single bone in his body was broken; he seemed to merely suffer from a few bruises. Kludd then remembered Soren.

"Soren! A-Are you ok?!" Kludd cried with worry, as he lifted his awkwardly due to landing like a sprawled eagle.

"O-Oh…oh, no…" was all Soren managed to mutter out, as his eyes darted around frantically. The two brothers soon picked themselves up, and took in their new surroundings; the bizarre feeling of solid ground and bundle of plants called pushes was an intriguing sight to Kludd, but brought nothing but terror for Soren.

"We're on the ground," Kludd sighed in awe.

"W-We can't be here, this is…th-this is, this is the worst place for an owl," Soren quivered.

"Yeah, no, no, it's—it's weird down here."

"No, n-no! W-We gotta get back! W-We can't be here!"

Kludd then glanced up at the lowest branches on their fir tree, and furrowed his brows in thought, "You know, if we could just make it to that branch—then, we could climb our way up."

Soren's eyes darted between the branches and his brother with hope and worry, but his eyes popped with when Kludd opened his wings, "Here, let's see!"

Without warning, the older brother lifted off with a powerful jump, grunting and flapping desperately to get as high up as he can. But after a few more wing beats, Kludd gave up from exhaustion and collapsed back on the ground.

"Shh, we need to be quiet!" Soren shushed him, and was about to start yelling at him how this was all his fault, but was suddenly cut off by the sound of a loud thud in the distance. Both owlets gasped and turned their heads towards the direction of the noise, and their eyes widened when they noticed a strange orange glow on the other side of a huge log.

"What was that?" Soren whispered while Kludd took a few cautious steps forward.

They stared longer to wait for something to happen until another object suddenly plummeted from above. It looked like a piece of a tree limb, but tiny lights danced within it like it had been set on…

"Fire," Kludd breathed in realization when he noticed the ash and soot all over the fallen limb, and glanced up at the glowing ashes that floated around aimlessly on the other side of the log. Kludd then fluttered up, albeit clumsily, onto the log and gasped at the sight before him.

The entire clearing had been set aflame, and they roared loudly as each flame devoured a new section of plant life it had not yet ignited. Smaller birds and rodents scurried out of the area, some of them even running past the two Tytos, but paid them little to no attention.

Kludd had been hypnotized by the fire's brilliant light and destruction; never before had he seen so much death all at once, and by something that wasn't even alive. If only he could control fire, then he would be a perfect Pure One. But while Kludd was transfixed by the forest fire, he failed to notice the large crack directly above him when a branch threatened to fall right on top of him.

Soren could only sit and stare when he noticed that the branch would certainly kill his older brother. He was almost as frozen as Kludd, and didn't know whether or not to warn him. All Soren's life, Kludd had gained most of their parents' love by believing in the legend and ideology of the Pure Ones, and he was sick of it. For once, maybe he could do something right for all of the owl kingdoms, starting by getting rid of his prejudice brother.

So, Soren remained silent and watched as the branch snapped once more and fell down towards Kludd, but the said owlet still didn't move. But just seconds before his certain demise, a thunderous echoed throughout the forest, finally pulling Kludd from his blank state of mind. Before he could comprehend what happened, Kludd felt something powerful wrap around him and lift him off of the log, just before the flaming branch landed and broke in two.

Soren still remained frozen as Kludd got carried off by a gigantic and strange owl, but didn't have time to react when he was grabbed by a pair of talons as well. Both owlets were then lifted above the forest trees, where they had a perfect view of a large section of Tyto forest being blanketed by fire.

"Hey, put us down, Non-Tytos!" Kludd snapped up at his capture, who was far bigger than his parents; the owl who carried him had dark brown and black feathers, and two ugly feather tufts sprouted from his head; the owl who carried Soren was slightly smaller with black, brown and white feather, and unsightly brown and black feathers that stained her face.

"A simple 'thank you' would suffice," the female gently pointed out.

"Yeah, I had to throw away a perfect collection of embers ta save you, Young'un," the big owl chuckled deeply, "My name is Bubo, and this is Strix Struma. What are your names?"

"We don't need to tell you anything! We don't trust non-Tytos!"

"B-But they just wanna help, Kludd," Soren piped up meekly.

"I said be quiet!" Kludd hissed.

"So, your name is 'Kludd'? Well, Kludd, neither of you need to worry. We're taking you to the Great Ga'Hoole Tree," Strix Struma informed.

Soren and Kludd gasped at that name. Noctus told them all about the Great Ga'Hoole Tree in the legends he told them, and that it was of the home of the Pure Ones' greatest enemy: the Guardians of Ga'Hoole. Kludd was both horrified and angry at being rescued by impure owls, but Soren was ecstatic to finally meet owls of different species and good nature.

"What kind of owls are you?" Soren finally asked.

"I'm a Great Horned Owl, Young'un," Bubo replied.

"And I am a Short-Eared Owl," Strix Struma answered.

"Well, we're Tytos, and we're also brothers. My name is Soren."

Kludd could only glare daggers at his younger brother's naivety. How could Soren be so oblivious as to not know the dangers of these non-Tytos? Kludd vowed that one way or another, he was going to get Soren and himself out of this.

This chapter was a bit shorter, but I hope you guys liked that I switched it up a bit from the movie since that's what most of you asked for. And don't worry, I will continue to try and make the story as different yet similar as I can.

Until the next chapter, I'm TRikiD, bye-bye!