Mr. Mud: A Timeline

[Charon]

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1975 – David Dirt is born to Olivia Dirt, a resident of ‘The Basement’, the previous nickname of Hyde Park before it was developed in the mid nineties. Olivia had been known to dabble in drugs and prostitution, and the identity of David’s father was not immediately apparent.

He is an only child, and lives with his mother in one of The Basement’s abandoned squats. Through a strong sense of community, Olivia and three other prostitutes bring up David to the best of their ability, providing for him only with what money they could make from the drug and sex trade.

David is born into a world where one survives on crime. Many of the population of the Basement are either involved in street gang or mafia activity, or are super villains themselves. The Basement is a world where one is forced to be involved in crime to survive.

Olivia is determined to shelter her son from the sort of life that she, her friends and almost every person who lives in the Basement is forced to lead. She preaches to her son about the hope that the heroes of Paragon City give her, and gives up prostitution to care for her son, and relies on donations from the three women she lives with.

1980 – Olivia’s three friends are shot dead by mobsters unhappy with their attempts to get out of their ‘contracts’. Olivia and David are not home. Olivia returns home to find three dead bodies in their squat. David sees a dead body for the first time.

Olivia is forced to return to prostitution to care for her son, and is soon sucked back into the underworld she managed to dig herself out of previously. David feels neglected, as he is often left on his own in the squat at just five years old, and when his mother is home he is often neglected for her visitors.

1983 – The Regulators, led by Back Alley Brawler embark on a war on the drugs trade. They clash with street gangs, the mafia and international drug cartels. Several of these fights take place on the streets of the Basement, with an eight year old David Dirt watching from his window.

Through their war on drugs, the trade in the Basement begins to drop. This, however, does not boost the quality of life of those living there. Instead, it dries up the only trade that brings any money into the Basement, and many of the inhabitants are forced to find other methods of crime to survive, from selling their bodies too robbing their neighbours.

Desperate times arrive, and each member of the Basement community is forced to indulge in some sort of crime to survive. Without the drugs trade, many of them turn to supervillainy, petty thievery and even armed robbery.

1985 – The emergence of Superadine in Paragon. After the Regulators have stormed other countries and attempted to cease the drug trade at it’s source, those involved in the drug trade are forced to search for something else to sell. Their answer is Superadine.

Rumours are rapidly spread that Superadine originated in the Basement, although this claim is never proven. Olivia Dirt, herself, for a short time becomes an addict and squanders any money she earns on the drug.

David, now ten years old and becoming much more aware of the life he leads, is forced to find a way to support his mother, and himself, through her habit. However, he is in denial and refuses to acknowledge that his mother is a drug addict. Instead, he convinces himself that he and his mother have simply fallen on hard times.

At the age of ten years old, David Dirt becomes a mugger. Many times he has the opportunity to become a drug dealer, but is determined to stay away from drugs, a trade he is determined is ruining the lives of many of the inhabitants of Kings Row and especially The Basement.

1987 – At the age of twelve, David is caught mugging an old woman on the streets of the Row by Back Alley Brawler himself. Cornered, the Brawler gives him a talk about the evils of crime and corruption. However, Back Alley Brawler is distracted when a gang fight breaks out on the streets of the Gish, and when he returns from the scuffle, David is gone.

1988 - Determined never to be caught again, David decides he is going to need back up if he wants to earn a living in the only way he knows how, and support his drug addict mother. He rallies friends and associates from around the Basement, and they make a pact.

Sixteen children, from the ages of ten to eighteen form the street gang ‘The Basement Boyz’, with only one aim: Self preservation. However, they agree never to touch drugs, and only to steal as much as they need to survive.

David is only thirteen years old when he and his comrades rob a liquor store in the Gish, Kings Row. The police are called, but by the time they arrive The Basement Boyz are gone. They become a recognised street gang on the streets of the row, but become famous for being the only street gang in the underworld with morals.

[Charon]

1989 – A resident of the Gish, Maria DeMarco, is killed by a group of hoodlums in an alleyway that leads to The Basement from The Gish. One of the thugs present at her murder is James Knight, member of the Basement Boyz and one of David Dirt’s best friends, currently doing jobs for the local mafia boss, Frank ‘Knuckles’ LaRusso to make cash on the side.

He helps to hold Robert Ian Black, Maria’s fiancé, while the others rape and kill her. James quickly leaves the scene after Robert has been knocked unconscious, and disappears onto the street. Knight, mortified by his involvement in the murder, quickly packs up and leaves town. David Dirt only hears from him once before 1991, in a letter left outside his door. The letter simply tells David that Knight has to leave town, and that he will not be back.

The rest of the thugs present of the murder, with the exception of the assassin hired to do the eventual killing, move on to a club owned by Knuckles known as the ‘Cloud 9’. Approximately forty five minutes after their arrival, a battered and beaten man walks into the bar, and seconds later, the club is heard to erupt in gunfire.

To most members of the King’s Row community, little is known as to what happens next. All they know is that the next morning, the Cloud 9 has been burned to the ground, and an unknown number of people lie dead inside. It is determined to be arson, but the police never come up with a suspect, let alone a conviction.

Rumours quickly circulate the Row, and specifically the Basement that it may have been something that Knight was involved in. Rumours of a vigilante begin to fly, but after a few months they die down, and are unheard of for another few years.

During this time, David Dirt and the Basement Boyz steadily make more money from their numerous robberies and criminal endeavours, still being careful not to get involved in drugs. David even manages to get his mother to give up superadine in late 1989, and he and his mother’s quality of life start to pick up with the money coming into their squat not being squandered on drink and drugs.

David lies about the source of his income to his mother, telling her that he has found a menial job on the docks. She never questions him, nor tries to prove his claims. It is unknown whether she truly believed her son, or whether she was afraid of finding out the truth about his ever-growing life of crime.

In truth, at the age of just fourteen years old, David does find some work on the docks. But, it is not labouring nor any other kind of legal activity. David Dirt and his gang find this to be a particular hotspot for pick pocketing drunks.

It is also around this time that Crey Industries begin a quarry operation just outside of Kings Row. This private site, which does not allow any kind of unauthorised access, is a strange operation. It is a well known fact that there is nothing of use under the soil on the outskirts of Kings Row, and yet Crey Industries are adamant that they wish to apply for a permit to build a quarry there. With Countess Crey’s sway within Paragon City’s leading officials, she is granted a permit, and blasting in the quarry begins, although usually mysteriously and by night.

1990 – David Dirt and the Basement Boyz graduate from simple street crime such as mugging and pick pocketing. After their first liquor store robbery in 1988, the gang decided that these kinds of robberies were far too risky, and if they continued to attempt them they would be caught. However, times were getting hard in early 1990, and the Basement Boyz were forced to turn to their first method of money making.

In a series of robberies throughout the summer of 1990, the Basement Boyz not only rob liquor stores, convenience stores and homes throughout Kings Row (Although being careful to avoid their own neighbourhood,) but all over the entire city. From Atlas Park to a convenience store in Founder’s Falls, they go on a crime wave. However, unable to spend most of the money for fears of being caught by parents or worse, authorities, they still find themselves in trouble, and for a time in the autumn of 1990, are forced to lay low. Their cash flow drops, and they barely survive until late 1990.

By late 1990, the Boyz are forced to use the money they had previously stashed in a warehouse east of the Basement. David uses his share of the money to move his mother into a slightly better apartment, telling her that he made the money working overtime on the docks. The others use their shares on slightly more selfish endeavours. However, for a time life is good for the Basement Boyz. They are still poor, but they are not forced to live in the atrocious conditions they once endured before indulging in a life of crime.

In using this money, the Basement Boyz attract much unwanted attention to themselves. Back Alley Brawler, who had been patrolling Kings Row and the whole of Paragon City to find the identity of those involved in the summer’s crime wave, traces the money stolen back to The Basement, Kings Row. It is only so long before he, or another vigilante, learns their identities.

1991 – During this time, rumours begin to spread on the streets of the Row. Since the winter, there have been appearances of a masked man on rooftops, watching street gang activity, and regularly intervening in street crime. This was nothing new for the criminal element of the Kings Row community. However, this vigilante was different. Not only did he slightly beat his prey and leave them for the police, he, on occasion, horribly maimed them, and two occasions, even went so far as to kill a pair of rapists and leave them hanging from a fire escape in an alleyway.

This man, calling himself ‘Charon’, becomes an urban legend amongst the whole population of the row. Wanted by the police and feared by the criminals, Charon begins to act as a deterrent to all those who may indulge in crime. There are even rumours circulating amongst the Basement community that Charon may have learned the true identities of the members of the Basement Boyz.

It is around this time that David Dirt learns that his old friend, James Knight, was killed in Chicago the year before; this information delivered by Thomas Knight, the brother of James. David is told that James’ killer matches the description of the vigilante who now stalks the street of Kings Row. With this information, any fear that David felt for the vigilante is replaced with hatred.

Later in the year, in September, The Basement Boyz pick their latest target to rob. David, as well as Basement Boyz members Eric, Jazz, DJ and Rem, head to a convenience store in the Gish, this time choosing to rob a store not too far from home. During the robbery, vigilante Charon, who is waiting at the liquor store for them to arrive, disturbs them having learnt their identities and plans over the previous summer.

Dropping into the store, Charon meets little opposition. Jazz is the only one to attack him, and he is left with a broken leg for his attempt to fight the vigilante. Eric, DJ and Rem make a run for the back door, which attracts Charon’s attention. David therefore makes a run for the front entrance to the liquor store, and runs out into the Gish by moonlight.

After beating Eric and DJ into submission, Charon leaves them lying in the alley to wait for the police. Rem manages to escape into the night, and Jazz is left bleeding on the floor of the liquor store, Charon follows David out into the night. He catches up with him on the outskirts of the Row, where David is still running, clearly thinking that Charon has been following him all along. Charon chases him clear out of King’s Row and out into the outskirts of Paragon City.

Eventually, David comes to a quarry site, which has been in operation and under Crey Industries’ control since 1989. Seeing no other escape, David jumps the fence into the quarry site, and runs along the edge, hoping to lose Charon between the vast machinery.

Thinking that he has lost Charon, David takes a fateful look behind him while running along the edge of the pit. He turns to find Charon standing directly behind him, simply staring at him. David, not knowing what else to do, swings at Charon as hard as he can with his best left hook. Dodging out of the way, Charon avoids the punch and causes David to lurch forward, losing his balance. As he falls backwards, Charon reaches out his hand to try and stop David from falling, but he is too late. The sixteen year old David Dirt falls two hundred feet into the bottom of the quarry.

David lands in a pit of rock, mud and soil, and some sort of nuclear waste. Charon does not follow David into the pit, assuming that, like any human normally would, David had died from his two hundred foot drop onto rocks.

However, this quarry site was very different to normal quarrying operations. Countess Crey, having learnt that the Fifth Column had buried some sort of supersoldier serum beneath the soil outside Kings Row after their defeat at Paragon Harbour in 1941, had begun digging for the materials back in 1989. They have, however, blasted too close too the buried canisters, and instead spilled the materials into the bottom of the pit. Due to the botched operation, the quarry is due to be closed a week after David falls into the pit, and it is only by fate that the quarry is still in operation when he chooses it for his escape route.

When David awakes the next morning, he is alive, and finds he is able to turn his body to rock, soil and mud at will, and make weapons from skin when in rock form.

He returns home to find that the night before, Charon had found the headquarters of the Basement Boyz. Realising that they were simply a self-preserving street gang who were simply trying to get by in the only way they new how, he offered them an alternative. Either he could beat them all into submission and leave them for the police to arrive, or they would become his street informants and be would provide for them as best he could with confiscated moneys from criminal organisations. All of David Dirt’s old gang had agreed, thinking him and the other leaders of the gang to be either dead or in prison.

David, however, refuses to ally himself with the murderer of one of his best friends, and the attempted murderer of himself. He tries to convince his old gang of the same facts, but they are all too scared of the vigilante not to comply. Realising he is on his own, with his new found powers David is determined to continue to support his mother through a life of crime.

[TheImperial]

Great read so far, bud. Keep it up!