Several moons after the end of the manga of SkyClan's Destiny, Leafstar is expecting Billystorm's kits. Clovertail's kits are now apprentices: Sandypaw, Honeypaw, Birdpaw. Billystorm is still a daylight-warrior, as are all the others from SD. Everything's going along well: the apprentices are learning (despite Birdpaw falling and injuring her eye), Leafstar's healthy in her pregnancy (although bored), the Clan is gossiping about Cherrytail and Sharpclaw, and SkyClan is safe. However, Leafstar has begun to notice that the apprentices and younger warriors are sneaking off outside Clan territory, and one of those times they seem full-fed. It especially gets suspicious when Birdpaw comes back with her eye nearly healed, when Echosong's herbs weren't working well. Leafstar follows them, and it turns out that they're taking food from an elderly female Twoleg. Leafstar yells at them. Not long after, she has her kits.
Soon afterward, the female Twoleg is wandering the gorge with a picnic basket. The Clan hides, but three kits are a pawful for Leafstar, and one of them falls out of the den. The Twoleg picks it up and places it in the basket as Leafstar rushes out of the den, and she gets picked up too, as well as her other two kits. Leafstar is able to shout to her Clanmates where she'll be. She stays in the den for at least a night and a day, disgusted by the food and missing her Clan. She is not locked in, but there's no way she'll be able to take all three kits. The Twoleg's kittypet Harry, a tortoiseshell tom, is at first scornful of the way Leafstar is such a great leader having been captured, but is also very curious about Clan life and her Clanmates' loyalty in getting her out.
Eventually, Fallowfern feigns injury outside the next, and the elderly Twoleg takes her inside. Fallowfern, Leafstar, and Harry each take a kit and run outside to where the Clan is waiting. A SkyClan cat takes the kit from Harry, and they leave him as they return to the gorge. Leafstar and Billystorm name their kits: the ginger she-kit is Firekit (for Firestar), the gray and ginger she-kit is Stormkit (for Sandstorm), and the gray tom is Harrykit (for the kittypet that helped them escape). That night, Leafstar holds a Clan meeting, thanking her Clanmates for their loyalty and bravery. Harry comes, saying he wanted to try Clan life, since the things Leafstar told him sounded wonderful. She agrees that he can stay, explaining that he must be willing to give everything to his Clan, even his life. He understands. She introduces him to Harrykit. He then explains that "Harry" isn't his real name; that's just what the Twoleg called him. His real name is Sol.
Tropes appearing in this volume:
- Alertness Blink: When the old Twoleg finds her way into the gorge, several SkyClan cats react with an exclamation point over their head.
- Angrish: Leafstar is so furious when she finds her young Clanmates taking food from a Twoleg that she's unable to complete a sentence for several moments and even is reduced to an angry "Rrowww!"
- Badass in Distress: Action Girl Leafstar gets captured by a Crazy Cat Lady and has to be rescued by her Clanmates.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Harry, the kittypet that Leafstar meets, is revealed at the end to be Sol, the villain of the Power of Three arc.
- Colorization: SkyClan and the Stranger was originally drawn and released in black-and-white, in three different volumes. James Barry later colorized it and it was re-released as a single volume.
- Confused Question Mark: One of the SkyClan cats gets one when the old Twoleg finds the camp.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Sol's owner, an elderly woman - not so much due to the number of cats, because she only had one before taking in Leafstar - but because of the level of obsession. She has cat pictures and decorations around her home, as well as sofa cushions with a cat design, and a subscription to Cat Fancy.
- A Day in the Limelight: The manga trilogy is Leafstar's, aside from SkyClan's Destiny.
- Inconsistent Coloring: Fallowfern. She's first seen on the fourth page with her mate Waspwhisker, as a she-cat the same warm brown color as Clovertail, but with a tuft of fur on her head, blue eyes, and no white chest. (This is confirmed to be her in the second volume, when a cat with this same appearance mentions her kits Nettlesplash and Plumwillow.) Later in the volume, she's a pale sandy yellowish color with tabby markings on her face and no fur tuft.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: Sandypaw feels bad about a secret: he and the other apprentices (and a young warrior) were getting food from Twolegs. In fact, he says that keeping secrets is wrong and he doesn't want to be a part of it anymore. When they get reminded about never taking food from Twolegs, they look ashamed... and Sandypaw is seen smirking at them.
- "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Leafstar and Billystorm name their kits after cats they know: Firekit and Stormkit after Firestar and Sandstorm, who helped found the new SkyClan, and Harrykit for the tom that helped carry the kits to safety.
- The Noun and the Noun: The trilogy name, SkyClan and the Stranger.
- A Pet into the Wild: Sol left his Twoleg owner to join SkyClan.
- Ruler Protagonist: Leafstar balances her responsibilities as leader with raising a litter of kits.
- Shout-Out: The magazine Cat Fancy
makes an appearance on page 82. - Spoiler Title: Like SkyClan's Destiny, the trilogy title spoils the fact that there's a long-lost Clan out there for those who have not read Firestar's Quest. However, by being named after the Clan rather than the viewpoint character, it avoids spoiling which member of the newly founded SkyClan becomes leader at the end of Firestar's Quest.
- Team Title: SkyClan and the Stranger.
- Too Desperate to Be Picky: Clan cats prefer freshly-killed prey and find pet food disgusting and degrading to eat, but Leafstar eats pet food while caught in the Twoleg nest to keep her strength up and make sure she can feed her kits.
- Unsuccessful Pet Adoption: Leafstar and her kits are captured by an elderly woman. Her Clanmates come to rescue them, and they escape alongside the woman's other cat.
- We Have Become Complacent: During her imprisonment with the TwoLeg, Leafstar worries that this will be the fate of her kittens if they stay too long inside the TwoLeg's den. That despite being born free in the wild, they'll know nothing except a complacent existence indoors.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: It's mentioned that Nettlesplash has been afraid of water since falling into the river when he was a kit.
