Mr. Minion
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
((Page Under Construction))
| File:ZombieMinion.jpg | |
| Mr. Minion | |
| Player: @DBWinthrop | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Brute (formerly Mastermind) |
| Threat Level: | 41 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Jason Sykes |
| Known Aliases: | Confidential |
| Species: | Enhanced Human |
| Age: | 46 |
| Height: | 6'0" |
| Weight: | 187lbs |
| Eye Color: | Confidential |
| Hair Color: | Brown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Thug |
| Place of Birth: | St. Louis, MO |
| Base of Operations: | Sharkhead Isle |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | None Living |
| Known Powers | |
| Improved Reflexes | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Legbreaking, safecracking, carjacking | |
| Equipment | |
| "Phineas Q. Battingsworth" - Baseball Bat | |
| No additional information available. | |
You know, nobody wants to hear a life story. When you get down to it, I mean. People aren't really listening, right? I mean, they are, but they aren't. They're huntin' for points. Spots they can react to. They're not paying attention, but they are at the ready. But nobody really wants to listen. That's people for you I guess. It's all about what they can use, what they can get.
Then again, I'm talkin' to an unconscious guy 'stead of checking to see if he's alive or dead, so who'm I to judge? Shouldn't've had that Defenestrator if you couldn't take it, man, that's all I'm saying. Maybe I should be talkin' to somebody who can talk back, but it's like I said. I'm gonna use what I can, and I'm not keen on interruptions. Nothing listens like a prone body on a bar.
So then, here we go. The tale of Mr. Minion.
Contents |
The Beginning
So I, Jason Sykes, got born an army brat. Dad was a vet in the Big One, right, and he got stationed in England afterwards. Met my mom during the Cold War, and it was a real love story. You know. Met, fell in lust, got her knocked up, got her married. Best kinda love stories don't throw love into the plot at all.
So he got discharged honorably somehow an' they moved stateside, back to St. Louis. Things weren't great. We didn't live up to the fifties suburbanite schtick, y'know? Dad drank and gambled and kept between jobs, and Mom didn't really give a shit. So I got left alone a lot, and I hit the streets. I know, poor me, right? But for a lot've people that's all it takes. Don't need trauma or hideous pasts. Just nobody around to stop you doing something stupid.
St. Louis didn't have much've a criminal element. Oh, sure, there was crime, but it wasn't the serious stuff. Robberies and fights and knockin' off drugstores. I ran with some of the gangs there, and I got a rep. I was a pretty big kid, and I could knock people around. But every time I tried to go for top dog I'd get outdone by some other kid, smarter or quicker. Just hitting the guy didn't always do the trick. So that's when I figured it was best t'be real kick-ass, but much lower on the ladder. Not the number two guy. More like the number ten or twenty. You get respect for loyalty, respect for skill, an' nobody gives you shit when leadership changes hands. After the fifth or sixth time, 's how I got the nickname Mr. Minion. And you know how names like that attract supervillains. They eat up alliteration.
Now if the crime was pretty low-key, the supercrime was even worse. We're talking third, fourth-stringers. They didn't even have capes chasin' after them, they were that crummy. Put it like this, the real terror of St. Louis was The Decaffeinator, bane of all baristas. Yeah, that bad. But they paid a hell of a lot better than the gangs, so I signed up, kept the rep I'd got. It's around this time that I lost my eye.
I tell people it was somethin' vicious, a real brutal battle during the Rikti War. But really, it was the Rake. That was his name, The Rake. He had rakes for hands. Swiped the wrong way once during a bank job, and boom, there's my eye on the end of his index finger. Poor little thing. But the patch was kind've a side benefit, I suppose. A villain, a thug, they can work a patch in their favor. Depth perception's a small price t'pay.
So that was my life for...a long, long time. Thirty some-odd years of my life spent in this kinda gig. Was it glamorous, cool? Naw. But it suited me, and I did okay at it. I had girlfriends, I was liked enough. I even had a son.
But I don't like to talk about that. Whether you're awake or no.
Island-Bound
Anyway, this could've gone on. I would've saved up enough to retire. But, like the rest a'the world, things got all screwed up. In came the Rikti.
St. Louis didn't get hit hard. It didn't have to be. The place got trashed without much effort. Couple of well-placed bombs and it was rubble. And I'll be honest, I didn't do much. Hid and ran when things got heated, the usual. Tried not to get caught by the cops. At this point I had a record the length of my arm and two strikes down. It was about high time I took the chance I had and get the hell outta Dodge. Or Missouri, as the case may be.
Anybody worth some salt knew the Rogue Isles were gettin' to be the big leagues. Recluse was really leavin' the place a villain's paradise. And I figured, well...maybe I oughta try my hand. So I snuck, stole, slept, and stowaway'd towards Mercy. Big mistake.
I thought I was hot shit back in St. Louis. I was tough, I had a rep, I had respect, and I'd been at the business of thuggery for years. Not much of a business but you can get good at it, y'know. Turns out, though, that I was only half right about being hot shit, and I definitely wasn't warmer than normal. Every RIP officer, every Spider, every Skull, was tougher than I could manage. I got in a lot of fights, and I lost even more. I don't think there was a week I weren't in and out of Mercy General. The bills started racking up, and Rogue Island collection agencies ain't nice. What I realized was, I might have the experience, but I just plain didn't have the powers.
Fortunately, in these parts you can fix that kinda thing. You can get hooked on Dyne, cut a deal with the Vahz, sign up with the gangs, all sorts've stuff. I decided to go looking for something a little more exotic, though, which was probably as bad an idea as you can imagine. When I think back on it, if I'd just signed up with some normal folks, like the Family or the Malta, maybe I could've avoided everything else. But what's done is done. I settled on the Tsoo.
Never Trust a Tsoo
Problem was, the Tsoo didn't settle on me. Dunno why. I mean, I know I'm not Hmong and I don't know Hmong and that you gotta be Hmong to get even a chance a'gettin' into the gang, but c'mon, Jack Burton did okay in that movie, why couldn't I?
So I kept pushin'. I wheedled, got beat. I blackmailed, got beat. I fought, got beat. So eventually I gave up. But not totally. I stuck around, an' I listened. Learned what I could about the language, and where they got their powers from. And that seemed to be the ink. That was the best way. Using the ink would get me powers without anything in exchange. But getting an artist t'draw on me just led to more smackings. I was really starting to resemble a piece'a hamburger.
It was pretty close to me givin' up and just working as bank security when I got lucky. I heard about this guy, lives out in Kings Row. Ex-Tsoo. But not because he left. They kicked him out. Apparently he'd done somethin' with the ink they didn't like. But now he worked independent. I bet you can see me now, in a dive bar, hearing this, little light coming on over my head. First chance I got I snuck into Paragon and tracked the guy down.
Shen Yi Neng, that was his name. Not real Hmong, but I figure it was an alias. And it was just like those kinda shops where you buy Gremlins. Really, that was his place. I shoulda known better from that. But I was desperate. Had to get back in the game. I begged and wheedled and pleaded, since that was all I could do. I told him what I wanted. I wanted to be the best damn thug I could be. I wanted to be Mr. Minion.
That got his attention. He looked at me real weird, stroked that Fu Manchu he had, and rubbed these nails over my shirt. He said something in Hmong, thought I got it. He'd make me the minion of my dreams, he said. Then he drugged me and went to work.
The pain's bad. Don't like to talk about that. But I woke up, and wouldn't you know it, I was staring down at the biggest piece of body art I'd ever seen. Black and grey an' writhing around on my chest like a drunk stripper. Didn't get much time to think about it though, that's when the PPD showed up. Apparently the guy was dealin' Rage on the side. He got away. I didn't. They saw the ink, and thought I was a super, and wham, it's off to the Zig with me.
Now that sucked. Everybody's been there, a'course, and it does suck. Food's bad, Trolls try'n gang rape you, and I mean, it's bad. So I figured this was it, I was gonna get shanked and that'd be that. Then I heard the first voice.
Nicky Fingers was his name. Family runner who'd gotten mixed up in an ambush laid out by the Tsoo. He'd died in a prison fight. Been dead for years. But there he was, plain as day. I listened, and I talked to him, and really, he was real. Real as I am. And he was real happy to have someone hear him for the first time in a while.
Of course, no chance to understand it at the time. Couple of days into this conversation and bam, Arachnos raid. I got pulled out in the scuffle and dragged out to Mercy again. Small favors, right? But that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was Nicky saying he'd back me up in the raid. And suddenly I was hitting harder. Taking more abuse. Even took a bullet and it weren't a problem. This, I says to myself, was weird.
It'd get weirder.
Life and Death
I didn't think too much about the power at first. I was just happy to have it. Minute I got out of the Zig I said fuck you very much to the Spiders and went independent. Took jobs where I could. Legbreaking, bank robbing, the usual. But now I could do it solo. I didn't, it just looked solo.
Nicky wasn't the only guy in my head. More an' more piled in. And they all had the same story. They were thugs and minions who'd died before their time. Now I'm not the brightest bulb, but I could figure out what was going on. The ink I'd been given was a link to the dead. Like a phone, but more like a big bar where they could all hang out. And it was a link to the minions. I think it was sort've an ancestral sort of ink. So that'd make sense, if it hooked me up with other mooks. The Tsoo sure seemed interested in it. They kept hunting for me like nobody's business once I made a name for m'self. I caught a few words about skinning me one time, and I got the impression that it wasn't a bad idea to stay out've their way. So I did. Still gave them a few licks when I could, though.
Independent living was a'right, but I needed a crew. Somebody to support. I started trawling the D for action, trying to find some people worth workin' for. That didn't go well. I was in three different crews, and they all disbanded shortly after I joined. That weren't right. For a while I didn't worry about it. Just like the tattoo.
You know how I keep making big mistakes? Yeah. That too. A chance encounter told me something I hadn't realized. The tattoo wasn't working for free. It was powered by me, and I was on a time limit. I'd be dead in six months, I got told. For the time being, that weren't an issue for me. I knew I was gonna go down, one way or another. Rules of the game, right? Seemed like at least I'd go out better than I came in.
I said earlier the best love stories got no love in 'em. This is a bad love story. I fell for a girl. Not just a bar pickup, I mean I fell hard. Amanda Vertra was her name, and she was something. She was also a hell of a lot younger, and I suddenly had an urge to live real quick. We worked on it. We tried to figure out how to keep the ink strong without me gettin' the short end of the things.
But the time ran out, an' I knew I was dying. Losing weight, hair falling out. The boys in my head meant well, but they were taking and taking and wouldn't you know it, soon enough they'd take all of me. So I made my arrangements for a grave in Potter's Field, made my exit without saying goodbye, and that was that. Game over.
Nobody Stays Down For Long
One last mistake. Potter's Field is the only place in the Rogue Isles that them Banished guys like to hang out. Don't know 'em? They like to raise zombies. You can see where I'm going with this.
I can't tell you what death was like. Ain't nobody knows that for real, and who'm I to say I do? It was death. You know how that goes. But then I got ripped, pulled, wrenched up outta the grave, and that was painful. It felt like dropping from way up to land smack in a cushion laid out by emergency services, only they cut a hole in the bottom've it so you hit the ground anyway.
When I came to proper the Banished were all 'round. They didn't seem pleased. I mean, they're angry people, but they really seemed more pissed than normal. I think because I was thinkin'. I thought, therefore they couldn't. Use me, that is. So they attacked.
The voices were back though, and I guess they'd been waiting. I remember Nicky watching and looking pleased. "You did it," he told me. "You came out the other side. You're the first one through, man! Now you can help us out too." And that's when I knew what the ink really did.
Potter's field came alive for a bit. Lots of 'Yarders buried there. Lots of Cage's mooks. All real pissed off at the Banished for violating their bodies. It only took a few seconds. Then I got out.
The Wonderful Mr. Shen
I never got used t'bein' a zombie. There was that whole "I got to perceive but not feel" thing goin' on. So I could see a girl but I couldn't do nothin' to her, that sorta thing. It were frustratin'. I went through a few things tryin' to get it, but 'ventually I just resigned myself to it. For a bit. Joined up with another crew, Inevitable Evolution, maybe you heard've 'em. That went okay for a while.
The problem, once again, were the powers. See, as it turns out? Even they din't know the full scoop. I could bring 'em back from the dead, an' I did. Rented 'em out as security so they could provide for families an' such. But there was one guy in there who weren't 'sposed to be there. Shen-Yi Neng. The guy who gave me my ink inna first place.
The whole thing, it turned out, were a big ol' gambit, a Nemesis plot in miniature. Shen was dyin' of cancer, but he weren't done with his art yet. So he gave me the ink, an' then he died later, but his soul went t'me. An' then, well, he were a proper wizard. I was just a guy with magic powers. He took over, dumped me inna mindless body.
I don't like t'think about that time.
Anyway, 'round about this time Vertra came back. An' she brought me back. That's all you need to know.
