Red stood muted, the hard cap pulled down over his eyes, he couldn't do anything. He had been specifically told by the Rocket leader: Giovanni himself that he was being watched and at any sign of rebellion he would be shot. He still couldn't do anything now. He had been leashed, wings removed in a bloody fight which ended up with him strapped down to a metal table and a crimson red tattoo emblazoned across his left shoulder by ink and needle- injecting the pigment into his skin permanently. Officially registering him as a member; pulling him into the ever increasing mass of black and grey and into the vast ranks of Team Rocket. Red often would sit on his bunk in the dorms of the HQ staring at the tattoo, the ugly emblem on his shoulder that he could never get rid of without a scar being left behind. It would never fade and the whole while, made him hate himself like he had never done before. It was a deep cutting kind of self loathing that made him want to break something. But he had to curb his violent tendencies; he couldn't afford to be sloppy now, not after he had been so good. So he gritted his teeth and bore the weight of the guilt and hurt he still felt.

Red didn't feel like anything was going to work anymore.

He had contemplated death multiple times but decided not to think about it any longer seeing as it would be self defeating if he died. Death had sounded like the easy way out but because of his own fucking guilt train, Red found that if he died or even thought of it he would be sick and how selfish it would be of him to just snuff it and leave all those under Team Rocket's rule still suffering. Red still felt useless after eight years of hell.

Eight… Years…

8.

It had been eight very long years and Red felt like it was never ending. He hoped something would happen, something miraculous that would bring Team Rocket down for good. He wanted it to happen so badly and he actually prayed for the end to come over and over. But he continued to serve. Hating every second of his controlled life. The controlled part only because he would be shot in the back of the head if he did so much as scratched his nose without permission. He continued to watch and observe trying to find out all he could about his enemy but found that Team Rocket was even hiding secrets from their own members. Such as was the secret of M3w-2 had been successfully created and that it had died only yesterday; or the fact that their boss Giovanni had a son.

Team Rocket had an heir.

Due to all the many levels of secrets and cliques within the organisation Red didn't want to be any part of it. So he withdrew and became even more silent than he had ever been before. The light hearted, happy and boisterous child he used to be, the one who never ever shut up was gone. In his place was a stoic, cold and emotionless teenager who pierced you with his eerie bright ruby eyes as an answer.

He became well known throughout the organisation for his famous silence as the voiceless grunt, the one who said nothing. Like he had no tongue or as if someone had stolen his voice and the empty shell left behind was the remainder. At fourteen years of age Red was still powerless as ever when he had tried so hard to be good and rise up the ranks to become someone in at least a position of power. But they seemed rather reluctant to give him such power. But he put out the idea from his mind as he had more pressing issues to attend. His faithful mutt a little terrier puppy sat at his heels a muzzle over its tiny face, preventing it from causing noise and being a nuisance.
There was a strange policy that pets were allowed in Team Rocket, as long as they participated in the animal fighting rings on Sundays once they were weaned. Weaned mainly because there was no fun in watching a pair of baby animals fighting, once in a while though, watching an older killer destroy an innocent creature such as a kitten or a puppy- it made things a little bit more interesting. They could be anything from dogs to cats, basically anything with teeth and claws. Giovanni himself had a luxurious white long furred Persian cat. Red knew it was only a matter of time when his baby puppy was to be thrown into the ring. But that wasn't until a couple of months, so instead he focused on the prospect of good behaviour…

He had no chances left.

If he had anything left it wouldn't be anything he could actually look forward to.

No second chances. He would point blank be shot and that would be the end of it. So he had to behave. He hated it. Red detested it with a passion, the death of his mother stinging like salt in a wound, everlasting and hurting as he knew he'd never let it go. The chronic nightmares he had when he was forced to watch mutilations of various animals, their screams of pain, their dying breaths… Their glassy eyes staring up at him and all he saw were the accusing glares of the many he hadn't saved. Red knew stressing over deaths he could not prevent was stupid, he couldn't help. But one day he swore he would. Red looked up from under his hat. He was getting promoted from grunt to commander today that meant all grunts unless otherwise told had to obey him- Red looked forward to giving those poor mechanical like people with their barely owned lives some freedom. Two long years of being a loyal servant to the crime syndicate, from watching children getting beaten to animals with their tongues torn out and their bodies opened up for inspection. Diagrams had been made and super beasts were being created. They finally thought he was trustworthy enough to promote.

Or maybe it was because he had made a name for himself and he had ultimately become the 'mascot' of Team Rocket. The idea of becoming an icon for the crime syndicate revolted him and Red did anything he could to keep a low profile. But as a commander he now had to be present at every mutilation and splicing and creation of a 'super beast'. It was mandatory that he contributed to the ever growing vast pool of ideas dedicated to these to-be incredible and monsters of war.

Red knew with Team Rocket growing even more powerful every day, one day a full out war would break out. That would be what Team Rocket wanted, so they could use those newly developed creatures in battle.

Because they wanted to experiment with just how far they really could go with their super animals.

Red had watched those beasts fight it out in the ring. Things like a savage and half starved, rabid mutt against a hybrid, a sickening creature with no eyes and relied purely on hearing to find its prey was rather common. In that specific fight, the dog hadn't lasted very long as the thing, whatever the hell it was tore it limb from limb with its powerful arms. Red was forever grateful whenever he heard that one of those monstrous abominations had died, it made the world seem much safer already to him. After watching various beings, even grunts who had poor track records on their missions, Team Rocket had no more use for were ripped apart for the entertainment of others and the teenager wondered where the fuck was the morality in this dreadful blood sport. He did not cheer, of course he wouldn't cheer, he would never approve of this he just stood and watched. He watched and despised it for everything that it and everything it ever would be. It distressed him to a rather severe degree to know he was so…

Detached.

Nothing seemed to faze him now.

Before when blood and death and murder had been all so terrifying to his virgin mind and eyes and ears…

It was the norm now and he didn't expect anything more or less and it was disgusting to think he no longer had any feelings or reaction towards the atrocious actions of the worldwide crime doers. But they had found his weakness when they watched him with the animals. As a grunt he had been made to do the dirty work, the more tedious jobs that otherwise no one else would've done. He had, along with several other new recruits to cleanout cages and feed the laboratory animals, the poor creatures were often flighty and hostile at best but seemed to calm when Red was there, perhaps they sensed his pain and synchronised with him. Or maybe because of this they trusted him, for he was gentle and kind and never spoke, just looked and was faithful towards his duties to the pitiful beasts. But they had found his weakness and his soft spot for animals.

For fun, they had made him drown a sack of kittens.

He loved kittens.

The tiny little fluffy things, adorable and loveable with large pretty jewel like eyes, mewling, squealing.

Drowning.

Their little paws in the sack pummelling to get out, little bubbles surfacing as they desperately tried to fight him and get out. Red had cried that day. He hadn't eaten for weeks after that day, he had grown so skinny and weak. He had allowed them, his higher ups to beat him and shove him around. Bullying him and hurting him over and over after that day. Red could never forgive himself. They had then forced him to eat as he spiralled further into depression, shoving a tube down his throat; it had not been a pretty experience. After his recovery he was then forced as punishment to step on the rats caught in the traps in the kitchens to kill them, they called them vermin. Red called them friends.

He wished he could die when he heard the bones and skulls popping and cracking under his boots. He did not once look down as he heard the frantic squeaking, it sounded like nails down a chalk board to him. Horrible and grating and almost unbearable.

The final blow which broke him to pieces, shattering him and successfully and effectively 'breaking' him was his little terrier puppy. Who had never had a name, Red had called him 'My Friend' more than once on many occasions when there had been no one to listen in on them when he had been on patrol. That puppy was his baby, his life and his pride and joy, the sole thing that still connected him to his sanity and humanity. The sole anchor that reminded him he was still human and still moral and that he was actually a good person despite being a bystander on numerous occasions. He had resisted and yet they had still thrown that puppy, his friend into that dreaded animal fighting ring, still not yet weaned, still a baby. Still innocent.

Innocent.

Pure.

Untainted.

Clean.

Ignorance is bliss.

How they could've done this and to a baby no less, Red didn't know. He had had it with the lack of ethics in this place. He felt like he couldn't watch the frightening spectacle but he was pushed to the front and then he knew he wouldn't be able to tear his eyes away.

So he watched his beloved puppy get knocked over by a raging snapping mastiff which had been born and bred fighting knowing that hopefully it would be quick for his friend and that hopefully the puppy wouldn't suffer too much; he was deep down in his hardened, steel encased heart though, hoping somehow that the terrier would fight back and win. But that was impossible. The puppy flailed it's fluffy, pudgy little paws in the air, his voice a high pitched whine as he sought his master for the last time as it was pinned mercilessly as salivating jaws, glistening and deadly came closer. Red reached out to it, feeling the déjà vu all too clearly, the puppy gave its brownish beige feathery tail a small soft wag, a quick flick of the tail back and forth as if to tell Red, his master:

'It'll be alright. My friend.'

Then it was over the puppy shrieking as its throat was torn out, blood spraying and the mastiff howling its triumph with the crowds, baying in victory as Red sank to his knees, broken.

He had nothing left now. Not since after he heard of the Pallet Massacre. No survivors.

He was nothing.

He had nothing.

Naught. Zero. Zilch. Nil.

He heard white noise and static, hungrily buzzing in his ears as the muted pulse, rapid and laced with horror and adrenalin sped through his veins throbbing in his temples.

As he picked up the remainder of his dog Red looked up at the executive's box and sought out one man and that man alone who smirked down at him his pale eyes alight with a passionate fire, that smug, eerie and horrible smirk stretched across his lips. Red hated him. Cradling the bloody scrap of fur to his chest tightly Red turned as the mastiff turned its rabid and blood-lusty eyes upon him. Red knew this was the only time he would ever willingly kill an animal. Gently dropping the puppy's limp body to the ground he beckoned the dog to come at him, the crowd urging it on. It collided painfully into his chest, it felt like a small car had knocked him over, the dog pinning him with its strong forelegs, its breath rancid, stale and slimy. Red threw it off before it could really pin him and the dog skittered away growling from the kick Red had thrown into its flank.

Red bared his own teeth in a savage parody of the dog who snorted gutturally. Red made careful eye contact, intending to incense it further. The mastiff howled and charged once more and Red side stepped it neatly, like a bull fighter evading a bull. Enraged the canine swivelled sharply, biting at the heels of the human who dared mock it.

"KILL THE BOY!"

"NO! KILL THE MUTT! THE MUTT!"

Catcalls and screaming pervaded his ears and Red knew that once you were in the ring, voluntarily or not you had to fight to the death, otherwise he would be shot for attempting to back out. So he decided just this once he would listen to the majority and follow some rules. The dog leapt at him and pinned him again, opening and closing its massive jaws in a terrifying display in his face. Red quickly reached up and circled his hands round the mastiff's neck and squeezed hard. The dog upon realising this struggled to free itself, jaws snapping angrily at the raven haired teens' throat but Red held on gamely, avoiding the deadly jaws as best as he could. Suffocating the evil canine as it frothed madly. This mastiff needed to die, whilst it was a crowning victor in the ring, it was also suffering. Red intended to put it down to end that suffering and its pain.

Its mouth open, tongue lolling and jaws foaming the dog scrabbled uselessly, its bulk, the muscle now its own worst enemy as it was dragged down by the weight. Red tightened his jaw, hating it viciously. Never in his life would he have killed an animal.

But this, he had been meaning to do something so dangerously violent in a long time, he needed to show then all what exactly he was capable of. The mastiff slumped finally dead and Red stood, the blood thundering in his ears, ignoring the rest of the Rocket grunts and commanders and senior officers and scientists and executives as they shouted abuse, applauded him. Various levels of hate and praise flung his way, Red still clinging to the scruff of the dead mastiff's neck, raised its body slightly and found Proton's gaze yet again.

Promising that one day…

He would end up like the dead animal he held in his hand.

It had taken Red a couple of months to heal from his short victory in the ring. Soon after his strangling of the dog Red had left the ring and gone and locked himself in his room. He got a room all to himself because he was a commander now. He had even received a small letter from Giovanni himself who had been watching that particular event congratulating him warmly, poisonously for his stunning victory in which he had apparently 'destroyed the competition within mere minutes.'

Red never had been able to bury his puppy.

So he had made a little paper dog, origami, Yellow and her Nan had taught him how, before his abduction and buried that instead.

Team Rocket was growing stronger, developing means to travel discreetly and swiftly to other regions, to start conquering them as well as Kanto which they ruled with an iron fist. Red as a commander was deployed to Johto, Kanto's neighbour and when he stepped out onto the new clean land he had a splitting agonising moment that he knew what was going to happen, his senior officer was a woman named Agatha, a ruthless woman who seemed to know everything. He hated her with a passion and she hated him. She didn't trust him.

And he didn't trust her.

They ended up storming a tiny little town, very much like Pallet only it was called New Bark Town. A quaint little place, it was beautiful with the heavy and heady scent of flowers in the air and it was clean and untouched. The place…

Was abundant in children and young adults.

Team Rocket's goal was to recruit when they were young and thus targeted such places and preferred it when they were young as they could be broken in easily. But this time Team Rocket was not looking for new recruits. They were aiming to kill. They were aiming to kill just to show this new region, this new world of Johto that they were Team Rocket and this is what they were capable of, it was the start of their conquest. A great invasion which would start off chain reactions round the globe in which they could attack and capture the regions, or in Giovanni's 'enlightening' words, note Red thought of the Rocket Leaders' plans of very sarcastically, so they could obtain world domination so that they could swing into a new era of peace.

Perhaps because Red knew just as he had been born into the world, a war had just ended. It had been large scale war that had consisted of Kanto and Johto against the massive Sinnoh. It was over whether or not the region of Hoenn would be Kanto's land or Sinnoh's. The war had ended on a truce and contracts had been signed and Hoenn had been set free as a new free region with its own system and governments. Perhaps it was this sole reason as to why Rocket wanted 'peace' but Red knew there would be no peace, no happiness in the world cinched under Team Rocket's harsh and terrifying reign.

They did not stay in New Bark for long but they did set a cute little neighbourhood on fire. It was a massive fire and it was a dry summer night, perfect conditions for a raging fire that would definitely spiral quickly out of control as it ate up all the dry matter as fuel. Red had stood appalled; fists clenched watching as people woke, screaming for help. He had heard the screams of the children.

The loudest had been a little boy with piercing golden eyes that reflected the flames so beautifully. Red had watched him dangle halfway out of his window before turning tail and racing back into the flames, determined to save his family. He heard their screams and he heard them die.

No one survived. None survived the fire save that boy. Red had only heard of that boy and how he had survived a few days later in the newspaper, it was strangely morbid and amusing for him to be reading the news about something he had watched first hand. He had felt terrible later though, that fucking guilt train just taking him for a cheap ride. Red wished with all his heart he could've helped that child and his family but to no avail. Agatha had been watching him like a hawk, her beady eye on him the whole time and Red had stayed put, blank as a clean slate, unemotional and unfeeling on the exterior when on his fragile and splintered interior which had never really healed up since the death of his mother… was shatter some more.

Red had a feeling he would never ever be able to pick up the tiny fragments that was what was left of him and who he had originally been. The splinters were too jumbled to make any sense or head or tails of who he used to be. Red decided as he had looked at the roaring massive flames, feeble and insignificant and unable to do a single thing that he would now become a new person, and that he would create a new identity for himself once he got out of this mess.

When that was, he didn't know.

Red knew he found a kindred spirit in that child and connected with him. Despite neither of them knowing one another.

That boy became known as the 'phoenix boy', the one who had risen from the ashes.

The golden eyed boy who had lost everything and one day just disappeared off the face of the earth.

Just like he had.

Red hoped that golden child found his peace soon and stayed out of trouble, hoping and hoping that the eagle eyed boy would NOT end up in Team Rocket like he had- that the child wasn't as stupid to be bribed and blackmailed.

Red sobered up and withdrew into himself once he lost track of the 'phoenix boy'. Team Rocket moved on leaving a burning trail in their wake. Smoke, death, ashes and pain were the waste products of their destructive journey through the region of Johto. It was a long hard struggle and Red spent the most of his time scouting ahead and acting as a sentry or guard to watch over the towns and cities they captured.

Johto soon was the first region to be captured in its entirety.

Ten years of suffering.

Suffering? Red wouldn't call it suffering. More like agonising torture that he had been forced to endure for the most of his life as so far. Torture because he was shackled and bound even tighter and closer to the crime organisation than he had ever been before. It was agonising because he was just one against the billions of members present and if he tried to speak up or even think of starting a rebellion, at least 30% of the Rocket grunts were made up of cowering, sad and pathetic children now grown into distraught and traumatised children who only knew how to hurt other people. Red wanted to free them all, he knew how bullied those 30% would get for crying every night over everything and especially for the life they could never bring back. Red would often hear them sobbing on night shifts.

They couldn't escape though.

Deserters were always found and shot, but before being shot were often publicly humiliated and flogged before the final shot was bestowed upon them out of pure kindness. Sometimes just to 'spice' it up, Proton and the other executives declared some of the runaways would live and that they would live forever in their humiliation and remember their punishment for ever trying to escape Team Rocket. Red had seen many flee, and all of them fail. He himself wouldn't dare try until he had become successful enough to walk around without looking suspicious.

But it had all paid off and whilst the teen did not feel, not even a spark of triumph that he had made it this far, he merely held a sense of unfathomable loathing and immeasurable disgust for somehow managing to tolerate all of this and even worse how he had done this to himself. It was truly despicable and Red often tried to consulate himself by repeating the mantra in his head over and over that any other respectable person with a proper upbringing, strong will and ethics would be in the same position he was as of now. Red wondered why he wasn't dead yet. He swore Proton was keeping him alive just for his own sick entertainment. Red was still itching with the dormant blood lust to kill that man.

He hoped it would be soon.

But yet, ten years of sitting round and obeying the rules, the orders and commands of his higher ranked officers… Red was glad he didn't have to follow so many of those now as much as he had to give out his own via his second, a beastly little man who Red knew just wanted to poison him in his sleep or stab him in the back with a knife viciously for stealing the position he so wanted desperately. But Red knew he scared that man, Red didn't understand why he was so frightening… It made him upset and sad that people found him unapproachable but in a sense red was grateful for his unintentional intimidation; you couldn't afford to look or be weak in Team Rocket.

You'd be dead before you could even say 'kittens'.

It had been ten years of hell.

Ten years of being a bystander, guilty as any of the rest of murdering 'that' child or 'that' animal and all those other nameless victims that had been so ruthlessly cut down in the organisations' carefully and not so carefully planned motives. Red knew he had just as much blood on his hands as the rest of them, including those who bathed in the death and pain they could cause, glorying in all the suffering that rained down upon them as if it were blessing them with some greater power or gift. Red thought it naïve and stupid to think that just because one held power over another through a pain and reward relationship didn't mean they could strut about like they owned the world. It was sickening to actually understand just how he had sat there and watched it all happen right before his eyes.

Red flexed his hands and adjusted his gloves, disliking the feel of the leather against his hands, it felt dirty. It felt and smelt like the blood that he could clearly see in his metaphorical mind's eye, the blood merely a symbol to him now of how much he could really could not stand it any longer. Hate was becoming his most used and favourite word. Red didn't like to hate, it wasn't in his nature to hate at all, but in order to bring the organisation down… he first needed to know how to hate. Doing the hate was easy, it was how one hated was the important part, the right mental state of mind was incredibly vital in his opinion.

But… petty feelings aside, Red didn't believe in emotions any longer. They burdened him with too much unwanted guilt and unnecessary pangs of sadness. The scarlet eyed teen knew there would be plenty of time to honour the dead, mourn for them and apologise for everything that he had could've done but did not end up doing. He had a job to do and he was going to godamn well do it. He didn't want something as fickle as emotion getting in the way.

He was older now though.

He was stronger now.

He was more mature.

Now of 16 years of age Red looked down at the 'battalion' of grunts and commander grunts under his wing. He was one of the highest ranking officers now, just under executive- he was in fact a 'master', the very title he loathe with every bone, organ and cell in his body- it was the title Proton had had when he had first come into Team Rocket. Either way it was still better than being a measly little grunt. He had worked, slaved and knuckled down into his work, breaking his back on missions, always somehow if he had to kill an innocent, managing to avoid it and allowing them to go free. Red had never killed another since that dog in the fighting ring. He had clawed his way up to the position he held now because now they trusted him. But he wasn't and never would be one of them.

Ever.

He rose up the ranks to stop them; because if he held enough power over the syndicate, he would be able to do something about this and perhaps stop it. Team Rocket had conquered Hoenn and half of Sinnoh in the past year, war was just beginning to break out and Red hoped it wouldn't escalate.

It had taken him ten long painful stupid years of his life, wasted in cruel abuse to have realised… That miracle he had always been waiting for, that one messiah to come destroy Team Rocket… Was never going to come and thus it had become severe and Red wanted to slowly take it into his own hands. He was a fighter now, the training he had undergone had been harsh but he was the best and there was talk of the 'silent soldier' would become the youngest Rocket executive in all of their history. Red did not want that pathetic title. Titles and names and ranking and even positions didn't matter to him any longer. He had reached his goal within the time boundary he had set himself and thus was quite proud he had managed to do so with minimal bloodshed. The most blood he had spilt was during a small fight with one of his commanders, ending with the lower ranked personnel being escorted off for his bloodied and broken nose. The scarlet eyed teen hadn't wanted to resort to violence but he had upset him.

Red found he got quite violent when upset. As in his lips would go white, bloodless and his hands would shake violently and he felt like he would collapse from all the sudden emotions rushing like a rapid surge of blood to his head; making him reel and stagger from dizziness before lurching into a savage and purely instinctive battle mode in which he did anything in his power both authority wise and physically to defend himself or others. Red had only slunk into his battle haze on a few occasions. One of those times being when one of his grunts had beaten an old man for being rude.

Red had beaten that grunt nearly to death for wasting his time. The old man had then observed Red through his broken glasses his nose bloody and dry bruises forming on his old skin.

'You are not like them are you son…?'

Red had given the tiniest nod and the old man gave him a gap filled toothy smile in return telling the raven haired teen he was forever grateful for his timely rescue. Hiding a smile Red had said nothing but the man knew and that was enough. It made Red happy that others could still see his good intentions and how he was trying his very best to keep violence to a minimum. Despite being one of the most well known in the crime syndicate, Red often heard wild rumours of varying truths the worst being he was bloodthirsty and vulgar kind of person whenever he got upset or that he liked to slit people's throats whilst singing to them in an eerie voice. But one rumour that was always straight to the point was…

Do NOT piss off the 'silent commander'.

Because if you did, it would be the last thing you ever did. Red made sure he upheld that reputation and made sure to keep his division of grunts orderly and well mannered and behaved- if one stepped out of line Red sent them off to be punished. Unlike Proton's who allowed them to run amok raping, stealing, killing and destroying almost everything, anything and anyone who challenged them in their path. Eradicating everything.

Thus he made it clear from the start as he wrote on the massive white board that he used to communicate with his minions that to not piss him off. Many rumours were floating about the 'silent soldier' and what he was really like when angry. Few had seen him truly mad, many having seen him upset as he had been a grunt, a mere small fry when he had first been abducted and forced into the massive ranks of Team Rocket. Many of those 'peers' if he liked to call them as such were either just commanders or still grunts, very few having made it to senior officers. Red himself was Proton's prize and as much as he loathed the Rocket scientist, Red endured his company through gritted teeth and his scarlet eyes sparking with deep extreme dislike and disgust never forgetting the paedophilic relationship he used to have with the turquoise haired scientist. Proton seemed rather eager to induce him into the executives. Red begged to differ snapping the marker pen he held irritably as it had run out of ink. He heard his division flinch in feared unison. Red didn't like it that he was scary to them. But in order for them to obey him and his every non-verbal order…

It was necessary he held this relationship with them.

He didn't care if he became an executive or not.

He just wanted out.

He wanted to walk free and cast off the hypothetical chains that were cinched round him. Whilst he didn't have to live in fear of stepping out of line and being shot anymore Red was waiting for it to happen, to just fall naturally into motion, into place, like a well made and oiled piece of clockwork just clicking into the system.

He just needed an incentive to actually spur him onwards towards his final goal. It wasn't that he was stalling or flunking his own personal duties, he felt he needed to watch, wait and listen before striking. Red prided himself in his double faced acts. It was only in the quiet solitary of his quarters that he got to be himself at all. If any of his old personality existed that is. In fact Red knew he had become the devil and many revered and feared him, none knowing his name save Proton and Giovanni and a couple of other Executives. Red liked to keep it that way as the anonymous reaper who caused so much hell against his own will yet without violence. The teen didn't want to be the devil any longer and so desperately wanted to be cleansed of it. He didn't want to be feared.

He just wanted to be loved.

Red highly doubted anyone could love him now after looking at what he had become. He had become cold and ruthless and wouldn't stop at anything to achieve his goals. That in a sense made him just as bad as Team Rocket themselves; Red wondered where all those happy memories had gone. But he had no happy memories any more. They had all been re-written by the ugly scars of the abuse and anger and torment he had endured throughout his childhood. He was almost an adult and it was very depressing to realise that he had never had a real childhood. Red knew whilst other kids grew up under Rocket's rule, they were still free and could still afford to be happy and smile and play games. The crimson eyed teen hadn't any time for games anymore, he didn't know what the word fun even meant; let alone know any games he could play. Even the word games were foreign to him and Red felt like he was speaking a different language to himself whenever he thought positively. But he swore to himself that one day he would become a better person and that he would try all he could to enjoy whatever 'fun' he could have.

He also knew if he ever got a pet, he would spoil it rotten and love it carefully until it died of natural causes. Turning back from the board he looked blankly out at his 'troops'. They were doubling down on security in Viridian city and tightening protocols and the laws they had set in motion. Giovanni had received several death threats and thus it was their goal to protect him no matter the costs. Red secretly knew this was causing chaos within and soon, it would be his turn to strike both as the white queen and king, check mating the black king.

That day Red had been waiting somewhat eagerly for came actually rather quickly.

Red stalked over to the four grunts under his command as they knocked down an old man, a crude bat in their hands and were gleefully kicking the poor soul about, snickering and laughing as they broke his glasses. The streetlamp providing the only light source in the night darkness, Red emerged from it as if some otherworldly spirit. Red had had enough of all the injustice. The grunts turned to look at their higher ranked officer, and at his dark and terrifying expression, even though he wasn't scowling, Red saw nothing but a bloody haze, he was going to attack now. Baring his lips in a snarl he spoke his scarlet eyes blazing with pure undulated fury. His mind the less human part of it was telling him to rip, kill and destroy them all. He held back though wanting to hear them out for their reason for hurting the elderly man.

"What do you think you are doing?"

"Nun of ya beeswax chief!"

"… I think you'll find I am not in a gaming mood tonight. I will repeat myself. What in hells name do you think you are doing?"

Red hated the lack of intelligence these particular grunts gave off. They seemed to reek in stupidity, as if they bathed routinely every night in the stuff so they could start the new day oozing idiocy and basic mentality. Red actually stopped for a moment, his mind strangely clear as he contemplated the idea of literally 'bathing' in stupidity. Then the red battle haze was back and he struggled to control his emotions. Hoping he could at least get a few intellectual words out of the recruits before he actually lost it. The 'lead' grunt stepped back with a jerk his bland face screwed up with disbelief the bat in his hand faltering slightly as he realised that Red was not joking.

"Eh… geez, calm your tits chief. We just teaching scum like him a lesson!"

"Put the bat down and step away from that man."

His voice was cold, frigid and freezing. The largest of the grunts stepped to face him.

"So ya do have a voice after all!"

Red pursed his lips thinly, not having the patience. They dared defy him? These low ranked small fry, useless and disposable had the balls to dare try standing against him and his authority? Didn't they know what he was capable of?! Red snorted mentally to himself. Of course they didn't know what he was capable of. No one did.

Not even himself.

"Ya do know that yer still not trusted, there are so many rumours about ya. We've been told from now on not to listen to ya. Boss's orders,"

Red stood his whole posture emanating dark heated hate as the grunts returned to their terrorisation. Red snapped.

Swiftly pulling out the gun he had strapped to his hip he unlocked the latch and with three successive ear shattering, bone jerking bangs three of the grunts fell to the ground, blood oozing from the back of their heads where Red had shot them point blank. The rude grunt turned slowly fearfully, the old man cowering on the ground as he stared distraught at the three dead bodies. Red stepped neatly over the bodies, his heeled boots clicking ominously on the pavement, slamming the disobedient grunt up against and into the wall with the blade of his forearm.

"Awright! Awright! P-please h-h-ha mercy! We was just kiddin' round! I'll, I swear I'll-"

Red placed the muzzle of the gun in the young man's mouth and smiled sweetly before pulling the trigger. The smile felt foreign and ugly on his features but he knew it was unnerving to his useless and helpless captive. He dropped the body, his face spattered with blood slightly. It wasn't in his nature to be cruel and merciless. This act of four consecutive 'murders' was beyond anything he had originally intended to do. Red holstered the gun quietly and held out his hand to help the old man up. The man did not take it and rejected him, whimpering and crawling away.

Red made a small hissing sound, the aching void in his chest growing larger ever so slightly at the blatant fear and rejection from the old man.

So this was the beast he had become. Whilst he had been no laboratory experiment with no serums or operations performed upon him… He had effectively become what Proton and Giovanni had always intended him to be. He was their psychological guinea pig. He had been carefully conditioned to become the perfect fighting machine, cold, calculating, merciless, with an incredible amount of hatred stored up inside and this was what they had been waiting for, they had been waiting ever so eagerly for him to snap, lose control. Red glanced about the bloody haze still fogging up his mind. Hate and lust to create pain clouded his vision and goodwill. Red in the back of his mind knew he would never ever forgive himself if he gave into that passionate anger that just wanted to tear everything apart.

Because they had known that through this hatred a new type of anger would be born.

If he finally snapped which he had, he would be unstoppable. Red curled his fingers, itching to break something. He was going to give them what they wanted.

They couldn't cage this beast forever.

He had broken free, ripping the iron bars that contained him apart with brute strength.

Red let out a wild, savage scream of fury at what he had been turned into.

It didn't even sound human as it rendered apart the night air; it instead sounded more like a fierce, unearthly and wounded animal lusting for vengeance.

Red snorted shaking his head, his eyes gleaming malevolently with the new battle rage instilled inside of his gut.

He would take back everything they had taken from him.