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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:28:22 GMT -5
THE DOUGH MAN
It didn't go that way. When Amin's team broke past their first security checkpoint, Hell followed after. It wasn't clones or sentry guns anymore. It was a tide of crazed plant monsters, something no one's come up with a name for yet. Four of Amin's team went down on the spot. Solah herself disappeared into a cloning lab, where the mutants had their hive. Raki's team hurried in behind, only to get slammed back to a defensive position by a tide of knee-high freaks with wrenches and pipes. The job looked like a bust before they'd even seen more than six clones.
Nobody knows exactly what happened in that cloning lab, but things just kept getting stranger. Right at the moment Sakazzah ordered a withdrawal, their mark shut down hard. It was Amin pulling the AI's plug from a link somewhere inside. Before then, everyone thought she'd been torn apart - some even said they'd confirmed a corpse in an airlock. Instead, not more than twenty minutes later, she slipped in behind Raki's team. Right alongside her was another thing that didn't have a name. Something tall, heavy, crazy, and flabby. Something that'd saved her life.
Usual recourse in the underground was to kill mutants and monsters on sight, no questions asked. The plant monsters were doing everything they could to make that seem like the only option - total of six dead, five injured. Instead, Raki honored the fleshy thing's help. All together, the Fair Hand crew pulled back, with a new employee to introduce to the world above. Rising up from the wastes was something Cloneston would regret for years; Ezimat nes Zak, the Flesh of the Dough.
It was the start of something wonderful for Jimmy, Raki, and his new accomplice. He gave Ezimat his name and offered him a job once he realized it could talk. For Cloneston, it was the start of something awful. The Dough Man took to the railways and plates as a powerhouse assassin. If Raki pointed at something, Ezimat made it stop moving. Most of those targets were Jimmy-sponsored hits; drug peddlers, murderers, mercenary commanders, and more. Whenever the Dough Man wasn't on the clock for wetwork, he was ripping chunks out of himself to put onto the organ market. When people found out where their supply of spleens was really coming from, even Jimmy was a little creeped out.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:28:33 GMT -5
UNDERHANDED
The Fair Hand stayed with Jimmy for about a year until VANDAL bought out their contract. History looped back in on itself. The Fishbowl moved up to better pay and looser restrictions. He didn't exactly backstab Jimmy again, but the elder senator got the hint. All the while, Raki's gang made raids on anyone and everything. In the real world, Damsel Center and Chuikov took hit after hit. Banks, brothels, and corporate offices felt the Fair Hand's knuckles. In cyberspace, gambling websites started sending money the wrong way. Police departments suddenly privatized in the span of half an hour. Sensitive intelligence flowed like an underworld sewer.
It wasn't just Jimmy who took a knife in the back. The Fair Hand jumped ships in 1307 when Gregor Chuikov made his own play, offered them a sweet-and-sour deal of cash and threats. Only a few months later, they were back with VANDAL, pulling strikes on Damsel Center operations across the city. By July of that year, they'd gone solo and went to work stringing heists together with cybercrime across the internet. A few contracts with Beth slipped under the radar in that stretch. Even Vincent Le DuBuon came back, bigger and badder than ever, and tapped the Fair Hand for Sakazzah himself.
In the background, the Kalav'Lees was growing. Early on, they'd been a crew of thirty that'd bled hard in its early months. By 1308, they were nearly fifty strong and added at least a dozen other mercenary gangs to their list of affiliates. They used to be just redworlders - and whatever the Dough Man was. In 1308, they had six humans as full-time members and a couple scrappy sorassan as mobile countermeasures platforms. They'd claimed turf all across the city for safehouses and staging grounds. Their center of operations was on the Raffemaster Industrial Plate, just a few buildings away from eyeshot of the Drassa Enclave. The Fishbowl had always been ambitious. The Kalav'Lees was the culmination of all that ambition.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:28:47 GMT -5
NOBODY CARES
1309 came around and reminded everyone that all good things eventually had to end. The Fishbowl was too ambitious. He'd backstabbed just about every AI in the city. Jimmy hired him as a last resort. VANDAL wasn't on speaking terms anymore. Chuikov was trying his best to find, torture, and kill every last redworlder he could find in the city. Damsel Center - the less said, the better. A hundred smaller AIs had been hung out to dry by the Fair Hand. Gangs and mercenaries everywhere were jealous, envious, or had been left in the cold all the same. Being aliens didn't do the Kalav'Lees any favors, either.
It was March of that year that someone finally snitched. Most put their money on VANDAL, but some reckon it could've been one of the mercenaries on contract to the Fair Hand. One thing was for sure; it didn't come from inside. The Fair Hand was tight. Family loyalty was everything to a redworlder in Cloneston - and no one wanted to ruin a good thing. It didn't matter much in the end. The noose came tight. Chuikov found out. VANDAL egged him on from the sidelines. Jimmy had learned his lesson - when things went down, he wasn't listening.
Hostilities opened up at noon on the 30th, when S&C grunts hit the ground on the edge of the RIP. Fittingly enough, most called it the "Tombstone Plate". A few lookouts for the main safehouse called them out, went to arms, and took the mercs on a running battle across the plate. At that point, nobody thought Gregor was out for blood. Most called it a mistake. Even Raki was cautiously optimistic. Behind the scenes, VANDAL's hired help was sneaking around, hoping to get the scent of redworlder blood in the water.
Three hours in, something blew up at the main compound, out at the northern edge of the plate. VANDAL's hitmen had finally found their target - and a mine in one of the sewer tunnels leading up to it. Gregor's men took the signal and rushed to it. By then, clones were trickling onto the plate. Most ended up on Chuikov's side as his men pulled rank or flexed their own cyberwarfare muscles. Mercenaries hired on by VANDAL, Chuikov, and just about every other interest in the city followed after. When the charge finally hit the RIP safehouse, there were forty humans and clones for every one redworlder.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:29:05 GMT -5
THE RED BONFIRE
That same explosion was the death knell for positivity in the Fair Hand. They knew what they were up against. They knew it wasn't an accident. They had escape routes, but the constant buzzing of S&C gunships made it very clear they weren't going to get far. Only a few tried to pull out on their own and ended up ambushed by VANDAL's thugs along the way. Everyone knew it was coming. The last stand of the Kalav'Lees, alone and destined to die. No one argued with Raki when he gave the order; kill as many people as possible for as long as someone was still alive.
Sakazzah had picked out the RIP for two reasons. For one, it was close to Drassa, so, if escape was actually possible, they'd have had somewhere to blend in. For two, it was nearly unassailable. They had defensive positions and extensive cover everywhere. They had a tangled mess under the plate's surface, industrial machinery and maintenance corridors they could lock down into death halls. They knew every inch of the place better than some of Chuikov's goons knew their own rifles.
When Gregor's men and their clone entourage arrived, they hit interlocking fields of fire and a machine gun hanging out of every window. Snipers and skirmishers killed half their squad leaders by the time anyone knew they'd hit the nexus. As soon as the Fair Hand had to fall back to better positions, the whole plate lit up. Exhaust pipes and whole buildings came down on top of mobs of clones. For hours, the whole Tombstone was nothing but explosions and fires raging out of control. Most mercenaries said they'd been hit by an artillery barrage, but the truth was simple bordering on stupid. The whole thing had been rigged up with mines and explosives so thick the Fair Hand could've blown up the same target three different times in the same position.
It took three hours of pushing on all sides for Chuikov's mercenaries to finally get to the chemical factory the redworlders called home. They'd lost at least three dozen men. Raki had only lost two. That was soon to change. The front door was sealed up, reinforced, and covered with sentry guns. A few dead scouts later, S&C moved the fight to the maintenance shafts below. Tunnel fighting was where things took a turn for worse. Chuikov was true to his word when he said he wanted to rip Sakazzah's arms off and grill him from the inside out. Power-armored mercenaries hit the tunnels with machine guns, grenade launchers, and even honest-to-goodness flamethrowers. Backing them up were swarms of clones, pouring into every undefended flank.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:29:29 GMT -5
THE TOMBSTONE PLATE
Ask an S&C survivor today and you won't hear any remorse about seeing a jet of fire catch up to a pair of glowing eyes. Most were so frustrated with the constant wax-and-wane of the fight that, as soon as they hit the tunnels, squad leaders weren't even giving orders anymore. Officers were just shouting obscenities. The Fair Hand started losing more and more people in the tunnels, but every scorched body had a trail of dozens of dead clones and contractors leading up to it. Ten died under the plate compared to at least sixty more dead attackers.
By hour ten of the siege, S&C had finally broken into the compound itself. They ran head-first into a wall of turrets and reserve clones. It was something the Kalav'Lees needed badly - most had been injured and only half of their numbers could still fight. Even then, it didn't make much of a difference; sentry guns and clones weren't nearly as stubborn as a redworlder with family behind him. Chuikov's men pushed through and started sweeping rooms. No one was looking for prisoners.
Most of the Fair Hand died there. Just about everyone who could still hold a gun had to do it from a wheelchair. Plenty were shot, blown apart, or burned alive on stretchers in makeshift infirmaries. Sakazzah was one of the last to die. He hadn't been wounded - he'd been too busy holding the front line in the cyberspace of the battle. Raki, the Dough Man, and a few other hackers were caught in the command center of the safehouse. They were surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned. They knew better than to raise the white flag in front of Chuikov's goons.
No one knows the specifics on what happened after. Chuikov claimed they all died flailing and screaming. The survivors of the siege said Sakazzah went out with a very literal bang. Ves'Narun and Amin'Solah bashed through one of VANDAL's blockades and went to ground for half a year. Ezimat supposedly died there, but he turned back up in late 1310 just as nuts as before. In total, only five people made it out of the siege alive and none of them know for sure how it went down. The only proof that Raki even died was when his charred corpse turned up a week later - or what was left of it. A head, a neck, and a few bubbled-over cybernetic parts. None of it was identifiable.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 12:29:47 GMT -5
FAKE OUT THE SMOKEOUT
Raki's supposed end earned a few names. The ones that stuck were the Red Bonfire and the RIP Smokeout. In all, there were around 200 or more dead on Chuikov's side, compared to roughly 73 dead from the Fair Hand, at least 30 of them hijacked clones. The Fair Hand didn't leave any wounded behind - Chuikov made sure of that. Wounded estimates for the S&C side are all over the place. Gregor says he only lost "a few people" and never gives out the full casualty figures. VANDAL puts it at 216 dead, 136 wounded, and 14 unaccounted for, but VANDAL's word is about as reliable as Chuikov's. The RIP's never been the same since - still rubble, blood stains, and scorch marks everywhere you look.
What only the Dough Man knew was that Raki wasn't one of the smears left behind. He was there to see him off. He was there to fake his death - in ways that are best left up to the imagination. The truth was that the Fishbowl was out through a window and down a zipline like a movie villain. The people he left behind, Ezimat included, were all ready to die to give him a shot at getting loose. In the end, it worked out - and everyone but Ezimat died.
What didn't work out so great was faking Raki's death. He might've fooled the city, but he didn't fool the parade of gunships swarming the place. Chuikov knew he was loose. He didn't let him off easy. Just like Ves and Amin were doing up in the sewers, Raki was stuck by himself halfway to the undercity on a bum leg and mangled fingers. His only guns were clones he could steal - which he had to ditch quick before the extra bodies moving around put a bullseye on his location. Air patrols and goons were all after him just as much as his cousins. The big difference was that Raki wasn't headed up. He was headed down.
The Fishbowl wasn't exactly an undercity regular, but he knew how to navigate the scrap and sludge well enough. He'd picked up tricks from the White Hunter on how to hide, ran jobs with DuBuon and the Dough Man down in the darkness. Chuikov's grunts spent just as much time fighting off mutants and clones as they did looking for Raki. When all was said, done, and dead, Sakazzah was gone. He melted away like sewage from above. S&C crossed its fingers and prayed the reject clones down there would finish the job. The propaganda machine geared up. Search teams broke off to hunt down the two sisters running back to Drassa.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 29, 2019 0:19:21 GMT -5
DEAD MAN WALKING
Chuikov wasn't entirely sure he'd gotten Raki, but he'd killed enough greys to know the Fair Hand wasn't getting back up. As soon as Ves and Amin were back in Drassa, the search lost its momentum. Sakazzah drifted around the halfway point of the city for a few months. He passed himself off as a human as usual, took on a whole new identity as Jacek Korvezik. He swiped whatever half-clones he could work his cyber-fingers into. He dropped his standards and played problem-solver to the mutant marauders who could see his skills for what they were. All the while, he was constantly moving. Not one employer ever saw him twice - even on the opposite side.
He kept tabs on Chuikov's activities the whole time. After about half a year, when the heat and grumbling had all bottomed out, he came back up. Not as Raki'Sakazzah, but still as Korvezik. He snuck around the edges of Drassa, tracked down redworlder mercs - major players he could count on to keep their mouths shut. He wasn't exactly building a fresh Fair Hand, but it was a new crew - a gang he could flex to get where and what he needed. Not once did he ever hit up his blood relatives. The sense of family honor he still had gave him enough sense not to drag them back into something that could've ended even messier than the Bonfire.
[ ! LOCKED: A new kind of old. ]
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Post by Insano-Man on Feb 5, 2019 3:34:35 GMT -5
THE TRIPLE PLAY
For a while, things were good. The Fishbowl had Chuikov running in circles trying to find him - all while he was sitting right in the middle of S&C territory. He'd staked out the TransUrban TeleComms tower as his base of operations, which gave him city-wide coverage through hijacked satellites. He was slowly piecing together an electronic empire to make his comeback through. His crew was tight, and they were adding on more and more clones every day. There was just one problem with the whole deal; Jimmy.
Cloneston's clown was one of the few people in the city who'd sussed out Raki's survival at the Bonfire. He was working day and night to bring Sakazzah back to the public eye, through clones, mercs, and even other AIs. The Fishbowl wasn't having any of that. If he was sniffed out by Jimmy, everyone else in the city was sure to know about it - including his blind landlord Chuikov. Luck was on Raki's side in the cat-and-mouse game; Sakazzah knew all about subtlety, and Jimmy didn't know a thing about it. Whenever Raki didn't have the chance to hide, he could hear Jimmy coming a mile away on the web. The investigation went nowhere.
That was up until July of 1311. It was around that time that the noise had hit such a peak that Chuikov had come wise. Probes went out into S&C intel, internet activity, and everywhere else. When that happened, Raki was fighting on two fronts just to stay hidden. At the same time, Jimmy's search only sent intel to Chuikov, through hints, leads, and inspiration. It was something like a classic match-up between the two senators - with Raki as the collateral damage. Operations had to scale back. Assets had to be cashed in. Things started falling apart.
[ ! LOCKED: A new kind of old. ]
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Post by Insano-Man on Feb 5, 2019 3:35:14 GMT -5
THE CROSS-CLONESTON RAMPAGE
On the 24th, it finally hit its head. S&C hit Sakazzah in the Siege of TransUrban Tower. Raki's crew was forced to fall back and double down on their command center. Chuikov was set to finish the job he'd started on the Tombstone Plate. Beth came in with mercs and clones from the side, looking to seal the deal. Instead, Jimmy swooped in like space junk and tore clean through the siege line hitting the tower. Leading the charge was the crew behind the Cross-Cloneston Rampage, the big firestorm of Jimmy hits Raki had been watching all the time. Right at its head were Amin'Solah and the Dough Man. Somewhere in the background was Ves. It was one of the strangest moments of Raki's career; it was something from a fairy tale, with the Fishbowl as the damsel in distress.
Things didn't exactly shape up with a fairy-tale ending. Right near the end, Ves took a rocket from a gunship that put her out of the game for good. Half of Sakazzah's gang turned up dead in another gunship strike - and Amin nearly lost a leg in the process. It was a fighting, running retreat from there, with Chuikov goons swarming in from all sides and Beth trying to stop up the team's exit. Raki and the rest were away just moments before an S&C demolition team brought down the tower. It was a comeback that no one in the city could've seen coming - and only Jimmy was happy with it.
Raki made it out without much more than the softsuit on his back and a tiny sliver of his crew. The only relative that made it out of the siege was Amin - who was ready to kill Raki as soon as she could stand up again. Meanwhile, the Fishbowl was forced into a Jimmy contract with about as much negotiating power as a starving squatter. He'd gone from being on the cusp of having his own slice of Cloneston, down to being a homeless heister with nothing but a name to cash in on. When word got back to Drassa, even that much went out the window. People weren't exactly thrilled to hear he'd faked his death and left his family to die - willing or not. Losing Ves only made the news that much more bitter.
[ ! LOCKED: Legends never die. ]
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Post by Insano-Man on Feb 11, 2019 12:27:36 GMT -5
IN THE BLACK
S&C tried their best to bluff that Raki was a pretender, or that they'd killed him a second time at TransUrban. The little handful of people who knew Raki was real didn't buy it. Everyone else blew it off as typical Chuikov propaganda; if a cyborg alien heister was outside the realm of fiction, S&C certainly didn't have a body to show for it. The news didn't carry it long. It focused more on the big hubbub at the tower Raki escaped from. The Dough Man, a Space Looney, a unionite - Sakazzah would've been lucky just to get his obituary printed. People didn't care to hear about some loser staging his death for the second time.
Jimmy didn't, either. The fresh prince was busy trying to keep the Fishbowl as safe and buried as possible. He had something big planned. Blabbing where Beth's hit squads could hear it would've nipped it in the bud. Much as he didn't like the idea of being forced into Jimmy's service, Raki had to play ball. He spent just about every hour in transit, working out of trams, gunships, and armored vans. Amin was stuck with him all the same. About a half dozen safehouses - the Tombstone Plate included - went up in smoke as S&C tried to keep step.
The job Jimmy was gunning for was a raid deep in the Restricted Residence Zone, the dark labs and test sites that same senator lorded over. For that, he needed Raki, his crew, and so many big names in the heisting business that he was set to go bankrupt just on catering alone. The Emptyhearts, East Breach Kings, and even Raki's old running mate Vincent Le DuBuon all showed up. Smaller outfits filled in the gaps for support. Amin and Ezimat went in as major assets for the job - even if Amin was still ready to rip Raki's arms off.
[ ! LOCKED: A hole straight to Hell. ]
[ ! LOCKED: Demons and saints. ]
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Post by Insano-Man on Feb 13, 2019 18:26:57 GMT -5
THE CROSS-CLONESTON CRACKDOWN
For everyone on the job, the raid on the RRZ was a mixed blessing. The caper itself was too big to fail; the sheer volume of muscle and firepower on the job meant most crews came back with scars instead of caskets. Payouts to everyone involved were massive - the biggest Jimmy had ever laid out in all the city's history. Raki, Amin, and Ezimat all made it back to a safe zone without a single drop of blood. By the time anyone could start counting their money or their leftover ammo, things took a turn for the worst. Beth bit back. The city caught fire. The Cross-Cloneston Crackdown kicked off.
It was all downhill from there. Every last member of the raid earned a bounty that was more than twice of what anyone earned in pay. Raki, Amin, and DuBuon all saw nine-figure rewards slapped to their name. Meanwhile, AVALON Security laid a city-wide siege on Jimmy's territory. S&C capitalized on the chaos and took their own war right to his flank. In the background, Raki and the rest of the raiders were on the run every waking moment. Most of them were exiled to the undercity, to wait in the deepest hideouts Jimmy could find. Nearly half of the heisters involved had to flee the city entirely.
Raki and Amin dove for cover somewhere under Drassa. At first, it was nothing more than a matter of logistics; supply lines were cut all across Jimmy's turf, which meant food for greys was getting more mythical by the day. As time wore on, the fires on the horizon grew taller. Raki couldn't stand it anymore. He poked at the Enclave above, started grabbing for a crew again. Most of Drassa wasn't listening, but a few high-minded mercs could see what was going on. The Fishbowl had seen the fighting for himself. He'd gone head-to-head with Beth and Chuikov before - sometimes, at the same time. Drassa was going to get sucked into the tornado eventually. They needed some kind of eyes and ears on the outside.
At first, Sakazzah didn't have much loyalty to the grey haven. He just wanted a crew. He wanted extra eyes watching for S&C's goons. He wanted guns watching his back for a Beth hit squad. When it had time to sink in, he came around to the perspective his proactive partners had prescribed to. He wanted Drassa safe, and that meant feeding them intel the SDC couldn't gather for itself. With Amin's help, he started lassoing internet assets to start moving on his own. He started sending his crew on scum-slicking scouting trips to see where they could back into the city above without making too much noise. Soon enough, Raki's eyes were the Enclave's eyes. None of them liked him anymore, but nobody ever questioned his information.
[ ! LOCKED: Legends never die. ]
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Post by Insano-Man on Mar 4, 2019 14:07:03 GMT -5
EZIMA'THRES DRASSA
What Raki couldn't spot was what was going on inside Drassa itself. Somewhere in the walls, the Cult of Meat had taken hold - the villains and monsters no one in the city ever thought they'd have to see. Around the date of October 13th, they rose up. Meat monsters took to the streets, Cult infiltrators took down SDC captains, and cultists all over the Enclave took up arms. In just hours, the whole of Drassa was a mess of screaming, shooting, and scythe-fingered freaks. Raki heard the news by the next day, right next to his crew and Amin. Most people figured the game was up - time to cut and run as he always did.
Instead, Sakazzah stayed. He'd learned his lesson in the Red Bonfire. He was seeing a repeat of it going on in Drassa - and the bad guys were even wearing the same colors. He pulled his crew together, pulled out of his hideout, and pulled himself up to the Enclave. By the end of the week, he was in eyeshot of the monsters in the madhouse. Raki only hesitated to call for reinforcements - from his boss Jimmy, from his old contacts, and from every clone department for miles around.
The details on Raki's involvement in the Ezima'Thres Drassa are as switched up as the meat monsters he was ducking in and out of. Some people say he was running his own bandit kingdom inside, but most deny it. News that made it out of the Enclave says he was working with Big Beard and Buster, the two madman mercs on Looney contracts. People say he was in on the job that busted up Kai'Kasheen's convent, but others say he was the one who swooped her out of the city.
The people around him, even including Amin, all said he was working for a good cause for once in his life. He was leading a desperate mix of grey mercs and SDC leftovers in an effort to keep Drassa from turning into a new meatscape. When staying wasn't an option anymore, he was the first to pull for an evacuation - with every man, woman, and clone they could salvage. His emissary was Ezimat nes Zak, the Dough Man, passing notes and slapping tumors all over the Enclave. When the Marrazoch explosion knocked out half of the plates, word was that Raki was right in the base of the High Plate's tower - with Amin right next to him.
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Post by Insano-Man on Mar 4, 2019 14:07:44 GMT -5
PRESENT DAY
Nowadays, Raki's still in the Enclave. He's working to pull redworlders out of it and get them somewhere else into the city. His crew's broadened from a small-scale ex-heisters outfit to nearly a hundred mercs and SDC survivors. He's built up his own safehouse on the north side of Drassa, right inside the ruins of the old tower that propped up the High Plate. The Dough Man's disappeared and Amin's left his employ, but Sakazzah is there to stay. It took him fifty years and a long list of dead relatives, but the Fishbowl has finally found a cause he can stick with.
Close members of his staff will tell you that's not the whole story. Raki's intentions are noble, and none of his staff will disagree on that, but there's no denying what's going on in the background. Sakazzah's sway has stuck with every redworlder he's piped out of the Enclave. His influence is in hundreds of hearts - about a quarter of that number being mercs, past or present, and Self-Defense Committee veterans. Who he can't hire into his gang, he drafts into his support network. Who he can't keep in reserve, he keeps tabs on. It took a flesh siege and one of the worst disasters on Cloneston's south side, but the Fishbowl has finally found his shot at an empire.
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