Thomas Richards

**Thomas Richards** is the supporting protagonist of the **Into the Dark** *series* as well as the founding leader of the Brigade of the Black Rose.

Formerly a mechanic having lost his job during an economic depression. He became an important figure in the guerilla warfare against the totalitarian military dictatorship of the post-apocalyptic America.

## Appearance

Thomas Richards is a Caucasian male at average height with a lean muscular frame. Thomas typically dresses in bagging clothing, preferring black.

During outbreak day his civilian attire was a black hoodie with blue jeans and heavy boots. In preparation for his assault he builds a body suit of bulletproof Kevlar armor, complete with a ballistic helmet and a gas mask before going on a killing spree with two sub-machine guns, two pistols and two knives.

In preparation of his second assault he wears a maroon t-shirt with a black leather jacket and black pants with basic brown shoes while in civilian clothing. He also had one of his semi-automatic handguns attached to his side while a secondary was safely tucked in between his pants ready at any time.

In his third and final assault he uses his full body armor suit again during his battle against the government forces after making use of his sniper rifle.

## Personality

Thomas has an aggressive, militant personality. He has a far-left political agenda that primarily involves targeting the political elite and financially wealthy in the world. Thomas adamantly believes that much of the world's problems are caused by the powerful and that taking advantage of the weak and powerless in society is the greatest crime in the world. In this sense he has many similarities to **Commander** Dante Bishop.

A staunch anarchist, Thomas is focused on creating an anarchist society while also overcoming the propaganda and falsehoods that are associated with anarchism. This is seen when speaking to the news reporter explaining that chaos is not what anarchism is about, but rather creating free associations, confederations or communes without coercing people through laws, law enforcement or a state.

Thomas is an atheist and is biased against all religions, especially Christianity and Islam. He sees religions as nothing more than scams often aided by the government in exploiting working-class people for their money. He makes this clear to **Minister** Melvin Edwards during their interactions despite them both being apart of the Brigade of the Black Rose and the man providing invaluable assistance to him on more than one occasion.

Above everything else Thomas is a selfless man who puts the fate of the human race above everything, wishing to become a martyr and die for the cause he believes in to inspire others to carry on his agenda.

## Biography

### Background

Bill Williamson is a 23-year-old mechanic who lives with his parents in Seattle, Washington. While his childhood and subsequent upbringing was considered normal-psychologically, he was continually bombarded with the problems of the world, by ubiquitous TV sets, radios, and the views of Evan Drince, his only close friend.

### Events of the **Into the Dark** *series*

#### Outbreak Day and First Assault

Bill dons his suit of Kevlar armor, and goes to town. First he incapacitates the police by car-bombing their headquarters with a bomb-loaded van. He then begins to kill the residents of the town, shooting people at random, including a barista who refused to give him his money back after making the wrong coffee. He robs a bank, killing some of the employees including one who tried to physically subdue him. Bill slits his throat and mocks him for "playing hero" and discourages everyone to not dare oppose him. Outside the bank he puts on a show by burning fake money, which he had printed up earlier, to show that it is worthless and causes the problems of the world. Bill has killed at least 93 people during this rampage, which has only lasted a morning.

After the killings, Bill calls Evan Drince, who is in a forest nearby expecting him for a paintball game. When he arrives at the forest, Bill apologizes to Evan for having him wait for an hour, and shows him the money he robbed from the bank. He then immobilizes Evan with a stun gun, places a pistol in his hand, and shoots him in the head to create the illusion of suicide. Bill leaves the body of Evan wearing the armor suit, and holding the weapons of the massacre. He leaves the forest and makes his way home, before his parents arrive. While they are conversing in front of the television, the killer is identified as Evan on the news. After his parents console him on the loss of his friend, he tells him he is tired and goes to his room. In his room, while packing his belongings and stolen bank money, he hears another news report that police have arrested Evan's father, an antiwar activist during the Vietnam War era, who is accusing Bill of the crime and claiming the innocence of his son. Bill leaves his parents' house, as told. The movie concludes with a video recording of Bill announcing his departure on a personal quest to further "exhibit his brand of population control".

#### Second Assault and the Brigade of the Black Rose

Immediately after committing his rampage in Tenderville, Bill Williamson disappeared and had been living off the grid for years with the money he stole from a bank during the massacre. The video recording of his rants about violent population control had since garnered millions of views and turns Bill into an Internet sensation among hate groups and political extremists. In the present day, Bill uses the stolen money to finance yet another killing spree, purchasing a number of weapons, including two fully automatic, military-grade M4 carbines, and constructing homemade explosives. After making final preparations for the killing spree, Bill shaves his head clean, dons his suit of body armor, and sets the interior of his house on fire. He drives to an alleyway, where he sends away a homeless man he befriended earlier. He then uses the cover of the alleyway to shoot several random pedestrians undetected, before trying to enter a bingo hall, only to leave after finding it is closed.

Bill then travels to a television station in Washington, D.C., where he blows up his car and then enters the building. Inside, he shoots the security guard and several employees with the carbines. He then holds the survivors, including news anchorman Chip Parker, hostage and forces them to an empty basement at gunpoint. Bill intentionally leaves behind the program director, Andy, who calls the police. He kills one of the hostages when he disregards one of his orders, then repeatedly taunts Chip when he tries to reason with him. After a while, Bill gives Chip a disc and tells him to go upstairs and air the contents of the disc nationwide, then return with a camera crew so they could do a live interview with him, threatening to kill the rest of the hostages if he does not do so. Chip agrees and leaves the basement, where he relays his instructions to the responding police officers. However, while trying to air the disc, he accidentally slips and breaks the disc. At the instruction of the commanding officer, Chip returns to the basement and tells Bill what had happened; an agitated Bill threatens his life, but gives him a duplicate of the disc.

While Chip is gone, Bill criticizes one of the hostages for her personal life before killing her. He is then confronted by another hostage, who reveals herself to be the sister of one of the people he killed at Tenderville. She confirms she was the sister of the Chicken Den waitress (from the first Rampage movie) who accidentally dropped Bill's lunch. When she expresses her intent to kill him, Bill forces a male hostage to beat her. At first, he reluctantly does so, but when the man refuses to hit her any further, he praises his attitude and allows both hostages to live. Eventually, the contents of the disc are aired on live television; in it, Bill rants in a video recording about how the current system is flawed and that the U.S. government is manipulating American citizens and events for the sake of wealth. He claims that Saudi Arabia is the true culprit of the "War on Terror" for funding the 9/11 attacks but because of Americans' reliance on Saudi oil, U.S. soldiers are instead sent to go fight and die in the "wrong" countries that do not fund or conduct terrorist attacks on America. Bill claims that Americans desperately need gun control, health care, jobs, personal freedom and mercy from racism, but they are denied such things and citing Obama does nothing more than tell Americans that their country is not in any emergency or crisis whatsoever, he cries for Obama to be imprisoned and pressed with criminal charges. The video ends with Bill appealing to the American people to retaliate violently against politicians and the wealthy in order to restore society. Once the video concludes airing, Bill is now delighted into a good mood after his many outbursts of anger as his message has now been spread. Meanwhile, the officers manage to contact Bill's father with the intention of using him to appeal to Bill.

Chip returns to the basement with a camera crew, including an undercover police officer, and gives Bill a cellphone with his father on the other end. Mr. Williamson tries to appeal to Bill, then reveals his mother Sarah died in a car accident as a result of medication she had been taking for depression from Bill running away from home. At that moment, Bill becomes suspicious of the undercover officer and kills him. Using a hidden security camera he implanted earlier, he notices SWAT teams converging on the basement and detonates explosives, killing the officers. At Chip's urging, Bill commences with the live interview, during which he becomes more specific about his rants in the disc and also espouses his opinions about killing innocent people. He then reveals his intention to die along with Chip before shooting him in the arm and releasing the others.

Bill immediately engages a SWAT team in a shootout before fleeing, leaving behind a gas bomb that destroys the entire building and kills hundreds of people, including Chip and the officers. In the aftermath of the siege, news reports say that Bill likely did not survive the massive explosion. However, Bill is shown alive and well, having escaped through the ventilation system. Sometime afterward, he spots a young girl reading a book, Catching the Wolf of Wall Street, and criticizes her for reading one. Bill then gives her a pistol and instructs her to use it to kill her parents and then herself before sending her off with a look of satisfaction on his face.

#### Assassination of the President and Third Assault

In the third and final film taking place 3 years after the events of the previous film, Bill is revealed to have married a woman named Crystal and now has a baby son, Billy. They live underground in a forest. His dad, Alan, committed suicide, unable to live with the guilt of his son's actions. Bill returns from hiding and while carrying a sniper rifle, boards a train to Washington DC then goes to the roof of a parking garage on 7th Avenue (1.2 miles from the White House) and assassinates the President of the United States, as well as the Vice-President and the Secretary of Defense. He quietly returns home again by train. Blame immediately falls on both ISIS (with the news making claims that they are taking responsibility) and secretly Bill with a few agents of the FBI. After ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, the United States not knowing Bill was alive and thinking it was ISIS, launches a series of nuclear attacks on the Muslim nations and kills millions in the Middle East. Enraged by the nuclear attack, he then taunts the authorities, preparing for a final assault in which he expects to die as a martyr of his own cause, further establishing his iconic legacy. As federal authorities begin investigations upon who has murdered the president, Bill is able to hear what they are saying by having hacking their devices. The authorities begin suspecting Bill and catch surveillance of him walking around D.C., and that his entry into the data base as "Deceased" is an error, seeing how everyone thought he perished back in the 2nd film. FBI Agent Murray then recaps the events of the 2nd films, as well as adding that Bill's father, Alan, has committed suicide since he couldn't live with the guilt for all the people Bill murdered. Vincent and Molokai proceed to suspect Bill by playing his message back in the 2nd film, and Vincent Jones scorns Bill's message, strongly disagreeing with whatever Bill has to say, as while Jones' accomplice Molokai does the opposite, agreeing with much of Bill's logic. Vincent is rather unconvinced, mostly against Bill's rants that blacks are thrown in jail out of racism and the United States' aggressive foreign policies to declare war, particularly upon the Middle East. Vincent counter reacts that blacks commit crimes non-stop, which is why the police are so occupied and militarized, that they should be blamed for creating problems for the country rather than the police, and that the United States has to attack now or else they will be attacked and then overthrown.

Bill grows very concerned over what shall happen to his baby son. Bill claims that Billy as he grows up into adulthood will be forced to work in a system where the middle class is vanishing and have no chance of joining the richest 1% of America no matter how hard he works, will work into his old age where his body is weakening, "scratching and clawing" to find enough money to fund not just himself but also to leave some behind for his own children and soon he'll physically and mentally decay.

Shortly afterwards, Bill sends in an electromagnetic pulse to the agents' HQ which kills their power and wipes out all their data files, which hinders Vincent, Molokai and Murray's progress in tracking down the President's murderer (Bill). Bill, having hacked the entire FBI database, has now learned all data details of Molokai and Vincent, including their family's names, their family's personal lives, their phone numbers, their emails and their addresses. Vincent has an anger meltdown over how much his personal life has been exposed. With the FBI and a fully armed police squadron arriving, Crystal urges that they both evacuate with their baby, but Bill insists that he stay while only Crystal and Billy run, leading to a minor argument when Crystal stresses that Billy needs a father to look after him.

In the final battle that happens in a forest covered in snow, Bill goes into a gunfight with Molokai, Vincent, police officers and the SWAT team. His wife Crystal and their son Billy were able to flee before the fight began to take refuge inside a house. In the ensuing battle, Bill is able to kill off all of his opponents.

## Skills and Abilities

Even prior to the Outbreak Thomas spent the majority of his time improving his marksmanship skills and close combat skill constantly as an adult boasting an above average physical strength. During the Post-Pandemic America and the Second Civil War he proved himself to be a capable combatant and field-commander of the Brigade of the Black Rose. Throughout the **Into the Dark** *series* he's overcome numerous Infected and various other survivors even military personnel single handedly. Thomas is one of the few survivors who constantly exercises even taking up Boxing.

In addition to stocking up weapons from the military, Thomas also has also made a hobby of making his own weapons.

## Weapons Used

IMI Uzi - One of Thomas' main weapons of choice. He uses it in conjunction with his TMP during his first assault during Outbreak Day.

TMP - Another one of Thomas' main weapons. He also uses it conjunction with his IMI Uzi during his first assault during Outbreak Day.

Beretta 92FS - Thomas' sidearm of choice. He used it during his second assault months later.

Glock 19 - A secondary sidearm of Thomas. He gave it to Julia Evans for self-defense.

Stun gun - Thomas uses this stun gun in order to incapacitate people rather than killing them. He makes use of this weapon on occasion.

Survival Knife - Thomas uses his survival knife in self-defense when an assailant charges him and attempts to apprehend him. He responds by slitting his throat using the blade.

M24 Sniper Rifle - Thomas uses this sniper rifle during his third assault and successfully assassinates the President, Vice-President and the Secretary of Defense.

M240L - Thomas rigs this machine gun in order to utilize its rapid fire to use as crowd control against superior forces. Using this he is able to mow down a number of soldiers in pursuit of him.

Nail Bomb - The main specialty of Thomas. He is well known for creating nail bombs that are capable of exploding and releasing nails which act as shrapnel inflicting heavy casualties.

Anti-Personnel Mines - After a raid on the military base Thomas was able to acquire a number of anti-personnel mines which he placed strategically to help restrict the movement of the surrounding troops in their pursuit of him.

AT-4 Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher - Thomas also acquired this anti-tank rocket launcher after raiding a military stronghold and uses it to destroy a Humvee and an armored truck killing a number of troops.