Oliver Finch

---

Oliver yelled and ran from behind the building corner he was using as cover. His yelling, combined with the manic waving of his crowbar, was enough to scare the looters around the car off. When he was satisfied they weren't coming back, he smiled. The old sedan was more than a little beat up. The engine had been lifted long ago, and the windows were shattered, but the trunk was still locked tight. The looters had been attempting to bash it open with hammers.

He walked towards it, crowbar in hand.

"Unlooted trunk. My lucky day, innit?" He said, shoving the prybar bit of the crowbar between the trunk and the bumper. He put all his weight on it. For one terrifying moment, he though the crowbar was going to break. It didn't. The trunk popped open, the rusted lock shattered, to reveal...

A spare tire, a blanket, and a tire iron.

He sighed in disappointment. He was hoping for food, he was on his last package of barely expired jerky. He folded the blanket and shoved it into his near-bursting duffel bag.

James 'Iykos' Frost

---

James, better known as Iykos, the Wolf of the World's Prison, turned his head towards the distinct sound of shouting and a broken car lock, contemplating his course of action for the briefest of moments before he dismissed it, his hand gently sliding off of the grip of the M1911 handgun strapped to his left thigh as he continued though the desolate streets of the prison city.

He weaved through the crumbling grey buildings with practiced ease, occasionally stopping to duck out of sight of a roaming Black Out Connection member or two. Despite the pseudo-truce between Iykos and 'The Network', he didn't want to be caught off guard and become some entrepreneuring gangster's ticket to a promotion. God knows he's got a big enough target on his back already.

As he finally passed though the maze of buildings, he came to his destination: A seemingly nondescript and rundown cul-de-sac, complete with looted and rusting cars and piles of trash. On the red-stained bonnet of one such car was a man, who turned him with a sour expression.

Iykos nodded to him and spoke with a confident voice, with a hint of sarcasm, as his mouth curled into a subtle smirk.

"James Tarvelli. I'm glad you agreed to meet with me to... settle our differences."

---

Three men had gathered around James, he hadn't seen them before. 'They must be new or else they'd have never had the courage to approach me.' He thought as he studied the three men.

The man on the left was fairly big and thick of arm with a scar running down on his face. 'He's their muscle." He thought as he studied the man in the middle. A skinny and bald man who looked like he hadn't eaten in a long while, yet he was grinning and his brown eyes shone with mischief. 'This one is their leader.' He thought, betraying no emotions.

The last man looked like a regular Joe, he wasn't especially strong, especially handsome, nor did he look all that smart. 'A mystery man... a dead mystery man if he's not careful.'

"Hello, big man!" The man in the middle greeted. "Meet my friend, Bull, the strongest man in this dump." He waved a hand at the large man. "But Bull doesn't like competition, you see and you are just that!"

As the man was talking, James approached Bull, towering over all three of them, even Bull. He was right in front of Bull, he was wide of shoulder, had thick arms but he was a head and a half shorter than he was.

"What he proposes is a match to see who is strongest, the wi..." but James moved deceptively fast, faster than anyone at his size would normally move. His fist connected with the Bull's skull and heartbeat later a crack was heard.

The Bull flew two feet back, with a slightly caved in forehead... he was dead. The small man almost instantly fouled his pants and started running. The mystery man had a devious grin before he ran after the small man.

'I just wanted to find me some food... not kill someone, well not now.' He thought and kept wandering the streets in search of unclaimed food, claimed food as well, to claim it from it's owner. It was just another day in prison for him.

---

With her back against the wall, Dawn hid in the shadows of a dusty, ruined house. She peered around the corner just in time to spot a muscular scar-faced man get his head literally punched in by an even more muscular, enormous man. She'd seen the enormous man a few times before, caught in gory fights that he seemed to be winning. She figured it would be best to keep out of his way.

Her stomach rumbled. How many days had it been since the last shipment of food crates came into the city? Using a secret makeshift entrance, she checked the food crate building every morning, but it seemed like they were coming in less and less frequently. She was skilled enough at stealing food, having had a lifetime of practice, but there seemed to be a dwindling amount of food to steal. She had been spending most of her days going from wrecked building to wrecked building, hunting for food and anything else that would make her life a bit easier.

She sighed and retreated into the roofless concrete. This building was more ruined than most. There was hardly anything here except rubble, and what looked like furniture covered in rubble. Maybe she would dig for a while and see what she could find.

She heard quick footsteps outside. Not knowing from which side they might enter, she ran and crouched amid the wreckage near the back door.

---

"Just cause we share the same name, doesn't mean we share the same mind set." James Tarvelli spoke, his hands up with the palms facing towards Iyokos- a smug face drawn across his face. The two had came together to settle differences, but the boy was on his turf, and no one was going to come around and make him a fool in his front lawn. "Clover, get your ass out here." the man yelled backwards towards the run down house. "I'm sure you met my daughter." James said, as he looked back towards the house. He repeated her name as the young girl bounded out from the house.

A shiny black eye adorned her face as she stopped short of where Iyokos stood. Earlier in the day the day her father had a disagreement with her and she was met with the marking. "Hey." Clover said quietly, as she leaned back on one of the cars that hadn't run for years and had been salvaged several times over. A lot of the times Clover was used as a distraction for some of the men that came to make deals with her father. It was unfortunate, but it often worked. This wouldn't be one of those moments, but it often was good to have numbers on your side when making arrangements.

"So what do you have in mind?" James said, his arms now crossed against his chest.

In the heart of the G-Block district of the prison city, sitting on the roof of a building in an outdoor lounge chair, surrounded by several notebooks with writing on them and a large umbrella shading him as he took a sip of lemonade, Bishop was in the middle of getting his recent deals accounted for. there were 3 members of the Black Out Crew with guns up on the roof with Bishop, one being an informant.

There was a visitor coming up, being watched with guns pointing at him, as this man wanted to speak to Bishop but was stopped short by the informant as the informant walked over to Bishop and let him know who it was as his chair was turned away from the visitor. "What's up, WADE?" Bishop said putting a strong emphasis on Wade's name. He walked over slowly "Hey uh...Bishop...um...you w-wanted to s-see me?" Bishop was counting and making marks on another notebook. "Yeah....I wanted to see you. I'm not gonna waste any time.......got my money, bitch?" Wade gulped a little "Well y-you see...I have a bit of a problem..." interrupting Wade, Well you see....we do have a problem indeed. You came to me...desperately because the group you bought drugs from...well...they were taken down recently by one of our colorful gangs here in this wonderful city and you came to me to get your cloud 9 on. From what you told me, you said...and I quote: "Bishop, if you hook me up, I swear.....I SWEAR that I will have money for you in 48 hours. I...am good for it." Ain't that what you said? and then when I came to collect then, you didn't have it and you were nearly killed until you offered to do a job to get that money for me and I said...hey...I'll cut him some slack. I'll let him get that job done and I'll get paid and boom...no harm...no foul. Today was the day that you're suppose to pay me and all I've got so far is excuses."

Wade was trembling a little mostly from the drugs but also from the fact that he could die any moment. "Look...I-I'm going to get it but people like The Wolf and James Tarvelli, even La Plaga....I..I can't steal from them...they'll kill me-" "Oh so it's okay for you to steal from me huh? gonna ask me for another hit to build debt? let me tell you something....I make sure that debt is not built. You know what's bad for business? Bullshit promises and the word from pathetic pieces of shit like you. When someone buys from me, we do that shit up front but I was feeling very giving that day, which, was my mistake. Not only do I have to worry about you not paying me but I have to worry about the Wolf trying to fuck me over, James Tarvelli threatening to come after me, La Plaga shutting me down, my products and items not coming in, not being able to make profit with other competition, This big ass mutant of a man eating me, and dealing with other sheisty ass people behind these walls. I have too many important deals and people to worry about than to sit here and stress that this dumbass is going to cheat me....so....you know the rules, suffer to consequences. With that, one of the Black Out Boys came from behind and slit Wade's throat as the body dropped to the ground.

With a sigh and laying a notebook down, Bishop pulled out a newspaper to read about what's going on outside the walls as his informant called others to clean up the mess by tossing him over the edge and wait for the scavenger prisoners to grab the dead body and pull it to one of their hiding places. Bishop looked up Hmm...I think I may go for a walk today...see how my fellow citizens are doing and what they're up to. maybe have a promotion sale or somethin'....or maybe talk to our best customer and "friends", Smiley and the Joker Boyz...if they ain't doing anything crazy... Getting up with the newspaper tucked under his arm and started heading down the stairs to "socialize".

---

James search for food led him to a car in good condition, almost new. He looked through the car's windows, nobody was inside it and nothing was seemingly inside the car. The keys were still in the ignition, so the person was either kidnapped or either left.

He went to the trunk and grabbed it, forcing it open to find the the presumed owner of the car with his head bashed in. Nothing really surprising in a "city" of criminals. There was no food here. He sighed in disappointment and closed the trunk of the car.

That's when he heard some distant steps... running. Running meant someone weak was running from someone strong, which meant the weak person might have some food, some food which he would take from them.

With that, he leaves the car and heads in the direction of the running, maybe there would be food, if not there would at least be someone to kill.

(@arca9 Here our characters, and the characters you meant to introduce can meet if you wish)

Not every day you see a man cave in someone's head. I though to my self. And when you do, you don't normally want to meet them, no matter how hungry you are. With this in mind, I scrambled into a nearby ruin, ducking low, before seeing a girl near what would have been the back door. I already knew the quickest way out, but, what if they could help get food? So, instead, I decided to talk to her. Worst comes to worst, I have to run. "Uhh, well, this is a bit awkward... I don't suppose we could not attack each other over food that probably neither of us have, could we?" If this goes bad, go up and out, then try to get to the roofs.

---

At the sound of the voice, Dawn knew she had been spotted. Being well-practiced at escaping blood-hungry murderers, she wasn't scared of the thousandth person she'd heard asking for food. But one never could know here. Hand habitually gripping the knife on her belt, she peered out of the rubble. A young man with dark spiky hair and a dirty blue T-shirt was looking at her. He didn't seem like an immediate threat. He didn't seem like he had anything good to steal either. She hardly registered the handguns on his belt; if she had wanted guns, she would have stolen them a long time ago. She concluded that a brawl wouldn't be worth anything here.

She held the man's gaze and spoke in her monotonous, medium-pitched voice. "I don't have food. Let's not fight."

She started to search through the wreckage for food or items, keeping an eye on the man. With her knife hidden and her behaviour passive, along with her size and her youth, she knew she looked utterly nonthreatening. If he started to attack her, she had already plotted multiple ways out of the roofless, two-story high wreckage.

She was in the middle of taking apart a couch covered in so much dust she couldn't tell what colour it should have been, finding nothing salvageable, when the heavy footsteps came. The ground vibrated just enough for the top chunks of the already-broken back wall to come crashing down. She dove out of the way as large pieces fell, adding to the rubble already on the ground.

The light from the front entrance was suddenly blocked out. Belly-down on the ground, she looked up.... and kept looking up, higher and higher, eyes skimming over every muscle on a bare chest and neck until she got to a snarling face on a tiny bald head. It was the killer from before, the man who she had seen punch someone's head flat. She wondered recklessly if he had food on him, and took a split second to play with the idea of killing and eating him, before deciding it would be best to escape. She scrambled upright and started towards the back door. There was no back door. It was blocked by broken pieces of wall. She looked up through the partially collapsed second floor to the sky above. She looked at the spiky-haired man. She looked at the snarling killer.

@Claw2k11 @jordy0403

---

@arca9

James was at first surprised to see a woman in front of him of all people, but he noticed there was another person there, a young man with spiked hair and a dirty blue T-shirt and some guns. The young woman only had a knife, he thought that he could kill the woman fairly easy, however the other man would probably shoot him.

Instead he said in a dry casual tone "I don't mean any harm, just searching for food, lass." he said raising his large hands in the air to show he's not hostile. 'Even though I could pop your head like a watermelon.' He thought

"My name is James Hunter, yours is?" he asked and even though he tried to be casual, he was ready to kill her if she pulled out her knife. He just prayed he didn't hear about his rather... crushing reputation, he didn't want to kill anyone he didn't have to.

---

Rob grunted and let out a loud groan of frustration as he bashed the rusted lock of a car trunk with a hammer. "There ain't no way in hell we're gon' get this shit open, man," one of Rob's boys complained. He was answered with a quick, but firm smack on the back of his head. "Just shut the hell up and keep tryin', I'm gonna go check up front again." Rob placed the hammer in his backpack and made it to the passenger side door before he heard yelling. He turned around to see a man running towards them, manically waving a crowbar as he yelled. Rob's first instinct was to reach for his gun, but he stopped after remembering what he and his sister had spoken about earlier.
"If there's any commotion of any kind, you better run the other way," she'd said, "we don't need any trouble right now, Rob!"

With his three boys behind him, Rob took off running towards an alley in the opposite direction, and he never looked back.

Meanwhile, Sophia sat on the front steps of an old abandoned building, her arms folded across her chest and her stomach growling audibly. One of Rob's boys had eaten their last bag of stale but edible potato chips earlier on, resulting in a very angry Sophia. She'd convinced Rob and his "little friends" to go find food four hours ago, and they had yet to return. The whole time she'd been sitting on the steps, impatiently waiting. "I knew I should've gone with them," she muttered to herself, "they should be back by now." Soph knew that little to no harm would come of her brother, but she couldn't say the same for his three friends.

She sighed heavily and rested her head on her hands, closing her eyes. They could be anywhere in the prison by now, so all she could do was wait.

James 'Iykos' Frost

---

Iykos' hand briefly ghosted over the grip of his gun as Clover stopped by the car, his eyes narrowing as he took in the fairly obvious extent of her abuse. He knew that James Tarvelli would try to lean this meeting more in his favour but he wasn't expecting him to get Clover involved, although in hindsight he probably should have. She was quite low on his records; apart from the activities she was trying to hide from her father, she was not a threat, not worth investigating. Maybe he'd have to renege that assessment, in case he tries to pull this stunt again...

"I'm not in the mood for any games, Tarvelli, so I'll cut straight to the point..."

Levelling the smug man with a serious look, He produced a folded map from the pocket of his overcoat. It was an old city map, specifically the map to the city now known as The World's Prison. On it was a tightly grouped collection of 3 areas marked in pen, each one slightly larger than a city block. He handed the map and pen to the other man

"I want you and your men out of the areas marked on this map. In return, I'll erase the data we talked about previously, over the phone. If you have a problem, I'm sure the Black Out Connection can find that data really interesting."

As the other man scanned the map, making a few pen marks here and there, Iykos gave Clover another look as she tried to make herself out of the way before he slowly looked around the cul-de-sac. Even though it seemed clear, he quickly checked his smartphone (a miracle find in this prison) and tapped into the local camera networks. Something was off... it was too quiet, and it was going too smoothly...

"I don't have food. Let's not fight." Said the girl, before starting to search the building. This'll work out fine then Rayne thought in his head, before the man from before appeared. Well, shit, I take it back Was Rayne's first thought. "I don't mean any harm, just searching for food, lass. My name is James Hunter, yours is?" said the man, presumably talking to the girl. Rayne answered quickly, making sure that his guns were within easy reach. "Rayne Fielder, and I sure hope you mean it when you say you're peaceful."

@Claw2k11 @arca9

---

Dawn answered right after Rayne Fielder. "Dawn Cohen." She got up onto her feet, not taking her eyes off the massive James Hunter. "I don't have food." She pointed in the general direction of Rayne, still looking at James. "He doesn't have food either." James was still blocking the only easy way out, but his large hands were up in a gesture of either sincere or feigned peacefulness. Dawn decided to go with it. "You can look in here. We'll be on our way." She started towards the door, hoping James would let her through.

@Claw2k11 @jordy0403

@jordy0403@arca9

He first turned towards Rayne and studied him before answering her. "As long as you don't give me a reason to hurt you, you can count on me being peaceful." He said to her before turning towards Dawn and placing a light hand on her shoulder, though to her the hand might be heavier considering his size.

"You didn't witness anything violent just now, did you?" He asked, just now realizing that he was very close to where he killed the Bull. "Because I wouldn't want to... traumatize someone as frail as you." He didn't want to hurt her and even if she saw him, he wouldn't directly harm her, he would just need to intimidate her a bit.

---

Dawn tried not to sway to the left as James brought a heavy hand down on her shoulder. As always, it was best to pretend not to know anything. Her voice did not waiver. "No, I haven't seen anything violent. Not for a few days now, I think." She sucked in her stomach to quiet its rumbling, its seeming attempt to communicate the truth in its own incomprehensible language. She briefly wondered if Rayne would come with her or find his own way out.

@Claw2k11 @jordy0403

---

"I see." James said and removed his hand from her shoulder. "I should warn you little lady, you might encounter the Crusher, James Hunter and I hear he is not a very nice to people who stay in his territory for too long." He said, hoping that Dawn and Rayne got the hint, or at least the common sense, to leave his territory. 'They better leave soon.' He thought. If they come back and the two are here, people will most likely die.'

---

"Games? Who is playing games? This is no place and time to play games." Tarvelli, started a smug look across his sun beaten face. He had been working all morning long outside, scavenging and making deals with others. Tarvelli ignored the serious look, mostly because it didn't phase him but also to show that he was a bit on the crazy side. Peeking at the map, he watched as the other man marked off areas and Iyokos barked orders.

"Hey now, my men are free walking men. I'm not a slave owner." he continued, "And don't you fucking spill my information over some of these brainless bitches walking the streets. I'm not a cattle rancher. I can't keep up. If you don't want them in your spot, shoot them. I don't care." Tarvelli said, his voice slightly wavering as he spoke.

Meanwhile, in the attic space of the home behind them where the Tarvelli family rested their heads, a henchmen had his gun aimed right at the two men, in case anything went down that wasn't in the direction that was wanted. Clover looked at the map areas as the other man marked them. "It's probably best to just listen to them Daddy, it'd be better to have our people closer anyhow." she spoke quietly, her dad looked at her, and yelled, "Keep your damn mouth shut. You have to keep your friends close and your enemies closer." he raised his hand to strike her, but a thought swept through his head to say otherwise. "I'll humor you though kid. I'll get my men out of there, you erase that data. Also get me one of those smarty phones you got there, and you have yourself a deal." Putting his hand out he grinned, his teeth stained from years of smoking and bad hygiene.

So, i'm guessing he's this James Hunter, and he wants us out of his territory. He's threatening the man with a gun. Although he is strong. I'll humour him, for now at least "You're asking if I've seen anything violent in a prison? You do realise how silly that is? Anyway, we'll just be on our way, and stay clear of this Crusher character." As he said this, Rayne pulled the girl, Dawn, out of his grasp and started moving away, releasing her soon after, saying quietly, "Don't cause any trouble until we're out of this area."

@Claw2k11 @arca9

---

Dawn's shoulder lightened as James' hand came off. Rayne pulled her out the door away from the giant man, quietly telling her not to cause any trouble. She followed him as they walked down the street, past what once may have been a nice neighbourhood. Once Dawn was sure they were out of sight, Dawn spoke flatly to Rayne. "I've seen him around, killing people." She opted not to forcefully question him about where to get food; she knew not to trust someone after only a few minutes, and besides, she had lasted this long without help.

@jordy0403