Two fresh-faced minions stared at their names carved into a cement wall alongside dozens of others. It was one of the hardest and most intoxicated days of their lives. Everything was worth it for the new-found family of sorts, even if some were unhinged.

"Still looking at the wall?" Marcus, the seemingly youngest yet most experienced among them, walked up and asked. "If I was a hostile, you'd have a cross across yours by now."

"Red Bro-" The misfit caught himself. "Boss would kill you afterward."

Marcus burst into laughter. "Holy shit! Newbie, he'd just make me an offer of join or die. What use is avenging you?"

"Isn't that what we do when one of us gets iced?" The other asked.

"Not if they decide to join, which they either will or won't."

"So we have to live together?"

"It's either that or you both die at Kojo's hands from trying to honor anyone."

"Ko-"

Marcus drew his revolver and set the barrel against the novice's head. "I'll only say this once since you probably forgot everything after your initiation party: the boss doesn't have a name, no matter what I call him. He's just the boss, el jefe, el patrón, or whatever your cultural equivalent of boss there is."

"…Why though?"

Shrugging, the second-in-command lowered his piece. "Mystique? Anonymity? The hell of it?" He shook his head. "Don't try to understand him: he was fucked up before the powers… A killing machine too."

The other misfit blinked. "Really?"

"Oh yeah, he'd take down the gangs here all by himself even though his head reached their knees. A stab right through the tendons, a follow up to the neck when they dropped, and a run from side to side for good measure. You had to see it." Marcus sighed. "Now he just wades through people like they're barely even there with all the finesse of a retarded Puerto Rican. What a waste."

"It can't all be gone."

Marcus raised an eyebrow and glanced at the fruit shelf. "…Maybe." He walked over and took hold of a few apples. This could end in disaster, not that he cared much anymore, but it'd be worth it.

Kojo was doing his best to interpret one of many maps of the Bronx spread out on a roundtable in the middle of their nifty warehouse before he noticed the approaching scent. "What's up?"

Shifting the apples to rest on his arm, the second-in-command drew his knife. "Catch." He tossed it over.

Kojo turned and snatched the blade by its steel, cutting himself. "Hey." His eyes flicked over the stabbing utensil as he let go to snatch it by the stacked leather handle. "This is Dan's from when he was in 'Nam." He scoffed. "Marcus, you can't just throw a ka-bar USMC like that."

"I tossed it at you." He grabbed an apple. "This is me throwing."

Kojo slashed upward, catching the first apple with the blade's inner edge, and impaled a follow-up in half a second.

"Ha! Looks like you're still…" Marcus blinked at his comrade's still form. "Kojo?"

"…Yeah, I'm still me." He put his hand over the apples and finished cutting them into halves. "You want one or are you going to keep throwing them? I eat them as is, like a man, but if you want to be a pussy, I can cut them for you."

Marcus chuckled. "Oh fuck you."

"Fuck you too, man." Kojo flicked the knife into the apple closest to Marcus' heart. "…Fuck you."

The two stood in silence as they were observed by their fearful underlings.

Both had changed a lot the past two years.

On cue, they burst into laughter.

For better and for worse.