[hider=The Devil You Know]
[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/gR6Xc1V.png[/img]
[color=ed1c24][i]"Human capital. Liquid assets. Buy and sell. Anything to ensure those final profit margins go up, right? Of course, real power comes in many forms, but if you don't mind a little 'loan'... well, I might just have the perfect Deal for you."[/i][/color]
[b]Appearance:[/b] A seemingly young woman of above average height, bearing a sharp corporate air about her. Pale skin bearing impeccable skincare sheathes a deceptively soft visage, framed by straight black hair that has been left with a kind of elegant messiness to it. Her eyes are a pair of golden, draconic orbs, and her head is crowned by black ram-like horns. She smiles with a warmth belied by the calculation in her eyes and the predatory glint of her shark-like teeth, and she sheds a kind of fearless confidence afforded primarily to the wealthy elite. Perpetually dressed to impress, she is rarely seen without her frame clad in the sharp, corporate regalia of a black suit jacket, pants, shoes and tie, contrasted with an impeccably white dress shirt. She gilds herself in quiet glamor, with strips of gold fabric standing out against the black of her suit, outlining pockets and gleaming from the pin holding her tie and watch strapped to her wrist. Contrasting her cleanliness, she is often seen enjoying an expensive cigar, and the scent of sulfur and brimstone seems to blow in with her arrival like a hot wind. And, of course, one can hardly forget to mention the ornate black cane she seemingly carries solely as a fashion statement, the top crowned by a shimmering crimson gemstone.
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 140 lbs.
Build: Slim, womanly elegance with an athletic tone.[/center]

[b]Name:[/b] [i][R E D A C T E D][/i], Baalphegor - Archdevil of the Free Market.
[b]Age:[/b] 34 (Born 1988, Year of the Dragon)
[b]Nationality:[/b] American

[b]Noble Arm Name & Appearance:[/b] [Laevatienn], a thin, agile blade one might take to be a rapier with a rounded black hilt that is capped with a crimson jewel at the end. Baalphegor fashions it like a "cane-sword", having developed an Occult Programming Language-reinforced sheath to conceal it within, allowing her to trot around with her soul weapon bared at all times under the guise of a mere fashion statement cane.

[b]Noble Arm Rank:[/b] A
Power: A
Speed: B
Range: C+
Persistence: B (S)
Precision: B-
Potential: F+

[b]Noble Arm Characteristics:[/b]
[list]
[*]Value: Control
[*]Element: [Devil]
[*]Growth: Composite
[*]Type: Offense/Support
[*]Range: Variable
[/list]

[hider=Noble Arm Abilities]
Baalphegor's powers largely operate in an ascending skill tree of capacity, with several core abilities acting as the roots to be mixed together and evolved into further branches over time.
[hider=Fiendish Vigor (Core)]
Baal’s body has undergone changes since her Noble Arm’s awakening, lasting ones that have rendered her durable enough to take handheld gunfire unharmed, to regenerate fast enough to be visible mid-battle, armed her with inhuman reflexes, and -in particular- given her wholesale immunity to harm from heat, cold and poison. Interestingly, these boons apply to her personal effects as well, seemingly covering her entire “image of self”, meaning she will typically always eventually regenerate back into a perfectly clean, composed and sharply dressed picture of sly dignity, clothes and all. As a side effect, she has gained permanent inhuman mutations, namely draconic eyes, shark-like teeth and ram-like horns, and she has not physically aged in over a decade.
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[hider=Hellflames (Core)]
Baal is a powerful pyrokinetic, possessing the ability to produce, shape, sense and absorb fire (including existing fire) with an intimidating level of fine control, able to bathe a target in flames harmlessly or to destroy a single object in someone's grasp without touching them. Her personally produced flames, however, are not something conventional, but rather far more sinister. They punish instead of purify, torment instead of warm, inflicting wounds of an unusually painful nature. Her “hellfire”, taking the form of black and red flames, attacks not just the physical, but the spiritual, and it is inordinately capable of damaging other Noble Arms and inflicting cursed burns that are difficult to heal, which can counteract an Arms Master’s usual “regeneration coma” when they are downed, turning what would normally be a knockout blow into a state of dying no different than any mundane person would suffer.
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[hider=Dealmaker (Core)]
As a prerequisite to activate this ability, Baal must meet several conditions. Firstly, she must be able to physically touch the target (usually with a handshake). Secondly, the target must be aware of this power's central effect and be willing to be subjected to it. Lastly, Baal cannot lie when explaining how this ability works; however, she can "conveniently" fail to mention particulars beyond the absolute basics.

Fundamentally, this ability operates by equivalent exchange. Baal temporarily trades some ability of hers to a willing subject, and in return, she receives an agreed upon attribute for the duration (or an attribute of her choice if the subject fails to clarify). In this way, Baal can trade her own firepower or some other aspect of her powers away to someone else in order to borrow a power/trait of their own. Say, she trades one rank of Power and weakens hers from A to B, she can instead take Potential from her target and increase her own Potential rank in turn. Baal is highly fond of trading for Potential, especially with new and inexperienced Arms Masters, as it gives her a higher change of ripping new abilities out of her own Noble Arm before she returns it. On the other hand, Baal could choose to trade off her fire immunity to an ally and receive some resistance they possess in return.
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[hider=Hellbound (Hellflames/Dealmaker/Fiendish Vigor)]
The awakening of this ability arrived as a form of evolution in both Hellflames and Dealmaker. The ability of her Hellfire to interact with the spiritual grew into a full-on spirit sense that allows Baal to perceive the souls of the dying and recently dead. With this sensory upgrade, she learned that she could use her Hellfire to actually temporarily "capture" those souls before they fully faded away, and while in the grasp of her flames, she could telepathically communicate with them. On Dealmaker's end, this evolution came with the ability to form a new kind of "contract" with souls, subject to very similar prerequisite restrictions as the baseline Dealmaker ability itself. Firstly, she must be using her Hellfire to maintain spiritual contact with the target. Secondly, the target must be aware of this power's central effect and be willing to be subjected to it. Lastly, Baal cannot lie when explaining how this ability works, but she can still "fail to mention" particulars beyond the absolute basics.

If all conditions are met successfully, then Baal is able to "contract" the consenting soul as one of her "Hellbound". Hellbound are, for all intents and purposes, former living beings who exist only as summons, bound to continued life only by Baal's power. This is not true resurrection, merely a "delay of death" at best, and it is not without its price. For one, Baal's Hellbound are subject to only a limited power "budget", regardless of prior ability, and Arms Masters are massively weakened by this change, usually having their powers reduced to a level equivalent to an F-or-E-Rank Arms Master. Additionally, Hellbound are unable to lie to Baal; that is to say, they can [i]try[/i] to lie, but Baal will always be able to sense the deception. Further, Hellbound exist at Baal's whim, and they can only remain manifested as long as she allows them to, otherwise consigning them to an "Abyss" with only the company of their fellow "contracted". As Baal can call Hellbound to her location at any time she wishes, there is no escape from her grasp save for being "fired"; on which matter, Baal can at any time discard a Hellbound's contract, shattering their link to her and discarding their soul from her collection.

And to be clear, casting souls eternally into her "Abyss" is very tantalizing. By doing so, especially in the case of Arms Master souls, she is able to repurpose their spirit and Noble Arm into further "processing power" for her own. This, in effect, raises her Potential with all the benefits involved and gives her further "fuel" for her powers.

In spite of these downsides, it is entirely disingenuous to say Hellbound do not receive benefits. For one, by contrast to Arms Masters, the average civilian "contracted" in this manner is effectively buffed, becoming "peak human" combatants and effective super-soldiers, since none of their "budget" is being funneled into powering a Noble Arm. More generally, the new bodies crafted for Hellbound grant them a shade of Baal's Fiendish Vigor. Though they retain their original appearance, they cease to age and gain a light resistance to harm from heat, cold and poison. Though they do not gain regeneration any stronger than an average Arms Master's healing coma, they do have a dulled sense of physical pain. Moreover, death is utterly meaningless to Hellbound, as their souls will simply return to Baal to be granted a new body. Further, outside denoted tasks from Baal, Hellbound are able to live a shockingly free existence, as once they are actually summoned, no matter how far away they go from her, they will remain manifested as long as Baal doesn't call them back. And perhaps most surprising and important of all, Hellbound always retain the free will to act with autonomy, regardless of Baal's levers over them; even with a direct order from Baal, Hellbound retain the right to refuse... even if it is quite likely to get them "fired".

As noted, Hellbound are able to be maintained relatively indefinitely once summoned, and while the process of actually manifesting them in mass can incur an appreciable draw, actually maintaining their existence is so casually insignificant that Baal's Persistence is effectively A for that purpose.

[b]Notable "Employees":[/b]
(It should be noted that Baal has -at the time of her introduction- no Arms Masters currently maintained within a service capacity of relevance, either being more useful in mundane pursuits or otherwise simply being too weak or uncooperative to bother with bringing into the ASEAN war. Any Arms Masters she might contract after arrival, however, may be a different matter. In short, the "employees" below are all originally entirely mundane people raised to super-soldier status by their power budget as Hellbound.)
[list]
[*] Jenkins: Polite, composed, British. An old family butler who she offered to preserve on his deathbed, allowing him to serve her for eternity. While generally a noncombatant, he was a veteran of WWII back in the day and can throw immaculate hands if needed.
[*] Mikasa: Sharp, protective, suspicious, observant, Japanese. Baal's personal handmaid and long-time bodyguard, who has been with her ever since she was held hostage. A trained assassin who ironically was fatally wounded by an attempted assassin herself in Baal's defense, Baal offered her a new form of life. Baal made sure the assassin who forced the decision suffered dearly before being gifted oblivion.
[*] "Ghost" Squad: So named with somewhat dark humor by the souls themselves, the small team of six mercenaries was "contracted" on a long-term basis and are handsomely rewarded for their service. Fearless of death in their new state, they often act as Baal's arms abroad and are both her personal protection detail wherever she goes and her personal hit squad. Team Callsigns: King (leader/assault), Queen (demolition/explosives), Bishop (intelligence/sniping), Rook (athletics/melee), Knight (stealth/assassination), Pawn (the rookie)
[*] Nifty: Cheerful, optimistic, friendly, the youngest Hellbound under Baal’s employ and another maid, a little too enthusiastic with knives, will stab you with a smile. (Mikasa is very proud of her bloodthirsty little [s][i]daughteru[/i][/s] apprentice.)
[*] Anton: Russian. Baal’s CQC instructor. Also teaches other Hellbound. A burly man of few words who is surprisingly agile for his build.
[*] Henry Charles Reginald III: Brittish. A posh and "friendly" man with an appreciation for the finer (expensive) things in life. Baal's favored hair stylist. Shamelessly greedy and delights in charging extortionate prices for his (admittedly top tier) services.
[/list]
[/hider]
[hider=Protection From Law and Order (Dealmaker/Hellflames)]
Extending Dealmaker's soul manipulation into a defensive ability, Baal is immune to effects that attempt to interact with her soul or Noble Arm and its abilities without her permission. Her sword will not disappear. Her flames will not snuff. And her Hellbound summons will persist even when subjected to "anti-magic", as she rejects their authority to suppress her. This also immunizes her against most mind manipulation and power copiers. This immunity, though passive, does require active energy expenditure to maintain when tested and can theoretically be run out. For example, to use Hellflames inside an area of "anti-magic" would cost twice as much stamina as normal. Further, while Hellbound won't disappear, they are greatly weakened. While contesting such an effect, Baal's Persistence is effectively lowered to C.

The Hellfire component of this evolution is a bit more understated, but mechanically speaking, one could say it is the Hellfire that acts as the "pushback" to "burn away" hostile effects pressing against her defenses. Because of this, any individual who is currently being rebuffed by this defense will be able to feel a rather uncomfortable sense of "burning" feedback, like they are touching a branding iron. This painful sensation bypasses the physical sense of touch entirely and lashes at the target's soul. Though ultimately harmless, this makes it incredibly uncomfortable to keep trying to batter at Baal's defenses, as no amount of willpower or pain tolerance will actually lessen the intensity of the burn on the offender's spirit until they relent.
[/hider]

[/hider]
[hider=Misc Abilities]
[b]Socialite[/b]: Baal is familiar with the workings of high society, and playing the modern day "Game of Thrones" comes naturally to her. Her words flow like silk, and her canny gaze dissects the nuances in body language from everyone around her.
[b]Performance[/b]: Covering a perhaps surprising spectrum, Baal can sing like a siren, play both the violin and piano, and she is such an able dancer that she sometimes goes as far as to literally style on her opponents in fights, dodging blows with the likes of anti-gravity leans or moonwalking in retreat.
[b]Will of the Unbowed[/b]: Boasts a high mental resilience and pain tolerance.
[b]Money[/b]: Truly, the ultimate superpower. As an avid stock trader and millionaire, Baal lives the life of the upper 10%, and her liquid resources are substantial enough to comfortably finance a PMC on foreign soil.
[b]Polylingual[/b]: Speaks English, Russian, Japanese and Chinese in that order of familiarity.
[b]Swordsmanship/CQC[/b]: Baal has been trained in the art of wielding light, agile blades such as rapiers and daggers in an entirely serious, self-defense capacity. Being also trained in Muay Thai, she is quite comfortable in CQC despite her NA's powers suggesting a ranged preference.
[b]Firearms[/b]: Despite her Noble Arm's power being far more potent in most cases, Baal bears no disdain for the usefulness of firearms, appreciating the beautiful simplicity in just aiming and squeezing a trigger. She is respectably competent, though not prodigal, in their use.
[b]Occult Programming Language V1[/b]: As a result of her past associations with Qingshe, Baalphegor is familiar with some of the mysterious occult practices involved in the art responsible for the advent of Noble Arms. She is not a master, but she is capable of advancing, analyzing and contributing to the construction of "magitech".
[/hider]
[hider=Personality]
"Affably evil" is perhaps how most would describe Baal upon first meeting her. Projecting a shameless corporate self-interest, she is the sort of necessary evil brought about by the age of capitalism, regarding herself as one of the many pillars supporting the debt-ridden global market and staving off its collapse. She is a study in contrasts who offers dubious bargains while seemingly openly warning against accepting them. Utterly ruthless on the corporate battlefield and dispassionately apathetic towards the tribulations of strangers, she is conversely an often warm and accommodating sort with "friends" and collaborators, despite making some effort to disguise her penchant for fondness. Similarly, despite being a highly demanding and occasionally perfectionist taskmaster in regard to her subordinates, she maintains an attentive and genuine care for their well-being, being quite generous with "bonuses for exceptional performance", mindful of work-life balance where affordable and supportive of personal improvement endeavors and efforts to thrive. If confronted, she would declare that it is [i]because[/i] she demands exceptionalism that she is so favorable to reward genuine hard work and loyalty.

This is not to say that she cannot be cruel, however. She has little regard for the impudently disobedient and will not hesitate to harshly punish those that test or defy her out of some naive misconception that they can "prove" something or preserve some "useless sense of pride", especially if it is underscored by any element of betrayal or deception. She expects Hellbound to serve her loyally, to appreciate the sheer value of being effectively immortal so long as they do, and she has no issue callously "firing" them if they prove recalcitrant to her demands. She has no patience for entertaining lurking knives at her back, no matter how insignificant. Her cruelty can be seen especially in how she conducts "deals" with enemies, finding no issue in deceiving them of the particulars from the start and taking complete advantage of them once they fall into her web. She even quite enjoys making them suffer, delighting in tearing them down, taking everything she can and discarding them when she can take no more. She has been known to reserve a similar level of sadistic -even spiteful- dominance for those that steal from her or attempt to establish control over her, occasionally going out of her way to over-retaliate solely to set an example to anyone else that might consider offending her similarly.

Regardless, she maintains something in the way of moral standards despite her outward facade, and she has rejected attempts to be pulled into the Downward Descent's circle of influence in the past, seeing them both as a disgusting cancer on the world... and competition for her growing appetite for dominance. In the face of the whispers of chaos and the siren call to depravity, Baal remains steadfast as a champion of Law and Order... no matter how subjective her interpretation might be. As far as the rest of the Big Three go, she considers the Paragons of Science to be meddlesome competitors and the Seven Virtues to be delusional zealots. Of all the Big Three, Baal only finds the Paragons to be vaguely tolerable, if only because they can be useful for the right price.

        [b]Likes:[/b] Gaining power, expanding her "collections", a good cigarette, spicy food, defeating and humiliating a powerful foe, projecting dominance, undermining any authority over herself, "presentation", living in the lap of luxury, loyal and competent subordinates, extracting a "mutually beneficial" deal, extracting an [i]individually[/i] beneficial deal, overcoming a competent "competitor", making a profit.

        [b]Dislikes:[/b] Being disrespected (without her permissiveness), loss of control, attempts to establish agency over her, invading her personal space, incompetent allies, personal stagnation, waste (time, resources, etc), slimy food (the idea of eating things like snails, slugs or raw eggs revolts her), being scammed, having her schemes undermined by foolishness and irrationality, an investment turning out a loss, threats to the "Free Market", The Big Three.

        [b]Fears:[/b] Losing everything she has built. Threats to her selfhood.

[/hider]
[hider=Bio]
The Devil of the Free Market, known only as Baalphegor (or "Baal" for short), is the enigmatic and charismatic CEO of Infernus Interests, a multi-branched company with an intimidating number of fingers in global pies. They style themselves as a form of "Investment Firm" and loan agency, conducting grand scale stock investment and seemingly "philanthropic" donations to worthy causes, particularly in the industrial and scientific sectors. On the sly, they also maintain a "Mystic" branch, which focuses on studying the magic of Noble Arms and Occult Programming Language.

Baalphegor herself almost seems untouchable in this arena. Monetarily and legally, she appears to have connivingly ingratiated herself amongst the wealthy elite and takes calculating advantage of her ability to bribe just about any legal outcome into being. Despite clearly being an open Arms Master of power suspected to be quite substantial, Baalphegor has successfully rebuffed all attempts to investigate her true nature, to coerce her into military conscription or to otherwise meaningfully curtail her growing business empire. At least part of this being her willingness to "invest" in the USA's military industrial complex as a "loyal" US citizen, thereby bribing her way into being left alone from serious pursuit.

By the present day, thanks to her initially isolated upbringing and growing network of influence, Baalphegor has effectively managed to eliminate all trace of her birth name from documented records outside her private ones, leaving only her claimed alias to stand out in black and white in the present day.

Baal was raised in a fairly wealthy family, and she received rather "heiress-like" training in the vein of potentially inheriting some sizable assets. At some point, she was subjected to a hostage situation at a young age, but the little negotiator was bold enough to try and make a "deal" to be let go, offering to perform with her hard-learned skillset. This started her Noble Arm's awakening. What really set it off, however, was when she was humored, only to find out after that her captors were obviously lying and reneging on their side of the agreed-upon bargain. Enraged with the kind of uncontrollable, morality-free fury only a child can bring forth, her Noble Arm manifested and gave her "Hellfire" as her first power. Cremations ensued, and Baal -perhaps concerningly- never lost a wink of sleep over it.

Instead, this event's psychological impact was that Baal became very driven by the pursuit of personal strength, deciding that any other form of power or influence was ultimately useless if you didn't have the force of arms to uphold your terms against those that ignored them. She was young, of course, so it took a while for this ideal to be fully realized, but in time, such was inevitable.

So, she worked harder, learned to grasp control with words and to enforce it with her Noble Arm's growing abilities. Through meticulous experimentation, she figured out how to draw more Potential out of her Noble Arm than she would have otherwise come by naturally in any swift amount of time. It was around this period that she began to go by the alias of "Baalphegor" herself and started creating a legal mire to cloud her dealings, and by the present day, most people either simply call her "Baal" out of familiarity or are entirely unaware of her birth name at all. At some point, her network of control would intersect with other "equals" in the field, among which numbered a fellow "devil" bearing the moniker Mephistopheles and -much more recently- the recently promoted Snake of the Zodiac Qingshe, who she'd come to feel fond wariness for.

While building up her own place among corporate empires, Baal and her family went to great pains to hoard and exploit her powers for themselves, keeping her off government radars and rejecting probes by any means necessary, even assassinating at least one spy and inserting their own to fabricate any records detailing her abilities in a compromising way. Baal, of course, had no intention of allowing her pursuit of power to be curtailed by laws or "suppressors" designed to drag her down to the realm of "equality", and the only reason she didn't try to hide that she had a Noble Arm at all was the impracticalities brought about by the sprouting of her inhuman features early on in her development.

When the war overseas broke out, Baal's only concern was initially how it would affect her bottom line. Though, from a certain self-serving rational perspective, she felt it was obvious that China and their allies should not be allowed to win, given their atrocious comportment. However, Baal elected to support ASEAN only indirectly, manipulating stocks where she could, making "charitable donations" to the war funding programs for Task Force Obsidian, and even hiring mercenary forces and information brokers to harass the enemy and give her sensitive information that she could feed their enemies as "anonymous tips".

She would only deign to actually enter the field personally shortly after receiving a message from Qingshe that felt rather like a final parting. Of course, the Snake couldn't help but be transparently "sus" even in a situation like her end, and so Baal was more amused by the frank manipulation than anything else, baiting her to personally take to a field where there were ample powerful Arms Masters to exploit. And so... somewhat reassured by the Snake's now absence from the situation, Baal decided it was time that the TFO finally met one of their longest running "investors" in person.
[/hider]

[b]Current Goal:[/b]
Short Term: There are "opportunities" here... Perhaps she'll be able to bring Mephisto back some "souvenirs". In the meanwhile, helping ASEAN win this war should nicely protect her investments.
Long term: Achieve unrivaled personal power, acquire eternity and establish herself in the world as an evil so necessary that none would ever dare to remove her.

[b]Military or Civilian Rank:[/b] PMC CEO, Stock Investor and "Philanthropist".

[hider=Theme(s)]
[youtube]https://youtu.be/TEdYfEXrxuE?si=2co6AvCM_1maCkbK[/youtube]
[youtube]https://youtu.be/VTiYdpeHIv4?is=c2EtJ_rD0roNUx9K[/youtube]
[youtube]https://youtu.be/syzVarKxFtE?si=MLCX9jPiV7i7ozbH[/youtube]
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