Killer scrolled through all the headlines and news articles he could find on his phone about the Fort Lauderdale Warriors.
With Brawlhalla a month away, Boris had tasked all the Taitanzu members with learning as much as they could about the 11 other gangs participating in the tournament and naturally Boris gave him his sister's own gang to study.
News stations and multiple bloggers were already talking about it nonstop and how the different gangs were preparing for the upcoming event, though it was still 4 weeks away.
Apparently Taitanzu, The FLW, Desolation from Tampa and the Destin Destroyers were the fan favorites to win the event, something that surprised the Taitanzu members because they were just an up and coming group.
Turns out that some of their fights and training sessions were leaked to the press, somehow making their popularity skyrocket.
Killer closed the Fort Lauderdale gang article he was reading, frustrated that he couldn't get the information he needed on his sister. Most of the articles were just about every day gang violence, theft and occasional killings but he hadn't found even one on his sister, the leader of the gang. It sucked he had no way of taking an entire 6 hour drive all the way to Fort Lauderdale so he could bring her home himself.
He stretched, his body was still aching from the beating he had received at the hands of Last Resort.
According to what Noah told him, Amber 'Bodyparts' Alvarez hardly involved herself in fights unless she wanted to pass a message, was bored or just wanted to give a warning to other gangs.
She and Last Resort were currently tied for the strongest gang member in modern history, he recalled Boris mentioned that both of them only met once and it was one of the bloodiest things that anyone had ever witnessed.
Killer dropped his phone and was about to fall asleep when Eliza practically kicked his door down, a look on her face that clearly said: "We need to talk"
The grey haired boy sighed.
*******************************
"What is this Taitanzu gang you speak of?" A certain gang commander asked her Deputy while picking at her teeth with her nails.
"It's a gang that popped up in Tallahassee a few months ago. They've been growing quickly in numbers and it's rumored that their gang Heads are on par with ours...the Deputy is none other than The Last Resort of Tallahassee, Lance Redford. If you can remember you fought him to a standstill after a straight hour. The most interesting of them all however seems to be their 3rd Branch Head who calls himself Killer. He broke all pre-existing records except for LR's and is the second strongest person in the entire gang according to what our scouts have told me" Joan Wilder, the Deputy of The Fort Lauderdale Warriors, played a leaked clip of Killer's Initiation footage on her phone and handed it to her commander.
Amber watched it from the beginning to end, her eyes practically glowing with excitement.
Something about this teen...this warrior that went by the name Killer struck many chords in her head, but she couldn't place a finger on it.
He reminded her of brother. The grey hair and one blue eye were what reminded her of her elder brother the most, though the brother that she knew was never going to come back.
He was never going to see the light of day again.
In her mind, her brother almost deserved to stay in prison, and rot for the rest of his life. Not after what he had done to everyone she knew and loved, including himself.
She felt a tear forming in her eye but she blinked it away, subconsciously gripping her hands tightly and unintentionally breaking her subordinate's phone into pieces.
"Oops. My bad" Amber apologized as she picked the shards of glass out of her somehow uninjured palm.
"Thank the Lord I gave you the backup phone..." Joan sighed as she pulled another phone out of her pocket and began tapping the screen, leaving the grey haired commander to her thoughts.
It seemed she was going to pay a visit to Tallahassee.
****************************
"Why do they call you Killer?"
Killer stated blankly into his Deputy's eyes, hoping that if he tried hard enough, he could disappear or just turn invisible.
"... Killer...why are you called Killer..?!" Eliza's patience was starting to wear thin.
She had been thinking about it for quite a while, and it was slowly becoming apparent to her that she let someone who literally went by the name 'Killer', live in her home and eat her food. It didn't seem like such a big deal back then because she had assumed it was a gang nickname but when she stumbled upon a 7 year old article about a double murder committed by a 9 year old boy in a now run down Tallahassee neighborhood, it all started to connect slowly in her head.
"Who did you murder?"
Killer put his head down and flashed a small grin, the same one he and practically all his family shared.
The same grin he had on his face on that day.
Eliza puffed smoke out of her mouth and tapped her foot impatiently. His Deputy was no usual smoker, she only did so when something was seriously troubling her.
"My father. I killed my flesh and blood father"
Eliza opened her mouth to speak but Killer kept on talking.
"And yes I did it on purpose. With a hammer to be exact....he was...a terrible father. Was he abusive as fuck? Yes. Did he deserve to die? I don't know. I was pretty used to the shit he did, hell I was so used to the beatings it was starting to turn into fight training for me...." Killer shifted a bit on the bed and patted the spot next to him, signaling for Eliza to come and sit.
She did.
"Life in our house was pretty terrible. He often used my mom and I as punching bags though Amber was exempt for whatever reason... probably loved her more than us I guess. Anyway one day...I don't remember what my mom did but my pops was absolutely beating the shit out of her man..." He smiled for whatever reason, confusing Eliza and even you the readers. "...and I'm there trying to protect my mom cuz I'm feeling like some Naruto type guy....but I was too weak to do shit obviously. Then pops punched mom and she hit her head on the mantle... she fell and...didn't get up again..." Eliza's eyes were watering by now as she lay a hand on the grey haired boy's shoulder, though he didn't show any signs of sadness.
"...the sight of my mom laying dead on the floor man...it awoke something in me. Next thing I know I'm picking up one of my dad's hammers; he was a construction worker....and I'm swinging it into the side of his head. Over. And over. And over again. His skull was practically non-existent by the time Amber walked back in from wherever she was at that moment...the sight of me holding a hammer while standing over our dead parents must have destroyed her 7 year old brain...." Killer wiped his eyes and leaned on Eliza's shoulder.
"Next thing I know is that I'm in court. I somehow got a self-defense claim and ended up with 7 years in juvie...what made people start calling me Killer was that when they took my mugshot....I was smiling. This same grin that I inherited from ancestors. I'm sure they all thought I was some demon child or something...not knowing I was smiling because my dear mother could finally rest in peace and I had freed myself from my tormentor. Since I was too shaken up to actually sat my name and Amber's brain was practically scrambled, someone in the jury just called me Killer...and I guess the name stuck..." He finished narrating his tale and smiled again, a single tear trailing it's way down his tanned face.
Eliza was practically crying waterfalls and for some crazy reason the rest of her family was standing at the doorway, Eleanor and Erza crying like Eliza while the dad looked sympathetic.
Before they could even move Killer held his hands up, a serious expression on his face as he addressed them all.
"Don't you dare hug me-"