Shoe relished the cold texture beneath his feet, making the faintest of paw prints wherever he went and mewling in content. He was oddly compelled by the lights in the distance where his curiosity burned to see what lay beyond them. The kitten trodded then scampered on its little paws forward, his field of vision blurring with the wind in his face. The next thing he knew, Shoe felt like he was floating in the air.

The white landscape glided by him so fast it didn't take long for him to arrive at a tall fence made of smooth rock. Shoe travelled its length until he reached a metal gate with gaping holes big enough for him to crawl through. Much to his delight, the jittery feline was excited to have found a new playground. Slipping into the shadows so the giant flashlights wouldn't find him, Shoe darted past the towering garden torches and giant eskimos until he stopped for a breath in a dark corner. Peeking around the walls, he caught a glimpse of black boots walking out from an open door and made a mad dash to slip inside before it closed.

From here on in Shoe's instincts kicked in as he found himself in a narrow hall full of metal pipes. Climbing up towards the closest pipes to the ceiling, he tiptoed carefully on them as they led him higher up into the rafters. The fur on his ears prickled at a draft blowing in from one of the air vents, turning his head he slipped inside the dark metal maze. The noises and smells from the glowing slits below served to let the kitten know where he was at all times as he ventured the small corrirors that stretched on forever. He didn't even need to think where he was going as his feet eventually stopped above a small square room. Looking down, the kitten saw a slim figure crouched on a thin mattress scratching away at himself like he needed to get rid of some fleas.

The man was mumbling to himself, until he heard a creaking noise right above him. Squinting at the ceiling and finding nothing, he cautiously backed himself in a corner; another loud creak broke the silence when a cat fell in his lap, shaking off the dust and snow on its back.

An excited gasp choked at his throat as the man felt tears pour down his face.

SHOE!

The kitten snapped its head up as it felt the man's fingers seize its body, half crushing it with his grip as he hugged it tightly to his chest and raised it to his face. The man looked hideous up close with all those crusty red marks marring his facial features, bloodshot eyes and rows of bald patches on his scalp where hair had previously been ripped out.

It didn't matter if his smell or his rambling voice rang familiar with the animal, its pupils dialated when it registered two little words that sent its blood boiling white hot.

HELLO KITTY!

The grin the man wore suddenly tore to shreds when one free paw unsheathed a sharp pair of custom nail caps and raked it over his face, adorning the white walls with red splatters.

A curse, then a soft thump on the ground. The rustle of sheets and the scrambling of feet.

A hiss forced behind grated teeth as the feline leapt towards its attacker.

The gurgle of blood and sliced viscera, the thunderous screams that followed as the feral beast ripped into its former master. Mercilessly carving apart old wounds and slicing new ones in their place, it scratched, scratched and scratched some more even after the body had stopped moving.

When Shoe clawed his way back up into the air vent, a flutter of fabric rippled through the air. A conspicuous black card slipped from its confines and landed by the corpse: three long vertical marks superimposed on a face.

Matt Engarde, the original model it was based on, was now scarred beyond recognition.

...

It hadn't taken very long for the staff in a maximum security facility to investigate the noises in Engarde's solitary cell and sound the alarm the second they had found the body. Donning a spare uniform he "borrowed" from personnel, Shelly easily blended in among the crowd during the commotion; in the comfort of the control room he took the time to liberate some of the captives to distract the guards and doctored the security camera footage in Engarde's cell.

All that was left now for de Killer to do was find Shoe and escape safely.

Avoiding the gun fights raging in the main hallways, he raced up several flights of stairs and broke open the entrance to the rooftop. Frantically searching the area in the middle of a rising blizzard, he soon found the barely-conscious kitten safe and shivering in one of the open ventilation shafts. As he held it close to his chest, a bullet whizzed by the back of his head and he turned around - it appeared some of the prisoners had escaped to the roof as well and the guards in pursuit had opened fire on them in haste.

Noting his cue to escape, de Killer quickly tied a rope to the metal railling and rappelled off the wall. Chaos spread towards the compound grounds where the guards began shooting at the prisoners who've have made it outside. The stray bullets in the distance accidentally struck him in the back, fracturing his ribs and puncturing his thigh. Though his kevlar vest had saved him from a swift death, the blood loss threatened a slower and far painful demise.

Shelly limped through the courtyard to commandeer one of the transport vehicles the personnel had hastily broken out to chase after the fugitives. One of the downed guards sprawled over the driver's seat left the key in the ignition allowing de Killer to drive off the premises and into the woods.

This was the final stretch, de Killer felt his hands growing numb from the cold and blood loss as his vision began to fade. The blizzard was the least of his problems, he had already lost track of how far he drove before he nearly careened into a tree. His sluggish reflexes had kicked in too late as the truck skid and flipped over, throwing him and Shoe onto the snow upon impact.

Shelly shielded the animal with his body, rolling down the hill until he hit the bottom. Raising his arm, he looked at below at Shoe. Miraculously the kitten was still alive, in this weather however the both of them were still in danger of succumbing to hypothermia. Tucking it inside his jacket, de Killer slowly stood up and began to walk. The authorities could still be lurking around somewhere, and he didn't want to risk a confrontation in his state.

He spotted a small cluster of old evergreen trees a few yards away. Concealed underneath their long skirts of snow and pine needles, he checked the GPS system hidden in his golden pocket watch to get his bearings. They were still quite distance away from the safehouse; until he could find a sterile place to extract the bullet in his leg he must tolerate the pain a little longer. When it became difficult to breathe with fractured ribs, Shelly swallowed a few painkiller tablets he kept in his pockets and forced himself to get used to taking small breaths at a time.

In the meanwhile Shoe had been purring profusely, shivering violently from the cold. Shelly felt a liquid warmth leaking through his jacket and realized it had was blood. The old man saw the lacerations on the feline's back and limbs, likely caused by fall after the crash; without proper treatment the kitten wouldn't have long to live. Muttering bitterly at himself, de Killer ripped out his shirt sleeve, tearing it in lengths so he could try to stop the bleeding.

Shoe's eyes opened weakly at the old man cradling his head, he hurt all over and the smell of his own blood made him wretch. His friend must've been very worried, as he found he couldn't raise his hollow voice to reassure the old man. The kitten rolled over onto the snow, walking on feeble legs as he stopped to lick Shelly's leg wound clean.

Such devotion, it's enough to make a grown man cry. The old man tore up his other shirt sleeve and tied it tightly around his thigh. The kitten crawled back into his lap as he stroked its back to ease its pain; its shallow breathing did little to soften the grim expression on his face.

Looking down at the kitten, he sighed.

This animal had no concept of an imposed sense of duty or obligation; the selfless generosity this frail creature was capable of far surpasses painstakingly maintaining some professional visage. De Killer finally understood that having kept his distance from people for so long, he had forgotten the simple pleasure of being in good company.

Shelly hadn't found a successor per se, but he was able to put an end to his part in the de Killer legacy by having the authorities chase after a fictional assassin with an actual body count. Ever since he met Engarde's beloved pet, he planned to use it to kill its own master as a form of poetic justice. It would have been cruel to traumatize the kitten into doing such horrible things consciously, so Shelly had it put under hypnotic suggestion; all the training they did for that very purpose had included murdering his old targets.

Well, all except for one.

If he was able to live through this, de Killer swore he would tie that last loose thread himself. The feline had done much for him, now that the opportunity presented itself, he would repay the debt in kind -

So he pulled out a tiny syringe and put it to sleep.

Tucking Shoe back into his jacket again and gritting his teeth against the cold, the old man made sure the coast was clear before braving the blizzard once more. The snowfall had completely erased his footprints, there was no turning back; it wasn't long before de Killer and Shoe had completely faded from sight.