The Custodes

Chapter 2 - Nexus

Nexus Ahriman sat alone at his desk in the study of his comfortable, suburban house in Pomona, reading his way through a large pile of reports. The man was nineteen years of age, though the cold and severe expression that almost always possessed his face made him seem double that. It was only his fair features and smooth skin that gave away his true youthfulness.

Nexus' hair fell down in long, black locks which had their tips dyed a light grey colour in quite a unique fashion. The irises of his eyes were an unnatural grey, and the similar dye of his hair seemed to compliment this effortlessly - turning a strange and unusual feature into an attractive one.

He was a tall but well-built man; he went to the gym every other day, ran every morning, maintained a healthy diet and only occasionally allowed himself a drink or two on what he deemed 'special occasions'. On the surface, his looks and lifestyle were the envy of all.

But on a deeper dive, the man's looks didn't count for much when compared with his snake-like personality, and his lifestyle was little more than a convenient cover for the country-wide drug empire he was in charge of.

Yes, the fact of the matter was that Nexus Ahriman was a fiend - a villain - and that was exactly how he liked it.

Over the years he had managed to build up quite the reputation for himself, and at the stage he was now was more successful than most adults would hope to be halfway through their lives.

Thing is, he played dirty to get into the position of power he was in.

Very dirty.

Nexus ran a sort of gang-like group who practically ruled the streets of Pomona, robbing and stealing practically anything they could without ever being busted. It started back when he was in his teenage years and got mixed up with the wrong crowd, as some would say.

They would follow some unsuspecting pedestrian into an alleyway, or generally just a somewhat quiet area, then threaten them with knives until they handed over everything they owned.

It worked like a charm practically every time, and none of them ever had to actually use the knife. Most people would much rather give up anything valuable on them than risk getting stabbed, a helpful tip that Nexus soon came to realise.

The police had tried to intervene numerous times, and had even arrested a good amount of his old acquaintances, but Nexus had gotten away every time without fail.

Due to so many people being taken in and sent to jail, it didn't take long for the self proclaimed 'leaders' of the group to get caught themselves and replaced by another member. That was how Nexus had worked his way into his first position of power.

After a good few months of commanding the small group, far longer than a large amount of others before him, he decided he wanted to expand. No one in the small gang they had going tried overthrow him or argued with the things he had planned regardless of the fact that some were far older than him, partly because there was no way he would allow it, but also mainly due to the  fact he was actually fair, and even somewhat generous, to them.

He understood that to stay in power he had to gain and maintain respect, plus he was more than happy to split the money he made with the others in his group as long as they played their part.

It didn't take long for Nexus to start expanding.

He made more friends, of various ages, including one man just a little bit younger than him named Daigo, an average height teen with neatly upwards styled white hair. The two became fairly close, with Daigo ending up as a sort of right hand man in Nexus' growing hierarchy.

Slowly the group grew and grew, and by the time Nexus was eighteen he was in charge of a considerably large underground thieving community. He ran everything, and made a solid living from it.