It is with great pleasure that I introduce my new pair of Asylums for Chrono Asylum. Everyone, meet Kai and Lina. :) [center]---xX--Xx---[/center] [b]Name:[/b] Kaiko (Kai) Mahii [b]Nickname/Title:[/b] None [b]Team Title:[/b] Dos Pistolas [b]Gender:[/b] Male [b]Age:[/b] 24 [b]Position:[/b] Asylum [b]Specialty:[/b] Hybrid [b]Alchemic Style:[/b] Primary [i]Vocem[/i], Secondary [i]Sigillum.[/i] [b]Asylum Code:[/b] XXX, number Thirty. [b]Weapons:[/b] 1. [i]Dos Pistolas.[/i] Kai and Lina each carry two Glock Gen 4 Model 19 .45mm semi-automatic handguns. They both have one finished in matte black, the other in chrome. The guns’ color signifies only one thing: black guns are loaded with Anti-Alchemic bullets, chrome guns with more conventional ballistics. Kai and Lina both have custom-made holsters that keep the guns held in an x-shape at the small of their backs. For this reason, the team is rarely seen wearing their shirts tucked in. (In instances where concealment is not an issue, the guns are worn in standard hip-holsters.) 2. [i]Robotic Minions.[/i] Kai has crafted a small zoo of entirely robotic pets that he carries along with him. He has a snake capable of delivering a venomous bite, mice, insects, even a small cat which appears startlingly lifelike. He activates these mechanical animals with Alchemy, which they have been specially built to interact with. 3. [i]Ghost Fangs.[/i] The set of six small, blue-black, Anti-Alchemic throwing knives seems unassuming and ineffective at first, but these weapons play into Kai’s Tech-Control. Their hilts contain small batteries and smaller microchips, and Kai can make them launch themselves at unsuspecting victims. They also deliver a powerful shock into their target’s body upon connecting with flesh. If left imbedded, they will shock the target up to three more times. [b]Alchemy Specialization:[/b] [i]Ghost In The Machine.[/i] Kai’s specialization enables him to, in a manner of speaking, ‘possess’ any electronic device. He utilizes the electricity already flowing through the device and can convert it into any sort of energy needed to bring the man-made object under his influence and control. It can be something as simple as converting electricity into kinetic energy so that a lamp is made to swing around and bash someone in the head. It can be something as complex as creating a synthetic soul for a large motherboard, enabling it to disclose all its contents to Kai through energy flowing into his palm. (It should be noted that Kai can access nearby electricity sources, like wires in the wall or running generators, should his claimed device need more ‘strength’.) Though in [i]theory[/i] there is no limit to which data systems Kai can crack and which equipment he can control, in [i]practice[/i] he has a more difficult time with larger items (a semi-truck, for instance) or more heavily encrypted computers. Those require a greater amount of energy and concentration, and often require multiple incantations or sigils. [b]Appearance:[/b] Kai stands six foot even, with a rather heavy build. He weighs in at 191 pounds and doesn’t have any spare fat on him. His hair is black, long enough to touch his shoulders and often worn with the top half in a strange pseudo-Japanese looking knot. His face is definitely handsome: high cheekbones, a strong, square jaw, a full, well-shaped mouth and slightly almandine eyes in a tawny, leonine shade of light brown. The Asylum’s life hasn’t exactly been easy on him: his once-straight nose now bears the distinct ridge from where it has been broken and healed, and a ¾ inch horizontal scar runs straight back towards his ear from the corner of his left eye. Thanks to Kai’s mixed heritage, his skin is a golden caramel color. Kai and Lena purposefully choose younger-looking and more casual clothing. Kai generally wears straight-leg khaki cargo pants and a loose-fitting forest or olive green tee shirt. (Occasionally black or sky blue, if he’s feeling fresh.) He wears simple, combat-style boots in dark brown or black, depending on the shirt color. Kai has a rather large tattoo in addition to his Roman Numeral. It is a Polynesian-style tribal sleeve which runs from his right wrist, all the way up his right arm, up over his shoulder to encompass his right pectoral muscle and shoulderblade. The Numeral itself, three X’s each three inches tall, starts at the nape of his neck and runs vertically down his spine. The X’s look as if they have been cut out of his flesh to reveal the same tribal patterns that compose his sleeve beneath. [b]Personality:[/b] Kai tends to be reserved around new people. He still hasn’t quite grown out of the emotional scars he received as an adolescent, and although his confidence is increasing rapidly he is still a little withdrawn and only speaks up when he feels he has something important or clever to contribute. In battle, Kai maintains a very calm and practical demeanor… although his single-minded focus when the time for killing comes can sometimes leave him wide open to a sneak attack from left field. For those who know Kai on a more intimate level, it becomes apparent that he is as eager to please as a puppy dog. Growing up in an orphanage left Kai with a distinct lack of both praise and love, so a small compliment can go a long way with him. Also due to the absence of strong bonds throughout his childhood, Kai genuinely cherishes the few people he does get close to. He doesn’t show it often, but Kai has a distinctly silly side. When things get tough, the big fella turns to humor and levity for relief. If he can find a reason to smile, even in the most dire circumstances, Kai always feels as if he will make it through. Of course, Kai is technologically savvy and an excellent engineer. He excels in anything to do with robotics and electronics. [b]Individual History:[/b] Kai was born on an American Army base in Hawaii, to a Native Hawaiian soldier father and a Caucasian mother. She died bringing Kai into the world, leaving her two boys on their own. Kai’s father raised him until he was KIA a month after Kai’s fifth birthday. The boy was placed in a foster home… but the father there was an abusive alcoholic. The second time he hit young Kai, the boy assaulted him with the kitchen appliances. At which point, he was immediately surrendered to the A.M.R.O. [b]Other:[/b] Kai generally carries a simple, unassuming black backpack. There are always a set of red, blue, green and black paint markers in there, used to craft his sigils. He has made an assortment of small robotic “pets” that he often carries around and can animate at will. Most often he uses the spider, the mouse and the fly. The backpack also usually contains trail mix, a pair of clean, dry socks, and a sewing kit. [center]---xX--Xx---[/center] [b]Name:[/b] Marcelina (Lina) Allard [b]Nickname/Title:[/b] None. [b]Team Title:[/b] Dos Pistolas [b]Gender:[/b] Female [b]Age:[/b] 23 [b]Position:[/b] Asylum [b]Specialty:[/b] Hunter [b]Alchemic Style:[/b] Primary [i]Motem,[/i] Secondary [i]Vocem.[/i] [b]Asylum Code:[/b] XIV, number Fourteen. [b]Weapons:[/b] 1. [i]Dos Pistolas.[/i] Kai and Lina each carry two Glock Gen 4 Model 19 .45mm semi-automatic handguns. They both have one finished in matte black, the other in chrome. The guns’ color signifies only one thing: black guns are loaded with Anti-Alchemic bullets, chrome guns with more conventional ballistics. Kai and Lina both have custom-made holsters that keep the guns held in an x-shape at the small of their backs. For this reason, the team is rarely seen wearing their shirts tucked in. (In instances where concealment is not an issue, the guns are worn in standard hip-holsters.) 2. [i]The Spanish Inquisition.[/i] It’s just a small blowgun, and a case with six darts. They’re Anti-Alchemic, of course, and the force of hitting a target causes them to deliver a paralytic agent; not lethal, but highly effective. In a world of high-tech weapons and powerful Alchemy, most opponents are [i]not expecting[/i] to be darted in the neck by the unassuming brunette at the bar. It’s also small, lightweight, and incredibly easy to conceal. 3. [i]Last Resort.[/i] A five inch switchblade with a knuckle-guard hilt that doubles as both a stabbing and punching weapon. The black blade is Anti-Alchemic coated, just like Lina’s blowdarts and her bullets. She wears it strapped somewhere to her leg: inside her boot if she’s wearing pants, on the outside of her left thigh if she’s wearing a skirt. Since Lina feels she would never have a reason to kill anyone who wasn’t an Alchemist, she sees no point in carrying weapons that aren’t targeted at them. The exception is her standard ballistics gun… which she carries in case she needs to try making a gas tank explode, or some such. Anti-Alchemic bullets are expensive. [b]Alchemy Specialization:[/b] [i]Barrier Generation[/i] Lina’s ability is rather straightforward and sounds simplistic: she is capable of generating energy-based barriers. These barriers can repel sound, heat, moisture, physical force, and most projectile weapons. The [i]uses[/i] for Lina’s barriers are practically endless. The young woman can cast a single shield with the wave of her hand in order to protect herself from attacks. She can create a box of shields and crush an enemy to death within. She can move the barriers once they are cast, and is thus capable of using them as a method of transportation or as a projectile weapon. The more missions she completes, the more uses she finds for her powers. [b]Appearance:[/b] Marcelina stands five foot seven inches tall, with a well-curved and well-muscled frame. If it looks like she works out, well, that’s because she does. Always haunted by her ‘fairer’ gender and desperate to keep up with the beast her partner has become in the past few years, she spends many of her extra hours in strength training. She’s no bodybuilder, true, but she’s in really good shape… most especially from a cardiovascular standpoint. Lina has dark, chocolatey brown curls that end just below her shoulderblades. She often wears her hair in a braid or ponytail. Like her partner, Lina is of mixed race… although her blood is Egyptian to Kai’s Hawaiian, they have a very similar caramel hue to their skin. Lina’s eyes are a shade of light sage green, and she does have a small spattering of dark freckles across the bridge of her slightly upturned nose. Her face is round, very youthful looking, but open and expressive. She’s one of those people who can’t keep her emotions off her face. Though her mouth is very well-shaped, her bottom lip is ever-so-slightly fuller than her top one, giving her an air of being faintly displeased at all times. The effect disappears completely when she smiles. Like Kai, Marcelina chooses loose-cut, casual clothes. Her cargo pants and boots are usually black, but she chooses tee shirts in a wide variety of colors and often bearing fun or sarcastic slogans. Occasionally she will wear a more fitted top and a knee-length black skirt, in which case [i]Last Resort[/i] is strapped to her left thigh and one of her [i]Dos Pistolas[/i] to the right. Unlike her partner, Lina bears only the one tattoo all Asylums must bear: her Roman Numeral. Hers is at a slight angle, the tops of all her numerals just beneath the curve of her collarbone on the left side of her chest, digits about two inches high. The tattoo looks as if her number has been [i]burned[/i] out of her flesh, the edges crispy and dark, with purple-blue smoke wafting out of the openings… which reveal a starry night sky beyond, seemingly housed within her ribcage instead of all her organs. [b]Personality:[/b] Marcelina is generally friendly, and much more outgoing than her partner. She’s pragmatic, practical, and automatically protective of her fellow Asylums, Kai in particular. Even though her tendency to mother people is still small, it is definitely growing. Taking care of others, helping them handle their problems, and giving her all to the team help Lina to forget about her own personal issues. Lina puts on a strong, cheerful face at all times, but inside she often becomes sad. Her violent, dangerous career as an Asylum runs contrary to her strong desire for a home and family. Sometimes she feels as if the price she ultimately pays to be an Alchemist isn’t worth the life it has gained her. She is still very much in the process of making peace with the monster she sometimes feels that she’s become. The female Hunter is very slow to anger, but when she finally gets there she is a force of nature. Rage does not make her sloppy: it intensifies her focus and actually helps to negate the heat of battle. Drawing Kai’s blood is the surest way to evoke a death sentence from the young woman. [b]Individual History:[/b] Unlike Kai, who has no Alchemic talent in his family (at least as far as he or anyone is aware), Marcelina was bred and born to the art. Her father was a French-born Asylum, her mother an Egyptian one. They were a husband and wife team, KIA less than a year after Lina’s birth. It was generally assumed she would be an Alchemic talent and upon her parents’ death was entered into an A.M.R.O. orphanage… which led her to the Academy. [center]---xX--Xx--- [b]Team/Shared History[/b] ---xX--Xx---[/center] [b]Team Name:[/b] Dos Pistolas [b]Theme:[/b] Technology/Energy Lina was five and Kai was six the first time that they met. She had gone through Kindergarten in the Academy, Kai joined her their first grade year. Although he was older, the trauma of losing his father had put him a year behind. Even at that young age, Marcelina’s giving, caring instincts were strong, and she immediately started looking out for the shy, skinny boy. He was the only person in their class the same color as she was. That shared skin tone would ultimately bind them together through their elementary school years. By fourth grade they were known as “The Mexican Twins”. Even though neither of them had any Hispanic heritage to speak of, and Lina’s green eyes sometimes gave people pause, by and large most people just assumed. Kai was very skinny as a child, and in their younger years Marcelina seemed to be the more well-built of the two. It didn’t help that Kai was initially misclassified with an Electricity Specialization. It made him seem weak and not very talented at Alchemy. Lina and Kai were in the Principal’s office quite often, mostly because Lina had decided to wail on someone who was picking on Kai. In seventh grade, things began to change for the duo. Kai finally unlocked the secret to his [i]real[/i] power when he hit puberty, and started to grow as if making up for lost time. People still hadn’t given up on the idea that Kai and Lina were Latino, and when the duo both showed as sharp shooters in marksmanship classes they earned a new nickname… one that has followed them every moment from then until now: Dos Pistolas. It was given with tongue-in-cheek. All their classmates knew how frustrated the two were by their supposed Hispanic descent, and of course that made it a frequent topic of teenage ribbing. When they were christened “Dos Pistolas”, the pair finally hung it up and learned to speak Spanish. It was one of the many things they bonded over. As time passed and their training continued, the two young people grew closer and closer together. They learned how to support one another in the field with their respective Alchemic Specializations. They got good at fighting as a pair in both Alchemic and non-Alchemic combat. Marceline became aware early on that she lacked the intestinal fortitude to execute the duties of a Silencer. Luckily for them both, Kai was not lacking in that courage. He also possessed some of Lina’s singleminded focus in tracking a target, but was often better at her than thinking two steps ahead of the opponent. Once they got close, Lina could isolate better than anyone else Kai had ever worked with: she saw every exit and blocked it completely… which meant she was also incredible at finding a way out of sticky situations. When their time at the Academy ended and the Two Guns were staring down the barrel of their fates, Kai realized that he couldn’t have anyone but Lina as his partner. Alone he went to the Dean of Students and begged to be allowed to keep his Marcelina. The Dean told him that Kai could not officially request anyone as his partner… that time had passed and the assignments were already made… but that Kai was a tad daft to think the A.M.R.O. would separate a team which already showed so much unity and promise. True to the Dean’s word, Dos Pistolas would continue after graduation. They were partners, now sharing the inexorable bond of madness, two lives fated for a single ravaging death. As far as Kai was concerned it was a done thing: Lina was the only person who had ever really [i]cared[/i] about him, looked out for his well-being and cheered him up when he was blue. At the Graduation Party, on the rose-covered terrace outside, he gave her the softest, most romantic and perfect first kiss any girl ever could have imagined. Kai stopped short of professing his love, but made clear his desire to pursue a romantic relationship with Lina now that they were to be bound for life anyway. And Lina, that frightened teenager, resorted to the only thing she knew. She shot her baby down. The girl had been overwhelmed: it was the first time Kai had shown that sort of affection towards her, and it was just too much when she was already nervous about their first assignment… worried in particular about him getting hurt. Unlike Kai, Lina’s parents had been the very thing her own partner was now asking her to become. Alchemists, married and -from what she had been told growing up- very much in love. For Lina, at least then, the thought of loving Kai [i]that way[/i] had brought up a tangled knot of fear and abandonment issues. She told him the truth: that she wasn’t entirely sure she could love anyone like that, or that she’d even want to… but if she ever did, she couldn’t see it being anyone other than him. For a while, Kai was content with that, and Dos Pistolas set about making a good name for themselves. They were always low on collateral damage, discrete and deadly-accurate. In the past six months, however, their relationship has begun to grow strained. Kai has become quite frustrated with Lina’s continued insistence that she does not return his feelings… especially since he knows her well enough to know when she is lying. [b]Theme Songs:[/b] - [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtVwIUnCUdI]Now[/url] by Paramore - [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn9M_DQExtQ]Till The Casket Drops[/url] by ZZ Ward - [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0307a7K2uY8]Do It Now, Remember It Later[/url] by Sleeping With Sirens (More songs will likely be added in the future!)