Member
RPM
teenangstlife
EzekielHeadhunter
Name: Raymond Haywood
Alias: Headhunter
Age: 34
Alignment: Villain
Loyalty: Local Villain Gang
Appearance: Raymond is black, 189 cm tall, very well-built in a manner akin to a soldier (and indeed possesses various scars that suggest a military past), and possesses wavy black hair cut short, a beard cut down to near-stubble, and solid green eyes, with a well-structured face that seems to be permanently set in a stern scowl. His usual outfit on the job is effectively standard urban military gear for the US army - largely Interceptor body armour patterned in grey camouflage, complete with various pouches and holders for ammunition and such, modified to cover his arms and legs as well as his torso, plus an Advanced Combat Helmet with the same pattern. Accompanying this outfit are a grey facescarf and black wraparound sunglasses, so as to hide Raymond's face on the off-chance he's caught in a closer-range engagement; steel-toed dark grey boots extending up to his upper calf; three gun holsters at various points on his person (right hip PDW, left hip assault rifle, back holster sniper rifle); and two knife holsters (one on each hip). Off the job, he dresses in relatively standard civilian clothing, usually grey or black trousers and shoes accompanied by a t-shirt of whatever colour is available on any given day. Overall, depending on whether he is on or off the job, he seems to simply be either a relatively uninteresting and irrelevant man to the average person, maybe a model during the day, or a powerless soldier of no particular note to those capes who don't know about him, possibly a fighter in the PRT - exactly the impression he wants to give off.
Raymond was born to a lower-middle class family in Cincinnati, Ohio, who believed slightly too heavily in the hands-off approach to parenting. Therefore, Raymond was not particularly... friendly, even at a young age. He wasn't an out-and-out sociopath - that is to say, he never killed and dismantled any pets he was given, nor did he seem to reject interaction with his fellows entirely - but to a lot of people, he gave off the impression of being the kind of person who would eventually snap and shoot up his school at the time, and he didn't particularly mind letting people think that way about him. As it happened, he'd acquired a lot of his parent's better genes, something quite a few of his siblings did not, and so found his way into and through university in the late 80's and early 90's in spite of his race, and then enlisted into the armed forces.
This went well enough for a couple of years - he was motivated enough to do well on the ground, and possessed about the right mindset to avoid PTSD - but soon, he set his sights higher than a mere soldier. He wanted, surprisingly much, to become a sniper. Circumstances transpired that he found a place in the recently-founded United States Army Sniper School, and continued on to graduate as a full-blown sniper, soon enough requesting an additional skill identifier as a counter-sniper which he passed with flying colours, then spent the next few years serving the military in this capacity with gusto. Of course, he who snipes snipers risks being sniped himself: in June of 1996, what should have been a simple engagement for him ended when he caught an enemy sniper's bullet and barely survived, leading to his eventual honourable discharge, complete with Purple Heart medal. Even knowing the circumstances, he oddly found himself extremely resentful of the military and himself over the next several weeks. A Purple Heart? An honourable discharge? To him, that was as good as saying "you have failed", even though he'd done everything right. The cognitive dissonance became too much for him, and in a fit of impotent anger at the country he felt had abandoned him, he triggered.
He did not, at first, realise he'd triggered. It took another gun and a scope, in an effort to relive old times whilst recovering, for him to realise that, and the rest of his recovery period to figure out its exact strengths and weaknesses. Once the realisation took him, though, the thought struck hard: sure, he could use this power to help assist the country that abandoned him, maybe become a superhero even, but why the hell should he? He'd heard about the "unwritten code" the Capes held to, and there was no way in his mind that this power of his could be anything but lethal. They'd rip him apart, given the chance. So instead, why not work for himself? After all, there were plenty of targets out there who needed eliminating... and plenty of money to be made as a mercenary. A headhunter, if you will.
At first, he was fairly small-time. When he wasn't on the job, he continued to train his physique when it was needed, and taught himself how to dismantle and rebuild scopes, and then how to build them, integrate more and more comparatively advanced technology into them, and so on. Yet the hits he took, the hits he could acquire, were low-profile, comparatively low-pay (though enough to let him maintain the weapons and other equipment he possessed at the time, including a camera to record his kills as evidence), and though his power guaranteed a hit if a hit could be acquired, taking out a target to the desired specifications was sometimes impossible, and if he didn't do it right, his pay was often cut, or even entirely docked, by whoever hired him. However, he struck into the big leagues when he was asked to eliminate a fairly dangerous cape- an immigrant from Hyderabad after Leviathan's attack whose name roughly translated as "The Universe Warrior"- somewhere in Lyon, France. Specifically, the third of September 2003, the date of Behemoth's attack upon the city.
Though Raymond escaped the city alive and fortunately unharmed, mostly by running away from Behemoth as soon as he could and under no circumstances drawing its attention, his employer at the time threatened to take away his pay almost entirely, citing that the attached camera didn't prove he'd killed the right person, and the hero probably died to the Endbringer instead; this was turned around when Raymond presented one of the newest features of the scope he'd attached to the weapon, an integrated digital filming setup, with a maximum capacity of around a minute's worth of footage. Small, but enough to prove his worth when combined with the incumbent zoom capacity of the scope itself. With incontrovertible proof of his kill, and at the friendly encouragement of a couple of the man's bodyguards (and not-so-friendly encouragement of Raymond himself), Headhunter in fact acquired twice as much for the job as the already-hefty sum he'd been promised, money he used to begin upgrading his weapons to eventually reach his current setup.
After that, it was but a matter of time before word got out in certain circles about "the mercenary who took out the Universe Warrior", and by Autumn of 2004 he became the guy you went to when you wanted a parahuman dead. The man who avoided notice by killing targets before they ever knew they were threatened, and skipping town before the Thinkers could so much as triangulate his position; the man whose gun found itself capable of eliminating a shockingly large number of capes for its sheer raw power, being designed to destroy tanks rather than people; the man who seemingly existed as a ghost, if anything. The Headhunter. Ultimately, this led to current events: though it is in his mind somewhat beneath him, he has been offered a very substantial sum of money to join a new gang in Denver, with the promise of more to come as the gang grows larger and more powerful. Considering the barrier to entry presented by the Community, he believes that might take a while.
This went well enough for a couple of years - he was motivated enough to do well on the ground, and possessed about the right mindset to avoid PTSD - but soon, he set his sights higher than a mere soldier. He wanted, surprisingly much, to become a sniper. Circumstances transpired that he found a place in the recently-founded United States Army Sniper School, and continued on to graduate as a full-blown sniper, soon enough requesting an additional skill identifier as a counter-sniper which he passed with flying colours, then spent the next few years serving the military in this capacity with gusto. Of course, he who snipes snipers risks being sniped himself: in June of 1996, what should have been a simple engagement for him ended when he caught an enemy sniper's bullet and barely survived, leading to his eventual honourable discharge, complete with Purple Heart medal. Even knowing the circumstances, he oddly found himself extremely resentful of the military and himself over the next several weeks. A Purple Heart? An honourable discharge? To him, that was as good as saying "you have failed", even though he'd done everything right. The cognitive dissonance became too much for him, and in a fit of impotent anger at the country he felt had abandoned him, he triggered.
He did not, at first, realise he'd triggered. It took another gun and a scope, in an effort to relive old times whilst recovering, for him to realise that, and the rest of his recovery period to figure out its exact strengths and weaknesses. Once the realisation took him, though, the thought struck hard: sure, he could use this power to help assist the country that abandoned him, maybe become a superhero even, but why the hell should he? He'd heard about the "unwritten code" the Capes held to, and there was no way in his mind that this power of his could be anything but lethal. They'd rip him apart, given the chance. So instead, why not work for himself? After all, there were plenty of targets out there who needed eliminating... and plenty of money to be made as a mercenary. A headhunter, if you will.
At first, he was fairly small-time. When he wasn't on the job, he continued to train his physique when it was needed, and taught himself how to dismantle and rebuild scopes, and then how to build them, integrate more and more comparatively advanced technology into them, and so on. Yet the hits he took, the hits he could acquire, were low-profile, comparatively low-pay (though enough to let him maintain the weapons and other equipment he possessed at the time, including a camera to record his kills as evidence), and though his power guaranteed a hit if a hit could be acquired, taking out a target to the desired specifications was sometimes impossible, and if he didn't do it right, his pay was often cut, or even entirely docked, by whoever hired him. However, he struck into the big leagues when he was asked to eliminate a fairly dangerous cape- an immigrant from Hyderabad after Leviathan's attack whose name roughly translated as "The Universe Warrior"- somewhere in Lyon, France. Specifically, the third of September 2003, the date of Behemoth's attack upon the city.
Though Raymond escaped the city alive and fortunately unharmed, mostly by running away from Behemoth as soon as he could and under no circumstances drawing its attention, his employer at the time threatened to take away his pay almost entirely, citing that the attached camera didn't prove he'd killed the right person, and the hero probably died to the Endbringer instead; this was turned around when Raymond presented one of the newest features of the scope he'd attached to the weapon, an integrated digital filming setup, with a maximum capacity of around a minute's worth of footage. Small, but enough to prove his worth when combined with the incumbent zoom capacity of the scope itself. With incontrovertible proof of his kill, and at the friendly encouragement of a couple of the man's bodyguards (and not-so-friendly encouragement of Raymond himself), Headhunter in fact acquired twice as much for the job as the already-hefty sum he'd been promised, money he used to begin upgrading his weapons to eventually reach his current setup.
After that, it was but a matter of time before word got out in certain circles about "the mercenary who took out the Universe Warrior", and by Autumn of 2004 he became the guy you went to when you wanted a parahuman dead. The man who avoided notice by killing targets before they ever knew they were threatened, and skipping town before the Thinkers could so much as triangulate his position; the man whose gun found itself capable of eliminating a shockingly large number of capes for its sheer raw power, being designed to destroy tanks rather than people; the man who seemingly existed as a ghost, if anything. The Headhunter. Ultimately, this led to current events: though it is in his mind somewhat beneath him, he has been offered a very substantial sum of money to join a new gang in Denver, with the promise of more to come as the gang grows larger and more powerful. Considering the barrier to entry presented by the Community, he believes that might take a while.
Personality
Motivations: Money, plain and simple. His presence in the gang is largely thanks to the idea that expanding the gang's presence will allow a lot of money to be made by him relatively quickly.
Sexuality: No particular preference for male or female so long as they are feminine, but rarely if ever entertains sexual thoughts outside of very secure holdings.
Likes:
- Guns
- Assassination
- Money
- Training
- Scope building
Dislikes:
- Being shot
- Being misled
- Plans going awry
- Distraction
- The US Army
Derangement: Raymond finds it very difficult to talk in a voice louder than a murmur, such that speaking at normal volume is the psychological (though not physiological) equivalent of shouting to him, and a notably raised voice is his equivalent of screaming at the top of his lungs. Additionally, his perspective on what is considered a viable hit with a gun is severely warped when not using his shard's ability - within 20% of the weapon's effective range, he has no issues, but his confidence on whether a hit can be achieved at all goes down to 50% by 40% of a weapon's effective range, and 10% at 80% of the weapon's range; at or beyond the weapon's effective range, he won't even consider wasting a bullet, even if the shot is still mostly viable.
Parahumanism
Skills: Even without his parahuman ability, Raymond is an expert mercenary and assassin, particularly in the field of long-distance kills. He is highly skilled with most projectile weapons and a wide variety of melee weapons, both using and maintaining them; trained in multiple forms of close-quarters combat; extremely fit as a consequence of his combat experience; and is quite skilful when it comes to tactical thinking, should he be forced into a situation that overrides his plan for any given hit. He is also very skilled when it comes to building scopes, having done enough research and practice to introduce surprisingly cutting-edge technology into them, to the point that many include a variable mounting rail that can attach securely to just about any gun he likes; due to this, those who know he is a parahuman at all often mistake him for being a hyperspecialised, even somewhat weak Tinker, even though his true power has nothing to do with that discipline. Lastly, though not an expert, he knows enough about human anatomy to have a rough idea of where to shoot to cause lethal and non-lethal damage alike, assisted by his parahumanism of course.
Classification: Thinker
Details: Raymond's power activates whenever he uses a weapon's scope with a particular target in mind, be it living or inanimate, so long as said target is in range from his current position. Whilst "scoped in", he essentially possesses perfect aim on the target he designates, his body automatically adjusting for every possible variable that might affect the bullet's flight path when fired at any given moment, including the target's own movement speed, wind drag, gravity, and even the need to reflect off of one or more solid surfaces and the effects of other parahuman powers if necessary, all but homing in on whatever Raymond has designated to get shot. Essentially, if Raymond wants to shoot you, you will be shot, in much the manner of a video game aimbot, and with enough precision that he can hit a specific area of your body if he so chooses. Under normal circumstances, he typically aims for either the head or torso depending on which is less armoured, but can just as readily aim for a foot, arm, or other not-quite-as-lethal target as needed, and score a hit every time regardless.
Limitations: Raymond's power has three major limitations. The first is an almost complete loss of sensory awareness outside the confines of a scope whilst his power is in use - you could walk up right beside him without being noticed unless he specifically targets you, and even a tap on his shoulder might escape him if he's very far "in the zone", as it were, though a more solid hit upwards would likely catch his attention, if not his hearing.
Its second limitation is the fact that it will attempt to acquire a guaranteed hit on the target no matter what, even if that requires Raymond's body to contort itself in ways that severely damage him, send him off-balance, or otherwise take up a less-than-sturdy angle to shoot from; whilst not often a problem, an unexpected need to change angles drastically or a very fast Mover he's targeted coming past him could cause him to forcibly overextend himself unless he scopes back out, though if hitting the desired target with a bullet is in fact literally impossible for any reason, the power simply won't activate until a hit can be acquired.
Finally, just because he's guaranteed to hit a target doesn't mean he's guaranteed to kill or even necessarily damage them regardless of how powerful his weapon is, much less in a reasonable timeframe - an acquired shot may take several minutes to actually hit a given target if it's a particularly difficult shot, and may have their force greatly reduced in some way or another, or else be rendered ineffective. Highly-durable and/or powerfully-regenerating Brutes in particular bear a substantial advantage against such attacks, though a great many other parahumans have no reasonable defense against a high-caliber round passing through their skull from out of nowhere.
Equipment: Raymond's primary weapon is a prime example of how diverse Tinker tech can get. Whilst it usually appears to be a personal defense weapon, and is stored as such, the weapon can morph between various different forms with the flick of a switch, each based off of one of his prior guns, and each intended for differing roles at differing ranges:
- Steyr IWS 2000 semi-automatic anti-materiel rifle and associated 5-round detachable box magazines of 15.2×169mm armor-piercing, fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) cartridges. This gun is designed to fire rounds that penetrate vehicle armour from two and a half kilometers away. The vast majority of human heads and most current building materials pose no such resistance.
- M16A4 assault rifle and associated 30-round detachable box magazines of 5.56×45mm NATO cartridges. Intended for mid-long range engagements at medium power, though in a pinch this gun can hit a target from a farther distance than even the Steyr IWS 2000.
- FN P90 personal defense weapon and associated 50-round detachable box magazines of FN 5.7×28mm cartridges. Intended for relatively short-range engagements, but with a reasonably high maximum range nonetheless.
- IMI Desert Eagle Mark XIX and associated 7-round detachable stick magazines of .50 Action Express cartridges. Intended for particularly close-quarters arrangements, and especially for punching through body armour when his combat knives wouldn't be sufficient.
The custom scope on this weapon is primarily of Raymond's own design: a telescopic sight with red dot assistance, capable of smoothly zooming up to 100x, toggling infra-red or night vision as necessary, plus an internal digital camera to allow him to record kills. The only debatably Tinker tech aspects of this scope are an expanded battery and memory storage for the cameras and a rail grip that shifts form along with the weapon itself, and even these are mundane enough that they need no extra tuning the way true Tinkertech does.
The morph-gun aside, most of Raymond's equipment is relatively standard issue for a soldier-like persona such as his:
- Two USMC KA-BAR fighting knives and associated sheaths. When all else has failed, and he is drawn into melee combat, Raymond can always rely on stabbing people repeatedly, with both hands if needed.
- Custom scopes. A lot of them, of many different types. Most are left in his current holdings at any given moment, to be handed out to allies as needed, but he always has at least a couple on hand in case the unthinkable happens and the scope he is using breaks.
- Ballistic armour, as described in his appearance.