Karim Lopez / Karim / Kay / Boss / Chief Dusk Sabre
FINALLY you all are able to meet JT’s S/O - and another former Hyperion employee - Karim!
And as always, I’ll try to list all the traits and facets of my characters that will be explored in my fanfiction!
Keep an eye on this because it will updated as soon as I define some other things about him!
Physical Details
183cm (6'0")
Lean and toned body that looks damn good in a suit
5 years older than JT
Left-handed
Dark brown hair, long and curly, usually tied into a low ponytail
Dark russet skin tone
Sharp chocolate-brown eyes
Hook nose
Always shaved to look neater, especially during workdays
After Tales / Fight for Sanctuary events
Switches to dreadlocks as a hairstyle
A scar on the nose, horizontal and long from eye to eye more or less
Another scar on the face goes from jaw to cheekbone on the right side
A thick scar that circles his neck
A bunch of other scars scattered on his body, from blades, bullets and wildlife.
Backstory
From Artemis.
Fourth kid of a family with maybe too many kids.
“Our father hated children and he had plenty of us”
His father was a bounty hunter while his mother had a pub in the settlement where they lived.
Worked his ass off since he was a teen to be able to afford to continue his studies.
Was able to obtain a scholarship to go to Eden-4 Megaversity and get his well-earned degree in Law.
After a couple of internships here and there as an assistant lawyer, he got a job in a private law firm based on Tantalus.
The law firm got bought acquired by Hyperion some years later.
So, Karim became one of the lawyers of Hyperion’s Legal Department.
Didn’t like Tassiter - mostly for how he got his (former) boss to give up and buy them like they were items - but he could deal with it. It’s business. It could happen.
But Jack and his too-questionable methods? His questionable way of dealing with anything? Making his way through legislation loopholes, gaps and grey areas? Karim hated him.
He would’ve quit the job if leaving Hyperion after having to deal with some questionable and top-secret stuff did not mean putting his life at risk. Or his career. Or both.
Jack would never risk having someone around that knows too much and is not working for him.
And Karim liked being alive... and liked having a job that paid the bills, so he had to just suck it up.
Also, he wasn't alone: he befriended a bunch of other Hyperion employees that didn't like working there but just had to deal with it like him.
Having the opportunity to rant about work and whatever with other people that like him didn't like to work for a shitty boss was really nice and helped to let out the stress.
It was during one of these get-togethers with some other employees that first heard about JT...well, actually about "that bootleg copy of Jack that works with the bots".
He heard many assumptions and speculations about this "engineer Jack/mini Jack" from other employees that joined the after-work get-together at one of the pubs in the commercial area of Helios the "World of Shopping". Bad things and...less bad things.
He met him only years later, when the "mini-Jack" himself joined their table without invitation and saying something on the lines of "May I join the shit-talking table too?"
Jay wasn't really bad if you were able to see under that façade of a knock-off copy, but not all the other employees that participated at the get-togethers actually went deeper than the appearances. And he for some time stopped trying to join the get-together or - if he joined - stayed by himself after noticing not being liked by the others.
But Karim still wanted to know more about the Jay under "Jack's mask".
Jay said that was thanks to Karim that he was able to realize that he had a fucked up coping mechanism and that, in reality, HJ was an awful person. A bastard.
Slowly Karim fell in love with Jay and Jay reciprocated.
They started dating and they were happy.
Karim and Jay were living together for a few months when Jay was informed that Karim for unknown reasons was on Jack’s “firings list”.
Obviously, JT decided to do whatever possible to give Karim another chance.
Karim discovered it only when JT received the news about being soon transferred on Pandora, having given up his right to refuse a transfer to save Karim's life&career.
It was something that would have lasted only a handful of months. They could deal with it.
They lost contact only less than a couple of weeks before the incident, Karim was spending his few vacation days visiting his family on Artemis when a problem with the Echo-device signal impeded him to contact Jay.
"In few days I'll be back on Helios and I'll be again able to hear and see him" Karim thought.
But when he was back, everything was stuck into chaos.
Some Hyperion facilities on Pandora were attacked, some destroyed, Handsome Jack was able to open the Vault, the Vault Hunters killed the beast inside the vault and killed Handsome Jack.
Handsome Jack's death left a big dent into the corporation, causing the race for power between the most power-hungry Hyperion corporates. Between them Hugo Vasquez and Rhys Strongfork.
Karim tried everything he could do to find out what had been of Jamison, but never found answers. No one seemed to know what happened on Pandora except for the opening of the Vault and Jack's death.
Some said that everyone in the facilities died "or something like that".
Sadly he hadn't been able to dig further to know the truth: as a part of the Legal Department he had a lot of work because of what happened and what was happening inside of the corporation.
That turbulent and hectic period of "internal corporate war" was like a fever dream for Karim. Had a lot to do, a lot to deal with, not enough time for the things he deemed more important...aka searching for Jay.
And then shit hit the fan.
Karim barely understood what the hell was happening on Helios, but after a frantic and confusing call from Vaughn that tried to explain everything and at the same time alert him, he understood that it was time to flee as soon as possible.
Helios' main source of energy got shut off by Rhys trying to stop Jack and the space station started its destructive fall towards the planet.
Thanks to Vaughn's call he was able to escape before it was too late, but he didn't join his "Children of Helios" and proceeded to leave everything behind him.
Vaults? The possible return of Jack? Nothing was relevant for Karim: now he was free from his "chains" that kept him tied to Hyperion and it was time to go to the Blight Region to search for Jamison.
Some of the other refugees from Helios decided to follow him instead of staying with the other "Children of Helios", but Karim never actually understood why they chose to follow him. Maybe they felt that he could help them more with surviving on Pandora? Maybe they wanted to help him? Who knows?
A small group formed and travelled with him, in a sort of small nomadic clan.
After long and difficult travelling, Karim - and his "clan" - reached the area where Jamison was supposed to work. The places that got blown up by the Vault Hunters and the Raiders.
What he found gave him the horrible evidence that Jamison may have died, as many told him when he started to search for him back on Helios. Maybe that was why he never found proper answers, only guesses, "it's confidential info" and the likes.
Karim was devastated.
Mourned for long, even after the ones that followed him convinced him to try to move on: between firings, venting/vacuuming, experiments, the ones sent into combat for him, the ones in the facilities destroyed, the ones that didn't survive Helios, many died because of Jack.
They travelled again, before finding a place where they stopped and built their settlement.
And not long after their settlement was built, Karim realized that he had become the boss of a "bandit" clan.
Karim became "Chief Dusk Sabre" of the "Fallen Blade" stronghold.
Traits - Positive / Negative
P - Per Aspera ad Astra: hard worker
Karim literally started from nothing and worked his butt off to rise from the dirt and climb to a higher position, earning scholarships and a really good job that paid off all his efforts.
Even if he ended up working for a jackhole, he earned that spot. He could've been let off when the law firm he was working for got bought, but he wasn't.
He is proof that often you only need to work hard and work well to achieve your goals. Karim never needed to buy his way with money or favours. Only plain ol' hard work.
P - Reliable and Trustworthy
Being a hard worker, you can be sure that he'll complete whatever task he has been assigned. Even if he will totally grumble if has too much to work on.
After the fall of Helios he turned on bounty hunting and you can be darn sure that if you want a job done, Karim is the right man for it.
Also he has always been a really level-headed, down-to-earth person and that's probably why many other survivors decided to follow him.
He feels like a person that you can rely on, that he will help you as much as he could and that will direct you on the right way.
Maybe has some leadership skills in him that he never noticed having.
Probably caring of his younger siblings back in the days helped him to create a natural “you can rely on me”-aura that makes people at ease. He doesn’t know.
P/N - The calm before the storm: patience.
Karim is usually a person that has a lot of patience and is able to maintain it even if he’s dealing with the most annoying person ever.
This totally comes from having to deal with many - older and younger - siblings and you know that siblings frequently don’t get along
But don’t think that his patience is endless. Because it isn’t.
If Jay's anger is shouting and aggression, Karim's anger is the polar opposite.
He became even calmer and collected, in a sort of cold calculating way. Sharp words straight to the point said with a cold and controlled tone of the voice. The facial expression became at the same time stern and calm. Controlled movements and body movements.
Too calm. Disturbingly too calm, like that unsettling stillness before a devastating storm.
If you angered him to that point, you'll feel like he's a predator hunting you down and waiting for the right moment to strike and get to your throat.
P - Smart and Highly Learned
Do you think that one could easily get a scholarship and then a place as a lawyer in a private law firm without doing many internships as an assistant like he did?
He studied hard and worked harder and all his efforts were recognized, they saw how much he was worth.
That's also why Hyperion didn't fire him when they bought the firm. Some other lawyers weren't that lucky, but he had an impeccable resume backing him up and his (former) boss always talked well of his work.
He was intelligent enough and learned enough to understand too well what kind of legal loopholes Handsome Jack used to do everything he wanted, hating himself for having to work for such an awful asshole and having to help - with all the other lawyers of Hyperion's Legal Department - covering his doings and filing lawsuits against the ones denouncing HJ.
P - Survival Skills and Adaptability
If you are the son of a bounty hunter you will have at least the basics taught on how to use weapons and how to survive. Even if your father hates kids.
Also, Artemis is more or less an hostile planet like Pandora so survival is a really important thing if you want to grow up to be an adult and get old.
He has worked a bunch of different odd jobs to pay for his studies, from helping his mother in the pub or following his father during some less dangerous "hunts" to many other different things, so he's now able to more or less adapt to any situation he could face.
Maybe he won't be excellent at everything but he will know the basics to get things done
The good thing of having a bounty hunter in your family? Getting taught how to use weapons, how to kill people or beasts, how to properly maintain the weapons in a working state...
Karim discovered being more for melee weapons, to be specific: hunting knives, bayonets...but also machetes, axes and whatever bladed weapon he could put his hands on.
The people that followed him and built the settlement have given him that "bandit name" because of his abilities with blades.
He's also good as a sharpshooter, even if he prefers assault rifles because often you don't have time to properly aim and you need something that kills quickly.
Likes
Jay
Dates with Jay and simply spending time with him
His brothers and sisters
The stronghold he unknowingly founded
Brownies
Bourbon
Chocolate in general
Mint tea
Reading a good book
Animals (if they don't try to kill him, obv)
Playing the guitar
Melee weapons
But also assault rifles and sniper rifles
Helping others
Hunting
Tailored suits
Ties and socks with silly patterns
The freedom from the Company that he finally achieved
Dislikes
Handsome Jack
Tassiter
Hugo Vasquez
Rhys Strongfork
Snob and rich people
When all of his work/efforts get wasted
Those snobby Business Majors that visited Helios and thought that they were better than any other employee.
But also the power-hungry people that run or work in the corporations
The idea of not being able to say a last goodbye to JT or even seeing him one last time.
Being freed from the ties to the Company only because of its fall
Used to hate being stared down by others when they discovered that he built his career from nothing and wasn’t from wealthy family. But now no one cares, finally.
That fucker that always wrote legal documents in Comic Sans.
