Name: Zero
Species: Norway rat, dark agouti variety
Age: 4 months
Weight: 395 grams
Birthplace: University of Iowa
Eye colour: blue
Markings: Typical agouti markings, that is, a brown body with a grey stomach. His brown colouration is very dark for an agouti, verging on black but not quite. When un-masked, he has a tiny white head-spot and his whiskers are a mixture of grey, white and black.

Extras: Wears a gas mask which covers his whole face but leaves the top and back of his head visible. The mask is dull black plastic. He is virtually never without it. His eyes are for the most part obscured in darkness and are only really visible when up close. The fur on his head is patchy and sparse, and he has one long skinny piece of blonde hair at the back of his head. His ears are large, dark and expressive and he has one silver ring in each. In his left ear he has a rip where his ear tag was removed. He has a scar of his number on his upper left arm.

He has six fingers on each front paw, but still the usual 5 on his feet. This is merely something he was born with.
He also has 'must kill' etched across his knuckles. He is still very young so he is small, and proportioned as a young kitten.

General:
Zero is an ex laboratory rat, his allocated number was Zero. He was used in drug testing and was fed many various chemicals and substances to see how the body reacts. He has taken pretty much every drug there is, and many various cocktails of them. As such, he suffers from visual distortions, and sometimes sees things with coloured trails. He occasionally out and out hallucinates, though unlike Jester, he is much more able to cope with it, and even seems to enjoy it from time to time.

The gas mask was fitted in the lab, and Zero seems perfectly happy to continue wearing it. It is thought he cannot breathe properly without it, and it is a direct result from his treatment in the lab. Although he has willingly removed it on a few occasions, he will avoid doing so unless absolutely necessary. It gives him a distinct disadvantage in that he has limited peripheral vision, and cannot bite to defend himself. He is very dependant upon his claws, his hind ones in particular, so he keeps them sharp. However, he also takes advantage of the fact that he can use the gas mask as protection, and it has saved him from Schism's needles on several occasions. It is thought he can lift the mask over his head to eat and drink, but he rarely does this in front of anyone but his own group. His sound of his breathing is amplified by the mask, and you can always hear it. It would be impossible for him to creep up on you. He does make some rather strange vocalisations; noises which are not typically rat like. He tends to squeal when he's angry and whines like a puppy when he's sad. He is very hyperactive and, its widely accepted, insane.

Zero is the youngest of the lab rats and so he can sometimes act rather spoiled or cocky. He is a pyromaniac and loves nothing more than setting fire to things. He can never be trusted with anything that can make a flame, and he has deliberately set fire to himself in the past (this accounts for the patchy hair growth on his head).
He would be rather an irritating character if he weren't so young, and blatantly naive. Like most young bucks, he's testing to see what he can get away with. He is absolutely devoted to Faith as his alpha in Six's absence, and would follow him to the ends of the earth. He was so in awe of him that for the first part of their relationship, he would never dare speak in front of him. Faith had always assumed Zero couldn't talk.

He wants to be exactly like Faith, and so apes his behaviour, even barking orders at the other rats in the group. He seems to have an ongoing feud with Jester because, as second in command, Jester is closer to Faith than Zero.
And Zero doesn't like this.
He resents Jester's position, and turns this into an excuse to hate him, and to pick on him at every opportunity. During the period when Jester had to briefly be in charge of the group in Faith's absence, Zero point blank refused to listen to him or recognise him as his alpha. The two ended up in a fight which could have cost Jester his life. Unlike Pickles, who will taunt others but never dream of physically attacking them, Zero is always game for a fight. The entire issue with Jester puts him into a frustrating situation: his huge respect for Faith dictates he should approve of his decision on who is beta, but he desire to be closer to Faith means he will can never accept Jester or get over his resentment for him.
Faith seems to be more lenient in reprimanding Zero than he is any other rat in the group, presumably because he is the youngest and doesn't know any better.
Zero is very naive. He'll believe almost anything anyone tells him, particularly if it’s Faith. He is also quite transparent, and the other rats all know his aggression is just the result of him wanting so badly to be like Faith, but not having the maturity to pull it off yet. He says what he thinks Faith would say in a situation, but because he truly believes Faith's 'tough guy' act, his words are often overly harsh and aggressive in an attempt to emulate how he THINKS Faith would behave.

He’s one of the few rats who do not discuss their time in the lab. He deals with the medical issues and mental scars pretty much on his own. As a baby, he was good friends with Schism and the two would play together and chase one another. As Schism became more and more introverted and tormented, Zero began avoiding him altogether. Though he will occasionally give him a lick on the head, Zero seems to be almost scared of what Schism has become and has mentally blocked him out.

Zero is very active and he enjoys climbing. His acrobatic ability is more suited to a chipmunk than a rat. He can easily scale a tree or large structure and has no fear of heights. He likes to throws himself off tall structures, or hang from them, and seems to come out of it all mostly unharmed. He regularly has mock battles with Six
He is fascinated with space and stars and spends a lot of time simply looking up. He is confident in there being life in far away places, and is sometimes mocked for his desire to meet them one day.