I'll be upfront with you guys, I'm working with a limited knowledge of the comics here. I suppose that's not that big of an issue since this is based off the movie and all but I wish I knew more about the world of Judge Dredd. Anyway this one jumps between three different characters, so any time time you see I am the law! that means its switched to another character's perspective, because I had to throw that phrase in here somewhere.

Looking out the window of the top floor of the Peach Trees mega block , Ma-Ma looked down at the never ending urban expanse of Mega City One. From the rotting streets rose the Mega Blocks, each tower a small city in its own right. Above the blocks flew small jet powered drones that functioned as the eyes of the hall of Justice.

"Ma" her second in command Caleb called out to her, but Ma-Ma ignored him and brought an inhaler to her lips. Pressing down on the vial made the painfully cold chemical cocktail rush out and turn to vapor when it collided with the warm air in her mouth. Ma-Ma sucked the mist down into her lungs and almost instantly her perception of time slowed to a crawl. She looked out the window at the aircraft again and watched them float past at a speed that would have never generated enough lift to stay airborne in real time. Thanks to her altered state of consciousness Ma-Ma was able to see details in the drone's design that would have been impossible to see at normal speed. The blue flame that spat out the aircraft's jet engine glowed with a luster that was made all the more intense while she was under the effects of slow-mo.

After twenty seconds that felt like twenty minutes to her, Ma-Ma felt herself coming down from her trip and soon the world returned to normal speed. After the time altering effect, came the euphoric afterglow that Ma-Ma had learned to enjoy every bit as much as the trip.

"Ma" he called out again, this time Ma turned to face Caleb since she felt up to speaking because of her good mood.

"We were talking about expansion."

"The other Mega blocks" she answered coldly, "I want them."

"I don't think that's good idea right now."

With obvious annoyance in her voice MA asked "Why, we have a drug that sells faster then we can make it and enough guns for a small army."

"That's true" he responded "but we lost a lot of men taking control of Peach trees, the clan is going to need to find more shooters before we can move on to other blocks."

"A recruitment drive" Ma-Ma asked quizzically.

"I guess you could call it that" Caleb replied.

"Fine, take the boys out and find whoever you can. Try to get them to join voluntarily if you can but if not enough of them join just start grabbing people. There are plenty of ways to keep a conscript in line."

"Right Ma" he answered obediently before he left her room. Alone in her home, Ma-Ma turned back to her window and raised a Slow-Mo inhaler to her lips again.

I am the law!

Noah, like countless millions of fighting age males before him had neither a job nor home to go to. Forced to wander the streets, the ex gang soldier knew that the likelihood of finding work was slim but he wasn't keen on starving or ending up in an Iso cube for vagrancy. Finding employment in Mega City One was difficult for everyone but for a man like Noah who bore two different gang tattoos it was next to impossible. Sometimes he missed the days when he was still with a gang but then he remembered how lucky he was to still be alive. His first gang had been nearly wiped out by a competing gang and Noah only survived because he had fled the mega block he used to live in. His second gang had attracted the attention of some judges while he had been out running errands for the boss, by the time Noah had gotten back most of the gang had already faced summary execution.

These experiences had influenced Noah to attempt to find legitimate work but two weeks later he had run out of credits and he began to miss some of the perks of being in a gang, like a place to sleep, a steady supply of drugs, weapons, women, but more than anything he missed food. Noah understood that he had already rolled the dice twice in his short life but starvation was guaranteed to kill him, so reluctantly he decided to roll the dice again and seek a clan looking for new soldiers, Noah just hoped that whatever gang that took him wasn't the end of him.

I am the law!

It was quiet on the top floor of Peach Trees which meant that the Ma-Ma clan's soldiers had been mobilized and after five months in the clan he knew that Ma-Ma wouldn't send the troops out unless she had something planned. Looking though the incalculable number of security feeds he saw that there were far fewer armed men wandering the halls than usual, not just on the top floor either which was the center of the clan, but throughout the block.

The Ma-Ma clan techie found himself thinking out loud and asked "What the hell is going on?"

"It's a recruitment drive" a female voice answered from behind. The techie nearly jumped out of his chair from fright before he turned round to find Ma-Ma standing just behind him. As if the her incredible potential for violence wasn't terrifying enough, the small woman could be very sneaky. Returning his attention back to the large monitor in front of him, the Techie tried to focus on his job and ignore the potential source of danger standing behind him.

"You know how those go" she spoke softly and close enough to him that he could feel her breath on his neck.

If she was referring to the Ma-Ma clan's method for getting new members than the Techie knew firsthand how it was done. He could remember five months ago when the clan's goons had fought their way down to his old level in Peach Trees. They kicked in the doors of every apartment looking for "volunteers" to help fill their ranks. He remembered that technically he had volunteered but that was after three goons lugging assault rifles had cornered him and asked, so at the time it didn't seem like he had a choice. Ten minutes later they were holding him down while they tattooed the back of his neck and marked him the property of Ma-Ma for the rest of his life.

His first few weeks in the clan were beyond frightening and uncertain, not that his current situation was pleasant but now he had a role to fulfill and that role kept him from being expendable. At first they treated him like any other soldier or enforcer; they gave him a weapon and told him to help expand the clan by shooting rival gang members on sight. The job of solider was a role the Techie was wholly unsuited for, he just didn't have the stomach for fighting and that fact was not lost on Caleb, Ma-Ma's second in command and career criminal.

After a disastrous incident in which the Techie refused to shoot a fleeing gang member in the back, Caleb put a pistol to his head and asked if there was anything he could do to help the clan. The Techie saved his own life by demonstrating how he could splice the wires in an apartment's call box and unlock the door without the owner's consent. It wasn't that useful of a skill since the clan usually just kicked doors in, but Caleb saw the use in someone with more technical skills. Soon after the Techie was in front of Ma-Ma herself pleading his case, he embellished the truth somewhat and explained how with the right equipment he could tap into the Megablock's security feeds and provide the clan with the ability to spy on every floor in Peach Trees. He knew that what he claimed was definitely possible but he didn't really know firsthand how to do so. Still at the time he felt that it was either lie or be killed.

Ma-Ma appeared to like the idea and soon he found himself with his own room on the top floor next to Ma-Ma's own private quarters. They filled his room with an abundance of hardware and within a day the Techie had figured out how to do what he had promised; having his life depend on it was a great motivator. Thanks to the promise he delivered on and the other technical problems the clan turned to him for, he was kept separate and for the most part safe from the rest of the clan and the dirty work they did. Because of this the Techie felt a small amount of loyalty to Ma-Ma, even after the incident with his eyes…he still felt that if it wasn't for her and Caleb he would have been dead a long time ago.

"Anything I should know about" she asked softly next to his ear. She wasn't touching him but he swore she was close enough that he could feel her body heat.

"Uh, no everything looks good" he answered, desperately trying to disguise the fear in his voice.

"Good" said Ma contentedly. For several nervous seconds she lingered behind him before she turned and walked to the door. This time she let him hear her footsteps.

I am the law!

"Show me your arms" said the older that called himself Caleb. Noah stretched his fore arms out to display the old gang tattoos on both of his arms.

"What happened to these gangs" Caleb asked next.

"They're dead, I'm not" Noah answered with as much machismo as he could muster. The two gangs he had previously been in were both very masculine and dominance oriented cultures and judging by the Ma-Ma clan soldiers that Noah had seen so far, this new clan wasn't any different despite who their boss was. Caleb nodded his head up and down seemingly satisfied with Noah's answer.

I am the law!

Five floors down from the top floor, Ma-Ma leaned against a wall and looked over the large assemblage of her clan. This floor that was clear of apartments and shops had been left open for the residents of Peach Trees to use for recreation; one part of the floor had even once been used as a playground. After Ma-Ma took over, the floor had become a staging area and makeshift armory for the clan.

Caleb had returned from his recruiting drive with roughly 60 new conscripts and brought them to the 195th floor for orientation. Orientation in the Ma-Ma clan included being forcefully tattooed with the Ma-Ma clan tag and then watching the spectacle of Ma-Ma repeatedly stabbing one of the new guys. The stabbing served as an example of what would happen to anyone that disobeyed Ma-Ma or questioned her authority.

Ma-Ma left the unlucky man bleeding to death on the floor while she returned to the wall she had been leaning against and wiped her bloody knife with her shirt. The new recruits stood in stunned silence but the more experienced members of the clan appeared to think nothing of what their leader has just done, especially Caleb who began to organize the new troops into two different groups. The majority of the new guys were still in one large group of around fifty men but five of them had been separated from the rest of the group.

Caleb approached his boss and pointed towards the smaller group of men "Those five actually volunteered, there all ex gangsters and I think we can arm and put them to use right away."

"And the rest of them" Ma-Ma asked.

"Most of them are young, I wouldn't trust them with anything, but we can still put them to use as cannon fodder in an attack."

Ma-Ma let a rare smile form on her lips at the thought of such a brutal tactic and it reminded her why she allowed Caleb so much autonomy.

"Alright take the new guys down to Atlantic Tower; the gang there is trying to stop us from selling slow-mo in their block. Kill all the Atlantic gang members you find on the first floor, and make sure to keep it on the first floor, I don't want to start a fucking block war, at least not yet."

Caleb nodded his in response and then lead the large group of men out.

I am the law!

After being forcefully inked with Ma-Ma's tag, Noah was lead up close to the top floor where all the clan's new recruits were assembled. This was Noah's first glimpse of the Clan's namesake who true to the rumors had several scars on her face. The scars however were far from the most prominent story floating around the city about her. Many of the cities gangs had heard rumors of what she had done to her former pimp, but until today Noah had never believed it. Two different factors changed Noah's opinion of that story from unlikely to probable; the first was that in what little interaction he had with members of the Ma-Ma clan, he noticed that they treated that rumor as gospel. The second factor was the sight of Ma-Ma stabbing one the new guys, he couldn't have been older than twenty, but she strolled up to him calmly and repeatedly thrust a small knife into his stomach. The young kid had cried out in pain and pleaded for mercy but was given none. To Noah and the four other career criminals that had been separated from the rest of the pack the message was clear, Ma-Ma was in charge and not to be questioned.

With the young man still bleeding to death on the floor, all the new recruits were lead away to another room by Caleb. This room turned out to be the clan's main weapon stash, Noah had seen no shortage of guns in his time, but the stockpile the Ma-Ma clan had on hand was breathtaking. From the floor to the ceiling the room was packed with weapons and ammunition from the last two centuries. Everything was there, from the latest electrically primed assault rifles to ancient turn bolt hunting rifles from the 2oth century.

Much to Noah's liking he and the four other more experienced gangsters were allowed to choose whatever weapons they liked where as the majority of the new comers simply took what Caleb gave them. Noah chose for himself a .223 caliber assault rifle. From the shootouts he had been forced into and survived, Noah had found that the old cartridge from the 2oth century provided excellent power for how light it was. This lightness allowed him to carry a large amount of spare ammunition and Noah knew that in the middle of a gunfight there was no such thing as too much ammo. Because of this, he began to greedily stuff his pockets with extra magazines, Noah's cautions greed was only strengthened by the fact that he didn't know what kind of fight the Ma-Ma clan was leading him to.

The .223 caliber cartridge is probably more commonly known as 5.56x45mm to those of you using the metric system. I don't know anything about what units of measure they use in mega city 1, so I kinda just assumed they still use the weird mix of metric and Imperial units we use in the U.S