Name: Erik "Hangfire"
Race: Human
Age: 28
Class: Street Samurai/Rigger
Weapons:
2x Ares Predator V
HK 227
Yamaha Raiden
Combat Knife
Knucks
Forearm Snap Blades
Tech:
Cybereyes
- Image Link
- Thermographic Vision
Smartlink system
Commlink
Datajack
Equipment:
Credstick
Armored Jacket.
A rather unnecessary amount of ammunition
Drone
- AK-97
- Image Link
- Thermographic Vision
Background: I grew up in the Redmond Barrens, ya bet you heard that line a couple hundred times. I was a little punk running around trying to not get geeked for whatever reason someone fancied. i got initiated into my block's gang soon enough though, Crimson Smiles, a bunch of low level street gangers thought we were hot drek. I managed to work my way a bit up in the gang. Ya, I geeked a few people but never anyone who did not do something to earn it, got my guns, got my knives, and kept myself from turning into a chip head or getting geeked by some of the other gangs. I had goals and shit, I was not taking drek from anyone. At least I was not until my gang's turf turned out to be in the way of the Ancient's who were in the area to kill some people. The whole gang was gone overnight, we never had a fracking chance against them, I lived everyone else I am pretty sure died.
I put together what I could from the remains and got myself enough nuyen to make myself at least look like a low end razorboy. Even in the Redmond Barrens there is never a shortage of the need for a guy with a gun, some muscle, and the willingness to use it. I got good fast, if I did not I would be dead, it was hard to crawl up from the bottom of the fucking barrel that is being SINless in Redmond Barrens but I started to through just plain fucking tenacity. People learned my name not from some gimmick, not from some try to shoot up in fame, or because of amazing skill. I got known and got better jobs because I am reliable, I do my job and I do it well cutting right to the chase. You want some drekhead in a fancy getup with some cool streetname look somewhere else. You want a guy who will geek any schmuck you point me at and get it done with no strings attached I was and still am your guy. I was still one in thousands though before I got my first real break to hit the Cutters.
I was part of a distraction group to take out a big chunk of their leadership, we hit the front door and make a lot of noise, our Johnson picked a lot of up and coming razorboys and girls for this gig and sent some pros in the back. We figured we would do well, pop off some shots, kill a few of them and when we learned the Cutters leaders were dead we would retreat, what a punch of fools we were. It was a catastrophic from the word go they were a lot better outfitted and did not fall for such a simple trap. The fact they kept a lot of their guys back and that the real pros thinned a lot of their numbers before they went down helped what I did though. If we were fucked I was making sure I did something first. See we attacked some warehouse complex, old abandoned, you know the type. I used the catwalks and got around to where the pros had been taken out at, they had some pretty nice gear so I got to using that shit. One of them had brought a fucking rocket launcher on an assassination mission, no wonder they got themselves geeked. Anyway if it has a trigger I can generally use it so I made use of it.
The Cutters were pushing their advantage they had rather distinctly now with their leaders making a show of being at the front. Big frakking mistake, the rocket blast killed like three of them, whatever the hell the rocket touched off took care of the rest and a hell of a lot of the Cutters in the process plus a few of the hired hands who came with me. i got thrown out a fucking plate glass window and landed on a pile of rusted steel. Those of us who lived got together and got out of there as fast as possible before the ghouls came of the Choppers got reorganized. We got back to our Johnson and got our payday and I parted that day with a couple new buddies, they were good guys and girls back then and still pretty much are, it pays to have people who owe you their life.
After spending almost every cent I had at a street doc I decided it was time for some payback that had been long awaiting. I still had a grudge with the Ancients who had killed my pals a long time ago and had heard from my new friends that there was a few hanging out northeast of touristville. Calling up a few of my new buddies and some people I knew had a beef with The Ancients I decided to let them know they could not just roll through doing whatever they want without consequences existing for them. Setting up a nice little ambush we waited for them, they were doing so ridiculous drag race and with the signal for the race to start we opened up on them. There was not a lot of them there so we had at least a 2 to 1 advantage in numbers on them and dropped quite a few at the beginning. Some of them tried to retreat and hole up in a shop, so I burned it down, collapsed the building right on top of them and shot anyone who tried to get out. Of the last few of them one would not shut up about how we would get ours and if we knew who he was. After shooting him in the face someone pointed out he was a lieutenant with the Ancients I figured that just made it better. What a moron I was when I did that.
My name was out there like hotfire in Redmond after that, geeked the entire top echelons of Cutters single handedly with a rocket launcher. Ambushed and shot an Ancients lieutenant n the face. I was a hot item suddenly and landed better jobs than I ever had in the past I was suddenly noteworthy muscle and I already had the rep for being reliable to build on. By Redmond standards I was somebody, I could walk straight into The Skeleton with just a nod from the bouncer and my average pays went up as well after those jobs. I was a god damn shooting star and felt invincible, before too long I would be an A list shadowrunner, serious muscle anyone would want to hire but only the best could afford. I got lax, complacent, I was just plain dumb.
The Ancients eventually got around to teaching me a lesson, as big as I was in my head I was still a nobody and the Ancients are patient, I was too small for any real hitters to come for but eventually they put some guys up to it. I had not bothered to change my place until one day five Ancients were blowing my door down. One of my best advantages at the time was they had no idea I had gotten augmented recently because until recently I could not afford any real cyber. My brand new cybereyes, thermographic vision with smartlink to my new Ares Predator III made the firefight between the thin walls of my apartment about as one-sided as I could hope for in a 5 on 1 fight, the high caliber pistol punched through the walls easily and the guys sent after me? Four initiates and the fifth was just there as a watcher to see they did the job right.
I got off lucky and instantly got my head down, I had five rapidly cooling corpses though and figured I would do something with them. I planned to take them to the local chop shop for some Nuyen but about halfway there something hit me. Those chop shops pretty much just sell the meat anyway since cyber replacements are more common and just plain better. The only people I knew the chop shops would sell bodies to were ghouls, I know a lot of people have problems with them but I struck out into ghoul turf anyway. A guy with a dead body draws attention around there and it was not long before one of the ghouls got the guts to come out and talk to me, they offered a decent price to me and I soon had those corpses off my hands and they had their meal. One of them asked to to stay, I was paranoid at first but he agreed to talk out in the open with me, not many people are willing to deal with ghouls as I am sure you are aware. I came to them which was a good sign to them, so we cut a few deals. Ghouls do not have need for much and are very interconnected they could get me second hand cyberware and other junk to fence for them and see about getting them more food. I talked to them and got a new place to lay low on the fringes of their turf and hat little shack has saved my life on more than one occasion.
Once heat with the ancients came down to just a ready simmer I came back, my cred had taken a hit due to my disappearance but when I turned up alive things mostly turned normal. I still had Nuyen burning in my pocket so I talked to some people as I needed a regular person who I could buy gear from and sell gear to, i needed a regular solid fence who was at my level. Eventually came into contact with an ork who I an instantly took a liking to for our first two meetings we honestly did almost no business instead traded stories and drinks. Then I got a cyberware shipment from my new ghoul pals and sold it to my new buddy Timothy, took my cut and bought a lightly used Ares Predator V, it was a beautiful piece I still carry. After that I called up all my street samurai buddies and told them about this plan I had to get us all working together. We would not be a real crew but we would be together. It was something like a guild, or a clan, or a union. Just something to keep us together so that extra firepower, a friend, or something was just a call away, making things easier for drek like sharing gigs if we knew of an open slot. I promptly set the whole crew up with Timothy my arms dealer and he could not have been happier to suddenly have our business like that.
We were only a handful but we were a scary group and we knew it, the small gangs did not mess with us. Hell, most liked us, we or at least I was a known enemy of the Ancients and the Cutters and we were not big on a lot of the worse elements of the Redmonds you know, hardcore BTL slingers we were not kind to regularly taking contracts on them, bunraku partners, and humanis types. We are not good guys, just better than most and able to do something about drek we do not like. This made some folk angry so they came for us a few times, the ghouls ate good when that happened and I got my payday. Hooked up with a street doc, Emily Tsukino, she pissed off the yaks pretty bad and she sought safety, paid us with her life savings to protect her, so we did and had to cut down the yaks who came for her. She was pretty good and since the yaks still want her we get to stay well supplied with our own street doc. It also helps her that she is pretty good looking and for quite awhile after we saved her she was very grateful to me.
Things kept rolling up for me nicely, nothing complicated going on other than dodging the Ancients and sometimes the yaks since we took one of their bunraku makers and shamed part of that Boryokudan. Making enemies like that was good for business though, rival syndicates, rings, and mafioso loved to hire enemies of their enemy, in the underworld it was like spitting in their enemy's face like that. With a safe place and some free time I started getting into machines, something I had always wanted to but never really been able to. I could not become a true rigger but I could fiddle with little flyers. Before it got slagged I had a nice little spy flyer that would scout ahead of me for missions, a real edge when shit hit the fan.
The little thing earned back it's value on one mission, my first corp run with a real Johnson. Me and some of mine were the muscle protecting a courier as he made pickups and drop offs. He came in from Puget Sound and we went all over Seattle, mostly the worst parts with him making drop offs and pickups. It was a milk run with a thermographic spy drone that went ahead of me to our destinations ruining all three ambushes meant for us. At the end of it we all got paid and our escortee turned around and handed me one of his credsticks saying he needed a well defended place to stay. Turns out the drekhead was a smuggler and had used his pull to leave Hong Kong to setup a branch office here for his group. It was thanks to him i got a brand new factory fresh Yamaha Raiden. Little Yīnyǐng gives us gifts of gear that fell off boats and trucks and in return we ignore the packages that come in and out of NAN and Tir Tairngire territory. He is a good guy, has jobs for us every so often pays in good Nuyen and anytime he has a minor issue we fix it for him. All in all I like my little network, small scale enough that nobody big cares about it and strong enough that anyone who cares cannot do Drek about it.
What qualifies you for this position? i am damn good at what I do. I am reliable, I do not fail jobs and while my skillset as a normal street samurai does not make me anything special I am better than most. My skills as a rigger give me that one edge I need over the enemy and that means it is one more edge you have and you always need one more edge. You hire me for muscle so it is simple, I do what I am told for Nuyen and take care of issues that come up in my area of expertise, I am qualified because you will not encounter many people who can outgun me which means if your opponents want to counter you they are going to have to bring a lot more guys than you, because I always make sure to bring plenty of ammo.
