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It was a beautiful day in New York, the sun shone, bullet-holes in building walls had been repaired and the smell of victory was still fresh in the air. Marston rode through the streets on horseback receiving congratulations from passers-by. He thanked them all and asked them to join him in the nearby speakeasy where he could speak freely of recent events, and address a ludicrous speech that had been given during the fighting…
He dismounted his horse and worked his way through the crowd that had gathered and stood on the small stage in front of them all. Ricketts made his way over to him and handed him a transcript of the speech Valmont had made. Marston took a swig from his hipflask, chuckled, and then began to speak…
"The New York Incident"
New York were attacked for a number of reasons, the main one being that they had made an alliance with Skorpeon to at some point attack Los Angeles! Shocking! I will never betray our original source for this intelligence, but they held a highly esteemed position in their city so there were no doubts to the integrity of their claims.
There were a few other smaller incidents that left a few of us hot under the collar too. On the day following the war with Stamina there appeared to be a small massacre of former New York members that were left homeless. We waited several hours, and nothing was said, no witnesses were asked to come forward, this is the city that Los Angeles originated from and some of us were fuming that this was being allowed to happen. After an exchange of mails, my outburst in a public coffee shop, and the left hand man of Los Angeles being forced to come to the street to address the deaths, finally New York acknowledged the losses they were taking and called for witnesses, but then went on to ignore several more deaths. It was not the bright start to the "New New York" that we were hoping for…
Shortly after this I made a speech giving my account of the war. One sour orphan made a pathetic attempt to argue, and insulted our entire city in the process. After a small negotiation with his leader an apology was made in the street, and as far as I was concerned that man had a huge black mark next to his name. However, that man then went on to receive promotions like he was a model Mafioso and quickly became one of the highest ranking men in the city, not a great example to set the kids…
Now, Valmont mentioned us not telling him the reasons behind this, but it is pretty fucking clear why, seeing as Skorpeon appeared to be his best buddy (birds of a feather?) and is clearly implicated in the reasoning. While I was still deciding his fate, it would have been exceedingly unwise of me to let anyone outside my inner circle know of this, as we all know loose lips sink ships.
The uneducated guess to the reasoning of this war is quite frankly poor… There were no plans for me to be moved to New York after their eradication… As I told Jack and Screaming Butterfly when I joined the ranks of The Dancers back in New York "Don't send me away (again)". The only intentions I had of running a city was if I earned it, or inherited it, my goal at the time was to increase my stature in Los Angeles and hopefully be formally given the title of underboss and have a bigger role in the city politics.
There was only one big reason for my move to New York, and it was my relationship with the other leaders in that city following the death of Jack Pepper. I had worked well with Lancelot in our short time, but as for tnaryT, I'd barely spoken to the guy, and would never have felt comfortable having a captain working under me that I didn't hand pick. The choice seemed simple now that there were two empty cities I would move out and leave tnaryT to control Los Angeles. Lancelot shared my opinion on tnaryT, so I offered him the option to join me if he so wished.
While planning the move I spoke to the former right hand of Jack, as it had occurred to me that she might have interests in Los Angeles and rightfully had a claim to the city. The idea of her taking the helm came up, and knowing what an excellent leader she would be and our close ties, I was much more comfortable leaving Jack Peppers legacy in her hands than tnaryT's. The decision was made, and I made it clear to Paranoid Freak that we weren't abandoning her, and she had my 100% support if any problems arose from the new arrangement.
Now as for Detroit's involvement in that war, as far as I was concerned it was nothing to do with them, and we didn't need their (epic) firepower. They were in no way bullied in to it as Valmont suggests, as far as I am aware he had a conversation with a mere member of Los Angeles and decided he wanted to get some notches on his hitter's guns. Shortly after making the decision, but before taking any action, his own city leader Max was shot dead, cementing Detroit's involvement. It was only after this (8 minutes in fact) that Valmont began shooting at them.
"That thing that happened that one time in Chicago."
Following events in New York we watched Chicago closely for obvious reasons. Their fate was in the balance and they knew it of course. There were several incidents in that short time that pushed them over the edge, all of which were detailed to my members following Skorpeon's removal and were made public during the ramblings of an idiot. I had more than enough reasons to level that city, and when I heard there were inner city rumblings between Cory Chase and Skorpeon, a meeting was arranged between Cory Chase and myself. Cory seemed to have good intentions for the city, and asked for my help in Skorpeon's removal. I gave it some thought and decided to give Cory the chance to redeem the city, from our previous dealings he seemed to be a lot more clued up than Skorpeon in how to lead, and it seemed a more constructive solution than killing everyone…
Shortly after the job was done I was contacted by Valmont, who told me he was planning to hit Chicago at the weekend, and that I had beaten him to the punch. He showed me some amateur war plans that he had, and told me Chicago had approached his city earlier that week in an attempt to get them to attack New York and Philadelphia. In my conversations with Cory that led up to our assault on Skorpeon, there was no mention of this attack, so eyebrows were raised at the mention of this. Valmont told me that he was eager to continue with his assault on Chicago at the weekend, I told him I was going to give Cory a chance, but I wasn't going to tell him who he could and could not attack, I by no means restrict the actions and decisions of the other cities. Our conversation ended in uncertainty about what Detroit was going to do, and that was that, until the weekend came…
A disturbing report was brought to my desk from one of my reliable sources that team Chicago was on high alert, preparing for an attack from/on me. I quickly tracked down Cory Chase and we had an informal conversation, in an attempt to get him to open up about what was going on so that I could ease his mind, and perhaps prevent any bloodshed. He didn't open up to me, so it became clear that he didn't trust me at this point.
I then headed over to Detroit to speak to Valmont, and informed him of the situation. He was adamant on going ahead with his attack that night, so I had to make a choice quickly… Knowing that Cory was expecting an attack from me, and knowing Valmont was completely incapable of taking them out himself, made me fear that the instant retaliation to Valmont's actions might well be aimed at my city. If Cory did realise it was Valmont there would have been a long and bloody war between Chicago and Detroit and both cities would have been reduced to rubble. Despite what a few idiots think, it has never been my intention to stunt the growth of any other city, and it seemed that one or both of these cities were heading for a swim that night. I chose to take the lead in the assault on Chicago that night, a bold decision seemed necessary, and knowing what I did at the time it seemed to be the correct decision. Chicago was put to rest that night, and the remaining cities were left relatively unscathed.
I forwarded Valmont the mail I sent to my city, informing them of our reasons for the assault and told Valmont I would be adding those in a reply to the explanation speech he was already writing. However, for some reason he decided to speak on my behalf and cover all my points, so it really left me with nothing to add… Thanks!
(Apologies to the former regime under Cory Chase, but with the knowledge we had at the time it was the right course of action to take.)
Whispers in the wind
Weeks later a member of New York was approached by Kisuke Urahara's left hand man, asking for assistance in a possible upcoming war. "Who would Detroit want to attack?" I thought to myself when I heard this. New York had never had any trouble from Detroit, mishaps between our two cities were always dealt with swiftly and without fuss, so I ruled us out. Knowing their poor hitting capability I also ruled out Philadelphia. I approached both Las Vegas and Los Angeles with my findings and both cities could think of no viable reason why Detroit might want to hurt them. I decided to do nothing about it, as the bloodline of the left hand man in question has a long history of dubious behaviour so when he ended up in the obituaries shortly after, nothing further was thought about it, until…
That trouble with Tyrant
Another average day in New York and I was approached by Paranoid Freak, she'd received highly reliable intelligence that tnaryT was planning to make a power play at some point in the near future and overthrow her as leader of the city. There were also some sketchy rumours that he was in fact in cahoots with Valmont planning the eventual take down of New York. I refused to be a slave to paranoia over the Detroit rumour, with our apparent good relations and their lack of shooting ability it seemed unlikely that they had plans of the sort unless they were extremely trigger happy or very stupid. The evidence on tnaryT on the other hand though was compelling, and I wasn't going to go back on my promises to back Paranoid Freak and Jack Pepper's legacy. A precision strike was launched, and Los Angeles' problems were erased in under a minute. Upon seeing the destruction, a comment was made by Valmont in public, which raised a few eyebrows among the people who had heard the rumour that the two of them were in cahoots…
That Stinson guy…
After the launch of the Chicago experiment a member of my city, Orion, expressed interest in the opportunity and told me that he had been offered the position of right hand man by Barney Stinson. Barney Stinson was the bloodline of the very man that was Kisuke Urahara's left hand man just weeks earlier. With his best interests in mind, I told him of my doubts in his chosen leader's abilities, all of which he agreed with. He took my advice on board and headed to Chicago to join Barney.
A few weeks later I woke to hear the sad news that their family had been taken out by Philadelphia. An explanation for this was sent to all leaders by DeadlySin and I fully agreed that the actions taken by Orion warranted their death if they didn't punish him promptly and accordingly. It was after this that I heard the offspring of Barney was spouting more rumours, this time telling people that New York and Philadelphia were going to mount a joint attack on Detroit. I found out what I could, and then approached Valmont with everything that I had heard to dispel the obvious trouble making from the bitter sons of the fallen Stinson family. Valmont seemed happy that I had been open with him, and we even spoke of the future of the vacant New Orleans. We have all seen the devastation that is caused by paranoia and I didn't want any city being frightened that each day could be their last, but it seems Valmont wildly misunderstood my intentions.
Witness statement digging
Recently Valmont lost a boss from his family, he appealed for a witness statement as did his captain Kisuke Urahara. Mass mail requests were sent out by my hand men (I was unavailable) to which, to this day we have received no response.
Twenty-four hours passed and the thug son of the deceased came forward claiming that just seconds before he was shot dead, he had mugged a New York member by the name of Vincent Toscani. My right hand was left in charge at the time, he sent me an urgent telegram, and informed the young man that this was not the correct way to seek justice. The story looked convincing and I sent a telegram to Lancelot to interrogate his member. Around the same time Los Angeles came forward with evidence that the Detroit Boss had in fact mugged Vincent just two minutes before he was found dead. Although there was no witness statement, the evidence looked compelling; Lancelot was told to keep a close eye on Vincent until I returned the following day to deal with it personally…
The following day
While returning to the country a newspaper was passed to me, I turned to the obituary's to see six of Philadelphia's members had been killed in a short space of time. "War on Philadelphia!" Someone gasped, I chuckled, "don't be so silly…" but was then told by one of my Leaders that they had personally seen the Godfather Valmont fail in an attempt to kill Phil Steak. I shook my head in disbelief and told him to have our men on standby, and that I would be back in less than an hour.
Upon my return it seemed Detroit's guns were also pointed towards New York, along with Philadelphia we hit back hard. The result of the battle is plain for all to see, all 100 "Detroitians" lying dead, 14 casualties in Philadelphia, 17 in New York, and one casualty each for Las Vegas and Chicago. Valmont announced his very warped reasoning for costing these lives on the street, claiming that he was the victim, despite being the attacker. It was probably in a poor attempt to retain the respect of the men he was responsible for, that needlessly died on his behalf.
Conclusion
The truth of the matter is in fact Valmont was tired of the life of crime; he'd achieved his personal goal of reaching Godfather. The very night he took the position, he decided that rather than retire graciously he'd go out in a "spectacular" gunfight. He knew he was effectively committing suicide for every member of his city, but went ahead with the plans despite members of his inner circle opposing the action. But congratulations, pretty sure your name goes down in the record books for first wave devastation and making the most of a pre-emptive attack…
Rest in peace to all those that died needlessly on both sides, and mighty respect to the New York war dogs that paid the ultimate sacrifice in the battle: Glow, Erida, kong, Baby_Blue, Rogue, AnthonyReturns, Malibu, CinematiCs, Thrace, Frank_Sinatra, Warped, Gaetano_Marciano, Jade, Vincent-Toscani, Bobby_Trabotti, TheBigBadWolf, Fuschia, Aldo-Maranzano, GaiusAdams, Toast, -Bjorn-, and Jumong. A special mention to Kriminal, who was doing an excellent job in building the future Chicago, but he was gunned down indiscriminately by Valmont, in his final vile act in this world.
A big thank you to the cities of Chicago and Los Angeles who offered up their support during the war, I would not have felt comfortable accepting your assistance, as I would have felt a tremendous amount of guilt if you suffered losses on my behalf. But I am hugely grateful for your selfless offerings.
Marston nodded his head and took another swig from his flask, with the speech over the bar was opened, and he headed over to it to listen to what others thought…
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