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Chapter 2

After giving his report to Scourge directly, the dark gray kit had decided to take to resting at the hideout. He laid down near a few broken glass pieces at the edge of the alley's walls, and set his head on his paws. He left his eyes open for a few minutes, alert and ready, until he was sure that no one was planning to attack him, and then closed his eyes peacefully.

Regretfully though, the dark tom didn't get to sleep for very long; but given his position as one of the only kit-assassins and fully trusted cat by Scourge, it was expected. A cream-colored tabby she-cat walked up, her paws tapping the hard cement lightly, with a smile on her face as she approached.

"Hey, Soul!" The cream-colored tabby greeted loudly. The dark gray tom opened his dark blue eyes, his tail-tip flicking up. She smiled at him, and then sat down in front of him, barely making a sound. She was pretty, he had to admit, with her fur always well-groomed and with the ability to always barely make a sound when she did anything – except for when she came over for a chat. She was, he estimated; since he had never given any thought to ask, around three moons and a half – maybe less maybe a bit more, he couldn't tell. She was smaller than most he estimated, around her age, but her eyes told the tale of many experiences, so he knew she had to be at least a moon and a half to even start training. She was the other kit trained in killing, and one of the cats he was forced to work with at times.

He blinked at the cream tabby she-cat, waiting for her to say something else, like he always did. He found no reason to speak if only to greet her with her own name – which he now wondered how she got his own. He never spoke to hardly anyone, and only Scourge knew his name: Soul. How had the small cream kit gotten his name and would actually dare to use it?

"I found out your name, right?" She asked childishly happy. He tilted his ears back. He opened his eyes when she said the name, so shouldn't that be a 'yes'? She must have been trying to make a conversation with him, he thought. Since she asked a question about his name, right after he said the name and he responded to it, which he accounted for as she already had seen; for that was part of their training. They had to notice every detail, so she must have seen him open his eyes – so she was waiting for an answer, trying to talk to him.

He frowned for a second and then closed his blue eyes again.

"Go away," He, Soul, growled. "Go play with someone else, Half."

The cream tabby she-cat, Half, gave a small whine and then sighed in defeat. She took her weight up, rising to her paws, and turned away. She knew that tone of voice which he had used – the one that really said: 'Go away and bother someone else or I swear you'll regret it, Half.'

As she disappeared down the alley and turned into another, Soul opened his eyes once more. He stood up, his eyes looking around for threats, and then tapped the hard cement ground testily. There weren't many loose pieces of cement or rocks on the ground, so he was lucky today. He wouldn't get a sharp rock in his paw. After seeing where the glass was centered all around him, he leaped from his spot, clearing the glass pieces with space to spare, and walked on.

He rounded the alley corner, and came to the old deserted road that hardly any cars went on. He flicked his ears down, his hearing listening to the sounds below his paws, and the road itself. There wasn't a low rumbling like normal, which meant that no car was going to pass by anytime soon, so he walked across. Once to the other side, he turned to his left, and started into a steady sprint.

After running for about ten or so minutes, the dark gray tom stopped, ears perked. He put his ears forward, listening, and then stepped forward into the dark alley in front of him. Within moments, his gray pelt was bathed in black, and the light disappeared as he walked through the near pitch-black alley. He came to where the alley turned left and right, and he took the right, and then at the next turn he gave way to the left, and the pathway opened up.

He stepped out into the light again, and this time, there was a small area in back of a few warehouses and old factories. The area was touched by a few shades of sunlight, and surprisingly, grass touched his paws. The dirt-spots had a few grass stalks growing, but not many. A few large cardboard boxes were over to his right in the corner, but Soul knew that they were there for a reason. They were stacked up just right, so that if a skilled cat dared, they could climb up the boxes without falling and get onto the roof.

He found the cat he was looking for, sitting in the middle of the area, looking right at him. He was waiting for him, but it occurred to Soul that he wasn't late, which led him to believe that this cat, Scourge, had gotten bored and had just decided to wait for him instead of doing something else. When he was a young kit, he probably would have found it funny; their great leader, Scourge, bored with nothing to do but sit and wait for a visitor that he was expecting.

Now it was different.

He blinked, taking in his position, and Scourge's, and then walked forward towards his leader.

As his dark gray fur faded into the shadows of Scourge's 'den', his dark blue eyes grew darker, as if a coldness had touched them, like a venomous snake striking into the hearts of small kits. Dark blue orbs, hidden, faded, sorrowful, gone. Soul's heart was already lost to the darkness, and even the cream tabby, Half, knew.

They all knew. Soul was death itself.

Just like his name, Soul was the very darkness of every soul in every cat's heart – every nightmare. He was the perfect killer, without any mercy, with no thought or ones he cared for. He was just Soul, and Soul alone.

Soul alone.

X

Half's eyes met his dark blue as the gray kit came out of the alley. She was perched up on a trash can, paws hanging off the tip of the edge, her head on her paws. Her tail flicked, interested. He was coming towards her; the other killer kit – herself, the younger one at three and three quarters of a moon and the only other cat who actually knew his name besides Scourge.

He nodded off towards the west, where the forest lay, and where she knew the Clans were. She leaped down off the trash can, her paws only lightly tapping the ground as if she had floated down – her specialty. She was silent and a secret keeper as Scourge called it. She was the other half of the darkness – of Soul.

She understood his unspoken message, and padded after him. He wanted her to join him for a job; that was simple enough to see after all. Even though he hardly ever spoke to her, she had grown to understand his signs and slight eye-contact and switches to one direction or another.

Once they reached the grounds of the forest, Soul didn't head towards the forest, instead he went to the side where the tree's thinned, and in the distance, Half could see small rivers and streams. In her memory and knowledge from what Scourge had taught her, she concluded that this territory was RiverClan, and that as Soul stayed near the lake's edge, they weren't going to the camp.

Soon, night befell them once they were a good ways away from the twolegplace. Their shadows dimmed to blend into the darkness of night, and all that seemed to be left of Soul walking a few tail-lengths in front of Half was a dim outline. Only once he turned around to look back at her, she saw his blue eyes, which didn't exactly bother her or anything. It only made her more curious of why Soul even checked back to see if she had been left behind or not – like Soul was almost mocking her that she had the stamina of a normal kit and couldn't keep up to his fast trot. If needed though, she knew, that she could be silent while running, if she wanted, and could be faster than him on her paws. Not by much, could she win in a race, but it was possible.

Half sped up, running up to his side to as not to keep him waiting for her, if even she was only a fox-length behind. As if sensing something, she looked up at the sky, the stars flickering above in the dark blue sky. She twitched her whiskers in amusement, remembering how Scourge had said the clans thought that the stars were their warrior ancestors, StarClan. It seemed ridiculous to her at first, but she had still heard the stories of how Scourge was killed by Firestar after he had already killed the ThunderClan leader once. Now, she only wanted to claw the ancestors of the clans heart's out – they didn't deserve to exist if they didn't help Scourge. He was a leader of a clan, so if anything, he should have gotten nine lives. Now, Scourge was back and up for revenge, with BloodClan at his side – and Half was pretty sure he now had nine lives, but not from StarClan.

"For all the cats I've killed are the stars in the sky."

The cream tabby blinked her pale blue eyes, slightly surprised at the statement as she turned her head to look at her companion. He was speaking to her – something he never did. He had always ignored her before, so why would he say something as odd as that now.

Soul seemed to notice her surprised expression, and his eyes turned away. His dark eyes were always cold towards anyone, even her. She realized that the words spoken to her were nothing, like they didn't really mean to bring up a conversation. His dark blue eyes were stone cold. They would probably shock any other cat that would dare to look in them, if they tried to hold the gaze, but for Half, it was different.

Her ears went down in disappointment. He wasn't accepting her, she knew, but he was warning her. Warning her to stay away from him, she guessed. She lifted her head up to look at him and ask a question, but before she could, he was off. His quick pace of a sprint made her have to jump to her paws and run after him. As she came to his side, she let her head turn away from his, and her gaze wonder elsewhere.

After a minute or two, the cream tabby got curious, and Half came to herself and finding out that she was speaking again.

"Soul?" She finally said, stopping. Soul's ears twitched, and tilted back. His name, she assumed, was not the first thing he would expect to hear. Usually, no one dared to even mutter a word to the dark gray tom – let alone say him name, and for a moment, she was surprised he even responded to it.

She knew she shouldn't have been scared of him. She had gone through the same exact training too, but something in the back of her mind told her to be scared. It told her to run, to flee, to escape his dark eyes. He was dangerous, and a natural at killing. He had killed the legendary clan leader and taken one of his lives away from him just a while ago. He surely wouldn't hesitate to kill her. Then, as she swallowed, she was reminded of the point of why she was here.

She, Half, and him, Soul, were on a quest to the forest. If he disobeyed Scourge's orders, he would be severely punished.

Soul's eyes switched to her, no other movements seeming to happen between the two of them. She narrowed her eyes just a small bit, now confident again that she could take him on. She raised her chin a little higher, straightening up. She was a killed, just as he was, so she learned the same skills. Sure, he might be a natural, but she could escape him if necessary. She was no longer afraid of him, for there was no need to be. She would face him just as she showed herself to her leader, Scourge, with her head held high and her eyes fierce.

"Our target," Half asked, flicked her tail as if to be casual about it. "Who is it?"

"Deputy," He growled, annoyed. "ThunderClan's deputy Brambleclaw." His eyes and voice betrayed nothing, his emotionless tone and expression etched into his face. "At the gathering of the island."

Her ears twitched, pricking forward. The name was unusual to her, nothing like she had heard before, but she guessed it was expected of the clan-cats. The word 'gathering' caught Half's interest even more, wanting to ask what it was, but then went against asking him another question. It seemed like a simple term, so she assumed it was where all the clans came together and shared news and maybe made friends.

They would all be joined at the gathering, and it would be harder to get to the deputy, Brambleclaw, without being seen. The ThunderClan cats already knew what Soul looked like, so if he was spotted, they would most likely attack – all of ThunderClan. After all, Soul had gone into their camp and killed their leader and then ran out without a second thought about what he had done. It would be a bad idea for a normal cat, going into a large space with all of the clans that were enemies with only one way out. It was a suicide mission, for any normal cat, although, to Half, it was just more fun.

The more she was chased, the better the game. The more the challenge she had, the better life was. To her, it was almost like a game – because that was all she knew. Soul and her were raised to kill, and had killed their first cat at the age of two moons. They completed their training at three moons and a quarter, and now Soul was four moons old, and she herself was three and three quarters. They were both fully trained, and even if they were kits, they were the best killer any clan could ask for.

So, to carry out orders, when they reached the tree-bridge, Soul was the first to step on. Soul was the dark and death, and Half was his other half of his darkness, the silent and secrets.

When Soul's paws touched the pebbles of the island's small shore, he was off, Half just a whisker's length behind. She saw exactly who he was going towards, and with her silent paws and hidden movements, she edged her way around the oblivious crowd of cats from all the four clans.

Then, she saw him, Brambleclaw, a brown tabby tom, with Soul and his glowing dark blue eyes, just behind him. She smiled. It would all end now and their job would be complete, just as those blue eyes leaped in for the kill, and screams would echo across StarClan's petty sky.

It would all be chaos, and this time, BloodClan would win…

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- A/N: Like I said, chapter two is coming right along with chapter one. So, now you know the dark gray tom's, Soul's, name, along with the Half, the cream tabby she-cat. Updates may come fast or they may come slow, I don't have a regular update time with all this crazy random homework I have – sorry.

Anywho~ Please review!

~Wolfy

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