Despite his extensive augmentation, Marco passes for human and humanoid, albeit at a greater height and significantly greater weight than his natural adult height-weight. Currently, he stands at about six feet tall, weighing in at something around three hundred and sixty pounds, mostly from the extensive cybernetic implants he's had put in; that includes both arms, both legs, reinforcement of his skeleton with nano-woven muscle and subdermal armoring. His arms and legs are both obvious mods and he is forced to wear long sleeved shirts and full pants when moving around in public. His eyes, however, are the most disturbing element of the man; up close, they show the platinum and electrum microcircuitry woven into the iris that reveal them as something not natural, womb-born human. He tends to wear contact lenses, which tend to actually help with the situation, as well as, ironically, nonprescription glasses that help draw the attention of others away from his eyes. His natural skintone, on the darker side, is maintained with synthetic skin grafts over areas that are exposed to the public, though his facial hair still comes in -- it's dense stuff, requiring a close shave. He has a couple minute scars on his face.

Intense concentration to any task at hand – having survived maiming to the degree that he was rendered deaf-mute-blind and then came back from a traumatic experience, he has impressive willpower. He attended the FBI academy at Quantico and worked organized crime for some years in the New Orleans and Newark field offices, as well as certifying for SWAT. He spent a year in the Hostage Rescue Team when everything went to hell. As a result, he has significant close quarters combat skills, understands the use of surveillance equipment and, importantly, how to investigate crimes and the methods of law enforcement.

His role in the Vigil is as something of a generalist -- his augmentations favor combat, but not at the expense of mobility and other methods. Because Marco was physically destroyed, his reconstruction was, by necessity, extensive and the opportunities to enhance were accordingly widespread.

Marcantonio D'Agostino was born in Hampton, New Jersey, to an upper middle class Italian family; he attended Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated summa. After about two years in the New Jersey State Police, working on the narcotics task force, he applied for and was accepted into the FBI academy at Quantico. Graduating from that, he was assigned to the New Orleans field office and then into the Newark field office, where he struck up a relationship with Madeleine Kelly, the eldest daughter of Michael Kelly, a prosperous architect living in Hampton, New Jersey, with his wife and younger children. During this time, on the basis of his record, he was accepted into the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. Also around this time, Michael Kelly's youngest, Maureen, struck up a relationship with Richard Mullen.

Maureen's relationship with Richard Mullen took a turn for the strange and Maureen cut it off out of fear. This created a stalking situation where the local police were reluctant to get overly involved, which infurirated the elder Kelly to no end. Meanwhile, Madeleine and Marco became engaged. During Thanksgiving dinner at the Kelly's, the jilted ex-boyfriend showed up and made a scene.

More than a scene; he started going on a rant about how he and Madeleine were destined, and that turned into a furious soliloquy about how she was obligated to him because he saved her from the attentions of 'brutes.' When Marco tried to step in, reluctantly but confident he could handle the situation. He found himself on the floor, watching helplessly, as the thing started to tear through his fiance's family. He discarded the Kellys, including Marco's fiance, with contemptuous ease while continuing his rant. He drained Madeleine dry, and then gave Marco a ranting speech about daring to lift his hand to something far greater than he was -- it was a monologue where he called him a worm, as he ripped off his limbs and put out his eyes. But he called 911 and left him alive. Mullen didn't particularly care about Marco or anyone but Maureen Kelly; everyone else was in the way of his jilted fury. He was cast aside by Richard so he could focus on Maureen.

That perhaps would have been the end of the story -- the news reports were shocked and then the story disappeared, with Marco left on life support with nothing to particularly live for. The police made sure that the Mullens were never touched and the family moved on in their own time in any case, on to the next victim.

However, there was a crucial hitch. Paul D'Agostino, Marco's father, was a renowned surgeon on the pioneering edge of technology. Marco might have been a useful way in, but Paul was the target of the Vigil's recruitment, using his maimed son as a means to recruit the father and the father's colleagues. Through the course of five years, Marco was reconstructed along with other willing test subjects in what amounted to a massive crash course program in cybernetic enhancements. The Eternal, comfortable that the Vigil would only watch and never act, countered more active and aggressive threats as they came up, but never tweaked to the possibility that the Vigil had a centuries old plan being realized through the connections and brilliance of Paul D'Agostino and his multi-disciplinary team of researchers. They never asked why so many prominent medical and technological researchers were provided fellowships and then quietly disappeared off the grid, except to speculate among themselves that someone was culling them out for a reason.

By the end of the program, they had made the necessary breakthroughs for extensive cybernetic enhancements, along with other spin-off technologies in computing, that put the Vigil well ahead of the government. The Eternal, indifferent to tech at best, never seemed to worry so long as their smartphones worked.

More importantly to Dr. D'Agostino, he was able to give his son sight, speech and the ability to walk again. He was able to rebuild his son into an instrument of vengeance.

The test of the equipment came in the form of revenge for Sheriff John Krieger of Hampton, NJ. His assassination revealed a number of irregularities in his finances that the local authorities did not manage to cover up, and it implicated a wider corruption in the local government that led to a RICO case against the town's elected officials. No one ever figured out who precisely killed the Sheriff, but an FBI agent asked, "Qui cares, it has a bow on it" when asked who benefited from such a thing. For the Vigil, it was a proof of concept for the hacking and disruptive capabilities of the new tech, as they'd lured the Sheriff out with a series of false alarms and spread out the law enforcement so it was incapable of acting. Under FBI scrutiny, the killing was unsolved with damned few clues. Krieger himself was a thrall, strong and dangerous above the capabilities of a normal human -- he didn't stand a chance, either.

Richard Mullen made it all possible. And that's why he would be the first kill. It was part of the deal. Marco would lead the hunter-killer team, the first fully augmented one, to do the job.

Marco has undergone constant PTSD treatment – he was a wreck when they finally installed some form of communication implants in him and restored his hearing and sight first. While there has been immense progress and a focus on regaining what was lost and then exceeding those parameters, there is always the trauma of what he endured at the hands of a vampire. He has seen what those things can do, and while the therapy and implants have given him back a degree of self-confidence, he still does not truly believe that he has been brought up to a level where he can engage these things and win. He fights against himself on this.

The FBI's investigations could proceed slowly, and he learned over time to be patient about gathering the information, forming a good case. For Marco, picking up the trail through means like data is important. Knowing how to avoid the police is also important. True to his training, he prefers covert surveillance and taking care to investigate carefully rather than rush into situations.

Ria takes after her father, dusky skin and broad. At 5’5” and 140lbs, she is fit and toned with a layer of muscle, not curvy. Her near black hair is cropped close. She has strong facial features - pronounced cheeks and nose, with a sharp chin. Her dark brown eyes frequently have bags beneath them, and make up barely registers as a thought. Her body is scarred and frequently bruised. There are two thick scars that run from her right shoulder nearly to her mid back.

Skills: Tracking, planning
Training, Knowledge & Education: Vampire lore, her family’s hunting history. Training started a young age with trips to a gun range, as well as hand to hand training. “Normal” studies were attempted, but traditional book knowledge was never a priority. Ria also speaks English and Farsi fluently, and can get by as needed in Arabic.
Talents:Preternatural sense of vampires, including a pulling feel towards a specific individual.

Though she came from a family of hunters and had a network of family “friends” and acquaintances in the same line of business, it wasn’t until she was nearly twenty that she was party to a real hunt. For much of her childhood, her father would train her and her sister, Nima, and occasionally disappear with friends for a week or two. He would come back, nearly always injured.Nima was a few years older and started to join their father while Ria was a teenager. In those days, it fell to Ria to put together plans and contingencies. She played a peripheral, albeit important, role.

As she neared adulthood, she joined her family on their hunts. A string of suspicious disappearances when Ria was 19 spurred the small group into action. Ria’s plan was foolproof, at least for getting out alive. Nima would play the bait, pretty and similar to the girls already taken. Ria hadn’t counted on there being two of them or that they had indeed been baiting the hunters. Though she had an immediate bad feeling as they sprung their own trap, it was too late for Nima. Ria watched her sister disappear, unable to do anything but run. Her father, overwhelmed with grief, took his own life a short month later.

She buried her own grief, grief that turned into rage and near obsession. Leaving behind the others in her group, she set out on her own to track her sister. What she would do when...if...she found her was a question Ria could never quite answer to herself.

It took years to get any sort of definitive idea as to where Nima had gone. She ended up in Vancouver, sneaking aboard a yacht in the marina. Ria was certain she could feel her sister’s presence, but it was not Nima who confronted her. The handsome vampire sneered cruelly. His attacks mixed with feints, like a cat playing with a mouse before devouring it. Ria was no match, especially not on her own. Her head slammed into the railing, and she was certain she heard Nima’s laughter from a distance. In the moment her attacker paused to savor the moment before the killing blow, she flung herself overboard in the dark, cold embrace of the water.

There was no up or down, no moon to cast an eery glow in the water. As she flailed in the water, her lungs desperate for air, Ria saw Nima flickering in the water. She kicked towards her, pushing, clawing through the water.

She woke up in a hospital, banged up badly but alive. Not long after waking up, she was offered a chance, a real chance, to hit back.

Ria is motivated nearly entirely by a desire for revenge. Watching her sister be taken and likely turned and her father’s suicide in quick succession pushed a young woman over the edge into blind despair and rage. Working largely on her own for a few years taught her extreme self reliance. A more fragile mind would have cracked. At the end of the day, a chance to hit back is worth the chance of becoming monstrous herself.