For all that he was technically a child of the Muea Tseena pack, Cinco was born on the wrong side of the tracks. His father was never around. He disappeared before Cinco was three years old and hasn't ever been seen or heard from since. That left Cinco's mother to raise him on her own. Like most single-parent families, they weren't rich, by any means. She spent a lot of time carrying two, sometimes three, jobs to make ends meet. As a result, he was actually left, largely, to raise himself.
He was always a rough-and-tumble kid, highly active and always looking for attention. School never sat well with him. He found it too confining. Sure, he was smart enough for it. He just didn't care about it, so he neglected it. He cut classes to hang out with his friends and cruise the neighborhood looking for distractions.
It's no suprise, then, that his teen years saw him fall in with a rough group of guys who slowly drew him into their gang: Los Perros Rojos, "the Red Dogs". In fact, it was they that gave Cinco his street name. (It came from the fact there were five of them that hung out together, when the Dogs first took them in. Each of them adopted an number as name. The irony in Cinco's was that though he seemed to be the omega of the group, he'd quickly rise to be higher in the gang than most of them.)
Like with most gangs, what started out as daredevil thrills and adolescent tests of manhood soon took a spiraling turn into drugs, booze, and petty crime. Of course, Cinco had something of an advantage over the other boys. As his werewolf nature began to assert itself, he found he was quicker, stronger, and sturdier than the rest of them. He could hear better, see better, and smell better, too. It was very, very hard to get the drop on him — and very, very easy for him to get the drop on others. He became the defacto lookout on any jobs they pulled and quickly gained a reputation as an expert streetbrawler, often serving as a 'tank' when he and his buddies got into a scrap. He could take more punishment than they could, and deal out a lot more, too. All of which meant he quickly rose through the ranks.
This sort of activity, however, didn't sit so well with most of his packmates, eventually prompting some of the pack leadership to step in. Pack Alpha, Eli Donato started making it his business to keep an eye on Cinco. He started insisting the 'young pup' learn more about and participate in Muea Tseena traditions. With his military background and long experience as a werewolf, he had a lot he could teach Cinco. What he didn't want, however, was the boy using that knowledge to become a simple thug — or any other sort of thug, for that matter. So he was careful in his instruction.
Cinco grudingly learned what Donato wanted to teach him, and equally grudingly obeyed his rules in the process. Some of it was cool, sure, but a lot of it seemed like a huge waste of time — the discipline, the pack values of family, and 'the protection of all living things'. What the hell was that all about? Far as he was concerned, the Dogs were his family, after all. The pack was little more than a necessary 'evil' he had to endure on account of his two-naturedness.
All that changed, however, sometime early in his twenties. Cinco got in way over his head with Los Perros. Because of his size and strength and speed, he was being asked to take care of bigger and more dangerous jobs. Up until this point, he'd been lucky. He'd gotten away without actually killing anyone — which isn't to say he hadn't seriously injured, even maimed a few along the way. But, for the most part, he'd never had to. The threat of violence was often enough. One night, however, the higher ups in the gang decided it was time to 'put down' one of their rivals that was encroaching far too much on their territory. Cinco was to be part of the raid.
To this day, he won't speak of the details of that night. Suffice it to say, things went south a whole lot faster than anyone had expected. Their rivals were waiting for them. Cinco escaped with his life, but he and his buddy Dos were the only ones that did. That's when things got complicated.
It was obvious someone had tipped off their rivals to the raid. The question was: Who? Dos pointed the finger at Cinco, who couldn't explain his absence from the clubhouse on the nights leading up to the raid. It had been a full moon; he'd had no choice… but he couldn't tell them that. And claiming he had a 'family function' didn't work either, since Los Perros insisted that they were supposed to be his family, now — not to mention the fact his mother had died when he was eighteen.
Now, the truth was that Dos was using Cinco as a scapegoat for his own actions. But, the higher ups in Los Perros didn't know that. While some of them had a hard time believing Cinco would betray them, Dos was able to come up with so-called proof that was pretty damning. As a result, the gang put out a death warrant on him. He became an outlaw in their territory, while being entirely unwelcome in just about every other territory in the city at the same time. Sure, Cinco tried to clear his name, but he couldn't. Dos knew him too well and knew just how to frame him up right. So although he did discover Dos' treachery, but no one believed him. As far as they were concerned, it was nothing more than an attempt to shift the blame.
He was cornered, one night, attacked by many of the guys he used to call friends. Fast and strong as he was, there were too many for him to fend off on his own. He went down and very likely would have been killed… except a large, grizzled wolf intervened. No one knew where it came from, but that Cinco was protected by it has since become legend among Los Perros Rojos.
The wolf, of course, was Donato. The Alpha took Cinco home, that night. He cared for him as he mended… and chastised him soundly for 'being so stupid' as to get involved with any of it. He also set out new ground rules for the younger man, rules that focused on cleaning Cinco up and bringing his attention back to the pack and its traditions.
"You wanna fight? You fight for the right things. You fight for the Pack and what it stands for." Donato insisted Cinco return to the Comanche roots of the pack. He shaped the young 'brave' by requiring him to learn the history of the pack and participate in those traditions that would inevitably lead him to the Warriors Trial.
Once Cinco had passed the Trial, and had formally left his old life with Los Perros beyhind, Donato began giving him more and more responsibility. He became one of the pack's chief protectors, though his loyalty remained more with Donato personally than anyone else. Donato had saved him when everyone else had rejected him. Of all the Pack, Donato was the only one that had taken an interest in him. Donato was the one he owed, no one else. In fact, his unswerving loyalty to the man that had saved him led him to become a fiercer pack enforcer than he might otherwise have been. As before, he rose up through the ranks of the pack — partly because of Donato's favour, and partly because he'd learned his lessons well. Maybe he wasn't the most sociable of 'wolves, but he was certainly one of the most focussed… and the one Donato came to rely on when the chips were down… ultimately as Beta.
Cinco continues to serve the pack as Beta. It's possible he could ascend to the post of Alpha, one day, but it won't be through challenge. He's too much Donato's man for that. And it won't be until he learns to make nice with other people just a little better, too. Fortunately, it doesn't look like Donato's going anywhere soon. Especially not with Cinco at his back.
