Application // INFO DUMP
Mun
Name: Sra
Livejournal Username: sarrasi
E-mail: decadent[dot]illusions[at]gmail.com
AIM/MSN: AIM: bangbangwhimper
Current Characters at Luceti: N/A
Character
Name: Badou Nails
Fandom: DOGS: Bullets & Carnage
Gender: Male
Age: ~22
Time Period: Chapter 49
Wing Color: Red-orange
History: DOGS takes place in a futuristic city (assumed to be Berlin, Germany) that extends far beneath the surface. Not much is known about the city, but one thing is for certain: the golden age has passed and now the world is in rapid decline in every way. The literal underground is run largely by organized crime, disorganized crime, and anyone who can get their hands on a gun. Not surprisingly, the city isn't really a great place to live and much of the underground still largely resembles a low-class slum.
Badou was raised by his brother, Dave, who was a journalist/private investigator and the only real family he had. He stuck to Dave's side like a bad stain, following him on dangerous jobs and mostly just getting in the way. Despite being kind of a brat, he idolized his brother but he learned pretty quickly that Dave was completely goddamn useless at anything that wasn't hardcore. He had to learn to cook, clean, sew, swear and whine his way though life on his own. Big brother paid the bills. Sometimes. When he remembered.
Badou learned to run pretty fast too.
Things were alright until his brother dug a little too deep and found something he shouldn't have. Badou was left bleeding and half-blind, while Dave was (presumably) killed. He fell into the depths after being stabbed several times, and if the fall didn't kill him it wasn't like the soldiers were going to give him CPR and a friendly hug. At the time he'd been pursuing a case about disappearing children and a pathway that led to a place even deeper than the lowest levels of the underground.
Badou followed in his brother's uncertain footsteps, looking for leads in the investigation he had started. As this didn't pay at all, he worked at a grocery store the meantime so he wouldn't die of starvation or, worse, nicotine withdrawal. Apparently the only thing his brother left him was a string of bad habits, and the most significant one happens to be chain smoking. It's very rare to see Badou without a cigarette in his mouth, and on the off chance that he does run out of smokes, it's not a pretty picture.
Mainly Badou works as an Information Broker/PI, but since he happens to be a Grade A Shit Magnet, things rarely work out simply. On a routine job to take some pictures of a cheating spouse, he accidentally catches the boss of the Bourdoni family in the middle of some kinky masochistic pedo adventures. Of course, Badou takes a picture of it and proceeds to run for his goddamn life.
After making a narrow escape into a dumpster, he runs into a man named Mihai, who saves his sorry ass from certain demise. Turns out Mihai is a friend of a friend, and the two of them head back to Buon Viaggio together. Badou has a partner somewhere, but since he's busy playing video games MIA, he tries and fails to hire Mihai to play bodyguard for a while longer. Luckily, his refusal doesn't really matter at all, since the Bourdoni crew manages to track Badou down and attack Buon Viaggio.
Mihai takes down a few of them (using stale bread, the man's hardcore), but he still won't work for Badou because he's a stingy, stingy old man. Using the picture to bargain for his freedom is out of the question since his camera got shot up in the initial attack. Pinned down and rapidly running out of options, Badou can think of only one thing: he really, really needs a smoke. And there happens to be one right by the door, hanging out in the pocket of an unconscious thug.
Showing more pathetic addiction than common sense, Badou sneaks over, recovers the cigarette, and is just about to smoke it when a stray bullet rips it in half. And he snaps.
Badou takes the guns from the unconscious thugs and proceeds to mow down the entire gang single-handedly while laughing like a maniac. Bourdoni himself is spared only because he has a smoke on him, and he'd rather part with the cigarette than his life.
Of course the kinky sexploits are discovered later anyway, and the whole gang falls apart so Badou is saved from everyone... except Kiri, the owner of Buon Viaggio, who forces him to work until he can pay for all the damage he caused.
It's uncertain how and when, but sometime before all of this, Badou hooked up with a guy named Haine (in a platonic heterosexual life partner kind of way) and they started doing commission work for Bishop and a genetically altered cat-woman called Granny Liza. While a good portion of the commission work he does is just crap like hunting down cheating spouses and stray cats, he takes on more dangerous and high-paying work when partnered with Haine, mostly things to do with children from the underground who've had their genes tampered with.
For one of their commissions Badou ends up snooping around a shop for some kidnapped children. He gets caught by some thugs who then proceed to beat the crap out of him. (There is a pattern here.) Badou just keeps asking for cigarettes until Haine shows up to 'save' him from certain death. Partner-tan breaks in and goes through guns a' blazing... leaving Badou to fend for himself, still tied to the chair the mobsters put him in. Badou, who still hasn't gotten a cigarette back, snaps and grabs some of the discarded guns to finish of the guys Haine missed on his way.
He gets another cigarette off one of the dead or nearly-dead mobsters and finds Haine sitting on the floor while a bunch of the genetically modified kids huddled in the corner of the room. The kids are a relic of the last century when human modification was in vogue. Now they've got no place to go and the government isn't going to do much to try looking for them. So despite the fact that so many of them go missing or end up sold into prostitution, the only person really looking out for them is Granny Liza. But what's Badou supposed to do about it, really?
The not-so-dynamic duo free the kids and leave the mess for the cops before heading back down to the church to get patched up and paid. They decide to treat themselves - because, dude, money - and eat out at the local pasta place. Haine heads to Granny's for the next assignment while Badou heads for the restaurant.
While Badou waits at Buon Viaggio, Mihai brings up the topic of Haine. He cautions Badou about not knowing Haine's true nature, and Badou responds with a shrug. He knows Haine is genetically altered, that he heals quickly and has a weird collar fused to the back of his neck, but he's still human. Probably. Close enough. It's not like Haine's going to eat him in his sleep. He gave up that suspicion after the first few... after a while.
They end up taking a short breather, doing simple jobs and chilling out. The gang they just broke up only goes after Haine for retribution, and he takes care of it himself, so Badou's got no worries.
Later on Badou and Haine go to meet with Granny Liza. By chance they meet up with a woman named Naoto Fuyumine who is stalking them like a creeper also searching for information on the level beneath the underground. After questioning them and yielding no results, she goes in as well to ask Granny Liza for information.
Badou and Haine pick up with an arbitration job this time. Bourdoni's downfall left some open territory and a couple of gangs are trying to claim it, including young upstarts from her own group. She asks them to go in and do some peace talks. While Badou protests due to a very serious chance of becoming swiss cheese, Haine agrees for both of them and leaves him to sort out the details as usual because that's what Haine does. Haine is an asshole.
Meanwhile, Badou learns about Naoto's past and another connection to the children who were abducted: they were taken by a group dressed in black and wielding katanas, the same as the person who Naoto wants revenge on, and the people who attacked Badou himself and killed his brother.
Haine and Badou go off to do their arbitration job. It's Haine and Badou and a gang. There's really no possible outcome except flying bullets and some even more ridiculously pissed off gang members. The two of them hide behind a pillar while Badou freaks out. Watching a movie and saying he wants to be "hard boiled" is entirely different from spending his days being shot at, but since this is still an arbitration job, Badou at least tries screaming "Love and peace!" into the chaos.
When finally runs out of smokes, and both he and Haine gleefully go to town on both gangs.
As if there wasn't enough chaos already, a couple of little girls join the fray. Loki and Noki are also genetically altered, much like Haine, to be living weapons. They call Haine "big brother" and ask him to play via sharp dangerous things aimed at his face. Naoto is apparently also worthy of their attention, but Badou gets taken out by Haine early on before he can get himself killed. A full out fire fight breaks out between the four of them, so it's much like any normal family gathering, but with guns.
On the upside, the leaders of the two gangs they came to arbitrate are now cowering behind their pillar and discussing what a great idea it would be to be friends and get the hell out before any more crazy shit goes down.
Speaking of, Haine and Naoto whip out some crazy flying monkey ninja moves and they all fight for a while until Loki and Noki flee. Their buddy-buddy act doesn't last beyond the fight, and after dragging them out of the building Badou finds himself playing mediator between Haine and Naoto while they try to assassinate each other with their eyes. Because that's exactly how he wanted to spend the rest of his day. He orders Haine back to the church to get changed at least so they don't get arrested for wandering around covered in blood in broad daylight, and tells the two of them to go kill each other where they won't bother anyone.
Before they can leave a police officer (an old acquaintance of Badou's) stops them. He doesn't seem terribly surprised to see the state of the trio. When he asks if Badou is getting into trouble or still following his brother's trail, Badou says casually that his brother is dead and he's better off without him.
When Naoto asks, he admits that he investigated it. He pulls up his eyepatch to show the scar he earned back then and warns Naoto against pushing her luck with the underground: if she does, she might end up like him. It's nice that she has her vendetta at all, but does she really want to bury herself that deep?
The party head back to the church to get patched up but the Bishop is uncharacteristically absent when they arrive. Once Naoto and Haine have changed, Badou warns Naoto again not to go stirring up trouble where she doesn’t know anything and prompts Haine to tell them about his connection to the level below. Though Badou knows some of the story, he's never asked for the rest of it because Haine is crazy and he doesn’t need his life to come to an abrupt end. He points out that those kids who were calling Haine brother didn't seem like biological siblings and asks for the story about the "collar" (the piece of metal in the back of Haine's neck).
Badou learns that Haine was trapped in an underground facility as a child and has no memories of life before that. When he woke up in the facility he had the metal collar around his neck and there were many other children but, according to Haine, all of them are gone now.
A woman named Angelika Einstürzen acted as their "physician"/psycho mommy. She made them fight huge beast creatures and eachother, but their bodies miraculously healed within seconds. It's assumed that Einstürzen is the one who altered the children to make them into weapons.
Badou thinks the whole thing sounds like bad comic book story that doesn’t make any sense, but Haine himself doesn't seem to remember much else. If there's a way back there, he doesn’t know anymore.
So once again, they hit a dead end and Naoto and Haine resume their death-by-eye-contact match. Badou ignores them in favor of Nill, the only other sane person in the church, and goes all Martha Stuart Mode on the clothes the girl was trying to repair. Apparently he sews with expert ease... much to the shock (and amusement) of Naoto and Haine who are, collectively, a bag of dicks for bonding over the loss of his Macho Man Points.
The reprieve is short lived. An explosion shakes the church, and Naoto and Haine take off at a run, leaving Badou behind and Nill cowering beneath a table. Badou thinks she's got the right idea. Unlike the wonder duo, he's not the type to run towards danger or jump at any job that pays. He may have taken on a lot of Dave's bad habits, but he's not going down like his brother did.
He goes with Mihai later to Granny Liza's place. Turns out the old man was on board one of the trains when everything happened, and everyone else was slaughtered. The explosion caused a tunnel to collapse, and it wasn't an accident either. This time there were no kidnappings, but he says he doesn't know anything more about it, or possible mafia involvement. Liza hires Badou to look into it, so off he goes to work some information broker magic. He sets Mimi after information on one of the swords, and goes off to chase up an old lead himself. He tries to find out who hired the group that kidnapped the children earlier + came after Haine for revenge, and all he gets is a name: Giovanni, and even the boss doesn't know who he is or who he works for. All his other leads are dead-ends, but Kiri comes back with another name: Magato Fuyumine.
At work the next day, Badou meets up with Mihai who, despite being heavily injured from the train incident, is running errands for Kiri doubletime. He presents Badou with an envelope he found on the way in, which contains two opera tickets and the promise of information Badou wants to hear. He's surprised to say the least.
After sleeping through the opera, Badou is greeted by a man named Lichter Beltheim, who's responsible for killing his brother seven years prior. They got too close to information on the people Lichter was working for at the time, and Badou's current investigation threatens to do the same, so naturally it has to come to a similar end. Having hypnotized the orchestra/audience, Lichter uses them to attack Badou. Though he's throughly outnumbered and outgunned, he manages to play distraction long enough for Mihai can get behind Lichter and hold a gun to his head.
Badou presses him for information, but all he gets is taunting, and Lichter drags Mihai's secrets into the open. Since that's leading nowhere, he asks why Lichter came back after all this time - and out of nowhere Mihai shoots him in the gut. Apparently Lichter's hypnosis isn't anything to sneeze at.
The ground begins to shake, signifying the start of the attack on the underground, and Mihai rushes to Badou's defence. Despite slowly bleeding out from a bullet wound, he still presses Lichter for information, and he finds out 1) the man is apparently only interested in spreading chaos and tying off a loose end and 2) the theatre is rigged with explosives. Mihai apologizes for everything and Badou tells him to save it until they get out.
Miraculously, they survive the ordeal and wake up in a hospital room a while later. Badou tells Mihai his brother was looking into an underground military organization, and that's probably what got him killed. Mihai warns him that he's sticking his neck into something dangerous too, but effectively throws his lot in with Badou by promising not to lose to Lichter the next time they clash.
One of the doctors who come in to look after them turns on the TV, and there's a broadcast by the Administration Director about the attacks. The tunnels that connect the underground to the surface have been destroyed, scores of people dead. According to Badou, the Director's never shown his face before now...
Unfortunately, anyone who hangs around Mihai is cursed to be lost for several chapters at a time, so that's the last of Badou so far.
Personality: Badou takes no stake in heroics. At the first sign of danger, he will either duck for cover or turn tail and run for his ever-loving life. It's not a great life or anything but, as he sees it, he's got all the right holes in his body already and he's not looking for any more. Unfortunately for him, he has insanely shitty luck. Though he hates being dragged into fights most of the time, he always ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if he can't outrun the danger he gets his ass handed to him pretty hard.
This doesn’t mean that he's a wimp though. Badou is defiant to the point of near-suicidal stupidity. He can and will kick ass and take names under certain circumstances and even when he's beaten down he doesn't submit to anyone, even if all he can do is complain and beg for smokes. (Everyone's gotta go sometime, right?) He can be about as loud, vulgar and whiny as they come, especially when it hasn't been his day (which is usually the case, but not necessarily so). Other than that, he's got a fairly devil-may-care laid-back attitude and he's pretty easy to get along with.
Though he does come off a little less than competent, Badou's a lot more perceptive than most people realize. He's not the best PI/information broker in the world, but he's got a good idea of what's going on in the underground and who's involved, especially when it comes to gangs and their relations with one another. He knows what he's doing. He's street smart and curious, and he's got the instincts of a journalist. Except, you know, a journalist who has to live.
Getting back to his ~sweet and accepting~ personality, it's obvious that most of his friends could snap and kill him with great ease, but to Badou everyone is just human. He tries not to worry much about things that happened in peoples' pasts - what they've done, what they could do - unless they start to affect him personally. Though he's still looking for his brother himself, the extent to which it effects him isn't immediately apparent. Sure, he's got family issues, but who doesn’t? He might wear his morals a little loose, but he's still a comparatively decent person in the end, which counts for a lot more in a world where almost everyone and their psycho scientist mom...isn't.
That is, unless he runs out of cigarettes. Taking a cigarette away from Badou is about as smart as pulling the pin on a hand grenade and playing hot potato with it. Once he runs out of nicotine, it's a good idea to stay the hell out of his way. Badou will most likely put several dozen holes in whatever has been pissing him off most recently and not stop until a) he takes everyone out, b) he finds another cigarette or c) he takes everyone out AND finds another cigarette. In this state, he's unpredictable and absolutely freaking insane. Extreme caution or a boot to the face are strongly advised.
Strengths: Badou's very good at running for his life. He doesn't have any crazy parkour skills up his sleeve, but he can definitely outrun your average mafia thug and get through a gunfight mostly intact. Most of his jobs seem to involve one or the other, and he's still around and kicking. When he's deprived of nicotine, however, he loses it completely. He's still a normal human but extremely destructive and reckless (think adrenalin junkie on prozac). He can and will outgun your average mafia thugs regardless of the number and even hold his own for a short while against some of the genetically altered mutants. (He fights Loki & Noki very briefly before Haine kicks him out of the battle.) He's even intimidating enough in this state to send people running in the other direction. It goes without saying that he's proficient with a few fire arms, but we usually see him using a pair of Ingram Mac-10 Machine guns and, at one point, a pistol.
When he's not deprived of nicotine, he's far more cautious but still pretty ballsy. He breaks into a boss' headquarters at one point by kicking through the window and then proceeds to flip a desk at the oncoming thug minions before questioning him. He's competent and resourceful, pushing for information in all kinds of high-stress situations, and clever enough to know when to keep said information to himself.
When things are at their worst, you never see him give up or break down. He's been beaten up, shot, and nearly taken out by his brother's killer, but every time he gets through it and pushes onward.
Weaknesses: As mentioned before, Badou is a normal human with all of the limitations therein. He's even relatively average compared to most of the cast. He might pull some really crazy stunts, but he's been extremely lucky so far to get out of them alive. And that's about where his luck ends. Trouble seems to follow him everywhere, often literally and usually better-armed. If he doesn't intimidate or hit the people he's shooting at, there's a pretty good chance he's just going to die. No guns? Yeah, he's definitely dead if he can't outrun them. And Badou doesn't usually carry guns unless he's expecting trouble.
He really tries not to be suicidally reckless, but he often is. He fires his mouth off at the worst times, antagonizes the people who are about to kill him, and takes snapshots of things he's better off pretending he didn't see. (Not to mention digging into the case that got his brother killed.) He genuinely enjoys the deathmatch insanity, and sooner or later it's not going to end well for him.
Cigarettes are, obviously, a huge weakness. He'll do nearly anything for one, and there's a huge psychological mess wrapped up in all that smoke. Badou is a man who can't let go of his past. Though he knows better, he's still breathing the same poison as his big brother and taking all the same roads that led to his untimely end.
Samples (ALL samples must be set in Luceti-verse.)
First Person: 1. Are you a team player?
Yeah, most of the time. You know who you should talk to about that? My goddamn partner.
2. What is the most successful thing you’ve ever done?
Ok, this is just between me and you disembodied voice from above. You know what happens when you leave half a pizza and Chinese takeout in the back of the fridge for...a while? Eventually, that shit takes on a life of its own, and I'm not talking about mold or whatever. It's like Soviet Russia. Takeout eat you. Tentacles and shit all over the place. It nearly took my leg clean off.
I successfully kicked its ass, and that's why there are bullet holes in my fridge. Nobody believes me, but it definitely wasn't a spider I tried to shoot, and if it was it would be the size of my fucking hand, and I would have killed it. Successfully.
3. What do you think of yourself? How do you value your own life?
I don't spend a lot of time navel gazing, but I'm an alright guy? Relatively speaking.
Not gonna lie, my life is shitty - have I mentioned I just got shot? Because shit hurts man. - but it could be worse and I'm not looking to check out the other side any time soon.
4. What makes you happy?
You really have to ask? Aside from the obvious ah... Not being shot at, maimed, or otherwise put through horrible pain and suffering.
Gunfights, if I'm winning.
And lollipops. Stop judging me the cherry ones are good.
5. Who is the most important person in your life? Why?
Can cigarettes be a person? Because they're very special to me. Yeah, more special than everyone else.
...You're not gonna show them this, right?
Third Person: Badou had died and gone to heaven. He hadn't been a good man, and he hadn't lived a good life, but someone up there loved him like a nicotine-addicted firstborn lovechild (twice removed and never invited to family gatherings). He'd had his run of shit luck that culminated with being shot in the gut and almost blown up, but that was in the past. Old news. Totally forgotten. If the universe was begging his forgiveness, it had chosen a wonderful way to go about it.
He stared in wide-eyed wonder at the tranquil beauty before him. Row upon row of sweet, sweet beauty.
"Say it again. Please."
"They're free."
"Free? No catch? Free. And I can have all the cigarettes?"
"Yes."
"Say it."
"You can have all the cigarettes."
"You're a bro but it's alright, I'll just take a few." Though the temptation was great, Badou showed some restraint and left the store with a modest eight cartons, practically skipping. If it wouldn't have ruined them, he would go home and spread them out beside his bed, maybe roll in the nicotine and make cigarette angels... But Badou had never been a wasteful person, even when presented with plenty of excess, rare as it might be. Things were nice right now, but who knew when Haine would get sick of his good mood and torch the grocery store for kicks? He had to squirrel away a few emergency supplies for the future.
He'd only been there a few days, but he had to admit Luceti was growing on him. Sure, he looked like a fetish mutant gone wrong but no one had tried to kill him or stick a twenty in the back of his jeans yet, so it was a pretty nice vacation spot despite the unfinished business back home. He wasn't particularly keen on dealing with the aftermath right now. The city was a mess, and the longer Lichter thought he was dead, the better. Besides, getting home wasn't something he could think about until it was possible. He pressed his wings a little closer to his back to ward off the cold.
Well, free cigarettes were free cigarettes. Might as well enjoy them until he found out what they'd really cost.
Name: Sra
Livejournal Username: sarrasi
E-mail: decadent[dot]illusions[at]gmail.com
AIM/MSN: AIM: bangbangwhimper
Current Characters at Luceti: N/A
Character
Name: Badou Nails
Fandom: DOGS: Bullets & Carnage
Gender: Male
Age: ~22
Time Period: Chapter 49
Wing Color: Red-orange
History: DOGS takes place in a futuristic city (assumed to be Berlin, Germany) that extends far beneath the surface. Not much is known about the city, but one thing is for certain: the golden age has passed and now the world is in rapid decline in every way. The literal underground is run largely by organized crime, disorganized crime, and anyone who can get their hands on a gun. Not surprisingly, the city isn't really a great place to live and much of the underground still largely resembles a low-class slum.
Badou was raised by his brother, Dave, who was a journalist/private investigator and the only real family he had. He stuck to Dave's side like a bad stain, following him on dangerous jobs and mostly just getting in the way. Despite being kind of a brat, he idolized his brother but he learned pretty quickly that Dave was completely goddamn useless at anything that wasn't hardcore. He had to learn to cook, clean, sew, swear and whine his way though life on his own. Big brother paid the bills. Sometimes. When he remembered.
Badou learned to run pretty fast too.
Things were alright until his brother dug a little too deep and found something he shouldn't have. Badou was left bleeding and half-blind, while Dave was (presumably) killed. He fell into the depths after being stabbed several times, and if the fall didn't kill him it wasn't like the soldiers were going to give him CPR and a friendly hug. At the time he'd been pursuing a case about disappearing children and a pathway that led to a place even deeper than the lowest levels of the underground.
Badou followed in his brother's uncertain footsteps, looking for leads in the investigation he had started. As this didn't pay at all, he worked at a grocery store the meantime so he wouldn't die of starvation or, worse, nicotine withdrawal. Apparently the only thing his brother left him was a string of bad habits, and the most significant one happens to be chain smoking. It's very rare to see Badou without a cigarette in his mouth, and on the off chance that he does run out of smokes, it's not a pretty picture.
Mainly Badou works as an Information Broker/PI, but since he happens to be a Grade A Shit Magnet, things rarely work out simply. On a routine job to take some pictures of a cheating spouse, he accidentally catches the boss of the Bourdoni family in the middle of some kinky masochistic pedo adventures. Of course, Badou takes a picture of it and proceeds to run for his goddamn life.
After making a narrow escape into a dumpster, he runs into a man named Mihai, who saves his sorry ass from certain demise. Turns out Mihai is a friend of a friend, and the two of them head back to Buon Viaggio together. Badou has a partner somewhere, but since he's busy playing video games MIA, he tries and fails to hire Mihai to play bodyguard for a while longer. Luckily, his refusal doesn't really matter at all, since the Bourdoni crew manages to track Badou down and attack Buon Viaggio.
Mihai takes down a few of them (using stale bread, the man's hardcore), but he still won't work for Badou because he's a stingy, stingy old man. Using the picture to bargain for his freedom is out of the question since his camera got shot up in the initial attack. Pinned down and rapidly running out of options, Badou can think of only one thing: he really, really needs a smoke. And there happens to be one right by the door, hanging out in the pocket of an unconscious thug.
Showing more pathetic addiction than common sense, Badou sneaks over, recovers the cigarette, and is just about to smoke it when a stray bullet rips it in half. And he snaps.
Badou takes the guns from the unconscious thugs and proceeds to mow down the entire gang single-handedly while laughing like a maniac. Bourdoni himself is spared only because he has a smoke on him, and he'd rather part with the cigarette than his life.
Of course the kinky sexploits are discovered later anyway, and the whole gang falls apart so Badou is saved from everyone... except Kiri, the owner of Buon Viaggio, who forces him to work until he can pay for all the damage he caused.
It's uncertain how and when, but sometime before all of this, Badou hooked up with a guy named Haine (in a platonic heterosexual life partner kind of way) and they started doing commission work for Bishop and a genetically altered cat-woman called Granny Liza. While a good portion of the commission work he does is just crap like hunting down cheating spouses and stray cats, he takes on more dangerous and high-paying work when partnered with Haine, mostly things to do with children from the underground who've had their genes tampered with.
For one of their commissions Badou ends up snooping around a shop for some kidnapped children. He gets caught by some thugs who then proceed to beat the crap out of him. (There is a pattern here.) Badou just keeps asking for cigarettes until Haine shows up to 'save' him from certain death. Partner-tan breaks in and goes through guns a' blazing... leaving Badou to fend for himself, still tied to the chair the mobsters put him in. Badou, who still hasn't gotten a cigarette back, snaps and grabs some of the discarded guns to finish of the guys Haine missed on his way.
He gets another cigarette off one of the dead or nearly-dead mobsters and finds Haine sitting on the floor while a bunch of the genetically modified kids huddled in the corner of the room. The kids are a relic of the last century when human modification was in vogue. Now they've got no place to go and the government isn't going to do much to try looking for them. So despite the fact that so many of them go missing or end up sold into prostitution, the only person really looking out for them is Granny Liza. But what's Badou supposed to do about it, really?
The not-so-dynamic duo free the kids and leave the mess for the cops before heading back down to the church to get patched up and paid. They decide to treat themselves - because, dude, money - and eat out at the local pasta place. Haine heads to Granny's for the next assignment while Badou heads for the restaurant.
While Badou waits at Buon Viaggio, Mihai brings up the topic of Haine. He cautions Badou about not knowing Haine's true nature, and Badou responds with a shrug. He knows Haine is genetically altered, that he heals quickly and has a weird collar fused to the back of his neck, but he's still human. Probably. Close enough. It's not like Haine's going to eat him in his sleep. He gave up that suspicion after the first few... after a while.
They end up taking a short breather, doing simple jobs and chilling out. The gang they just broke up only goes after Haine for retribution, and he takes care of it himself, so Badou's got no worries.
Later on Badou and Haine go to meet with Granny Liza. By chance they meet up with a woman named Naoto Fuyumine who is stalking them like a creeper also searching for information on the level beneath the underground. After questioning them and yielding no results, she goes in as well to ask Granny Liza for information.
Badou and Haine pick up with an arbitration job this time. Bourdoni's downfall left some open territory and a couple of gangs are trying to claim it, including young upstarts from her own group. She asks them to go in and do some peace talks. While Badou protests due to a very serious chance of becoming swiss cheese, Haine agrees for both of them and leaves him to sort out the details as usual because that's what Haine does. Haine is an asshole.
Meanwhile, Badou learns about Naoto's past and another connection to the children who were abducted: they were taken by a group dressed in black and wielding katanas, the same as the person who Naoto wants revenge on, and the people who attacked Badou himself and killed his brother.
Haine and Badou go off to do their arbitration job. It's Haine and Badou and a gang. There's really no possible outcome except flying bullets and some even more ridiculously pissed off gang members. The two of them hide behind a pillar while Badou freaks out. Watching a movie and saying he wants to be "hard boiled" is entirely different from spending his days being shot at, but since this is still an arbitration job, Badou at least tries screaming "Love and peace!" into the chaos.
When finally runs out of smokes, and both he and Haine gleefully go to town on both gangs.
As if there wasn't enough chaos already, a couple of little girls join the fray. Loki and Noki are also genetically altered, much like Haine, to be living weapons. They call Haine "big brother" and ask him to play via sharp dangerous things aimed at his face. Naoto is apparently also worthy of their attention, but Badou gets taken out by Haine early on before he can get himself killed. A full out fire fight breaks out between the four of them, so it's much like any normal family gathering, but with guns.
On the upside, the leaders of the two gangs they came to arbitrate are now cowering behind their pillar and discussing what a great idea it would be to be friends and get the hell out before any more crazy shit goes down.
Speaking of, Haine and Naoto whip out some crazy flying monkey ninja moves and they all fight for a while until Loki and Noki flee. Their buddy-buddy act doesn't last beyond the fight, and after dragging them out of the building Badou finds himself playing mediator between Haine and Naoto while they try to assassinate each other with their eyes. Because that's exactly how he wanted to spend the rest of his day. He orders Haine back to the church to get changed at least so they don't get arrested for wandering around covered in blood in broad daylight, and tells the two of them to go kill each other where they won't bother anyone.
Before they can leave a police officer (an old acquaintance of Badou's) stops them. He doesn't seem terribly surprised to see the state of the trio. When he asks if Badou is getting into trouble or still following his brother's trail, Badou says casually that his brother is dead and he's better off without him.
When Naoto asks, he admits that he investigated it. He pulls up his eyepatch to show the scar he earned back then and warns Naoto against pushing her luck with the underground: if she does, she might end up like him. It's nice that she has her vendetta at all, but does she really want to bury herself that deep?
The party head back to the church to get patched up but the Bishop is uncharacteristically absent when they arrive. Once Naoto and Haine have changed, Badou warns Naoto again not to go stirring up trouble where she doesn’t know anything and prompts Haine to tell them about his connection to the level below. Though Badou knows some of the story, he's never asked for the rest of it because Haine is crazy and he doesn’t need his life to come to an abrupt end. He points out that those kids who were calling Haine brother didn't seem like biological siblings and asks for the story about the "collar" (the piece of metal in the back of Haine's neck).
Badou learns that Haine was trapped in an underground facility as a child and has no memories of life before that. When he woke up in the facility he had the metal collar around his neck and there were many other children but, according to Haine, all of them are gone now.
A woman named Angelika Einstürzen acted as their "physician"/psycho mommy. She made them fight huge beast creatures and eachother, but their bodies miraculously healed within seconds. It's assumed that Einstürzen is the one who altered the children to make them into weapons.
Badou thinks the whole thing sounds like bad comic book story that doesn’t make any sense, but Haine himself doesn't seem to remember much else. If there's a way back there, he doesn’t know anymore.
So once again, they hit a dead end and Naoto and Haine resume their death-by-eye-contact match. Badou ignores them in favor of Nill, the only other sane person in the church, and goes all Martha Stuart Mode on the clothes the girl was trying to repair. Apparently he sews with expert ease... much to the shock (and amusement) of Naoto and Haine who are, collectively, a bag of dicks for bonding over the loss of his Macho Man Points.
The reprieve is short lived. An explosion shakes the church, and Naoto and Haine take off at a run, leaving Badou behind and Nill cowering beneath a table. Badou thinks she's got the right idea. Unlike the wonder duo, he's not the type to run towards danger or jump at any job that pays. He may have taken on a lot of Dave's bad habits, but he's not going down like his brother did.
He goes with Mihai later to Granny Liza's place. Turns out the old man was on board one of the trains when everything happened, and everyone else was slaughtered. The explosion caused a tunnel to collapse, and it wasn't an accident either. This time there were no kidnappings, but he says he doesn't know anything more about it, or possible mafia involvement. Liza hires Badou to look into it, so off he goes to work some information broker magic. He sets Mimi after information on one of the swords, and goes off to chase up an old lead himself. He tries to find out who hired the group that kidnapped the children earlier + came after Haine for revenge, and all he gets is a name: Giovanni, and even the boss doesn't know who he is or who he works for. All his other leads are dead-ends, but Kiri comes back with another name: Magato Fuyumine.
At work the next day, Badou meets up with Mihai who, despite being heavily injured from the train incident, is running errands for Kiri doubletime. He presents Badou with an envelope he found on the way in, which contains two opera tickets and the promise of information Badou wants to hear. He's surprised to say the least.
After sleeping through the opera, Badou is greeted by a man named Lichter Beltheim, who's responsible for killing his brother seven years prior. They got too close to information on the people Lichter was working for at the time, and Badou's current investigation threatens to do the same, so naturally it has to come to a similar end. Having hypnotized the orchestra/audience, Lichter uses them to attack Badou. Though he's throughly outnumbered and outgunned, he manages to play distraction long enough for Mihai can get behind Lichter and hold a gun to his head.
Badou presses him for information, but all he gets is taunting, and Lichter drags Mihai's secrets into the open. Since that's leading nowhere, he asks why Lichter came back after all this time - and out of nowhere Mihai shoots him in the gut. Apparently Lichter's hypnosis isn't anything to sneeze at.
The ground begins to shake, signifying the start of the attack on the underground, and Mihai rushes to Badou's defence. Despite slowly bleeding out from a bullet wound, he still presses Lichter for information, and he finds out 1) the man is apparently only interested in spreading chaos and tying off a loose end and 2) the theatre is rigged with explosives. Mihai apologizes for everything and Badou tells him to save it until they get out.
Miraculously, they survive the ordeal and wake up in a hospital room a while later. Badou tells Mihai his brother was looking into an underground military organization, and that's probably what got him killed. Mihai warns him that he's sticking his neck into something dangerous too, but effectively throws his lot in with Badou by promising not to lose to Lichter the next time they clash.
One of the doctors who come in to look after them turns on the TV, and there's a broadcast by the Administration Director about the attacks. The tunnels that connect the underground to the surface have been destroyed, scores of people dead. According to Badou, the Director's never shown his face before now...
Unfortunately, anyone who hangs around Mihai is cursed to be lost for several chapters at a time, so that's the last of Badou so far.
Personality: Badou takes no stake in heroics. At the first sign of danger, he will either duck for cover or turn tail and run for his ever-loving life. It's not a great life or anything but, as he sees it, he's got all the right holes in his body already and he's not looking for any more. Unfortunately for him, he has insanely shitty luck. Though he hates being dragged into fights most of the time, he always ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if he can't outrun the danger he gets his ass handed to him pretty hard.
This doesn’t mean that he's a wimp though. Badou is defiant to the point of near-suicidal stupidity. He can and will kick ass and take names under certain circumstances and even when he's beaten down he doesn't submit to anyone, even if all he can do is complain and beg for smokes. (Everyone's gotta go sometime, right?) He can be about as loud, vulgar and whiny as they come, especially when it hasn't been his day (which is usually the case, but not necessarily so). Other than that, he's got a fairly devil-may-care laid-back attitude and he's pretty easy to get along with.
Though he does come off a little less than competent, Badou's a lot more perceptive than most people realize. He's not the best PI/information broker in the world, but he's got a good idea of what's going on in the underground and who's involved, especially when it comes to gangs and their relations with one another. He knows what he's doing. He's street smart and curious, and he's got the instincts of a journalist. Except, you know, a journalist who has to live.
Getting back to his ~sweet and accepting~ personality, it's obvious that most of his friends could snap and kill him with great ease, but to Badou everyone is just human. He tries not to worry much about things that happened in peoples' pasts - what they've done, what they could do - unless they start to affect him personally. Though he's still looking for his brother himself, the extent to which it effects him isn't immediately apparent. Sure, he's got family issues, but who doesn’t? He might wear his morals a little loose, but he's still a comparatively decent person in the end, which counts for a lot more in a world where almost everyone and their psycho scientist mom...isn't.
That is, unless he runs out of cigarettes. Taking a cigarette away from Badou is about as smart as pulling the pin on a hand grenade and playing hot potato with it. Once he runs out of nicotine, it's a good idea to stay the hell out of his way. Badou will most likely put several dozen holes in whatever has been pissing him off most recently and not stop until a) he takes everyone out, b) he finds another cigarette or c) he takes everyone out AND finds another cigarette. In this state, he's unpredictable and absolutely freaking insane. Extreme caution or a boot to the face are strongly advised.
Strengths: Badou's very good at running for his life. He doesn't have any crazy parkour skills up his sleeve, but he can definitely outrun your average mafia thug and get through a gunfight mostly intact. Most of his jobs seem to involve one or the other, and he's still around and kicking. When he's deprived of nicotine, however, he loses it completely. He's still a normal human but extremely destructive and reckless (think adrenalin junkie on prozac). He can and will outgun your average mafia thugs regardless of the number and even hold his own for a short while against some of the genetically altered mutants. (He fights Loki & Noki very briefly before Haine kicks him out of the battle.) He's even intimidating enough in this state to send people running in the other direction. It goes without saying that he's proficient with a few fire arms, but we usually see him using a pair of Ingram Mac-10 Machine guns and, at one point, a pistol.
When he's not deprived of nicotine, he's far more cautious but still pretty ballsy. He breaks into a boss' headquarters at one point by kicking through the window and then proceeds to flip a desk at the oncoming thug minions before questioning him. He's competent and resourceful, pushing for information in all kinds of high-stress situations, and clever enough to know when to keep said information to himself.
When things are at their worst, you never see him give up or break down. He's been beaten up, shot, and nearly taken out by his brother's killer, but every time he gets through it and pushes onward.
Weaknesses: As mentioned before, Badou is a normal human with all of the limitations therein. He's even relatively average compared to most of the cast. He might pull some really crazy stunts, but he's been extremely lucky so far to get out of them alive. And that's about where his luck ends. Trouble seems to follow him everywhere, often literally and usually better-armed. If he doesn't intimidate or hit the people he's shooting at, there's a pretty good chance he's just going to die. No guns? Yeah, he's definitely dead if he can't outrun them. And Badou doesn't usually carry guns unless he's expecting trouble.
He really tries not to be suicidally reckless, but he often is. He fires his mouth off at the worst times, antagonizes the people who are about to kill him, and takes snapshots of things he's better off pretending he didn't see. (Not to mention digging into the case that got his brother killed.) He genuinely enjoys the deathmatch insanity, and sooner or later it's not going to end well for him.
Cigarettes are, obviously, a huge weakness. He'll do nearly anything for one, and there's a huge psychological mess wrapped up in all that smoke. Badou is a man who can't let go of his past. Though he knows better, he's still breathing the same poison as his big brother and taking all the same roads that led to his untimely end.
Samples (ALL samples must be set in Luceti-verse.)
First Person: 1. Are you a team player?
Yeah, most of the time. You know who you should talk to about that? My goddamn partner.
2. What is the most successful thing you’ve ever done?
Ok, this is just between me and you disembodied voice from above. You know what happens when you leave half a pizza and Chinese takeout in the back of the fridge for...a while? Eventually, that shit takes on a life of its own, and I'm not talking about mold or whatever. It's like Soviet Russia. Takeout eat you. Tentacles and shit all over the place. It nearly took my leg clean off.
I successfully kicked its ass, and that's why there are bullet holes in my fridge. Nobody believes me, but it definitely wasn't a spider I tried to shoot, and if it was it would be the size of my fucking hand, and I would have killed it. Successfully.
3. What do you think of yourself? How do you value your own life?
I don't spend a lot of time navel gazing, but I'm an alright guy? Relatively speaking.
Not gonna lie, my life is shitty - have I mentioned I just got shot? Because shit hurts man. - but it could be worse and I'm not looking to check out the other side any time soon.
4. What makes you happy?
You really have to ask? Aside from the obvious ah... Not being shot at, maimed, or otherwise put through horrible pain and suffering.
Gunfights, if I'm winning.
And lollipops. Stop judging me the cherry ones are good.
5. Who is the most important person in your life? Why?
Can cigarettes be a person? Because they're very special to me. Yeah, more special than everyone else.
...You're not gonna show them this, right?
Third Person: Badou had died and gone to heaven. He hadn't been a good man, and he hadn't lived a good life, but someone up there loved him like a nicotine-addicted firstborn lovechild (twice removed and never invited to family gatherings). He'd had his run of shit luck that culminated with being shot in the gut and almost blown up, but that was in the past. Old news. Totally forgotten. If the universe was begging his forgiveness, it had chosen a wonderful way to go about it.
He stared in wide-eyed wonder at the tranquil beauty before him. Row upon row of sweet, sweet beauty.
"Say it again. Please."
"They're free."
"Free? No catch? Free. And I can have all the cigarettes?"
"Yes."
"Say it."
"You can have all the cigarettes."
"You're a bro but it's alright, I'll just take a few." Though the temptation was great, Badou showed some restraint and left the store with a modest eight cartons, practically skipping. If it wouldn't have ruined them, he would go home and spread them out beside his bed, maybe roll in the nicotine and make cigarette angels... But Badou had never been a wasteful person, even when presented with plenty of excess, rare as it might be. Things were nice right now, but who knew when Haine would get sick of his good mood and torch the grocery store for kicks? He had to squirrel away a few emergency supplies for the future.
He'd only been there a few days, but he had to admit Luceti was growing on him. Sure, he looked like a fetish mutant gone wrong but no one had tried to kill him or stick a twenty in the back of his jeans yet, so it was a pretty nice vacation spot despite the unfinished business back home. He wasn't particularly keen on dealing with the aftermath right now. The city was a mess, and the longer Lichter thought he was dead, the better. Besides, getting home wasn't something he could think about until it was possible. He pressed his wings a little closer to his back to ward off the cold.
Well, free cigarettes were free cigarettes. Might as well enjoy them until he found out what they'd really cost.