Since time immemorial.

How long has it been now? Centuries? Ha! That's just like something Sam would say. He always did have the tendency to lose track of time. What with his ability to zone out completely, I'm surprised he can keep track of it at all. And then again, with a mind as shattered as his, he shouldn't be able to most anything. But he does. For all of his shortcomings, for all of his demons, for all of the pain and injury he has suffered, that man has simply refused to die. While I'm well aware of why that is, I still admire his persistence. Even if he doesn't show it most of the time, that man has infinite resolve. More than anyone in this world realises.

He reminds me of myself, back before I aquired my... Skills and power. More and more my mind wanders back to our past encounters, to who he was, to who he used to be, and to who he has become. I cannot help but reflect on my own life, spent mostly right alongisde his, involving ridiculous resources in what was effectively a sparring of leaders. He has changed a lot since his little world-shattering experiment, and yet he hasn't changed at all. And how have I changed? My memory serves me astoundingly, but memory alone will not interpret the past. No, I need to retell it, and in so doing look for the secrets it holds. To this effect, I have started this diary, to be seen by no-one in else but myself.

My name is Ezikiel Bane. Let me start by saying that I'm not from this... World. Where I come from and how I got here is too complicated to bother with at this stage. Let me just say that I come from a world much like this one, but a couple of decades in the future. Visibly, my world was much like this one. The civilised nations lived in large cities, comprised of tall buildings and residental suburbs. People still drove in cars, though admittedly not propelled by gasoline engines. And people still waged wars. But as one of the "civilised people," that was always far away from me. I was an American, a citizen of the most powerful country in the world. But the world would soon collapse from right under my feet.

I survived that collapse, and lived in that world for many, many years thereafter. 283 years, to be exact. Does that seem like too much? Well, understand that as I'm not from this world, so I'm not exactly human. I have a... Gift, shall we say. It gives me many perks. One of which is life as long as the Earth itself. Which is good, because I'm going to need a lot of time. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let us start at the beginning.

I was born Ezikiel Benedict Larsen, son of Ben Larsen and Jennifer Castellano-Larsen. My father was a lowly hustler in the big city of New York, pedalling stollen goods for whoever would pay for it and helping run a local racket. He was also a complete loser. Everything he touched turned to garbage. Everything he did got him and us in trouble. Everyone he had dealings with hated him after a while. He was always losing more and more money, we were always in debt and there was always someone willing to shoot him in the back for one reason or another. My mother was the opposite. She was a high-ranking police officer in the NYPD and leader of the ATF task force assigned with taking drugs off the streets of the city. She was also a dirty cop. She used her position to run her own drug smuggling busness, and she was always pulling strings and paying to get my father out of debt and out of trouble. She was the only reason our family functioned.

But she was also a rotten [censored]. She hated me, she always shouted at me, she never took care of me. For her, getting pregnant and giving birth had been a huge mistake, and for all she cared, I could simply disappear off the face of the Earth. My father ended up taking care of me most of the time, at least as well as he could. He may have been a loser, but at least he loved me as his own son. I spent as much time as I could with him when he was home, though a lot of times he came home drunk or beaten up.

It may seem like a bleak life, but this had become the norm. Out "great nation" was going straight to hell along with the rest of the world. I never did understand why, but I was told it was some kind of economic collapse. Our brave leaders had barricaded themselves in their ivory towers and sent armed policemen to collect taxes. Most major cities were slowly devolving into crime and poverty. It was a sign of much worse to come.

So I spent the first 8 years of my life in this family. I didn't understand it was bad back then. I was just a kid back then. This life was all I knew. But I instantly understood when it got a whole lot worse. Our life just seemed to be picking up, when it all came crashing down in an instant. One sunny morning, mother was gunned down by a drive-by on the front steps of our house. My father apparently knew what it was all about. It was probably some drug deal problem, now that I think about it. She was gunned down by the same people she did her deals with, and my father knew we were next.

He packed our suitcases in less than an hour and we skipped town. We lived at my uncle's house for about a week until he supplied us with false Mexican passoprts. He didn't charge us anything for them. I think he just wanted my father out of his house and out of his life. My father had that effect on people.

So we assumed our new names. My father became Larry Bane. I keep thinking it was a crule joke by my uncle when he was making the passports. As his son, I became Ezikiel Bane. With no money and no real skill in anything, I'm not surprised where we ended up. The only housing my father could find was an old abandoned shack in a ghetto on the outskirts of Mexico City. It was the worst "house" I had ever seen. There were cockroaches as big as my thumb running around everywhere, there were no windows to speak of and the roof leaked and seaped mold and dust when it was windy. My father never allowed me to leave the house on my own for fear that I'd be killed or kidnapped right off the street. And he was right. I kept seeing people stabbed to death right at our doorstep every few days.

Thinking back on it, it amuses me to think I was so disgusted at that place. Since then I have spent so many years in places and conditions so much worse than these that it's almost comical how I can have such horrible memories from Mexico. At least back then I had someone to take care of me, and even in all of the misery and danger, I had someone to rely on. I have not had this luxury in a very long time... Sometimes I think it's depressing how I've always had to do everything myself, how no-one ever wanted to help me, how hard I have had to fight and how much I have had to sacrifice for what I had. And how many times I've lost everything.

But for an 8-year-old me, the experience of Mexico City was traumatising. It was like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. Every time my father left the house I'd hide behind the bed in a dark corner and cower. A few times I heard people walk into the house. Who knows what they wanted. At the time, I was convinced they wanted to kill me or sell me to slavery. My father had made sure that sank in. Now I'm not sure who they were or what they wanted. Probably squatters looking for a place to spend the night, or robbers looking for something valuable to steal. Bah! If they could find anything, my father would have split the profit with 'em! I learned so much about how people think since then it's a little unsettling.

Alas, two years later, my little trip to the depts of hell came to an end. One evening as we were having dinner, policement came barging in. They handcuffed my father and took me away. Apparently the FBI had gotten their stuff together and actually formed a corruption case. It didn't sound so funny to me then - we were being arrested. But in retrospect, in the state our country was in, for the FBI to extradite the husband of a big-time drug dealer to stand trial was like applying a bandage to a gunshot wound. But, funnily enough, they still managed to convince the public that everything was fine and the country was under control. Even prospering. Astounding!

My father and I were extradited back to the US. He was to stand trial for conspiracy, drug trafficing and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Funny. It was even funny to me then. They were accusing him of running away. It seems doubly as funny to me know, knowing that the agent leading the operation was a big-time drug dealer and a high-ranking member of a New York cartel. In hindsight, it was obvious why my father had been brought back - he knew too much and authorities were closing in on him. Rather than let him rat out the cartel, they had brought him to the US to kill him. My father knew that as well. He tried to bargain for entry into the witness protection programme, but he never got the chance to make use of it. He was gunned down in broad daylight in front of the courthouse where he was supposed to stand trial.

And that took everything I had. It left me - a 10-year-old boy - without a single parent, and without a single person to take care of me. Until then, even in poverty and even in danger, I always had my father to look after me. Sleezy as he was, the man was prepared to give his life for me. He worked like a horse to provide for me. And he was my friend. My only friend. And then, he was taken away from me. I suddenly found myself very alone. But the state didn't let me feel that way for long. In a bid to get me off their hands, they stuck me in what has to have been the worst orphanage in the whole city. Hell if I know what it was called. Everyone just called it "The Pit." It was surrounded by high walls and consisted of a giant mud hole of a courtyard, with old, decrepid buildings serving as staff and child quarters. Even after all of the places, all of the holes, all of the dives I've been in over the years, that place remains one of the worst places I've ever been in. But at the same time, it's also one of the places that has taught me the most about life in the few short months I spent there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

The Pit was not a welcoming home. It wasn't run to be one. I didn't understand why that was at the time, but I have learend since. The director only cared about the fat subsidy checks the state was paying him. They were paying him to contain the children they wanted to forget about. Almost everyone in there was the child of a dead or incarcerated criminal, of a beggar who couldn't afford to look after his children, or kids abandoned on the street. The state didn't care, and we certainly had no-one to stand for us. So the director made sure we didn't disturb his operation, preventing us from leaving the Pit or from damaging expensive property. Beyond that he didn't care if we beat each other to death.

And oh, did the kids take full advantage of that. When they say that kids can be cruel, people have no idea just how cruel kids can be. But I found out very quickly. The very first thing I encountered when I was first taken to the Pit was Edgar. Now, Edgar was a special case. He was a big, strong kid, and he was also a natural leader. For Lord knows how long he had been leader of what he liked to call the Pit Mafia. That ridiculous name belied a very dangerous, if ragtag group of kids - the followers of Edgar. They were the orphanage equivalent of a street gang, harassing all the other kids and extorting them for different things. They had established themselves as the top dogs and everyone was afraid of them. As their leader, Edgar ruled over all of the Pit, severely beating up anyone who so much as dared to argue with him. Anyone who didn't do as Edgar said was beaten into a pulp by the Pit Mafia, either immediately or the following night.

My first encounter with Edgar occured as soon as the guards left me. He walked up to me, slugged me in the face and proceeded to explain the entire protocol of how I should behave and what respect I should show to the Pit Mafia. I was the new guy. He had to assert himself over me. He then let his boys have some fun with me. I ended up with a broken nose and a chipped tooth. I watched as all the other kids did their best not to look at what was going on, staring at their feet as they walked away. I also watched as the guards evidently didn't give a damn. One of them was eating a donut the whole time this was happening, and he didn't lift a finger. He didn't even assist me into the infermary. No one did. I had to drag myself off the ground and walk there to get medical care.

Back then I thought Edgar was just mean. I didn't understand what I had done to him, or why he had chosen to hurt me. I don't think even he understood it, but what he was doing was enforcing his rule by fear. In the years since, I learned all about enforcing one's rule, and then some. Using fear to do so is effective only in the short term, and even then mostly against weak-willed subjects. But Edgar couldn't see past his own ego, so he didn't understand that. It wasn't just me that he was bullying. Everyone suffered from his random violence and "reminders" about who is boss. He seemed to like picking on me specifically, however. I was raised and brought up to respect the people around me, taught that violence only lead to me getting hurt. So I didn't fight back. Apparently, that spurred Edgar to pick on me even more. And he made sure to harass anyone he saw with me, as well, so soon no-one wanted to have anything to do with me. They were too afraid I'd get them into trouble.

Edgar was pushing me and pushing me and pushing me. But what he didn't yet understand was that if you push a man too far, sooner or later he'll start pushing back. There is nothing more dangerous than a man who has nothing to lose. And one day Edgar pushed me too far. All my life until then I had lost. I had lost my mother, I had lost my home, I had lost my father, I had lost my freedom, I had lost my dignity. I had nothing left, and Edgar just kept on pushing. He wanted me to feel like less than nothing. One night I had had no sleep. I had stayed up, shivering and crying, contemplating about comitting suicide, as other kids had done before. But Edgar provided me with a better opportunity.

The following day he pulled me out of my room and just started slamming me around the hallways. I had had enough. I lost it completely. What happened after that I simply cannot remember. I learned from the other kids later that I just blew up and started fighting Edgar like a man possessed. By that time I had forgotten what life without pain was like, so his blows didn't do anything to stop me. I'm told that his Pit Mafia had tried to stop me, and I had attacked them, as well. Somehow, amid the chaos and screames, I had managed to fight off 15 people, some of them armed with clubs and pipes. I don't know how I did it. I had nothing to lose, so I poured every drop of strength I had. It hadn't been until the guards themselves had intervened that they were able to stop me.

I came out of it with two broken ribs, two teeth knocked out, a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder, a broken jaw and more scrapes, bruises and lasserations than the treating physician had ever seen on a single person. But Edgar came out comatose. 10 out of the 15 boys who came to help him came out with broken bones and the rest were so beaten up they couldn't walk for a week. I spent a couple of months in hospital, recovering from my injuries and undergoing physical therapy. I swore that I would never allow anyone to bully me like that ever again. So while I was recovering, I worked out a lot, too. The hospital gym was free for physio therapy patients, so I made full use of that.

I managed to recover completely in record time, according to my physician, and I was taken back to the Pit. I was ready to be jumped by the Pit Maifa as soon as I set foot in the door, but everything was somehow different. Edgar was still in the hospital in very serious condition, and the Pit Mafia didn't have a leader for the moment. Oh, they met me at the door, of course, but they didn't attack me. No, they threatened me, but for some reason I wasn't scared. I didn't understand it at the time - I had used to to be so scared of them just walking by, but now they didn't scare me at all. It was as if they were scared of me.

They tried warning me a few more times, but I mocked them in their faces. The once-brave Pit Mafia, the people who would crack your skull open for looking at them the wrong way, simply shied away from my challenges. They knew they could beat me up again if they really tried, but they also knew that I'd put each and every one of them in the hospital in return. So they simply did nothing against me. And then the strangest thing happened - I was approached by a kid with a proposition. He was a young, scrawny kid that the Pit Mafia was always picking on, just like they had once picked on me. He begged me to protect him, and offered to do me a favour. What that favour was I no longer remember, and it isn't important. But it was big enough for me to agree. Next time one of the Pit Mafia members came up to harass the little kid, I tapped him on the shoulder, then gave him a good beating and left him lying in a corner.

That got noticed. I got a bit of flak from the Pit Mafia over this, they tried to attack me a couple of times, but they ran away as soon as drew blood from one of them. It got noticed by the other kids, too. Suddenly, more and more kids were coming to me, asking for protection and offering me favours in return. Where were all these "favours" when I was laying in a pool of my own blood, or when I had my head forced into the toilet, or when I was tied to a radiator and beaten with a stick. The pathetic cowards pretended I didn't exist then, but now they all wanted my help. But why? What had changed, I wondered.

I would reflect back upon this, pondering how much I have learned and how I didn't see things for what they were. But this is the moment when providence came to me. What had changed was that I had acquired power. Power to put the hurt to the Pit Mafia. Power to command my own troop of follower. Power to provide protection. Power to get things done. It was then I learned one of life's great lessons: he who has power gains respect, and he who has respect gains even more power. Inadvertantly, I had gained a lot of power by simply fighting for my suvivial out of sheer desperation. Unwittingly I had made use of that power, demonstrating it, making it know, and so gotten respect and followers. And from my followers and from my respect, even more power came to me. Was I acting instinctively or was this a gigantic coincidence? It didn't matter to me. I had figured out how to bury the Pit Mafia into a very deep hole, and so help me, I was going to bury them all!

But among other things, I learned patience. "All good things come to those who wait," my father kept saying to me when he was still alive, and I had never understood it before. But I came to understand it once I saw that time was on my side. The Pit Mafia were afraid to act against me. The were afraid I would fight back and hurt them badly. And rightly so. But had I taken the fight to them too soon, they would have hurt me and my followers very badly, in turn. But the more I delayed, the more kids joined my side and the more my power grew. And the more my power grew, the more the Pit Mafia feared me and the less they could do to stop me.

A couple of months had passed since I returned from the hospital, and in that time I had managed to take control of nearly everything and every one. Almost every kid in the Pit had to answer before me and was obligated to do as I commanded. That gave me power in a surprising way - I began to bargain with the guards, themselves, and even with the director. I now held the key to keeping the peace in the Pit, or to making it erupt in violence. So they bargained with me to do their job for them. All the better. That just gave me even more power in return.

One thing I never stopped to think about back then, but that I undersood later, is exactly why I, personally, had so much power. Almost all of the power I had came from the people who followed me. So why didn't any of these other people have as much power? Why was it just me who had the combined power of my followers to wield as I pleased? The answer to this, I have found, is very simple. Unlike any of my followers, I had respect, and I had recognition. I stood to represent my followers, to represent their power. Because I had the prestige of a leader, and that amplified all the power I had tremendously. I was a leader then. I just didn't realise it.

But my little empire would soon face the test of time. Half a year after our little fight, Edgar had finally recovered and returned to the pit. He found his Pit Mafia in a sorry and depressing state. I had exiled them from all positions of authority, taken away all their power and consined them to the lowest, darkest hiding spots of the Pit. But Edgar was a leader, himself. Unlike his weak followers, he had the guts to act and the knowlege of how to act. He had, as I learned over time, taken the Pit over from its previous "owner." Who that was I did not yet know, but I was well aware that Edgar was willing to fight me for my power and capable of challenging my authority.

I learned another very important lesson then - presence. The ability of a person to influence others and command respect and compliance. Many of Edgar's Pit Mafia had tried to challenge me before, but none had met with any success. But Edgary himself succeeded by doing just what his followers had tried to and failed. I finally understood why he was the leader of the Pit Mafia and why he was a leader in general. His presence let him influence my followers. He was able to threaten them, to persuade them, to order them and to otherwise get them over to his side. The Pit Mafia finally had a leader figure to represent them, and that magnified their own power tremendously. I found myself losing my followers and losing my standing fast. It didn't take a genius to see where this was going. I had done the same to Edgar's Pit Mafia months before. But unlike them, I saw it coming. And I would not sit by in fear and let Edgar take everything I had worked so hard to acheive.

I needed to act. I needed to challenge Edgar, to fight him. But Edgar was smart enough to anticipate me. He knew very well that even with my followers dwindling constantly, I still had vastly more support and power than he did, so he was in no hurry to confront me. Time was on his side. I was caught in a viscious trap and it seemed like there was nothing I could do. But, instinctively, I came up a bold plan that turned out to be the key. If Edgar would not strike at me, then I was going to make use of that. I made a series of brazen attacks against some of his key followers and destroyed or stole some of his most prized possessions. Those were acts that Edgar would have normally killed over, but he could not afford to act so soon. People saw this. Edgar failed to use his power, so his followers began to doubt him. They began losing respect for him. His expansion decreased and we could both see that it was going to turn around.

I had unwittingly put Edgar into a no-win situation. I had challenged him in a manner that he could not ignore, because doing so would cost him dearly. If he didn't act, he would lose his respect and support, and he would lose any chance he had to oppose me. If he acted, he would lose, as his support was still inferior to mine. I hadn't realised it, but I had managed to provoke Edgar into desperate action. Challenges, I would later learn, are only good if they force your enemy to respond of face severe consequences. And provocations, contrary to what I believed at the time, is not about forcing your enemy to do something, but rather about robbing them of all of their better options. My challenge against Edgar, in the form of my aggressive expansion, had left him no choice but to act.

And act he did. Of course, I expected it. I had pushed him very far, and I kept pushing on all fronts. And pushing, and pushing, and pushing. I knew that sooner or late he would push back. I counted on it. Desperate men make mistakes, as I came to learn years later. And Desperate Edgar attacked me in the worst possible way - openly in the middle of the courtyard, where my followers' superior numbers could best be made use of. He may have been a leader, but he was an attrocious planner, I it turned out.

I crushed him so decisively that even the guards were taken aback. But in what should have been my proudest moment of victory, I found humiliating defeat. I learned, then, the last lesson the Pit would teach me. Men follow you not for the sake of following you, or for the sake of basking in your power. Every man follows you because he has an agenda that he hopes he can use your power to acheive. This personal agenda is the only thing a man is truely loyal to. Your followers are never loyal to you directly, they are loyal to themselves.

For a leader to retain his standing, he has to make sure that his followers' agendas are accomplished by following him, not by double-crossing or challenging him. In my time in the Pit, I had paid absolutely no attention to that. All I had cared about was my standing, my power, my respect, my prestige. My own goals. Luckily, the other kids were mostly driven by a desire to not be harassed, or by a desire for revenge on the Pit Mafia, both of which went through serving me. But not all of my followers' motives were quite as supportive.

I came to know the name Lyle quite well after that fight. Unbeknownst to me, Lyle was the previous "owner" of the Pit, and in fact of the Pit Mafia itself. When Edgar was first transfered into the Pit, he had fought Lyle, hurt him badly and then undermined his position until he userped control of the Pit Mafia for himself. Lyle had been looking for a way to take the Pit back ever since, and I had provided him with the perfect opportunity. On his own, Lyle could never challenge Edgar, but he knew I could. I had the kind of presence neither of them possessed, and Lyle had known that would make me a leader one day. All he had to do after that was to get rid of me, gather a bit of support and then write me out of the story completely.

Getting support was already accomplished prior to the fight. He already had his co-conspiritors ready to put his plan into action. He just needed me out of the picture. And he found the perfect wopportunity. During the fight, he attacked Edgar with a metal pipe and kept hitting him until his split his head open. Edgar bled to death at the scene. Of course, in the melee, few people actually saw what happened, but I was one of them. Before I could actually do anything, I was incarcerated in solitary confinement. Why me? Well, it was pretty simple - I was the obvious ringleader, and Edgar was the obvious opposition leader. They didn't need more evidence than that. Honestly, the director didn't even care, but someone had to pay for it, and I was the most convenient target. Lyle had anticipated that. With me out of the scene, he easily userped my place, threatened the only eyewitnesses into silence and built his own chain of command. He had written me out of my rightful standing in one fell swoop.

I had gone from leader to nobody in the span of half an hour. Sitting there in my 5x6 cell, waiting for the police to arrive, I had a lot of time to think. I thought about where I had gone wrong and what I could have done differently. How could I have succeeded so completely, and yet failed so irredeemably? My failure quickly became evident to me then. I had not paid any attention to Lyle, to what he really wanted and to what he was actually doing. Had I been more vigilant, I would have seen through his facade of support. He wasn't even that good at hiding it, he just made sure to never say anything about it to me. That's about the extent of his subtlety on the matter. But I had been so consumed with my own endevours that I never actually looked, or I would have seen everything.

But something else bothered me. Lyle had taken that which I worked for for so, so long. He had stolen my success and my power. But in the end, through his own methods, he still finished the game with the big prize. I had the power, I had the prestige, I had the respect. I did all the work. For him. I had unwittingly become his follower. Could it be? Could one make people follow him without them knowing it? Could one lead people indirectly, convincing them they are working for themselves, but ultimately guiding them into working for him and his goals? It seemed entirely possible. Lyle had done exactly that. He had led me to believe that I was working for my own standing and power, but all I was really working for was for his success.

I was ashamed of myself for being such a fool, and yet I could not help being excited about the new insights I had gained into the art of leadership. In fact, it was then I actually started thinking of myself as a leader. Before, I was only doing things to get what I wanted. People followed me and I used that. But I hadn't actually thought about organisation, hirarchy, loyalty, oversight and all the other responsibilities of a leader. Again, I did not consider myself a leader. I didn't think I wanted to be one. But once I lost everything, I realised that this was what I wanted. That this was what I missed most of all. I could lead, I had shown that beyond any question. I could lead, I could prosper, and I had found my calling in life.

But all that was about to change. The police arived at the Pit to take me to the area prison. I had seen my mother, a police officer, shot at her doorstep, and I had seen my father shot while in police custody. I had seen the police raid my home, take my freedom and steal my life. And here they were coming to hurt me again. In hindsight, it was really foolish of me to believe so. "The police" were not responsible for my misery, corruption and the stupidity of my parents. I was probably going to be sentenced to a juvenile facility, where I would be in an even better position to ply my trade, and were I would find even better followers. But hindsight is always 20/20. At the time, I fealt my life was going to end if I allowed myself to be arrested.

I was cuffed in my cell, but I managed to pick the cuffs by the time we left the Pit premesis. Pit guards used handcuffs all the time, so most all of the kids there knew how to pick them. I was no exception. As soon as one policeman went to open the door, I pushed the other one to the ground and I ran. And even though reason tells me that allowing myself to be arrested may have been the wiser move, I still remember my will to live, and my will to be free. I ran over fences, accross yards, through bushes, accross streets, over rooftops, along fire escapes, through alleys and through trash. I ran for my life. I put all my strength, all my energy into it. I ran for as long as my legs would carry me, for as long as my muscules would still function. I never looked back. There was nothing left behind me but pain and desperation. So I ran, through fatigue, through injury, through pain. I ran until I collapsed, and then I got up and kept on running. I'm not sure how I lost the police. I'm not even sure how the chase ended. I just remember my whole body hurting badly and there being a single thought in my head: run.

I woke up, heavens knows how long afterwards. Days maybe? I woke up face-down in a muddy puddle with heavy rain beating down on my back and unbelievable cold gripping my body. I had collapsed in the middle of an alley. I ran around looking for escape from the rain, and I found a make-shift shelter. It looked like some bum had put it together from trash to keep himself out of the rain and cold. He had probably died or been arrested, though, as I never saw him return to his abandoned shelter for as long as I was there. I just cuddled among the trash to try and keep warm and I guess I fell asleep. I woke up to the sound of voices the next day - supermarket employees. I had landed at the back of a very large supermarket, right by the container where they threw away their garbage. Luckily for me, they had a high standard for merchandise, and so they threw away a lot of good food. Well, good under the circumstances is relative. It was either rotten, spoiled or dropped on the ground or some such, but it was food. I found a broken water main that leaked a constant stream of drinkable, if somewhat foul water.

So I dined on garbage, drank sewage and made my home behind a trash container. To most people that would seem like hell. But I had come out of a hell that I had made my home, and I had lived under worse conditions before. In fact, I was reminded of my life back in Mexico, where I used to be disgusted at the old insect-ridden shack. Compared to my new home, that shack was a pallace. But at least I was free. I had escaped. I was going to survive and make a leader out of myself again. I was determined to make it. Even if I had to live in absolute misery, even if I had to wait a life time, I would make it.

As it turned out, I only had to wait about a year before fate came knocking on my door once again. And this time, things would be different.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

((I demand more. I refuse to let my hook in this go unsatisfied. Or else things might get...unpleasant))

My life behind a trash container was a curious one. I spent my whole time confined in that one little alley. No-one ever came around there. The stench of garbage was too foul for most people to bear. I had bothered me at the beginning, but I got used to it over time. If fact, I began to find it pleasant. Not because it smelt good, no. It didn't. But that was the smell of my home. The smell of safety. The smell of a place where I could hide from the world, a place where no harm could come to me. A place where I could spend my life. Of course, back then that was desperation calling. I knew that I couldn't live in an alley indefinitely. I knew the supermarket providing my food would not be open forever, and I knew that sooner or later the pipe providing my water would be fixed. But that was still the only home I had.

Reflecting on that, I had sunk into a very deep hole back then. I was depressed, thinking only about how my life would be over soon. I was afraid to go out into the street for fear of being arrested, even though realistically, no-one was looking for me. The whole country was slowly sinking into a hell of crime and economic collapse, and an 11-year-old juvenile delinquent was the last thing on the minds of police and officials. I was depressed, but I drew strength from that depression. I was convinced that my life was slowly coming to an end, and I knew that there was nothing I could do to change that. That kind of thinking would make most people contemplate suicide. It would make most people give themselves up to the trials of the world. But for some reason, I didn't. Something had changed within me. I refused to give up. If the world would conspire to destroy me, then it would have to come and get me. Doomed as I thought I was, I was not going to let it take me as long as I had an ounce of strength left it me. If my life was to be over, then by the gods, I would make fate work her [censored] off to get me.

That sort of thing stays with you. It's a part of my life that I could never forget. Even if I wanted to. Even if my memory was not photographic. Because that's not just a memory. That is who I am. Even now, even with all the power I have, even with all my followers and all of my property and money. Even now I continue facing loss and defeat. Dear old Sam sees to it that I do as often as he can help it. But no matter what defeat I suffer, how much I lose or how much damage I sustain, I will never give up my quest. If anyone wants to destroy me, then they will have to come down and do it with their own bare hands. Because I am prepared to endure any amount misery, pain, confinement, anything I have to endure to acheive my goal. As long as I draw breath, I will never give up.

I learned all that over the course of around a year. I'm not sure exactly how long I spent in that alley, sleeping in garbage. I had no way to tell time or count the days, but I know I went through one winter and got to the beginning of another. Winters were harsh for me. I had no real way to keep myself warm. I couldn't afford to start a fire, as that would attract people. I managed to get my hands on a battery-powered electric heater, but it was very weak because of a burnt-out coil, and batteries for it were hard to come by. You don't throw batteries in the garbage, I suppose. I had to burry myself underneath whatever rags I could find, and I actually built myself a little igloo by covering my shelter with snow. Even then I was freezing cold every minute of every hour of every day. At first I was shivering badly, but pretty soon all of the muscules in my body hurt and denied me the ability. All I was able to do is lie motionless underneath a pile of garbage and count the hours until I had to get out of my little shelter and scavange for food.

I had made it through one winter just barely, so at the start of the next one, my spirits were at an all time low. It was coming to that time when fate was finally going to defeat me. But instead, she threw me a curveball. One morning I was awakened by the sound of footsteps. Someone ran past my shelter in a hurry. Before I knew it, two policemen were standing in my alley, looking around. I was convinced that they were looking for me, that they were here to put me in prison or just kill me on the spot. Of course, I wasn't thinking very clearly. I hadn't eaten or slept well in months, after all. So, in my infinite wisdom, I grabbed the knifeblade I used to open cans and attacked them. I was at the end of my teather back then, so I attacked them with everything I had left. I managed to catch them by surprise and stab them to death before they could even react. I had just killed two people for no reason, but that realisation would not hit me for a while longer.

Next thing I know, this kid - must have been around my age - walks out from behind a dumpster. Turns out the policemen were after him. He had stolen a purse and that's why they were chasing him. Only then did it hit me. I had just killed two people who were, for all intents and purpuses, innocent. They were just doing their job. They were not going to harm me. They didn't even know I existed. It made me feel so bad at the time that I think I just collapsed and started crying. I've killed a lot of people since then, and a lot of them for even more insignificant reasons. I no longer care to remember them. It's part and parcel with what I do. But the pain and sadness I felt that day... That is something that I will never forget. I can no longer even understand why I fealt that way. I just feeling so, so sad.

I'm a little hazy on the details after that, but the kid felt sorry for me, and he was greatful to me for saving him from going to jail, so he took me in. Actually, he was part of a small-time local street gang, and he took me into the gang. I spent maybe a day just crying by myself, until thoughts of just ending my life came over me. That was the wake-up call. I had not spent a year living in absolute poverty and fighting for my own sanity to give up over a simple feeling of guilt. I had not endured all of this pain just to let everything go for no reason. No, I was not going to let things end like this. I had a mission. I had a purpuse. And for the sake of my mission and for the sake of my purpuse, I had to go on. Through pain and tears, I put the policemen out of my mind. Their deaths were in the past. Their lives were inconsequential to mine. What I had done did not matter. Not anymore. All that mattered was what I had learned.

I lost something that day. I'm no longer sure what it was, as I no longer remember what it had been like when I had it. Maybe I lost my compassion, maybe I lost my kindness. Or maybe, that was when I lost my humanity. In the long run, it doesn't matter. What I lost was nothing more than a source of pain and depression. I had a mission, and my childish depressions and bouts of crying over myself only served to stand in my way. I made a decision that I would never allow myself to be hurt by anything or anyone. I have stood by this decision for two centuries now, and it has served me well. That day was the last time I fealt sorry for myself, the last time I was depressed, the last time I was hurt. I lost a lot of emotions that day, now that I think about it. Was it for the better? I really cannot say. I've no desire to regain them after all these years, and they did nothing for me but cause me pain and suffering, to say nothing of getting in the way of my mission.

Recently, Xandra tried to play psycho-analyst with me, and her words reminded me of that day. She told me that I had lost my ability to love and be happy a long time ago. Of course, that's not something I will discuss with her, or with anyone else. But it made me think. Have I really lost my ability to be happy? Am I not happy now, ruling my Empire of Rock? Certainly it is satisfying - that's what I want, after all. Success in expanding it and furthering my own goals has always pleased me. But is that true happiness? Honestly, I may well have lost the knowlege of what true happiness really means. I have a purpuse, a mission to accomplish, and that is all that matters. I am happy as long as my mission is being accomplished. As for love... No. There is far too much work to be done to concern myself with santimentalities. And even if I had the opportunity, my dear friend Sam did a good job of showing my why santimentality is nothing but a detriment to my work and a source of even more pain. But I'm greatful for it.

All of the contemplation I did back then alone in that room took me out of my hole and out of my depression. I remembered my mission, and I started looking. I hadn't noticed it, but I had found myself in the ranks of a local street gang. With my childish fears and doubts out of the way, I was able to see an opportunity. An opportunity to be a leader again. A better leader than the one I had been in the Pit. I had a lot more knowlege, understanding and motivations now than I did back then. It was just a matter of work, now.

I was about to face a time of prosperity and personal acheivement, but it would take a lot of work and effort.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Unwittingly, I had been recruited into a rag-tag group of outcasts, calling themselves the Southsiders for no conceivable reason that I could ever work out. I suppose they just thought it sounded cool. It was comprised mainly of kids between 10 and 20, though most were in the middle ground around 15. Most of those kids were either orphans, had run away from home or were wanted by the police. None of them really had a home or a family. Most quite literally - they were children of the streets. Of those who had parents, those parents were usually criminals themselves, drug addicts, alcoholics or abusive. The kids that hadn't run away from home officially rarely ever went back to their houses, because when they did their parents tried to ground then, lecture them or beat them up.

For most of those kids, the gang was all they had in life. Kind of like me, actually, but I didn't have even that. I didn't stop to think about it back then. I'm not sure if it would have made a difference in how things turned out, but I know why those kids had turned to gangs. They lived in a neighbourhood that was rife with crime and poverty. There were no real jobs to speak of, nor was there any real sense of security. Their families were falling apart, and there was nothing these kids could do about it. They felt helpless, alone and scared. They thought that they'd never get the things they wanted. But the gang offered them power. It offered them respect. There go those two words again. The gang offered them, generally speaking, instant gratification. They could have what they wanted now, and it gave them security that they wouldn't lose what they already had. They had the power to take what they wanted and the respect to keep what they had.

I would soon find out, however, how little power and respect the gang actually gave. My first impressions of how powerful the Southsiders were came as soon as my "friend" informed me I had been recruited. I wondered why I had been recruited when they hadn't ever seen me before. Turns out they were hurting for members. They had lost a lot of their older members in a recent robbery gone horribly wrong, so to stay in the game, they needed more people. Right there I knew this gang was as small-time as it comes. For them to have to go out and drag new recruits off the street, that meant they were on their last leg. And they were, I later learned, even if their leader wasn't telling his followers the whole story.

Owen was their leader. I'm sure he had a last name, but none of the Southsiders knew it and no-one really cared about it. Everyone just called him Owen. He was a 20-something young man, an exceptionally stern leader and a right [censored]. He ran his gang by fist and boot. He held all the power and he gave all the orders. He had made sure everyone understood that disobeying him would make them wake up with a slit throat the next morning. His orders were law and he made sure that it was kept. He enforced his rule by fear and violence. Why is it that people think this is a good strategy? Why do all authocratic leaders inevitably turn to force to keep their leadership? Even back then, it had become obvious to me that this strategy is always doomed to a slow and painful failure.

I met Owen when I was officially enlisted into the Southsiders. He did his best "big men" act to try and scare me, but I had faced bigger men than him. It became obvious to me then that he was the key reason as to why the Southsiders were at the bottom of the barrel. As good as he was at keeping himself on top of the gang, Owen was a terrible leader. He rode his boys hard, he exploited them shamelessly, and what little profit their work generated he kept for himself. He'd pass down the bread crums so his boys could actually survive, but he didn't really care about them. And it showed. They could all up and die for all he cared, as long as he got his money. So he made sure they obeyed him and made a profit for him. Beyond that, he let them do whatever they wanted.

That was good for me. Even though the Southsiders didn't have the guts to complain to Owen, all one had to do was walk out of his "throne room" and it became pretty evident that everybody hated him. I considered simply openly challenging him, and I even pursued that idea a bit until it became clear it was doomed to failure. The Southsiders were so afraid of Owen that they wouldn't even consider challenging him. So the strategy that I had employed back in the Pit couldn't work here. The moment I challeneged Owen, his followers would come to his aid and kill me on the spot. Anything to remain in the good graces of their leader. I could not show him to be weak, because there was no way the kids could see him as anything other than the monster he portrayed himself as.

So Owen would not go down like Edgar. He had a greater hold over his followers and the group was more tightly-knit than the kids in the Pit. But so had the group of my own followers back then, and that didn't stop Lyle from winning them over to his side. I had spent a long time figuring out how he had been able to acheive that, and I had his methods worked out to a T. So after a lot of revision, I saw the situation in a different light. I had become Lyle, and Owen was me. We were playing out the scenario of my own past failure. Providence arrived with me once again, and I knew what I had to do. The Southsiders followed Owen, because he held the power to fulfilling their agendas. And I needed to find out what those agendas were.

I began talking with the boys and asking around. My questions were innocent enough - what they would rather be doing, what they hoped to acheive, how they wanted to live. Simple stuff, and boy did they have a lot to say. Everyone wanted something different, but most would agree about a few things. Most pressingly, they were all really dissatisfied with the missions that Owen was giving them. They fealt that the ones he was sending them on were for the potential return they held. And when I reviewed what they had done, I had to agree. All Owen had had them do was rob convenience stores and gas stations - the same ones over and over - and commit house robberies. Was this guy an idiot? I had to wonder.

When I talked to him about it, it turned out I was right. Yes, yes he was an idiot. Or rather, he was an inept planner. He didn't have the imagination to plan anything beyond simple robbery, nor did he care to make anything more elaborate. And in his ineptitude, I saw the perfect opportunity. I asked him if he'd let me plan a few operations, and he agreed. He didn't care. He was pretty happy to have somebody else do it. Except, like a fool, he didn't realise that if my operations were profitable and successful, then I would get the praise, not him. But then, he wasn't a very good leader. A stern one, but bad allthesame.

So I planned a few operations. It was simple at first - I just had the boys run around the neighbourhood and look for where the real money was. Banks were out of our league, but they did spot a few pawn shops that had a lot of cash flow going through them. And I mean a lot. They very tight security, of course, but against robbery, not burglary. I had Owen acquire a few building plans for me and I had the boys go look for jobs there. I targetted a pawn shop just outside the neighbourhood - the boys were less likely to be known there, and so more likely to land a job at the shop.

My guy on the inside got me copies of all the keys, but he was unable to diable the shop's door alarm system. So we had to improvise. We hit a hardware store and bought a host of power tools and construction equipement. With that, we followed through with my plan. We broake into an abandoned building next door to the pawn shop, then broke through the wall dividing the buildings and made it inside the shop, bypassing the alarm-protected door. Then with our duplicate keys, we made it through all the security doors, all the way up to the vault. The vault itself was very sturdy, and it took a full night of cutting, but we got it open just before opening hours. Looking back on it, all that stuff came to me naturally. I don't know how I was able to so effortlessly plan such a big heist, but I had. I guess the Southsiders had lowered the bar for crime in the neighbourhood so low that people had loosened their security. Yes, they were just that pathetic.

I had planned to hit the shop just after the owner had managed to sell a load of expensive items, so we walked away with several thousand dollars of cash and jewelry. When I reported back to Owen, he almost choked on his cigar. His mouth was watering as he took the big bag of money off our hands. I let him enjoy his money. He was losing something even more valuable - his leadership. Overnight, I had turned from the scoffed at new guy into a respected member of the gang. Owen couldn't have been happier with my performance, so he appointed me as a permanent operation planner. All the better. The heist had given me my respect, and Owen had just handed me my power. He may as well had given me a loaded gun and pointed it at his temple. Now all I had to do was wait for the right time to move.

But something else happened later that purely astounded me. I had delivered untold amounts of money to Owen, and he had used that to repay his bosses in the local cartel. But when pay day came, very little of that money made it back to the Southsiders. They couldn't say anything to Owen, but they weren't very happy with it. I, on the other hand, could not believe my eyes. I could not imagine how Owen could commit such a blunder. He knew his boys had been cheering about "all that money" they were going to get. How could he even think of giving them the usual pittance. Oh, that played right into my hands, of course, but I was just astounded how he could have been so stupid.

And, just like that, here was my opportunity to make a move. The heist had given me a lot of respect, and Owen had just handed me a lot of power on a silver platter. I had suddenly become a leader, even if not one of the highest of rank. Now it was time to expand. I began asking the boys about things that they'd wish to see changed. I got a lot of different responses, but a few kept recurring. Most of the boys wanted more money, but they were too afraid to embezzle from Owen. I, on the other hand, didn't have to. By that time, I was pulling off one high-score heist every week and bringing Owen more money than he had ever seen. He had become dependent on me. That gave me the power to bargain with him. So I did.

Owen tried to resist. He didn't want to bargain with anyone - he was the leader and no-one was supposed to tell him what to do. But on the other hand, he liked the money I was bringing him. He needed me, and I knew it. So gently I just kept pressing him until he started to make compromises. The first thing that I asked for was better pay for the people who take part in heists - my people, effectively. He agreed. I had just gotten my people better pay. I also demanded a bigger budget for heists. Partly, that let me make bigger heists. Partly, it allowed me to appease another desire - more luxury. Mostly, it gave me my own budget, independent of Owen. I had acquired a whole seperate building by that time. I needed the space to assemble and store my equipement, and the run-down headquarters building wasn't big enough. So I put more luxuries in my own building.

Some peopel wanted wanted lighter work, so I gave them the safer, less paid jobs. Some people wanted more pay, so I gave them more work. Some people wanted favours, so I gave them favours and took it out of their pay. But at least I did things for them. Because my heists were getting more and more complicated, I acquired more and more direct control over the heist teams. Before long, I had people answering to me, personally, and I answered to Owen for them. And people wanted to work for me. Owen gave them tough, badly-paid jobs and got them in trouble. I gave them easy jobs, paid them a lot, sent them on carfully planned missions. I even bailed them out of jail when they got caught. I spent my time training them, I bought good clothes and equipement for them, I organised them.

I knew very well what the Southsiders wanted - a better life. They had joined Owen to acheive that, and he simply wasn't delivering. But I was. Working for me, the Southsiders actually got a better life. I began developing a lot of power withnin the gang. I had already began expanding my own operation, with Owen's conscent, of course, so my power just kept on growing. I was Owen's follower, so his power grew even more. But his power came from me, personally. Over the course of five years, all of the Southsiders power that was going into Owen started passing through me, first. I had expanded my operation so much that it made the rest of the gang, the one directly reporting to Owen, look like an unneeded addition. The time had come to streamline my operation.

An open confrontation with Owen would have been disasterous for me. The Southsiders were still afraid of him, even though he didn't have any real power that didn't come from me. If I had attacked him, my own followers would have turned against me. No, I needed to provoke him into making a mistake. I needed to show how little real power he had. And with Owen, that really wasn't so hard. One night I pulled off a heist without consulting with him. He flew into a rage and stormed into my office. He was actually quite stunned at the condition of my own headquarters building. I had turned it into a regular office building/hotel combo, with pretty good quarters for my boys, training facilites, a conference room, to say nothing of running water and power. Owen's headquarters was still an old condemed building where people lived in poverty and slept on the ground. Owen accused me of anything that crossed his mind at the time, but I didn't back down. I simply handed him the money from the unsanctioned raid and watched his jaw drop.

Just to add a bit of finesse to my defiance of his rule, I had hit a bank. A big bank just before collection day. I can't remember how many thousands I gave him that day, but it was a lot of money. I had several reasons to give it to him. Firstly, I wanted everyone to watch him walk away from the building after he had threatened to kill me. I wanted everyone to see his empty threats for what they were, and see just how who held the real power. Secondly, I wanted his followers to see him him to get a whole lot of money and then see him pay them very little yet again. I wanted them to see just how much he was stealing from their hard work. The consequences of out little meeting did not delay. The very next day rumours had began to spread. Rumours that I had scared Owen, that he was afraid to attack me, that I had challenged him. The scene was ripe for the final blow.

I conducted another unsanctioned heist. It was nothing big this time. Just another pawn shop for a few thousand dollars. It was another act of defiance against Owen, and this time without any good reaso for it. I had simply overruled him and he wasn't going to stand for it. Just like I expected. He grabbed a few of his men, stormed into my office and tried to pull a gun on me. I had briefed my boys on what to expect. Owen had walked right into a trap. As he was babbling on and on about respect, waving his gun around, the hit squad I had prepared earlier opened fire at Owen and his men. It was all over in just a few seconds. Owen was dead, his most loyal followers were dead, and my brand new suit was completely ruined by blood spatter. Thinking about it, I really should have paid more attention on what I was wearing when I expected 20 people to be shot dead in front of me. A white Armani suit was about the worst I could have worn.

And that was that. The next morning the rumours started. Had Owen left? Was he ill? Where was he? I settled them all with a gang meeting. I told them in very simple terms that Owen and his posse were dead. I would be taking over. A few people paniced, but most people knew who had really been running the gang - me. Everyone knew Owen was stealing from them, everyone hated him for how he treated them, everyone wanted to work for me instead of him. And now they could. The great fear - Owen - was gone. He could no longer hurt them, he could no longer oppress them. He could no longer stop them from working for me. And as soon as the dust settled, they all accepted me as their new leader. They knew that I represented the best chance they had to acheive their dreams, and that gave me their loyalty.

A few days later I took Owen's place in the latest meeting with the cartel. A couple of lowly underbosses came by to pick up this month's money and pass down instructions from the bosses. They found the old headquarters building abandoned and a limo waiting for them outside. I met them in my new conference room that I had had built specifically for them. My building, the state of my gang and just the general air of power and professionalism simply blew their minds. Just last month they had met with a thug in a basement and left with just a few thousand dollars. Yes, a few thousand dollars. Now that blew my mind. Apparently, Owen wasn't just stealing from us, he was embezzling the cartel, as well. I would track down the money he stole later, but for now I had to make good with the cartel. They weren't prepared to accept me as the new leader of the Southsiders just like that and they would not accept the loyalty of my men as proof. Money talks and praise walks, I suppose.

So I gave them the money they asked for. I trippled our monthly pay, just as a token of good will towards our benefactors in the cartel, as well as a sign of my superior leadership. It was pretty easy, too. Thanks to Owen's embezzling the cartel had no idea just how much we were making, so even tripple our pay was still lunch money. I could have easily afforded to pay them 10 times the sum, but that would have made them suspicious. I wanted to impress them, but not so much as to make them afraid that I may pose a danger. The underbosses left confused and returned the next day. The bosses at the top had accepted me as the official leader, but were rising our monthly pay by quite a bit. It was a lot, but it was still affordable. Even more so, since my men had gone digging in our old Headquarters building and found Owen's stash of embezzled money. The [censored] had hidden away more than half a million dollars in a hole in the wall. But I didn't let the cartel in on that.

So, just like that, I was the leader of the Southsiders. An 18-year-old man, leader of something so big. In my time serving Owen, I had turned his little rag-tag gang into a proper organisation. But I didn't stop there, on no. I kept going, expanding, upgrading and building my organisation even bigger. A short year later, we had great financial backing, we had professionals working on different jobs, performing bigger and more elaborate heists. We had a front business in the form of an accounting firm, complete with a building permit, a functing infrastructure, even clients we served. We even paid taxes. We had moved on to doing more than just heists and into small-time trafficing and money laundering, though mostly of our own equipement and our own money. The little gang of 100 men had grown into several thousand people, spread around several buildings in the neighbourhood, each of which I had built on plots I bought with my own money. We had actually brought life and prosperity back into the neighbourhood. I had simply involved all the petty crooks into my organisation, giving them bigger jobs to do than mug people in the streets, so the visible crime rate had dropped.

I had risen from the garbage and formed a powerful organisation out of the dredges of society, and done so in one of the worst places in the entire city. I had succeeded. I had become a leader. Just like I swore I would. All of my suffering, all of my pain, all of my life in misery and poverty, all of the people I had had to walk over to get here had been worth it. My calling, my purpuse, my mission... Was to be a leader. And I had become one. But experience had taught me that my work was not done yet. I had become a leader once before, only to lose everything. I had learned my lesson, and I knew my purpuse. I would remain a leader, and expand my power. Until when? Well, at the time I wasn't planning to stop. Ever. Two centuries and one world later, little has changed.

I had reached the extent of my previous experience, and I had reached a level where expansion and evolution had become more difficult. I struggled to understand it back then, but it was quite clear, really - I had simply outgrown the confines that the cartel had put me under. If I were to grow any further, I would need to deal with the cartel directly.

Very soon I would get that chance, and things would get interesting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Might have taken a while, but I remembered I had a couple more chapters to put into this story. To avoid spamming 15 pages in a single post, I'll still split them up into two posts. These, unlike the previous ones, have been spell-checked, so they should be a bit easier on the eyes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

The evolution my organisation, which I now called Southside Inc., had stifled. Fate, it would seem, had turned her back on me once again. And you'll notice I talk a lot about fate here. Make no mistake, I'm not a religious person. I don't actually even believe in fate. But I believe in circumstances. Portraying fate as an actual person being kind or mean to me is simply a simplistic way to examine them, both simplistic to express and simplistic to regard. But I have found that as you can predict the frivolities of a person, so you can predict the ebb and flow of circumstances. I had lived through a great flow, so it was normal to expect an ebb. All good things must come to an end.

Well, it would be normal for me to expect it now. I know better after I have experienced it so many times before. Back then, it caught me completely by surprise. One day I was conducting a major expansion, the next day I found myself losing money and being unable to do anything about it. I needed to conduct bigger heists, but I could ill-afford to pull any more off in my own area. I was already attracting undue police attention and the residents had begun thinking of moving out. And even if I could increase the number of heists I did, there were no big targets that I could hit left in my area. And I couldn't hit anything outside of the neighbourhood - the cartel would not allow it.

I needed to hire more professionals, but the cartel would not allow me to recruit from outside my area. I needed more tools and more money to pay for them, but the cartel would not allow me to transfer any more money or equipment a month, because it was drawing too much attention. I needed more buildings, but the cartel would not allow me to own any more, for fear of, again, drawing too much attention by paying too much taxes or being the sole owner of too many buildings. It seemed as though overnight I had hit a brick wall that blocked any further progress. And it wasn't like these were some new rules the cartel just made up to confine me. Those were the standard rules and limitations for a street gang associated with them. Of course, we were technically something much bigger, but in the eyes of the cartel, we were still beneath them.

I knew about these rules. I had known about them for years. Owen had explained them to me at length when I was consulting possible operations with him. I had known about all these limitations, but I had never taken them into account at all. All I focused on was my immediate expansion. All I cared about was tomorrow, or next week at best, back then. I had considered the limitations once, a long time before, but I didn't think I'd actually managed to reach them. Ever. And only when I came up against them did it dawn on me just how much of a fool I had been. Had I anticipated it, I could have done something either to expand my limitations, or to limit my growth to such an extent that hitting this brick wall would not be a problem. Yes, I had put myself in a very bad situation and I understood it. But my power shone in understanding.

I learned a valuable lesson back then. A good leader must always plan for the future and anticipate problems. A good leader must have a solution to a problem or a way to avoid a problem ready and waiting to be implemented before the problem ever occurs. A good leader should never focus on the here and now. Focusing on current problems and sinking a lot of work and effort into them usually produces results, but an unforeseen problem that requires a completely different solution can, and always does, put all that effort to waste. And I had big, big plans for expansion, and I had worked hard to raise the annual profit of Southside Inc., but now I was forced to drop all that and just focus all my energy on just keeping it together.

I bore witness to a very curious event. No sooner had our progress slowed down and people were already getting disillusioned. I had proven to be a weak leader, one incapable of dealing with adversity. Some of my followers were no longer seeing a future in me. I was quite taken aback by all of this. How could these people be so ready to tare apart what they had worked to build, what I had worked to build for so long? Looking back on it now, it was quite natural. I was losing my respect with my people, and with that I was losing my power. Morale, and that was the first time I had ever thought about it, was falling fast. The reason? I had shown weakness. I had shown inability. I had, in fact, put myself in the positions I had put my competitors before. A position from which I could oust them easily. And while I had put myself in this position by myself, others were not late in trying to replace me.

One morning I woke up to the sound of gunfire outside my hotel room. I grabbed my gun and headed out into the corridor to find a group of armed thugs heading for my room. My guards were dead and I had no way to escape, so I prepared for a fight. Leading them was one of the new mercenaries I had hired recently, a very charismatic young man named Joey D. Apparently, he felt he could challenge me. I was determined to prove him wrong. I managed to get a call out to one of my most loyal men, and then the firefight started. I was cornered, outgunned and outnumbered, but I was prepared to fight to the death before I'd give up my power. I suffered multiple gunshot wounds, but I still managed to hold out for an hour and a half until my own hit squad arrived. Once they entered the action, they slaughtered the conspirators in mere minutes, including Joey himself who had tried to run and got caught at a locked fire exit.

I was lucky, if you can call it that, that the first conspirator to try and take my position had been so inept. Trying to challenge a leader with as much power as I had back then in such a fashion is always a recipe for disaster. Even if Joey had succeeded, he wouldn't have become a leader. Someone else would have simply shot him in turn and taken his place. Someone more experienced than him. A better leader, and there was no shortage of those in Southside Inc. In hindsight, that may have been part of the problem, and something I might do well to avoid in the future. I have never really put it into words before, but having too many leaders serving you is a bad idea, even when they add a lot to your power.

But what Joey had done was a wake-up call. Something was very wrong within my organisation, and I had to do something about it. My position, it dawned on me, was sinking fast, and having an attempted hit on my life would only make it sink that much faster. As I scrambled to "do something," I was reminded of Eric from the Pit, and how he returned one day to find himself in a hopeless situation. And I was reminded of Owen, and how he had suddenly realised that someone had pulled his entire gang from right under his feet. Once again, I was the loser from my experience. Sooner or later, a winner would rise up from the masses. But I knew what the losers had done wrong – I had seen them do it. And I was determined not to repeat their mistakes.

Winner... I remember that word stuck in my head for some reason. I kept thinking about how I was the loser and someone else would soon become the winner. But what could I do? The simplest solution seemed to be to simply find that winner and kill him before he had a chance to win. That part proved to be easy enough. I simply looked into those of my followers who had a monkey on their back. I looked at their agendas and it soon became pretty clear that some of them were actually looking for ways to usurp my power. I contemplated just paying them a visit and shooting them dead in their beds, but that would have decreased my standing even more. Random violence against your own followers does serve to scare them, but it also serves to motivate them to want to remove you even more. And with my standing as shaky as it was, I could ill afford to make my situation any worse.

I needed a way to root out the conspirators with enough evidence to show the rest of my followers what these people were planning. Then I would move against them in force, and set an example of what happens to traitors. Funnily, I used traitors to get that evidence. A long time before that point, it had become clear to me that people followed me to accomplish their own agendas. I had always tried to alter my politics in such a way as to accommodate my followers' agendas, but it wasn't until then that I realised people could actually be bough. Of course, not always with money. Rank, gifts, power, favours... There were a lot of things people wanted. Before I had tried to make it so that working for me would give them these things. Now I would personally give them these things in exchange for favours of their own. After all, I had a lot of resources at my personal disposal, yet I had never thought to use them to buy off my own followers. I was used to having nothing to work with but my own power and prestige, and those could not be "given." My followers benefited from them simply by being my followers.

So I bought off a few people on the inside and they ratted out a few conspirators. Those conspirators turned out to be pretty high-level employees of Southside Inc. Not surprising, in retrospect, seen as how they had the most power and money to start and sustain a conspiracy. Luckily, they were not aware of each other, so they didn't suspect the meeting I called them to was a trap. As soon as they entered the conference room, they were faced with my trusty old hit squad and shot to pieces. That was supposed to serve as a lesson for my followers not to plot against me. And it worked, for a time. But then I faced an even bigger problem, one that still haunts me to this day: conspiracy is like a Hydra. As soon as you cut off one head, three more sprout in its place. I had killed the conspirators, but that just had their followers split up and form new conspiracies. And as time went on, new conspiracies formed on their own. I kept rooting them out, and they just kept multiplying.

Before I knew it, I was a leader not of a company, but of a rabble. The conspiracies were running so rampant that some of my followers were no longer hiding them, and some people were even fighting among themselves as to who was to take my position after I was dead. I sensed that the situation was reaching critical mass and I knew that I had to act. But what could I do? Rooting out the conspiracies was only tearing my company apart. But what else was there to do? Maybe I didn't have to root them out. Maybe I could draw them out. I pondered on that for a while, but I kept coming up with the same problem - the only way to draw the conspirators out was to have them execute their conspiracy and kill me. And while that would indeed have drawn them out, that was exactly the objective they had, and it was also my worst case scenario. No, I needed a bait that would not allow them to achieve their objective. But what?

And then it struck me. Why couldn't I conspire against them? After all, I had conspired before. I had conspired against Owen to get this position in the first place, and now I was facing more competition for it. I could simply conspire again. It was too late to prove my power and discredit the conspirators. The situation had become so critical that respect no longer mattered. Action was all that counted. And I had to solve this in one decisive action. I couldn't afford to fiddle with rooting out individual conspirators. I had to take care of all of them at once and root out conspiracy itself from my company. So, as they had followed my actions and plotted against me, so I would follow their actions and plot against them. My course of action became clear to me.

That night I got to work. I hired outside spies to keep tabs on the conspirators when they left my buildings. I had spy cameras secretly installed everywhere I could. To top it all off, I paid as many spies as I could afford to keep tabs on the conspirators and report to me. And then the next day I did something I never thought I'd do - I made a mistake on purpose. I made a lot of mistakes, in fact. I gave in to demands for better pay some of the conspirators had made. I promoted others who wanted better positions. I shared my profits with still others. I made a lot of concessions that day. And I made sure everyone knew about it. On the outside, it looked like I had finally lost and I was giving up. Now all that was left for the conspirators to do was to act out their plans and move to take me down. They had made pacts, organised their operation and even divided the company before they even started. And I knew all about it. In fact, I had counted on it.

Two days after I put my plan into action, the conspirators made their move. Every single one of them and all of their supporters crawled out of the woodwork and exposed themselves to me clear as day. Just the way I wanted them to. Their operation was massive, it involved over half of my company and countless freelancers and outside mercenaries. They moved to occupy my buildings and businesses and they moved to attack and kill me. It was a very bold move on their part, but unfortunately one that I had already predicted. Everywhere the conspirators and their followers went, my own specially-trained hit squads were waiting in ambush.

Oh, those hit squads were a thing of beauty. I had trained them myself and outfitted them with weapons and equipment far superior to that I had bought for my other followers. I had the items special-ordered from abroad, and they were state of-the-art. My hit squads had always been fiercely loyal to me for a long time, and I always kept them as my trump cards for when things really got out of hand. They occupied separate buildings and reported directly to me and no-one else. They were, if you will, my personal guard. They were the hand of their master - my hand - and they struck with lethal precision every time I used them. And because I always kept them out of direct contact with my regular followers, the conspirators had no idea of just how strong I had made them. My hit squads were the ace up my sleeve. I had bluffed my own weakness, and the conspirators had fallen for it. They had bet everything on one hand, but the hand I had was simply stronger.

In all encounters, my hit squad commandos destroyed the conspirator forces with overwhelming strength and surprise. They were unable to occupy a single building or business. They were unable to establish a single strongpoint. They had exposed all of their forces me, they had had played all of their cards. They had bet everything they had onto this one single operation. And they had lost everything. The conspirator leaders were, as per my orders, taken alive. All of their followers were shot dead and left to rot where they fell. For their sins, I strung up the ringleaders of this conspiracy by their feet in the main lobby of Southside Inc. and left them to hang until the veins in their heads started popped and their blood oozed out of their mouths and noses. I made sure everybody saw them.

I didn't have to say anything to what followers I had left. A great storm had passed and everybody knew it. Everybody knew of the events that had transpired. Everyone could see the ruin and devastation, both material and emotional, that this battle had caused. And when the fighting stopped and the dust settled, I alone remained standing. I didn't have to say anything, because my actions had spoken louder than anyone could ignore. There were no survivors of the conspiracy, but a few conspirators had not acted. That much was clear to me by then. There would always be more conspirators. But they had seen how I deal with conspiracy. In those dead bodies hanging in the lobby, they could see themselves. And I knew that they would not act. Not anymore.

I found myself the leader of the shocked remains of a once proud organisation. I had achieved a pyrrhic victory and everybody knew it. But it was a victory allthesame. My company may have lain in ruin, but it was once again unquestionably mine. And that was all that mattered. Then, that was all that mattered because it had been a close call. But in the years I have spent since, I have learned a very valuable lesson - it does not matter how much you lose or gain, but how much experience you leave the fight with. As long as you leave with your life, you can always rebuild. What matters is how well you can build the next time. Because on a strong foundation, anything will stand. In this case, I had left with invaluable experience. I had learned how to plan ahead and how to avoid putting myself in a situation where I had to deal with large-scale conspiracy and resistance. And I had also learned how best to recognise and deal with these when I faced them. And as I later learned, I would always have to face them. They were a fact of life.

I may have been left the leader of a shell-shocked rabble of survivors, but I was still a leader. I had built this company from a greater nothing than the recent cataclysm had left it, and the neighbourhood still provided enough opportunity to work with. I simply stepped down all my operations, drew on my money reserves and began rebuilding. Once again, the cartel's limitations were not a problem. We had gone years back in our development, so were no longer big enough to be bothered by this. But I already had an established system, so progress went fast. We had trouble with the police over our little firefight, but those were easily solved with the help of our big brothers in the cartel. Apparently, someone had been watching me struggle with my Southside Inc. and had liked what they had seen, because on top of my renewed success, I got a lot of cartel support.

Just as my company had been able to patch up all the damage and return to full function, my mysterious supporter and benefactor revealed himself and I learned the reason for his benefactions. My next meeting with the cartel held a little surprise. Along with the familiar cartel underbosses, a new face came to meet me. A familiar face, in fact. I was quite surprised to see an old acquaintance of mine - Lyle, now Lyle Macini. I later learned that after framing me for a murder he committed and damning me to a life of poverty, Lyle had wormed his way into the heart of one of the Pit's main benefactors, Don Corado Macini. So much had he impressed the old man that Corado had adopted him as his own son. I knew that Don Macini had died a few years before under mysterious consequences, and I had heard that the cartel had covered it up. I hadn't paid much attention to it at the time, but as soon as I saw Lyle's fat smile, it all clicked into place.

So the little weasel wanted to deal with me. I knew Lyle well. I hadn't forgotten how well he had pretended to be loyal to me, and I had not forgotten how he had betrayed me. Of course, I was never the kind of man to hold grudges, but even then I knew how Lyle operated. If he wanted to deal with me, then he had to have a reason for it. If he had been prompted by my recent actions, then he obviously needed a strong leader. But why me? Was he looking for someone familiar to work with, or did he think that he could double-cross me again. All of these questions passed through my head as I gave him a polite smile and listened to his proposal.

Lyle explained that the cartel was pleased with me and wanted to deal with me. It was pretty obvious from the way he talked that it wasn't the cartel but he who was pleased with me, and that he had an agenda with me. He offered to pass one of the bigger cartel drug smuggling outposts right smack-dab in the middle of my territory. We were both aware of the implications of that, and of the danger it presented to me, personally, and Lyle was aware I suspected him. He had something up his sleeve. However, what I don't think he was aware of was that offering me a deal like this would give me direct access to the cartel. Or rather, he wasn't aware of the implications that entailed. It would give me access to power, and it would give me prestige. It would transform me from a regular dirty businessman into an associate of the cartel. That's a lot of power that Lyle was so carelessly giving away. I played suspicious and uncertain just to play to his expectations, and he bought every word of it. Lyle new I was no fool, so he expected me to suspect his intentions. However, he never thought to suspect mine. And that was a mistake that would cost him dearly.

We contracted the deal, and just like that, Lyle had handed me my ticket to the top. As the clumsy waiter said to the angry customer: sometimes things just fall in your lap. I had been handed a golden opportunity right out of the blue, and while it was not without its strings, I was about to capitalise on it so greatly that it would stun the crime world across the city

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I assumed my new position as an associate to Lyle and a junior member of the cartel, but a big shadow hung over me. Like everything else I had ever been given in my life, that position was tainted. Tainted by plots, schemes and intrigue. Tainted, and laden with traps just waiting for me to walk over, just waiting to blow up in my face. Lyle had put me in the centre of a minefield, and he intended for me to walk for as long as my luck would carry me, before the end.

Of course, none of that was evident in any way, but I could read Lyle like a book. He had managed to fool me so badly once before, but I had gained a lot of skill, knowledge and understanding since then. Lyle, however, did not seem to have evolved at all. He was still the same sleazy, smooth-talking, yet strikingly arrogant and condescending kid I remembered from the Pit. All of his explanations, all of his assurances, everything he said gave away his agenda. And while I had no way of knowing what his exact intentions were, one thing was for certain - Lyle was setting me up to take a fall for him. Somehow.

Of course, in the eyes of the cartel, I was still a lowly gangster. One such as myself was always overseen, so I had no real ability to gain intelligence on Lyle. The cartel would know, and that would put me in far too much trouble for what it was worth. I was out of options and my hands were tied. I had no other option but to follow the path Lyle was drawing for me. I was present at Cartel meetings, but as his associate, Lyle always kept me by the wayside. Normally, I would have interpreted that as simple arrogance on his part, but given the circumstances, I was more inclined to interpret it as Lyle keeping me away from any source of power.

While the cartel was making the arrangements for setting up "my" new drug operation, I had tried everything within my power to gain some insight into Lyle's plan. I had my men scour the streets for clues and snitches, I tried personally placing bugs on his person, I even tried to talk him into blurting out something important. Nothing work. Lyle may not have been the most subtle person, but he was among the most tight-lipped people I've ever met. While his agenda was always clear from his mannerisms, he managed to keep the precise details of his plans to himself and always keep me guessing.

A week prior to the new drug operation's launch, I began feeling depressed. I felt that as soon as the operation launched, I would be beset by serious trouble. Lyle's mannerisms seemed to be building up to that point as well. So, out of options, I got to thinking based only on the information I had. Lyle had contacted me directly after my big clean-up operation of the many conspiracies plaguing my organisation. I knew he had been the Don of the Macini family for a few years, and with my Southside Inc. being on his turf, he had had full knowledge of me since long before that. Clearly my aggressive act of leadership was the catalyst that had driven his decision. So he wanted an aggressive and capable leader, but to what end?

As a member of the cartel, Lyle had free reign to do just about anything to the street gangs. If he wanted me to do something for him, then logically it would be something he couldn't do himself. The only thing that could be, given his standing, was some sort of aggressive act against the cartel itself, or against one of its families. Certainly cartel families were known to battle over turfs all the time, but I had a feeling that Lyle needed me to do something quite extreme. Something that would put him in a very unfortunate position if he did it, himself. But if I did his dirty work, I would incur the wrath of the cartel and he would be free to capitalise on my work without facing the consequences.

I stopped to reflect at all the leaps of logic I had gone through to reach that point. Certainly the idea I had come up with was possible, but was it even plausible? I began to look for corroboration. Would Lyle even do something like that? Actually, he would. That's exactly what he had done to me back in the Pit. It's also how I had observed him working when he pretended to serve me, that's the kind of reputation he had on the street, and that's what appeared to have happened to old Don Macini. Then I looked at what was known about the cartel's internal relations. I found out, to no-one's surprise, that the families were not getting along well. One particularly nasty feud was constantly going on between the Macini and Tureli families. It had started long before Lyle became head of the family, but it had dogged him throughout his entire career.

OK, that was a possible contender for who he expected me to tangle with. But how did he expect to achieve that? As a junior member of the cartel, I had access to a lot of their operations which concerned my area. As the recipient to the newest and biggest drug smuggling outpost in all of New York, I also had access to a lot of the cartel's drug smuggling operations' details. Looking through all the files, I noticed a curious anomaly - the operation about to be launched in my territory would render several other operations obsolete. The one that caught my eye was that based in a neighbourhood East of mine, held by a gang called the Red Scorpions. The drug operation they had housed for the past 12 years was their main, and only source of income. I did a little research about them and found out that they did not have the reputation of being especially diplomatic. In fact, they were just a very large collection of uneducated thugs and tattooed punks, always looking for a brawl. And Lyle had just given them a very good reason to look for one in my own back yard.

OK, that sounded eerily suspicious. Lyle could not have missed that. He had full access to all cartel operations, as well as all gang files. In fact, it was his job to account for problems just like this one and seek solutions to them before they occur. It was good business and a cartel regulation. But Lyle had never discussed this with me. Had I not searched, I would have had no idea of the danger that loomed, and probably been caught completely unprepared by the Red Scorpions' inevitable attack. Clearly, Lyle wanted this to happen. But why? Did he want me out of the picture? Or maybe the Red Scorpions? Implausible. As a member of the Cartel, he had the power to put an end to either of us, as well as the authority to order it done. No, he needed me to do something else. I spent a lot of time wracking my brain, looking for the answer when all that time it had been staring me in the face. It was a name that was on all the files about the Red Scorpions: Tureli.

The Red Scorpions belonged to Don Paulo Tureli. They were his pride and joy. His son, Tony Tureli, a.k.a. King Cobra, was the leader of the Red Scorpions. He was a complete nutcase that had a reputation for violence, cruelty and rash, uncoordinated action throughout the entire city. He had been through more fights and shootouts with the police than all the other gangs combined. He was in jail every other week, and it seemed that every time evidence against him went missing, or witnesses recounted their stories or were outright found murdered, the police and jury were bough or he was broken out of jail. He appeared to have a guardian angel looking out for him. Though in his case, that angel took the form of one of the most powerful crime bosses on the East Coast.

That sent a cold chill down my spine. Suddenly all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and the picture they showed was that of a complete disaster. As soon as the new drug operation was launched, I would come under attack from the Red Scorpions. They had raided other gangs' territories for much less. Defeating their attack was not an issue - the Red Scorpions were little more than street thugs whereas I had professional soldiers, lead by my now considerable combat experience. Lyle no doubt felt the same way. He wanted me to crush the Red Scorpions, I just knew it. And we both now knew what would follow. As soon as I crushed his son's little carnival of social rejects, Don Tureli would step in and attempt to shut me down. And that meant he was going to kill me. This is where the beauty of Lyle's plan really shone, however. And even after all this time, I still admire his planning and calculation. He knew that I was strong enough to defend myself against the Tureli family, as well. He counted on it.

Lyle expected me to fight the Don's goons and come out victorious. Then he would blame me for the fight and hand my head to the cartel, clearing his name and then seizing the opportunity to move against Tureli after his family had been weakened by his battle with me. That's why he needed me - because he knew I was both capable and aggressive. Because he knew I could put the hurt to the Tureli family. Lyle was planning to sacrifice me to the wolves and use me as a stepping stone to the top. How very much like him. And, unfortunately for him, how very predictable. Lyle, it seemed, did not expect me to have learned my lesson. But I did. I had been fooled by his machinations once before. I was not about to be fooled again.

It occurs to me now that this was a turning point in my abilities as a leader. Until then I had been able to gain sufficient intelligence on my opponents, either through spies or reconnaissance. I had always had enough information to base my decisions on, so I had never had to actually think. But adversity drives creation, and my adversity drove me invent new ways to anticipate my foes. I had to learn to understand my enemies, to read their characters in how they reflect in their actions. I had already mastered the ability to read people's agendas, but I needed a lot more. I needed to predict not just what they wanted, but exactly how they intended to get it I needed to get inside their heads and read their next few moves. It is a skill that I have found myself unable to define in the many years since I acquired it, but it is still one of my quintessential tools as a leader. My ability to predict my opponents' reactions, and with that knowlege to set up events in such a way as to make my opponents fall into my traps of their own initiative.

I now had the knowledge of Lyle's overarching trap. Next I needed to plan the moves that would get me out of the trap and still allow me to snatch the bait that was luring me there. I needed to play to Lyle's expectations, but deviate from them just enough so that I can let him take the heat for the ensuing chaos and allow me to capitalise on it as he had intended. I needed to look for weaknesses in Lyle's plan, and one of them became evident as soon as spoke to him next, on the day prior to the launch. Lyle quite obviously underestimated me. Even though he counted on my aggression and power, he didn't really consider me an equal. He considered me to be just another gangster scumbag that he had to step on, climbing the ladder of his own power. Very well, then. I would play that to my advantage. Lyle wanted a gang war, and he would get a gang war. And I was going to make him choke on it.

On the day of the launch, as soon as the first trucks came in, I held a powerful speach before the cartel. I spoke of the future, of the new opportunities that we were going to get, of progress, and of how we had abandoned the old, inefficient ways of trafficing. I made sure to point out how much better the operation was in my territory than it had been in that of the Red Scorpions, and how much better I was than them. I mocked them and talked them down as much as the opportunity presented itself. And, of course, King Cobra was present at the launch right along with me - the drug line still ran through his territory, he had just lost his outpost. He jumped up to attack me several times, but was held back by the cartel's suits. He was angry. Just the way I wanted him to be. He was a hot head with explosive temper, ready to fight anyone and anything over the slightest provocation. And I had just given him as big a provocation as it comes. He was not amused.

And as I spoke, Lyle looked like he was about to have a coronary. It was so amusing watching his face change colour between white, blue and red as I lay down my taunts and insults against the Red Scorpions. I was putting his plan in jeopardy, and he was terrified of it. I think he became afraid that I would not be able to defeat the Red Scorpions if they attacked in sufficient force. But I was happy he was worried. The more stressed out he is, the less he is able to control the situation. I got a mean and nasty lecture from him the same evening. He threatened me, shouted at me and warned me. I was not to provoke the Red Scorpions anymore. He would not explain why. I knew why, of course, but I still made it a point to ask him a few times, just to frustrate him a little bit more. I swore I had not intended to provoked them and promised to do everything within my power to prevent a war with the Red Scorpions. At the same time, my men were spraying graffiti in their territory and harassing their members, telling them how soon we'll be taking over their territory.

Oh, boy, I was laughing on the inside so much that I'm surprised I managed to keep a straight face. Looking at Lyle sweat and swear in mortal fear of having his plan fall apart around him didn't help. It wasn't easy to assure him that everything would be fine when I knew just how far to hell things were about to get soon. But I wanted to keep him calm. I let him sweat for a while, just to let him taste the fear, then reassured him and sent him on his way. Big man Lyle had suddenly shrunk down to a little, helpless child. I think I laughed for 15 minutes straight the moment he left the building. I'm surprised my rib cage held. But I was just unable to see Lyle as anything more than a big, fat joke anymore. A very funny joke to which I knew the ending, and the punch line of which was fast approaching.

My provocation against the Red Scorpions worked wonders. I heard from my informants that Hot Head Cobra had blown his top that night and sworn to have my head on a pike. He had gathered all of his men and all of his forces and prepared them for war. Of course, I knew all about that. His men weren't very loyal and easily bought. His "army" consisted of punks armed with clubs and knives. Some had pistols or machine pistols and a select few, including King Viper himself, had rifles. I almost felt bad about them, watching them walk through the street towards my headquarters building. The poor fools were completely unprepared for what was about to happen to them.

Right on que, three armoured cars that I had specially made for the occasion blocked a big intersection, trapping the Red Scorpions in what had become a dead-end street. Then my men brought the brand new heavy machineguns I had bought for them to the windows of the surrounding buildings and opened fire on the trapped crowd below. The jam-packed Scorpions found themselves unable to backtrack, as the mass of their thugs kept surging forward into the killing field, creating a massive, impenetrable crowd. They were cut down in their dozens by machinegun fire. Panic-stricken and confused, some of them managed to turn around and ran for their lives back to their territory, only to be met by my hit squads, who had moved into position behind the Red Scorpions. Their orders were clear - hunt down all Scorpions and kill them; bring King Cobra alive. As what was left of the Scorpions scattered in all over my territory, my hit squads patiently and thoroughly combed the neighbourhood, found them all and shot them where they stood.

King Cobra was delivered to me, battered and wounded, but alive. I held no malice towards him. He was an arrogant, disrespectful fool, of course, but he was just making his own bid for survival and freedom. I respected that, but I needed him to deliver a message for me allthesame. I had his back tattooed with a message for all the remaining Red Scorpions that I would soon be coming to take their territory. I then had him shot and thrown in front of the Red Scorpions' headquarters off the back of a speeding van. My message was delivered, and it quickly made its way to the top. Of course, I intended to take over the Red Scorpions' territory, but not quite the way they thought I would. They expected me to take my soldiers and storm their buildings, whereas I was planning to take over all of the Tureli family's assets, and the Red Scorpions with it.

Of course, the moment Don Tureli learned of his son's death and my move on his turf, his response was immediate. It took the form of a ghostly-pale Lyle stumbling into my office and shouting profanities in my direction. I just smiled back at him and assured him all was under control. Lyle was shaking, but he told me that Don Tureli had given me an ultimatum - surrender myself to him immediately or he would come and get me. No doubt he wanted to see me die slowly and painfully for the death of his son. All too predictable of the old man. I had also put Lyle in a very tight spot. He had intended for the fight between myself and the Tureli family to be just a minor encounter where I would get killed and hurt the family in the process. I had turned that into a full-scale family war. A war that Lyle could ill-afford.

As Lyle had presented me with an offer I could not really refused when first we met in the cartel, so I now presented him with a situation in which he had only one course of action - my way. He ran away to work on ways to save his own neck from all of the heat I was generating, leaving me free to conduct my own operation in peace. I have to say, watching Lyle shake like a leaf and almost beg me to help him out of the hole I had dug him into was entertaining. The mighty Lyle Macini was scared out of his mind, and desperately looking for a way to undo the plan that had caused him so much trouble. For some reason, it amused me to marvel at the irony of Lyle's existence. He had made his career out of conning and using people. And in the end I had managed to con him, using his own scheme. He had always passed himself off as a powerful man, but when he lost, he broke down into a snivelling, begging coward, desperately holding on to whatever scraps of power he had left. I promised myself that even if I lose everything, I would let it go with dignity and pride.

That was a lesson that only time and loss could, and eventually would really teach me, of course. But it was also a lesson that Lyle had shown me. I had seen how he had acted when he lost, and it disgusted me. Even in my darkest hours, even in my deepest desperation, even when I had thought that my life would soon be over, I hadn't sacrificed my dignity. Dignity is the root of prestige, authority and charisma. A leader without dignity never stays one for long. As soon as a leader disgraces himself, his standing plummets and his own followers eat him up and replace him.

Lyle had started down this path. For him, all was already lost, but he was still desperately clinging to his power. Even if he had managed to save some of it in the end, it would not have lasted. There comes a point when a leader has lost everything. He has to recognise that ahead of time and make the best use of what he has left while he still has it. Every time I have lost everything, I have fought for it for as long as I could, then fought for my own survival and started over. A lost empire pales in comparison to a compromised personal character. Lyle built his empire at the expense of his own character. I build my empires out of the very ground, and should I have to, I build my own character at their expense.

But as educational as it was to watch Lyle squirm, I had problems that needed to be solved. I stood no chance against the Tureli family's trained soldiers. Fighting Don Tureli would not be on an entirely different level than any other fight I had ever fought before. The Don drew on the money and resources of his entire criminal empire. He shipped weapons and soldiers from all over the country. He built himself an army powerful enough to invade a small country. Clearly I had provoked him into playing his best hand. That was what I had intended all along. Now it was time to play my own trump card.

What followed was a battle that would shake New York city to its very foundations and change the balance of powers in the city's criminal word irrevocably.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.