ORIGIN

The Darkside

About a day or two earlier, there was a space colony in the asteroid field around the planet Solara. The asteroid field was chunks of Solara's former neighbor planet, "Bangora". Bangora was stripped of its natural resources and then destroyed, devastating its civilizations and dispersing most of its people across the galaxy.

Inside the space station, built into the largest chunk of Bangora, was an illegal weapons training facility full of slave market children freshly recruited from Solara's smallest moon, "Volcrim". The training program was being overseen by the second in command of the Darksiders outlaw band. He went by the name "Shellshock". Shellshock was a lucrative arms dealer who illegally manufactured weapons and distributed them across the solar system via smuggling rings. That was Shellshock's main gig. His latest venture was running spacecraft chop shops. That's how the Darksiders got rich enough to buy out and colonize outlaw territory on Constantina. Constantina was Solara's largest moon, where only the Darksiders could dwell in luxury like politicians. Shellshock got enough respect from potential enemies to be able to ride topless in a shiny new hovercraft. He even had the nerve to activate the self-navigation and hover slowly down the slummy, war-zoned streets of "Karuma". Mind you the vehicle had the most dazzling naked woman emblem made of precious diamonds mined from the Bangorian asteroid field.

Like most outlaw bands in the star system, the Darksiders had money for war and made more of it by supplying other bands with guns and explosives. But, next on the agenda was to thoroughly train and use Volcrimese children to steal starships throughout Plumorita's space station districts.

Shellshock was unapologetic, cynical, and compulsive. He didn't mind blasting anyone who stood between him and a profit, even someone with a Star Brigade badge, noble or crooked.

Shellshock had watched a kid fight and use weapons in the training facility for hours and never stopped being impressed by what he saw. The kid had already known a triple-jointed fighting style called "noble fist". He dominated all the other kids and the ones he couldn't dominate he manipulated. "Can you pilot a spaceship, kid?" Shellshock asked, as he approached the boy. "Where I come from, only the privileged can pilot the planes of heaven. But me, I never saw my own planet's stars at night. The pollution is too thick," the kid said. "Well, howz'about I make you rich; richer than the richest of your home planet, huh? So to them you would be seen as royalty, but to those like you, a god," Shellshock said to the kid, rubbing his hands together. But the boy replied quickly: "No one can be rich on the bottom! It's like putting a rose in sewer water! How about you let me become one of you? You know, an official Darksider? I can make money for all of us – lots for you; enough for me. And the rest of my affiliates can remain as expendable as always." Shellshock smiled at the witty boy as they shook hands. "So, when do I learn to pilot? Back home my crew...the "Wolfpack"...we race hoverbikes and build canons. I know a lot about chop shops. On Volcrim, since digital currency is foreign to us, chop shops are the stockholders for the barter system," the kid said.

So, after a couple of days of intense hyper-gravity simulations in addition to some virtual reality training, the kid, whose name was Ato, proved to be a promising hijacker. The Darksiders' chop shop space stations were flowing with business from different areas of Plumorita. But just as expected by the Darksiders' mysterious leader, the Brigade had already posted an investigation regarding a small ship that went missing from the landing dock of a popular space colony hotel resort. Knowing that his band would attract heat, Shellshock's boss ordered him to send the word out to their workforce to prepare for a possible raid in all locations. Although their chop shops were heavily guarded and armed like flying fortresses, they were small.

No one ever really saw the Darksiders' head man. He called the shots through wrist gadget messages, which were always digitally altered to make him hard to identify. Only Shellshock knew what he actually looked like and was usually his spokesman. Shellshock was all about the money. But this man, if not something beyond, wasn't your average crime boss. He was a masterful warlord; an anarchist who saw any and everything as another piece on his chessboard of disorder. That's why they called him "WarFace".