[hider=Victoria]

[b]Name:[/b] Victoria Lyons
[b]Age:[/b] 23
[b]Gender:[/b] Female
[b]Class:[/b] [color=8493ca][b]Loner[/b][/color]
[b]Occupation:[/b] Mercenary

[b]Appearance:[/b] In the old world, Victoria would almost certainly be a beauty:Long light auburn hair with piercing green eyes, pale freckled skin, and a tall and slender frame. That's not the world we're living in anymore, though. While she maintains more than a modicum of vanity, it's not exactly easy these days to keep clean and moisturizing shampoo isn't even useful enough to be considered a luxury, and living in a armored car doesn't leave you with much opportunity to install plumbing for a bath. She her hair is usually dirty on a good day, downright filthy and tangled on a bad one, and while she takes pains to at least keep grime off her face, the same can't be said about the rest of her skin(her hands in particular often have gun oil from cleaning her smg and a few healed burns from smelting down metal for bullets or maintaining her machete and hatchet). She has a couple outfits worth of clothes but practically speaking only ever wears one thing-her self-made "armor" of plastic plates, duct tape, and Kevlar to stop an errant bite all placed over a grey long-sleeved shirt and pair of once-stretchy blue jeans. She only ever really wears anything else(with the exception of jackets during the colder/wetter months, but she can just wear that over the rest) on the odd occasion she takes the risk to clean and repair her usual armor-otherwise, she's even learned to sleep in it.

[b]Personality:[/b] Coming off as greedy is one of the nigh-inevitable great hazards of living as a mercenary(that and horrible, painful death, but the greed thing is clearly the more important), and Victoria isn't quite an exception there. She definitely likes the finer things in life, like partly-charged AA batteries and a lukewarm meal, and she isn't one to forgo these when she has the opportunity to make a good bit of money. Of course, if that was all there was to her, she'd live as a marauder and try her hand at robbing people. She [i]does[/i] like helping people, and she'll risk her life to help the other survivor groups make it just a bit longer(although, well, nothing's for free). She's one of the very rare sociable Loners out there-going it alone not because of an inherent distrust in other people, but because she just doesn't feel safe sticking in one place for too long.
Well. That's the reason she admits to herself, anyways. But lets all be honest here, if it was just about survival and safety, she could have found a safer marketable skill when she comes across other survivors. Sell her talent as a doctor, or fix electronic doohickeys for some supplies and a place to stay the night. In truth, the truth she doesn't fully accept about herself even, she [i]revels[/i] in this new world. In this world of chaos and danger, where the only way to be sure you'll see the next day is by making sure to leave a trail of dead Lurkers in your wake, where you'll never [b]have[/b] to waste away your life in a dead-end job like retail or as a pencil-pusher unless you just can't take it living out here. One of the most unnerving things most other survivors(in the broader sense) find out about her is that she almost never seems to be scared or frightened. Not quite manic or anything, she does lapse into pensive or solemn moods thinking about the finer trappings of the old world and the people lost in the collapse, and she isn't [i]suicidally[/i] brave or anything. But she can't help but manage a a giddy smile, whether its the thought of running for her life from a veritable horde of Lurkers to saving people's lives. Is it really so wrong that she never wants this nightmare to end?

[b]Background:[/b]
In a sane world, Victoria wouldn't have survived.

...Well, yes, in a [i]sane[/i] world, the dead wouldn't be eating the living. But lets play along, alright?

...Anyways, in a sane-er world, Victoria wouldn't be one of the survivors of the end of the world. It'd be a mechanic, or another soldier, or a scientist or something that'd have taken her spot on the cosmic list-of-people-who-survive-apocalypses. Y'know, someone with something practical to contribute. Victoria was a fifteen-year-old highschooler with poor grades who played a couple-too-many video games and spent more time gossiping than giving a damn about class. So by all rights, Victoria's story should have come to an end the moment she heard a banging noise from the front of the house and the sound of breaking glass. Even with the news reports, she was almost certain all that was a practical joke, so she figured there was a robber in the house. Naturally, she did what any normal, rational fifteen-year-old girl would do:she got up from her computer, grabbed the nearest blunt object, and hide in the closet. She didn't hear much in the half-hour after that...what she interpreted as labored breathing interspersed with stuff falling over or being thrown about downstairs. She was scared, of course, but did what she could to stay quiet; hopefully whoever was robbing them would lose interest at the meager belongings downstairs.

Then she heard a step on the stairs. A loud step, not even concerned with staying quiet, but strangely...a slow one. The next step hadn't come until a couple seconds later, and the next few were irregular and just as slow, and the labored breathing continued. Once the intruder must have been about halfway up the stairs, though, the worst came to pass:despite her success at remaining quiet so far, her computer made a loud [b]DOCK[/b] sound as her instant messenger of choice helpfully told her that she had a message from one of her friends. The next second seemed to stretch before the intruder picked up the pace, racing up the stairs and practically roaring before [i]slamming[/i] into her door. The second time it smashed into the door, the wood splintered, Victoria shrieked, and the new sound just invigorated the attacker even more. After the fourth slam, the wood finally gave way entirely, and the assailant finally came into Victoria's view-a large man, bleeding from various wounds-some with glass in them, she noted-and with a twisted, broken ankle. The...creature...wasn't even walking on the foot, instead more dragging the foot along as it unsteadily balanced on a jut of bone that pierced through the flesh like a macabre parody of a peg leg.

The next few seconds went by in a blur, and Victoria's vision went black. The next thing she remembered from her fear-frenzied haze was beating the intruder with the dented, broken, bloody flashlight she'd been holding as he laid on the ground, hearing the snapping of bone as she crushed his ribs and limbs in an adrenaline-fueled fight response, but the damned thing just. Wouldn't. [i]Stop. [b]Moving.[/b][/i] She kept away from its already-bloody, slobbering face as she utterly wailed on it, and eventually scored a lucky hit to its cranium just as it got her leg in the grip of its remaining good hand-even that didn't kill it, the skull is a damn tough bone, but the force to its brain dazed it just long enough for her to wrench her leg free and start running. It wasn't until she made it to the door, opened it, and shut it right back that rational thought came back from its lunch break:She saw more of the things roaming outside. She only had a glimpse-not even a full second before she slammed the door-so she didn't know just exactly what was going on, but the sight of a veritable horde of bloody people lurching through the street was enough that she figured they weren't just going on a evening stroll. Now that she'd started thinking...somewhat clearly again, she realized(with luck, for her at least) that everything was very [b]loud[/b] outside right now-if not for that, slamming the door might have drawn attention to her, but there was already the sound of crashing cars and splintering wood coming from the broken window in the room next to her entryway. First things first, she hurried to close the curtain there-maybe if they couldn't see anything inside they might not realize the window was already broken. After that, she found an old duffel gym bag her parents had used like once, emptied it out of the clothes and everything already in it, before filling it up with food some basic antiseptic from the bathroom, and found a more practical weapon than the flashlight she'd been using-a baseball bat this time.

With that in hand, she made her way upstairs, heart racing, and took a quick glance into her room. Call her sentimental, but she did have a few things she wanted to take with her, wherever it was she did go. Besides which, having a few changes of clean clothes would always be important-even if whatever this was wasn't a bloodborn infection, there's no telling what else they were carrying, and mundane infection is a serious risk even with fully functional hospitals to fall back on. The creature was still there on the floor, groaning and struggling impotently-the damage she'd already inflicted was more than enough to render its legs useless, although its right arm was fully functional and its left one was only broken at the forearm. The thought occurred that she might be able to skirt around it, but she chased that idea out of her head-better not to risk it, and besides, a bat had a better reach than a flashlight. She knelt down a small distance away from it, raised the bat, and brought it down on the monster's skull once, twice, three times...on, and on, until the corpse stopped even twitching, and a couple more times even then. It wasn't until she finished changing and packing up her things that she realized that by the end of it, she'd had a smile on her face.

It's the weirdest thing...The initial pandemonium stopped just as quickly as it started. Either you got it in your head just what you were dealing with, or enough of a gist in order to find somewhere to hole up and survive, or you found yourself one of the victims of the first wave of the local outbreak. Obviously order and the rule of law wouldn't be restored so quickly...but by the end of the first day even, the bodycount of your local area stabilizes. You don't have deaths numbering in the thousands, the tens of thousands after the first wave, and things quiet down within a week or two as people find relatively safe havens to hole up in until they need to head on out. Victoria took to squatting in various houses, moving quickly onward at the first hint of trouble in those first few months. She did find a Greaser gang to hole up with for just under a year, and make no mistake it was definitely a good one(she got her SMG in a lucky raid with them, and has treasured it ever since for the fond memories and just downright usefulness of it), but one bad siege and the hideout was overrun. She was lucky to have gotten out of there alive, and it served to cement her viewpoint of keeping on the move at all costs.

But after that point, it was a lot harder than those first months-this was going on year two of the apocalypse, and most stores of food or supplies had either been looted or were being used as safehouses by other survivors. It wasn't as simple anymore as picking a house to sleep in and raiding its fridge; even if it hadn't been picked clean, the lights went out a while ago and rotten food would only serve to keep you weak. But the one thing absolutely everyone has...Is a Problem. And that means that getting in the industry of Problem Solving is getting into an industry with absolutely inelastic demand. Of course, having those pesky [i]morals[/i] and [i]standards,[/i] she does limit precisely which Problems she chooses to solve(no, she won't kill your cheating boyfriend for you, nor will she bomb a rival safehouse or draw Lurkers to them), which has resulted in a couple lean days in the past...but a bit of travel usually brings her somewhere that people are clamoring for someone to help purge a hive of Lurkers or escort a survivor tired of living in fear to a Shelter. There's more than a couple fond memories in particular of course; the Bank Job of '26(turns out that nobody actually [i]uses[/i] paper currency much since anybody can rob an empty bank and inflate a local economy, but the good news is, free armored trucks! ...even if most of them use diesel), the Firebombing of '23(burning, rotten flesh smells even worse than burning human flesh, incidentally), and who could forget the Great Charlotte Siege!(nevermind that the entire idea of holing up the downtown of a major city was a godawful idea and that the Lurkers broke the lines, but she was there on the barricades buying time for the evacuation. Always felt proud of that one, and the bonus was [i]nice)[/i]

All in all, despite having lived as a borderline child soldier, Victoria has few regrets in this life. Lot of people need a helping hand(carrying a semi-automatic gun) in this life, and Victoria? She's more than happy to provide.

[b]Goals:[/b]
Priority One:Survival-Even with all the valuables of the world, you can't take it with you.
Priority Two:Help Other People-Money(well, resources anyways, old currency isn't as valuable anymore) might be important, but if she abandoned her compassion for others she might as well just turn to raiding.
Priority Three:Always Get Paid-Even so, she's far from a saint, and in a world like this she'll be damned if she's working for free.
[b]Equipment:[/b]
"Armor"(Made up of salvaged plastic plates on forearms and calf; duct tape wrapped lightly around biceps and upper leg and pretty much everywhere she can get away with without restricting mobility too much; elbowpads and kneepads, otherwise joints left mostly be; and a old expired kevlar vest for torso protection-hey, even if it doesn't stop a bullet anymore, it'll stop a bite. Focus is less on impenetrability and more on toughness of materials balanced with lightness-she doesn't fight humans if she doesn't have to, so her priority is materials that are really hard to bite through or otherwise tear. Has a few ideas for a plastic chain or ring mail, but doesn't have the skills necessary to make anything like that, so this'll have to do for now)
Medical Pack(half-stocked, disinfectants and gauze prioritized)
Weapons(Specifics below, of course)
Armored Bank Car(Used as mobile house/valuables hoard, Annoying Logo spray-painted out, acquired third year into apocalypse; you'd be surprised just what gets left behind when the goddamn living dead start coming out of the woodwork)
Keepsakes(While she doesn't pine away for the old world, there's a few things she's kept all these years that she can't bring herself to part from)
Food(Nonperishables preferred obviously, but more and more difficult to acquire)
[b]Weapons:[/b] Suppressed Modern Sub Machine Carbine(hereafter and prior referred to as 'MSMC', Specialized), Machete(Secondary), Hatchet(Secondary) 
[b]Skills:[/b]
1. Handloading(Expert-She's had to [i]learn[/i] to make the most of every bit of metal and ammo she can get her hands on, especially when not all of the ammo she's paid in is the right chamber)
2. Metalworking(Advanced-Same reasoning, since she'll need to be able to melt the metal down and then get it the right shape to be loaded, but also to keep her other metal gear sharp and in good shape)
3. First Aid(Advanced-both to keep her and her clients and potential-clients alive, self-explanatory)
4. Firearms(Adept-While she likes to think she isn't absolutely terrible with her gun, the fact does remain that despite having a good seven-eight years to practice, even a suppressed gun is [b]loud[/b] and if possible she's going to try to complete her work without attracting undue attention)
5. Melee(Adept-Again, in this case practice is dangerous, possibly moreso than with her gun though since it requires getting up close and personal with a Lurk. While she is...good enough, she's still wary about putting it to the test more than she needs to)
6. Repair(Novice-Parts can be harder to find than ammo these days, and all things honest she doesn't take care of her gun or the like as much as she should. Her other weapons are easier to keep in good shape and I'm assuming fall under metalworking. All things frank, she's lucky she figured out how to put her gun back together after cleaning it and has that much memorized)
7. Barricading(Novice-Life these past eight years has taught her that staying put is what gets people killed more than anything else. Lurkers are tireless, unwavering predators, and even the best-made wall [i]will[/i] fall to a sustained attack eventually. She piles things against doors or windows to slow down and divert pursuers, not to stop them entirely)
[b]Family:[/b] She's heard a cousin of hers going by the name of Samael Yuto's still kicking somewhere over in the Maine area, but for obvious reasons she hasn't been particularly able to confirm. Otherwise, no surviving family that she's aware of.
[b]Miscellaneous:[/b] Will warn here and now that while I'm not new to RPing, I'm not particularly great at writing long detailed posts. I'll make a good effort, but I do apologize in advance if some of my posts are more lacking than others. ALSO if Charlotte is gonna be used as one of the Shelters of Zone B or something, just tell me and I can choose another city for the Great [Place] Siege to have taken place as or remove it entirely. I'd like to detail each of the mentioned incidents later on as more of a noodle incident but. Don't want her backstory to drag on way too much, and as things are right now any of them can just be snipped entirely(although I only feel like the 'Siege even might need to).
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