– Nero –

Like so many others, he'd been an orphan. One of thousands roaming the streets of his ruined city, eking out a meager existence by scavenging through rubbish bins and rubble for anything of use. And if there was one truth his kind learned early on, it was that the world wasn't fair. People were not born equal, some were large, some were not. Those who were not, quickly starved. Perhaps, that was why he'd grasped the first hand that had reached out to him with no questions asked.

"Come with me and I promise you won't starve." the kind face had said.

"Alright."

What else was Nero going to say? Anywhere was better than here, he had thought, his childish mind simply unable to imagine a worse situation than the one he'd be escaping. He would learn soon enough.

Nero had been taken to a large underground facility, filled with hundreds of other children just as thin and gaunt as he. Other orphans. From hunger, from war, from disease to simple abandonment, the causes of their orphanhood were as diverse as they could be. Yet, upon the basis of their shared misery, they quickly established the tentative bonds of friendship and camaraderie.

"Hi, my name is #&@%. What's yours?"

"...Nero."

"Nice to meet you, Nero! Wanna be friends?!"

The instructors tore those bonds to shreds.

"It's dinner time, maggots!"

"Ge'rroff me! Get off me!"

"It's mine! I saw it first!"

"Well, I had it first! You can't have it!"

One of their favorite methods was to reduce the amount of rations delivered to the cave every day. Dry and tasteless tack it may have been, it was food and he had eaten worse to survive in the past. But there simply never was enough, not if they all wanted to be sated.

"Please, can't I have that back? You took all my food yesterday too. It's not fair!"

"What are you talking about? Of course it's fair. I'm bigger than you. It's only natural that I need more food."

"But…but…what about me?"

"Why should I care? Now go away!"

Children could be cruel. Rather than distribute the food evenly, the larger ones hoarded the greatest share, the rest being forced to fight tooth and nail for their scraps. Those that tried to challenge the hierarchy often disappeared entirely only to reappear as a cold corpse in a dark alcove.

However, it was not only the greatest cruelty that was present in children, but also the potential for the purest acts of kindness. And sometimes when they were at their lowest, all someone needed to keep going was that small spark of human kindness shown to them in their darkest hour.

"Nero, wanna have half of mine?"

"Sob…thank you…sob...but why is your half smaller…chew…than mine?"

"No, it isn't!"

Nero survived.

He stole. He cheated. He robbed and he fought.

And on the day he beat the largest of his former bullies, Nero graduated from the cave he had spent the last three years within. He was eight years old.

"I'll be alright, trust your Big Sis, alright?"

"But…"

"Go on ahead! I'll catch up before you know it!"

"But I'm older than you!"

"Don't sweat the small stuff!"

His friend never graduated. Nero cried.

Regardless, he adapted to his new life with little difficulty. Training, training, training and more training filled his waking hours but the food was plentiful if still tasteless. He remembered scarfing down everything within reach, doing his best to fill his stomach to bursting for the first time ever in his life.

He remembered throwing up on his senior's boots and being beaten black and blue. And when Nero killed that senior three months later, his plate had a sausage on it. Nero cried that day, though to this very day, he wasn't quite certain why.

And so time passed. At the age of twelve, he was given his first mission together with three of his peers. Those guys never returned, having gone out in a blaze of glory together with their target. Nero did not. No one ever asked. Back at base, he received his first fruit. Nero cried that day. It was delicious.

By the time he reached his fifteenth year, his indoctrination was deemed complete. Soon after, he was gifted with a white suit and a white hat, before being congratulated for having passed his initiation.

"Welcome to the CP5! I hear my father found you?"

"Yes sir. I'm very grateful that Chief Spandine gave someone like me the opportunity to serve the greater good."

"Wonderful! You'll make a perfect minion!"

Things went wrong almost instantly. That old fishman on Water Seven simply refused to cooperate and his new handler's mood got a little worse every day. Eventually, the man's patience simply ran out.

"Nero! You're my best agent. Kill that filthy fishman and bring me the blueprints!"

"Sir, I may be four times as strong as the average human, but with all due respect, the shipwright is a fishman."

"Haaah? What does that have to do with anything? Your job is to die for the sake of my promotion! Shut up and do as you're told!"

Thankfully, Nero never did need to carry out the order and the later failure of the CP5 to secure the Pluton blueprints didn't seem to hinder his boss' career prospects in the slightest. Quite on the contrary, as a reward for bringing the rebellious shipwright to his knees and enabling his arrest, Spandam was promoted to the position of chief of the legendary CP9. As for Nero? Nero rode Spandam's proverbial coattails all the way to bootcamp. The CP9 bootcamp.

Six years later, he walked into the Tower of Justice for the first time with a swagger in his steps, certain that he'd fit right in. His new 'comrades' quickly disabused him of the notion. Jabra in particular took a particular pleasure in welcoming the new recruit.

"A weasel, eh? Come on then little mutt, let's go for a few rounds!"

Day after Day.

"Damn, you're weak."

Week after Week.

"You sure you're in the right place, little weasel?"

Month after Month.

Tough love, Jabra called it, a way to toughen Nero up. Surely it was better to bleed a little (a lot) now than to bleed out later. That Nero spent more time in the infirmary than his own room seemed to be of interest to noone at all. Jabra certainly didn't care. Or maybe he did. He certainly seemed to enjoy putting him there.

In many ways, Nero was the perfect punching bag for the self-styled apex predator. Eager for recognition, too weak to offer any meaningful resistance, but strong enough to continue to cry out well into the beating without falling unconscious. By the time Nero had recognized what was going on, it was too late. After all, the only way to leave the CP9 was either by desertion or in a body bag. Being laughably outmatched by everyone involved, neither were acceptable options for Nero. Which was why he'd grit his teeth and persevered as he'd done in the cave all those years ago.

At least Jabra respected the sanctity of the infirmary and didn't bother Nero there. Or perhaps, he simply hadn't been interested in someone who was immobile and couldn't offer even a token resistance.

Kumadori on the other hand, loved the infirmary.

It was an enclosed space filled with individuals who could not escape even if they wanted to, the perfect captive audience for his artistic renditions. Sleep and rest became a luxury as the wannabe kabuki actor would drop by whenever he felt like it to put on one of his long performances. Those who failed to pay attention or simply fell unconscious from exhaustion were either rudely awakened via a shigan Q or otherwise paid the price for daring to scorn an artist. There was a reason that the medical staff of Enies Lobbie had mastered the art of patching up puncture wounds.

And the less said about Fukurou the better. Like seriously.

Throughout it all, Nero had clung onto a single hope: the legend amongst legends, Rob Lucci.

Nero had grown up hearing of his exploits, redacted as they were, every trainer having held him up as a shining example of the type of agent they expected Nero to become. An ideal to aspire to. Dutiful. Just. Strength without peer (apart from the admirals but they didn't count). Whispers had circulated of how Lucci had put Jabra in his place years prior and it stood to reason that Jabra could only behave as he did because to the real predator was away. Surely, when Lucci came back, things would be different. Not because Lucci would have any reason to care about Nero, that sort of naivety had been beaten out of him long ago, but because reigning Jabra in would serve Lucci's own interests by reestablishing his dominance as the leader of the pack.

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So, when the news arrived that Lucci was returning from his long undercover mission, Nero immediately volunteered to join the welcoming party, eager to make a good first impression. Things were going to be different going forwards, of this Nero had been certain.

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Nero could proudly say that he had gotten much stronger in the months he'd spent on Bellamy's ship and comparing the current him to the one before would be like comparing heaven and earth.

That being said, there were downsides to be being significantly more durable, one of which was that his body required much greater doses of pain to fall unconscious. Which also meant, that Nero couldn't simply escape his current predicament into Lalaland.

"ROKUOGAN!!!!!"

It feels like his insides were being liquified.

To say that it was painful would be like saying that lava was warm, that word being wholly inadequate to describe the sheer agony suffusing Nero's whole being. The pain even forced back the darkness encroaching the edges of his vision. He would scream if he could, but his vocal strings had already given up halfway through. He supposed, he should be thankful that he was already laid out flat on his back, and thus unable to give himself a concussion by toppling over like a sack of potatoes…

"How'd you like that, Lucci! I've caught up to you now!" Jabra howled at the moon, not paying Nero any attention. Not that Nero could do much right now except lie there. "You had a doriki of four thousand? I've reached that and more, you bastard!"

Even thinking about moving hurt right now, but Nero ignores the desire to rest, focusing instead on getting his body back under control. First the fingers, then the toes then the larger parts, Nero slowly wiggled his way back to his feet.

"D-don't ignore me, a-asshole!" Nero hissed, though it came out more as a series of gasps.

"Hoh? You're still alive, little weasel?" Jabra asked, raising one eyebrow. "Are you sure you don't want to lie back down? You look like you need it."

The urge to just give up was strong. Very strong. Nero couldn't deny that. It would be so easy to say that he'd never stood a chance in the first place. That all of them had been right in calling him weak. To accept that to struggle any further was a futile endeavour, and that he should retreat and return with backup. It would be the smart thing to do, the right thing.

Nobody had ever accused Nero of being smart.

"No need to worry about me." Nero bluffed, but it was one that no one else would believe, not with how each breath was a struggle. "I've still got enough in me to kick your ass."

But it wasn't anyone else Nero wanted to convince, it was himself. And with the chains of his inner grudges unlocked, it really didn't take a lot. Who cared if Jabra had a ridiculously high power rating (doriki) or had apparently mastered the Rokuogan? Nero wasn't going to accept being defeated like this. Not by Jabra of all people.

"Like you ever came close. Should I give you a reminder, little weasel? Just like I did at Enies Lobbie?" Jabra snorted, casually strutting towards Nero. Slow enough that Nero could pull out one of his remaining cards. "Oh, is that one of those dial thingamajigs? You going to try and set me on fire, then? Just to let you know, that doesn't work on me anymore."

"No, not fire." Still, just because he'd gotten himself back into a fighting mood didn't mean he was going to ignore what had just happened. In a straight fistfight, Jabra was stronger than him and that went double when he was using his wolf-form as he currently was. Thing was, for all that his hybrid form granted Jabra greater speed and strength, it also provided a glaring weakness. "Sound."

Jabra screamed as something Nero couldn't hear assaulted his hearing, his paws clasped over his ears in a doomed effort to lessen the pain.

Originally, this had been a way for Lily to mess with her boyfriend, but when it turned out that Hornets weren't susceptible to dog whistles, she had quickly lost interest. Nero however, had not.

Jabra was a canine and from what his captain had said, Lucci was a feline. That alone had been reason enough to explore this further. The result had been a sound dial containing the racket of a dozen dog whistles, played in such a manner as to take advantage of their resonance, and hence magnify the intensity of certain high-pitch frequencies way beyond what was safe and reasonable.

While Nero would have loved nothing more than to end the fight here and now while Jabra was…distracted, with his body in the shape it was, he had to settle for jabbing one of Muret's emergency syringes into his thigh. Near immediately, the analgetic got to work, lessening the pain and easing the trembling in his limbs. It wasn't perfect not by a long shot, but it would have to do for now, his little window of opportunity closing as Jabra stopped screaming in pain.

The wolf's eyes were bloodshot and glaring bloody murder, but there was now a hint of wariness within them. And why wouldn't there be? After all, in order to escape from Nero's sonic assault, Jabra had been forced to make a drastic choice. The blood dripping out of his ears was clear proof of what he'd done…he'd taken out his own sense of hearing.

That also meant battle banter was now off the table, though that suited Nero just fine. Being witty was too much trouble for him right now.

"Tekkai Kenpo: roga no kamae!"

"Kami-e!"

Jabra's claws tore through the space Nero's head had just vacated, ripping apart a dial Nero had left in his wake and releasing its contents into the air, engulfing both of them in a dirty brown cloud. It wasn't Sarquiss' poison, Nero not being immune to it unlike his captain, but in this specific case, this concoction was more effective.

The fight momentarily forgotten, Jabra's paws flew to his nose to stem the tide of olfactory particles streaming into his sensitive nose and in doing so, delivering the full whammy of Nero's stink bomb. Naturally, maintaining sufficient control over one's body under the circumstances was near impossible and Nero scored his first proper hit of the fight, his rankyaku leaving a deep gash in Jabra's thigh.

Seizing the initiative, Nero pressed his opponent, using his now limited mobility against him while Jabra countered with his tekkai kenpo. In a way, it was reminiscent of one of those instructive spars the two of them had engaged in back on Enies Lobbie, rokushiki against rokushiki. However, the fight was much more even this time round, Jabra finally unable to hide the strain from his earlier battle against Bellamy. But even then, it didn't change the core issue…Nero simply hadn't reached the same level of mastery as Jabra had and it showed. Little by little the balance shifted again, Nero being pushed increasingly onto his backfoot and his limited stamina draining away.

If things continued like this, it was obvious that he was going to lose….again. That was, unless he did something to flip the board. Then again, between accepting defeat or gambling it all on an uncertain plan…the choice was clear.

"Dials again?"

"Flash!"

"Gaa-urk?"

Jabra's grunt was choked in its infancy, as Nero used the temporary loss of vision caused by his flash dials, to stuff his right arm up to his shoulder down Jabra's gullet. His remaining limbs wrapped themselves around Jabra to prevent him from throwing Nero off.

"Seems like you haven't trained your insides that well, have you Jabra?" Nero savagely grinned, digging his fingers into the soft tissue of his throat, much to Jabra's obvious panic. But pressed that closely together, Jabra didn't have the leverage to bring his full strength to bear, his blows bouncing off Nero's tekkai. For the same reason, he couldn't just bite Nero's arm off. In a way, it was a grab the tiger by the tail type of scenario but with one very important difference.

Nero was grabbing something a lot more vital than a mere tail. And unlike others in his position, Nero could move.

"Tekkai kenpo…" Nero intoned, making Jabra's eyes widen in surprise, before they widened for a whole different reason as Nero began to squeeze.

"!!!!!!!!!" That was right, all those times Jabra used him as a live practice dummy? Nero had been watching and more importantly, Nero had been learning. He might not have been able to put those lessons into practice before, but now? Now, things were different.

"PULL!"