| “ | Eat chaos! | „ |
| ~ Clamor |
The Freakshow AKA The Freaks, are an anarchist group of cyborgs in the M. M. O. City of Heroes. The Freakshow came upon a drug called Excelsior which completely numbs pain - at first used for a deep-high, the gang soon realized once Excelsior was applied before cybernetic augmentation - bought about by Paragon City's steady rise in technology, they could completely remake themselves with no fear of complications from cybernetic surgeries. The Freaks have since become completely addicted, not merely to their Excelsior drug but body-modification. They go as far as to cut out vital organs and replace them with both high- and low-tech machines on little more than dares with each-other. The founder of the group, Drek, was opposed to strict forms of leadership or chains of command and his mindset has spread through-out the entire group along with his spread of the Excelsior drug, and each Freakshow cell has little more than localized leaders (if that), ones that constantly shift and only exists to dictate plans for getting more drugs or going on bigger and bigger dares for spitting in the eye of society as a concept.
Excelsior[]
Excelsior was a high-end-pain-relief drug created by Crey Industries. Excelsior was developed for military use - a drug that enduced super-powers in a world were meta-humans were becoming more and more common. In addition to pain-relief, those affected have their bodies become more malleable and their strength greatly increase, their metabolism goes into overdrive and the affected can recover from even lacerations in just a few hours.
One of Crey's lab-techs by the name of Daniel Watson helped developed it,. Daniel organized an intercept of Excelsior during it's initial transport via armored truck and split it with the thugs he'd hired for the hit. All of the thugs became addicted, and before long they were hitting up Excelsior transports almost as fast as Crey could ship it. Eventually Daniel was found out to be the organizer and fired by Crey, as well as set to be arrested. Daniel evaded the police and went underground. Excelsior shipments became highly regulated, both legally and with private security.
Eventually when supplies started running low, a Mysterious Benefactor contacted Daniel and offered to mass produce Excelsior for him, the payment was access to the drug in the first place for other project. After creating a heavy stock-pile for Daniel, his Benefactor gave him the idea that with a drug that killed all pain, and with Paragon City having become the center of the millennial tech-boom in the US, the rising cybernetic augmentation industry would be quite viable; After all, with no pain and a boosted metabolism - there was virtually no chance of complications for cybor-augmentation. Daniel was one of if not the first of the Excelsior addicts to get cybernetic augmentation - spending the last of his savings along with medical connections from his Benefactor. Daniel took on the new moniker "Drek" and used his cybernetic augmentations to steal both more Excelsior from it's new high-end-security details and generic bank robberies too to pay for the rest of his crew to follow-suit; Before long the every single Excelsior addict was following Drek's example and had become a cyborg of some variety or other. The now distinguished gang called themselves "Freakshow" with pride at what many a Crey media head had been dubbing them.
To Drek With Chain Of Command[]
Drek - Founder of the Freakshow.
Drek was a hearty anarchist. And established himself against rival addicts whenever said disputes arose, before long he was the official leader of the group. Drek did not want an official chain-of-command, he was happy to simply be a Freak the rest of the Freakshow knew better than to mess with. Through several high-end thefts, Drek had acquired a life-time's supply of Excelsior. But the drug was just a starting point, over time anarchy became what the Freakshow were truly addicted to, the Excelsior just a means to an end to become cyborgs, and the cybernetics themselves just the figurative hammer members used to roam the city unchecked destroying what they liked.
Bile - Previous rising star of the Freakshow.
Two other Freakshow established themselves quickly in the gang, Ralph Francesco and Eve Van Dorn. Ralph was one of Drek's first thugs, though he was in-fact a military veteran, who'd gotten caught up in drug-trafficking. After Ralph had followed Drek's example and had gotten cybernetics - he took to crime with renewed vigor and a stand-out for the group. Ralph took on the name "Bile" after his augmentation and he made a great name for himself under the alias. Bile gained his own prestige but had seen many rivals challenge Drek and killed for their trouble, so he decided to simply let Drek be and stick to his own crime-sprees.
Clamor - Former engineer, now Freakshow raid-leader.
Eve had been a scientist for the former Nazi off-shoot - The Council. The Council had given up white-supremacy but were still maintained fascist structure. Years spent trying to gain clout in the Council had left Eve with a figurative itch to scratch. Eve hit up the Freakshow for Excelsior and then cybernetics to help her rise in rank at the Council but decided once she did, that trying to apply such gifts for the Council was a wasted effort at that point and formally joined the Freakshow. Re-inventing herself as a Freakshow, Eve took on the name "Clamor" and with her ingenuity left over from the Council's cutting edge scientific methods, Clamor became a major talent in the Freakshow - picking targets for her new gang that would not just pay-out financially after a robbery, but outfit them with increased augmentation methods.
Doc Buzzsaw - Bridge between the Vahzilok and the Freakshow.
One final person had made waves in The Freakshow gang, though she is only an associate, Doc Buzzsaw - of the Vahzilok group. Doc Buzzsaw used to work for the mad-scientist Dr. Vahzilok. Vahzilok dreams of using artificial-necromancy-like medical techniques to eventually beat death and views his work as one-day benefiting all humanity... once the necessary death-count has benefited his research fully. Buzzsaw trained as Dr. Vahzilok's personal assistant but she was disregarded when Dr. Vahzilok realized unlike him, she did not see benefitting man-kind as her end-goal. Doc Buzzsaw knows she is evil, unlike the delusional mad-doctor V., but she doesn't care about helping people beat death, she still pushes reanimation research as far as it will go - seeing it as pure scientific progress. Being on the outside with Dr. Vahzilok now, Doc Buzzsaw sold her techniques to the Freakshow to get by, and in the deranged pain-ignoring Freakshow, Doc Buzzsaw found her people. Freakshow jump at the chance to be experimented on and so Doc Buzzsaw relishes the chance to work with them. She gives out free augmentations for new techniques and charges for tried and true methods, like traditional cybernetics, to fund her more fringe research.
Eventually Bile was arrested, he had taken such large doses of Excelsior there was nothing anyone could do about his regeneration factor - and he was held in isolation until state could figure out an effective method of giving him the death-penalty. Bile's cybernetic attachments were removed while he sat in isolation, so at the very least he could not do any harm in lock-up. Doc Buzzsaw has no designs on leading the Freakshow, only using them for her continued test-subjects and so simply maintains a friendly business arrangement with the likes of Drek, Clamor and rank-and-file Freakshow. The itinerary Clamor set was always profitable, if insanely radical, and her combination of brains and audacity saw her became as well respected as Drek. Clamor never opposed Drek, as far as she was concerned, he had his way of doing things, and she had hers. The two maintain a policy of non-interference with each-other, though neither recognizes the other as having any authority over them. Drek has become much, much less active over the years. He still has no greater ambitions than to keep getting Excelsior to add to his hoard and to share it with any who would see Paragon City descend into anarchy; Yet with Clamor organizing massive raids on power-plants, crashed alien-space-craft and Crey labs just to see what new toys they can get, Drek is actually considered the more conservative Freakshow head, and he likely knows it - possibly the reason for his diminished activity so that no one tries to overthrow him if he started making waves.
Encounters[]
Drek is encountered in an alternate reality for the high-tech-exploration group Portal Corp.. The Drek met is not the main reality's but from one where the Freakshow were never deterred and eventually destroyed the entire city. The game's main reality's Drek is encountered by Villains looking to organize a peace-summit among the forces of evil for villainous military government - Arachnos.
Clamor was once encountered on the Task Force organized by signature heroine - Sister Psyche', but after her retirement from the Freedom Phalanx - meta-human protectors of Paragon City, up-and-coming psychic heroine - Penelope Yin takes up Sister Psyche's post, and her Task Force will encounter Clamor as well. Clamor is raiding Paragon City's aging Terra Volta power-plant, intent on raiding it for radioactive material to augment the Freakshow and blow it up when they are done simply for laughs.
Bile is encountered in prison by Villains looking to recruit him into the Vahzilok group. Bile agrees to join the Vahzilok both in gratitude for organizing his freedom, but also with the prospect of applying the man-made-zombification technique's of Vahzilok to augment himself even further once he is out.
Doc Buzzsaw is encountered on a Task-Force for Positron - another member of the Freedom Phalanx. Doc Buzzsaw is little more than a named boss for the Vahzilok in Positron's Task Force - she is however also a contact in the Rogue Isles and goes to work with villains after she fails to stop the heroes in the Task Force. Doc Buzzsaw will hire the villain for various gofer work to get new materials. Her later arc will involve joining Dr. Vahzilok's research with Drek's Excelsior and her own augmentation techniques to create a fusion of Vahzilok and Freakshow - her finest creations, in her opinion! It is this final fusion that has villains breaking into prison to free Bile as a morale symbol for Freakshow to keep volunteering for her fusion technique.
Presence[]
Freakshow keep to the outer city, partially because the inner city is too heavily regulated for anarchy to reign there, but also because the group's Mysterious Benefactor has several other gangs working the inner-city like The Skulls, Hellions, Clockwork, Trolls, and Outcasts, and the Freakshow would disrupt the delicate ecosystem of crime at play in the inner-city. While Drek may pull the reigns in on his gang for his Benefactor, rank-and-file Freakshow do not care about ecosystems of crime or territory, and the outer-city is where they stay largely because it is nicer neighborhoods, which means more pretty things to wreck. Freakshow are first encountered in the Talos Island district of Paragon City, but also in Independence Port, Brickstown, Terra Volta and Crey's Folly. In the Rogue Isles they are first encountered in Sharkhead Isle, then St. Martial and a few in the captial of Grandville.
In Talos the Freakshow are engaging in a district-wide crime-spree as part of a contest they call the "Freak-a-lympics", a series of criminal dares where the challenge comes not only from committing the crime, returning with the best loot but also remaining ahead of law-enforcement while doing it.
In Sharkhead they are majorly encountered as a cult to The Shaper - a menial old cult to a sea-titan called Leviathan - that Sharkhead Island is supposed to be founded on top-of. Arachnos is fine with the Freakshow's anarchy - they view it as character building for those who maintain society to have such a gang as obstacles to work around, but research into the cult will have Arachnos interested in what power the Leviathan could gain them, however the one thing that bring Arachnos in clear contrast with the Freaks themselves, is that religion is illegal in the Rogue Isles and as such the cult must be destroyed with the Freaks recruited to worshiping the slumbering Leviathan as their new god. The head of the Arachnos government and ruler of the Rogue Isles - Lord Recluse, is an actual demi-god, so views any praise of full gods as pledging loyalty to foreign powers and thus treason. Villains are trying to beat Arachnos to the discovery of the Freakshow's benefactor deity and thus gain great arcane knowledge before Arachnos can shut down the cult.
Freakshow are trying to constantly break-out the criminals of the Zig in Brickstown - a major industrial prison for meta-human criminals. They have a few scatter schemes there and in Crey's Folly just outside the boundaries of Brickstown, but largely just want chaos and see they can cause much by organizing a prison break. Local Brickstown authorities are also looking to counter the Excelsior raids and put a major halt to the drug that seems to catalyze the Freakshow lifestyle.
In Grandville Freakshow are horrifically outclassed by Arachnos, and so they tend to keep to themselves. In recent days the Freakshow have not simply been keeping their heads down, but are actively trying to improve their community in Grandville. Local complete-monster, Westin Phipps, is concerned that Freakshow seem to be bettering themselves and their community. Phipps hates hope as a concept, and even if he wasn't working for Arachnos undercover as a social worker, he'd still be disgusted by the local Freakshow for trying to improve their community. It will turn out the Grandville Freakshow are being reformed by a teacher going on community-outreach to help teach the Freakshow how to read, do athematic, study history and engage in constructive vandalism to make life better for them. Phipps is outraged at the concept of making life better for the many people he specifically tries to keep down and wants the Freakshow teacher, Miss Francine, bought in so he can have her tortured and then have her bought to his post "Haven House" to publicly make it look like he saved her, but covertly just parade her mutilated form around as a lesson to what happens to those who try to make things better around Grandville. The Freakshow are utterly-in-the-dark as to Phipp's scheme and genuinely want to protect Miss Francine, as being the only person to ever reach out to any of them.
Gallery[]
