I know, I know, there are dozens of 'How Schwarz Got Started' fics, but I've had this idea in my head for over a year and I figured it was about time.

Glyph-chan: Wai! Chibi-Shuldig!

And there's that. mutter stupid obsessive muse.

This is my first my first ever Weiss Kreuz fic, please be gentle with me.

Disclaimer: I don't own Weiss Kreuz; I'm not making any money off of this. If you sued me, you'd get nothing.

Italics -thought

The Black Assembly

Prologue: The Boy, The Girl, and The Rat

It was cold in the room. It was dark in the room. The Boy could see only dull shadows, black on black. Not that there was anything to see in the room. Four stone walls, a grate in the floor, and the Girl. He wouldn't have known the Girl was in the room with him if not for the brief light when the door had been opened and he was thrust into the room.

They had put him in here as punishment. He liked it better in here. He did not like the grown-ups outside. They were not his parents. They were not his teachers. The said they were his new family. He wanted to go home. He had thought it over and over. He thought it so much that one of the grown-ups started screaming and bleeding. The other grown-ups told him to stop, but he would not obey.

Children who did not obey were taken away. Some were put in the dark rooms. Some were not let out.

The Girl was here because she did not obey. He had seen her on the outside. She was one of the unlucky children. She did not speak German. She did not understand when the grown-ups told her to obey and hit her. The grown-ups did not care. The grown-ups yelled at her to obey, and they hit her, and one day she hit one of the grown-ups back. She hit one of the grown-ups on the head with a piece of brick.

So they sat there in the dark room. They had hurt grown-ups. They had not obeyed. They would not be let out of the dark room. They would not be let out even after they were dead.

Unless they decided to obey.

The Boy had heard one of the grown-ups say that. But he would not obey. He would not let himself die, but he would not obey.

The Girl was moving. Every now and then, she moved. She moved closer to him. He wondered what she was doing. He could not ask her, because the Girl would not understand. And even if the Girl could understand, he could not ask her because one of the grown-ups had hurt his throat. So he thought at her. Her head was different than his. Her thought were scattered around, and she did not think in German. So he thought simple things at her, things that did not need words.

Confused. Question? Movement? Why?

The Girl heard him. She waited a moment, and thought simple things. She could not think at him, but he could listen to her head.

One cold. Two warm. Good?

She did not ask how he could think at her. All the children and the grown-ups could do things like that. Some could think at people, some could see things, some could hear things, some could move things. That was how the grown-up had hurt his throat.

Warm good.

Warm good.

She was next to him now. Touching, he could see inside her head. Everything was jumbled. Lots of children outside were like that. It was a method of survival outside. But there was something beneath the jumble.

Death bad. No death.

The Girl did not want to die. She refused to die. Just like he refused to die. They were the same.

Agreement.

It was still dark in the room. But it was not cold anymore. The Boy and the Girl would not die.

They had been in the room a long time. They were filthy and hungry, but they would not die. They had learned how to not die.

The Boy thought at the Girl, and she listened to him. The Boy thought German at the Girl, so she could learn it. The Girl spoke English. The grown-ups had brought her from America. He listened to the English in her head, so that he could learn it.

The Girl could not think at people or listen to their heads. She could touch something and know what the other people who touched it were thinking. She put her hands on the floor and knew everything about the dark room. The moment the Girl knew something she made sure the Boy could hear it in her head.

The Girl touched the wall, and knew that mice came from the cracks in the wall to eat the children who had died in the dark room. They would not die, and instead they waited for the mice. When the mice came, the Boy heard their little mouse thoughts, and the Girl killed them. They ate the mice, and used the little bits left to make more mice come out.

Excitement! Good! Good!

There was a loud squeaking, and the Girl made a giggling noise. She had caught something different.

What?

It had been a long time, but it still hurt when the Boy tried to talk.

Mouse/Not mouse. Big mouse…long mouse… Not wall, grate.

She did not know the German word for what she had caught. It had come out of the grate. The mice came out of the wall. It was still alive. It squeaked and bit the Girl's fingers, but the Girl did not let go.

The Girl always knew where the Boy was in the dark room, and she went to him. She thrust the big-not-mouse into his chest. He put his hands on the thing. It had a long nose, and a long tail.

Rat! It's a rat!

The Girl's thoughts were wild. She liked killing the mice. The Rat would be more to kill and more to eat.

The Girl was wrapping her hands around the Rat's neck, when the Boy remembered something.

He remembered an older boy. The older boy was not from outside the room. The older boy was from outside the outside. From before the grown-ups who wanted him to obey. The older boy had something in his pocket, a white rat that did tricks and made him laugh. He remembered the older boy hugging him, and letting him pet the rat. He remembered missing the older boy. The rat made him remember the older boy. The older boy… his older brother… he had forgotten. He could not forget that!

"No!" The Boy shouted.

The Girl stopped from killing the Rat.

Why? Why? Bad? Voice?

The Girl did not understand why the Boy had shouted at her. He should have thought it. His voice did not work right, and it hurt him to use it. The Girl did not like it when the Boy hurt.

Keep rat. Rat smart, mice stupid. Rat-pet-keep-pet. Sad/cold/hurt/alone.

The Boy could not make his thoughts make sense to her, but she pressed the Rat to his chest again. He took the Rat and held it close. The Girl went back to hunting mice, while the Boy thought at the Rat. He thought at the Rat until it stopped biting him and curled up in his shirt. He could hear the Girl's thoughts jumble themselves in confusion, but she did not try to kill the Rat again.

The Rat wandered away, but came back when the Boy thought at it. He taught the Rat things. The Rat helped the Girl catch mice. The Girl thought it was funny when the Rat made a nest out of the Boy's hair. The Boy taught the Girl German. The Girl taught the Boy English. The Rat picked little bugs out of their hair to eat.

The Boy, the Girl, and the Rat lived together in the dark room. They would not die.

Then, the door opened, and the dark room was not dark anymore.

Ende

Three guesses who the Boy is. grin

Please review!