The Hound

42

He/Him

Gifted

Omega

Hunter

Eli is a clean man, hair slicked back and suit or uniform always in order. Well manicured and always wearing a practised smile; stripped gums showing long teeth. The kind of smile that is just a little too much, balancing between assurance and threat. He carries himself as if he were kind and patient, but with a certain efficiency and power that demands what is being asked for. He has the looks and demeanour of a business man from yesteryear, a package made to be pretty enough to strike a deal with, but containing something inside worth hiding. While he carries no scars on his face, his body is riddled with old wounds. Having spent his years under the employ of project Gaia and The Hunters. He's maintained the strong body needed for this work, though his muscles are not overly large and showy. They are there to do what need be done. He stands at roughly 6"1 with shadows under his eyes and skin roughly coarse, grey streaking through his hair already.

The Hound has earned his moniker not only for his powers, but his fervour in his cause. Always taking to his work with a particular dedication and perhaps enjoyment; the hunt is a challenge he takes too with aplomb. Depending on the length of time and the situation in which you work with him, he could be a very pleasant and easy to get along with individual. Always willing to do his part, and pick up some slack. He is civil and cool, not breaking easy under pressure. He won't join you for your smoke break but he'll give you a wink while he carries on. He is intelligent, and enjoys people who try to match wits. While he doesn't act like he's above most people, he'd certainly never act like he's below them. Every interaction is one to be won, and he plays the game well. It might not be easy to get under skin, but you'd be harder pressed to see that you had. He can act and speak with an intensity that feels like a bomb always 1 second away from detonation. His focus is both to his aid and detriment; when he wants one thing down he works at it with a single-minded devotion. He finds it difficult to form meaningful relationships, but also doesn't see much need to. If you're able to work together, that's fine enough. He is tenacious and irrefutable, while acting perfectly placid to the whims of fate.

✔
-Winning
-A healthy challenge
-Strong coffee
-Clever people
-Cleanliness
✘
-Being forced to stop
-The ocean
-Distractions (Particularly noises like buzzing or alarms)
-Lazy people
-The need to rest

Gifted Ability: Eli is able to manipulate earthen material, up to a certain mass. However he cannot manipulate it directly as one might inspect; instead he animates it into a moving form called a golem. He can create as many golems equal to the total mass he can animate. This means he can create several smaller golems, or one very large one. They often take on dog-like appearances, but can vary wildly. These golems can undertake simple orders when not being directly controlled, however they can do nothing else; meaning they are quite stupid. If it is told to chase someone, it will do so; however if they broke line of sight for even a moment and kept hiding, the golem would stop as it now has no target. In addition Eli cannot move when directly controlling his golems for their more complicated movements. He suffers great mental strain controlling more than one golem at a time, and it eats away at his life force to keep them moving too long. Once they are a certain distance away from him, they crumble back into material. When destroyed by force, he feels pain in response. Malleable materials like sand and mud are easier to use, while refined materials like metal are more difficult.

Personal Skills: Eli has lived his entire life under The Gaia program or employ of The Hunters. He fully believes their work to be vital, and has dedicated himself to it wholly. He has learned many skills through this avenue, including combat, survival and tracking. He has an understanding of psychology, as well as a study of Gifted biology. While he can pretend at charisma enough to get his job done, actually empathizing with people is not his forte. He is generally proficient and if he doesn't know something already, he is quick to learn it if it worth his time.

While Eli is of course nowhere near old enough to have helped with the original Operation Gaia, The Republic has continued operations under the name for a time. Perhaps more of a PR move than one of actual goodwill. Gifted either made for the project or stolen for it would be raised in a way to see their life as a service to the world. Eli was one such gifted. While in his youth their had been times he fell out of line, on the whole he rationalized his life fairly well. He knew that the best way to live in that situation would be succeed, and find joy in the work. The world may have gotten over it's immediate climate crisis, but there would always be work to do. His efforts and abilities meant that when reaching young adult hood he would be moved to The Hunters, now apart of operation Tartarus. To make the world good he would do what he needed to do. People needed guidance, and he was chosen to guide. Here is where Eli's talents really began to show. Gaining the name "The Hound" for his relentless pursuit of important figures that could have resulted in major uprisings, he advanced quickly through the years. His work taking it's toll on his body and mind, he only grew more and more hungry for success. Here he has found himself working within an important camp of captured Gifted, called in to watch for any flickers of revolt that seem to be brewing, and weed out any connections the captured have to those outside.

Eli is unaware of any biological family.

Kilo

30

Male he/him/his

Gifted

Omega

Rebellion

Due to certain elements within the Hunters knowing his appearance, Sam can seldom be readily observed. He is usually covered in multiple layers of clothing and has a hood or cap of some kind on as well. He carries a small weight strapped around his right wrist, usually concealed. If someone gets closer, they will notice that his right hand is missing everything but the thumb and index. His dressing habits have produced a relatively fair complexion over the years. His slow movements along with the bulky apparel often get him mistaken for a much bigger man.

The lesser twin in both mind and body, Sam was always deferential to his sister. While he was weak and sickly when the powers initially manifested, she handled them without issue. As such, much of his early years were defined through this deference. As he grew older, the gap between them would shrink, and with that his confidence finally grew. The scars remained. Even though he approached life with confidence due to the sheer power of the gift, he never saw himself as her equal. The fact that both his family and former allies had been actively working with the Hunters made him overly cautious. What some would describe as careful planning and preparation, others would see as cowardice. He would never want to openly fight his twin or others of her level. In all avoidable situations, Sam would most likely run, a fact well known by his enemies – making him a rather easy opponent to plan against.

✔ Safety, Having a backup plan, Being accepted, Being covered up, Having a boring day
✘ Rash people, Poor planning, Panic, Sleep, Being relaxed

Gravitokinesis – While still developing, Sam’s power is formidable even at its current stage. While in theory, gravity could affect many things such as time or light itself, the man is nowhere near powerful enough to accomplish any such feats. Currently he is mostly confined to weight displacement and manipulation.

Idea: Sam serves as a conductor of the gravitational transference.

Limitation: If he is touching two things, the transfer is near immediate and total. If he’s touching a car and a man, the man could become as burdened by gravity as the car or the car could become as light as a man. All such dealings will always affect his own gravity as well, often in unpredictable ways – sometimes the load on him will lessen and sometimes increase as a result of being the conduit.

As range increases, Sam’s power of transference lose about 10% of their potency every meter beyond his reach. This is only true if he’s already touching one component of the transference, but if both are out of reach, then the loss is doubled and distance instead counted between the manipulated points.

The bigger the transference is, the longer it takes.

Consequence: Sam does not know how to revert any manifestation of his power, and as was the case with Feather – it appears to be quite long lasting. His past experiences lead him to ignore any potential uses on his teammates, and focuses on enemies and objects instead.

Born out of wedlock to a pair of disgraced government officials, Sam and Hope were looked at more as investments than as children from an early age. When their powers first began manifesting, their father left – knowing he came from a long line of people without Gifts and not fully believing the children were even his. In what could later be described as a short-sighted decision, their mother looked to her old government contacts for assistance. This is how the pair was first flagged in the system. While the gift of gravity quickly got them both labeled omega due to fear and misunderstanding, there was still a significant power difference between the twins.

It was unclear what exactly happened to the mother after the children were taken away, but they weren’t able to see her again. The years that followed were training, indoctrination and examination. Hope took to it much better than he and was getting the brunt of the interest in those days.

The day would come and they’d get a chance to escape the Republic during one of the Rebellion riots. For the twins, this was the catalyst of separation. While both had the chance to get away, Hope had little interest in doing so. She found her place within what was likely to become a group of Hunters later on. The success was enough to forget any thoughts of other family or a life before the Republic.

The next couple of years were rough. Running mindlessly at first, it would take Sam a good number of years before he could ever stop and surround himself with anything more than temporary accomplices. One such person was Emma, who brought him into the fold of the Rebellion. It was never clear whether this was a genuinely extended hand or value seen in his Gift, but he took the opportunity and slowly built his place within the rebels.

It wasn’t long before he became a field operative. It was during one such mission that an uncontrolled transference would live multiple team members dead, Sam maimed, and Emma forever known as Feather. She didn’t stick around for long, opting to leave, moving as far away from Sam as she could.

It would be a long time before he ever saw Feather again, a Hunter and going for his head.

While Sam had become quite well known within his cell of resistance, his reputation wasn’t the greatest. He was often theorized to have done more harm than good to their cause, crippling his cell, and causing one of the better operatives to join their enemies.

Hope – twin sister

Roman Cole

Dragonheart

38

Male - He/Him

Bisexual

Single

Gifted

Alpha

Rebel Army

In no uncertain terms, Roman is built like a tank. He stands at 6'2", and the absurd muscle he packs is usually covered by big clothing. From trench coats to cardigans big enough to fit around him. His skin is mottled with scars and what seem to be erratic indentations left behind by the long term use of his powers. A pair of brown eyes pierce right through your soul when Roman holds his gaze. The man gives off an atmosphere of confidence, comfortable in his own skin enough that it shows around others.

His appearance changes dramatically when using his powers.

If God himself challenged Dragonheart to a staring contest, then God would blink first. Having enough strength of character that he lights up every room he walks into, Dragonheart is known throughout the Rebel Army as one of the bravest and unkillable Gifted that ever walked through their doors. Always at the forefront of conflict, he is the definition of wrath and bravery. No matter who the Republic and the Hunters send, he doesn’t flinch or quit. He shows little remorse towards those who trample the lives of the Gifted and their friends. His comrades in arms know they will go home when the day is done, even if they’re broken and dying, because Dragonheart won't leave them. It doesn’t matter if he’s hurling a tank through the sky to take out a helicopter, or carrying countless wounded back to safety, Dragonheart will do it because said he will. He is an absolute diehard believer in the Rebel Army’s cause.

Roman Cole, however, is impossibly different. When the fight is over, he is a gentle and immensely kind man. Hearing the pain of countless people who have been through their own personal hells has made him sympathetic to a fault. He feel deep compassion for the world around him, and always tries to make that world easier to bear. Roman may be bold, and sometimes overwhelming, but his years in the Rebel Army have made it necessary. He has a heart of gold armed with artillery cannons that watch over the endangered like a hawk, and will cook a meal for a dozen people with the same emotional ease as he experiences when demolishing a Hunter APC with his bare hands. Roman can listen to the worst stories of unfettered agony that someone can possibly think of, and remain calm enough to be the shoulder they lean on. Others joke that Roman is the glue holding the entire Rebel Army together. It isn't hard to see why they think so.

✔Freedom, metal, cold weather, quiet evenings, acts of kindness.

✘Limitation, failure, warm weather, pointless bickering, or acts of cruelty.

Dragonhide: Roman's power causes a stone-like, nearly unbreakable matter to grow over his skin. This substance forms armor and spikes, which jut outwards like a dragon's horns, hence his name. This power takes only a few seconds to activate, but when it does, Roman grows a whole foot taller, and his body becomes dramatically stronger. The change allows him to lift several thousand pounds with a single arm, and lets Roman enjoy enough punching power to split the sturdiest military tanks in half. The jagged armor that Dragonheart grows is incredibly rough to the touch, punching it with your bare hand would be like punching a raw geode: You would break your hand, and the flesh in your hand would be flayed to pieces. While in this form, very little can injure Dragonheart. A shotgun to the face would cause his armor to flake off, but would do little more.

The problem with this power is that while he can turn it on in an instant, Roman can't go back to normal so quickly. It takes a few minutes for the armor and enhanced muscles to fade away. Once this starts, Roman's body becomes increasingly human, and therefore more vulnerable. His power also doesn't do well in stealthy situations- Have you ever seen a dragon sneak up on someone? His armor sounds like rocks grinding against each other when he walks, and the tips of the spikes that jut out of his shoulders glow in the dark. Dragonheart is far more accustomed to loud and head-on fights. Once the armor is damaged in any substantial way, it must be deactivated before it can regenerate. But if something beneath that armor, like a vital organ, is damaged, then Roman will need a doctor.

Unfortunately, Roman doesn't grow wings when he uses his powers.

Combat Master: Roman has been a part of the Rebel Army for the better part of two decades now. He is well-versed in fighting the Hunters anyone affiliated with them. His favored method of combat is to activate his powers and blitz unprepared opposition. He draws fire and breaks defensive lines while others get their jobs done. When he gets in close range, you better hope he's on your side or you are officially done for. Roman also has extensive experience with strategy and forming battle plans, enough to lead a successful raid.

Undercover: When Roman uses his powers, he stands out like a lighthouse on a starless night. And yet in an almost paradoxical way, he's just an ordinary tall guy. Sure, he may have a lot of nicks and scars, but maybe he's just an active guy. What does he do? Oh, he works on cars and occasionally gets a harmless injury- Nothing fancy. When he isn't charging into battle, Roman keeps a good cover, preventing his connection to the Rebel Army from being traced back to his everyday life. It helps that his power covers every part of him- Including his face- when active.

Roman doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t aware of his Gift. As a kid, he didn’t have anyone he cared to call family, and he lived on the streets running from anyone who had the nerve to look twice at him. Sometimes this was just some ordinary person, sometimes it was a Hunter. Up until the point Roman was 14, this was all his life consisted of. Finding some place to hide when he wasn’t at home, and hoping his old man wasn’t at home when he was, lest he be reported to the Hunters for the spiky material that his skin made.

Alas, this was the very thing that happened. Roman usually spent most of his days out of the house, just existing or getting through days at school During one such day, Hunters came to his school at attempted to drag him out. They burst through the door with guns drawn and trained on him while one of them tried to latch a collar around his neck. Perhaps it was foolishness, or perhaps it was adrenaline, but Roman fought back. Shots were fired and blood was spilled as Roman suddenly used his power in full for the first time. Spikes and stony growths erupted all over his body, and he grew taller. One of the Hunters was a Gifted as well, and fired some sort of laser at him. It slowly burned through the armor.

Everyone else in the room watched in terror as Roman, now resembling a humanoid dragon, mauled the Hunters. None of them stood up when he was done with them, and while he was still in a frenzy, Roman left and didn’t look back. He crossed hundreds of feet in seconds with the sudden leap in muscle he had. More Hunters waited outside to receive him in shackles, but he just barreled past them like they weren’t there, tearing their armored vehicle in half.

Two days layers, Roman was wandering through a distant city he had never been to, his power allowed him to cross the distance in hours. Someone found him and discreetly explained they knew about his situation, about the Hunters chasing him. Roman’s first reaction to this was to panic and defend himself, but then this anonymous individual started levitating. Roman didn’t immediately trust this, but then she told him about the Rebel Army, a place that sought to protect and liberate oppressed Gifted. Naturally, he was curious and followed her to their home base of operations.

Ever since then, Roman lived among fellow rebels. He trained to protect himself and the lives of others, learned the tactics and methods of the Hunters, and the history of the Gifted. As a kid, he mostly stayed behind the walls where he sought to understand his own abilities in a safer environment and learned to trust Gifted who didn’t want to hunt him down. Roman’s life had gone from nothing to having a future he would eventually realize. And that is just what he did.

The Hunters took to calling the wanted man “Dragonheart,” just as they called every so-called treasonous Gifted by some dramatic name. Roman didn’t care back then, but his first assignment at the age of 17 made him understand the importance of that presence. The Hunters feared his strength, he could stop their vehicles from running down innocents like he was a tree rooted in place. Their guns could do little more than scratch him, and he could break their spirit if he advanced. Rebel fighters rallied to his side and pushed the advantage with him. His first mission to free Gifted prisoners was a success in the end, and Roman believed in himself.

One mission came after the other, and they kept coming for the next two decades. The Rebel Army gave Dragonheart a purpose that he gave his all too, and he developed a reputation among his fellow rebels as one of their best. They all trust him with his life, and he trusts them with his. Those who joined him on the frontlines have witnessed him survive things that no one ever should, shake it off and continue the fight as if nothing happened. Dragonheart has seen to the freeing of hundreds in his time, defiantly making enemy of the Hunters and the Republic itself.

And he’ll be damned if he stops any time soon.

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