I am a soldier.
A damn good one, too, if he does say so himself, and he does indeed say that. Frequently. He is many things, but modest is not one of them. He'll never ask, but he's convinced Leo Milano did that on purpose to offset Ethan's quiet, timid nature.

But I'll never earn a medal.
Nor does he want to. What use does he have for shiny trinkets? He's not some thick-skulled grunt trained to blindly obey orders and fight in wars he doesn't understand. He has no need for decorations that say how many skulls he's blown off, how many sons he's taken from their mothers. He's not some insecure Russian that needs to mutilate his flesh with his sins. His pride comes from the knowledge he's invaluable to his family. The comfort of knowing no one could protect Ethan better than him.

I am a son.
A second son, perhaps, but his father makes sure he knows he's every bit as important as the heir. "I prayed for you," Leo is fond of saying, "and the good lord did not let me down."

His mother is gone like Ethan's before her, lost in the rush of the city or perhaps simply killed in it. He doesn't care, he never needed her. He has Leo.

But not by blood.
Adopted isn't the correct term so much as sold. Leo told him the story many times when he was young and curious. His biological father had been one of Leo's men right up until Leo found out the man wasn't giving him his full cut by a long shot. Men die for crimes like that. But Leo had found himself moved by the man's pleas of a pregnant wife and child and instead made a deal with the pitiful man. His life for the life of his unborn child. The man agreed, neither knowing nor caring what exactly Leo had in mind for the child born four months later. When Leo walked out of the hospital with the tiny bundle in his arms, he never bothered to let the little family say goodbye.

If allowed, he thinks he might have mixed feelings on this. Leo is not a man to cross now, nor was he nineteen years ago, and the man had a family he needed to provide for.

But Leo would have never embezzled from his own employers, and if he did he would have never been caught. Most importantly, though, Leo would never be so cowardly as to sacrifice his child.

I am a man.
A good one, strong and proud, a credit to his father. He knew there was a time and place for everything, and he knew how to balance it out. So while he could sing and smile and enjoy the simple pleasure of soft caresses, he could also harden his mind and his heart to take care of business and take care of Ethan. Never had he experienced a conflict of interest.

But not a human.
He was more than that. From his first week of life he's been more than that. Leo had the doctors start out with nothing more than basic implants. The crime boss had learned long ago that anything more was fatal to such a young child. Those early electrodes regulated his crying and sleeping and nothing more. Leo says he never knew a man could sleep so well with a newborn in the house. The next two years of the infant's life were filled with visits to the doctor and constant upgrade, even when the modification was nothing more than a preparation for modifications he'd get years down the line in the hopes his mind and body would not reject them. It wasn't until he was nearly nine that he got his first real physical modification; his left arm. It was two weeks before his birthday when he was rolled into the operating room. When he woke up the next day with cast-iron where his arm used to be, he had been pleasantly surprised to see his pain suppressors really worked. Instead of the piercing agony he felt when he broke the same arm at the age of seven, he felt the curious sensation of an email being fired from his neurons to inform him there was a malfunction in the region of his upper-left appendage. He had been more pleasantly surprised, however, when he first used his new hand to snap the neck of the little boy who thought it was funny to throw rocks at Ethan's cat. It had been so simple, and Leo had been so proud.

I am a prince.
Leonardo called himself the King of Shadows and the Lord of Dirt. There was no bitterness in his voice, only a sly kind of pride and the kind of self-assured mockery used by those who know their shit really does smell like roses. It hasn't been easy to maintain his hold in such a state of chaos, but Leo fights dirty and isn't afraid to bloody up his hands to ensure the future for his sons. Ethan doesn't realize how hard their father works to provide such a life for them, but his little brother is acutely aware of every sacrifice that has been made. The doctor's make certain to engrave it in his mind.

But I do not wear a crown.
Los Angeles was still, technically, a part of the United States. There was no need for a passport to get in or out of the county, the schools still pledged their allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, some of the citizens still even paid taxes. That was about as far as the facade went. No one was quite sure when it happened, there was no official announcement, no hostile takeover. Gradually, though, the rest of the nation gave up on the city that was too lawless to be policed and too chaotic to function as smooth as Las Vegas. The Milano crime family stood politely to the side as the Crypts and the Bloods and the MS-13s battled it out with the Russians and the Chinese and the Mexicans and whatever other pathetic groups wanted a shot at running the city. Amidst the carnage left over from the brutal battles, when the bruised and battered Nechayev family thought they were going to claim supremacy of the city, Leonardo and his gang took advantage of the damage they had taken, slaughtering the Russians until there weren't enough of them to run a tavern, let alone a city. Leo's oldest son cringes when his father recounts tales of children and young men being mowed down by gunfire, but Leo's youngest swells with pride knowing nothing will ever stand in the way of his father's goals.

I am a puppet.
Leo has never been anything but blunt with him. For all the modifications he's gotten over the years, for all the intelligence downloaded into him, for all the strength given to him through the miracle of science, he also has the Controllers. Tiny devices planted inside his skull to regulate his thoughts. It's not total control, of course, his father is a loving man and wants him to enjoy as much of his life as is reasonable. But he'll never be capable of betraying the Milanos, he'll never be capable of a moral dilemma. The fact that he can neither fathom nor be concerned about either of those things leads him to the conclusion the devices are working.

But I manipulate the strings.
Not his own, of course, but those are trivial compared to the ones he was given on his sixteenth birthday. The operation itself took almost 48 hours, with a month of recovery and careful tweaking to his newest and most valuable addition. But once he was free of the bed and the blank white walls he had never felt more invincible. Wires, roughly 16 feet of slender, conductive wires, had been implanted into the rivets of his bionic arm that had been waiting seven years to be completed. This was the ultimate sign of trust from Leo, the utmost confidence in both his youngest son and the doctors who had worked on him. Using the newest chip implanted into his brain, causing a rectangular lump on the right side of his skull, he could shoot the wires out of the tiny holes in his fingertips and into his targets.

I am a murderer.
Plain and simple. He feels no compassion for his victims, nor has he ever been permitted to feel remorse. It's his job to eradicate rivals and cowards, traitors and thieves, and he takes his job very seriously.

But I have no need to kill.
He had killed in the past, and he won't shirk away from doing his duty. But, for him at least, eradication no longer requires any of the messy aftermath of a victim's corpse and blood. It's much cleaner to simply eradicate their mind. The wires he shoots are intended to infiltrate his target's eyes and nostrils, slip in through the holes and land straight in the brain. From there, reading their thoughts and emotions is like reading computer coding, and it's easy work to adjust whatever needs tweaking. For some, it's a matter of bravery, for others just a smidgen more loyalty. Others are more complicated, though, and require complete reworkings of their personality. These are the ones that give him the most trouble, and he won't exactly call the finished products works of art. But more and more often they can perform basic tasks, and he is confident that in the next few years he will be producing soldiers for his father that will be unstoppable. Then it won't be a matter of how many rivals can be mowed down before they'e a threat, but just a matter of time until there are no more rivals to pose danger to Leo or Ethan. That thought makes the weekly doctor visits, no matter how annoying and uncomfortable, completely worth it.

I am a brother.
To say he loves Ethan is to trivialize the meaning his brother has to him. Without Ethan, quite simply, there is no him. He has never discussed with his father what will happen if Ethan dies, because if Ethan dies there will be, as far as he is concerned, nothing after. He knows that he will simply stop functioning; the computerized parts of him will shut down without a purpose to continue functioning, and the human parts of him will not be able to survive long after the system stops. His humanity has relied on the machines nearly since birth. That' okay, though, given a choice between Hell and a life after Ethan, he will walk smiling into the flames.

But not a friend.
If he accesses his memories from early childhood, he can recall a time when Ethan and he would play like he imagines most brothers did. Ethan, ever considerate, would take his younger brother everywhere, even down the big kid's slide no matter what other child would complain or tease them. As they aged, however, he thinks Ethan became wary of him. His emotional reactions were never quite on par with other children, and his devotion to Ethan began to unnerve the sweeter, older boy. Ethan stopped calling him his brother, and stopped giving him half of his cookie at lunch. He argues with Leo constantly, his heart so big and intentions so pure he cannot stand to have this 'thing' as a little brother, Ethan cannot stand the idea of subjecting another human to such servitude.

"That thing deserves to be happy." Ethan will say whenever he tries to fight with Leo.

'That thing' wishes Ethan would ask him how he feels, so he can tell him how happy he is with Leo and Ethan, how he would burn down the world to keep his family close to him.

I am a slave.
He cannot deny this fact. As much as his father loves him, he is a servant of the family, a tool for the older Milano men to use. Ethan knows it too, and it hurts his older brother. He never realized how much it hurt Ethan, however, until the twenty-two year old pressed the barrel of a Jericho 941 in the space between his eyes.

"Forgive me, little brother." The gun is shaking. Ethan is no killer. His brother has never pulled a trigger at another human being. He doubts the young man has ever even thought of murdering someone no matter how much they deserved it. But there is a look in Ethan's eyes that say no matter how much the elder is crying, no matter how much the elder is shaking, Ethan cannot live with the guilt of allowing 'this thing' to continue it's wretched existence, even if it doesn't realize how wretched it is.

It is Ethan's wish, and he lives for Ethan. It is not for him to decide when he should and should not follow his older brother's good intentions.

But I need no shackles.
Ethan doesn't always know what's best for himself, though. Alexander will allow his life to end for the sake of Ethan's conscience, but he will not save Ethan's conscience in favor of Ethan's life. As the heir to the Milano family and subsequently the entirety of Los Angeles, Ethan is in constant danger. True, there are other bodyguards Leo could hire that could protect Ethan decently well, but no others that can protect him as efficiently as Alexander can, turning his enemies into faithful soldiers, turning his betrayers into loyal servants. Even after Ethan assumed the proverbial throne, how well would Leo's men follow the orders of an altruistic idealist? How long before Ethan's insistence on peace and order cost him his life?

"I forgive you." Alexander smiles, knowing what Ethan wants to hear. He grants himself a moment's hesitation to see the look of relief on Ethan's face before the wires shoot into his older brother's eye sockets and snake their way up his nose, lodging firmly into his brain.

Taking the gun gently away from Ethan, Alexander empties the cartridge and drops both pieces on the ground before getting to work. His older brother needs a stronger backbone, more resolve. Careful...careful, too much and he might destroy Ethan forever. A subtle change in morals, a stronger drive to achieve, a weaker gag reflex...careful...careful...

He's almost done, and so far Ethan's showing no signs of permanent damage. Alexander is about to release his older brother when he realizes there's one more modification he could make. Accessing the files where Ethan stores his feelings for his family, Alexander calmly reads the one marked with his name.

Fear.

Pity.

Disgust.

Sorrow.

He hesitates. It would be easy to change the fear to trust, the pity to protectiveness, to direct the disgust towards one of Ethan's friends that doesn't like Alexander. It would be simple to convince Ethan that he loves his little brother.

Instead he detaches the wires from his brother's brain, reeling them back into his arm and waits for Ethan to recover from the daze. The look his brother gives him is harder, colder than Alexander remembers, a testimony to his handiwork.

"I suppose I needed that." Ethan picks up the gun from the floor and puts the cartridge back in, aiming it once again between his younger brother's eyes. "however if you attempt such a thing again, I will dispose of you without hesitation. You're not as hard to replace as you think."

The potential that Leo searched so long for in his eldest is finally unlocked. Alexander Vincent Milano can only smile.

Amazing story by User not found: pokuu
Profile by Ringo
Art by Finnie