Brandon’s Attack on the Chrysler begins as an attempt to teach Brandon to control and use his strength, but becomes a dangerous confrontation with a passing car. When Brandon charges the Chrysler, Carag must put himself between his friend and the people inside; the resulting damage brings the incident before Lissa Clearwater and turns an ill-judged training exercise into a lesson about the risks woodwalkers pose to humans.

The Training Exercise

Once the group is far enough from Clearwater High, Holly leads them to a clearing and climbs onto the stump of a gigantic fir tree. The tree is damp and rotten, an inviting target for Brandon to reduce to wood chips. At first, Brandon’s horns only strike the soft trunk tentatively, scattering a few splinters. Holly urges him to hit harder, since the secluded spot will disturb no one.

Brandon’s next charge lands with a crash. The impact sends splinters flying and startles woodlice and earthworms into flight; Carag has to crouch to avoid the debris. Holly cheers him on, and Carag congratulates him too, framing the exercise as a successful way to put his strength to use. Brandon, however, becomes absorbed in the destruction and charges another partly rotten trunk. The training has unleashed his enthusiasm without yet teaching him when to stop.

The Attack and Carag’s Intervention

The celebration in the clearing turns dangerous when Carag hears an engine approaching from the road. Brandon is still charging through the undergrowth, and Carag remembers both how easily his friend’s anger can erupt—he once demolished their wardrobe—and his parents’ warning from his cubhood about what can happen when a bison meets a car. He tries to stop Brandon, but the warning goes unheard: dazzled by the approaching headlights, Brandon trots onto the asphalt in search of something else to destroy.

Holly tries to soothe Brandon, hoping the car will pass and he can return to the trees. Instead, Brandon lowers his head and charges. The driver reverses in a zigzag, but Brandon catches the Chrysler. Bison can run as fast as sixty kilometers per hour, and he drives his horns into the radiator grille, lifting the front of the car until its wheels spin uselessly in the air. He backs away, letting the vehicle crash down onto the road, then smashes its right headlight with another thrust of his horns.

Carag recognizes that Brandon has not finished. He tells Holly to jump down, then bounds between Brandon and the people trapped inside the car. He lands on the hood, baring his teeth and lashing his tail as screams sound from the occupants. Brandon stops, momentarily bewildered to see Carag in his path. The pause does not last: a blast from the driver’s horn turns Brandon back toward the Chrysler, and he slams his head into the passenger-side door. The impact shoves the heavy car across the asphalt; Carag nearly slips into the roadside ditch, his claws finding little purchase on the smooth metal. The door is crushed inward and punctured by Brandon’s horns.

With Brandon ignoring his mental order to stop, Carag resorts to force and claws his friend on the nose. Brandon recoils, offended and confused, giving Carag a chance to confront him over the destruction. The attack has crossed from reckless training into an immediate threat to human lives—and Carag’s attempt to protect the occupants has also placed him directly in the path of his friend’s rampage.

Accountability and School Consequences

The damage followed the group back to Clearwater High, where Lissa Clearwater confronted them in her office about the car incident and asked who had caused it. Holly was about to answer when Carag remembered that she had already received two warnings for kleptomania; a third would mean expulsion, and he feared she might be sent back to the orphanage. He interrupted her and claimed responsibility, explaining that he had meant to teach Brandon to use his strength, that the exercise had escalated beyond his control, and that he had tried to stop him. He also acknowledged that Holly had followed them into the woods and that they had been unable to get rid of her.

When Lissa asked Brandon for his account, he confirmed Carag’s explanation and admitted that he had let his anger take over, as sometimes happened to him. Lissa’s response connected the wrecked car to a danger beyond property damage: woodwalkers must not provoke hostility among humans, because the consequences could be paid in blood. She gave both Brandon and Carag a reprimand, then told Carag to consider whether an idea would actually achieve its purpose before acting on it. The lesson is pointed: his effort to help Brandon master his strength had instead created a threat to people and exposed the school’s community to human suspicion.

The reprimand also places the incident within the school’s immediate academic stakes. Lissa reminded them that the midyear exams were in December and that only students who passed could join the subsequent learning trips; those who failed would have to repeat their first three months of study. The Chrysler’s smashed headlight, radiator grille, and passenger door therefore mark more than a burst of uncontrolled force: the episode ends with Carag and Brandon answerable to the school, and with Carag warned to judge an intervention by its likely consequences, not simply by its intention.

The Limits of Strength as Training

The episode’s central reversal is that Brandon’s strength appears useful when directed at rotten wood, but the same exercise offers no safeguard once its target changes. Carag’s intervention can halt the immediate rampage, yet the damaged car and Lissa Clearwater’s warning expose a wider consequence: a woodwalker’s loss of control can endanger people and threaten the secrecy on which the school’s community depends. The incident therefore distinguishes raw power from mastery—not by how much Brandon can break, but by whether he can recognize when force must stop.