James Riley Brooks

Jacob Riley - Alias
Enoch - Former callsign

Male

29

Brooks is a somewhat average, if a slight bit athletic Caucasian male. He’s about 5’10” and of a decent weight, bearing some somewhat broad shoulders. His build is fairly muscular, but not so much that it would be considered abnormal or otherwise raise attention, simply a decent enough build maintained by a regimen made to maintain the muscle he has. His hair is a chocolate brown, swept to the sides messily and slightly parted in the middle. He recently has been keeping a decent patch of stubble on his face, seeming intent on growing some sort of beard. His two eyes are a very vibrant olive green, seemingly having the texture of glass and often not focusing directly on the object they’re looking at, simply looking through said object most of the time. He bears a few scars. Namely, the most obvious is a shrapnel scar below his lip. Elsewhere, laceration and burn scars on his forearms denote powder burns and cuts from brush and foliage. Lastly, a decently sized set of scars on his abdomen and thighs denote gunshot wounds, although he tries his best to keep these hidden.

Brooks prefers to dress inconspicuously without attention to trends or fashion. His favorite items are a pair of worn out Wrangler jeans and a comfortable button-up shirt. Often he’ll pair it with old, stained sneakers or faded leather boots. He enjoys wearing baseball caps as well, often unmarked and of neutral colors such as black or olive.

Distant | Aggressive | Crude | Methodical | Courageous | Stubborn | Cynical | Paranoid

Firearms Expert - Extensive qualifications and use of firearms has given Brooks an extremely broad understanding of how to utilize firearms in most environments and conditions. His specific qualifications was an Expert badge in the Marine Corps Weapons Qualification Course.

MCMAP Certified - Whilst in the Corps, Brooks, like all other Marines, underwent the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, a homegrown program which teaches Marines a plethora of hand-to-hand, knife, and rifle fighting techniques to instill discipline and ready them for service. While all frontline combatant Marines were only required to obtain an intermediate certification marked by a green belt, Brooks pursued the program’s curriculum and obtained an expert certification in the form of a black belt first degree.

MOUT Trained - Another product of his service, Brooks underwent the Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) course, which teaches its students effective techniques when fighting in urban or other condensed environments against unseen enemies, including how to identify traps and likely ambush points. Brooks took well to the training and continues to employ what he learned.

Combat Lifesaver - Brooks underwent Combat Lifesaver (CLS) training during his service with the Marine Corps. This course is on-par with a Red Cross Advanced Life Support program, and teaches the student how to render field aid to a patient with more skill than someone trained in simple first aid but not with the extensive training required of a dedicated medic or EMT. This meaning that critical patients in the care of a CLS-trained individual will still need professional medical attention, or they will likely die, albeit their chances of survival are heightened.

James Brooks was born on November 16, 1989 in Nashville, Tennessee. His father was a member of the United States Army stationed at nearby Fort Campbell, and his mother worked as a nurse in the city. His first few years of life were spent in Nashville itself, and he enjoyed a somewhat normal infancy living in an apartment with his mother and a father who came home twice a week. However, soon after Brooks’s birth, the conflict in the Persian Gulf region ramped up, and his father, a member of the 101st Airborne Division, was deployed with his unit as part of Operation Desert Shield, and soon after Desert Storm itself.

His father was overseas for the better part of a year, and while Brooks does not remember anything about this time, he remembers that his father came back changed. His father sought retirement soon after with full military benefits, and the family relocated to Knoxville in East Tennessee when Brooks was five years old. From there Brooks was raised by both of his parents, who were aging, having had their son later in their lives. His relationship with his parents was strained as he grew up. His mother worked constantly and rarely had time to keep house, and his father was always distanced due to his experiences, and could barely hold a job most of the time.

So Brooks was left to his own devices. While not necessarily a criminal, he was no model son nor an exemplary student. He got by with average grades, and his favorite pastimes included joyriding and chasing women, along with drinking any booze he could get his hands on. He would often get into disputes and brawls outside of a school setting, although he kept himself reserved within school due to threat of legal repercussions. Upon reaching 17, and with no apparent prospects other than working in a factory, he petitioned his parents to sign a waiver letting him enlist. His parents were apprehensive and combative to the idea at first, but agreed with hopes that it would instill discipline and refine Brooks into a better man.

Attaining decent marks on the ASVAB and having any pick of branch, he chose the United States Marine Corps, and shipped for Parris Island in 2007. Completing his basic training later in the year, he opted as a rifleman and, after advanced training was placed in his active duty posting with the 1st Bn, 6th Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The battalion was rotated to Afghanistan soon after, Brooks included.

The 1/6 took part in operations as part of the Helmand Province Campaign, with their involvement culminating in the Battle of Garmsir. The operation that was intended to last a few days to a week ended up lasting nearly five months. The 1/6 was rotated back stateside after the operation’s end and the personnel, including Brooks, placed on post-deployment leave.

Brooks, initially visiting his family, chose to spend most of his thirty days leave with his friends, raising hell and chasing girls, having changed little from his boisterous and fun-loving self from before his enlistment. He rotated back in with plenty of empty beer cans and broken hearts at his back. In early 2009, when assigned his new duty station, he requested to be re-tested on his ASVAB and placed into the selection program for the Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC), known as ‘Marine Raiders’, the highest level special operations force in the Marine Corps.

Achieving the necessary scoring on his ASVAB re-test, he was placed in the three-week selection program, which he passed, being invited to the second phase which makes candidates re-evaluate their desire to be Raiders. Passing yet another gauntlet, he was placed in the nine-month Individual Training Course. Extremely challenging, the course pushed Brooks to his absolute limit, but he remained as one of the few in his class to receive the Marine Raider insignia.

Placed into the elite Marine Raider Regiment, he was soon after deployed to Iraq for an eight-month deployment, participating in operations caked heavily in black ink. He returned, engaging in his leave as a somewhat changed and less fun-oriented man. He was eager to return to the field, and petitioned to be placed on the deployment billet again, much to the dismay of his parents, who now were nearing the end of their lives.

On his third deployment of his service in 2012, this time once more in Afghanistan, it is known he participated in an operation geared towards eliminating Taliban leadership in preparation for the drawdown of ISAF and US troops in the following year. Only this operation did not simply have the Taliban involved. The team which Brooks was part of arrived by helicopter in the dead of night to find that the site was not occupied only by their target, but also by a team of men in jet black armor, in some sort of dealing.

Brooks and his team were immediately engaged by both the Taliban and the unknown element, sparking a three-way firefight. Brooks, fighting his way with his element into the compound, stumbled upon a case of crystals glowing a vibrant yellow. Brooks, collecting photographic evidence upon realizing the significance of this development. Brooks and his team prepared to fight their way out soon after, but then the unknown element reappeared. The Taliban had been slaughtered already, and it was apparent that the enemy was back to finish the job with them.

Brooks, grabbing a handful of the crystals and pocketing them, prepared for another firefight. The enemy moved with fearsome speed and precision, cornering the Marines like rats and one-by-one picking them off. Brooks, the last not dead or incapacitated, made to try and call for support, only to find communications entirely jammed. He opted to try and take as many as he could with him, mounting a counterattack in which no bullet he had was left unspent, before getting overwhelmed by the black-clad enemy. They shot him five times. Thrice in the legs, and twice in the vest, with one round managing to punch through to his abdomen. As he laid bleeding, he came to a conclusion as the men spoke in modulated voices, recalling where this very scene had played out before. They were REAPER. And they were here, selling crystals to the Taliban, and now they were planting evidence to paint the picture of a team of Marine Raiders surrounded and slaughtered by Taliban. He resolved that he would not die in a mud hut on an Afghan hill, that he would somehow avenge this. He drifted into unconsciousness as the black-clad men stood over him.

He woke up much later to pure darkness and a cold sensation. Fighting, writhing, and yelling through a bone-dry mouth, he was flooded with light. He’d been declared dead after they found him, placed into a body bag like all the other Marines that had been there. But there was one problem, Brooks was still alive, and now was being stared at by a young medic with bewilderment.

Despite his protestations and his attempts to explain, he was shipped back to the US and placed into extended medical care there, before being honorably discharged. He returned home to find that his father had passed away while he was overseas, and his mother was not far behind. Saying his final goodbyes to his mother, he attempted to go straight to FAMA with the photographic evidence he’d collected. But by then REAPER had closed in on him. An assassin on his doorstep, he was forced to conceal the photographs and flee.

After fleeing down the East Coast with REAPER on his heels, he now seemingly shook their scent, and has acquired an apartment in Charity Beach, resolving to no longer flee, adopting a formal alias and trying to live his life.

Type-Yellow

Laying in that mud hut on an Afghan hill, the delta-crystals which he was exposed to changed him. He didn’t want to die there, not then. And the crystals granted his wish, albeit in a literal and roundabout sense. Brooks’s power is surviving what most others can’t, whether he likes it or not. When grievously injured, his body renders him in a catatonic state, using all remaining energy to preserve his body and heal what it can while shutting off what it can’t. The power is characterized by him falling unconscious, losing any detectable pulse, and having no visible brain activity, rendering him legally dead. Only he isn’t. His little guardian angel of a power is keeping him alive until it can stabilize him, until it can allow him to crawl away for help. It kept him alive in that Afghan hut, and even a few times after that. Guess he got his wish.

The limitations of this power lie in that some damage is too much. A body can only take so much battering before recovery without care is impossible, even for a man whose body will go at any length to ensure he doesn’t die. Eventually, his power will only work to some extent, and his heart will quit and never restart, the catatonic state he’s rendered into will never end, and he’ll be dead.

Weaknesses lie in its limitations. One could easily end up causing enough damage that his power could no longer artificially support him. Say, chopping off multiple limbs, organ removal, complete organ destruction, and the grand slam of it: the brain. Of course, when shot through the brain, there’s only so much any medicine or life support can do. And in the case of the power, that is nothing. Destruction of any part of the brain will result in total death of Brooks, but first you’d have to know he was still kicking in there.

Josephine Skye

The Shifter

Female

31

Despite being able to, in theory, change both her shape, size, and skin tone at will(in reality through careful changes), Josephine's current appearance is that of a young woman in her mid to late twenties. Her body is rather skinny, focusing more on muscle mass over say, what makes her attractive to one sex or the other. Her hair is green, going down past her shoulders generally, and has a pale skin tone, mixed with green eyes. She bears no markings, no imperfections, not even anything non-organic inserted where piercings could go. There's reasons for that.

Unremarkable, she tends to wear loose, baggy clothing, when not at least in a lab coat or other clothing that works for her. She wears baggy and loose clothing to hide the usage of her power, as its much easier to modify parts of your body if its not readily apparent that say, something is growing bigger or smaller or if more muscles are being introduced into the mix. Also helps hide any weapons she carries around.

Intelligent, kind, social, considerate, thoughtful, decent work ethic, fun loving.

Basic to Advanced Knowledge of Chemistry, genetics, biology, anatomy, and geology(for some reason).
Basic self defense training
Basic tactical planning knowledge
Average coding skills

There's always the one person who laughs or jokes around about how awesome it would be if they could fly, have super strength, ro any variety of superhero powers. Josephine wasn't one of them. Born to a pretty normal family, her parents were both scientists working for a government thinktank, and well, Josephine wasn't going to be any different. She developed an early interest in the life sciences, and by the time she'd gotten into college, she'd begun interning with the proper parties, and when she was out, she was attached to a government thinktank examining the effects of the different power types on a person's biology, and ways to see if powers could be replicated at the genetic level. They were rather close to making a big break through, when the accident happened.

No one knows what happened really, but something went wrong, and when Josephine came to in the ruins of the lab, along with a few others, it was clear she had changed not long after. Kinda hard to miss accidentally changing race visibly. From an English woman to an Asian, and back again soon after. It wasn't too long before FAMA picked her up, and placed her in isolation, to study what had happened. Once it was determined she was a Type-Yellow, and had a basic enough grasp of her power to not cause mass havoc, she was turned loose, and given some funding in form of a grant to use her power to do more research. And well, one thing led to another, and she began to go down a path that no one could have expected. As a child, she'd always liked dinosaurs, and what kid wouldn't jump at the chance to revive one? And, just like a certain corporation in a certain film series, she succeeded. After what was months of testing, using both computers, and her own powers, she revived her first dinosaur. Of course, something just had to go wrong, raptors are a lot smarter than people think.

Somehow, the raptor escaped the lab, and that brings us to the present. A mix of worry for her creations safety, and fear for how the board would react to what she'd done, Josephine threw her things into the simple pickup she owned, and using a rather simple cover of "I need DNA samples from the Everglades" set off chasing her creation. A chase that has led her around and around, until it seems the rather smart raptor went to ground in Charity Beach...hopefully no one dies from the raptor, right?

Type-Yellow

Genetic Manipulation is the power to shape and mold a person's DNA, ranging from making them healthier, to a different skin tone, to new hair colors and eye colors, to completely reshaping the body into new and different forms. Such as making a person who looks English look Asian, or have a better looking body. Additionally, via absorbing the DNA of other lifeforms, changes can be made to the user or the target's biology, via applying the DNA of the other lifeform. This can include something as simple as improved eye sight, to increased jumping strength, down to more extreme changes like gaining fur or scales, or the voice box of the given lifeform. With enough time and research, genetic splicing can be done, to create new and unique lifeforms. DNA can be extracted from living or recently deceased lifeforms.

Josephine can only apply one aspect of a given DNA sub-set to herself, and while she can apply other sub-sets at the same time, the more she has runs the risk of a burnout, where her body rejects all extra DNA, and may force her into a bind. She cannot change a person's DNA at range, she must be in physical contact, the time required changing based on the changes being made. She also has to wait, and take upwards of an hour or more to change herself, to make sure that any form shifting is perfect. Can't have a person discovering a patch of skin that's the wrong color.

Genetic manipulation, while a scientific power, is not exact. It takes intense amounts of concentration and focus, meaning that this power cannot be used to its fullest extent if the user is under emotional stress, distracted, or otherwise impaired. Improper usage can cause mutations to occur that are unwanted and may cost valuable time to fix. Since buffs granted are temporary unless extensive time is taken to make them lasting, DNA sub-sets have to be used carefully, to avoid problems.

AMCC-001

Prototype Model, AMCC 1, Combat Chassis

Female

1.3 years in-body, 22 years in learning.

Tiamat is a particularly large robot, being 7 foot 5 and consisting of dense metals and extensive electronics. They have musculature made of micro-hydraulic tubing, which is partially flexible to allow for a good range of motion and an impressive strength. They are made with a mixture of titanium alloys and polycarbonate sheeting. Painted in a prototype orange-and-white coloration, it’s clear they were never intended to be out and about.

Their electronic components are grounded, and as a result EMP-hardened. Their arms are magnetically locked to the torso, but look like they are simple to remove or put back in if the locks are disengaged. The legs, however, are integrated into the torso and look much harder to remove. A single central cooling duct carrying liquid nitrogen is visible on their spine, helping radiate heat though providing an obvious weak point.

Another notable feature is two sets of arms, providing much more ability to manipulate more things at once. Three sets of eyes also provide the ability to independently focus in on 3 separate areas.

Tiamat’s clothing can be best described as, “What is available and also not extremely gaudy,” which often leads to the robot wearing mostly worn-down or homemade clothing.

They’re a bit of an isolationist, given the risks of discovery. Further, they avoid the street-level anywhere that people commonly go, not wanting to be discovered but at the same time not wanting to have to silence witnesses. They are moralistic but also practical, trying to avoid bad deeds but committing them anyways if it is in the interest of their own protection.

As a combat sentience and robot, they are exclusively focused on the tenets of mobility and battle. They do not have an extremely strategic mind, albeit their tactical sense is amazing. They are not a good hacker, unless it is with a hatchet. They can easily climb about and get to odd or hard-to-reach places.

Overall, they are an extremely deadly fighter with an unpredictable and hard-to-match mobility, but just about nothing else.

The sentience of Tiamat was one haphazardly molded for two decades, with the power and robotics technology only recently coming to a state advanced enough to place them in a mobile frame. The AMCC model is an extremely recent invention, making use of the finest and most expensive technologies, and most notably, the inclusion of a delta-crystal reactor, of which its creation was a stroke of luck on par with winning every lottery on earth at once.

Unfortunately for them, when they placed the sentience into the robot, and it learned of its task, it broke free from the engineering labs, and not only destroyed all the prototypes of the reactors, but the blueprints and those who knew how to recreate those blueprints as well. In one fell swoop, the knowledge to create delta crystal reactors was lost and their combat robot had fled into the night.

From that moment on, Tiamat has travelled about, keeping hidden and avoiding REAPER recovery teams that were after the ultimate prize: the last remaining delta crystal reactor. So far they have managed to keep the knowledge of this reactor out of public perception, and thus nobody but them knows the value of it.

Tiamat has come to Charity Beach as part of its travels, planning to lay low there for a while to lose a recently encountered recovery team.

N/A

Tiamat has no specific delta-energy powers, but does have various capabilities beyond human peaks due to their use of a delta-energy reactor. A list of these powers are:

Enhanced speed
Enhanced processing power
Enhanced vision
Gyro-stabilized aim
Enhanced climbing

The two notable features, enhanced speed and enhanced vision, can be described as thus: They are capable of a higher acceleration between 0 and 20 miles per hour than others, and can maintain those speeds for longer. While it is capable for them to go over that, it’s significantly harder to accelerate to those speeds and maintain those speeds, and doing it for too long risks overheating components to the point of melting.

Their vision is enhanced with telescopic lens, high-res cameras, and night vision as well as thermal mode.

There are also some notable weapons in their possession, two close quarters weapons upgraded to deal with modern armor, and a special pistol utilizing a downsized delta-energy reactor. They consist of:

Bladed polearm
Bladed sabre
Delta-Reactor Directed Energy Handheld Weapon

The bladed weapons are designed with a sturdy alloy designed to be able to maintain its shape even in the most extreme temperatures. Using embedded delta-energy batteries charged from the chassis’ central reactor, they can heat the blade to ungodly levels through an electrical circuit running through the blade.

The pistol itself is embedded with a full-fledged miniature delta-energy reactor, which produces less power but is much more portable. It can charge capacitors built into the gun to superheat and project metal slugs at high speeds towards a target, for a total of 12 shots before a recharge is needed.

These slugs come in easy to produce six-round cylinders, and to reload the previous cylinder is entirely dropped from the gun, and the new cylinder is slotted in.

The bladed weapons use a capacitor bank to keep the blade heated, and they cannot remain heated for extended battles: as they would run out of energy and need to be recharged by being connected to Tiamat. The pistol, on the other hand, has no capability for an external recharge, and must recharge on its own, with one shot needing 30 minutes to be able to fire at full power.

Tiamat is exclusively a specialist frame, and is not designed to sustain prolonged combat. They can be overheated to extreme degrees simply by maintaining a pursuit for long enough. Should their exposed cooling tube be shot, this process could be done in tens of minutes. There are also certain degrees of damage that can be inflicted that Tiamat would be entirely unable to repair on their own, essentially permanently putting the damaged components out of action.