Nero groaned as his consciousness returned. His first thought of wakefulness was that he wanted to go the hell back to sleep. He turned over in his bed, yawning obnoxiously as he did so. As he switched sides, and slid his arm under the pillow, he smelt someone close by. The young half-devil sighs, as he keeps his eyes closed.

"Waddya wunt Casey?" He asks tiredly. From right outside his room, just past the open door, there's a small gasp. "Man that's so freaky, how'd you know it was me?" The young boy asked. Nero sighed again, heavier this time once he realized he wasn't going to get back to sleep. At least, not so quickly. "Would you believe I'm part monster?" He says truthfully, as he sits up in his bed, and yawns again. Casey just rolls his blue eyes. "Uh huh, sure, and I'm Robin." Nero whistles.

"Oh that's good. Guess you don't need anymore self defense lessons from me then?" Nero teases as the young man finally drags his ass out of bed. The young blond boy quickly relents. "No! No I still need ya! There's no way I could be Robin anyways, I ain't got black hair!" Nero just chuckled as he threw on a clean shirt and a pair of pants. "Probably best to stay away from criminals and Bat-themed vigilantes, don't ya think?" Nero asks as he exits the room and ruffles the boy's hair, and moves past him. The smell of bacon wafted through the air and Nero hummed in delight.

"Good ole fashioned American breakfast today, huh?" He asks Casey, who was trailing behind him as he approaches the stairs. "Yeah, I was really wanting something from Italy this morning..." Casey says sadly. Nero just chuckles. "Maybe for lunch I'll whip something up for y'all." Casey immediately snorts. "I really never woulda guessed you were Italian with how absolutely American you sound." Nero huffs out a short laugh. "Ah man, you should have seen me a few years ago. Had the stereotypical accent and everything." Nero shakes his head as he hits the bottom of the stairs.

"Just like Mario?" Nero snapped his fingers. "Hell yeah. Me and my fellow Italian plumbers have to stick together." Casey snorts again, as the two turn into the hallway leading towards the kitchen. "You're not a plumber though!" Nero waves his hand. "It's on my resume." Either that was good enough for Casey, or the young boy stopped talking once the noises from the kitchen became more apparent.

"Jimmy! You promised you'd-"

"Emma, what do you mean he's only a 'little dead'!?"

"Eric told me that Friday was fine!"

Casey shifted nervously as he and Nero almost made it to the kitchen, and the source of the noises. Nero gave his newest charge a bright smile. He's not as good as Kyrie at calming the kids down, but he likes to think he's able to do a decent job. He ruffles Casey's hair. "Hey, if you want, I can always bring a plate of food to you in a bit. No need to always eat in the kitchen if you're nervous." The young boy gives Nero a small smile as he leans into the hand on his head.

"No thank you Nero, I just need a second." The boy says, and Nero nods. "Take all the time you need. I'm right here with ya kiddo." The two wait for around thirty seven seconds before pushing open the door to the kitchen.

"And you're gonna - Hey Nero's up!" One of the younger kids says. Nero's treated to a sight today. All fifteen kids - sixteen if you include Casey - are at the table today. Really, only twelve kids are actually listed as being here. There's another nine or ten however, that only come in for either breakfast, dinner or to get clean and sleep. Nero doesn't like it, but he knows those kids are going through a hard time, and they don't trust easily. So it's nice to see that almost half of their 'strays' were here right now, enjoying Kyrie's absolutely divine cooking.

Some of the younger kids tried to abandon their spots on the table, but as always, Kyrie had it covered. "Now now kids, finish the food first. Nero's not going anywhere." His girlfriend smiled at him, and Nero still doesn't know how to deal with the butterflies in his stomach. He gives everyone a lazy wave. "Yello kids, any idea what's on the menu?" He asks, as he takes a seat next to the love of his life. Kyrie, as psychic as ever, puts a plate down before his ass even touches the seat.

"We've got bacon, eggs, hashbrowns and gravy." Nero licks his lips in anticipation as he begins to devour the food in front of him. Some of the kids chuckle, but most just go back to their food or conversations. After all, most of these kids know what it's like to eat like that. Like it could be your last meal, so you may as well pig out. Nero hates that thought. Still, nothing to do now but feed and clothe the his kids.

...

"So what does the fox actually say Miss Kyrie?" One of the younger girls - Tina, six - asks. Kyrie just smiles. The group always did story time in the entrance hall of the orphanage. "I don't think I can pull off the noise very well sweetie." She says, and Nero chuckles. "I don't think there's a thing you can't do if you put your mind to it babe." He says, and watches as Kyrie's ever present smile gets even wider. "Aww. Thank you Nero." Nero waves a hand as some of the other kids make exaggerated noises of either disgust, kissing sounds or somehow, both. Nero pulls out his half cracked cell phone and tsk's.

"About time for me to get to work kiddos. You all enjoy yourselves with Kyrie and listen to her, ok?" Some of the kids nod, while a few others are sad that he's leaving. Nero just laughs. "I'll be back in a few hours. Just gotta take care of my work for the day." He says, stretching out the non-existant kinks in his body. Most of the kids wave, but two of the kids -Jake, thirteen. Grant, fifteen (the his oldest) - get up and follow him as he leaves. It's the same old routine.

"Ok boys, what's the word on the street today?" Jake looks down at the ground, while Grant gives the younger boy a curious glance. When Jake doesn't say anything, Grant shakes his head. "Got a few things to mention I guess." Grant says, and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Black Dragons have chased off a few of the others when they got too close to their territory." Nero nods his head slowly. "Anyone get injured?" Grant moves his head towards Jake's direction. The younger boy just shrugs.

"M' not hurt..." Grant rolls his eyes. "He's fine, but he did drop his wallet running from them. Said he saw one of them grab it. It had $21:74 in it." Nero blinked, before turning his head to Jake. He chewed on his lips for a second, before he nods. "Alright, first thing I'll do today is get that money back." Nero then gestures at Grant for him to continue. "Katie mentioned to me that Black Mask is trying to expand his territory back into Crime Alley, which probably means shit is gonna go down sometime soon." Nero crossed his arms. "Any immediate problems from that, or is it fine to gloss over for now?" Grant shook his head. "Nothing yet, but thought you'd want to know."

Nero did in fact, want to know. "Thanks. Appreciate it. Anything else for today?" Grant snapped his fingers. "Erica and Vicky are over in The Narrows today scrounging for food." Nero sighs, before nodding. "After I take care of the Black Dragons and get Jake's money back I'll go find the two and get their asses back to the orphanage." Grant and Jake both give him a thumbs up, before Grant smacks his face. "Oh yeah, be careful. Red Hood went after a trafficking ring last night. Killed like four assholes so we may get Bats in the Alley." Midly concerning, but nothing that'll be a major problem yet.

"Gotcha, thanks for the info today man." Nero says. "Like I said, I'll get the money back for Jake, get up to the Narrows and grab the girls, and then I'll do my usual rounds." The usual rounds consisted of Nero doing three separate tasks.

1: Find any odd job to make whatever money he could. In between his demon hunts, he did any and everything that he could to make money - provided no one got hurt or stolen from.

2: Make sure all the kids in the Alley that he could find were safe, healthy (enough) and fed. Not all the kids came to the orphanage, and others still didn't trust him that much yet, so the help he could provide was limited.

3: Search for any signs of demon activity and, if there is something nearby, get rid of it before it becomes a problem. Blue Rose was a bit too much for the random thugs and criminals of Gotham, but he always carried his trusty revolver just in case shit ever goes sideways with demons (or, Sparda-forbid, aliens/metas/gods/whatever was wrong in the world that week).

"Thanks Nero. I know there's a bunch of kids who are still too skittish to visit, much less stay... But you really do a good job of looking out for 'em." Grant says. Nero clasps the teen on the shoulder. "And I know you've been helping to convince some of them at least to come over for a warm meal and a place to sleep. That's enough for me." Grant rubs his face and pushes Nero's hand off of his shoulder. The kid didn't do emotions well.

"Yeah yeah, we're both nice. Now go do shit today, I'll keep the place safe." Nero laughs heartily as he walks away. Gotham is a massive shithole, but it's better than back home at least.

And all of his kids are here. He'll do what he needs to keep them safe.

...

Nero walked down the street, Gotham's early morning sun not yet high enough to cut through the smog that seems to permeate the city. Nero's fairly certain the smog isn't entirely due to pollution, and that the city is cursed. He doesn't deal with curses though, and so long as it's not a problem, he'll leave it be.

What is a problem currently is that these Black Dragons are fucking assholes, and he's gonna teach them a lesson that they not only won't forget, but will also hopefully make them leave the Alley. They can terrorize the Bowery or the Narrows for all he cares, but if they think fucking with kids over here is ok? They've got another thing coming.

The half-devil stalks down the streets as he gets closer and closer to Black Dragon territory. They've got the southeast side of the Alley to themselves, mostly because The Blades had been disbanded after Red Hood came back into Gotham a few months back. At least that was what Nero had heard at the time, seeing as he was new in town and wanted to learn all the juicy gossip about the city that made America infamous. Everyone always joked about the country having a high crime rate, when really it was Gotham that inflated those stats.

Nero looked into it once. The second highest murder rate in the country was St. Louis, with around five thousand murders a year. Gotham though? Currently, in the last few years the murder rate was just over twenty thousand. At its peak? It was around fifty. Nero was weary of moving here at first. Sure, he could literally take on every single person in this city (IE all ten million) at the exact same time and probably only work up a sweat, but still... Kyrie wasn't invincible.

But she just smiled and told him that if any city could use a good home, it's Gotham. And well, when she's right, she's right. Nero's just glad that the kids are finally trusting them enough now. But he and Kyrie both have been fighting hard for the kids ever since they arrived. And speaking of both fighting and arriving... Nero could see the street that he needed to go down. Just past there was Black Dragon land.

And you know, he hasn't hunted Dragons yet...

...

It didn't take long for him to find the 'HQ' of the Black Dragons. It was a closed down restaurant that was hanging on by a thread. Nero waltzed up to the front door like he owned the place. He gave it a few knocks.

"Yo any Black Dragons around? I'd like to file a formal complaint!" The half-devil yells into the building. He's surprised when someone actually answers the door. Either late teens or early twenties, and all bad attitude. "What the fuck you want, pretty boy?" Nero smiled. "Aw, you really think I'm pretty?" A gun is shoved into his face, and Nero rolls his eyes.

"How about you get the fuck outta here before I ruin that pretty face?" Nero tilted his head in mock thought. "Hmm... Naw." In a flash, the gun was ripped out of the thug's hand, and the man was kicked back into the building. Nero tried to take it easy on the guy, but the young man still went flying a good ten feet. He laid on the ground, groaning and clutching his stomach as Nero walked in.

He instantly clocked the fifteen other people in the restaurant. A few were nearby, sitting and eating out of cans. A few more were behind the counter. They were separating cash and drugs amongst themselves. The latter was probably to either take or deal, and the former was most likely everyone's cut. A majority of the goons were in the back, looking at him with equal parts fear and anger.

Most... Most of them were teens, not much older than Grant. A few were maybe twenty five at best, and even that was pushing it. Just a bunch of people trying to get by, in the ways that only they knew how. Nero inwardly sighed. He didn't want this to come to a fight now. Not if he could help it. He walked over to the man on the ground, and held a hand out. The others watched in a tense silence, as the grounded man slowly took the hand.

Once he was standing, Nero handed him back his gun. The young thug teen looked at him like he was crazy. Nero shrugged. "Hey I took it from you once. I can do it again." The man carefully reached his hand out, his movements slow as he took the handgun back. He didn't holster it, but he also didn't aim it at Nero, which the young half-devil considered a win. He then took a deep breath and turned around.

"Alright so I'm gonna cut the bullshit." He says, all traces of his usual humor gone. "The orphanage nearby. I run it. One of my kids was fucking around in your hood and he dropped his wallet." Nero stealthily keeps his eyes on everyone, seeing if any of them would react outwardly. So far, nothing. "He said one of you guys picked it up. It had twenty one and some change in it. I don't care much about the wallet, but I'd appreciate if I could get my kid his money back." Nero ends his explanation. A few of the goons talk quietly amongst themselves.

He can still hear them though.

"Hey, didn't this guy beat the shit out of Bane?"

"Word on the street is that the place is halfway decent. Wish I was still young enough to go there."

"I dunno if he's brave, stupid or a combination of the two."

More whispers and rumors are flung around the room, before one of the young men in the back stand up. That's when the talking ceases. Must be the boss or something close to it. The gangbanger walks up to Nero. He's maybe the oldest person here. He puts on a show of standing tough, but otherwise, seems amicable enough.

"Your kid should have known we don't like it when people just walk in here." Nero nods his head. "Yeah, I'm gonna talk to him about that." The young man chuckles, but quickly silences himself. "Normally, I'd ask why you think we should listen to a damn word you say." Nero raises an eyebrow, a small smile on his face. "But?" The maybe-sorta-boss sighs. "Firstly, heard rumors about you. First week you were here you manhandled Bane." Nero rubs his face. "I'll be honest, if I'd known he was a big deal I'd have just left him alone." The man gives a small smile. It's not kind, but it's also not sharp or malicious.

"I doubt it man. Not much you won't do for kids." The young man turns his head slightly. "Ey! Anyone have the kid's wallet!? Give it back to the man." Nero shakes his head in amusement. "Just like that?" As another younger teen walks up, a familiar wallet in his hands, the man nods. "Yeah. We know how much work that orphanage is doing for kids. Even I can appreciate that." As the man takes the wallet from the kid, and hands it Nero, he pauses. "Make sure you have that talk with the kid. He's lucky he only lost his wallet to us." Nero takes the wallet. The money is still all there.

"Most other gangs would have done a lot worse then scare him off and steal his shit - which he dropped by the way, that's finders keepers." Nero huffed out a laugh at that, before he nods his head at the presumed boss. "Thanks man. I appreciate it." As Nero starts to walk away, he thinks. They aren't necessarily bad people. Hell, that gun that was shoved in his face? The safety was still on. Once he reaches the door, he makes a decision.

"Hey, I can't promise much, but if you come to the orphanage in the morning or the evening, you might get a hot meal. Free of charge." The young men and women all start chatting up a storm. The boss gives him a look. "Just like that? No strings attached?" Nero waves his hand in a so-so motion. "No, there is two things." He watches as everyone's face deflates. He gives them all a half decent smile.

"First, no weapons or drugs in the place. Second, no cussing around the kids or my girl." The look of hope that re-ignites on everyone's face is... It's kind of nice, Nero can admit. The boss hums in thought. "Maybe a few us will take you up on that... Nero, right?" Nero nods his head. "Yeah. You?" The man shrugs. "They call me Ray." Nero laughs, as he opens the door. "Like a ray of sunshine, or a ray of hope?" He doesn't bother to wait for an answer.

He's got some more work to do today. More kids to take care of.

...

Nero was in a bit of a good mood. He'd gotten both the wallet and money back, and not only did he not have to hurt a few young people down on their luck, but maybe they'd actually stop by. Now he just needs to tell Kyrie to make a little more food for breakfast and dinner, just in case. Money was tight, but they could afford to spend a bit more on food. The half-devil walked through Crime Alley and made his way to The Narrows in record time as he let his thoughts wander about what food to buy a bunch of up and coming gangbangers.

"Damn, I should have asked if there was any allergies we had to worry about." Nero laments. He takes a deep breath, and realizes exactly where he is. "Huh... Did I take the subway by accident? Did I run?" He's mildly confused by just how fast he got here, but he quickly shakes his head. He sniffs the air. Gotham sucks. Plain and simple. Even the air is horrible.

A part of him wants to take all the kids and just leave this place.

Still, no matter how bad the air is, no matter how many people and food and drinks and other scents he picks up, he's trained his nose well. And Erica and Vicky are both near each other, maybe a few blocks away. Nero clicks his tongue as he starts walking towards the girls. Now, it should be said that, while his nose is the strongest sense that he has, his second is his hearing. He's not like Superman, who he heard can hear from half the damn planet away apparently.

But he can hear better than most. And whenever he hears the his kids calling for help?

"No! Stop, don't!" Erica's voice says in distress.

Nero's eyes see red, and he moves. The few blocks feel like a few feet as he sees both girls being dragged into a car. It's a small, unlicensed sedan. Nero rushes the first guy he sees, - older, balding, fat grabbing Erica's arm- and drop kicks him. He doesn't use much force. It's not that he'd have a problem with killing humans, but firstly, he doesn't want to kill without a good reason, secondly he doesn't need the Bats giving him and the orphanage a hard time and finally, he didn't want to hurt Erica if he flung the man all the way to Metropolis.

Huh, could he actually do that?

He jumps up quickly as the driver in the car speeds away, their accomplices and their targets left behind. The man holding Vicky reaches for a weapon in his pants. Nero doesn't give him the opportunity as he draws Blue Rose, pointing the dual-barraled gun right at the man's head.

"You are going to drop the girl. Then you're going to run." His tone is deep, and he knows he lets some of his demonic energy into his voice. Vicky suddenly steps hard on the man's foot, and he drops her unceremoniously. Not a second later, is the man on the ground, sporting a bloodied nose, and Vicky - Nine, cut on her cheek, scared - is in Nero's arms.

"Hey, hey it's ok. It's fine now. You did good." He says, as he holds the girl tightly. He gives one last look at the groaning men on the ground. He gives the man with the bloody nose a broken leg, snapping the man's right leg at the shin with his foot. Ignoring the howls of pain, he turns his attention to Erica now - twelve, a red handprint on her left wrist - he walks over to her, with Vicky crying into his shoulder. Erica takes only a few seconds to register that she's safe, before she rushes Nero with a hug.

"We almost - if I hadn't wanted - I - " Nero shushes her. "Hey, you didn't know. Couldn't have known." He rubs her head with his free hand. "We didn't... I just wanted to help with something important." The girl says, as she cries into his shirt. Nero chuckles. "Hey, you don't have to do a thing. Me and Kyrie are the adults, and we're gonna take care of you guys." The girls both hold him tighter, with Vicky holding onto his neck.

"Thanks-" Vicky hiccups. "-Thanks Mr. Consoli." Nero huffs out a wild laugh. "Please, Mr. Consoli was Kyrie's father. Call me Nero kid." The half-devil figures that the other tasks can wait for a couple more hours.

Right now, he needs to get his kids back home.