The stench of monsters was in the air in the night. Twolegs walking about at night. A lean black shape moved in the darkness. It was a cat. His yellow eyes surveying the bowels of what was below him;cats lazily napping below, Twolegs standing around, some with dogs on long weird strings. The tom blinked, his black pelt being swallowed up by the night.

"Hello Rufus." A voice purred. The tom didn't turn. "It's been a while Ancel." Rufus meowed. A big blue-gray tom with a skinny tail and a missing eye stared at him, his good eye gleaming. "You should quit this act. Trying to save cats." He mewed.

Rufus stiffened. "Then who else will save cats from being taken by Twolegs? Or being attacked by dogs? Or even one of our own?" He challenged turning to face him, the moonlight faintly on a torn and ragged left ear.

"Maybe it's time you leave things as they should be and give up. I know how hard it's been since you lost your kin, but it's been ages." Ancel told the dark gray tom. But Rufus wouldn't budge. If he had to, he would stop the disarray on his own. "Sorry." He meowed and curled his tail to jump from one building, then another, and gracefully down to the ground with his companion following.

"Well I guess I'd better get going to Stella's Twoleg nest. Her housefolk don't even put their silver-thing to their Thunderpath until tomorrow she tells me. So I get eating rights." He padded off in another direction flicking his tail as a way of telling him goodbye.

Rufus lashed his plumy striped tail and walked down one of the small Graypaths beside the mighty Thunderpath. Stomach growling, he saw a Twoleg beside a tiny metal thing with freshkill. His hunger demanding he take it, the tom nudged the Twoleg and they gave him some kittypet slop in a small holder.

He then went into a narrow alley and a cat exploded from the shadows in front of him. "Oi you!" They growled. Rufus curled his lip but kept his composure. "I don't want any trouble Donnie. Now move." He took a step but Donnie, a scarred black tom with a white underbelly, stepped forward threateningly; a scratched eye still red and fresh.

"I'll take that meat from ya." He growled, his claws slowly sliding out. Another cat, supposedly his friend, a kittypet, padded out and he gasped. "That's the cat that thinks he's saving the city Donnie!" He sneered, his silver tabby tail lashing from side to side.

"Is that so Webber?" Donnie snarled, still facing Rufus. With such quickness that left him stunned, the dark gray and black tom swiped him across the face as Webber ran off to a Twoleg windowsill. Donnie screeched out and Rufus ran away to a cardboard box with his freshkill, really smelling of kittypet food now that it was up close.

Taking a bite, he was eating. He had been in this box in the back of an alley ever since he was born, losing his parents to Twolegs who took them away. But he would do something to help his companions. And he wouldn't fail.