The wind carried smog from the smokestacks that stood out against the city's skyline, causing the breeze to feel strangely warm against his fur. The smoke itself didn't bother him anymore, though truthfully, it never had. 

Since the day he woke up in the workshop, went his mind became alight with fleeting thoughts and unimaginable comprehension, he'd known he was going to die young. 

So as Hero stepped out onto the rooftop, it was clear he'd lost all sense of danger, and most of his grip on reality. The shadows flitted around his paws, masking him from the sliver of moon that was washed over by clouds at a constantly fluctuating pace. Silhouetted on the edge of the roof stood a wiry brown tom, fur ticked with darker hues and his long tail trailing behind him. He wasn't particularly large, but intimidating all the same. As he tilted his head to observe the battle scene miles away, dotted with ever-burning fires, the light caught his strikingly elegant features and unnervingly bright amber eyes. Unmistakably pure-bred, no matter what angle you looked at him from.

Two muscular toms were stationed on either side of him, but their gazes wandered about the rooftop from time to time, on high alert for any enemy cat who managed to circumvent their defenses. A third she-cat patrolled the edge of the rooftop, but her fur prickled with agitation, and she seemed more focused on staring down at the ground between her paws as she walked. With a huff, she turned, heading back towards the edge of the roof, where Alpha still sat. 

"You're not safe here, sir," she growled, and judging by her tone, it was not the first time this had been conveyed to the leader. "A patrol reported several cats in the east wing corridor, and out of the estimated six who breached our defenses, only one has been confirmed dead."

Hero couldn't see the leader's smirk, but his snort of contempt was easily audible. "Sunshine's errand boy was with them, no doubt?"

"The Timekeeper?"

Hero's pupils shrank to slits.

"Is that what he's calling himself?" Alpha chuckled, gaze still fixed on the scene ahead of him, "That little band of Faction misfits won't make it out of the corridor in once piece, I guarantee you that. And if they do, I'll kill them myself."

Hero's paw rested on a small metal contraption, and as the she-cat begrudgingly returned to her pacing, he managed slip it over one shoulder. Metal rungs held it tight to his shoulder blade, though he hadn't bothered to attach the straps that were clearly meant to fasten across his chest. With a click, something slipped down over one of his eyes; another metal piece with a lens, inscribed with a small cross-like marking. 

The crossbow-esque weapon had been dropped in the corridor where Kilter was killed, and the missing projectile was undoubtedly the one that had sealed the tom's fate.

Five remained.

With movements that echoed the she-cat's like a shadow, Hero padded alongside the wall, weighed down by the weapon, though his paws met the stone soundlessly. His eyes never left the she-cat's form - battle scarred, though her fur held a lustrous sheen. She came to a gradual halt near the edge of the roof, whiskers twitching in irritation, as Hero silently drew a glinting steel shaft from the cuff he'd exchanged his previous blade for.

"I'm never gonna get anywhere with this job," the she-cat muttered, scuffing the ground with her paw, "That's what I get for leaving home."

The shaft slid into place with a sharp click, flashing so brightly that the she-cat winced when it briefly flickered across her ice-blue eyes, and the droplets of blood torn from her neck were whipped away by the wind moments before she fell into the river several stories below. Hero fired another shot before one of Alpha's guards had time to react to the incident, and the other, a bulky brown tom, started towards him just as he loaded the next.

"Traitorous bottom-feeding scum," the tom spat, and the projectile pierced his exposed chest, turning the last word to a spluttering cry.

Never losing his composure, Alpha turned to face him, jaw briefly clenched in dissatisfaction before he adopted a flickering grin. "So you're him, then?" he asked tauntingly, completely unfazed as Hero began to advance, "I have to admit, I was expecting someone a bit more... impressive."

Another projectile loaded, Hero's face contorted with anger. "Impressive?" He snapped, the metal pieces of the contraption clinking together as he continued forward, "You've killed hundreds of innocent cats, chased them from their homes and threatened their families just because they're not like you. You've upset the peace that our leaders put into place so long ago, turned the entire city against itself, provoked a full blown war that's threatening to wipe the entire population. Not just kittypets and Clan cats, everyone. I allied with my greatest enemy. I brought the Clans together. I sealed an ancient call-to-arms agreement with the founder of my Clan to keep you from power, because she believed in the equality of every cat who has lived and will ever live in this city. You deem that unimpressive?"

Hero was panting by the end of his rant, but Alpha only smiled wider, a knowing glint in his eyes that struck Hero with an apprehensive sickness. "That's what he told you?" Alpha snorted, ears pinned back as he emitted a sound that sounded more like a choke than a laugh, "That she was some savior of the Clans? Some enforcer of the peace?"

Hero had halted now, his weapon raised and within range to fire. "Why don't you stop talking so I can kill you faster?"

Instead of heeding the warning, the leader only continued to talk, expression unchangingly smug. "Ash wasn't a hero. She was an outcast to the point that she was barely a part of her own clan. So one day she snapped, waltzed into the city, and made a deal with the first cat she could find who held a position of power," he began, sneering as Hero's anger began melting into stubborn disbelief, though he didn't attempt to interrupt, "She decided to stage an ambush. The Factions would attack the Clan cats, Ash would get to play hero, even if it meant countless casualties. She led most of the cats to safety, fended off the attackers, founded a Clan, and for the first time her pathetic life was worth something."

 "You're lying," Hero growled, unconvinced.

Alpha continued without missing a beat. "In return, she became the Factions' personal source of information, gathering information from any of the non-Clan cats who joined AshClan and relaying it to whichever Faction could offer her the most in return, regardless of the resulting collateral damage. Kittypet homes and loner camps were discovered and destroyed, along with their inhabitants, thanks to locations she provided. She would promise to return the cats' families, when in reality she was sacrificing them all in an attempt to make herself more powerful."

Hero was trembling now. "Shut up," he hissed, tension clear in his voice, "Shut up."

"And it worked. She didn't care about anything but the strength of her own clan, and from her perspective, she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. When that wasn't enough to satisfy her need for control, she turned her sights on the city itself. Eventually, she made a faux call-to-arms agreement with the leader of the city's main Faction to gain his trust, and killed him the moment she had the chance. She vowed to wipe the city of its filth, its impurities, and broke away to become the original founder of the South Faction."

"Y-you're..." Hero stuttered, but couldn't find the words. His paws were glued to the cement, mind whirling with the realization of betrayal, unsure of what emotion he felt beneath a mask of disbelief. Somehow, Alpha's words had broken him, and he couldn't find any sort of plausible reaction, other that to whimper out a final word. "Lying."

But it all made sense. 

"Hero!" Came a call from behind him, and Alpha raised his head to spot a large, black tom padding across the rooftop at a hurried pace. "Don't listen to him, you know he isn't telling the truth."

Hero only had to angle his head slightly to see Sunshine and Thug had somehow caught up to him, both showing marks of battle, though Thug's wounds were much more prominent. "There's no reason to believe him," Thug added, faithful as always to the words of his leader, but stopped almost immediately afterwards to lift his paw. It was twisted at an odd angle, and Hero was surprised he had made it this far from the battle field.

Sunshine, however, did not even glance back as he approached Alpha, brow furrowed. "Is this your plan, you absolute dullard? Convince one of our most noble warriors that the entire cause he's fighting for is some kind of... some kind of corrupt plot? If you think even for one second that he's going to believe you, you're even denser than I thought."

Only a few feet from Alpha now, Sunshine looked over at Hero for confirmation, relaxing the snarl he had been directing at Alpha, who remained unmoving in the face of Hero's weapon. "How did you get up here so fast?"

Sunshine's frown deepened. "What?"

"It took us hours to find our way here, and we were with a cat who knew the territory inside and out," Hero murmured, turning now to address Thug, "You arrived just in time to stop Alpha from incriminating you."

"I... he told me to follow him here. He knew where to go." Gradually, Thug's eyes clouded with doubt, and he looked at the ground for a moment before looking back at Hero, "He told me to hang back in case of an attack. How did you know how to get here?"

Sunshine's gaze was cold and hard, but he said nothing when Hero moved to the side slightly, now aiming the crossbow at him. "He followed us."

Sunshine scoffed, now seemingly aware that he had put himself in the line of fire. "Are you accusing me of-"

"Starting a war over a fake document? Sacrificing hundreds of cats to fulfill your own psychotic plans? Sending my friends and I up here to die?" Hero snarled, each word louder than the previous, "Take your pick."

Alpha not had moved, but by now, his smug grin had all but vanished. Hero remained planted in front of the two leaders, aiming the weapon at Alpha once again. "And because of you, I've lost everyone I love. It's the blood of my friends that's been spilled in this city, it was your command that sent four month old kittens to fight in a war, it was your words that provoked groups of cats to turn on each other and slaughter each other for an empty cause."

Neither cat spoke to defend themselves, and Sunshine stared desperately at Thug, whose confusion had turned to hostility. "Are you just going to stand there and let him make threats?"

Thug swallowed, tail lashing in irritation. "I suppose so."

"As I see it, you're both murderous, manipulative lowlifes. So the question is, which one of you do I kill?"

There was another period of silence as the two leaders, now with no other option, struggled to decide their next plan of action.

"Kill him," Alpha blurted.

Sunshine whipped around to face him. "What?"

"He got you involved in the war. None of this would have happening if you hadn't decided to fight for him," Alpha reasoned refusing to make eye contact with the other tom as he did so.

"We wouldn't have even had a war if you had just stayed in your own damn territory."

"He manipulated you into risking your own life! Kill him, Hero, I swear I'll repay you. "

"He sent cats to hunt down and murder your friends." 

"You used them as bait."

"You can't seriously believe he's going to repay you."

Hero didn't speak a word as the two toms argued, each trying to pin the blame on the other and barely managing to stop themselves from going at each other's throats. He took a leisurely step forward, laughing under his breath, and the two toms shared a last glower before redirecting their attention. "So, both of you think that the other is more deserving of death," he concluded, then raising his voice, "Well, I have good news for the two of you. You're both going to get what you want."

Another pause, and Hero's mouth twitched, the ghost of a malevolent smile. "I've still got two projectiles left."

Sunshine's scowl vanished in an instant, as if he was only know registering the fact that he was in legitimate danger. "You won't," he challenged, but it was clear he didn't believe that anymore.

"I won't kill you both?" Hero questioned, claws flexing with impatience as he laughed quietly, "I have every reason to."

As the words left Hero's mouth, he knew they were true. Maybe more so than anything else that had been said on the roof that night. So he stood, with his two greatest enemies completely at his mercy, and with a weapon pointed at their heads. Both responsible for so much death and destruction, both had made it their goal to see him dead, both would have made the shot in a heartbeat if the had been the one holding the crossbow.

But Hero didn't.

Because on the opposite side of the roof, where an elevated metal pathway connected the next this building to the next one over, a cat had appeared. A smallish, toirtoiseshell-and-white cat, with half of her face and most of her foreleg swathed in bandages. Then a second, moving to help support the first, and a grey tabby and a large grey tom. Tags was the last to reach the bridge, and she stood where Lilypool might have.

They were all there; Swiftstorm, Snowfeather, Jayflight, Smokewhisker, they were all safe, and they were all watching him expectantly.

So Hero didn't shoot. 

Instead, he sighed and lowered the weapon. "But if I killed you, I would be no better than you are. We could walk away. No one would have to get hurt," he exhaled, glancing up at the bridge again before he began waling forward, between the two toms. Once he reached the edge of the roof, he ducked out of the straps that bound the weapon to his body, and tossed it on the ground. He looked at each one in turn, then slowly began walking away from them and towards the bridge.

Without a moment's hesitation, the two toms dove for the crossbow, claws unsheathing as they struggled to grasp the weapon that could seal their enemy's fate. They wrestled over it, intent on gaining to upper hand, until the endeavor brought them too close to the edge of the roof. They lost traction, and with a partially muffled screech, stumbled over the side of the roof and towards the raging water below. The crossbow fell behind them.

It was over in an instant, and then the sound of rushing water flooded his senses. 

Long time no update sorry my friends

~Frost