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Name
Alex Schäfer

Gender
Male

Age
23, July 14th, 1891

Sexuality
Heterosexual

Race
A Darcsen out of New Bedford, Vinland

Height
5'8"

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Appearance
Alex is fighting a losing battle against the trenches to preserve his appearance. Understanding that he will never be able to achieve parade conditions while at the front he settles for simply doing the best that he can under the circumstances. Instead of keeping his buttons and belt buckle shining and thus making himself a target he just tries to keep them mostly free of rust. Similarly his boots and uniform can never truly be free of stains, just kept from losing all of their original color.

The only nonstandard addition to his dress is the shawl he wears wrapped around his shoulders, the Darcsen pattern visible for all to see along with the color of his hair.

Personality
War is an adventure, the chance for a young man to experience fear and summon bravery not often seen in civilian life. To Alex the outbreak of this Europan conflict is the greatest opportunity he's been given. As a gentleman and a soldier his first priority is presenting himself properly, keeping cool and collected under fire so as to set a good example for his subordinates. As such he refuses to treat combat as anything other than exhilarating sport, taking in the exercise with a determined smile. The only downside to the war in his mind is that instead of serving as a cavalryman as intended he's been relegated to shooting at faraway targets that will never see him coming. This chivalrous (or perhaps simply foolhardy) outlook should not be mistaken for carelessness nor his disdain for sniping as an urge to shirk his duties. Alex is devoted to doing his part to win the war, seeing the Imperial's aggressions against Gallia as a slight that cannot go unanswered.

Alex sees his heritage as something to be proud of but not particularly relevant to his day to day life.. He's happy to talk about himself or Darcsen culture if asked and quick to defend it when slighted.

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Rank
Sergeant

Role
Marksman

Equipment
M1912 Fielder, Marksmen Variant: The standard Fielder equipped with a x9 scope and the option to fit a suppressor.
Turner-Cable Pistol:A gift from Alex's father.
Model 1909 Saber: The sword Alex used during his days as a cavalryman. Made almost entirely obsolete by his role but kept around out of sentimentality and the occasional enemy trench raid.
Fielder Bayonet: For cutting things that need to be cut.
Valkur: A former mercy dog although it would be impossible to tell from his temperament. Used to carry ammo, run messages and shred Imperials that get to close to his master Alex choose the name out of a sardonic wish to harness the savagery that decimated his people.
Dog Biscuits: Carried purely for Valkur's benefit.
Cigars: For Alex's benefit.

Potentials
Kim's Game: An excellent memory and an eye for detail makes Alex as good a scout as he is a spotter. A pastime of his is looking through his scope to try and figure out what those damned Imperials are doing over on their side of the battlefield.

Revenge of the Old Ways: A former cavalry man who blames the advancement of military science for the decline of his beloved service, Alex takes out his anger upon those who roles illustrate the changing times best. Enemy sappers, snipers and gunners tend to be put in his sights before the average rifleman.

Blue-Blooded: Fluent in the Imperial language as well as possessing a solid grounding in a number of studies and coming from a respectable family line, Alex sees himself as a gentleman before a soldier. He treats subordinates and superiors with respect and expects the same to be given to him, as befitting someone of his standing.

Proud Darcsen: There's very few Darcsens in Vinland, the vast majority of them gathered in a few enclaves on the east coast. This low visibility means that there's little in the way of de jure or de facto discrimination against them due to the fact that they're rarely in the public mind. Growing up privileged without experiencing what his Europan brethren go through means that Alex reacts badly to perceived slights against his heritage. Officers can get away with it as a matter of rank but the enlisted man cannot.

High Velocity: Being accurate is one thing, being quick is another. Alex is a mix of both, sighting targets and putting shots downrange in mere moments before moving onto the next with workmanlike efficiency.

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Biography
The Schäfers had first fled the Empire then all of Europa in an attempt to escape the entrenched anti-Darcsen attitudes, finding a home in Vinland where the low amount of so-called "dark hairs" meant that there was little in the way of purges or organized discrimination. It was a place they could start fresh, build themselves up without fear of being torn down. The Schäfer clan spread out, going into business and making a place for themselves in Vinland's burgeoning society.

Three hundred or so years later the family was almost totally removed from its fearful origins, them and the other Darcsen enclaves seen more as curiosities than real threats. Alex was born into this separation from the past, the scion of a successful banking clan born in a nursery that looked out onto the family estate.

His childhood was similar to that of any blueblood: wanting for nothing but freedom. Despite there being no risk of his being attacked for his heritage Alex was still the son of a family fearful of kidnapping due to their wealth and status His free time between studies and exercise was spent walking around the family manor with a hunting dog or listening to the stories told by older relatives, activities that could be monitored by any number of chaperones and servants whose job it was to keep the boy out of trouble.The closest thing he had to an escape was when he was allowed to go out riding or hunting, the boy showing an aptitude for equestrianism and marksmanship that would remain with him throughout his life. But even those trips were supervised, the woodsmen the family kept on payroll always close by.

As was common for children of his class Alex was sent to boarding school, spending years twelve to seventeen continuing his education while coming home every summer. The months spent away only increased the distance between himself and his family, the Schäfers slowly being replaced by Darcsen culture as a whole as his support net. His patterned scarfs and strangely colored hair marked him out as a person of interest to his peers, classmates who had never met a Darcsen poking and prodding for information. In a school full of upper class inheritors and future politicians Alex had something that made him stand out from the bunch.

Graduating from boarding school at seventeen, Alex really only had two options available to him. HIs branch of the Schäfer family had all been officers, business leaders or both and the weight of generations worth of peer pressure was simply too much for him to bear. Over the course of his first year out he engaged in a whirlwind courtship with a woman named Eliza (organized more by their parents out of practical reasons than they had for love) and prepared himself for military life.

Now married and eighteen years old Alex joined Vinland’s cavalry, the old riding lessons being updated for use on the battlefield. The military gave Alex another identity to hold onto, the young soldier taking pride in his service. The tradition of cavalry stretched back into ancient history, a long and storied lineage that he immersed himself in. The sense of camaraderie and honor he experienced in his regiment was effectively another replacement for the companionship he lacked as a boy.

As he worked his way through the enlisted ranks Alex’s relationship with his family got stronger, his parents seeing his eagerness to serve as indicative of their good parenting. He might not have been destined for a career in finance or trade but he would at least honor his country. His marriage suffered, already somewhat strained and made worse by his absence. He and Eliza had originally felt some sort of affection for each other despite their union having been set up outside of their control but as they saw less and less of each other it devolved into a more or less cordial facade.

Their affairs were open secrets, each knowing about the other’s but not bothering to bring it up. In fact, Alex was rather pleased that Eliza found someone she could actually enjoy her time with because it made his decision to accept a drastic shift in career that much easier.

Given the opportunity to serve as an attache to Gallia’s 4th Lancers Regiment and an increase in rank to match Alex packed his bags and made his way over to Europa, seeing it as a chance to see new sights if nothing else. Upon arrival he learned that he had been transferred into the ‘Chevaliers d’Arlem’ to serve as their platoon sergeant by the request of the lieutenant himself.

Perhaps due in part to the similarity of their names Alex took a liking to the younger Alexandre. The officer asked him to share information about his culture with the men and he did so gladly, taking to the impromptu anthropological lectures just like he had back in school. His commanding officer might have been inexperienced but Alex remained steadfast, gladly riding out with the rest of the Chevaliers when the Imperial Alliance invaded.

He was optimistic about the first engagement even as they prepared for battle. The plan was solid, backed by training and sheer force of will. The thundering of hooves would drive the Imperials away from the river and shred their lines, an unstoppable stampede crushing all under foot.

But it was not to be. de Bihain’s beloved Chevaliers pushed past rifle fire and static defences with all the bravery of the knights of old, crashing through the Imperial lines as their numbers were thinned. Schäfer pushed his charger to its limits, taking control of the platoon when his commander broke away without hesitation and leading the troops by example until Alexandre returned. When Alexandre led them through the woods he did not waver, not until the machine guns tore the unit to shreds.

Centuries of pride and strategy, undone in moments. When the lieutenant was seemingly cut down it was left to Alex to rally the survivors, marshaling a retreat even as more of their number were shot to death. The few bloodied figures who came riding back from the battle were no longer Lancers, their unit dissolved and the men and women who had made it great scattered to the wind.

Alex reported for retraining and was made a sniper much to his chagrin, his knack for shooting meaning that he was given a scoped rifle and told to aim true. This new role was indicative of the honorlessness that characterized the modern battlefield, his role as the executioner of unsuspecting enemies anathema to his sense of ethics. But refusal or desertion was unthinkable. He committed himself to being the marksman he could be for the sake of Gallia and its murdered hero, a sort of thanks to Alexandre for giving him a place to belong. He stood with the little unicorn nation until the ravages of war required he be reassigned to the 15th Atlantic Rifles.

But Alexandre had survived somehow, appearing in Alex’s unit one day as if he were a ghost returned to haunt the living.

Affiliations
John Schäfer - Father
Grace Schäfer - Mother
Eliza Schäfer-Wife
Valkur - Dog, messenger, pack animal

Relationships

Alexandre Martial Alphonse de Bihainr
Alex’s old commander and the one most responsible for the destruction of their shared unit. Alex held and still holds a great deal of respect for the younger man but their relationship has been made complicated by the nature of their last moments together.

PERSONALITY
^{______________}
A veteran of the war against the Nazis as well as the one against devils Ekaterine is well-versed in battling sin. Her days in the Red Army instilled a total lack of fear that bordered on irrational recklessness that was later tempered by her time fighting demons across the Soviet Union and United States. In her mind there is neither room for hesitation nor impatience, she takes in the situation and makes the call before sticking through it until the end. The Lord's work is a calling of the utmost importance and any time wasted on overreactions or inactions is an affront to His name.

Her devotion to Heaven is what keeps Ekaterine going after a life of loss and betrayal. Made bitter by the early loss of her parents and the harsh treatment she received from her aunt and uncle the senseless violence she witnessed in the Great Patriotic War nearly broke her, left a wandering wreck who quiet literally stumbled into monastery life. Even now after being forced to flee to the U.S during the anti-religious purges of the 60s Mother Ekaterine's faith is what keeps her from spiraling into a dark place. She sees her work hunting the Serpent's minions as her way of giving back to the Lord for saving her life.

Just as she takes pride (in a sense anyway) in her duties mentoring the younger sisters or feeding the poor so to does she feel good during the hunt. While a lust for the blood of man would certainly be cause for troubled self-reflection she sees no fault in enjoying herself when driving the demons out of the kingdoms of man. Prone to making promises of great violence against her enemy in Russian, Georgian and English Ekaterine does her best to make good on each and every one of them.


EQUIPMENT
^{______________}
-Ithaca 37: Five shells of twelve gauge absolution, an venerable weapon that serves a blessed purpose. Mother Ekaterine's trench gun and attached bayonet were custom made and consecrated for the purpose of demon hunting.
-Stechkin APS:A personal weapons smuggled over during her flight from the USSR. Most people would be unable to handle the recoil from this blessed machine pistol without its optional stock but Ekaterine's strength of belief (as well as well strength of body) gives her the discipline required to wield it.
-Holy Oils: A bit of the Oil of Catechumens used in baptisms, some soap and good old gasoline mixed together in glass bottles to be lit and thrown. The result is a blessed blaze that sticks to demons and melts them where they stand. When asked about the propriety of such a weapon the Stavrophore holds that if the Father above took issue then he would surely show her a better way.
-SN-46 "Steel Bib":When Satan told the Lord Christ to throw himself from the top of the temple Christ rebuked him by saying "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord, your God to the test.'" Likewise Ekaterine relies on not just faith but solid steel worn under her cassock to guard her body from the enemy. Soviet machine work was combined with Christian blessings to forge armor that can withstand bullets, blades and blood magic. Up to a point anyway.
-Duty Bag:A veshmeshok filled with everything a demon hunter on the go might need. A copy of the Scripture, icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary, a change of clothes, money, and snacks as well as spare ammo, oils, salts, consecrated iron filings and a Makarov pistol that once belonged to her abbess back in the Soviet Union.

CAPACITY
^{______________}

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2012, the year of flame. The geopolitical chess matches and realpolitik that took center stage during the era of the Iron Curtain gave way to the explosive violence of the Second World War. North Korea's leader, Tae Jeong-Mun, emboldened by pride and made desperate by China's move away from their alliance made a drastic decision. Tokyo was nuked in a first strike that precipitated a three year ground war, dug in North Korean forces pushed back from the DMZ to the border with China by NATO troops along with soldiers from partnered nations. When the war ended Korea had been reunified and was beginning the process of rebuilding.

Japan would attempt to do the same. Now having suffered three nuclear attacks in its history the nation soldiered on as best it could. Nearly half of Tokyo had been rendered uninhabitable or outright destroyed by the attack. The cleanup process was fueled by an economic boom as the cybernetics industry went from catering only to elites looking for the ultimate accessory to providing models for a range of budgets. Construction crews equipped with strength-enhancing limb braces built massive glass spires to house the hordes of salarymen and executives attracted to the city like pigs to a trough. Foreign talent in finance, cybernetics and all branches of industry came to get in on the ground floor, followed by masses of people willing to serve as the labor needed for growth in return for better opportunities than they had back home. Ground zero of the second Japanese economic miracle was NeoTokyo, a neon-drenched city of dreams representing the hopes of a nation and the world.

But with every batch of entrepreneurs taking advantage of a changing situation comes those seeking to profit in less legal but perhaps equally as moral ways. In 2011 National Diet was debating the introduction a number of laws aimed at curtailing the Yakuza by cracking down on their business partners and freezing some of their assets. The question of whether or not this was an effective strategy would go unanswered when war broke out. With the public eye squarely drawn away from their crimes the families were able to sink their claws in deeper into society, making payoffs to the right politicians so that the right companies got the contracts for the rebuilding of Tokyo. Foreign gangs became more prominent as well, groups as diverse as the Russian mob to the 14k and Sun Yee On triads encroaching on the edges of Yakuza territory.

As NeoTokyo became the city of the future with all its slick nightlife and seedy dealings Japan slid back into the twin traps of jingoism and xenophobia. The "Korean attack" of 2012 and the influx of outsiders saw a dramatic rise in right-wing nationalism and the striking of Article 9 from the Japanese Constitution. With the No War clause removed the Japan Self-Defense Forces begin to build up their strength following the lead of the newly formed Jinrai. Formed as an elite wing in charge of special operations and espionage the Jinrai was composed of men and women dedicated to extending Japan's reach through any means possible. Its growth was rapid and by 2025 it was the guiding light for the entirety of the JSDF.

All that power came with dreams of forging a new identity for Japan. One where instead of sitting on the sidelines until war came to its shores it would flex its muscles on the global stage take part in the constant power struggles. The Jinrai threw its hat into the ring in an attempt to gain control of the government through the political process, taking part in an extremely contentious election wracked by infighting on the right, left and center. There were allegations of corruption, political violence, known gangsters seen in meetings with members of election committees. When the dust cleared the new Prime Minister was the Moderate Party championed Konno Mashai, elected less by virtue of merit than the other main parties simply being split by inter-party squabbles.

What resulted was a time of bitter political strife. The Jinrai attempted to keep forging ahead but quickly came into conflict with the Mashai government, Jinrai-aligned councilors and representatives engaging in harsh back-and-forth debates with their Moderate counterparts. Meanwhile citizens were made disenfranchised by the rapidly growth gap between themselves and the wealthy not to mention the flood of drugs and human trafficking brought by the rising Yakuza clans and those of their foreign rivals who were attempting to gain a foothold. Some of these people formed supposed "self-defense societies", cells of vigilantes armed with weapons supplied by the booming black market and often with having military or police experience. Political groups, terrorist organizations, agitators from outside governments and fringe religious movements sprouted up and took to violence to achieve their goals, fighting amongst themselves and getting civilians caught in the crossfire.

The situation came to a head in 2030 when the Jinrai attempted a coup, striking at the Prime Minister's residence in an attempt to behead the snake while nationalist-aligned forces of the JSDF attacked those loyal to the government. The first strike came close to succeeding but was fought off in the end, the Jinrai melting into the shadows to continue the civil war in the dark. Faced with an enemy consisting of highly driven specialists Prime Minister Mashai ordered the creation of a special force to investigate and eliminate all threats to Japan's sovereignty, be they internal or external.

The National Security Force, better known as the NSF, served as an active service replacement for the largely advisory National Police Agency, deploying agents in cities across Japan with the majority stationed in NeoTokyo. But there was a problem. With most of JDSF's special forces and intelligence services having defected to the Jinrai along with many police and regular army personnel Japan's defense forces were suffering from a lack of highly qualified agents. Attempting to wage war on the Jinrai as well as the entirety of the Yakuza while trying to suppress each and every gang and cult that popped up would see the NSF lose by way of being pulled in a thousand different directions.

The Prime Minister felt that some groups could be reasoned with, even convinced to cooperate with the government in order to further their own aims. Groups like the Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest of the Yakuza families and the one more concerned with retuning to the old way of doing things than attempting to ride the Jinrai's lightning, or the multinational Deft Defense corporation with its literal corporate warriors and a vested interest in keeping its Japanese branch in good standing. Intelligence operatives from other countries who remembered the outcome of a far-right aligned Japan could be called in as well, some there simply off the books and others technically gone rogue. Mashai called in favors owed from all walks of corporate, civilian, military and criminal life and sat down with the movers and shakers of Japan and beyond to forge a deal with a multitude of devils.

The end result was that while the NSF's agents would serve in the public eye as defenders of the Constitution, brave officers detaining those who would attempt to violate the law by day, it would also engage in operations too sensitive and distasteful to ever reach the public eye. Assassination, illegal operations in foreign jurisdictions, routine violation of civil rights and the rule of law, all of these would be undertaken by a wing known as the Special Service that answered directly to the Prime Minister, Mashai's own personnel Jinrai of sorts.

It is now 2032, two years since the Jinrai's attempted coup. The NSF and the Jinrai are locked in stalemate while the dozens of minor groups of interest go about their business. There is talk in the Diet of removing the four year term limit so that the current government can man the helm until the conflict is over and the Special Service takes part in missions backed by Yakuza ground intel, foreign supplied SIGNINT and funded by corporate blood money. Its ranks include decorated officers of the JDSF and NeoTokyo police, gangland assassins and street samurai with matching records of violence and silence, hotshot deckers that could be enticed or threatened into switching their sights from bank mainframes to enemy communications networks and steely eyed agents that served in a dozen corporate wars. Time will tell if this unholy alliance will be enough to save a nation at risk of being consumed by this brave new world.

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Howdy folks, and welcome to NeoTokyo Revive! This is a reboot/reimagining of an RP that [LetMeDoStuff] was running a while ago based off the NeoTokyo mod for Half-Life 2 and is open to previous players and newcomers alike. Any knowledge of the mod or the previous iteration of the RP is totally unnecessary as this version will have some major changes in story and setting.

First and foremost, this RP is set in the early days of the cyberpunk era. Advanced cybernetics and rudimentary AI are fairly common but not totally ubiquitous, megacorporations have yet to totally displace governmental law and society isn't quite at the point of implosion. Technology is like what was envisioned in the early 80s and 90s, advanced yet clunky and cumbersome. The only people accessing the Net on the go are those with the money to buy expensive portable cyberdecks or the know-how to make their own.

Full Name:
Lilith Kelton

Age:
17

ID Number:
FR-1693-LK


Nationality:
American

Appearance:
FR-1693-LK's physical traits directly correlates to the abnormal abilities that brought them to the attention of the facility. The general body shape and tertiary attributes match those of the supposed deity Baphomet. Their head is that of a goat complete with shaggy, jet black hair and a pair of thick ram-style horns sprouting from their head. These will grow to the point of being unmanageable without tending to so custodial staff or FR-1693-DK themselves need to routinely clip and sand them down. Their eyes are solid gold, lacking any pupils and should thus be unable to filter light, rendering them blind. Despite this their vision is 20/20.

Their physical build is grossly outside the bounds of humanity in a number of categories. Standing at exactly 8 feet tall (closer to 8.5 when counting the horns) their body weighs a total of 2,437 pounds, or roughly the weight of an adult bull. Most of this weight seems to be muscle and bone. Despite the fact that there is no known mammalian hermaphroditic species FR-1693-LK has functional male and female sexual characteristics, both primary and secondary. FR-1693-LK also possess a pair of black feathered wings similar to those seen on classical depictions of angels, albeit much larger so as to carry their weight.

A pentagram formed from a red, quartz-like substance is embedded in FR-1693-DK's brow while their left arm bears the Latin word COAGULA (join together) and their right SOLVE (separate) inscribed in what appears to be red ink. More black fur covers the bottom half of their legs and in place of feet they have cloven hooves.

Background:
FR-1693-DK otherwise known as "Lilith" was born to Jason and Irma Kelton, a pair of schoolteachers in Houston, Texas. By all accounts they were a fairly average child, showing no great aptitude or intelligence but not exhibiting any traits common in developmental or learning disabilities. They were smaller than the average juvenile their age but not to the point that it was a medical concern. Lilith made friends easily and did well enough in school save for the odd failed math test.

When they were 11 the family uprooted and moved out onto a West Texas ranch purchased on a whim where Lilith would be homeschooled for the remainder of their time outside the Facility. Removed from their friends and lacking much to do for entertainment they turned towards the occult of a childish rebellion. Their parents saw this as a harmless quirk, a phase that would soon pass and allowed them to explore their interests as they saw fit. By their own description Lilith more or less abandoned any hopes of gaining power through study of the supposedly arcane by this point, determining that famous texts purported to teach real magic and the summoning of devils were all hoaxes or simply mistaken. Still, the interest in the aesthetic of such things never left them.

For reasons still undiscovered Lilith went through a very sudden and very painful transformation from an average human girl to what they are now, shocking them and their parents and forcing drastic changes in lifestyle to be made. Family could no longer visit out of fear that they would get Lilith taken away to be experimented on, a section of the barn had to be hastily retrofit to serve as a bedroom. Eating was apparently especially difficult to get used to, the nature of their new size and digestive system forcing them to eat from a trough with the family livestock.

Lilith was discovered when a hitchhiker stopped at the ranch looking for a place to spend the night, fleeing at the sight of the "demon" and making a frantic report to county police. Facility agents caught wind of the incident and arrived at the scene after local law enforcement had moved in. The sight of Lilith had caused the officers to panic and open fire and Lilith had in turn lashed out. The ensuing fight cost the lives of three officers and both Jason and Irma Kelton but Lilith was apprehended and brought to Facility B.

Powers:
Physicality: The nature of their transformation has endowed Lilith with abilities corresponding to their new body. Them being as large as they are they are far stronger than a human could be and much more durable. Their thick muscle mass and hardened bone is capable of bending steel bars and shrugging off small arms fire (to an extent) while the wings are functional for a cruising speed of 22 miles per hour.

Energy Manipulation: FR-1693-LK can cast what appears to be magic spells complete with strange sigils appearing on their body and discordant whispers in the air. The resulting lightning bolts, fireballs and spikes of ice are actually manifestations of FR-1693-LK's limited control over energy. The ability to affect multiple types of energy comes with the trade over that control being fairly limited: they select a target and launch an attack. As for the symbols and noises generated, brain scans show that LK has an amount of unconscious control over them. Because LK believes that's what the process should look like, that's what the process looks like. LK thinks they're casting spells and thus their abilities manifest as spells.

This suggests that their transformation into the guise of Baphomet was based on an inner want or desire that they accidentally manifested. Moreover, early simulations show while what they have a limited range of "magical" abilities at the moment it's likely that if they were to figure that it's quite literally all in the mind they would have vastly improved their control over their power, to the point where they could in theory imprint their wishes onto other people in the form of mind control. But this is highly unlikely to occur until they have reached a certain threshold of emotional maturity. Until then they are limited to simply lashing out with bursts of energy.

Privileges:
-Barbell weighing 200 pounds with weights ranging from 45 to 1000 pounds
-CD player with selection of audio books
-Cat and food/water for it along with basic tower and toys
-Lava lamp
-Racquet ball

Researcher Notes:
FR-1693-DK's salt lick is NOT a privilege. It is a requirement for their wellbeing, same as the food and water troughs. They require roughly 0.005 of their wait in salt each day, about 1.2 pounds of the stuff. Standard table salt will not do, any standard livestock salt block will work.
-Researcher A. Cooper

On the topic of using holy water/crucifixes/anointing oils etc. in case of attempted escape, don't bother. The entity known as Baphomet is entirely fictional within the context of mainstream organized religion and even if it wasn't, DK is not Baphomet. Testing shows that whatever process changed them into what they are now did give them an allergy to any of the standard pop-culture methods of dealing with demons.
-Researcher A. Cooper

As a reminder for future researchers, LK is a teenager despite what they look like. Most if not all of the logged incidents are bouts of sulkiness or acting out for attention, not dramatic attempts at violating the sanctity of the Facility. Unless you send in a Security team guns blazing they're not going to hurt anyone
-Researcher M. Kovács

Name: Ki'Tlex, Queen Anne's Revenge and Kottle.

Age: Ki'Tlex is 4,647 years old going by the standard calendar, Queen Anne is a comparatively juvenile 16 while Kottle is an infant at 14.

Physical Description:
Ki'Tlex and Kottle are fairly standard examples of their species. Ki stands at seven feet and six inches and has the lean, muscular build common to their kind. They have a total of six limbs although their second pair of arms tends to remain folded behind their back and thus hard to notice under loose robes they wear. While Ki's skin is naturally a pale red they decorate their face with triangles of yellow powder.

Kottle's skin is a dusty gray in tone, the dull color accented by the same yellow triangles their adoptive guardian wears. As opposed to the light desert clothing Ki wears Kottle is usually swaddled tightly in fabric and carried in a basket on their guardian's back.

Queen Anne's Revenge is the odd one out in their 'family'. Her chassis resembles a massive human warrior in armor, coming in at exactly twelve feet tall with optical sensors designed to glow red for intimidation purposes. Parts of her body have been constructed of perfect electrum to allow for spell casting but most of her is simply hardened alloys designed to withstands extreme temperatures, the void of space and of course extended combat.

Much of her torso is hollow so that Ki and even Kottle if necessary can sit inside, protecting them from harm or allowing the whole group to spend time outside the safety of a ship provided there is an oxygen supply handy.
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Important items:


Weapons:





Spell List:



Character Traits:






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Short Bio: Ki'Tlex does not speak about their previous lives. They happened, there had great triumphs and devastating losses, but they are no longer relevant in any way. Their current existence began roughly two hundred years ago, before the Galactic Bazaar was even finished. A livelihood based on scavenging from the ruins of the Forebears and making what they found functional again. Vehicles, weapons, mechanical curiosities and medical equipment, anything that could be traded for luxuries or access to one of the all important oases, all of it passed through their hands at one point or another.

One of the minority of Kel'ta who lived alone Ki was always at risk. Plenty of predators lived in the dunes or high up on the crags from the standard bandit to the ferocious Sand Stalker. Any wasteland wanderer had to become adept at avoiding threats but eventually the inevitable happened. Ki was ambushed in her camp by raiders who made use of their namesake. The defenses they had set up were enough to drive them off but by the end of the engagement Ki'Tlex had been badly injured. Far from any of the clans and without adequate medicine Ki'Tlex accepted the fact that they would be permanently dead in a few days time and resolved to pass on peacefully.

But it was not to be. On the third day delirium had begun to set in, the betrayal by their senses causing Ki to believe that the craft they saw landing in the distance to be merely a hallucination. Instead it was a damaged pirate vessel called the Razor's Edge whose crew needed a place to rest and repair. A Kel'ta couple was among the outlaws and had suggested their planet of origin as a safe place to recuperate. It was they who rescued Ki and pressed them into service.

Their mechanical skill was put to work immediately, the damaged engines hammered back into functionality. Having proved useful they were simply made part of the crew. When not struggling to keep the miserable rust bucket flying they took part in raids, their natural speed a valuable assets in boarding actions. For a while they simply dashed in while laying down fire with whatever weapons her four hands could hold.

The years passed and the crew took on new members to replace those that died or retired. The couple was friendly enough that Ki spent much of her free time with them, enjoying the chance to communicate in their native. All the while the Razor made a mess in the void of space, attacking anyone that had anything of value. Pirates came and went, a child was born which brought the number of Kel'ta up to four and the crew kept on the move.

It was during a raid on an Ascendancy armory ship that Ki met Queen Anne. Instead of a few rifles to sell on the black market the Razor's Edge pulled out Unit C-104, a prototype mech designed for operations in extreme environments or the void of space. Ki'Tlex took an interest in the bot and worked on making it more suited to piracy before daring to turn it on. This took quite a while. The highly aggressive personality matrix had to be reversed so that it would be friendly upon waking up and imprint to whoever synced with it not to mention the killcodes and contingencies that had to be carefully subverted or simply deleted.

The gamble paid off. Named "Queen Anne's Revenge" by a human crewmate she ended up syncing with the one responsible for waking her up. Adjusting to the body sharing took time but was manageable, Ki chafing as their independence was intruded upon but simply bearing it because the benefits were obvious. Queen Anne was not just strong and smart but magically capable as well thanks to the Kaisoken dust-infused emitter she was equipped with.

It was another decade and a half before the Razor was nearly put out of commission. An ill-advised fight with an Ascendancy vessel saw the loss of more than half the Razor's crew and little in the way of spoils to pick from the wreckage of their enemy. Too damaged to perform jumps the Razor's Edge limped through realspace in search of safe harbor. The surviving member of the Kel'ta couple was mortally wounded and passed their child off to Ki to take care of.

Unable to refuse due to the life debt they owed Ki took Queen Anne and their new charge and left the diminished band. Raising a child they neither wanted nor really cared for was a difficult prospect but one honor demanded they fulfill. Luckily there was no shortage of work for a pirate-tech genius. When there were no computers to repair there was the ships they were installed in, the immeasurable vastness of space wide open for the plundering.

Moonstrike's ideological goals meant nothing but their methods were familiar. The Ascendancy is a rich target and piracy cloaked in self-righteousness is still piracy.

Name: The Shevastol, or the Forebears

Status to Humans: As far as humanity is concerned, the Shevastol are a long dead species. The ruins on Kel that are not entirely picked clean or squatted on by the Kel'ta clans don't reveal that there were any survivors after the end of their civilization. To the handful or so of Shevastol that exist in the present day humans are just one of many upstart species who became great while their ancient and noble people are doomed to extinction.

Life expectancy: Assuming that there are no complications the modern Shevastol generally live to be about seventy. While their bodies process nutrients with extreme efficiency they are a fairly fragile species whose bloodline is by this point riddled with genetic defects from catastrophic inbreeding.

Genders: The Shevastol tie gender to biological sex and thus have two: male and female.

Full Description: Due to the low gravity of their homeworld the Shevastol are long-limbed and hollow boned, their species lighter than many others since there was not much gravitational force for them to withstand. The average modern Shevastol stands at about seven feet tall, stunted compared to the towering nine foot statures of their "pure" ancestors. Compared to humans their eyes are extremely small and sunken into their face, giving them poor vision which they compensated with by mechanical enhancement of the senses.
^{Artist: Jerad Marantz}

How it All Went Wrong: The Shevastol were established long before Earth supported intelligent life, already having established an interstellar empire by 37524 BCE. While relatively conservative in their expansion efforts (they only ever pushed into two solar systems outside their own) they were fairly vicious when it came to protecting what they considered to be their spheres of influence. They came into conflict with the Kaisoken a number of times along with countless other lesser species. Many of those would simply be scooped up and converted into manpower, serving as conscripts or simple manual labor in hazardous situations that would be too dangerous for the comparatively dangerous Shevastol.

It was their inherent frailty that did them in. The empire came into conflict with a small but tenacious species of amphibians known as the Tittlikits. The Tittlikits were noted for their extenssive understanding of chemical and biological warfare and fell back on their knowledge when faced with a superior enemy. The Shevastol erased the Tittlikits from existence on all but a few backwater worlds but not before some of their forces were unknowingly infected.

The virus had been engineered to lay dormant for years, allowing vectors to spread the disease before the first symptoms even showed. After roughly five years the carrier would experience coughing, nausea and chest pains. Death occurred in two to three days. The resulting pandemic sent the Shevastol's population numbers into a catastrophic freefall, losing about eighty percent of their total population.

In the meantime, the species they had enslaved sensed weakness. The disease had been formulated for the fairly weak Shevastol constitution while the species the Shevastol used for slave labor tended to be hardy. Thus while their were casualties among those groups they were far from the losses suffered by the Shevastol.

By this point the Shevastol had four main slave species:
-the Rordors, an avian species noted for their sharp talons and ability to regurgitate a noxious bile as a weapon.
-the Eventi, snake-like creatures who coil their enemies in their tails and crush them to death before swallowing them whole.
-the Kel'ta, a hardy species of climbers and hunters from from an arid desert planet who could break and bend steel with their bare hands.
-the Michus, a small rodent species notable for their incredible burrowing capabilities and the speed at which they reproduced.

All four species had been essentially kidnapped during their Iron Ages and kept in line by the superior technology and numbers of the Shevastol. But with the Shevastol devastated by the plague and their systems of communication thrown into disarray the Treasonous Four seized the moment and lashed out. The resulting war pitted the frail Shevastol against four much tougher species who had spent millennia as laborers and foot soldiers who had both the advantage in numbers and nothing to lose. Unsurprisingly it went poorly for the Shevastol.

One by one the planets they held were scorched and abandoned, the empire pushed back to the homeworld of the Kel'ta. It was at Kel where the final preparations to flee where made, a desperate raid launched to capture a number of Nominken whose lack of intelligence and raw magical energy made for a perfect power source. The few Shevastol that remained spent the last of their resources constructing what was essentially a biological logic bomb, their numbers dwindling as the Kel'ta pushed deeper and deeper into their lines.

In the end the Shevastol managed to escape, the device wiping the memory of their existence from the minds of their former slaves. Now numbering only in the hundreds of thousands the Shevastol scattered, splitting up into small groups so that they couldn't be found. Time would see their numbers dwindle further and further, inbreeding ensuring that by the modern day there is little hope of them ever resurfacing.
-------------------------------------------

Type of society: At the height of their power 30,000 years ago the Shevastol were an interstellar technocratic empire. While most of them lived on strategically placed space stations or traveled on large habitat vessels a core force of the species' best and brightest were stationed on the home world of Tes IV to serve as a governing body.

The Shevastol of today have fallen far from that peak. With their numbers reduced dramatically by a weaponized epidemic followed by violent uprisings by subjected species that took bloody vengeance for years of captivity the few remaining Shevastol were forced to scatter and their numbers have only dwindled since. They have no overarching civilization, just a few scattered groups trying to prolong their existence.

Unsurprisingly reproduction is extremely important to them but fraught with difficulty. In perfect conditions it takes five years for a clutch of eggs to hatch and even a few degrees too hot or cold can render them useless. And even in cases where the clutch is kept safe only in one ten eggs will actually hatch, producing offspring that will likely die in a few years due to genetic degradation. Cloning is not feasible for the Shevastol, the process requiring a better DNA template than they have access to (to say the nothing of the cost or unlikeliness that they'd be able to set up a clone production facility considering their refusal to work with the 'lesser' races.)

Technological advancement: The Shevastol were once extremely technologically advanced, making use of FTL drives as opposed to the now more common wormhole systems and even having access to specially formulate materials that could nullify magic. The total destruction of the Shevastol empire came with the the loss of most of their technological prowess. With their brightest minds centered in the capital world of Tes IV, an obvious target for angry slave species< they lost nearly all of their greatest innovators and scientists. Those who did survive couldn't overcome the fact that they had nothing to work with. Being a brilliant biochemist matters little when you lack the equipment to make use of your field.

Now the Shevastol make do with what they find, equipment that is often outdated and on the verge of breaking down entirely. It enrages them to know end that their old subordinates the Kel'ta have plenty of powerful "Forebear" technology to pick through while the creators languish in rusty puddle-jumpers and have to defend themselves with underpowered laser weaponry or whatever else they can scrounge up.

--------------------------------------------

Name | Eli Ford
Alias | Breakneck
Age | 40
Gender | Female
Appearance | Breakneck is noticeably taller than the average woman at 5'9", and has a toned build. She's lean as befitting a runner, wiry in a way that conceals her immense strength.
Notoriety | Noble
Danger Level/Variant Type | Class 4 Agile-Brute-Architect
Abilities |


[Gear]
Attire | Breakneck's costume consists of her old flight suit and helmet. While she doesn't always wear it the tough material is harder to damage in a fight and the helmet has a several communications channels built in, allowing her to listen in on and communicate with local law enforcement.

Armament/Equipment | Her preferred weapon is a set of short, thick steel stakes similar to bo-shuriken. Such esoteric weapons are highly effective in the hands of a super-strong, super-fast Variant. She also carries CS spray and a stun baton. Any other weapons are picked up in the field as opportunity allows them to be.

[Temperament & Lifestyle]
Affiliation | As a Noble Breakneck is affiliated with N.O.V.A, and the Glorious Alliance to a lesser extent. While not connected to the organization she has expressed sympathy for Pariah Underground in the past.

Personality/Habits | Breakneck hasn't spent her career trying to become a superhero, she's worked to become the definition of a superhero. The past ten-odd years have been spent building her reputation, tackling every challenge ranging from simple street crime to natural disasters. While most of her activities have taken place in her adopted home of New Haven she's been known to sprint over to crisis points across the country, occasionally straying beyond America's borders. She's been quoted as saying "It's impossible to help everyone, but that doesn't mean I can't help anyone."

She projects confidence when seen in public, always happy to spare a moment for an autograph or a message to a fan. When dealing with lesser opponents like unpowered gangsters or low-tier Variants she's cocky bordering on arrogant but serious threats bring out a serious side of her.

People close to her know that despite the brave face she puts on in public the loss of her father and her being kicked out of the military still affect her to this day. When not wearing her "game face" so to speak she can seem callous, almost cold, traits that ended up causing her marriage to dissolve. She is very particular about her personal space, careful to keep people from entering it.

Occupation/Trade | Formerly an Out of Atmosphere Fighter Pilot and military contractor, currently a full-time celebrity Noble.

Skills/Talents |Breakneck is a trained pilot and a veteran of low-intensity conflicts around the world. Her military experience has given her a mind for tactics, a key advantage over her generally untrained opponents.

Already quite intelligent before awakening her Variance her ability to perceive time at a slower rate lets her reason through problems faster than one would expect.

Family | -Roman Ford, Father: Died when Eli was a teen
-Sofía Ford, Mother: Sofia is retired now and living in the Hamptons, enjoying her post-service life thanks to her daughter's success.
-Evan Nielsen, Ex-husband: Met Eli in college and married her soon after she left the Space Force, only for their relationship to break down after she left Manticore. They're on fairly amicable terms for the sake of...
-Jamie Nielsen, Stepson: Evan's son from a previous marriage, met Eli when he was only four years old. Jamie's mother had died when he was a toddler and Eli felt a kinship with him through this loss. She visits regularly.

Background | Breakneck's life story is a matter of public record. In fact she's published a (ghostwritten) autobiography detailing. Eli, as a few close friends call her, isn't a native of New Haven. She's a military brat, born to a pair of officers stationed at Nellis Air Force Base. By her own account she had a lonely childhood, bouncing from school to school every couple of years as her parents were reassigned according to the mysterious whims of Uncle Sam. It was a decent enough childhood, in the material sense. While the family could never be called rich Eli had food to eat, a warm bed to sleep in and no shortage of entertainment when requested.

But socially it was quite lacking. Making friends was tricky for her to do when she knew she'd be leaving them in a year so she mostly kept to herself. Even after the family finally settled in New Haven when she was thirteen she chose studies over companionship, shutting herself away from others in order to focus on her schoolwork. The exception was drama, Eli picking up a love of acting that pushed her to try out for roles at each school she attended.

As she entered high school Eli planned to study aerospace engineering, a career path influenced by her parents. But when she was 15 her father was killed in a crash landing, a freak accident snuffing out a veteran with a decades-long career. Having crashed on reentry into Earth's orbit, nothing was left of him to bury.

Her father's death, caused by a faulty braking system that had been missed during the pre-flight check, changed Eli's plans drastically. While she still went to college (Cornell, Summa Cum Laude) instead of chasing a job in the defense industry she applied for Officer Training School, with plans to enter attend Weapons School right after.

Eli found herself flourishing in OCS, driven by the need to serve her country and make her parents proud. After being commissioned into the Space Force as a second lieutenant she immediately joined flight school, learning to pilot the same model of spaceplane as her father. She took well to operating in low gravity, learning how to dogfight in open space and attack ground targets from the upper atmosphere.

Her career as a fighter pilot, while promising, would take a strange turn three years into her service. During what should have been a routine patrol flight an errant bit of space debris fractured her cockpit window, forcing Eli into an emergency landing. While she had trained for such an event she had never before experienced it, the reality of the situation brought to mind her father's death. Eli panicked, failing to control her descent.

When she breached Earth's exosphere she was frozen in her seat, watching helplessly as the craft plummeted at more than twenty thousand miles an hour. Paralyzed by fear she failed to perform the required retroburn, essentially trapped in her own head unable to free herself. It felt as if time was slowing as she sank through layer after atmospheric layer...

and in a way, it was. Eli's Variance had awakened, and as she got faster her reflexes grew to match. The change in perception allowed her to gather herself, pulling up so that she might have a chance of surviving. The landing was badly botched, her ship skidding to a stop in a trench far outside the base, but she came out alive.

Being unused to her powers meant that wasn't able to regulate her speed, clearing the ten miles back to base in under five seconds. This made it painfully obvious that she was a Variant and thus useless to the brass. Eli accepted her honorable discharge with grace, leaving behind her dreams of flying.

As much as she would have liked to keep flying life moved on. She reconnected with an old college flame and would end up marrying him, and while she would never be a combat pilot again she quickly found herself in training once more.

The United States might have been unwilling to work with Variants but there were plenty of private companies more than happy to hire them. A small but aggressive PMC based out of South Africa sought her out and offered her a job. While Variants were simply too small a portion of the population to staff a private army with, Manticore did specialize in them to point that a notable percentage of their agents were empowered. They would approach civilians with noteworthy powers, offering to take the financial risk of putting them through training in exchange for a five year contract.

While they lacked the multibillion dollar spacecraft she wanted to fly Eli was too far removed from her university days to seek employment as an engineer and didn't consider herself as being capable of much else. She signed up on a whim and whisked off into the exciting world of fighting for money.

It was at Manticore that Eli learned to harness her powers, measuring her speed so as to avoid burning out while working to generate the passive field that would allow her to interact with the world without destroying it. In addition to honing her Variant abilities, Manticore had her go through boot camp once more, having her hone the basics of fighting on foot.

By her mid-twenties she was a fully-fledged military contractor, Manticore deploying her to various hotspots around the globe. Eli, or "Breakneck" as she was now called, naturally specialized in the rapid extraction of VIPs but would be given additional training so in infiltration and demolitions.

Breakneck found comradery among her fellow contractors, many of the Variants within Manticore also having been discharged upon the discovery of their powers. She served with Manticore for nearly a decade, making good money and living a life of adventure. But as much as she enjoyed it the soullessness of the work needled at her. The military had given her a purpose before rejecting her, promising the chance to live up to her parent's legacies. Manticore was just a job, and an unpleasant one at that. Her mood soured and she began to drift away from her husband, Evan unable to understand even if she cared to explain.

She would be forced out of the mercenary life when Manticore suddenly dissolved. A number of incidents with local law enforcement brought international attention down on the company while many of the higher-ups and investors suddenly found Interpol agents digging through their more illicit files. As the moneymen were arrested for fraud the company simply disappeared, its files burned and hard drives disposed of in discrete rivers and lakes around the world.

Breakneck took this as a sign that it was time for her to do something good with her life. Now in her mid-thirties and recently single (she and Evan agreed to a divorce the day before she found out she was jobless), Breakneck went back to New Haven and sought to put her experience to work as a Noble. She signed up with N.O.V.A and got to work immediately.

Early in her career, she struggled to make a living off of her good deeds, not comfortable seeking payment from those she helped, but as she become more of a known figure she was contacted by an ambitious talent agent. He'd sell her image, get her interviews and book deals and make her a star, ensure she'd have more than enough money to care for her mother all while saving lives.

In return he'd get fifteen percent of all her earnings, a steep charge but one well worth paying he promised. Once again devoid of any other options Breakneck agreed.

In the thirteen years since starting her agent has done what he promised. Breakneck is something of a celebrity, attending fan signings and auctioning off old bits of gear for charity in between missions. While those close to her know that she finds fame somewhat stifling she'll always prefer it to what she was doing before. There's been ups and downs, painful injuries and tragic failures, but she's making a difference in the world.

That's good enough for her.

Name | Unknown
Alias | Ignoble
Age | Unknown
Gender | Unknown
Appearance | It's hard to determine features underneath the armor and mask but Ignoble is well-built and broad shoulder, their size fairly deceptive when compared to their quick reflexes. Specific features are still unknown.
Notoriety | Wanted
Danger Level/Variant Type | Class 2 Brute-Agile
Abilities | Enhanced Phsyiology- Ignoble is tougher, stronger and faster than any non-Variant. They've kept pace with a speeding car and can easily manhandle full-grown men as if they were children. While they try to dodge bullets whenever they've been hit a number of times over the years and have yet to be truly injured, suggesting they can sustain some amount of damage before needing to retreat.

Enhanced Reflexes- While hardly precognizant Ignoble has demonstrated a level of awareness that suggests Variance in that aspect. They are capable of dodging gunfire and quite dangerous in close combat.

[Gear]
Attire | Ignoble's outfit is heavily armored, consisting of bulletproof canvas weave covered by ceramic plating. There are multiple pockets for ammo and other cargo, and beneath is an aramid bodysuit, likely Nomex or a similar product. The skull-like helmet they wear likely has some sort of HUD, although if that's the case it's running on a closed loop outside of the Nexus as attempts to hack in have gone poorly (see the files on the killing of registered Noble White Hat).

The ensemble is clearly designed to evoke fear, and has been described by Agent Vasquez as "pretty edgy honestly." While that may be the case it is certainly functional.

Armament/Equipment | Ignoble uses a variety of equipment, what they carry with them on a given day is tailored to whatever their current objective is. They've been known to use grappling hook launchers, lockpick guns, dissemblers, and prebuilt hacking modules to defeat electronic security measures.

Every time they've been spotted they've carried a primary firearm, a secondary or two and a fighting knife. Other notable weapons include a variety of explosives (improvised or not), stingers loaded with sedatives or overdose quantities of mundane narcotics, and less-than-lethal options for dealing with non-targets.

[Temperament & Lifestyle]
Affiliation | There's a good chance that Ignoble is affiliated with the Syndicate, or at least has contacts within the organization. Ignoble's Variant-supremacy leanings match up with the gang, and they would have needed help sourcing the variety of equipment they've picked up over the years. Them being a full member is extremely considering the clash between their modus operandi and the Syndicate's.

Personality/Habits | Ignoble is professional, driven and extremely dangerous. They hold great disdain for those who would attempt to harness the Variance and are openly hostile to N.O.V.A, but tries to avoid involving mundane civilians in their conflict. Being a Variant is no guarantee of safety either, Ignoble has fought a number of them, Noble or otherwise.

Ignoble believes that attempts to regulate Variants are inherently unjust, and any attempt to even the playing field for non-Variants is to be seen as an act of war. Those would try to give the Variance those without, or working on ways to neutralize Variation, are at risk.

Interestingly they appear to be fairly ambivalent on cybernetic and organic augmentation. Analysts suggest that because those types of enhancements come from an outside source they don't tread on Ignoble's need to be special, at least not overmuch. However, suitably drastic changes might draw their ire.

Occupation/Trade | Vigilante and pro-Variant terrorist.

Skills/Talents | Outside of their powers Ignoble is a skilled gunman and infiltrator. They're capable of making and using quite complex IEDs and are a competent, if not outstanding hacker. These traits made them a very good bank robber in the past and a very good assassin in the present. They're extremely dangerous and not it's recommended that N.O.V.A. agents refrain from engaging without backup when possible.

Family | Unknown.

Background | As far as N.O.V.A is concerned Ignoble came into existence eleven years ago in Las Vegas, Nevada. When they first popped up on law enforcement radar they appeared to be a fairly standard Variant crook, faster and stronger than a normal person but not to the degree seen in Class 3s or above. They used their powers to rob armored trucks and casino vaults, hitting a few in Vegas before branching out to Phoenix and Portland.

While a Variant robber running around certainly wasn't ideal Ignoble wasn't a big enough problem to be a priority for N.O.V.A. But then after a year of activity, the street criminal suddenly dipped a toe into terrorism. A renowned molecular biologist by the name of Franklin Payne was shot dead outside his home in Norfolk, Virginia with Ignoble leaving a note taking credit.

Dr. Payne had recently spoken about his theory of the Variant gene and expressed an interest in transplanting it in non-Variants. Ignoble declared their opposition and promised to do the same to anyone else with the same idea. In addition, they declared open war on N.O.V.A, decrying it as openly corrupt and causing people to suffer under heavy-handed attempts to meddle with forces it didn't understand. As far as Ignoble was concerned it fell on Variants to police themselves, and they would just that.

The note ended with a promise: Ignoble would do their best to avoid killing any mundane while they pursued their hunt, save for N.O.V.A agents and those attempting to harness the Variance.

And thus began a cycle of violence. Ignoble would appear as if out of thin and target some young researcher or attack a laboratory, using guns, explosives, and poisons in to achieve their goal. After destroying as much research as they could they'd simply disappear for weeks or months, reappearing elsewhere to do it all over again.

They got into fights with other Variants as well, both those attempting to stop them and ones who Ignoble considered to be careless with their powers. In keeping with their policy of self-policing, they eliminated Variants that caused excessive suffering to the unpowered.

They've kept up their crusade ever since.

[Temperament & Lifestyle]
Personality/Habits | Breakneck and Ignoble are one and the same, alter egos of Eli Ford. The balancing act required to keep the lie going is crucial to get right but far easier for her than it would be for someone else.

Breakneck is known to value her privacy when not in public, often sprinting to some vacation hotspot or another when not working. Ignoble is only ever in the public eye for a few minutes or hours at a time, disappearing off to God knows where after each attack. Breakneck, while quick to react, is not omniscient so she can't respond to calls she doesn't hear about will not be able to help since Ignoble is generally gone before anyone knows what's happened.

It's a tiring way to live, but it's what needs to happen.

Occupation/Trade | Part-time Noble terrorist, full-time liar

Skills/Talents | Outside of the previously mentioned, acting. Eli's always had a knack for the craft so slipping into a costume to play a role comes naturally to her. The voice changer in her helmet and padding to the armor are necessary parts of the costume but she's the real star. Ignoble looks, acts and sounds entirely different than Breakneck.

Background | As far as the public knows Eli accepted her discharge with grace and understanding, disappointed that her career had ended so soon but accepting the military's reasoning. In actuality she was embarrassed and enraged, the sense of failure she felt at being unable to live up to her parent's expectations mixing her feeling of abandonment by her country to poison her perception of Variant-Mundane relations.

While she considered getting a job as a commercial pilot she felt that her resume would be weak. As a fighter she didn't actually that many flight hours logged compared to the transport guys she'd be competing with. Moreover, it wasn't fair that she even had to consider civilian work! She joined Manticore because it offered her a chance to be exceptional, not because she liked the idea of being a mercenary.

Plenty of her comrades felt the same. Throughout her service she grew close to a fellow contractor by the name of Jake, a man with a sketchy past and an eye for valuables that he could snatch up from the battlefield and sell at a profit. Originally Breakneck was cool towards him, unimpressed by his vulturish tendencies. But after she saved his life in an ambush in Northern Yemen he latched onto her, and she found herself growing to like him.

After that they constantly buddied up often for operations, getting to know each other over the course of a decade of service. By the end of it she had managed to piece together that he was a low-level affiliate of the Syndicate, one of many criminals using Manticore as a means to make connections. Earlier in her life Eli might have been disgusted with him but post-discharge she couldn't muster up much more than vague disapproval. While it might have been wrong Variants using their powers to better their lives was something she could sympathize with.

When the company suddenly shuttered its doors in the face of an international crackdown Eli managed to get out clean, having done nothing illegal save for violating a few laws on the importation of alcohol in various countries. Jake however went down for smuggling and wire fraud, whisked off to French Guiana for trial. Before he turned himself he promised to hook her up with a couple of opportunities from his friends in the Syndicate.

She was fairly certain that she'd never see him again but thanked him anyway, wishing him well. As much as she hated to see her friend go she had her own problems to worry about. Settling back into New Haven she found that the forms and fees to register as a Noble were unreasonably high, the money of course flowing into non-Variant pockets. Once again her wish to serve was hindered by her very nature.

But Breakneck managed to scrape together the money and lived off her savings, working hard to build up goodwill with the community. She had just about managed to find her footing as a hero when she was connected by an unknown agent with some very interesting information.

To her sadness but not surprise Jake was dead, having escaped from prison a year earlier only to get killed in a drunken brawl. But before he got himself murdered he had passed her name on, as promised. The person on the other side of the screen wouldn't explain more without a more secure form of communication, giving Breakneck precise instructions to follow if she were interested.

Curiosity would get the better of her after only a week, and after establishing a secure room deep within WildFyre she was directed towards Las Vegas. While the Syndicate wasn't going to dirty their hands with simple robbery they did have the inside scoop on plenty of potential takes, and they'd pass along the information in exchange for a cut.

Ignoble came into existence as a childish way to get revenge, Eli masking up and lashing out at the world that had been so quick to keep from doing what she wanted with her life. It was a sort of stress relief in that she could spend most of her time sprinting around saving lives and then take a break to release all her anger by comitting grand larceny.

Her robberies were bloodless, military training and insider information allowing her to beat the police response time with rarely a shot fired. As her legitimate career became more successful the dirty cash piled up. It was when she was trying to figure out what to spend her ill-gotten, hard to explain gains on when the idea occurred to her.

The ease with which her still-unnamed Syndicate contacts could get her what she wanted distracted her from just how quickly she was willing to turn to murder. The fairly ratty mask and second-hand plate carrier she had been wearing were replaced by proper gear, an old moonshiner's tucked away in the depths of the New Haven Bayou converted into a safehouse. Ignoble turned from profit-based crime to violence in the name of ideals, lashing out at those who would leash her.

Both careers continued on with little impact on the other, save for one event. As much as Eli enjoyed helping those who couldn't help themselves the stress of working as a celebrity Noble was beginning to get to her. Compared to Ignoble Breakneck was an inescapable part of her life, recognized on street corners and in theatres. Someone who valued privacy as much as Eli did couldn't keep up appearances for as long as she had without a long vacation, and she had a way to kill two birds with one stone.

Breakneck was accompanying a squad of MADmen in an attempt to rescue a hostage Ignoble had ferried all the way over from Houston. Intel suggested that the vigilante and their victim were holed up in the Shanty, but that was nothing but a ruse. The building was rigged to blow, and the resulting explosion wiped out half the team. Breakneck took the brunt of the blast, her durability allowing her to walk away alive but injured.

It was a drastic way to buy time but it worked. The doctors told her that she'd be moving at less than half-speed for at least a year and her PR team informed the world. Meanwhile Ignoble, far slower and weaker than Breakneck's normal condition, escaped to continue their activities. Eli had winged herself, but she already had to hold back when playing as her criminal alter-ego.

Ignoble kept doing what they did best, Breakneck was back in action in ten months, and since then Eli's found some semblance of balance. By day she helps people that need it, by night she hunts those would put her down again.

May 15, 2080 - 2:43 PM

"Mom? You doin' alright?"

Eli shook herself back into action, blinking as she turned to face her son.

"Of course I am." She waved off the concern by knocking back what little remained of her beer. She found most alcohol to taste unpleasant and had yet to find anything less than paint thinner that could actually get her drunk but had grabbed a cold one anyway in an attempt to blend in.

That was the name of the game, blending in. Hanging out with her son's family while pretending to be a normal person, putting aside her status as a disgruntled veteran, cold-blooded mercenary and larger-than-life superhero. There sat Eli Ford, mingling with ex-cousins in the backyard of some nephew's house. She acted like she had put it all behind her and they believed it, most of the Nielsens happy to have her around despite the breakup with one of their own.

"If you say so."

Jamie knew better than to question her, he had long grown used to watching her bottle everything up. He knew his mother was an odd beast and accepted her for it. Really he was a far better son than she deserved.

"So, when were you going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"That you made detective!" Eli had to stop herself from shouting, pride nearly overcoming her socially-induced unease. "Your dad had to text me, and he found out from your watch commander? Come the fuck on!"

Jamie smiled sheepishly, looking at the grass as he took a sip of his drink. "It wasn't that important-"

"Nope. Nuh-uh. None of that self-deprecation 'oh it was no biggie' stuff right now. Detective Nielsen of the Major Crimes Division, not that important..."

She let the words hang in the air for a moment before pulling Jamie in, trapping him in a properly suffocating bear hug.

"I'm so proud of you. We both are, and we know how hard you've worked. The city's lucky to have you."

She got only a muffled squeak in return, the air in Jaime's lungs having been forced out of him by her death grip. Eli held him juuust a bit longer, finally releasing him with a laugh.

"When are you getting your implants?"

"I've had them for the past six months, or some of them anyway. Apparently, they'd rather spend money upfront to make sure I'm acclimated to all the new bits and pieces instead of letting me figure it out on the job."

"Makes sense."

Eli had more to say, questions to ask or comments to make, all the remarks a proud parent would make flittering about her head. But more distant relations had just arrived, a small group making their way over to intrude on her and her son. As the hellos and how are yous swarmed in Eli did her best to keep up, answering with faint smiles.

Once again Jaime wasn't fooled.

"Oh, Mom you're meeting with your PR people, right? You should get a move on."

The excuse was flimsy but Eli wasn't about to complain. Goodbyes left her mouth without her input, body drifting away on autopilot. Edging through the throng of relatives with gritted teeth she managed to make it just out of view of the party before sprinting off beyond the speed of sound.
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May 15, 2080 - 6:27 PM

When the man opened the door to his garage his eyes took a moment to adjust. The lights weren't on and the windows were dusty and blocked off by boxes, rendering the room twilight-dark. Ignoble was counting on this fact to give them the element of surprise, and it worked. Marcus Miller saw only the vague outline before she lunged, one hand pulling him in by the jacket as the other pushed the door shut behind him.

"Hello, Doctor."

The words came out distorted, the mechanical scramblers in Ignoble's mask rendering their voice a guttural snarl. The sound, low in volume but high in menace, seemed much louder in the little garage.

"I apologize for startling you."

Miller didn't respond, staring slack-jawed at the skull-headed specter before him. A lazy shove sent him sprawling to the ground, Ignoble unhooking a pistol and leveling it at his heart.

"I understand you habitually carry a weapon? Keep it hidden for now, unless you want the missus to find you with two in the head."

From inside the house came peppy instructions, the encouraging voice of a virtual instructor.

"Almost done! Strong finish gang, strong finish!"

"If you cooperate I'll be out of here before she's showered."

Miller swallowed, grimaced, looked back toward the sound of an in-progress exercise routine...and relented.

"How'd you know where-"

"You didn't hide." Ignoble said dismissively. "I found your address, your life story, figured out your household routine, the works. You're a former second lieutenant who got tired of army life after one term, went back to school where you met your wife Margaret and got a job as head of security for the bank she works at. Recently you graduated with a doctorate in Genetics and have begun work on identifying which, if any, gene is responsible for Variance. Margaret goes out with her girlfriends every Wednesday at eight, you take a half-hour walk around the neighborhood each day around six."

They thumbed back the hammer, a mechanically useless gesture since the pistol was double-action but one that signified evil actions. The click clarified Ignoble's intentions, just in case there was any doubt.

"Which brings us to now. Margaret finishes her workout in about five minutes and after she grabs a snack and a shower she'll be leaving. In the meantime, we're going to negotiate."

Miller didn't respond for a moment, simply staring down the barrel of the suppressed .45 holding him hostage. Ignoble allowed him to run down the timer as much as he wished, an impassive skull hiding the careful calculations they were running. They were taking a risk by being here but it would be worth it if Miller cooperated.

"You want money then?"

"Not yours. I have three demands. The first is quite simple: quit your research and destroy any progress you might have made."

"Fine."

"It goes without saying that I will be doing my due diligence to make sure you don't hand anything off to your colleagues."

"I assumed as much. Not that it matters, I haven't learned anything we didn't already know."

Ignoble had known this already, their Syndicate sources having pulled Miller's portfolio days ago. Still, better to be safe than sorry.

"Second, Ike Murray."

Miller put on a look of confusion, a gambit that didn't fool Ignoble for an instance.

"Isaac Murray? Your advisor in the doctoral program? An older gentleman, mid-sixties?"

Ignoble cocked their head, modulated voice adopting an air of faux confusion.

"It seems I've wasted my time. Margaret might be late to karaoke, she'll have a mess to clean."

Miller swore under his breath, his last-ditch attempt a failure. Ignoble noted that he was far angrier than he was scared, their sharp senses picking up on the subtle flushing of his face and the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He felt fear of course, but it was purely for his family.

They were making the right choice.

"Fine, what about him?"

"I need access to his lab. I know you have a current keycard to the facility, and if you're as intelligent as I believe you to be you'll leave it under that birdbath in your backyard tonight."

"I suppose you'll kill me if I refuse."

"And leave your body for Margaret to find, yes."

They could see the conflict raging inside the poor man. His features, already worn from a life of rigorous study, were drawn and haggard, eyes filled with the sort of desperation one felt when presented with two horrible choices. But there was only one real option.

"Fine! Just-just leave us alone."

Ignoble simply nodded. The cheery chanting had died down only to be replaced by running water, the lady of the house now freshening up for her night on the town.

"Provided you heed my second demand: Liam."

The unspoken anger flared into properly verbalized outrage, Miller propping himself up as he spat "How da-!"

The outburst died out as suddenly as it started, the unfortunate doctor shooting a look back towards the door to the house.

"That's right, take it easy Doctor. I'd prefer if we kept this discussion calm, I wouldn't want to...rebuke any outside parties."

"You expect me to turn over my son?" Miller asked, now deathly quiet.

"Quite the opposite. I'd prefer not to deal with him at all but his focus on the Variance makes it difficult for me to ignore. I'd like for you to save him. Murray will be dead in, oh, one-to-three days. You would be wise to take the opportunity to convince Liam his talents are better suited to a different field of genetic biology. Curing Alzheimer's perhaps."

Miller shook his head once more, this time genuinely.

"He's brave, stubborn...not the sorta kid to let himself be bullied out of what he wants by a terrorist thug."

He quite literally spat the words, Ignoble deftly stepping out of phlegm range. They didn't doubt Miller's words, if Liam was anything like his father he'd be quite stubborn indeed.

"Then be authoritarian. Put your foot down. You pay his tuition, you tell him to change his focus or come home."

"And when he asks why, what am I supposed to tell him?"

Ignoble shrugged, placing their back against the exterior door.

"The truth. Mundanes who try to mold or master the Variance are my enemies, and you don't want him to wake up with a slit throat."

The vigilante paused, a chuckle escaping them.

"Or so I assume."

The pistol remained trained on Miller until the door closed between them, Ignoble disappearing into New Haven East. They had sent a clear message and could now do nothing but hope that it would be heeded. If not things became much simpler.
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May 15, 2080 - 7:04 PM
Redecker Stadium was supposed to have been the nucleus of a great change in the Shanty, the beginning of a revolution in body and soul.

An industrialist by the name of Thomas Redecker had earmarked millions and millions of dollars in his feel for the building of gyms, the establishment of little league teams, an overhaul of the local parks, a gift from beyond the grave to the poor people of the Shanty. And at the center of it all was to be his stadium, a place where future Olympians would be cheered on by their peers.

After thirty years there was precious little to show for it, the money siphoned away by greedy contractors and con artists, a flock of vultures all snagging their piece of the carcass before flying away. The only remnant of Redecker's gift was his stadium, unfinished and rotting at the foundational level. There were no crowds, no young athletes racing towards a brighter future. The only people in Redecker Stadium were New Haven's favorite fighter pilot and her staff.

"Point zero nine eight, one thousandth less than your last go."

"Shoot, really? I could've sworn I was going faster than that!"

The young woman holding the timer nodded. Breakneck scowled at the offered tablet from behind a pair of aviators, trying to will the numbers into correcting themselves. But there was no point in arguing with the sensors. They were custom-made for someone of her speed, they could clock something going Mach 10. Operator error was also out, her people had set the system up dozens of times by now.

"That's still barely above my average."

A lackey materialized as if out of thin air with water bottle in hand, Breakneck taking and draining it in seconds before tossing it back with a nod of thanks.

"Boss, you're moving at around triple the cruising speed of the average jet, I think you're doing fine."

That particular speaker was Emma, Bn's personal assistant. Her duties included arranging interveiws, organizing accommodations, sorting through crank calls, paying bills and generally making sure her boss wasn't biting off more than she could chew. She generally failed in that final task but the attempt was apreciated nonetheless.

"Emma I wasn't even twenty-three when I broke the sound barrier. I've been running for nearly a quarter-century, I should be well past cruising speed!"

This was not the sort of situation that required much coordination, not on Breakneck's part anyway. Any value gained by waiting for her fellow Nobles would not be worth the lives lost because she hadn't made it in time. The faster she got inside, the faster she could start getting people outside.

Her body being as hardened as it was meant she didn't have to worry when she busted through the wall, nor when she started getting lungfuls of whatever foul concoction was filling the air. Breakneck was free to consider her situation, retreating into herself to take stock in slow motion.

The mundanes would never understand what it felt like to be so attuned to the world around them. Breakneck could make out individual sparks hovering amidst clouds of smoke, count the specks of burning tile that hung near-frozen in time. The lobby was more like a diorama than it was a live scene, all motion within it sluggish to the extreme.

To work then.

There was a janitor mid-stumble a few feet from her, a nonconcern if not for the fact that his overalls had caught fire. Bn hopped the reception desk and snuffed the flames, bits of charred fabric coming away with her hands as she moved on.

Down the stairs came a security guard of some sort, her cute little cap and pressed shirt all soot-stained and disheveled. Sweat ran down her face, unsurprisingly considering her condition. Whatever skinflint, minimum-wage-plus-tenure paycheck she was getting wasn't worth the vapors she had sucked down by the liter.

Also, she had totally missed a step and was now plummeting to the ground floor. Breakneck snickered to herself, the sound echoing inside her helmet as she turned to take a look at the papers fluttering up in her wake.

Imperial Bioengineering was the header on the roster, a list of names dutifully memorized. She'd have to send them to her Syndicate contacts, have them do a background check on the employees. Hopefully, there'd be some sample or research notes lying around, something that could be snatched up and written off as lost to the inferno. In the meantime, how was the guard doing?

Not great as it turned out. She had missed her chance to recover and was now perpendicular to the stairs, arms dragging through the air to try and stop herself. Breakneck got involved before she broke something, strolling over to scoop up the stranger as if she were nothing more than a cardboard cutout.

The guard didn't even have time to scream, plunked onto the curb outside by the line of cops.
"Easy, you're safe now." the Noble said softly, trying to offset the facelessness of her outfit with gentle words.

"Please, Mitchell's trapped in the elevator! He had just gotten in when the fire started!"

"He'll be out momentarily, just try and stay calm. Paramedics are gonna be here, they'll check you out."

"You have to help him, his heart can handle all this!"

Her slowed perception clicked back in as she turned to go back to work, aware of Flip and Senbonzakura but focused on the job at hand. Her eyes narrowed in annoyance as she saw the same guard from moments ago once again on fire. More sparks must have soaked into his uniform, catching some of the grease smears staining the denim.

This time Bn didn't bother to preserve his clothing, her momentum simply tearing them from his body before a firm push sent him stumbling through the door. A crowd of terrified staff was now clogging the stairwell but they seemed to be more or less unharmed, all in good enough shape to make it to safety on their own.

Elevator.

Back over the desk and towards the lift, ignoring the buttons that were certainly out of order. Come to think of it, so was the fire suppression system. A fancy lab like this had to have a multimillion-dollar HVAC setup, probably with a fancy gas suppression system to snuff out a blaze.

The Scourgies must have killed it.

Fair enough if so, Breakneck would have done the same had she been in their shoes.

Wrenching apart the elevator doors took only a fraction of her strength, stainless steel crumpling under her fingers as she jammed the entrance open. New Haven's hastiest hero stepped into the shaft and looked up at the hoist stuck four floors above, dropping into a low crouch before exploding upwards.

Fingertips breached through the platform, Breakneck tearing a hole large enough for her to wiggle herself up and through. There was in fact someone else inside, a middle-aged gentleman slumped over in the corner. He didn't respond as Bn clambered towards him, the Noble swearing under her breath before slinging Mitchell over her shoulder.

Technically chest compressions needed to begin as soon as possible, but as Breakneck hopped from ledge to ledge towards the ground floor she figured it would be better to do them outside of an oven.

Name | Jamie Nielsen
Alias | Jay
Age | 27
Gender | Male
Appearance |

[Gear]
Attire | What Jay wears depends on whether or not he plans to be in the office on a given day. When working at his desk he dresses in dark suits and ties, appearing as neat as he can without drawing attention to himself.
Armament/Equipment | Jay's equipment is checked out of the armory or brought from the closet at home as required for his work. Since he performs a variety of duties he has a variety of "loadouts".

-

[Temperament & Lifestyle]
Affiliation | New Haven Police Department
Personality/Habits | Jamie is an extremely bright up-and-coming officer in the NHPD, a two-year veteran of the SWAT force who only recently became a detective of the prestigious Major Crimes Division. Despite his soft-spoken nature and quiet demurring when praised his accomplishments and the relatively young age at which he achieved them have been noticed within the department. All eyes are on Jamie.

This has rendered him a highly stressed perfectionist, with the need to prove himself driving his career. He regularly works overtime and is always willing to assist with a case, even going out on patrols with other officers to provide backup. To cope with such a workload he drinks and smokes heavily, generally fond with a bottle in hand and a cyl in mouth when not on the clock.

In addition to these legal vices Jay also abuses pain medication via a perfectly legal prescription. His body suffers a minor allergic reaction to the relatively high number of cybernetics installed, causing migraines and occasional flare-ups of pain that can be managed fairly easily with prescription drugs. Jay's used to the discomfort, instead saving his pills for when he needs to destress after a long shift.

Part of what makes him such an effective operator is his natural paranoia, Jay is constantly on the lookout for threats. This also makes him something of a digital recluse, owning no social media accounts or even credit cards. Hell, he holds most of his money in physical cash, only leaving enough in the bank for his account to remain active.

Occupation/Trade | NHPD Major Crimes Division Detective and SWAT Officer
Skills/Talents | He's a trained police officer and investigator, quite capable of settling an active crime scene before collecting and analyzing any and all evidence found.
Family |
Background |

PERSONALITY
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EQUIPMENT






^{______________}

CAPACITY
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Yamileth was no stranger to sleeping in the car, not after the training she had gone through. Seven odd years of late-night rituals and early morning Bible studies, hundreds of hours learning all facets of the Trade. She had quickly gotten used to grabbing sleep whenever and wherever she could, even if it meant napping in the back seat of a beat-up '69 Camaro with a giant dog huffing and grunting next to her.

The sweltering heat did not bother her as she slept, for she was dreaming of a nicer time. Her visions were murky, the words within unclear, as if she were viewing the scene from under the surface of the water, but she recognized it all the same. Yami's dreams typically revolved around one subject: Ekaterine.

There were on a beach somewhere, alone save for the sound of surf lapping against sand. Neither of them spoke but so much was being said! They communicated through the touch of Yami's still soft hands against Ekaterine's battle-calloused ones, sharing their warmth in a world where they could just sit and rest. When Yamileth leaned against her mentor she was saying that they were safe not just for the moment but forever, free from fear or worry.

They kissed, just as they always did in her dreams, and just as always it was bittersweet. Yami could only get what she wanted, what she craved, from her imagination. Even her slumbering subconscious knew that it was impossible for the relationship to ever be more than mentor and student, and that grim truth gave her a flitter of restlessness.

It was quickly swallowed up by the beauty of the fantasy, disbelief suspended as it would be for any other romance. If this seaside dreamscape was the only place she could be honest with Ekaterine about her feelings then Yami would just have to make the most of it.

"Yami, wake up."

Stolen away from it all by the object of her affection, how cruelly ironic. Yamileth grunted as she shifted away from the window, sluggishly reaching for Cohort's fuzzy face.

"Where are we?"

Not Vegas, that was for sure. As opposed to sun-blasted sand and towering monuments to excess, they were surrounded by rolling mountains and verdant sage. The only sign of civilization was a collection of run-down homes and the little service station that the Stavrophore had deemed worthy of supplying their 'steed' with fuel.

Ekaterine stepped out of the car and Yamileth followed, ears popping from the change in pressure.

"Bellemont, ten miles or so from Flagstaff. I need to check in with a friend, it'll take a few minutes. Fill up the car."

She wasn't usually that curt, but then again she was running on empty. They had just gotten back from a routine hunt when word of the Vegas Incident came, leaving them only enough time to resupply before hopping back in the car. Yami had managed to squeeze in a few hour's rest, but as far as she knew Ekaterine hadn't slept in more than a day.

As much as the novice hunter wanted to push her teacher into the backseat to sleep she knew that doing so would only test Ekaterine's patience. In the time they had worked together, Yami had noticed that the Stavrophore often struggled to rest when on the hunt, relying on force of will and strength of belief to drive her onward. This made it harder for her to recover which in turn led to her nightmares getting worse, cutting into her time even back home in the convent.

That cycle was bearable thirty years ago when Ekaterine had been a young soldier on the Eastern Front. She was older now, worn down from too much struggle and not enough care. She treated herself like a mule to be worked to death, choosing to either get torn apart by horrors or drop dead from exhaustion in a final act of penance.

Yamileth hoped that in doing so she'd the forgiveness she had been fighting so hard for.


Bellemont reminded her of her home in Georgia. Stepantsminda was mountain country, albeit much colder than anywhere in Arizona, and the people there lived simply. She could see the creaky carts of her neighbors in the aging Fords and Buicks that lined the unpaved street, the little bar on the corner not too dissimilar to the tavern her father had habitually visited. And both were mere villages hidden in mere provinces, entirely swallowed up by the Russian Bear and American Eagle.

She stood out more than she had in Stepantsminda, but only just. Whereas in her country people noticed her height here they were drawn to her clothes. If Ekaterine had to guess she would have said that they all assumed she was Catholic, although of a strange branch where they wore hobnailed boots and stovepipe caps with their habits as opposed to the traditional nurse's shoes and coif.

There was no time to educate the locals on the Great Schism. Ekaterine ignored their stares as she marched towards the ramshackle warehouse that passed for a church in that part of the country, skipping the front entrance in favor of the screen door at the back.

"Elder Hall, are you in?"

"Door's open!"

Ekaterine took the invasion, stepping into her old friend's office. It was much as she remembered it, with its cheap carpet and peeling wallpaper, secondhand shelves creaking under the weight of books. The Elder himself was seated in a folding chair at a thrift store desk, closing his copy of the Scriptures.

"Mother Ekaterine, a pleasant surprise. You've been well I hope?"

Not in the slightest, but she had long ago learned that Americans asked how you were doing, they didn't actually mean they wanted to know.

"As well as I can be. The hunt stops for no man, and it's called me to Las Vegas. A Compact's gone dark, and the culprits must be crushed."

"I take it that's why you're here then. As always the Church of Jesus Christ is happy to help our Eastern brethren in any way we can.

One of Ekaterine's many sins was failing to extend the same understanding she gave to her non-Orthodox and non-Christian colleagues to the Latter-Day Saints. Part of this was due to the Church's refusal to nominate members to the priesthood on the basis of skin color, for any organization that rejected a continent of God's children was one that she could never see eye to eye with, but much of it was simple bias on her part. As far as religions went it was still in its infancy, born not even two centuries ago. Such a young church had little to offer in the fight against darkness, and Ekaterine was woefully pragmatic.

But Elder Hall was a friend and a fellow warrior, a veteran who had fought against Imperial Japan just as she had. He was brave, actually brave as opposed to blinded by pride and wrath like herself, but he was simply outmatched when it came to supernatural threats. Hall had survived Peleli and Okinawa, Ekaterine wasn't going to let him die in the back alleys of Sin City.

"I need only a weapon, one separate from my shotgun. Your knife, do you still have it?"

Hall smiled, opening the cabinet of his desk to produce a simple cardboard package. Opening it revealed the contents, the traditional Ka-Bar knife beloved by all Marines and anyone else who expected to stab someone as part of their day job. Ekaterine lifted it with the same reverence she would treat any holy tool, drawing it from its sheath to get used to the weight. The parkerized blade bore a single inscription, Psalms 91:4.

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

"It took care of me, may it do the same for you."

She nodded, sheathing the blade once more before saying her goodbyes. There was a four-hour drive ahead of her, enough time to down some cold coffee and a handful of Biphetamine 20. Some of the sisters frowned on her popping amphetamines, but Ekaterine wasn't exactly taking them for fun. The rush of adrenaline wasn't recreational, the intense burst of focus was not an experience she enjoyed. But it was useful, and if the Lord didn't want her to do it He would have let her know by now.

The Camaro screamed down the street of Las Vegas like so many of its brethren had done before, but instead of ferrying drunk college kids it carried instruments of God's will, two of his children and one of the dogs designed to serve them. They had taken the time to gird themselves for battle on the way in, holsters strapped on and bandoliers wrapped around chests. Adjusting her rearview Ekaterine could Yami doing a final count of her magazines and speed loaders, the flash of silver from Cohort's muzzle telling the nun that their hound had been properly armed as well. She had yet to meet the creature that enjoyed being chewed on by seven hundred pounds of jaw strength, especially not when it had been augmented by blessed silver.

Ekaterine liked to think that Cohort was as dedicated to task as she was, for what other reason did he allow Yamileth to poke around his mouth covering his fangs with metal caps?

Her own loadout was ready, her habit now covered by her armor plates and a surplus ammo-carrying vest from Vietnam, each pocket loaded with a magazine for one weapon or another. At her hip was a shotshell bag, a fresh box of buckshot tucked in for easy access. Her bag contained more and of differing varietals for changing situations.

All in all Ekaterine was pushing a hundred pounds of extra weight, a load that even seasoned soldiers would find hard to fight in. She carried it as if it were all a part of her body, legs carrying her into the thick of the fighting as soon as the car stopped moving.

She didn't waste time making conversation like her Muslim comrades did, nor did she respond to Father Alistair's words. In that moment she existed for one purpose: violence.

The Elder Vampire needed to go. Ekaterine saw everything else as distractions, problems to be dealt with once the root was dug up. She sprinted past soldiers, civilians, and monsters alike, deadset on destroying the mockery of human beauty.

"Anyone that brings me back a head will earn their ascension!"

None of them would bring anything to the wretch, not once Ekaterine was done with it. Her boots trod rats into mulch as she bore down, eyes narrowing as a pair of ghouls attempted to put themselves between her and her prey. A swing of her gloved fist shattered one's jaw while the other was sent stumbling back by way of a shoulder to the chest, mere distractions trying to keep her from her righteous goal.

She didn't aim her shotgun so much as she pointed it in the general direction of the Leader, relying on faith and close range to guide her shot. The Ithaca jerked in her hand at the pull of the trigger, blessed buckshot ripping holes through the monster's side. But to Ekaterine's annoyance the fiend had been ready, deftly dodging most of the payload.

The Leader snarled, launching itself at Ekaterine with all the speed and strength of an apex predator. The nun saw the claws coming but found herself temporarily helpless, the devil's eyes locking with hers and reaching past for her soul with its foul magic. For a moment Ekaterine remembered what it was like to be terrified, the natural superiority of the undead once again unquestioned. She was a rabbit challenging a hawk, a fool!

Ekaterine only just managed to lift her weapon in an attempt to block, the talons deflected away from her tender throat towards her exposed face. There was a flash of white pain and trickles of blood dripping down her forehead, the sense of violation as her body reacted to injury...and the leering smile of That Which Should Not Be.

The spell was broken. Ekaterine was enraged once more.

She lashed out with a scream, drowning out all noise as she smashed her head forward. Her body was just another holy weapon, a tool to be used. Shards of teeth pierced her headdress and dug into her scalp, more minor wounds to be treated later. The Leader was defanged with a gurgling cry, the sound of weakness only serving to encourage the berserker's hate. Ekaterine's throat produced sounds that could only barely be considered human as she lifted the Less-Than-Mortal by the neck, throwing her quarry to the asphalt.

Vampires were largely resistant to physical trauma, making brute-force weapons generally inferior. It was simpler and far easier to invest in a consecrated spear or a simple stake with which to stab the swine. Ekaterine liked having options, however, which was why the spiked bottoms of her boots were also silvered. She gave the monster no time to escape, jumping on its chest with a brutal snarl.

Its sternum cracked, the black heart beneath crumbled to dust, and Ekaterine laughed madly.

All the doubt, the exhaustion and her loosening grip on reality, all of it was so very worth it now that she was home.



Yamileth wouldn't have admitted it under torture in Tartarus itself, but she was very much out of her depth. The hunts with Ekaterine, the banishing rituals with her adoptive coven, all of that had been good experience but nothing could have prepared her for this. They had driven into a warzone, Green Beret black ops type yelling commands and emptying M16s into feral hordes while civilians scrambled for safety. There was a guy with a sword fighting two vampires at once, swarms of bats diving in to nip at exposed flesh...

...what the hell was she doing here? She wasn't ready for this!

But it was too late to back out now. As Ekaterine tore off in search of skulls to collect Yamileth took up position behind the car, arms shaking as she tried to steady her rifle. There were so many targets to choose from and too much chaos to do it in, friend and foe alike embroiled in a great melee so that Yami couldn't even shoot without risking friendly fire.

A flailing of limbs in her periphery stole her attention, Yami swinging her M1 towards the commotion with her finger on the trigger. She almost put a bullet through the head of some unfortunate barman running as fast as his legs could carry him. That speed was still far too slow, the bloody gash across his thigh draining his strength as a ghoul gave chase. As Yami switched targets the man stumbled and fell, desperately dragging himself as his pursuer drew closer.

"Cohort, fetch!"

She pointed to the bartender and the Cane Corso bounced forward, bowling past friendly troops to grab the injured soul's collar with his teeth. As Cohort pulled the man towards cover Yamileth dumped shots into the ghoul, focusing on volume as opposed to accuracy.

The first shot went wide, two and three snapped an arm like a dry branch and number four went in through the temple and came out by earlobe.

One done, way too fucking many to go.

Name: "Samurai" Nakano Fuka

Nickname: As much as she'd like for people to use her stolen rightful title, Nakano's accepted the fact that she can't actually make them.

Appearance: Fuka does not look like a graduate of a military academy or an officer in the Dragon's Combined Soldiery, her veteran status belied by her youthful appearance and sunny disposition. Having grown up with wealth and taste she dresses up whenever the weather allows her to, donning colorful kimonos and hakama in all manner of social situations. It's worth noting that to Fuka, combat is a social situation.

Outside of her dress, there are two notable abnormalities to Fuka. Firstly, her height. She's very tall for a woman, particularly one from Kagoshima, standing at 6'1. Her great height is counterbalanced by her leanness, her figure carrying the toned muscles of a long-distance runner (understandable, considering the amount of sprinting she did during her Acadamy days). The second is her left arm. If one looked closely they'd be able to notice that it's merely coated in latex to mimic living skin, an advanced prosthesis to make up for the loss of the original during an artillery barrage.

Age: 23

Origin: A native of Kagoshima, and a noble to boot. Had she stuck around Fuka would have been in line to become the tozama daimyo of a portion of it, but she deserted instead.

Personality: Fuka is not motivated by politics or morality or any philosophy. All of those are boring stories made up by cowards to make themselves feel better about killing. Fuka fights because she's good at it and it's fun, and if people are willing to pay her to why would she turn them down? War is an adventure, a game with the highest possible stakes. She has no loyalty to anyone except her flight and the people paying it, a true mercenary.

These ever so slightly sociopathic tendencies are counterbalanced by her genuine cheerfulness. Her uninterest in house politics makes it easy for her to make friends from pretty much any corner of the Inner Sphere. She has an appreciation for the fine things in life: good clothes, good food, good music, and good times. She likes being on friendly terms with her comrades because the flight that can't work together is the first to get destroyed. A quick way to her heart is by joining her on the hunting trips she tries to schedule regularly, her love of big game trophies only accentuated by having someone to show them off to.

A holdover from Fuka's honor-bound upbringing is that she has little to no respect for captives, seeing them as both not good enough to win and not brave enough to take the honorable way out. They exist to do what she wants, whether that means her laundry or being sold for a few C-Bills.

History: The Nakanos are a line of minor nobility within the Draconis Combine, dedicated servants of House Kurita who have long served in various branches of the military and militia. Fuka was to be no different, allowed great luxury growing up at the expense of her future service. From an early age she was taught the importance of loyalty to the Coordinator and the tenets of bushido, told that she must present herself as an example to the lower classes.

A shame then, that she never paid much attention to those lessons. Fuka was always more interested in gratification than she was in service, so while she was looking forward to a military career it was entirely due to a childish fascination with war. Her relative's stories made getting shot at fun, and that was all Fuka cared about.

Even if she had wanted to join the Infantry or the Admiralty Fuka was trained in the use of BattleMechs, slipping into the cockpit of the family heirloom Archer with her father to watch him maneuver before eventually being given the controls herself. The moment she put on the Neurohelmet, she knew she didn't want to do anything else.

Military academy seemed a natural fit for a kid with a love of mechs, and indeed Fuka was enrolled at Sun Zhang, but she chafed under the strict control of enlisted life. She was noted as something of a strategic slacker, just managing to toe the line of decorum without ever impressing her instructors. The sole exception was in combat, where she proved to be a natural at shooting and brawling (although her brute force style left little room for the nuances of piloting or tactics).

But with the ongoing Fourth Succession War the Combine was not in a position to turn down recruits, even if they were perhaps uninspiring. Fuka was awarded her daishō and assigned to the Sun Zhang Cadres, sent off to prove herself in some of the nastiest conflict zones House Kurita could find.

To the surprise of her family, her comrades, and even herself Fuka managed to excel. The shift from the training hall to the real world gave her the push needed to demonstrate her skill, using her penchant for gunnery and melee to support her lance while letting her comrades cover for her shortcomings. In one particularly noteworthy incident, her flight caught a team of FedSun mechs out of position and essentially vaporized them. In a single salvo all but one of the Davionites were killed outright, save for the pilot of the Shadow Hawk that Fuka managed to cripple.

With a successful raid under her belt Fuka happily sent her captive off to get broken in, uninterested in owning a slave but pleased with the kudos she'd get for him at home. The feeling of accomplishment carried her through the rest of the war, right up until the final few days when a bombardment blew her left arm at the shoulder.

Fuka was largely unphased by the event (once the pain subsided, of course, she'd happily admit that she was screaming like a stuck pig until the medics got some serious sedatives into her), simply chalking it up to luck. Plenty of people left the war in much worse shape than she had, and it wasn't like she couldn't afford a replacement limb. Hell, any disappointment she might have felt was quickly forgotten when she was informed that she had graduated from the Cadre and made a junior lieutenant.

The end of the war and her "wounded veteran of a noble family" status afforded Fuka some time off, sent home to convalesce before the next inevitable engagement. Now once again constrained by societal pressures she had time to consider her position. The war had been fun, but the rigor and structure of military life annoyed her. She was proud of having been made an officer, but that was only because of the sense of personal achievement. She didn't want to spend her life polishing her boots and her superiors' asses, she just wanted adventure.

Her slave was now working on the Nakano estate, and his presence gave her an idea. While she had no actual problem with his mistreatment (after all, if he didn't want to be captured he would have sat on a grenade) but his want of freedom inspired her to seize her own. Fuka deserted her family and her liege and stole their property along the way, smuggling the Bastard out of the city in a crate of laundry. After that, Alvin was left to his own devices because Fuka had her own problems.

On the run and liable to be shot for treason if discovered she beelined for the newly independent Rasalhague, intending to use it as a stopping point before continuing on in search of a company looking to hire. Conveniently, there was a company looking to hire in Rasalhague!

Now her main goal is to get her hands on a proper heavy or even assault mech, so as to continue the carnage.

Skills:

Gunnery: 5
Piloting:1
Guts:5
Tactics:1

Abilities: We'll keep track of pilot's abilities here once they earn any. These are usually beneficial modifiers for specific situations, and will be "awarded" during the RP if it feels like a pilot earned it. Same soft statistic as Skills, used mostly for flavor to give a unique flare to every pilot.

Misc:

• Members of the Pillar of Gold are expected to practice art in all its forms as part of their advanced place in society, so Fuka is a fair hand at many types of artistic expression. However, she's best as a musician, playing a steel guitar and singing.
• Speaks both her native Japanese and English perfectly, can understand French and German but struggles somewhat in speaking.
• Is well armed even outside her mech, as befitting a samurai. Besides the traditional katana and matching wakizashi she wears due to having earned them in Sun Zhang, she also keeps a modified G-150 hunting rifle, chambered in 11 millimeter for big game. The final weapon is a simple Nambu autoloader. If asked Fuka will gleefully share that it's intended for herself if her mech is ever disabled.
• Smokes, really only because she thinks it looks cool.

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Battle-Frame Name - Hantu Belian 0054-"Chop Shop"

Weight Class - Ultra-Light

Description

The Belian is already an oddball within Temasek's Hantu-series of Battle Frames due to its parentage, a mixture of Gyrland's Basilisk and reverse-engineered examples of the Ruzi Watchman. The idea was to build an ultra-light Frame that could serve as both a long-distance reconnaissance unit and an 'assassin' to cripple or kill key components of a defensive network. It excels at this task, with the caveat that it's fairly vulnerable even for a light Frame.

Over a decade of scrounging, scrapping and reconfiguring Rimau has taken to an extreme, cutting out most of what was left of the armor and stripping out all non-essentials in order to pile in bigger engines, better subsystems and a hell of a lot more firepower.

The "Chop Shop" quite frankly sucks to ride in. It's sweltering in the heat and freezing in the cold due to the removal of the cockpit's temperature control, its controls combine two already finicky setups with a series of aftermarket additions and the pilot is violently jostled when making sharp turns. Controlling the beast requires one to be able to read three different languages as well as understand low-level programming languages. Essentially, the user has to specialize in all of the disparate parts that make up the strange whole.

This is all a tremendous pain in the ass for Rimau, but the inconveniences are worth it. Ten years of experience and fine-tuning add up to what is an absolutely lethal predator. The Chop Shop is terrfingly fast and carries enough ordinance to control a fire zone on its own, quite capable of dealing with Frames, vehicles and infantry. It can outrun and outshoot any problem it comes across, zipping across the battlefield at blistering speeds while saturating the enemy with fire.

Primary Weapons

Heavy Battle Rifle: The rifle used by a standard Basilisk, but modified to fire in full auto. Additional upgrades include a heavier barrel as well as custom porting to counteract the heat generated by firing.

"Mjölnir" Assault Shotgun Where the HBR is designed to deal with Frames and other heavy vehicles the Mjölnir instead focuses on infantry and other lightly armored targets. It primarily fires solid slugs and standard buck or bird shot, all upscaled to fit a weapon fired by a fifty foot war machine. A common usage of the MAS is cracking open the walls of a bunker with a slug and then turning the occupants into mist with a spray of birdshot.

The MAS can also fire specialized ammunition such as incendiary, explosive or gas shells but doing so requires the weapon to be switched to pump-action, as specialized ammo doesn't generate enough gas to cycle the weapon automatically.

"Ripsaw" Close-Quarters Arm Weapon: Only ever referred to by its nickname because CQAW is a horrible acronym. The Ripsaw takes the fundamental function of a standard oscillating bone saw and applies to it a short sword contained in the Chop Shop's wrist. Then the whole thing is superheated so glows blue-hot. It cuts will cut through Frames of all sizes, and make short work of any other barrier.

Missile Pods: Stripped from Ruziyane helicopters in the aftermath of an airfield raid, one attached to each shoulder. Generally one will have four heavy missiles loaded while the other has twenty unguided rockets for use in area suppression.

SubSystems

Sensors: A key component of the Chop Shop is that it can find the enemy before they find it. It boosts an advanced suite of optics, allowing it to zoom in on targets and switch between thermal and night vision modes, as well as cutting-edge radar systems for long-range detection. For use in short-range engagements or situations where the enemy is cloaked it also has access to sonar, bouncing sound waves off Frames to ping their location.

Shielding: Nearly every bit of physical armor has been stripped away to cut back on weight, but Rimau kept the Belian's systems protection. All electrical components have been hardened to withstand electromagnetic attacks and radio frequency interference, ensuring that it can't simply be crippled by way of electricity (at least not without entirely melting the Frame).

The Chop Shop communicates only through relatively a relatively primitive radio system to ensure that no signal can seize upon by enemy hackers.

"Dustcloud" Suite: The Chop Shop is equipped with a chaff-laced smokescreen, deploying it to blind enemies while still being able to target them due to the aforementioned sonar.

Prototype System

Banshee Sonic Warfare System : The BSWS is essentially a dramatic upgrade to the venerable LRAD anti-personal weapons, a series of micro-speakers layered throughout the Chop Shop designed to project focused sonic blasts. Using Sound Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (SASER) the Banshee can either project a field in a sphere around itself or fire a much longer-range cone of sound directly ahead.

At long distances, the weapon disorientates and temporarily deafens anyone caught in the field but as targets get closer to the source the damage becomes more intense. Glass breaks, ears bleed as the hearing loss becomes permanent and the body suffers physical trauma. At close enough range and high enough intensity the Banshee can quite easily kill, generating air embolisms that dramatically rupture organs. Pilots inside frames can suffer these effects as well, making the Banshee perfect for dealing with particularly hard targets.

It's major downside is that it can't be controlled outside of lowering the volume. Friendlies in the radius are just as susceptible as enemies so Rimau has to be careful with her positioning.

Nation name: Temasek

Membership: Suspicious of Avrupa and Ruziyane but closely allied to Vinland.

Position in the world: The Republic of Temasek lies far to the west of Avrupa, a small nation-state stretched across an archipelago.

Recent history: Temasek was once split between the nations of Avrupa, colonized by outsiders so that distant monarchies could get rich off the land's natural resources. After centuries of subjugation and the tribes and clans that lived on the island rose up against their Avrupan masters in a coordinated rebellion, one that was in part funded and equipped by Vinland. This sparked a strong relationship between the two countries, one that held together even as Vinland began to treat Avrupa with less hostility.

Its alliance with Vinland as well its relatively abundant supply of Therranite led to Temasek taking quite well to Battle Frames. The country is, while densely populated considering its small size, still drastically outnumbered by the Hegemony or any other major power that might wish to invade so technological prowess is a key part of its military strategy. Temasek invested heavily in Battle Frame and Therranite research, working with Vinland to back up its conscription-based army with powerful equipment.

In recent years Temasek has been particularly paranoid about the possibility of invasion. While it had no real connections with the now-largely defunct Gyrland, its brazen occupation has sent the republic's leaders into a frenzy. Some sectors have been converted from low-priority production of luxury items into wartime industry, factories churning out armor and ammunition to be stashed away until needed by military or paramilitary forces. The R&D community has particularly focused on further refining Therranite. Advances have been made in weaponizing the material, and early efforts to make Frames more fuel-efficient show promise.