Sly Cooper Fan-Character: Hugo K. Boohm

The following is a detailed description of Hugo K. Boohm, leader of the mercenary outfit Dead Fortune and one of the bosses in my Sly Cooper fandom that opposes the Cooper Gang:

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Name: Hugo K. Boohm

Species: Stoat

Nationality: Irish

Likes: Strong liquor, explosives, playing darts.

Dislikes: Narrow-minded people, the upper crust, fastidiousness.

Unique Features: A twitchy right eye (particularly noticeable when he gets excited or angry), and a lighter with a shamrock motif (a keepsake from his deceased father; he’s been known to flick it on and off as a sort of personal habit).

Appearance:

Hugo possesses a wiry build and tawny fur with creamy chest-fur, along with red hair shaved to a crew cut, along with a bushy mustache and goatee. His usual attire includes a black tank top, baggy camo-pattern trousers tucked into army boots, a bandolier of grenades wrapped around his upper body, and a bowler hat. He’s also been seen wearing a trench coat when conducting deals, but tends to hurl it off during combat.

Personality:

Combative, coarse, and thrilled by the prospect of blowing things up. Despite this hot-blooded zeal for violence and the rough nature of his mercenary life, Hugo isn’t without tact—though he revels in a war zone, he’s a seasoned tactician and deploys his fellow mercenaries judiciously, rather then sending them in blindly. Furthermore, despite his rough demeanor, Hugo has hidden depths—he shows a respect for religion (he won’t conduct any operations on holy days), a certain sympathy for the working class, and an enjoyment of a casual game of darts at a pub with his fellow mercs.

These things aside, Hugo remains a decidedly crass survivalist, used to living in squalor and eating military rations—he tends not to stand on ceremony, and tends to be blunt to the point of being tactless (often with a snarky grin on his face). Finally, there are certain hints that he harbors a death wish—the more dangerous and unpredictable a situation is, the more excited he becomes. This fatalistic sense of humor often sees him with a toothy grin on his face, and it’s very rare to see him openly angry…but if he loses that grin, it’s a sure sign that he’s about to play hardball.

Fighting Style/Weapons:

While he has a working knowledge of firearms, Hugo doesn’t use them often—it’s usually his preference to make things explode. His primary weapon of choice is a customized China Lake grenade launcher—a pump-action grenade “rifle” based on a design that was produced in limited quantities. Hugo’s was modified to carry a five-round magazine, loaded clip-style just in front of the trigger, along with a detachable electronic scope he can use to gauge the trajectory of long-distance shots.

Hugo has also shown mastery with other forms of explosives, including hurling impact grenades with baseball accuracy (often while running or bounding, an impressive feat) and setting up packs of remote-detonated C-4. However, Hugo is also a formidable brawler, capable of holding his own in hand-to-hand combat in situations where explosives aren’t an option…and he happens to carry a set of reinforced brass knuckles for just such occasions. Finally, while he’s not a master of parkour like Sly Cooper, Hugo Boohm is an agile individual, capable of sprinting for extended distances and vaulting off walls in order to get a clear shot at his target.

Bio:

The mercenary group known as Dead Fortune started out as an offshoot of the Irish Republican Army, a fundamentalist organization devoted to achieving the complete independence of Nothern Ireland from the United Kingdom through displays of force and violence. As the power of the IRA waxed and waned over the years, and its structure went through several shifts, the group of militants who would form Dead Fortune became disenfranchised with its goals. Unable to re-connect with the rest of society, they chose to go freelance, forming a private military company. Because of their rather…explosive…approach to dealing with most situations, they found few willing to hire them—that was, until they turned to the criminal underworld. Before long, they became the go-to guys for radical small-world countries and criminal syndicates alike, hiring themselves out as both enforcers and assassins.

While Hugo grew up a combative youth on the wrong side of the tracks, he wasn’t the original leader of Dead Fortune—that dubious honor belonged to his father, a would-be revolutionary named Angus Kenneth Boohm. It was Angus K. Boohm who founded Dead Fortune, and who ultimately decided to turn the mercenary company into underworld enforcers. This decision would bring him and his troops into conflict with the law more than once…most notably they crippled Inigo Fox, Carmelita’s father, in a failed assassination attempt with a car bomb.

This would later come back to haunt them, as Carmelita would eventually join Interpol in the hopes of carrying on the family tradition. When an unexpected lead gave Interpol the whereabouts of Dead Fortune’s primary base of operations, she took a break from chasing Sly Cooper to track down the mercenary company, bent on avenging her father. In the ensuing confrontation, she fought Angus K. Boohm to a standstill, only for him to detonate his own explosives rather than face arrest. With their leader gone, the rest of Dead Fortune’s members scattered, and the mercenary company was presumed disbanded.

It is said that the greatest pride of a father is when a son follows in their footsteps. If so, then Angus K. Boohm would be content in the knowledge that Hugo has taken up the mantle and brought Dead Fortune back together. Now he directs their explosive path across the battlefield, willing to take on any number of illegal jobs or radical missions…

...If the price is right, of course.

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ARTIST'S NOTE:

I'd like to think my buddy, Night-Shade X ((Found at this link: [link] )), for helping me with the character design process--namely, doing his own sketch based on my description, thus inspiring the bowler hat, the bushy mustache, the grenade bandolier (though I modified the concept to attach grenades to his suspenders) and the quote along the top left of the page. Granted, his version was a little beefier than mine, but I always envisioned Hugo as being more wiry.

Thanks a bunch, pal! You really helped me hammer this out!