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Blackheart

Disclaimer: I don’t own Warriors or any of the characters in the franchise. I only own Blackheart.

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Just thought I’d try my hand at a Warriors fic. This story centers around Bloodclan after its defeat in The Darkest Hour. As a AU fiction, Scourge is alive, but Bloodclan is broken, with only a few select cats still loyal. Most others have either struck out on their own or become part of the numerous new gangs. Scourge starts a recruitment process, and ends up finding a little more than a new cat along the way…

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Nobody really understood real hardship until it was thrust onto them. The fat, lazy kitty pets thought hardship was having to get up and exercise; forest cats thought hardship was having little to hunt during leaf bare, or having to fight petty territory battles; rogues and loners believed it was not having a home or struggling for food.

Lies. All of it, lies!

Real hardship was being taken from your mother when you’re barely six moons old, and thrown in a cage in the back of a monster with other screaming, yowling cats. It was being put into an even smaller cage inside a Twoleg nest and fed dry, nearly inedible garbage that they tried to pass of as food. It was being put on a cold surface while they poked, prodded and cut you while you screamed. It was being put into a pen with other cats and fighting just to be left alone to drown in your own misery.

It was living every day just to feel yourself die a little more inside.

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He had long since forgotten what his mother looked like. He couldn’t even remember if he had any siblings. Most likely not; if he could recall his mother, he could have recalled any brothers or sisters… All he really did remember were the cages and the countless other animals in the pens.

The Twolegs were taking them out again. They had been doing that a lot lately. Bringing them out into the front of the large den and placing all the animals in large pens where visiting Twolegs and their kits could stare and make noises at them. All the other animals rushed to the edges of the high entrapment and began to make every noise and gesture to appeal to the giant beasts.

It made him sick.

“Move over Blackheart!” A golden tabby, Anna, she was called, jostled his shoulder as she rushed past him to get to the front of the pen. Of all the cats she was most anxious to become a kittypet. She was also the one to give him his name.

It had been an accident really. Days after he had arrived a tom had tried to bully him into submission. Blackheart would have none of it. Though the tom had been stronger, Blackheart had been hardened after just days of the Twoleg’s treatment. He had slashed the tom’s throat and left him to die. Anna, who had been watching with other cats from the sidelines, had yowled and said, “You’d have to have a heart as black as your fur to do that!” The name started there and pretty soon it had stuck.

He himself was a sleek, long legged tom with fur as black as night, with brown paws and hard, brown eyes that never softened. They always seemed sad or angry. He would have to agree on that one. All he had ever felt was sad or angry. And empty…

Blackheart sniffed, disinterested. “Maybe you should watch where you’re going. Just because you get to the front doesn’t mean they’ll pick you.” He himself had no desire for a kittypet existence. It would only mean to trade one prison for another. For all he knew, the Twolegs outside of that place were even more heartless than the ones he dealt with every day. At least in here he knew what to expect and deal with.

But on the other hand he desired freedom. The prison he could not escape; Twolegs kept him and the others locked up and the passages to the outside were too heavy to move. As much as he hated to admit it, the Twolegs were, ironically, his only way out.

Anna piped up again, her tail swishing to and fro. “Maybe not… But trying to get out of here is better than rotting! Wouldn’t you rather do something other than just sit around all day and let those Twolegs treat you like a captive? Don’t you want something better?”

Yes. Blackheart buried his antagonism and gave himself a quick grooming to shine up his pelt. He took a deep breath and took what he hoped was his first step towards freedom.

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“Brick, what have you to report?” The voice, like nails being dragged on rock echoed through the alley, which merely sunrises ago had been teeming with cats. From atop the dumpster, Scourge scowled, his bristling fur making him look twice his size. Red scars decorated his pelt from the previous battle. His eyes, cold, icy daggers, dig into his subordinate’s pelt.

A gaunt, skinny orange tom dipped his head respectfully and addressed his leader. “Most of our forces were scattered when the Clan cats defeated us in battle. Some have died, others have returned to Twoleg place intact.”

“Then why are they not here?” The dumpster screeched from the dragging of Scourge’s reinforced claws.

A third voice, deeper this time, answered from the alley mouth, “They’ve lost faith in you Scourge.” Bone, a large black and white tom sporting his own scars from the battle in Fourtrees stalked into the alley angrily. “Those ungrateful mouse brains have abandoned Bloodclan. Most have fled from Twoleg place, but others have stayed and formed their own independent Clans.”

“What of Snake and Ice?” Scourge inquired. They had been loyal Bloodclan cats. He should know; he ordered them to savage their own sister. Surely they had not turned traitor?

Bone shook his head. “They have not only turned against us, but they’ve formed a new Clan along with other cats. They call themselves Stoneclan and live behind the Twoleg food place.” The large cat looked grave as he licked his lips and said his next words. “Scourge, we’re all that’s left. At this rate, we’ll either starve or Stoneclan will kill us.”

Scourge’s icy eyes blazed with malice. Finding purchase in the thick metal, his reinforced claws gouged huge scratches. With a leap, he was instantly in front Brick and Bone and yowled, “ Get out there! Round up whatever cat you can find! Any rogue, loner, or even kittypet, bring them to this alley and force them to swear loyalty to me! Any cat who walks in Twoleg place is mine! Their lives are mine! This place is mine! It’s time to make every cat here remember that.”

Bone and Brick dipped their heads and scurried out of the alley, eager to reclaim their lost power and fearful of what Scourge would do if they failed.

The dark leader skulked under his dumpster and curled his tail around himself. He had worked too hard, literally clawed his way to the top, just to lose it all now. He would rebuild Bloodclan, make it stronger, more bloodthirsty than ever before. An army of cats would be under his command, serving him. Death awaited all who opposed him.

Twoleg place is mine. I’ll make the stones themselves bleed!