[hider=Kaz Reboot] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0d/a1/a7/0da1a7b22009c9cb053940ff5964f76e.jpg[/img] [b]Name[/b] Kazankova Bykov [b]Aliases[/b] Kaz [b]Nationality[/b] American [b]Age[/b] 34 [b]Sexuality[/b] Bisexual [b]Birth[/b] January 2nd, 1997, Guam [b]Appearance[/b] There is no place in Neo-Tokyo where Kaz doesn't stand out. Taller than nearly every man she meets by a good few inches and towering over most women by nearly a foot, she has to duck to get through doorways. If her height wasn't enough of a give away there's also the matter of her pale skin and green eyes. She's very clearly not native to Japan or even Asia, a mercenary hired out to assist the NSF. She doesn't even bother trying conceal herself, standing with her back straight as she pushes her way through busy crowds with ease. She doesn't put any particular stock in her appearance, wearing the basic NSF uniform when at work and the same set of jackets, shorts and t-shirt when not on duty. [b]Height[/b] 6 feet and 2 inches [b]Personality[/b] Thanks to a good bit of her limbic system being doused in experimental combat drugs and deep fried by electricity vital connections to humanity were severed. All negative emotions Kaz feels are amplified with anger seeing the most drastic increase. Meanwhile any positive emotions are nullified so that they're almost not even there, a drop in the ocean. When she smiles it's nothing more than a dry smirk or a forced grin, her eyes lacking any genuine warmth. Bykov certainly understands the concept of humor and isn't above cracking jokes herself but they lean towards the off-color or outright black. Kaz has two modes: on and off. Usually she's operating in the off position, moving through life listlessly. She handles traffic, paperwork, taxes and firefights with the same tired frown. She stares straight through people when talking, focusing more on their mouth than their eyes and often paying more attention to the ever present cigarette in her mouth or between her fingers. The only conversation topic guaranteed to hold her undivided attention is that of cybernetics, an interest in the workings and development of mechanical augments a wistful holdover from her younger days. Switching to on requires her to rotate her left wrist nearly 180 degrees so that the metal hinges allowing her to perform the contortionist feat send a signal to her injector system. Upon receiving electrical impulse the other half of her Fangtech augments kicks in. The sedatives are drowned out by stimulants that dull pain and flood the mind with hate to be directed outwards at anything and anyone considered a threat. Bykov becomes more bear than woman, using maximum force to blast, batter or bludgeon down problems as they pop up. Turning on requires Kaz to set aside such useless concepts like fear, mercy, and concern for the well-being of others and as such is only done in dire circumstances. If the combat cocktail is pumping through her blood she is not likely to make conversation outside of threats and orders. [b]Role[/b] Heavy Weapons and Support Specialist [hider=Gear] [hider=Weapons] [url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/8f/84/5a8f84f48dbf545df68b6e0c1e98adaa.jpg]RIN-78 Minigun:[/url] A belt fed beast of a weapon. Weighing just under 100 pounds and capable of chewing through body armor, walls and light vehicles Kaz is only able to handle this thanks to her cybernetically enhanced strength. Overkill for most situations this weapon is relegated to being brought out only for high intensity raids. -[url=https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/401949488069083156/781635977541058600/LMG_1_1.jpg]H&K MG6:[/url] When the situation doesn't call for the sheer show of force displayed by the RIN Kaz relies on the MG6. What's ostensibly a LMG is light enough for her to handle like an assault rifle thanks to the strength granted by her augments. -[url= https://m.imgur.com/a/JYlaNwU]SMG 155:[/url] Compact enough that it can be strapped to the body without snagging on things and carrying enough ammo to support its rate of fire the SMG 155 can be controlled by Kaz with a single hand thanks to her strength and the bulk of her armor. [/hider] [hider=Augments] Fangtech Injector System (Mk. Kaz): A modified version of the original injector system she was fitted with, this one has been specially insulated to make sure it can't be shocked into malfunctioning again. It regulates two chemical cocktails that can be activated as needed. The first is a constant microdose of a mild sedative that keeps her her imbalanced aggression in check. While its not enough to impact her motor control or speech (or to help her fall asleep sadly) the sedative keeps settled at a "normal" level of anger and prevents her from slipping into a murderous rage. The second are combat drugs that essentially keep her fight or flight instincts turned to Fight, increasing her reflexes and speed while also helping the body to stop bleeding faster. She will hit harder, faster and with no hesitation. The downside is that using them for too long a period will fatigue her organs, forcing her heart to beat faster and her kidneys to try and purge the toxins. Too long using them and she'll either suffer a catastrophic heart attack or simply turn into little more than an enraged beast. Side effects of the drugs include: persistent chills, sudden hot flashes, the need to constantly eat to keep up with the metabolic demands imposed on her system and random nose bleeds. Muscle Enhancement and Bone Strengthening: Dasher's muscles have been interwoven with synthetic threads to provide increased strength and protect them from tears. This allows her to carry her gear with little strain, as well as making her a formidable melee opponent with the ability to shatter concrete blocks. Her bones have been artificially subjected to repeated micro breaks and allowed to heal, grafts of thin metal coating her shins, elbows, ribs, spine and skull. The end result is that her body is both incredibly strong and very durable, able to deflect glancing bullets and blades by itself and serving as a veritable steel wall when encased in her armor. Eyes: Instead of relying on an external HUD Kaz has chosen to get it integrated directly into her eyes. She can choose to display all relevant information directly on her field of view as well as switching between normal, thermal and sonar vision. The third one in particular is very useful indoors, Dasher using it pick out targets behind walls and in cover before shooting through it. [/hider] [hider=Armor] [url=https://imgur.com/a/clYloDz]Nemean Heavy Infantry Armor[/url]: A combination of high tensile steel plates, Kevlar and Nomex fabrics and ceramic plating the Nemean can resist small arms fire, flames, shrapnel and direct impacts from melee weaponry with ease. The auxiliary arm is synced to Kaz's inbuilt PHUD and is controlled by her thoughts while the helmet protects her from chemical weapons. [url=https://imgur.com/a/G4qaSqw]Ballistic Shield:[/url] Generally mounted on the mechanical arm provided by the Nemean Kaz uses this for a bit of extra protection in her role as point woman. The arm can rotate the shield around her up to three feet out and 360 degrees in any direction (space permitting) [/hider] [/hider] [b]Previous Careers[/b] -United States Army -Cardinal Command Security Consulting [b]Biography[/b] Kazankova Bykov was born at Anderson Air Force Base Hospital on the tiny island of Guam to Margaret Lyman, and American servicewoman, and Adrik Bykov, her Russian national husband. The marriage was already rocky and the birth of their daughter only seemed to worsen things between the couple, starting with her name. (Margaret wanted to name her daughter Kazankova despite it being a surname while Adrik thought it was stupid to do so.) Before she was even one year old Kazankova's parents had separated. Margaret would have her during the school year, Adrik would take care of her during the summer months. And so her childhood was spent mostly on the move, traveling from base to base with her mother only to fly off to Moscow every June. It was hard to make friends this way, barely having enough time to settle into a school before being shuffled out and having to explain to every interested child that no she couldn't come over for pool parties and barbecues this summer, she had to go to Russia with her father. Without any real friends available to hang out with young Kaz had to find ways to amuse herself, taking up an early interest in the fields of robotics, cybernetics and weapons technology. While waiting for her classmates to finish a test she would read magazine articles about improvements on prosthetic limbs, her room filled with various half completed mechanical devices she would tinker with before losing interest. Her life revolved around working out with her mother and dissembling and reassembling various household appliances to figure out how they worked, with very little in between. Whenever something went wrong she could bury herself in her hobbies. During the days after Tokyo was immolated in nuclear fire when her mom would pace the kitchen floor, on edge and preparing to be called up to go fight in some irradiated field, she almost never left her room. Her interest in robotics flourished and by the time she was a senior in high school she had won multiple state and national level contests. These victories won her scholarships to a number of engineering schools and she was being heralded as the poster child for the next generation of robotics experts and cybernetics designers. But she decided against that, having had enough of formal schooling. Instead she became Private Bykov of the United States Army, much to the chagrin of both parents who had wanted more for her. While in the Army Bykov volunteered for a number of programs that allowed her to field test cybernetic augments as they came off the production line, taking an interest in their inner workings. Most of them turned out to work fine, enhancing her capabilities in the field with little to no trade off. But the Fangtech injector system gave her pause. Kazankova had managed to get her hands on a copy of the blueprints and almost immediately spotted major flaws in the system. When she tried to raise the issue she was essentially ordered to shut up and get the implants. So she did, and for a year or so they did their job. She was faster, stronger, more dangerous and aggressive, pushing through at any cost with almost no concern for her safety. It came at a cost of her humanity, Kaz feeling herself slip into the mindset of an angered bear every the drugs slipped into her system. And it all went catastrophically wrong. When deployed to Afghanistan an IED set at a power substation she was guarding went off, the discharge of electricity overwhelming her injection system, triggering a massive overdose. Bykov dropped to the ground instantly, foaming at the mouth and bleeding from her eyes. She was left comatose for a week. There was a nurse on hand when she woke up which was how the alarm was raised. Kaz was still gripped by a murderous frenzy, snarling as she pummeled the nurse to death with her bare hands and blinded an orderly with a vicious headbutt before she could be subdued. It was another three months before she was able to go unrestrained, and a year after that before she was ruled as mentally stable. There were no legal repercussions for her violent outburst. The courts found no fault with her, how could they? She had been ordered to use an unstable and untested set of combat drugs and it had unsurprisingly gone wrong. What she couldn't escape was guilt. Every time she closed her eyes she could see the look of shock and pain on the nurse's face, could hear a man's skull cracking and giving way as she drove her head into it. She was suffering from intense feelings of guilt and paranoia. More than that, she was no longer able to feel positive emotions. A side effect of her massive overdose was that her frontal lobe was permanently damaged, her emotional balance disturbed. Negative emotions such as anger and jealousy were magnified while any bit of happiness was so subdued it might as well as not been there. Trapped in a sort of humorless nightmare and with nothing else to turn Kazankova became a mercenary, signing onto Cardinal Command Security Counseling as a heavy weapons expert and squad support. She spent time fighting separatists in Donbass, raiding narco drug stashes throughout Latin America and quelling riots in the United States for the better part of four years. It was this career revival that got her noticed by the newly formed Jinrai. Evidently the destruction of Article 9 gave them right to recruit foreign mercenaries, a turn of events that probably made the Allied High Command roll in their graves. But Kaz wasn't one to consider the geopolitical ramifications of her employers. As long as the checks cleared and working for them wouldn't get her marked by Interpol then the Jinrai were just as legitimate a military organization as any other. The work wasn't much different and her comrades were much the same as they had always been: dangerous, determined men and women with military records stretching back a decade or more. The main difference was that now her cutthroat comrades fought for a cause even if Kaz didn't. One of the more tolerable Jinrai operatives was Iwata Honomi, a capable combatant and decent human being. She was quiet, efficient, and good at keeping her mouth shut when it came to some of the more questionable raids they took part in. Most importantly Honomi seemed to under Kaz's condition and would go out of her way to try and calm her down she seemed at risk of exploding. Iwata was one of the good ones and Kaz was about as glad as she could be when her fellow operative bugged out of the Jinrai with her. Them starting a coup would mean that staying onside would make Kaz an international fugitive which was one of her only two breaking points when it came to jobs. With no other prospects for the time being Kaz became a bouncer for the Vertex, a foreign friendly nightclub in need of dumb muscle. The position lasted six months before she was called in for a better job at the NSF thanks to Special Agent Honomi. Once again she was doing what she was best at but without the risk of being disavowed if captured. She stuck around even after her patron left, doing as instructed even when that included taking Honomi down after she went rogue. [b]Affiliations[/b] - Margaret Lyman (Mother) - Adrik Bykov (Father) -Iwata Honomi (Friend from her Jinrai days, now dead) [b]Relationships [Optional][/b] [b]Takai Shunsen:[/b] The only person in the NSF Kaz can really relate to. They met through her friend and his mentor Iwata Honomi before she washed out of the NSF and kept up a cordial relationship, eventually becoming as close to friends as Kaz could really be with anyone. She had been at his side when they went to investigate their old contact and had gotten knocked onto her back by the explosion that took Taki's leg off. Kaz hangs out with him because she can rely on him not to piss her off. [b]Chris Bell:[/b]Another American and more importantly another American who fought in the Sandbox. Kaz would hang out with him for that reason alone but he also happens to be a pretty alright guy. They get beers (a formality for her, alcohol intoxication being a thing of the past) and chat about bullshit in English, a welcome change from stumbling through Japanese. He's solid, dependable and probably a little stupid but that's because he's a Marine so she can't hold it against him. [b]Character Theme[/b] TBD [/hider]