[b]Name:[/b] Ezekiel Cross [b]Age:[/b] 26 [b]Gender:[/b] Male [b]Race:[/b] Human [b]Occupation:[/b] Hunter/Climber [b]Appearance:[/b] Of average height and somewhat lanky but well built complexion, Ezekiel has the typical outdoors survivalist look. He has dirt brown hair, cropped short but unkempt and hazel eyes, which are probably the only thing striking, besides the scar about his otherwise bland and slightly rounded face, tapered with a small goatee. The right side of it has an ugly burn scar that somehow spares the eye, being only mildly disfiguring (and the reason for his nickname). Other scars in arms and torso are present, evidence of a rough life. Ezekiel usually can be seen in semi-clean very casual clothes, with baggy camouflage trousers, suspenders and a wife beater shirt...that should be white but half of the time is not, couple with fingerless gloves and worn and comfortable boots. It's actually a step down from his on-duty attire which usually includes a sturdy dragon-leather jacket and protective helmet with goggles. Harsher climates might see him don a cold-climate only coat, and hotter climates he might just do away with the jacket. He also carries a backpack with climbing apparel, such as rope and hook. He carries his trusty rifle on his back, and he has six thigh sheathes for throwing knives. [b]Personality:[/b] Ezekiel... doesn't do well social finesse. Somewhat of a rough-and-tumble person, he prefers the company of beasts to people at times, and staying indoors makes him antsy. He's patient and insightful when it's not dealing with the intricate norms of society and chatting, and he rarely loses his temper, usually choosing to speak as few words as possible. Ezekiel's somber attitude does not fit one of his most striking characteristics. His utter, and complete, lack of fear. He's a complete daredevil, and even capable of dry gallows humour in the most strange circumstances. Ezekiel... is fairly shy around the opposite gender. He has had no experience with women whatsoever, and they puzzle him a little too much. Despite his cold outlook and scary face, he's actually very sympathetic towards children, and always willing to teach urchins a couple of tricks. His empathy extends to animals, too. Ezekiel is a hunter, and he takes a life when he must, but otherwise does not engage in wantom killing, and he actually bonds rather well with chocobos and otherwise nonhostile animals. People are weirded out when he talks to them though. Ezekiel feels profound reverence towards nature, and by extension, the Ancients (Cetra). Perhaps humans could have learnt a thing out of them before they had gone extinct. [b]History:[/b] Ezekiel was born in the remote Nibelheim, a rough place besides the rather daunting Mount Nibel. A fifth generation in a line of hunters and mountain hikers, Ezekiel was taught the tricks of the trade very much like his father, and the father of his father did. Respect nature, maintain balance, do not harm for no reason. Those were lessons he took to heart from young. However this created some distancing with the kids, mostly infatuated with tales of heroes and villains, projected into the Shinra SOLDIER program. Ezekiel was one of the few ones who was not entirely enamored with them, mostly because he had witnessed how their kill parties worked when guided by his father for extremely difficult subjugations. It felt ... wrong. His father always said the reactor and those folks had perturbed the peace of the mountain. Yet, one by one, the rest of the boys left Nibelheim... with the girls having starry eyes at them enrolling Shinra to fight in the Wutai war and beyond. Ezekiel was too busy. Less manpower meant more animals encroaching. More animals meant more predation. He soon became active in the role of suppressing Nibel wolves at the age of 16. By age 19, he was already performing the no small feat of driving off the apex predator of the Nibel Mount, the Nibel Dragons. He even managed to strike an uneasy frienship with one of the creatures, which he called One Eye, after helping the beast nurse said eye injury for flying too close into the reactor's pipes. That same year... the boys were back from Wutai. Not all of them. But those who did had no stars in their eyes any longer. The ambient became oppressive for a time, the harsh lessons in human nature learned. Ezekiel felt constrained in Nibelheim for the first time, and wished to wanderlust for a bit. After explaining his family, they decided to let him go... but not before handing him a recommendation to head towards the Western continent, to see a certain Choco Bill. Chocobos were a wanderer's best friend, and he'd do well to learn the skills of the trade. He did so brilliantly. Tricking Midgar Zoloms into wild goose chases was an adequate pasttime, but he yearned for more. There was one legendary location that was allegedly more harsher than Nibel itself, that his grandfather had spoken of. The northern continent, Gaea's Cliff. It had never, ever been tamed. Ezekiel felt it was an adequate feat. And hopefully one he could brag about without having a tally count of human lives, unlike those who joined SOLDIER. Reaching Icicle Inn was easy enough, but the real challenge was the Great Glacier and Beyond. He almost lost all of his teeth trying to control the descent in a snowboard, and then there were those weird things prowling in the woods. It only got worse from there on, Gaea's Cliff was truly the edge of the world, with winds cutting like knives. He was thankful he met a fellow climber, an old man known as Mr. Holzoff. He was a treasure trove of tips and tricks of the trade, and Ezekiel learnt a lot from this man. He only wished he would ever tell his wife back at the Icicle inn where he was. After some time training in the base, he felt confident enough to challenge the almost vertical mountain. He was poisoned seven times due to Marlboros, then broken several bones by the fierce Blue Dragons that inhabited the cliff. He was surprised there could be something even meaner and angrier than the Nibel Dragons, but those blue lizards were in a different league. He wasn't confident that even his weapon would ever work against him, so he tried to avoid them as he could. The real surprise came a few meters about to reach the top of the cliff. Pitch Black, on cruel wings. Cruel sneer, teeth like daggers. He had never heard there was some kind of draconic beast beyond the Blue Dragon. It made the other species look like jokes compared to him. That thing also seemed maddened by the flow of Mako that permeated Gaea's cliff, and attacked Ezekiel without warning, charring half of his face with his dark dragon breath, and tossing him off the cliff, to uncertain doom. But Ezekiel did not give up, and swung his hook one last time, snagging and tearing the dragon's wing, and making the beast tumble in freefall as well. It should have been his end, but it was not. Ezekiel fell in several meters of soft snow, which broke his fall. The dark dragon had no such luck, his head smashed against the rocks. With the burn itching on his face, he grabbed the biggest rock he could find and finished the damn beast off. That had been enough. He needed a break from this abandoned place. Years had passed since he had left Nibelheim, so he took to his heart to go back to heal the wounds of his soul and body. It only tore him apart. There was no sign of anyone known, despite the new faces saying they had been all this life there. Ezekiel almost went mad when he found complete strangers at his home. Had he been dead? Had he hit his head too hard in Gaea's cliff? He took to Mount Nibel. He needed to think. It was then when he saw a familiar face. One Eye. The dragon remembered Ezekiel's scent and greeted him. Upon closer inspection there were more scars on the creature. Sword scars. No villager would ever be insane enough to come close with a sharp stick to a dragon, so those they must have been SOLDIER. That was harrowing. Ezekiel sound found other things amiss, like a cache of items on a crow's nest... that used to be his family's. His father would never have the crows stealing his prized coin collection from him. No, it was real. And this had been replaced by a bunch of doppelgangers. Someone in Shinra would have known. So Ezekiel took his trusty items, and set forth towards the place he disliked the most... Midgar. [b]Weapon:[/b] [i]"Wolfsbane"[/i]- A heavily customized [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/9/93/SniperCR-ffvii-vincent.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20120403123128]Sniper CR[/url], rechambered for higher precision and potency and adapted to more roughhousing than the norm, being able to work smoothly in both extremely cold or extremely damp climates. A long distance sniper rifle. [b]Skills:[/b] [i]Phantom Strike:[/i] Being trained in the art of stalking and hunting elusive prey, Ezekiel can figure an opponent's blind spots pretty easily and position himself as such so that his attack will come from said direction, often giving the impression he just "vanishes" in thin air before performing his attack. [i] Barrage:[/i] When things get hot and bothered in close quartes, Ezekiel is able to throw several knives accurately at his adversary, giving him time to put some distance between them [i] No Second Shot:[/i] By controlling his breath and muscle movement to the utmost maximum, Ezekiel is able to perform impressive sniper feats. If the circumstances are right, even a single bullet polykill is not off the table. [b]Equipment:[/b] Throwing Knives x 6 Potion x2 Antidote x2 Compass Hook and Rope Harness Canned Food Heavy-Duty Cellphone [i]Mythril Armlet[/i]: Affordable, light and increases Defense. [i]Fairy Ring[/i]: Protection Against Blind and Poison [b]Materia:[/b] Cure [i]and[/i] Chocobo Lure [b][u]LIMIT BREAK:[/u][/b] [i]Gaea's Howl: [/i] After watching the fauna for so long in wild areas and having sustained chronic mako exposure, Ezekiel is able to let a "Howl" that calls beasts and monsters to fight for him in his vicinity. Effects are variable, and the more wild the environment is, the more powerful the monsters summoned.