Ballyhoo
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| [[Image:|300px|]] | |
| Ballyhoo | |
| Player: @Miss Abyss | |
| Origin: | Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Mastermind |
| Threat Level: | 37 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | William Hicks |
| Known Aliases: | Bally |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 151 |
| Height: | 6'0 |
| Weight: | 237 lbs. |
| Eye Color: | Gray-green |
| Hair Color: | Auburn |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Carnie, roadie, medic, mercenary |
| Place of Birth: | Claysville, Kentucky |
| Base of Operations: | Confidential |
| Marital Status: | Widowed |
| Known Relatives: | None Known |
| Known Powers | |
| None, other than a fantastic range on his spit | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Some alchemical knowledge; gunslinger | |
| Equipment | |
| Twin 50 Calibur pistols; 'Doc Finnegan's Special Mix' | |
| No additional information available. | |
Just a good ole boy, William Hicks would eventually become the mercenary Ballyhoo. Raised in an age of drive and expansion, the desire to wander has never left him, save the couple times he has been married.
Contents |
Origin
Born in an insignificant town in Kentucky at the beginning of the Civil War, William Hicks was raised in the backwoods. His father was a farmer, and an unsuccessful one at that. William's early days were shaped by hunting with his pa, and trying to eke a living out of the soil.
When William was fifteen, he met and fell in love with his first wife, Amelia or Amy for short. Knowing he couldn't support a wife in Kentucky, William applied for the 160 acres of god-given land in the Midwest, made available by the Homestead Act of 1862. Between the two families, they were able to scrape up just enough for the couple to move out to South Dakota, in a flat stretch of land near the Black Hills. Once out there, William mortgaged the land to build the beginnings of a ranch and to build a house for him and his wife at the ripe old age of sixteen.
Things went well for a while. The farmstead slowly grow, and William was able to keep their heads above water. Two years later, however, his wife Amy died while trying to give birth to their first child. Despondant, William turned to alchol to ease his grief, and his farm went to hell. Soon enough, the bankers were calling in the mortgage, and when he could not pay, they took the land.
Doc Finnegan
William wandered over the Black Hills, figuring to make his money in gold. It was during one of these futile trips into the hills that he met Doctor Finnegan, a snake oil salesman. Needing someone to help with the show, as well as a guard, Doc Finnegan hired William on the spot. It was from Doc Finnegan that William first learned how to catch a person's attention with a cadence of words, with a patter of speech that was unique. Doc Finnegan's Tonic was guaranteed to cure anything... and as William found out by extended use, it was true. The Tonic would take pain away, chase away diseases, cure most poisons, and sober a man up quicker than anything. It also was good for preserving and curing tobacco for chewing. The ingrediants were a secret, and one that Doc Finnegan eventually shared with William, afraid he wouldn't be able to pass on his knowledge...as the reason he required a guard was that he was being hunted by an unknown entity. So, instead of becoming a respectable doctor, settling down in one place, he kept circling, trying to elude his pursuers.
Unfortunately, after seven years of wandering together, Doc Finnegan was shot and killed, mistaken by a jilted customer of another snake-oil salesman. William barely got out of town with his own skin intact.
Roustabout
William spent the next few years trying working where he could, and finally, in a fit of desperation, became an outlaw for a year. He was dissatisfied with taking money from people, and was lost in what to do.
Fortunately, in Chicago, he ran across a carnival, which hired him on for grunt labor. It didn't pay much, but he was wanted in a few places now, and the carnival gave him a place to hide as well as steady meals. It was mindless, and he had enough to buy his chewing tobacco (which had some strange properties after being soaked in the Tonic) and the materials needed to make the Tonic.
When one of the carnival barkers turned up sick and they had no replacements, William volunteered, citing his time with Doc Finnegan as experience. The manager of the carnival used him, figuring to replace him after another barker had been found in a day or two. Much to the manager's surprise, that Kentucky hick turned into one of the best ballyhoos he'd seen. The job was his. It is from this occupation where William got his nickname of Ballyhoo, or Bally for short. He traveled with the carnival for over two decades, before he realized something was wrong with him: at one point, he'd stopped aging.
He may be slow, but he wasn't stupid. Reasoning that it must have been Doc Finnegan's Tonic that did it, he retired from that carnival, laid low for a half a year, then joined another one. In this way he lived until the 1940's.
An aside, in 1937 while the carnival he was travelling with was touring Germany, Bally helped a Romani lady as she was being harassed by a couple of Nazi soldiers. Years of practicing--and a few acts in the carnivals--had honed his gunskills to a fine point, and after demonstrating his trick shooting skills, the soliders let him have the woman. He took her back to the carnival and sheltered her until her own people, wandering gypsies, came to claim her. When the gypsy told them what Bally had done for her, a lifelong friendship with that tribe of Romani was forged.
World War II
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Bally was incensed. He volunteered for the Marines, and still looking relatively youngish, enlisted. His unit was assigned to the Pacific, and those days will haunt Bally until the end of his. The atrocities committed by the Japanese on the Chinese were brutal, on par with the horrors in the concentration camps in Germany. Although by nature, Bally is a racist, his hatred of the Japanese far outstretched any racist feelings of blacks or Native Americans... prejudices he was practically born with. His unit was ambushed, and he was captured, spending a year and a half in hell as a prisoner of war. Tortured daily and reduced to practically an animal to survive, Bally harbors a seething hatred of Japs. He lost the use of one of his eyes during this time, and aged a number of years, denied the use of the Tonic.
When he was released, it didn't take him long to check himself out of the VA hospital and disappear again, after he was honorably discharged.
Back in the States
Back in the States, Bally went back to his wandering ways, rejoining a carnival... until he met an activist in 1959. Alicia was beautiful, and reminded him of his dead wife. He started spending his winters with her in California as the 1960's started, and eventually, they got married. He never gave up his lifestyle for her, but modified it, spending six months of the year with her, and the other six months on the road, with frequent trips home. Being as she was always a wonderful wife who provided for him when he was home, he didn't give a thought to any outside activities she had. After all, if she wanted to ensure that blacks and whites could sit at the same counter, what was it to him? She was a kind, loving soul, and those years spent with her were the best in his life. He vowed if she became pregnant, he would settle down 'for good'.
That was not to be, as while she may have behaved herself under William's watchful eye when he was home, when he was away, she was part of an underground socialist group. It was all fine when she was helping to organize sit-ins and protests to help with integration in a non-violent manner, but as that passed, and Viet Nam began, her group became more militant, more anti-government. Bally had no idea, and Alicia knew he was an ex-Marine. She had no intention of telling him, as he trusted the government fully.
When he returned at the end of summer in 1969, he was shocked to get the news of his wife's death. She'd been killed in a mugging. When he demanded a full investigation, he was told there was no way to find the killer, that there were too many cases open, too many unsolved murders, so on and so forth. He was stonewalled at every turn. Getting pissed, he hired out a couple of his old buddies to help dig up the truth, and find out who killed her. It took him the better part of a year, but he found them, and they were cops. He didn't know why, although he had a suspicion about her extra-curricular activities, and didn't care. Each one who was in on it, or the cover up, he traced back to their homes and shot them.
Being a cop-killer--as he didn't take much effort to cover his tracks--and a wanted fugitive, he went underground for good this time, taking on the alias Ballyhoo full time. He spent many years pulling odd jobs and working the carnie route until he got busted for selling illegal substances (Doc Finnegan's special recipe, seems part of it has narcotics in it... imagine that). When the cops fingerprinted him, they were flabbergasted to find out that this guy they capture in 2005 was at least eighty years old... but looked half his age. Instead of a regular prison, he was transferred to one for metahumans: the Zig.
He wasn't long there, though. Arachnos came and busted a bunch of folks out, and he went with them, eventually settling in the Islands.
The Rogue Islands
It didn't take him long to figure out he'd need some extra muscle to back him up in the islands. He was a good shot with a gun, but even with Doc Finnegan's Tonic, his eyesight was shot. However, he had connections to a lot of the low-life criminal element--having worked with many criminals in his days as a carnie--and hired some of the more reliable 'younguns'. Between a crew and his curative skills, he was able to find work relatively easily.
He didn't mind dealing drugs, although he stayed away from the harder substances, and he didn't mind robbing banks, though he stayed away from mugging anyone. He would not, however, commit a murder or become a hitman...not unless it was justified in his mind. Eventually, he ran into a zealot by the name of the Faceless Saint who invited him to join PAST. Bally, although very pro-America, was down on the government after the debacle with his wife and seeing the corruption first hand. The 'capes' seemed to be upholding a government that had somehow lost its way, and so... enter his days as a terrorist.
It wasn't so bad though. There were a lot of younger folk in PAST (Powers Against Stateman's Tyranny) who needed a guiding hand. Filled with miscreants and prostitutes, Bally filled a niche there as an older uncle to many of them. The group, however, fell apart and everyone went their seperate ways.
Most recently, Bally hired on with Titan Industries, and is there on a trial basis. He's not quite sure if it's a good fit for him, but work is work... and a mercenary needs to work. He may not be the strongest or smartest or fastest merc out there, but he is one of the most determined and stubborn.
Personality
William is a 'good old boy' at heart. He was raised in an era where a gentleman tipped his hat to a lady and opened the door for them. He is polite, and at heart, deeply religious and moral. He has a hankering for wandering, and it's very common for him to take off for a month or two at a time, just to go see someplace he's never been.
Racism
Unfortunately, his defining character trait--other than being incredibly polite--is his racism. He hates the Japanese with a passion, and will not hesitate to draw down and fire on them. At the least, his demeanor will change and he'll be snide and rude, or out and out bait them into starting something. For blacks, he's not really meaning to be rude, but just figures that they're all lesser than him... as that was the way he was taught. They are supposed to be the wood-hewers of the world, and he has nothing against that, since he's just a redneck hillbilly anyway, and a criminal to boot. He honestly doesn't understand why they get offended when he calls them niggers, or, at best, "Negroes". He has a small beef with Native Americans, knowing that they're useless and violent, and all addicted to firewater. He actually admires the Jewish people, but again, he plays into the stereotypes... he thinks they're all rich and probably secretly control the government. It's not uncommon to hear him grouse about how 'them Jews have everythin'.'
The player is NOT a racist, and so this aspect of him is largely unexplored. She does NOT want to get banned for calling someone's character a 'fucking Nip' or 'nigger'. However, it is a main part of the character's personality, and at some point, will probably be explored more fully.
'The Boys'
These petty thugs and criminals have been with Bally for a couple of years. They're loyal, and most of them know what they're about too. They are a collection of the people he'd met from his days wandering as a roustabout. (Side note: Bally's minions are all named and based off of people I know IRL. Yes. There was a Legendary Mike. (although I've never met him personally, I feel I know him from the 'I Sucker Punched a Cow' and 'Turkeys! Get 'em!' stories) There was a Mitch. And yes, he was a flaming homosexual... but a great guy, and I miss him every day. RIP, bud. <3 )
- Legendary Mike: Mike is...well, slightly retarded, Bally thinks. In effect, he's just a thug for the status and women and to 'fuck some shit up!' Not surprising, Mike and Chill Yeti get along famously.
- Christopheles: A firebug from the getgo, Chris was nicknamed after a devil. He was arrested in Paragon in 2004 while part of the Hellions. He always wanted to be one of the top bosses there, but never quite got up to it.
- The Demonic Horde: Nicknamed after his last name, Dan Horde is a petty thug who never meant to be one. He is the common sense of the group, knowing that he couldn't go back to a regular life anyway. He absolutely loathes Legendary Mike.
- Blecha Boy: Accident prone, and way too happy to be a criminal, Terrence is the happy-go-lucky one of the group. Not surprisingly, he's also the best with women, with his 'aw, shucks' personality and boyish charm. Too bad he's so clueless he misses most of their pick up lines.
- Braun: Sheer strength and a quiet reserve, Braun doesn't speak much about himself or why he does what he does. He's the second-in-command after Bally, often playing babysitter for the other goons so they don't shoot or otherwise maim each other.
- Mitch: There are no words to convey the fabulousness of Mitch... who is openly and very flamingly gay. He is six foot five, and built like a Mack truck... all the better to attract the guys with, my dear. He is flamboyant and cheerful, and won't hesitate to hit on anything that's male.
Allies
Chill Yeti: Although not terribly happy with Blake going nuts and trying to kill him, Bally's grudgingly gotten over that. He's still wary around Blake, but figures he's like that idiot child that's in every family, and so needs to be treated with tolerance until he learns the proper way to act. A smack to the head every now and again doesn't hurt either.
Faceless Saint: His old boss, Saint was crazier than a shithouse rat, but it didn't mean he was wrong. Saint's cause was not exactly Bally's, but the pay was good, and it was a safe place to crash at.
