Garry Cubbarnes' IC Backstory

Note: I threw this together over about 45 minutes. It’s not the best, but I think that I should’ve already summed up my character’s backstory by now.

CHAPTER 1: LOWLIFE BEGINNINGS

Eli White was born on October, the 16th, in 1995. He finished college rather quickly, and set out into the world at the age of 19. He never found a job that suited him, and soon was driven to work with local gangs for money. It was a rough life, with some close encounters with the police department of the time and other gangs who rivaled the one he worked alongside. Then the Seven Hour War began, same story every time, he somehow survived for a year against impossible odds, you know. Everyone’s gotta’ have a Seven Hour War reference in there somewhere.

CHAPTER 2: THE CITY

Eli White was captured by Union forces a whole year after the war. He was transported along with several other citizens by train to City 24. City 24 was a massive city, with towering skyscrapers and labyrinthine catacombs. He worked with the CWU for a short time, selling an assortment of goods, from flashlights to request devices and other minor Union-approved technologies.

It wasn’t very difficult work, but it paid well. Eli liked this better than his old life of mugging people in alleyways and pickpocketing passersby. The CCA weren’t too bad, and the only problem with the town was the ever-expanding Resistance groups that intended to overthrow the Union. They started capturing districts, while the CCA did the same. They eventually came to a stalemate, the entire city halved by the two factions. For two months, Eli walked through the plaza in fear, not knowing when one side will, in time, cross the imaginary border line in the hopes of securing more territory.

Tensions between the Resistance and the CCA eventually became too great, causing the Union to dispatch OTA teams to sweep rebel-controlled districts. The Resistance was shattered, but so were the districts they controlled. Nearly every building was reduced the rubble and ash. The result attracted necrotics by the hundreds, so the city was bombed, the few survivors sent to City 45 by train.


End of stuff that never happened IC.

CHAPTER 3: SURVIVOR

Eli White, among the few survivors of City 24, boarded one of the trains to City 45. CWU was harder to get into, CCA much stricter. The city was less prone to necrotic breaches, but there was still an air of uncertainty. He decided he would go back to his old ways, becoming the Weasel of District One. He mugged citizens for spare tokens and food, disguised himself as a Loyalist, and lived in the apartment complex that is the CAH. Life as a gangster again. Not much, but better than what he had originally. He picked up an old green beanie and a flashlight at the CWU Homegoods store, although he wasn't quite sure why.

His plaza life was uneventful, other than a massive exogen/necrotic breach, which forced him and a few Loyalists to hole up inside the UU Pharmacy and barricade off the windows. Then antlions broke through the floor, somehow a gas leak happened and the Loyalists got exploded… and stuff.

The Combine Civil Authority began to become suspicious of his actions, so he fled to District Two. It was much safer than District 1, except for his close proximity to the GHOST base. A few days after his retreat into the district, he noticed something very strange. Every once in a while, a citizen would come through, go into the abandoned store building, and never come back out.

He began to investigate this strange occurrence, and soon found that they were using a secret passage in the wall to access a network of sewer tunnels. With GHOST patrols becoming more common, he entered for himself, battling necrotics with his trusty flashlight. He eventually came out in a new district that he hadn’t known about until now.

This new district was labeled with a 6 and looked like an industrial slum. Eli housed himself on one side of town, inside an old store. It was better than his CWU apartment, better than anywhere he’d lived in his entire life. He set up barricades to hold back the hordes of necrotics that roamed the district. He started letting refugees into his home, and then worked with them to build new slum huts and assisted them in escaping the city.
He soon began to encounter the Lambda Resistance, although he referred to them as the “Lamb Dawgs”. They were suspicious of him at first, but began to accept him in a mutual understanding: We stick to our side, you stick to yours, but we can come on your side whenever.

This lasted for a while. He started using the headcrab zombies by stuffing them in fridges and dropping them on CCA sweep units. It wasn’t very effective, but it caused some confusion among them. He also grew potatoes in a dumpster, which actually turned out pretty good. OTA began to suspect that his home was a Resistance base. They demolished it, leaving Eli with nothing but his shantytown, now named “Refuge ‘45”, the refugees that remained with him, and his newly-found shotgun.

CHAPTER 4: OFFENSIVE OPERATION

Eli, driven by revenge, began to smuggle contraband and raid Combine supply drops, not because he needed the stuff but because he wanted to inflict pain on the Union. He’d smuggled and plundered about +120’s worth of contraband in his time at C45. He actively fought CCA sweeps, not wanting them to destroy any more than they already have. Eli became tired of fighting, becoming less effective with every raid. Then, City 8 came along, presenting a new opportunity.

Eli saw City 8 as a means of retirement. He was done fighting the CCA. He ditched his contraband, slipped into a citizen’s uniform, and boarded the train. He started drinking as much Breen’s Water as he could, trying to forget his past. He left his old life behind, and focused on what he could do in the present.
He befriended a CCA unit with the digits 47337, and a friendship formed between them over time. They often The CCA thrived; crime was lower than it had ever been. The Resistance was crumbling as their leaders and officials fell. Everything was perfect.
Then the breach happened.

CHAPTER 6: NECROTIC

Eli hadn’t been expecting a breach. There were so few nowadays, he didn’t worry about such a thing. He’d been spending so much time trying to find out why biolocks were blue, that it seemed to have come so suddenly.
He’d tried to save 47337, but there were just too many. For every zombie he'd beaten to death with his trusty flashlight more would replace it. 47337 was surrounded, cornered and brutally murdered by them. White drifted into a state of depression and grief, becoming isolated and cold.

Units were able to clear out the zombies eventually, but 47337 hadn’t had a chance of survival considering the immense numbers of zombies.

CHAPTER 7: VENGEANCE

And now, we’ve arrived at the present next chapter of Eli's story. He was engaged in a shadowy conflict with a man by the name of James Lanix, who has somehow found a way to control the hordes of zombie, including his Type-B necrotic friend. White had ruthlessly hunted him down, setting strange traps designed specifically for Lanix.


Then, without any good reason, a 9.1-scaled earthquake demolished City 8.Eli caught the train to City 18 with the other citizens, one of the last out. C18, like C08, was all new to him and it took him a while to get used to it. By now, he had forgotten entirely about the Lambda Resistance.

After varied confrontations with his old allies, he began to remember things about them, what they did. However, he also realized that they'd forgotten who he was, or simply did not care. Eli decided that his old life was the way to go, but he still hasn't found a way to return to that.


CHAPTER 8: FIRST CONTACT


Eli watches one of his old friends, Sven Smirnoff, dies by the hands of the CCA. Eli had hoped Sven would turn away from the resistance effort, but he had failed to do so. Eli is then directly contacted/attacked by the G-Man in Apartment 1-B. He first binds Eli's life to a "Zen of the Union" book, then teleports in swarms of zombies. Eli's knowledge of necrotics kept him alive, making it possible for him to escape. The G-Man appears before Eli on the bridge, explaining that he will not die yet, even after trying to kill him (and failing). Eli is now faced with a decision. Rejoin the Lambda, or join the CCA.

Eli decides to rejoin the Lambda, but instantly regrets the decision when the CCA bomb the entrances to District 6, making it near-impossible for him to leave. He meets a man by the name of Jason Mercury, who apparently had known him before the earthquake in C08. He hoped that Jason would help him escape, but he'd never gotten to asking. He eventually found himself leaping off a catwalk to try to get through a window to the old Loyalist apartments, which he succeeded after several tries.

CHAPTER 9: FREEDOM


Eli crawled through the rubble for two days straight, trying to figure a way out of the district. Eventually, he came to an opening in the rubble that led to the bridge. He encountered a NOVA-01 unit, who knocked him out and took him to interrogation. Eli told the 01 everything he knew, wishing to become a Loyalist to the Universal Union and redeem himself once and for all.

But it wasn't enough.

Eli ended up in the amputation room, by the orders of City Administrator Dr. Hiroshi Saga. He briefly conversed with the NOVA, and he whispered his last words under his breath. The machine flickered to life, emitting a terrifying humming sound. The machine had a slight malfunction, and by miracle, Eli managed to survive. All his memories were wiped out, and he suffered from a major case of amnesia. He awakened in a sewer trash heap: where all the amputated bodies are stored. The room was filled with a cloud of ash and smoke, giving off the scent of decay.

He slowly crawled his way to the maintenance shaft: the only way out. For three days he limped through the sewers, finally coming to a sewage pipe. He was on the verge of death. Starving, dehydrated, he crawled through it... and yes! He had made it outside, and the sun had just begun to rise over City 18, and oh, what a view it was. He could see far and wide, throughout the Union-controlled city. The citizens and units walking through the streets, the scanners and gunships hovering above.

Beautiful rays of sunlight streamed into the tunnel. He sat at the edge of the pipe, nearly 40 feet above the streets. He thought of a new name for himself... Garry Cubbarnes. "Yes, that will do.", he thought to himself. He had only two items left of his past, two items left to define his calling cards - a desaturated, green beanie, and a fully-charged flashlight. These things mattered much to him, but he didn't know why. But what he did know is that whatever path he took would not be limited by any group or faction. No longer would he be forced to choose sides, no longer would he have to submit himself to the confines of the Universal Union or the Lambda Resistance. Never again would he need to take and follow orders from "superiors".

And he began to climb down.


There’s so much more to this character I could explain in this backstory, but I’ve already come to, what, 1,500 words? I think I’ve given a brief summary of the mind of Eli White and his recent exploits. If you guys find any plot holes that I didn’t fill, tell me. So, I think I’ll cut it short here. Thanks for reading.


(Way too long.)

Nice story! I liked how detailed it was as well!

Thanks, mango.

Fully updated, added the latest stuff.