**Age 15-17**
The laboratory that Victor Fries had built for himself was hidden in Gotham's abandoned Andals island commercial district, a long abandoned collection of stores on one of Gotham's micro islands, accessible through a series of underground tunnels that connected to the city's old sewer system since the bridges are now crumbling. The main space had once been a refrigerated warehouse, and Victor had converted it into something between a cutting-edge research facility and a fortress.
The temperature inside was maintained at -40 degrees Fahrenheit year-round—necessary for Victor's survival but brutal for anyone else. Suguro's first week was spent mostly shivering despite the thermal clothing Victor provided, his body slowly adapting to the constant cold.
"Treat the cold as a teacher," Victor told him during one of those early days. "It forces you to move deliberately, to think before acting, because mistakes in cold like this can be fatal. Learn to be comfortable with discomfort."
The laboratory itself was far beyond anything Suguro had imagined. There were multiple workstations, each dedicated to different research projects. Advanced equipment that Suguro had only seen in university catalogs lined the walls, high-precision scales, centrifuges, spectrometers, chromatography systems. Chemical storage units maintained at exact temperatures. A sealed chamber for working with hazardous materials. Computers with chemistry modeling software.
"This is your workspace," Victor said, leading Suguro to a station in the corner that had been cleared and prepared. "You'll maintain it with the same precision I expect from all areas of this laboratory. Nothing out of place, everything documented, all materials properly stored. Sloppiness is how people die or cause disasters."
Suguro nodded, already cataloging the equipment available to him.
"We'll begin with fundamentals," Victor continued. "I don't care how much you've taught yourself we start from the beginning and build properly. You'll learn correct laboratory procedures, proper safety protocols, accurate documentation methods, and systematic problem-solving. Only after you've mastered the basics will we move to advanced applications."
"That could take months," Suguro protested. "I already know—"
"You know enough to be dangerous to yourself and others," Victor interrupted, his voice cold as the air around them. "You know enough to create crude weapons. You don't know enough to be a true scientist. If you want to stay here and learn from me, you'll do it my way. If you'd prefer to continue your amateur hour experiments, you're welcome to leave."
Suguro bit back his frustration and nodded. He'd learned patience through years of abuse; he could learn it again for education.
The first six months were grueling.
Victor was a demanding teacher who accepted nothing less than perfection. He made Suguro repeat basic chemistry experiments dozens of times until the procedures became automatic. He drilled him on safety protocols until Suguro could recite them in his sleep. He required meticulous documentation of every step of every process, checking Suguro's notebooks daily and criticizing any sloppiness or imprecision.
"Why does this matter?" Suguro had asked in frustration during his third week, after Victor had made him redo a simple experiment because his measurements were off by a milliliter. "The result was close enough."
"Close enough?," Victor replied flatly. "Close enough means you miscalculate a dosage and kill someone you didn't intend to kill, or let someone live who you did intend to kill. Close enough means you create a compound that's unstable and explodes in your face. There is no close enough. There is only precise or wrong."
But beyond the drilling and the perfectionism, Victor was teaching Suguro things he'd never been able to learn on his own. Advanced chemistry principles. Sophisticated synthesis techniques. How to use professional equipment properly. How to design controlled experiments rather than just trial-and-error testing. How to analyze results systematically rather than relying on intuition.
Most importantly, Victor taught him patience.
"Science is not about quick results," Victor explained during one of their evening discussions. They often talked while Victor worked on his own research, attempting to cure his wife Nora's condition, a task he'd been pursuing for years. "Science is about methodical progress. You form a hypothesis, design an experiment to test it, collect data carefully, analyze the results, adjust your hypothesis, and repeat. It's slow. It's frustrating. But it's the only way to truly understand what you're studying."
Suguro absorbed these lessons with the same intensity he brought to everything. He learned to slow down, to plan experiments rather than rush into them, to document everything with obsessive detail. His notebooks became models of scientific precision, each entry containing hypotheses, methodologies, data tables, analysis, and conclusions.
Victor noticed the change, one day, reviewing Suguro's latest experimental series on variant formulations of his fear toxin. "This is proper research, well-documented. This is how real scientists work."
The praise was minimal, but from Victor, it meant everything.
But Victor didn't just teach chemistry. He taught practical survival skills for a criminal scientist.
"You need multiple identities," Victor explained. "Documentation that will hold up to moderate scrutiny. Bank accounts under different names. Safe houses that no one else knows about. Always maintain escape routes."
He taught Suguro how to acquire materials without leaving traces, how to cover his activities, how to identify undercover law enforcement, and how to structure criminal relationships to minimize betrayal risks. These were lessons born from Victor's own years as a fugitive, and Suguro absorbed them with the same methodical attention he brought to chemistry.
"The difference between a successful criminal scientist and a captured one is preparation," Victor said. "Always assume someone is investigating you. Always assume your allies will betray you if the price is right. Always have contingencies for every contingency."
Suguro also learned about Victor's wife, Nora, who rested in a cryogenic chamber in the laboratory's inner sanctum. Victor visited her daily, speaking to her unconscious form, promising her he'd find a cure, apologizing for what he'd become in pursuit of that cure.
"She's the only thing that matters," Victor told Suguro during one of these visits. "Everything I do, the crimes, the research, it's all in service of saving her. When you find something you value more than your own life, you'll understand."
Suguro doubted he would ever value anything or anyone that much. His capacity for attachment had been burned out of him years ago. But he understood the principle: Victor had purpose, and that purpose gave him focus, direction, strength. It was a lesson worth remembering.
During Suguro's second year with Victor, they began collaborating on his fear toxin research in earnest.
By this point, Suguro had mastered the fundamentals and moved into advanced applications. With Victor's guidance and the laboratory's resources, he was able to isolate and analyze the exact compounds his Quirk produced, mapping their molecular structure with precision he'd never achieved before.
Together, they worked to improve and expand Suguro's natural. They identified the specific compounds that when Suguro took could amplify and modify his quirks effects.
So far the pair had created a few variants,
**Strain Alpha** was refined into the perfect interrogation tool—predictable duration, controllable intensity, minimal risk of permanent damage.
**Strain Omega** was developed for total psychological destruction—delayed onset allowing deployment before detection, then cascading fear that built on itself until the victim's mind shattered completely.
**Strain Epsilon** was the subtle variant—creating paranoia and unease rather than overt hallucinations, perfect for long-term psychological warfare.
There was also Rhea.
Victor's niece, Rhea Cerva, had been living in the laboratory on and off since she was young. She was Suguro's age, brilliant in her own right, studying cryogenics and biochemistry to help her uncle save Nora. Her Quirk was similar to Victor's but less debilitating, she could generate intense cold, had enhanced durability, needed cold to remain healthy but could survive in normal temperatures.
She was beautiful in an otherworldly way, ice-white hair, blue-tinged skin that was cool to touch, eyes that sometimes literally frosted over when she was angry or emotional. She dressed practically for the cold environment, and she watched Suguro with an intensity he found uncomfortable.
"She has a crush on you," Victor mentioned casually one day. "Try not to break her heart too badly. She's had enough disappointment in her life."
Suguro had no idea how to respond to that. He'd never experienced romantic attraction, never felt the pull others described.
But Rhea was persistent. She joined him in the laboratory during his work, asking questions about his research, sharing her own findings, slowly building what she thought was friendship and he recognized as strategic alliance. She was valuable, her scientific knowledge complemented his, her Quirk had applications he could use, her connection to Victor provided security.
When she finally confessed her feelings during his seventeenth year, Suguro had responded with characteristic honesty: "I don't feel that way about anyone. I'm not sure I can. But I value your work and your assistance. If you can accept that, we can continue as colleagues."
She'd been hurt, he could see it in her expression, even if he couldn't quite understand why, but she'd accepted it. She remained loyal to Victor and, by extension, to Suguro, channeling her feelings into dedication to their shared research.
His transformation under Victor's tutelage was complete. He'd gone from a talented amateur to a genuine expert and developed variants of his toxin that were sought after by organizations across Gotham's underworld.
More importantly, he'd learned discipline, patience, systematic thinking, skills that turned his raw intelligence into something genuinely dangerous.
"You've learned what you need," Victor told him one evening. They were standing before Nora's cryogenic chamber, as had become their habit during important conversations. "You're ready to operate independently now. You could stay here, I'd welcome it. Or you could leave, build your own operation, pursue your own goals. The choice is yours."
Suguro looked at the man who'd been closer to a father than anyone in his life. "You don't want me to leave."
"No. But I want you to choose freely. I've taught you to be a scientist. Now you need to decide what kind of scientist you'll be."
Suguro thought about this for a long moment, then said, "I want my own operation. But I want to maintain this alliance. You've given me more than someone like me deserves..."
Victor's expression, usually so controlled, softened almost imperceptibly. "You're welcome here anytime, Suguro. This laboratory will always be available to you, and my assistance is yours when needed. You're family now. Not by blood, but by choice, which matters more."
It was the most emotion Suguro had seen from the cold man in two years, and it stirred something in his chest that he couldn't quite identify.
"Thank you," Suguro said, and meant it more than almost anything he'd ever said.