Neo sighed internally as she sat down in her kitchen. It was a nice kitchen. Just because she was a criminal didn't mean she had to live like one. Her whole house was nice, as a matter of fact. She laundered money from her operations with an ice cream parlor- ironically enough, the place was popular with Beacon students. She furrowed her brows a little. Just last week, some of Junior's men had assaulted a team of students there- and lost, badly. Yes, the students had paid for the damages, but it does your business a lot of bad when someone loses their nose there, no matter what the context.

In spite of that, Neo did well for herself. Not only was the parlor doing an excellent job laundering the money, it also brought in some extra in the form of legitimate revenue. Besides all that, she'd always wanted to run an ice cream shop as a child. She'd thought it would be nice, doing something to bring smiles to people's faces. She'd changed since then.

She snarled a little, and decided to get herself some ice cream from the freezer. She had many flavors stored, but naturally settled on Neapolitan. She didn't bother with a bowl- she was going to just eat the whole two liters right here, straight from the container.

Neo herself wasn't all that far out of her teen years- she looked a bit older, thanks to her sense of fashion, but she was actually only twenty-five, still young enough to remember high school fairly clearly. She'd had a standard education- her skills were acquired after she was too old to be eligible for Beacon.

She snarled more and ate faster as she remembered the incident that had prompted her to learn the fine art of killing. She reached up to the gap in the simple bathrobe she wore around the house, and felt the big, ugly scar on her neck. A knife wound, gained three years ago. She remembered what the doctors had told her later- the stab had destroyed her larynx and she would never speak again.

She leaked a few tears as she remembered the night she'd acquired her disability. She'd been walking home from work, and happened across a group of older teens on a darkened street. They were a mixed lot- fauni and humans, male and female. They'd robbed her, beaten her, violated her, and then stabbed her in the throat and left her for dead. She remembered all of it. And she'd remembered their faces, a year later, after she'd crafted her own weapon and learned to fight. She would never forget how she made them scream and beg in turn. That memory made her smile. Revenge was all that mattered.

Retribution. It felt good. Amazing, even. Neo always paid her debts, good and bad. More than that, it was the power rush. The kick she got out of having power, and the satisfaction of sharing her pain. It was why she chose to work with who she did, doing what she did. It made her feel better. Sorrow shared was sorrow divided, was it not? The more people she shared her pain with, the less she would have to feel it.

Neo would share her pain with the world, if she could. She would keep dividing her sorrow until she couldn't feel it anymore, and continue sharing her pain until all could understand it. She tossed the empty ice cream bucket in the trash bin, and put the spoon in the dishwasher. She would carry on- to do anything else would be to surrender, and suffer alone. Misery loves company, she thought. And I'll be damned if I don't have any.