PRAYING • MATT MURDOCK

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NICHOLAS WASN'T THE kind of person that you messed with. His face was set in a scowl and the scar that ran across his cheek scared more people than it didn't. It came with his upbringing. Being the son of a god wasn't the easiest childhood, especially not if you were half human too.

Nicholas spent his childhood learning how to fight. Learning to defend himself from anyone that tried to get him. Apparently being the son of Loki meant you also inherited his enemies as well as his gifts. So even if Nicholas could exist in multiple physical forms at once, it also meant that going anywhere in Asgard was dangerous to him. So before he even hit his teen years, he was sent down to Earth in an attempt to protect him. Or so they said.

Nicholas didn't really believe that they wanted to protect him. He more so believed that he didn't fit in. A half human, half god on a planet where neither were accepted comfortably as a member of the public. The gods had to be worshipped, on a higher plane than the Asgardian citizens, yet the humans were a lesser species. Everything felt so backwards there. So when he got the chance to escape he took it, without hesitating. It wasn't like he was leaving anything of meaning behind.

But he was sent to Earth on his own. He wasn't with his mother or his father. He was alone, on an unfamiliar planet with nothing. It was a rough couple of years for him, adapting to life on Earth and becoming someone who he could be proud of.

Part of that person was the vigilante he became. He never had a name for that part of him. He never needed one - because that is who he is. It isn't all he is but he couldn't live without going out in the night. He worked as a nurse too. He wanted to help people, and by being both a nurse and a vigilante, he can help people in every aspect of his life.

That's what lead him to the docks on this cold night. He was at work when a girl came in with bruises and rope burn on her wrists and a dirtied and bloodied face. He asked her what happened and she told him everything.

She told him that she escaped from the Russians. And that they took her sister. Nicholas sat there and comforted the crying woman, before clocking out and putting his mask over his face.

Now Nicholas was laying on top of a shipping container, waiting for the Russians to bring their next "shipment". Nicholas wasn't quite sure what the plan was, but he could see another figure across the boatyard, a man in a black mask, crawling on a different shipping container, and suddenly he was intrigued. He had been the only vigilante in Hell's Kitchen since he started out, so who was this man in black?

Before Nicholas could make his way to the man - to question him? He wasn't quite sure. But he knew that he wanted to know more - the Russians were at the pier with more girls, all screaming for help.

"Hey, hey! Man shut up." Nicholas heard a man shout out and the girls went quiet in seconds. This made Nicholas' blood boil. "I'm getting $1000 a head for y'all. So, you be quiet, I let you have a bucket. You don't," The man held up a taser stick and Nicholas saw red.

They were treating these women like cattle, herding them into a small shipping container. They weren't even being treated with any shred of decency. The man kept speaking, obscenities spilling out of his mouth as Nicholas braced himself to jump down. As the man started laughing the girls noticed both figures in the dark. Nicholas standing on the container to the left of them and the man in black perched on the container in front of them. There was barely a seconds difference in their landing but the man in black jumped onto the cattle prod man. Nicholas saw him hit the ground but was then too preoccupied with the Russian's running towards him.

Nick ducked as a man tried to punch him, letting him lean over him slightly before he slammed his elbow into the Russian's ribcage and landed a kick on his knee. The man fell to the ground, groaning in pain, and Nicholas sent a powerful punch into his face, knocking the man out. He heard the girls shriek and turned to help them when he was hit in the face by another Russian man. He stumbled back a little bit, tasting copper on his tongue and gave a small smirk.