[hider=Marcus "Mudfish" Gruber of the 344th Cyrothaxian Flashflooders]
[b]Name:[/b] Marcus “Mudfish” Gruber
[b]Age:[/b] 31
[b]Gender:[/b] Male (sex is also male)
[b]Height and weight: [/b] 6'0 and weighs 160 lbs

[b]Appearance:[/b] A well-built, and slightly short man (both caused by carrying his gear and spare drum power packs) with crew-cut dark red hair. He has a thin red beard growing around his mouth which he cuts every now and then to keep it comfortable within his helmet.

[b]Specialization:[/b] Close Quarter Combat (specifically Urban fighting and Trench warfare), breaching and clearing fortified structures.

[b]Uniform: [/b]Imperial Flak Armor with the “Flashflooders” insignia on the left shoulder plate (A golden human skull within a patch of water shaped like a kite shield). Also wears a Krak Grenade bandolier on the front, along with harnesses to secure the backpack carrying his drum magazines in the back. When in combat, his face is usually concealed by his fully-covered helmet that comes with a rebreather for traversing through the filthiest environments.

[b]Armament:[/b] Merovech Model 481 "Persuader" Lasgun with drum magazines. Krak Grenades (usually carries a bandolier of 4), Melta Bombs (only allowed to carry one at a time. Saved for hostile armor units and heavy troopers). 9-70 entrenching tool, and their standard-issue bayonet knife.

[b]Personality/Demeanor:[/b] Marcus is a generally cheerful man with a morbid sense of humor. His time in the Imperial Guard has been filled with violence and despair, and has forced him to treat death, dismemberment, and agony as an occupational hazard. He’s known to make jokes at inappropriate times (such as scaring a squadmate by jumping around a corner with an Ork head as a mask, or asking someone if they wanted a souvenir as they toss a bloodied bone of unknown origins in their general direction.). His optimistic and joking attitude is mainly a coping mechanism for him; a way to channel the stress of battle so that he does not lose his mind. He, much like the other members of the Flashflooders, have no qualms with marching through the dirtiest and most repulsive areas to reach their objective. Unlike the other members however, Marcus is not as diligent in cleaning his armor after missions which often leaves him walking around their camp, covered in blood, mud, and guts, which got him the nickname “Mudfish”. Despite all this however, Marcus tries his best to protect his comrades. Though, he has also come to accept that in the course of battle, many will give their lives in the service of the God-Emperor, and that he should not waste tears nor time over them, as their deaths will have been in vain if the fight is not finished.

When it comes to non-human creatures, he does not necessarily share the same xenophobia of most humans. Having lived in a hive world with barely any natural ecosystem to speak of, Marcus has always been fascinated by both the flora and fauna of different worlds during his tour of duty, wanting to see how they function and poking them for reactions (with mixed results depending on the planet). He is wary of abhumans (especially those comparable to Chaos Daemons) but he does not invalidate their service or loyalty to the Imperium if it truly is there. The way he sees it, if they’re all fighting the same enemy, looks doesn’t matter, only skill, loyalty, and the will to emerge victorious as a unit does. What he will never forgive however are traitors, or those who abandon their duty to save themselves. He sees deserters as people who are willing to let others suffer.

[b]Greatest Ambition: [/b]To survive his tour, finish his duty to the Imperium and God-Emperor, and retire somewhere he can observe a planet’s flora and fauna in relative peace.

[b]Greatest Hatred:[/b] Traitors, Cowards, Heretics. Believes that anyone who abandons their duty to the Imperium is essentially condemning everyone to the threats and enemies of the Imperium, and thus are selfish and deserve no mercy (as they did not have the mercy to help the people they are supposed to defend).

[b]Skills:[/b] Having spent time in the Flashflooders Regiment as a user of the “Persuader” Lasgun, he has become accustomed to travelling and fighting with the heavy backpack carrying all of his spare drum magazines making his endurance relatively high. All the fights he has been in within the confines of bunkers, cities, and trenches have made him highly alert and able to quickly perceive and react to both threats and new information. As a Lasgunner behind the lines of both bayonet walls and Flamer lines, he is adept at spotting targets in the chaos of battle, either calling attention to them or gunning them down depending on the situation. He has a general knowledge of human structures and fortifications, which allows him to know a good variety of structural weaknesses that can be exploited for the purposes of breaching. Though his armor isn’t always cleaned, he makes sure to always maintain his weapons and equipment to at least be reliable on a practical level, as he has seen from others how malfunctioning weapons cost lives.

[b]History:[/b] Marcus was born into a lower middle-class family on the Hive World of Cyrothax where he and his brother and sister learned from an early age that they need to stand up for themselves if they want to survive. It was his mother that taught him “conformity to the Administratum keeps you in the God-Emperor’s good graces, but it will not keep you alive”. Both his mother and father were factory workers within the Hive and also doubled as trained civilian militia in the event of a crisis, which afforded them a few extra luxuries such as enough food to keep the family healthy.

As a child Marcus had read about other worlds and colonies from the few pieces of literature that he came across. He was fascinated by the ecosystems described on other planets which contrasted greatly with the polluted and industrialized Hive World which he lived on. He hoped to one day have a chance to see worlds apart from his own.

Because of the dangerous nature of the Hive levels on which they lived, Marcus and his siblings became adept at how to fight with both hands and weapons in their adolescent phase. Marcus found this useful on many occasions whenever gangs would try to bully his siblings for money (and other times, sexual favors, which greatly angered Marcus). However, the three siblings were more than a match for petty gangs, and were smart enough to stay out of the way of the bigger and more organized ones.

It was during his young adult years that calamity struck as their world became the victim of an Ork WAAAGH! That passed into their system, destroying outposts on a nearby planet and prompted their local government to prepare everyone for imminent invasion, mobilizing both the Planetary Defense Force and civilian militia. The WAAGH decimated at least 2 hives and were in the process of besieging Marcus’ home Hive by the time the Astra Militarum and a nearby chapter of the Adeptus Astartes arrived to relieve the local forces. Marcus and his siblings were evacuated to a sheltered area of their Hive, but their mother was killed in the fighting as the militia held the Orks off as the people escaped, and the loss of local life was staggering. Life was not the same for the family afterwards, with their father becoming distant and almost robotic after witnessing their mother’s death. Their home was destroyed and they had to make do in the slums of their hive level (as all the local resources were being pooled into reconstructing vital facilities in the wake of the WAAGH). His brother became resentful and rebellious while his sister had to act as their caretaker in their mother’s absence.

Witnessing this struggle firsthand, Marcus realized how fragile their way of life was, and survival was not just about protecting your own from the dangers of the planet. He signed on for the Imperial Guard so that he can offer his blood and sweat for the Imperium in the hopes that his efforts can help stop countless others from experiencing their tragedy.

His training years were grueling, but Marcus’ ability to handle high stress managed to land him in the 344th Cyrothaxians Regiment, nicknamed the “Flashflooders”. They were a regiment that specialized in urban combat and fighting in close quarter environments in order to “flood” the enemy and flush them out. Chimeras and Valkyrie transports were used mainly as a means to insert their forces into hot-zones and past exterior defenses. They have very little armor and air support, but what little they do have is geared to be most effective in confined spaces, and their training drills reflect that doctrine. Marcus specialized as a close-quarters Lasgunner, usually staying behind the ones who fought with the Flamers and Bayonets to cover them from enemies. The Lasgun firing line would shoot down anything out of range of those on the frontline, or at least soften them up.

The Flashflooders were sent off-world as part of the Imperial tithe, and were sent to both other hive worlds and places where environments made traditional armor columns were less effective than infantry (such as heavily forested planets or places with rocky cliffs and mountains). Marcus made use of his free time on other planets by trying to learn about what exotic life lived there, and it helped keep his mind off the difficulty of both travel and battle. While they fought their fair share of the Emperor’s enemies, they never fought in a full-blown war like the fight for the Vernum system

The 344th was deployed alongside other Cyrothaxian regiments there to aid in the crusade due to their specialization in close quarter fighting. Throughout the 20-year war, the Cyrothaxians aided the Imperial force by pushing into fortified Ork zones and occupied cities (some softened up by the efforts of the Astartes) in order to flush out those hiding in buildings, bunkers, and trenches to leave them at the mercy of the endless armor columns and Artillery barrages of the Imperial Guard. Orks were never one to retreat however, and it took extremely high amounts of firepower and Imperial lives to push them out of their holes. Entire Regiments were wiped out throughout the campaign, and by the time the Imperial Guard began the siege of the capital city, the 344th was one of the 3 Cyrothaxian regiments still standing.

Their role in the fight against the capital was to secure and expand the trench line outside the city as a staging area for the assault. Afterwards, they would push into vital facilities in the outer areas of the city and secure them. One of the Cyrothaxian regiments were wiped out in clearing the trenches, falling to both the Ork cannons and Dakkas protecting the city and the endless amount of Greenskins that held the trenches.

The 344th and the 298th Cyrothaxians suffered heavy losses, but continued to push into the urban centers. They assisted the Imperial Guard in taking weapon factories to cut off the Ork supply of weapons. These areas were fiercely defended by the Orks and the Flamer/bayonet lines on the front had to be constantly replaced, and there were times where they could not replace the frontline fast enough, and this took a toll on the heavy gunners and infantry in the rear. While they managed to emerge victorious in securing the munitions buildings, the 298th was completely decimated, and the 344th Flashflooders were reduced to mere squads.

Marcus’ hands went numb from how long he had to sustain fire against the Orks in the fight for the trenches and the city. Many times he thought his moment of death was coming, be it from the Orks or the harsh environment of war itself, yet he was among the survivors. But the victory was bittersweet, as thousands of his comrades were lost in the fighting. Now he gathers with the few remaining members and vehicles of the Flashflooders outside Vernum Primas for their “victory” parade.

[i]“I guess a victory for The Imperium isn’t always a victory for us fightin’ on the soil. But hey, that’s what we signed up for. We take on the horrors so that others won’t have to”[/i]

[b]Miscellaneous:[/b] If the area stinks, Marcus probably lives nearby.
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