While sipping on a Scotch and smoking his cigar, anima notices things seem to be quieting down.  With a booming voice he says:

"Who would like to hear the tale of One Eyed Jack, the baddest boss you've ever not known?"

As a circle gathers around him, anima sits in his leather recliner and pours himself another scotch.  Taking a puff from his cigar anima begins:

Now, to understand this story we must go way back.  Before lands we know and before times that we can imagine.  There once was a place known as Shellshock Crossroads.  You think the streets of Detroit were messy last week, but Shellshock Crossroads made that seem like a bright sunny day.  Most men never made it past the age of 20 before seeing a bullet in their forehead.  And this, my friends, is where our story begins.

You see, Jack (who had two eyes at the time), grew up in Shellshock Crossroads.  His father was one of the few who had made it past his 20s and was thriving well in the gangster community.  He was well respected and loved, and had the best connections to the local gangs and dealers.  Jack had a pretty great life growing up.  He lived in the nice part of town, and was never in want.

But it's funny how quickly things can change in a crazy world like the Crossroads.

You see, Shellshock Crossroads got its name because it was the hub of 4 other bustling cities.  All with plenty of crime and drugs to go around.  The difference, though, was that Shellschock Crossroads had control over all of the other cities.  All major players had to report to Jacks father and his associates.

Ambition. It is the drive that pulls us forward, but the key thing to remember is that whenever one person moves forward another must move back.  Unbeknownst to Jack and his father, there was an young up-and-coming gangster who had decided that Shellshock Crossroads had no place running the business of the other cities.  This gangster was going to unite the cities in a backlash against Jack's family so that each city could run its own economy.

As I'm sure you can tell the young gangster, who went by the name Marauder (he was a bit out there), was extremely intelligent.  Having come from a highly educated background, he found his way into the mafioso world when he ran up a large debt to one of the cities toughest gangsters.  One day he decided to collect on Marauder to make it a problem no longer.  Little did he know that Marauder had been working on booby trapping his entire villa and as one of the henchmen went to leave to find him the whole complex crumbled under a few large blasts.

So, as I was saying, Marauder had decided to take over Shellshock Crossroads.  He gathered the largest gangsters from the other cities, and when they wouldn't meet with him he'd just shown him what he had done the other gangsters compound.  After a few years of planning Marauder knew exactly what he'd do.  He'd kidnap the son of the Godfather of Shellshock Crossroads.

Looking down at his watch anima realizes he's been talking for quite a while.

"Seems this story is longer than I thought.  I've got some pockets to pick, and some drugs to run.  We'll reconvene tomorrow and I'll finish the story for you guys."

BrickTop listens intently to anima's story about young Jack, taking a cigar from anima's collection, he knows he wont mind him having one.

It seems young jack had no idea what was going to happen next does it? This Marauder fellow, he does sound like a smart kid, but smart kids often get cocky and try to take on too much not realising that it is respect and loyalty that gets you where you want to be in the Mafia. Anyway, please do go on, did Marauder get what he wanted and allow the four other cities to have their own economy? I imagine such a feat would not be easy to accomplish.