The man Riley had followed up the stairs gave some instructions to the rest of the motley crew fate had decided to cobble together with the glue of "threat of demonic dismemberment." All of this after they descended back down from sealing one of said demons away. In a child's room. Riley had never liked seeing those things up close-- he wanted to get better about that kind of thing, but nothing seemed to help, like the antithesis of what was good about being human.
He supposed that was why he was among the first to follow Large Man A's guidelines. There was the anti-establishment part of his brain, forever screaming at him that any form of guidance was oppression, rejection of all advice. Luckily, that part of him lost the argument to another part, one of the newer ones-- called 'Fear by being dismembered.' He figured doing what the man said would give him a break from thinking, that he could focus on the collective goal of making sure none of those other freaks go in. More useful than hyperventilating in some corner.
Seeing as the arm chair was easiest for him to move on his own, he wordlessly began to move the thing to put some weight against the back door. Though, he heard the girl's offer of knives-- and reminded him to take her up on that when he was done doing whatever he could here.
Tom meanwhile, had led Meifeng first to the kitchen (after introducing himself, of course, you monsters-- he's not rude), where he made sure no gas lines were actually turned on, and then to (eventually) the basement. Tom admitted that wishing for a fully stocked doomsday prepper shed was only going to lead to disappointment, so he didn't lead the way into the basement with much hope-- and while he didn't get a 20 year supply of toilet paper for his trouble-- the basement wasn't a bad find for a scavenger.
Of course, while Tom and co. did their due diligence in turning new corners-- it could only help so much against in hiding from any other demons that could have gotten in. So as they descended, Tom spoke under his breath, at first mentioning that this was too dark to do this, then stopping himself from nearly cursing as he flicked on the light switch, only to have a series of hand strewed 20 watt light-bulbs illuminate the area around them. Private generator? Down here, at least. That could be good. Disorganized-- mostly containing odds and ends to versatile to be kept anywhere else in the house.
Certainly not the wine cellar Tom was expecting.
"We need gauze, towels-- anything like that." Tom spoke. "Your friend did a good job from what I could see, but we need to keep that wound packed and clean-- if we can get the girl to stay still long enough, and it stops bleeding we wont even have to remove the bullet."
Honestly, he was happy that someone with something heavy to swing had come with him-- even if they just used it as an excuse to personally loot. He had to admit, he was looking for something heavy and swing-able in addition to the gear from the makeshift first aid kit they were forming. He doubted they would find gauze, but spare towels and linens could definitely do the job. Something to disinfect the wound, and plenty of stuff to pack in there. If she could be stabilized, that would save them the trouble of having to find forceps-- skipping instead to sealing... possibly with cauterization. Though, that was more for later-- they didn't need anyone screaming any time soon.
-- Quote from Ulrike Arámbula's time with a radical leftist student group at University
Before her file was mysteriously (but, for reasons I have been made privy too) closed, investigators and criminologists expended many hours of research attempting to track commonalities between Arámbula's various disguises and what can be seen of her clothing in rare public appearances. As of writing, none have yet been made available to me. Likewise, psychological profiles have been conducted vis-à-vis her clothing, and while no common psychological threads can be seen between what she wears-- it has been said that her reflective, typically drab and dark clothing, and disguises, reflect a desire to disappear. That isn't very helpful. It can be assumed that her clothing in any circumstance is 'plain' and doesn't stand out from those around her. That isn't helpful either.
However, while she isn't easily identified based on style, she is limited by her physical frame. She is a slight woman, quite small, in fact-- not weighing much more than 100 pounds max, her general figure is an unknown at this time, but based on her disguises (subject to change) she is quite toned or her size. She isn't taller than 5 feet, which limits her male based disguises significantly to certain scenarios. It can be assessed that she prefers female and young male disguises, and in her unaltered appearance she has an androgynous air that she can seemingly choose to switch to feminine or boyish on a whim. While she has changed her hair style and color frequently-- it can be assumed based on pictures of her time in University that she has naturally dark, straight hair, seemingly preferred long. She also has naturally brown eyes and a slightly tan complexion. Her lips are naturally dark, plump and full, and it is unknown if she is missing any teeth or has any scars.
SKILLS AND TALENTS ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ● DEMOLITIONS ; It is this writer's opinion that this is the chief skill of Arámbula. Having trained with all manner of conventional and improvised bombs, including incendiary and EMT pulse devices of all types for well over a decade-- Arámbula is a threat to any individual, group, or piece of property with a bomb in her hands. And without a bomb, she is more than capable of gathering the material she needs in her environment to make one. She prefers to combine her skills in outright combat, sneaking around the side lines while using mines and explosives strategically. Overall, her accuracy with thrown and launched explosives is near mechanical and there are even rumors that she is capable of disarming a nuclear bomb, though no evidence exists to verify this. ● STEALTH ; While Arámbula's chief skill may be in causing loud explosions-- the clear second is, perhaps funnily enough, easily in her abilities to conceal herself. In public incidents, and other classified instances while she was still an active Eco-terrorist-- she has shown an outright uncanny ability to evade detection. She is nothing less than a master of disguise-- not just using clothing and make-up, but also acting techniques, plastic surgeries, overloading her body with hormones in the case of a male disguise, and even using mental performance enhancing street drugs to better allow her to focus on her character role. ● GYMNASTICS ; Gymnasts tend to be shorter, so it's no surprise Arámbula excels here. Years of urban guerilla fighting and intelligence work with various violent revolutionary anarchist sects and eco-terrorist groups has left Arámbula with the skill and stamina to perform various advanced parkour and gymnastic maneuvers many would be hard pressed to follow up. She is especially effective in city settings, where all of her skills can be utilized to frightening effect.
MOST EFFECTIVE FOR ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Intelligence gathering, scouting, undercover operations, assassinations, demolitions and trap setting.
MODS AND EQUIPMENT ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ● UPGRADED VIGIL NERVOUS SYSTEM MODS ; Arámbula has many standard issue Vigil implants. While her body is not hearty enough to handle some of the more intensive or combat focused implants, the ones she can take, she has upgraded further in order to make her more effective in what she can do.
● CYBERMOD//UPGRADED COMMUNICATION SUITE ; Along with all the basic features of the communication suite, Ulrike has further upgraded her own to allow her full control of her organs, allowing for her to efficiently control her body and push her limited physical abilities to their max. As well as this, the suite allows her to lessen the potency of some senses, thus boosting the power of others. This feeds into her optical HUD. ● CYBERMOD//UPGRADED EYE AUGMENTATION ; Along with all the base abilities of the standard Vigil eye augmentation, Ulrike has upgraded hers with telescopic sight and a simple AI, showing her estimations for angles of throws and shots from her grenade launcher, allowing for more accurate strikes-- as well as constant reminders of traps she has set. The optic ability is boosted by the communication suite's control of her senses, allowing for more accurate environmental information when it comes to angular estimates for explosions. ● CYBERMOD//NEUROREGULATION ; Finally, Ulrike has upgraded her brain with a neuroregulator-- allowing for efficient use of her myelin sheath in each thought, as well as the production of neurochemicals essentially allowing her to do things like stay up for much longer than is humanly possible-- or achieve hyperfocus by producing the effects of a brain enhancing drug. Using these abilities for too long result in her feeling completely drained and typically sleeping for several days.
● VIGIL BODILY MODS ; While her body wasn't capable of dealing with many upgrades outside of her nervous system, the few that Arámbula has undergone, increase her abilities ten-fold.
● CYBERMOD//ARTIFICIAL HEART ; In her final encounter with a group of Eternals her sect had been dealing with, things went about as wrong as they could have gone for Ulrike Arámbula. Somehow, their plan was discovered, and the Eternals struck them first. Ulrike the group's resident explosives expert, lost a lot-- much more than her legs, and later even her heart-- aside from losing all of the people she knew and loved, she lost most of her body in the beat down she received. It was all the Vigil doctor's could do just to keep her alive-- most of her body is now 'artificial,' but not particularly enhanced beyond average human abilities, as her weak constitution could only handle so much. One of the enhancements she DID opt for, she actually helped to create-- her artificial heart serves as a timed bomb, much more powerful than the one in her head. Connected to her various neural implants, if she registers herself as in combat or danger, and her heart stops-- it will trigger the explosion of something she calls 'a Big Bang Bomb.' Aside from this, the heart is more efficient than her last one, and it has boosted her stamina greatly. ● CYBERMOD//REINFORCED LEGS ; While most of her body was shattered but more or less in tack, the Eternal that had been playing with her cut her legs off from below the knees down. So while most of her augmentations are negligible, and give her the abilities of a human-- her legs are enhanced, allowing her to move with muscle she doesn't have, jump to heights previously unreachable, and kick with a much greater force than her otherwise frail body should be capable of.
● FREQUENTLY USED GEAR ; Aside from a personal abundance of clothing, Arámbula makes frequent use of Vigil electronics. Both in use on their own, and in the development of her own explosives.
Ulrike Arámbula LOVES explosives, this much is apparent after spending jest a few minutes with her. She enjoys supplying her teammates with whatever custom explosives they request and is always excitedly working on some new custom design. Either physically or mentally. It's a bit childlike, really:
● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM STANDARD ISSUE GRENADES ; Standard "Disco balls" made to have a higher light yield and be lighter to carry. She always has a few of these on her. Just in case. ● EQUIPMENT//"Dice" CUSTOM INCENDIARY/FLASH BOMBS ; If Ulrike had a signature weapon, this would be it. These small, blue balls of TNT are the size and shape of dice. But rolling these dice causes a toned down, blue version of of the flash of light from the "Disco balls," as well as a small explosion, capable of chipping concrete, and about a foot of a plume of flame, sent in the direction the dice were thrown in. They're impact based bombs, and not grenades-- so duds are a possibility purely due to how hard they may be thrown-- Ulrike compensates for this by throwing multiple dice at once. You can produce custom amounts of explosive yield depending on how many dice are thrown. She carries many of these on her person, more or less depending on the mission-- but always a few. Getting hit with a handful of these in the chest may not always kill, but it will definitely send you to the hospital. ● EQUIPMENT//"Smoke star" CUSTOM SMOKE BOMBS ; Similar to "dice" Ulrike's smoke stars can fill a room with black smoke in less than a second when thrown directly at the ground with force. She likes to keep a few of these on her person, in order to better escape trouble, should it find her. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM EMT GRENADES ; Not proper EMTs-- but they have a similar effect. Essentially these are mini-conductors that release a high voltage . ● EQUIPMENT//"Logic bomb" CUSTOM BOMBS ; A collaborative effort. These "dice" style impact bombs contain nano-tech that can infect computers with custom viruses. Ulrike isn't a hacker, nor is she a nano-technician. She merely built the bombs. Mission specific. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM "BEC" GRENADES ; Bose–Einstein condensate is a scarcely understood 'exotic' state of matter, by creating a seal with gas trapped in this state, hybridized with fermionic condensate are how Ulrike has gone about making 'cryo grenades.' ● EQUIPMENT//"Discus" CUSTOM MINES ; Landmines, with a twist! Aside from being lighter and more powerful than the common landmine, these are built with a sap-like cool-plasma polymer on the bottom. This allows these mines to be places in many more interesting positions than just slide along the ground-- with gyroscopes built in, they detect when they are upright and function normally, or can otherwise be placed against a wall or upside down, and will function based on motion sensors. ● EQUIPMENT//CLAYMORES ; Self-explanatory. Ulrike has built custom claymores to be lighter and deliver a higher yield. Motion triggered, of course. Depending on the mission, she'll bring a few to cover her bases. ● EQUIPMENT//SATCHEL CHARGES ; These are the big boys. Depending on the assignment, Ulrike can make these in the field, but they will always be timed. The custom ones she makes in a lab can be timed or trigger based, and have massive explosive potential. As few as 10 of her charges, properly placed, can take down any average large skyscraper. A single eternal stands no chance if he runs into one of these. ● EQUIPMENT//"Ante Up" CUSTOM 40MM GRENADES ; Standard 40mm grenades for B4. Customized for thrown use as well as to cut down on unnecessary weight. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOMIZED TWIN SWITCHBLADES ; Ulrike isn't an expert in knife combat, but these knives aren't really for that. The metal is hybridized with flint in order to have the two serve as a permanent means for producing fire. These are invaluable for her making improvised bombs that aren't molotovs in the field. ● EQUIPMENT//"Bidi Bidi Bomb Bomb" CUSTOM CHINA LAKE GRENADE LAUNCHER ; Also known as "B4." For when combat is inevitable, this is Ulrike's go to. Instead of magazine loaded, it has been adjusted to be internally loaded, holding three grenades inside at any time, with a pump of the weapon chambering the next grenade. It has been customized to fire all of Ulrike's custom grenades, which can be used with or without the gun. The weapon is painted completely black, has a rudimentary sight (common on the M79), and all along the muzzle are names etched in green (her fallen comrades from the Green Faction), there is a bright green star painted on either side of the stock, and like most of Ulrike's weaponry it has girly phone charms hanging from it-- the muzzle and the stock. ● (EXPERIMENTAL) EQUIPMENT//"Ol' Dirty Bastard" PROTOTYPE XM203-5 ROSE ; It actually is rocket science! This is the 5th incarnation of Ulrike's attempt at improving on the M202 FLASH 4-chambered rocket launcher. She began working on this weapon in an attempt to not only create a single weapon that could destroy a building, but one capable of doing it from up to a mile away. The firing system, as such, is much larger than the original M202 FLASH, over twice the size, in fact-- both to house the 4 much larger rockets, and to house the conductor that generates the power for the launch system-- a large Tesla coil that juts out of the back. The entire weapon is probably 6 feet long and a mess with wires connecting to both the power system and circuitry for the onboard targeting system. The rockets themselves are miracles of science: Essentially, they house miniature hadron colliders-- in each are chambered secondary hydrogen atoms, and primary gold ions-- which, once fired, are pushed to supersonic speeds and repeatedly collided with each other while the rockets fly through the air, this creates a soup of quarks which have extremely high levels of heat. Waste heat from the creation of this slurry is used to further propel the rocket toward it's target. Since the micro colliders in the rocket aren't the same size as LHCs, nor can they generate the power required to produce near light speeds that is typically used to create this gold big bang slurry-- Ulrike compensates for this by trapping the gold ions in an exotic state of matter known as the time crystal, through temporal crystallization, this means the particles rub against themselves through different instances in time, thus producing friction and amplifying their heat by several times, allowing them to easily reach the levels of heat found in the sun. Thus, miniature sub-thermal fusion can be achieved upon impact, when hydrogen atoms are smashed into each other upon impact. These mini-nukes use the energy of the big bang to produce explosions found in the core of stars-- Ulrike appropriately calls them big bang bombs (though she will point out they are rockets) and there are only 4 in existence currently. They only work with this prototype weapon, and they do have a higher than average tendency to dud (the entire weapon system has myriad flaws that Ulrike would gladly discuss with anyone who asked). That being said, this deadly weapon has the potential to allow a single person to destroy a city with enough ammunition. Ulrike can't use it-- it's far too heavy and taxing-- she can't even chamber a single rocket without help, let alone fire it.
"Why? If I carried a gun... getting what I want would be too easy. But it would ruin the chance at getting what we need. My passions would lead me to shooting every fucking bloodsucking leech my eyes can identify. That could only go on for so long-- It would be nice for a day, maybe, but it would set us all back in taking out the important ones."
"███████████████████████████████?"
"Because bombs are honest. With a gun, you basically have to try if you want to hurt yourself... but bombs always carry the threat of, excuse the pun, blowing up in your face. If you want to properly utilize a bomb, you need to be constantly thinking. That makes keeping to your task a lot easier."
"██████████████████████?"
"The task always has to be the most important thing in your mind. When I thought the enemy of this planet was men in power I was willing to die for it-- and that hasn't changed now that I know who the real enemy is."
-- Interview with from Ulrike Arámbula
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Very little is known of Ulrike Arámbula's childhood. The little that is known is either negligible or possibly falsified for her own protection. Here is what is compiled that can be verified:
She was born to a single mother, ████████████, on ████████████ in a ████████████████████████████████████. She attended ████████████ and ████████████ for middle and high school, and skipped several grades. Though physically small, frail, and sickly from a young age-- she also displayed clear scholastic ability, and had an affinity for chemistry as early as 8 years old. While the few that knew her would describe her as generally happy, she was also clearly eccentric and imaginative from a young age-- perhaps this is why she was bullied along with her sickly nature, (a trait she quickly learned to hide). She has personally commented, though, that this was due to her overwhelming passions toward what she wants, and the grander task she feels she needs. Arámbula's personality is therefore generally joking and light-heated, if task oriented. She can be quite confrontational about some issues, and is even prone to judging others and applying her own shifting grey morality to them. She is also a bit childish, and resembles a 'mad scientist' to some.
There is more that can be directly verified of Ulrike Arámbula's time spent in University and after. Though this is still only a general snapshot:
Arámbula graduated high school as early as 16 years old, and though she came from a very poor background she was able to cover most of her expenses with scholarships. Double majoring in physical chemistry and inorganic chemistry, after 4 years she had BA's in both subjects, and continued her schooling, hoping to earn a PHD in theoretical chemistry-- it is around this time that her skill in explosives developed, and that her membership in local leftist clubs in the school would turn to her performing illegal acts, allied with groups outside of the school. She would spend her 20's becoming acquainted with the radical underground organizations of ████████████, honing skills she would perfect when coming under the Vigil's employ. It is unclear exactly when, but around the time she was 25, perhaps due to mounting tensions and a need to focus on what she saw as her primary task, Arámbula dropped out of her PHD program, despite nearing completion. Her thesis was on the use of exotic forms of matter in the construction of bombs.
After this, Arámbula's public appearances were nearly nonexistent, and her movements became difficult to track. It is known that this is the period that she cemented her connections with Eco-terrorist sects around the globe, and her crimes of minor property destruction and small-time robberies became assassinations and destruction of whole buildings and monuments. Some years after this, her sect met with an underground contingent of the Eternal-- though at first the Eternal merely manipulated her sect into doing what they wanted, soon, her org began to rebel. This directly led to Ulrike Arámbula becoming a member of the Vigil.
Throughout her years as a militant anarchist and Eco-terrorist before joining Vigil, Ulrike Arámbula was involved in some way, in dozens, possibly hundreds, of campaigns of foreign and domestic terrorism in the name of saving the environment. First, from the threat of man, and later from the threat of the Eternal. Listed here are a few of her verified campaigns with the Green Faction:
● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ███████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████████████. ████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; The first known instance of Arámbula's sect interacting with Eternals. Taking a small job for an underground group of Eternals. Hijacking fuel trucks that were en route to a blood donation center. Occurred approximately three years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████████████. ████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; The first instance of Arámbula's sect actively interfering with Eternals. Bombing of an Eternal owned building. Occurred approximately two years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; Freeing of a small group of Eternal blood slaves, failed to keep secret. Occurred approximately two years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; Publicly listed as 'the bombing of parliament,' the true goal of this operation was the destruction of a base Eternals frequently used for easy access to trafficked children. It is unknown how the Eternals were tipped off, but the sect was decimated. Members not drained or outright killed were left bloodied, crippled and near death. This is the last known operation by the Green Faction. Occurred approximately two years ago.
"Ha!" Riley whispered as Maya stood in front of him, response-less, "I guarantee you no one cares what I say, dude. A chick just got shot and dude got... knifed, and there's demons. No one cares."
"Shut up, Hattie." Maya gave a small 'tsk' as the gun continued to be trained on everyone-- while deflated slightly, she hadn't dropped the character. Yet. Then came the noise from upstairs. Maya gave a shrill, but contained 'yipe' practically jumping at the thump. As it became clear from the input of the others that that was one of... them. Maya, as if a switch had been flicked, immediately went back to hiding behind the teenager. He had, conversely, seemed unsurprised by the noise, or at least unshaken. At the request of the woman treating knife girl's gunshot wound for 'Somebody to go kill it[sic]' a woman and a one of the men with rifles went up the stairs-- Riley followed far behind, intending to wait at the base of the stairs and see what he could. Maya's grip on the boy loosened as the boy took steps forward. "Riley! What are you doing? Hattie." The woman whisper-yelled.
Riley shrugged. He figured they were trapped in this capitalist McMansion of excess no matter what while Red Dawn was going on outside. If one monster could get in, more could-- Riley would at least like to know if the one they knew of was headed their way if those two couldn't kill it. He moved slowly, not trying to creak any floorboards as he moved, but move he did. Maya's teenaged 'cover' was gone after mere seconds.
She whined as he went, slumping against the heavy door of the mansion.
Tom, on the other hand, was snapped to full attention by the more imminent threat of a demon being this close to them. His attention turned from the treating of the less pressing knife wound, admittedly for self-preservation, to the more pressing gun wound the girl had sustained. He had been trying to ignore it-- but luckily someone else hadn't. Clearly military trained-- she was already treating the wound with skill, despite a lack of supplies, and the less than ideal circumstances. Still... getting the bullet out was only half the job. To stop the bleeding and prevent infection they would need to cauterize. The idea of this worried him, as it would cause... some noise... for sure. But not would probably be worse down the line. "I'll go see if this place had a private gas line... or... anything to start a fire." He primarily addressed the woman with the braids treating the girl who had been shot, but turned to the man with the knife wound and the others as he finished, "Both of those wounds will require sealing sooner or later-- ideally sooner-- and I'm not sure anyone has any actual, proper supplies for sealing them. Anyone want to come with? There may be other... things lurking."
@ZAVAZggg I kinda stole your idea for the theme of my CS sorry-- though I don't think I did it as well.
@HeySeuss Here's a character. Tell me if I made her too OP? I tried to balance her, but she still may have a bit much in the way of destructive power, and I can dial that back if you need. My thinking was since I figured there may be more "strong" characters, that are complete Ubermensches (in a good way), I wanted to make someone who was kind of very physically frail, and used other means to keep up, and used the technology to enhance her pursuit of those means. She's a bit like a scorpion-- easy to step on, but if she can get her sting out it's probably over for you.
-- Quote from Ulrike Arámbula's time with a radical leftist student group at University
Before her file was mysteriously (but, for reasons I have been made privy too) closed, investigators and criminologists expended many hours of research attempting to track commonalities between Arámbula's various disguises and what can be seen of her clothing in rare public appearances. As of writing, none have yet been made available to me. Likewise, psychological profiles have been conducted vis-à-vis her clothing, and while no common psychological threads can be seen between what she wears-- it has been said that her reflective, typically drab and dark clothing, and disguises, reflect a desire to disappear. That isn't very helpful. It can be assumed that her clothing in any circumstance is 'plain' and doesn't stand out from those around her. That isn't helpful either.
However, while she isn't easily identified based on style, she is limited by her physical frame. She is a slight woman, quite small, in fact-- not weighing much more than 100 pounds max, her general figure is an unknown at this time, but based on her disguises (subject to change) she is quite toned or her size. She isn't taller than 5 feet, which limits her male based disguises significantly to certain scenarios. It can be assessed that she prefers female and young male disguises, and in her unaltered appearance she has an androgynous air that she can seemingly choose to switch to feminine or boyish on a whim. While she has changed her hair style and color frequently-- it can be assumed based on pictures of her time in University that she has naturally dark, straight hair, seemingly preferred long. She also has naturally brown eyes and a slightly tan complexion. Her lips are naturally dark, plump and full, and it is unknown if she is missing any teeth or has any scars.
SKILLS AND TALENTS ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ● DEMOLITIONS ; It is this writer's opinion that this is the chief skill of Arámbula. Having trained with all manner of conventional and improvised bombs, including incendiary and EMT pulse devices of all types for well over a decade-- Arámbula is a threat to any individual, group, or piece of property with a bomb in her hands. And without a bomb, she is more than capable of gathering the material she needs in her environment to make one. She prefers to combine her skills in outright combat, sneaking around the side lines while using mines and explosives strategically. Overall, her accuracy with thrown and launched explosives is near mechanical and there are even rumors that she is capable of disarming a nuclear bomb, though no evidence exists to verify this. ● STEALTH ; While Arámbula's chief skill may be in causing loud explosions-- the clear second is, perhaps funnily enough, easily in her abilities to conceal herself. In public incidents, and other classified instances while she was still an active Eco-terrorist-- she has shown an outright uncanny ability to evade detection. She is nothing less than a master of disguise-- not just using clothing and make-up, but also acting techniques, plastic surgeries, overloading her body with hormones in the case of a male disguise, and even using mental performance enhancing street drugs to better allow her to focus on her character role. ● GYMNASTICS ; Gymnasts tend to be shorter, so it's no surprise Arámbula excels here. Years of urban guerilla fighting and intelligence work with various violent revolutionary anarchist sects and eco-terrorist groups has left Arámbula with the skill and stamina to perform various advanced parkour and gymnastic maneuvers many would be hard pressed to follow up. She is especially effective in city settings, where all of her skills can be utilized to frightening effect.
MOST EFFECTIVE FOR ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Intelligence gathering, scouting, undercover operations, assassinations, demolitions and trap setting.
MODS AND EQUIPMENT ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ● UPGRADED VIGIL NERVOUS SYSTEM MODS ; Arámbula has many standard issue Vigil implants. While her body is not hearty enough to handle some of the more intensive or combat focused implants, the ones she can take, she has upgraded further in order to make her more effective in what she can do.
● CYBERMOD//UPGRADED COMMUNICATION SUITE ; Along with all the basic features of the communication suite, Ulrike has further upgraded her own to allow her full control of her organs, allowing for her to efficiently control her body and push her limited physical abilities to their max. As well as this, the suite allows her to lessen the potency of some senses, thus boosting the power of others. This feeds into her optical HUD. ● CYBERMOD//UPGRADED EYE AUGMENTATION ; Along with all the base abilities of the standard Vigil eye augmentation, Ulrike has upgraded hers with telescopic sight and a simple AI, showing her estimations for angles of throws and shots from her grenade launcher, allowing for more accurate strikes-- as well as constant reminders of traps she has set. The optic ability is boosted by the communication suite's control of her senses, allowing for more accurate environmental information when it comes to angular estimates for explosions. ● CYBERMOD//NEUROREGULATION ; Finally, Ulrike has upgraded her brain with a neuroregulator-- allowing for efficient use of her myelin sheath in each thought, as well as the production of neurochemicals essentially allowing her to do things like stay up for much longer than is humanly possible-- or achieve hyperfocus by producing the effects of a brain enhancing drug. Using these abilities for too long result in her feeling completely drained and typically sleeping for several days.
● VIGIL BODILY MODS ; While her body wasn't capable of dealing with many upgrades outside of her nervous system, the few that Arámbula has undergone, increase her abilities ten-fold.
● CYBERMOD//ARTIFICIAL HEART ; In her final encounter with a group of Eternals her sect had been dealing with, things went about as wrong as they could have gone for Ulrike Arámbula. Somehow, their plan was discovered, and the Eternals struck them first. Ulrike the group's resident explosives expert, lost a lot-- much more than her legs, and later even her heart-- aside from losing all of the people she knew and loved, she lost most of her body in the beat down she received. It was all the Vigil doctor's could do just to keep her alive-- most of her body is now 'artificial,' but not particularly enhanced beyond average human abilities, as her weak constitution could only handle so much. One of the enhancements she DID opt for, she actually helped to create-- her artificial heart serves as a timed bomb, much more powerful than the one in her head. Connected to her various neural implants, if she registers herself as in combat or danger, and her heart stops-- it will trigger the explosion of something she calls 'a Big Bang Bomb.' Aside from this, the heart is more efficient than her last one, and it has boosted her stamina greatly. ● CYBERMOD//REINFORCED LEGS ; While most of her body was shattered but more or less in tack, the Eternal that had been playing with her cut her legs off from below the knees down. So while most of her augmentations are negligible, and give her the abilities of a human-- her legs are enhanced, allowing her to move with muscle she doesn't have, jump to heights previously unreachable, and kick with a much greater force than her otherwise frail body should be capable of.
● FREQUENTLY USED GEAR ; Aside from a personal abundance of clothing, Arámbula makes frequent use of Vigil electronics. Both in use on their own, and in the development of her own explosives.
Ulrike Arámbula LOVES explosives, this much is apparent after spending jest a few minutes with her. She enjoys supplying her teammates with whatever custom explosives they request and is always excitedly working on some new custom design. Either physically or mentally. It's a bit childlike, really:
● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM STANDARD ISSUE GRENADES ; Standard "Disco balls" made to have a higher light yield and be lighter to carry. She always has a few of these on her. Just in case. ● EQUIPMENT//"Dice" CUSTOM INCENDIARY/FLASH BOMBS ; If Ulrike had a signature weapon, this would be it. These small, blue balls of TNT are the size and shape of dice. But rolling these dice causes a toned down, blue version of of the flash of light from the "Disco balls," as well as a small explosion, capable of chipping concrete, and about a foot of a plume of flame, sent in the direction the dice were thrown in. They're impact based bombs, and not grenades-- so duds are a possibility purely due to how hard they may be thrown-- Ulrike compensates for this by throwing multiple dice at once. You can produce custom amounts of explosive yield depending on how many dice are thrown. She carries many of these on her person, more or less depending on the mission-- but always a few. Getting hit with a handful of these in the chest may not always kill, but it will definitely send you to the hospital. ● EQUIPMENT//"Smoke star" CUSTOM SMOKE BOMBS ; Similar to "dice" Ulrike's smoke stars can fill a room with black smoke in less than a second when thrown directly at the ground with force. She likes to keep a few of these on her person, in order to better escape trouble, should it find her. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM EMT GRENADES ; Not proper EMTs-- but they have a similar effect. Essentially these are mini-conductors that release a high voltage . ● EQUIPMENT//"Logic bomb" CUSTOM BOMBS ; A collaborative effort. These "dice" style impact bombs contain nano-tech that can infect computers with custom viruses. Ulrike isn't a hacker, nor is she a nano-technician. She merely built the bombs. Mission specific. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM "BEC" GRENADES ; Bose–Einstein condensate is a scarcely understood 'exotic' state of matter, by creating a seal with gas trapped in this state, hybridized with fermionic condensate are how Ulrike has gone about making 'cryo grenades.' ● EQUIPMENT//"Discus" CUSTOM MINES ; Landmines, with a twist! Aside from being lighter and more powerful than the common landmine, these are built with a sap-like cool-plasma polymer on the bottom. This allows these mines to be places in many more interesting positions than just slide along the ground-- with gyroscopes built in, they detect when they are upright and function normally, or can otherwise be placed against a wall or upside down, and will function based on motion sensors. ● EQUIPMENT//CLAYMORES ; Self-explanatory. Ulrike has built custom claymores to be lighter and deliver a higher yield. Motion triggered, of course. Depending on the mission, she'll bring a few to cover her bases. ● EQUIPMENT//SATCHEL CHARGES ; These are the big boys. Depending on the assignment, Ulrike can make these in the field, but they will always be timed. The custom ones she makes in a lab can be timed or trigger based, and have massive explosive potential. As few as 10 of her charges, properly placed, can take down any average large skyscraper. A single eternal stands no chance if he runs into one of these. ● EQUIPMENT//"Ante Up" CUSTOM 40MM GRENADES ; Standard 40mm grenades for B4. Customized for thrown use as well as to cut down on unnecessary weight. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOMIZED TWIN SWITCHBLADES ; Ulrike isn't an expert in knife combat, but these knives aren't really for that. The metal is hybridized with flint in order to have the two serve as a permanent means for producing fire. These are invaluable for her making improvised bombs that aren't molotovs in the field. ● EQUIPMENT//"Bidi Bidi Bomb Bomb" CUSTOM CHINA LAKE GRENADE LAUNCHER ; Also known as "B4." For when combat is inevitable, this is Ulrike's go to. Instead of magazine loaded, it has been adjusted to be internally loaded, holding three grenades inside at any time, with a pump of the weapon chambering the next grenade. It has been customized to fire all of Ulrike's custom grenades, which can be used with or without the gun. The weapon is painted completely black, has a rudimentary sight (common on the M79), and all along the muzzle are names etched in green (her fallen comrades from the Green Faction), there is a bright green star painted on either side of the stock, and like most of Ulrike's weaponry it has girly phone charms hanging from it-- the muzzle and the stock. ● (EXPERIMENTAL) EQUIPMENT//"Ol' Dirty Bastard" PROTOTYPE XM203-5 ROSE ; It actually is rocket science! This is the 5th incarnation of Ulrike's attempt at improving on the M202 FLASH 4-chambered rocket launcher. She began working on this weapon in an attempt to not only create a single weapon that could destroy a building, but one capable of doing it from up to a mile away. The firing system, as such, is much larger than the original M202 FLASH, over twice the size, in fact-- both to house the 4 much larger rockets, and to house the conductor that generates the power for the launch system-- a large Tesla coil that juts out of the back. The entire weapon is probably 6 feet long and a mess with wires connecting to both the power system and circuitry for the onboard targeting system. The rockets themselves are miracles of science: Essentially, they house miniature hadron colliders-- in each are chambered secondary hydrogen atoms, and primary gold ions-- which, once fired, are pushed to supersonic speeds and repeatedly collided with each other while the rockets fly through the air, this creates a soup of quarks which have extremely high levels of heat. Waste heat from the creation of this slurry is used to further propel the rocket toward it's target. Since the micro colliders in the rocket aren't the same size as LHCs, nor can they generate the power required to produce near light speeds that is typically used to create this gold big bang slurry-- Ulrike compensates for this by trapping the gold ions in an exotic state of matter known as the time crystal, through temporal crystallization, this means the particles rub against themselves through different instances in time, thus producing friction and amplifying their heat by several times, allowing them to easily reach the levels of heat found in the sun. Thus, miniature sub-thermal fusion can be achieved upon impact, when hydrogen atoms are smashed into each other upon impact. These mini-nukes use the energy of the big bang to produce explosions found in the core of stars-- Ulrike appropriately calls them big bang bombs (though she will point out they are rockets) and there are only 4 in existence currently. They only work with this prototype weapon, and they do have a higher than average tendency to dud (the entire weapon system has myriad flaws that Ulrike would gladly discuss with anyone who asked). That being said, this deadly weapon has the potential to allow a single person to destroy a city with enough ammunition. Ulrike can't use it-- it's far too heavy and taxing-- she can't even chamber a single rocket without help, let alone fire it.
"Why? If I carried a gun... getting what I want would be too easy. But it would ruin the chance at getting what we need. My passions would lead me to shooting every fucking bloodsucking leech my eyes can identify. That could only go on for so long-- It would be nice for a day, maybe, but it would set us all back in taking out the important ones."
"███████████████████████████████?"
"Because bombs are honest. With a gun, you basically have to try if you want to hurt yourself... but bombs always carry the threat of, excuse the pun, blowing up in your face. If you want to properly utilize a bomb, you need to be constantly thinking. That makes keeping to your task a lot easier."
"██████████████████████?"
"The task always has to be the most important thing in your mind. When I thought the enemy of this planet was men in power I was willing to die for it-- and that hasn't changed now that I know who the real enemy is."
-- Interview with from Ulrike Arámbula
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Very little is known of Ulrike Arámbula's childhood. The little that is known is either negligible or possibly falsified for her own protection. Here is what is compiled that can be verified:
She was born to a single mother, ████████████, on ████████████ in a ████████████████████████████████████. She attended ████████████ and ████████████ for middle and high school, and skipped several grades. Though physically small, frail, and sickly from a young age-- she also displayed clear scholastic ability, and had an affinity for chemistry as early as 8 years old. While the few that knew her would describe her as generally happy, she was also clearly eccentric and imaginative from a young age-- perhaps this is why she was bullied along with her sickly nature, (a trait she quickly learned to hide). She has personally commented, though, that this was due to her overwhelming passions toward what she wants, and the grander task she feels she needs. Arámbula's personality is therefore generally joking and light-heated, if task oriented. She can be quite confrontational about some issues, and is even prone to judging others and applying her own shifting grey morality to them. She is also a bit childish, and resembles a 'mad scientist' to some.
There is more that can be directly verified of Ulrike Arámbula's time spent in University and after. Though this is still only a general snapshot:
Arámbula graduated high school as early as 16 years old, and though she came from a very poor background she was able to cover most of her expenses with scholarships. Double majoring in physical chemistry and inorganic chemistry, after 4 years she had BA's in both subjects, and continued her schooling, hoping to earn a PHD in theoretical chemistry-- it is around this time that her skill in explosives developed, and that her membership in local leftist clubs in the school would turn to her performing illegal acts, allied with groups outside of the school. She would spend her 20's becoming acquainted with the radical underground organizations of ████████████, honing skills she would perfect when coming under the Vigil's employ. It is unclear exactly when, but around the time she was 25, perhaps due to mounting tensions and a need to focus on what she saw as her primary task, Arámbula dropped out of her PHD program, despite nearing completion. Her thesis was on the use of exotic forms of matter in the construction of bombs.
After this, Arámbula's public appearances were nearly nonexistent, and her movements became difficult to track. It is known that this is the period that she cemented her connections with Eco-terrorist sects around the globe, and her crimes of minor property destruction and small-time robberies became assassinations and destruction of whole buildings and monuments. Some years after this, her sect met with an underground contingent of the Eternal-- though at first the Eternal merely manipulated her sect into doing what they wanted, soon, her org began to rebel. This directly led to Ulrike Arámbula becoming a member of the Vigil.
Throughout her years as a militant anarchist and Eco-terrorist before joining Vigil, Ulrike Arámbula was involved in some way, in dozens, possibly hundreds, of campaigns of foreign and domestic terrorism in the name of saving the environment. First, from the threat of man, and later from the threat of the Eternal. Listed here are a few of her verified campaigns with the Green Faction:
● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ███████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████████████. ████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; The first known instance of Arámbula's sect interacting with Eternals. Taking a small job for an underground group of Eternals. Hijacking fuel trucks that were en route to a blood donation center. Occurred approximately three years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████████████. ████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; The first instance of Arámbula's sect actively interfering with Eternals. Bombing of an Eternal owned building. Occurred approximately two years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; Freeing of a small group of Eternal blood slaves, failed to keep secret. Occurred approximately two years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; Publicly listed as 'the bombing of parliament,' the true goal of this operation was the destruction of a base Eternals frequently used for easy access to trafficked children. It is unknown how the Eternals were tipped off, but the sect was decimated. Members not drained or outright killed were left bloodied, crippled and near death. This is the last known operation by the Green Faction. Occurred approximately two years ago.
"Yeah, yeah-- and then--" Maya attempted to chime on to the explanation the pair was giving to Tom, of what they had just seen take place-- in medias res, of course.
Riley cut her off-- "They were staring each other down with guns, they took their eyes off the girl in the middle-- which was a mistake-- when she had an opening she pulled out a knife and straight GORED this one big dude's shoulder. Shit was gnarly and cash as FUCK!"
Tom gripped the ridge of his brow, "That doesn't sound very 'cash' to me, Hattie."
Riley smiled wide, "Pops-- you're alone in the desert-- four assholes who probably want the same thing you want all greet you-- not with a fucking--"
"Language."
"--hello, but with their fucking... 'boom-boom-me-have-big-dick sticks' instead of laying down and taking that she decided to go out like a G." Riley shrugged, "I think it was cash. Plus they didn't even actually kill her... which... now that that I'm thinking about that..."
"..."
"..."
——————————————————————
MAYA STARLESS RILEY LACEY TOM LACEY━━━
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━━━🧭 Parked near nowhere manor, Nevada ━━━🕑 Evening ━━━⛅ Red mist storm approaching ━━━🗣 Maya, Tom, Riley ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Yeah." Tom squinted toward the house. Riley had been able to make out everything in detail, but Tom could at least confirm there were others besides just the 5 involved in the altercation being attracted to its promise of relative safety."At least this gives us an in. One of them is injured and needs medical attention, and whatever reason they kept the girl alive-- hopefully out of pure altruism-- they probably don't want her concussed, or worse." He winced at the thought of worse. Tom's heart rate was still a bit high after hearing the gunshot.
"Wait!" Maya objected, a half-smile on her face, "Wait wait wait. Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait."
"Okay.
Maya looked between Riley and Tom nervously, "W-well why do we need an 'In?' What the hell does that even mean? It was fun to watch, but we're not dealing with those guys, right? We're looking for another house, right??? I know we have the gas for it!"
Tom looked calmly toward Riley, both of them had already begun to gather some of their things, "You didn't tell her?
Riley sucked in air through his teeth, and gave a sigh, "I didn't want to worry her, or you... I thought I could outrun it, you know?"
"If we were in a new car with 200 less pounds, maybe!!" Maya exploded.
"You're a good driver, Hattie." Tom looked out of the rear windshield, Hattie had done a decent job outpacing it, but they still had less than 5 minutes before it would be upon them, "But you have to remember. You're still so young-- and those demons don't have to follow the same rules you do."
"I guess so..." Riley opened the driver door, ready with his bags to approach. He noticed a man with an axe running past him. Riley smiled and gave a wave-- the man was in no position to return-- before finishing his point. "I'm also worried about the car... I've noticed gunk in the engine. I think the break downs might have something to do with that red shit. I think it might be fucking things up."
"Hmm." The theory gave Tom pause, it was certainly an interesting train of thought-- and he could follow it easily enough. Though, while he wasn't a car expert, he knew enough to know that Riley's expertise was only a few rungs above his own. Besides that, it wasn't really the time. "It'll have to wait. Right now, we have to make ourselves useful enough to that estate full of... what you so aptly called 'Boom boom sticks' so that we don't have to--"
"I called them--"
"SO THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO SEE WHAT THE MIST DOES FIRST HAND." Tom said flatly and sternly, "Bring any food and essential supplies we can spare. No weapons-- they would just confiscate them. I'm going to offer my services to the man with the injury and the girl. You two do your thing. Break!"
The tan woman gave a sigh, "B-break..." He voice was completely downtrodden and laden with sighs. She didn't want to be doing this.
"Fuck football." Riley wondered if the knife girl would loan him one. To say the three "descended" the slight incline to approach the mansion from the side would be a bit of an overstatement. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Maya practically sprinted toward the door of the mansion once she saw how close the mist was. Who knew the skinny alcoholic was capable of technically beating Usain Bolt's best time in the 100 meter dash? While slightly buzzed-- in heels, through sand, no less? It was all Riley and Tom could do to keep up with her.
Surprisingly, the door to the mansion was open. Or, rather-- someone had been watching for the possibility of others seeking refuge there. The three stumbled in to quite a scene. A nervous Korean woman, the man with the fire axe that had passed them moments prior, The five from the stand off from before-- the young woman and large man had a third with them, apparently. Only Riley noticed the other two new faces who had also been in the house the whole time. What Tom saw was the knife girl was on the floor, she needed assistance-- with the other two gun toting women near her-- pretty much engaged in a much more complicated version of the Mexican standoff from before. More guns, more people without gun, even MORE nerves. It made Riley upset, it was close to triggering Tom, Maya was scared shitless.
She had entered first. Scrambling in moments after the man with the axe. Tom entered slowly, with his hands raised coolly, Riley was somewhere in between the two, not running, but not moving so slowly as to capitulate-- and his arms were crossed. Maya swerved behind Riley, hiding behind him as he spoke to himself, loud enough for others to hear.
"Ugh." Riley rolled his eyes, "More guns. More people threatening to kill each other while there are literal hell beasts outside. Very sexy, very cool. Glad it was more of this instead of something cool at this place, guys."
"R-riley, shut up..." Maya's whimper of a whisper was barely legible, let alone audible behind the boy. Usually Tom would reign Riley's destructive idealism in, in moments like this-- but it seemed that gunfire really shook him. His hands were up, and he'd closed the door-- but he hadn't introduced himself as a medic. Hadn't looked at the still bleeding man, who seemed more concerned with maintaining order than tending to himself. Maya had only seen behavior like that before in the bodyguards some of her celebrity friends once had. Tom wasn't taking his eyes off the girl on the couch with the gun. Was she not practicing proper trigger discipline, or whatever he went on about?
Man.
Maya. didn't like all this tension. To her, doctors usually got a free pass in moments like this, right? And she was with the doctor! All she needed to do was get the doctor moving. She could do that.
She would just... 'do her thing.'
"I'm just fucking saying, it's--"
"That's enough, Riley." Maya spoke in voice Riley had never heard before-- but as Maya continued, Riley knew what she was trying, and could only sigh, holding up his hands like his father did. "You'll have to excuse my son," Maya addressed the room, but primarily the woman on the couch and the men who she assumed were her guards in some capacity. She gave a wry laugh, "He's a bit stressed out by all of this, as I think we all are!" Her voice was that of a cheery suburbanite mother. A role Rico had gone over with her once when she was younger-- bringing life to extras, he had called it. She continued. "But please-- my husband saw your altercation and said we had to stop to help anyone who was injured!" She loudly whispered, "He says it's a Hippocratic oath, but I think he's just a big ol' soft teddy bear! Why not even the end of the world can harden his heart!" She sighed, looking over to Tom, who had been nodding when appropriate as he caught on, "But that's why I love him."She finished by adding, "Anyway, sir, he'll say he's only a medic, but I've never met a General Practitioner as able as him! He can get your arm properly checked out if you'd like? He even thinks the girl may have a concussion-- so you could keep an eye on her while he checks you both?"
It really did feel like everyone was trying a bit too hard to keep their cool.
Maybe that was for the best? Colmillo really didn't know. She was sure, though, at this point that someone would tell her it was. That it was like, 'better and more practical' or whatever to use their feelings for whatever task at hand the people who wanted to rush out and bash people-- or rather zombie skulls-- wanted. Maybe all of that was for the best? Maybe she should try her best to swallow the fear that she had thought had always consumed her, until she had been dipped into a pure vat of it earlier today-- she felt she hadn't been allowed to come up for air. Like, these discussions were sinking her further into the depths of what she thought she already knew as fear and it made her want to scream. Like, actually scream. But she knew she couldn't. Every few minutes, despite her blank stare, her lips trembled-- her mind was racing, much faster than she could deal with and she didn't think there was anything to do. She didn't want to feel like she was keeping her cool through this-- she wanted to completely explode and be a cloud of mist-- but a hand was wrapped around her throat, threatening to snap it if she showed how she really felt.
The powerlessness was familiar, at least.
Aside from that. She really couldn't say she was familiar with anything anyone was saying, in regards to the plan for the group. Just as she learned she hadn't really known fear. She knew now, too, she hadn't really known ignorance. She thought she was stupid before, this morning even, for something as simple as not eating as much as she should... but as she thought, she continued to discover how deeply out of her depth she truly was. Half listening to the continued conversations of the group, she mentally scolded herself for how ill she'd been in her thinking to some of her new companions. She couldn't understand all of them, or their thinking, of course. That much was clear. But, she realized they couldn't stay here forever, and despite not understanding it, they were working past whatever they feeling (regardless of how unhealthy it may be) and trying to do something about... all of this. Colmillo wasn't there yet, but she could at least respect it. She needed more time.
Perhaps enough time, that she didn't feel like there was a cancerous side of her that wanted to go around grabbing everyone, and delivering ear shattering screams that they needed to wait, so that they could actually be more chill, instead of just putting on the front so no one else panics and rushing out. She wasn't sure. Maybe that wasn't productive. Maybe acting as quickly as possible was best for her peers. Not her though-- and at least not a few others. She supposed she was calm enough now that she could at least acknowledge that.
Talking to the the shorter girl had loosened Colmillo up a bit. She was definitely feeling less of her typical neurosis after actually vocalizing how she was feeling about all of this. She had said a lot to the girl... probably an obnoxious amount... over the course of a short whisper. Turning a bit, her eyes flitted over to her-- the girl hadn't really responded to her-- her admittedly very silly-- way of communicating. But that may have been a good thing, actually, considering she had requested that no one know she could even speak. Or maybe she was doing her best to ignore the tall crazy stoner rambling about shared psychosis or whatever. Colmillo's eye went back to the countertop, she had turned away from everyone again. They were planning their route and such. Colmillo wasn't going to protest... she couldn't. But she didn't want any part of it.
That being said, she hoped the group the left for the cafeteria would be okay. Whether they were killing people that could be saved or not. They were... all she had, for the time being, at least. She wanted them to come back safe. She wanted to be well enough to help.
Location: Stockbridge Academy, Teacher’s Lounge
Date: 3/6/19
With: Bill, Tony, Dontae
Whole lot of good *wishing* they would be fine does them, Colmillo.
She wasn't sure how long the group that had left to... go somewhere else? Had been gone. Seconds? Months? Less than an hour? It was definitely one of those, and every option made Colmillo nervous. They had a loose agreement that if things were clear, they'd come back for those who stayed behind. If things weren't? They'd probably die, honestly. But, those who could would probably run back here anyway. That was where Tony came in-- the guy who had some liquor-- he'd be quick enough on the draw to get the door open for whoever came running back, and kick away anything that was biting at their heels. Truthfully? He made Colmillo nervous. But everyone made Colmillo nervous. She wasn't a big drinker, but at least she'd have access to SOMETHING if things took a turn for the worse. That was...
Goddddddddddd...
Colmillo really wished she had a blunt right about now.
Of course such a line of thinking led down another avenue of mental misery for her. Of course it did. She could almost imagine herself being the object of an incomprehensible otherworldly being existing beyond some grey veil, who gained some sick nourishment from her teenage sadness exacerbated by a circumstance as extraordinary as this-- dictating that no line of thought lead her to bliss, purely by the drunken gnashing of its flesh tendrils against the runes of the 5th dimension. She sighed, shaking aside the tangent. She was worried about her step-siblings. It wasn't a priority, and it made her feel like shit for even thinking about it-- but it was more than just them being her friends, or the closest things she had to those here-- she could deal with this so much better if she was high. Hell, she could at least endure the Waiting Room from hell this room had become.
Her mind thankfully drifted. She was sitting on the counter, near the coffee pot (at the rate she was going she'd need to brew a new pot soon), enjoying... her second cup of the stuff? Since the cafeteria group had left. 'Enjoying' it was a bit of an overstatement, she supposed. The simple espresso the lounge's auto-drip coffee maker produced was heavily watered down-- designed to make as much coffee as possible for as many people as possible with as few, non-fresh grounds. While that wasn't a bad if you were attempting to serve hundreds with a single pot (and the grounds were kept in the brew, not passed through)-- this lounge, to Colmillo's knowledge, only served dozens. And the machine was old. Despite the expensive renovations, it seemed the school couldn't shell out for decent coffee for the teachers and staff.
Colmillo looked down at the coffee that filled her thermos. She had to admit to herself, though. This brown slop was better than the several days old elixir she'd had in it beforehand. She took a sip and let out a soft sigh. Paradoxically, it made her feel more relaxed. Enough so that she felt confident peering around the (much quieter and more empty) room. Aside from Tony, who currently had his back turned to her, glancing nervously into the hallway. There was Dontae, seemingly conflicted at being treated like the baby of the group, having food given to him and being sidelined from the cafeteria expedition, as well as still feeling... everything. And then there was Bill... Colmillo couldn't really get a good read on her. The two hadn't explicitly interacted, she'd scoffed (appropriately so) when Colmillo dropped all of her belongings (now, save for some trash, snugly in her bag by her side) and whatever else she could find in the room on the table before everyone. Like a complete maniac.
And then Colmillo whispered to her that she thought everyone else was crazy.
So, they weren't off to a great start. But Colmillo was hoping to change that. The girl wasn't good at much-- but her family had always told her that she was a great listener. She wasn't really sure that was a skill-- but-- right now, with everyone doing what they could, Colmillo figured she'd at least... try? There were fewer people now... this was probably the closest she'd get to being one on one with someone in a while, so she may as well. Talking to anyone period may have been bad, but crowds were worse. And she wanted to talk to all three of the people she was with. Bill to clear things up, Tony to see if she could Irish up her coffee, and Dontae to offer support-- though, she supposed she wanted to offer some form of support to all three of them. If serving as a sounding board for how messed up all this was could help anyone here would help... well... good! Right? Yes? Maybe?
yES!
So that was good! She had a plan. Something she could do that wouldn't catastrophically ruin everything for everyone.
But she wanted to finish her coffee before she got into all of that. Swinging her legs to her left, she scooted forward and laid on her back against the counter. Digging in her bag, she pulled out her phone and earbuds with at least one functional ear. It still had power, at least. A combination of bumming chargers from her astray step-siblings and simply not using it for anything besides music had left it at a fairly high charge. She had a few playlists saved offline. Opening one, merely titled 'gay' she pressed shuffle and listened to the song that played. Once again, trying her best to process all that was happening without screaming.
The (very) familiar album wasn't quite blasting out of the speakers, it was pretty soft in fact, but it was certainly ringing loudly enough to serve as an annoyance in Maya's ears. The woman's wild mane of hair was tied back and flared out behind her as they sped down the lone desert road. She had been leaned out of the passenger side window, elbow propped where the window had been rolled down, allowing her head to rest against her had as she looked blankly into the ever flat horizon. She tried to ignore her companions for the moment, the father-son duo she had come to affectionately refer to as her 'boys' over the past few months of their travels. She wasn't paying particular attention to their surroundings as they sped by, instead blankly focusing on single features in the distance and tracking them until they passed her letting the whirring wind drown out the softly playing punk of the car speakers, occasionally, she'd check for any imperfections in her appearance in the side mirror. While she wasn't paying attention visually, she was growing increasingly aware that the once warm desert air was cooling as it blew through her hair. An unfortunate feature of the night, she supposed.
Glancing sidelong in the cabin, she saw their driver tapping his fingers on the wheel to the beat eyes focused on the road and the world ahead., Riley... Hattie. She had come up with her own nicknames for the youth, though, to her amusement, none he was particularly fond of.
The pair must've looked strange sitting in such close proximity to each other--
——————————————————————
MAYA STARLESS RILEY LACEY TOM LACEY━━━
——————————————————————
━━━🧭 Interstate > Parked near nowhere manor, Nevada ━━━🕑 Early evening > Evening ━━━⛅ Relatively clear > Distant red mist storm ━━━🗣 Maya, Riley > Maya, Riley, Tom ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
(of course, no one would have seen them, unless someone approached unrealistically fast from behind, but even then, the kid would probably catch it. Their driver preferred to have meetings with people be on his terms)--
But the simple fact was that they contrasted quite a bit in appearance. Riley was wearing, more less, what he always wore-- dark clothing, roughed up and stitched fixed, and a practical leather jacket-- he easily fit into the archetype of post apocalyptic survivor, with a bit of youthful flair. Maya, meanwhile, wore an asymmetric ivory and silver sequins top and purposefully distressed jeans that would have been better suited for getting brunch than looking for gas supplies in the desert. Her black sandals were at least silent-- but not suited for running in the slightest (though, she could still run fairly quickly in them), and the platinum and silver jewelry she wore, the pendants, rings, and earrings, only had some functionality in being used for bartering and mostly in making Maya an even bigger target than women already were.
Of course, Maya wasn't particularly worried about all that. Her boys might not have always looked it-- but they were pretty tough! Together, the three of them made an effective team-- they could get in and get out, get the things they needed pretty quickly. The boy had even been in a few scraps before-- not as many as Doc Lacey-- but they somehow got out a bit strong each time, even if they lost things, they were all still alive... Maya frowned. This was a common line of thinking for her nowadays. Yeah, they were alive, but they sure as shit weren't living. Never going after what they wanted, always what they needed! And never even getting enough of that!
As Maya huffed, Riley split his attention from the road and the album to include Maya. He completely knew what was coming-- the pair had had a variation on this conversation nearly every day for the past few weeks. He didn't blame her, all this driving could be boring, and they'd been doing a lot of it. She was open book about some aspects of her past, too, and Riley had learned enough to know that sleeping in a passenger seat for most days was not exactly Maya's idea of comfort-- even if he'd managed to adjust the seats to go much further back so that they were almost cot-like. Talking helped break up the monotony of... whatever they were doing.
Maya leaned back into the car, "Fucking bullshit." Reaching between her legs, she unclasped her satchel and downed one of her mini bottles of vodka in one swift movement. It went down like water.
Riley didn't take his eyes off the road, but sheepishly smirked as she downed her booze with practiced ease, "What's bullshit, Maya?" He knew the answer would be something like--
"You know! This! All of this!" She gestured with her arms, throwing the bottle out to the desert sands as she did, "It's all bullshit. I hate it-- Don't fucking give me that look! You know exactly what I mean, little man."
"I guess so." He shrugged. His smile became a full grin as he glanced over at her, "I think littering is bullshit, personally."
Maya's face flashed red as her eyes went wide with faux-anger, "SHUT THE HELL UP, YOU LITTLE SHIT!"
"... Mm..." A grumble came from the back seat, interrupting the rhythmic light snoring that had been coming from the sleeping Doctor Lacey moments prior. The pair waited in silence for his snoring to resume before they continued their exchange.
Maya whispered, "... Bruh, I'm going to hang you by your shitty fucking dreadlocks. Giving me shit for a fucking bottle..."
Riley just laughed, though after a moment he added, "Don't call them that, dude."
"Oh, fuck right. I'm sorry." Maya rolled up her window, slightly regretful that it was getting too cold for her to leave the thing open-- the car was no dutch oven... but... Well, the group's patchwork hygiene was starting to catch up to them, was all. She continued. "Black is beautiful. Your locs aren't dreadful, they're beautiful. Fuck the Afro-oppressive patriarchy. Don't touch my hair."
"Thanks, comrade."
Maya looked ahead, "You know, I once worked with Solange?"
"I know, Maya."
Her eyes glazed a bit as she reminisced, "Craziest parties. I think you two would have gotten along." She smiled, "Could never hook up with Bey, but--"
"Sure, sure. Almeda was a really good song, Maya. Not usually my style, but you did a good job."
There was a silence for a moment. Compliments like that were rare nowadays, even traveling with her former therapist. Maya was going to cherish the moment for a bit. Riley, meanwhile, had returned his eyes to the road-- though his head was leaned against the "window." His side of the car didn't have a window-- neither did the back seat-- the only functioning window in the car was on Maya's side. The rest of the "windows" were pieces of plywood, with thick glass quick cemented as makeshift portholes in the middle. From the outside, these looked like normal windows to most passerby's-- as the wood had been spray painted black, and the glass had been tinted as dark as possible-- like the other windows and windshields in the car had been after the fall. Riley figured it helped if you couldn't actually see inside the car.
"Soooooooo...." She stretched the word out for a minute, basking in the praise a second longer. A part of her worried that she may never get such praise again. She buried that part of her deep down, focusing instead on the moment, the task at hand. "So, speaking of music..."
"Ugh."
"Look, man!" She made a pleading gesture with her hands, "I'm not saying it's bad! I'm just saying variety is the spice of life, you know? Artistic variety is one of the keys to a good life! Philosophers and shit said this stuff. I'm not an animal! I want to do drugs and listen to some fucking Mariah, is all!"
"And get laid, right?"
"YES! Someone finally gets me! AND get laid." She ran a hand through her hair, "But it's like your dad would never go for it, and I'm not sooo depraved as to be jailbait's first--"
"--You actually wouldn't be my first."
"Sure thing, mop head." She continued. "Anyway, it's like that fucking pyramid of needs or whatever your dad always goes on about. I need drugs and weed and booze and music before I can move on to getting laid and showering."
"Those are really good priorities, man."
"I know!"
They were quiet for a moment, before Riley asked; "Anyway, isn't it repetitive to say you need drugs AND weed?"
"Nah," She held up a finger, as if to say she was making a Very Important Point, "Weed isn't a drug, dear Watson. God, the things I would do for a bong right now..." Riley gave a nod that was clearly playing into the bit as she continued. "Anyway-- a person can't live like this! Just because things are a little shitty right now--"
" 'A little.' "
"Shut up." She continued, undeterred, "We need more music! Or I'm going to die! Of boredom! And possibly also for real if I end up thinking whatever that red shit is sounds better than this shit!" Her chain hit against her chest as she banged on the radio.
"Alright, first of all," Riley held up a single hand, as if to say 'stop,' "Poison Girls are fucking dope." The hand shifted to hold up one finger, "That's one-- two-- It's not like I had a whole hell of a lot of time to look through my fucking collection. Downtown was going to shit and we had maybe 5 minutes to get enough shit to last us for... fucking... until we could see shit wasn't getting any better. You know how many mixtapes from my friends and local bands I'm never going to hear again because all the broadcasts were like 'Oh, this will be over in a week...'? So you're right about that, I guess it is bullshit." He huffed at the tragedy of his lost record collection.
"Hey..." Maya said with a calming voice and a sympathetic touch, "I'm not blaming you for any of this, okay? I can't thank you enough-- you're one half of the reason I'm even alive right now." She heaved a sigh, looking upward, "I just think a lot of this is hard, okay? All this driving, all this running and hiding... it takes a toll. I think you could use a break? I know I could."
"Looking for more food and gas might be nice..." Riley muttered under his breath. He sighed, louder... he hated to admit it, but she was right. Since his father served as their dedicated lookout, this made Riley the defacto leader of sorts as they drove during the night. Making decisions was EXHAUSTING and he absolutely hated every part of it. When he was with his friends, the group always came to a consensus, but now-- major decisions fell to him, because Maya assumed he had his dad's vote. "Alright. Fuck it. You're right. Did you have anything in mind?" For a moment, he considered waking his father to see what he thought-- but he quickly discarded the though-- if he had his father's vote, he may as well use it.
Her smile widened as she fumbled with the dash, opening up a map, "Well, according to the map we got at the one outside of Lovelock, there's not anymore rest stops until we're east of Vegas. But, still being north, as far away as we are... there should be some assorted towns... and just, random places people used to live, far away from other people, maybe?"
"Rich people, who wanted to be secluded from the hungry masses, you mean."
"Always forget to add that part..." She blushed weakly, rubbing the back of their head.
"Still..." He put one hand to his chin, the other on the wheel, "Might have gas and car parts."
"Could have weed and booze."
"Probably have food, somewhere..."
"Actual beds..."
The pair looked at each other, practically speaking in unison; "Dude-- CDs?" "NEW MUSIC!?"
Riley slowed the car, looking for the next exit. His grin was smug as he spoke, "Let's go."
"The fuck is all this?"
It was rare for Tom Lacey to curse. Being stirred by the car alarm wasn't enough to cause such a phenomenon-- but being woken up-- jolted awake-- by the sound of gunfire might be enough do it for anyone. He was about to ask what going on again, as he leaned over the front seats, where Maya and Riley were still sitting. Their expressions were mixtures of excitement, joy, and horror. The ridge they had parked on gave them all a full vantage of what had them making such expressions. Tom was sure Riley could make things out the best, but from what he could see-- there was a complete Mexican stand-off happening a ways off. At least, as he adjusted his glasses in the dimming evening light, he assumed that's where the gunfire was coming from. Everything was blurring, and getting harder to see. He could just barely make out more figures approaching the commotion. Like moths to a flame.
"Man, maybe this is bad, but I don't really feel bad for the dead. Like... like I've always been seen as just a dumb, silly little slut right? But I'm still alive. And like, everyone who hated me couldn't even last a week? It's pretty funny... and I'm still ready-- like water for chocolate."
Name:
Birth name: Angel Evans
Legal name: Maya Isaacs
Alias(es): Maya D. Starless, Maya Libertine, Bloody Maria
Age: She's been turning '27' for... maybe the past 10 years, at least? Height: 5' 10"/1.77 m-- though she will insist she's actually just a healthy 5'8". Weight: 110~ lbs/50~ kg. Her weight fluctuates pretty rapidly. Race: Unclear. She knows her birth father was black and Puerto Rican, so that's what she tells people. (Can't speak a lick of Spanish, though) Pronouns: She/Her or They/Them, depending on her mood. Though of course she's much less strict about these things now. Horoscope (she cares about that kind of thing):
Sun: Scorpio
Moon: Aries
Rising: Capricorn
Text color:*#1E46A8* Face claim: Indya Moore
APPEARANCE
"And I oop and I oop and I oopandioopannaouannaouannou-- sksksksksksksksksksksksksks(...)"
If asked to define herself with one word, Maya would use 'glamour.' It's certainly an apt descriptor, though it doesn't tell the full story.
Maya is a beautiful, feminine-if-somewhat androgynous young woman-- (though, not as young as she would like most people to believe)-- with curious and sensual doe-like and dark eyes, framed by a thick mane of flowing, curly obsidian hair (occasionally styled, often left to its own devices). Her eyes can draw one in and her face will keep you looking, full of regal qualities, unblemished skin (thanks purely to a high level of skill with makeup), and naturally flushed and plump lips.
She smiles-- or rather, smirks-- easily, those perceptive enough may notice that these smiles don't always extend to her eyes-- those particularly perceptive may notice that her eyes often convey a certain melancholy, as well as a hunger, that many may recognize as lust. Her full lips are typically parted and dyed with some colorful variety of dark lipstick, contrasted against this Maya's honey mocha skin is maintained as flawlessly as the dawn-- the direct result of her very mixed ancestry, (of which she is only aware of her biological father's part) and, despite the apocalypse, makeup. Her eyebrows are regularly maintained and she spends more time than is responsible ensuring that none of the natural blemishes of her face can be seen. One of her (many) vices is makeup, obviously. She is particularly fond of concealer and lipstick.
Despite all of this, her face typically won't be the first thing that one notices about her. Due to being assigned male at birth, Maya naturally grew tall at a young age, by the time she had begun puberty blockers, she was well on her way to reaching her peak already-- and while they did help in preventing her from reaching 6' +, she is still a fair bit taller than the average woman, especially with her hair. Aside from her height, she has a slight, unassuming, very skinny and willowy physical frame with practically no muscle-- she is very much medically underweight, and her lack of nutrition before and after the mist has not helped with this. Her bust is modest, nearly flat, and her figure could best be described as a "thin, fragile hourglass." She has no noticeable physical disfigurements, save for dark spots along her arms where needles have hit (and missed) veins and her nails, once kept manicured, have been reduced to chipped, bitten down nubs.
Before the mist, despite not having the money for it, she shared the sensibilities of many a wealthy fashionista and tended to wear clothing that looked good, but lacked in functionality. Now that the mist is here, she still struggles with dressing efficiently, she won't wear extravagant gowns when trying to avoid human contact, but she will still wear designer tops and bottoms over clothing better suited for running or getting dirty. Being able to loot for such clothing has made this very easy for Maya.
PSYCHOLOGY
"Oh dear, there's not much here."
MAIN GOAL ♥ To blow up, and act like they don't know nobody. Meme's aside-- this wasn't too far from the truth in the 'beforetimes.' She wanted fame before, mostly to fuel her own addiction to pleasure. Now? Fame has been tossed aside in full pursuit of pleasure and aponia. Put simply, Maya doesn't want to deal with those monsters, or anything that would cause her pain or stress or anything like that. She wants to be warm and comfortable at night, and high all waking hours. Aside from that, finding her father-- though she doesn't want to admit this to herself, because looking for him means accepting the possibility he may be dead.
PHILOSOPHY ♥ She is an unrepentant hedonist, moral nihilist, and proud libertine.
SECRETS ♥ Not much, honestly. The fact that she's trans? Loud and proud. Her various addictions? She practically flaunts them as proof that she's still sane. She isn't particularly proud of some of the things she's done before the mist to maintain relevancy and her way of life, nor does she like her relationship with the mental healthcare system or her various diagnoses. She's not fond of discussing her parents, biological or adoptive.
SEXUALITY ♥ Lesbian. But she'll have sex with anyone.
FEARS ♥ The mist, obviously. Sobriety. She isn't particularly fond of bugs or rats, either.
QUIRKS ♥ She's compulsively been hoarding make-up and maintaining a made-up appearance to maintain a sense of normalcy. Most of the drugs she regularly partakes in (she's a bigger fan of hallucinogens and depressants than uppers), she isn't chemically dependent on (yet)-- it's purely mental. That being said, she does need liquor regularly or risk suffering withdrawals. On a more positive note-- she typically does really well with teenagers and children. While she may provide too high of a degree of freedom, she does genuinely care for them-- and may seem like a different person when interacting with them. They go out of their way to help children in need, and generally make younger people feel heard and seen, a trait inherited directly from her father.
FLAWS ♥ A refusal to fully apply herself. A lifetime of underachievement and unconditional support from her father has given her a bit of a complex, making her feel that even trying her best results in failure, so why try? The addictions and drinking can be a bit of a hindrance, of course. She exhibits many symptoms of borderline personality disorder, particularly in her risk taking, difficulty trusting, and rapidly fluctuating mood.
BACKSTORY
"A man who lies for a living is the most honest person I know. I think that's funny."
As far as the early stuff goes? Maya isn't exactly sure. She has the general outline, of course. She was born as Angel Evans, to a mother she'll never know, and a father who, at first at least, was well-meaning enough, but completely unprepared for a child. As time went on, her father became more distracted and neglectful, though she claims he was never outright abusive, her therapist may argue otherwise. She's forgotten most of this period, or otherwise buried it away. She remembers being in foster care for a few years, and that being so much worse. And she remembers things getting better, almost overnight, when she was adopted by a solidly B-list celebrity around the time she started high school.
She doesn't really know what happened to her birth father.
She has a much clearer memory of when she was adopted by her real father, very liberal, very gay icon Ricardo Isaacs, and onward. Moving from an Orange county poorhouse to the heart of Hollywood would make a strong impression on anyone. For Maya in particular, things clicked into place-- the excess, the parties, even the fake nature of everything made sense to her. It didn't matter that at this point she some mousy nobody in the body of a lanky boy. She could be whoever she wanted-- and so that's what she became.
Her transition, with puberty blockers, began around a year after moving in with who she would consider her true father (known to her alone, affectionately, as both Rico and Ricky). She was never a good student before, and going from the distractions of institutional poverty to the world through a lens of complete freedom didn't exactly help, but Rico getting her all the tutors she needed (as well as money making its way into certain hands to get her extra times, or failing grades accidentally marked higher)-- did help. When she expressed interest in music, Rico made that happen as well, giving her ample training from a young age, relative to when she was officially adopted-- enough so that she was able to earn a Masters of Fine Arts in Music Theory and Composition-- with financial assistance from Ricky, of course. Before the fall, she was an up and coming producer and song-writer, having worked with a few Billboard charting artists. It's very likely she's had writing credits on a few songs a fan of pop or pop-rap may have heard.
Her time at college was spent exploring her sexual identity (something she still loves exploring)-- and while she officially identifies as gay, she'll accept anyone as her play partner. Her openness and sexual liberation is something she directly inherited from Rico, himself very much a proponent for the open discussion and fostering of sexual relations. That being said, unaddressed insecurities developed during early childhood, combined with feelings of inadequacy due to feeling she never 'earned' anything, have left her a bit distrustful and unable to commit to much. She was in therapy for that before the fall, after much prodding from Ricky-- in fact, she was in the middle of a session before everything went belly-up. She's been traveling with her therapist and his son since then.
SKILLS & TALENTS
"Not to toot my own horn here, but I'm pretty good at...
...
blowing...
...
I'll go-- no, no-- it's fine, I'll leave."
[Kama Sutra expert] ♥ It's not a skill many would boast, but Maya dons this one and all of its implications and insults proudly. She is very adept at using her sexuality to get what she wants, as a weapon to some, as a means for negotiating on equal terms to others. Of course, there are many drawbacks in the world as it is, a lack of public services for treatment of STDs and those who would use violence to gain such things chief among them.
[Multi-instrumentalist] ♥ Right now, all she has is her voice. But Maya is a classically trained in many instruments, and informally or self-taught in many others. It'd be easier to list the few instruments she doesn't play. While she isn't trained in every style, she can recreate many songs she has heard within a day or two of hearing them.
[Decent actor] ♥ While she was never formally trained in classes, her adoptive father was a relatively famous actor before the fall, even moreso in his prime. A common night in with the two would involve watching one of his old Blaxpoitation movies, him explaining some of the techniques he'd use. The trick, he would often say, was making yourself believe the lie you we're telling everyone, before you even knew it. Her skill with make-up can often help sell whatever lie she's trying to sell, with a literal tailor made mask.
EQUIPMENT & GEAR
"*Drunk noises*"
[2017 Cadillac SUV] ♥ This car isn't hers-- technically it belongs to her therapist. Though, all driving, all siphoning of gas, and all maintenance (not much) is handled by his son. Maya, for her part, is an adequate navigator for night travel. Somehow, it's already on its last legs... But it's served as a reliable bed for a while now. Maya keeps several changes of clothes and a few other quality of life items in here.
[Chanel satchel] ♥ Somehow has less space inside than outside would imply. This is where she keeps pretty much all of her things that aren't clothes, which, isn't much.
[9" Italian Stiletto knife] ♥ This isn't hers-- it's on loan from her therapist's son, who wanted her to be protected. Maya has no idea how to use this efficiently-- she isn't particularly fond of violence, so her possessing this is almost entirely for show. That being said, it is very sharp and well maintained-- apparently (according to him) such a knife is illegal in the states, so however he got it, he takes good care of it.
[Make-up] ♥ At her current rate of use, Maya has about a month of concealer, eye liner, lipstick, and wet wipes in her satchel. A more than enough primer and nail polish to last at her current nervously reduced usage.
[Booze] ♥ A vodka girl. She keeps a flask on her person at all times. Her satchel has 3 Grey Goose minis, and a water bottle she is almost positive isn't actual water. This is mildly worrying. The near lack of booze, not the fact that she is 100% dehydrated.
[Basic hygiene supplies] ♥ The apocalypse is no reason to have bad breath and dirty teeth. Her deodorant will last, but she'll need new toothpaste and floss soon, though.
[Hormones] ♥ Her little group raided a pharmacy some time ago-- while she never particularly liked the idea of looting, she does know her hormone implant only has about 2 years left, if she's lucky. The hormones the place had were practically untouched. She grabbed a few bottles of spironolactone and estradiol to keep in her purse, just in case things don't go back to normal before then.
[... Other assorted pills] ♥ Well, in for a penny in for a pound, right? If she's going to steal the titty skittles, may as well take some of the fun stuff, as well. It's not like she can call her dealer up for these things! The place they hit up had been fairly cleaned through before they got there, but she knew of some more obscure downers that had been looked over that provide a passable high. These actually on her person or with her clothes-- her therapist's kid has about 6 months worth in one of his bags at recommended use, but she (and the kid, on occasion) take more than the doctor recommended amount, just a little, of course. They have 2 months between them. If they're lucky.
OTHER
"Really, I think we should just find some abandoned weed farm in the woods and wait this out."
Her favorite song is 'Love is Blue' and she considers the Breakfast at Tiffany's soundtrack the greatest film score, and a huge inspiration in her own sound design. Avant Garde Jazz musicians are her favorites. She very much values complexity and unique theming in her music.
That being said, she would unironically put this kind of thing on loop for 37 hours with zero hesitation.
"Looking good ♥"
... Or Hattie, it's not that big of a deal
╚═══════★═══════╝
"Bruh, traffic downtown has NEVER been this good."
[ 16 | 5' 7"/170 cm | Mostly Black | He/Him | 136 lbs/62 kg ]
APPEARANCE
"Shit, man. I like what I like."
Riley is a lithe, lightly tan-skinned teenager with well maintained, midnight black locs that reach anywhere from shoulder length to halfway down his back, often further braided or kept in messy buns in an effort to keep his eyes clear. His body is of a build that exists somewhere between muscular and lanky-- he would call it 'otter mode'-- still, he is naturally very thin, despite his muscle he is rather unassuming. His face is a perfect blend of his father and his mother; with caramel skin, freckles, and smouldering hazel-green eyes coming from his mother, contrasted with full lips, a prominent nose, and 4C hair directly from his father. Many have described him as being somewhat feminine in appearance, while this happens less frequently as he's gets older, people mistook him for a girl regularly when he was little and his mother's 'soft' features were more prominent. Hoping to fix this somewhat, and not get rid of his hair, he he's been hoping to grow some facial hair. Right now, sadly, to no avail.
As far as fashion goes, he is most easily described as a 'punk.' However, he tends to not get too extravagant with it, dressing as plainly as possible. Go-to options include plain black or white T-shirts, sleeves rolled up or outright cut off-- stolen, of course, black jeans, slim and long, heavily thrifted and usually only kept together by his skill with a needle and thread, and an incredibly reliable pair of doc martin boots he's had since middle school, skidded up to hell and back. While those are interchangeable, his two staple articles of clothing include a black, military-style hat, and more recently an oversized leather jacket.
Both items are unique to him in that, at any time he'll have sewn multiple patches on, or attached any variety of buttons-- any color in his fashion comes from these. The jacket has been particularly altered to have increased functionality. Notable, among various patches and buttons for local bands or revolutionary slogans, is a personally constructed recreation of the Black Panther Party logo made against the black leather using white thread and floss, and a fairly large black crow, with a thorny red rose held in it's beak, a design of his own creation, made using similar methods and homemade dyes. The jacket, while newer, shows signs of wear from how frequently it is worn-- it it's not worn directly on his body, he's got it wrapped around his waist. The hat is also clearly worn, from being near constantly used for over 5 years, were it not for the alterations, the thing would have fallen apart.
The only other physical aspects of note are a chipped canine tooth from an incident post-mist, and nose and ear piercings as well as small tattoos on his lower legs, not professionally done, certainly not approved of by his father.
PSYCHOLOGY
"Psych wasn't really my subject, man."
MAIN GOAL ★ He wants to do whatever he can to help keep everyone alive and protect the people he cares about. To see his mother and her side of the family again. To see his friends again. He just met Maya, but it would kill him if anything happened to her. He even wants see his father's side of the family in deadass nowhere Georgia again.
PHILOSOPHY ★ Riley believes, perhaps too optimistically, that people can organize to get through this. That everyone has things they want to protect, things they've lost-- by working together and organizing, things can be better for everyone.
SECRETS ★ Self-done tattoos from his father. He picks up on things his father and most adults may think he doesn't. His drug and alcohol use-- you guessed it, from his father.
SEXUALITY ★ Heterosexual. Though, his talks with Maya have made him think on it.
FEARS ★ Being a hindrance. Failing to protect or help anyone.
QUIRKS ★ Jokes when nervous. Almost never seen without a hat-- hence, 'Hattie.'
FLAWS ★ Questioning authority, while useful, does have its drawbacks-- for Riley, this borders on fanatic rejection of almost any authority figure. Can fall into flights of idealism. Him being quick on the uptake leads to over confidence, combined with his age and general inexperience-- this can lead to a lot of failures for him. He hasn't fully developed many of his skills and talents due to both to that youthful inexperience and his general slacker-like nature.
BACKSTORY
"My old truancy officer had a right hook from Satan himself, I bet he could take on these demons. But y'all ain't ready for that take yet."
Riley's father wasn't always a hotshot celebrity therapist able to afford a comfortable life for him and his son. No, before Riley was born, Doctor Lacey was actually a student at UCLA-- in his 40's, the man clearly stuck out from his peers, but more than his age-- his fierce dedication to earning himself a doctorate, while getting practically no sleep as he worked to keep his lights on while doing so, earned the attention of many of his professors. One in particular, a sociology professor interested in the vet who wanted to help his fellow soldiers suffering from PTSD, took a very keen interest. One thing led to another-- and the affair became a full on relationship-- following the spark of love, came a baby, then came marriage.
The first years of Riley's life were relatively normal. His mother and father loved him, and he loved them back. He was a precocious child, gifted in many ways, some may say-- with as much of a talent for learning as his father and just as kind and passionate about causes as his mother. As he grew though, his parents had less and less time for him-- his father graduating and going on to throw himself in his work, "saving the soldiers" as he would call it, and his mother became tenured leaving her even less time with the family. This bothered him at first-- but he learned to live with it-- supplementing the lack of affection with his extended family and friends he could do stupid things with.
The divorce between the parents was amicable, sparked by his mother accepting a position halfway across the country at some ivy league school and his father growing his firm fully dedicated to helping vets and PTSD sufferers, requiring him to take on high profile clients and celebrities to supplement the lack of income from some of the poorer vets and homeless clients his office would help. They both were further engrossed in their work-- his father made sure Riley knew not to blame himself. Instead, Riley came to blame the system that made things this way, one should be able to help people while still living in the moment, enjoying life for themselves-- this reading of the situation would strongly influence the person he would become in the following years.
While initially the parents wanted some flavor of joint custody-- the two agreed it would be better for Riley to spend more time in California, with his friends. Every other summer he would visit his his mother, who, to her credit, would have ample time for him since school was out. His time spent with his father, however? It wasn't really time spent with him-- Riley had been fairly self-sufficient from a young age due to how much his parents worked, but after the divorce Riley almost never saw his father unless he was passing out from work, or grabbing a coffee before heading in. Riley spent most of this time out with his friends, going to concerts, drinking or smoking, or otherwise doing some 'delinquent hood shit' as he would call it. His interactions with his father came in doing little thing, like preparing meals for him, doing his laundry, or otherwise taking care of him in some way. The nature of their relationship, to Riley, at least, was less that of a father/son and more like two roommates taking care of each other, which Riley actually liked quite a bit. The only time his father ever chastised Riley was when he got his piercings, and even then, it was mostly light chiding due to how tired the older man was.
From the day he got his permit on, Riley was picking up and dropping off his father at work. In fact, that's what he was doing when the mist came. His father was with some producer lady-- things were so bad she got in the car with them. And they've been together ever since.
SKILLS & TALENTS
"Is crushing mad poon a talent?"
[Naturally talented driver] ★ Riley was first put behind the wheel, at his own insistence, as early as 13-- while his father and mother couldn't always make the time to give him lessons, he took the few he got in stride. Easily earning his learner's permit at 15. He became his father's personal chauffeur, as well as the designated driver for many of his friends. His driving can be characterized as very defensive and fluid, capable of maneuvering quickly in cumbersome vehicles. He's been driving regularly for a little over a year now, and this is easily his most developed skill.
[Decent cook] ★ In growing up the way he did, he had to learn how to make meals for himself very early on-- later even doing most of the household shopping by himself. As such, he can whip up tasty meals with little fuss. Though, he tends to focus more on taste than nutritional value in his meals.
[Amateur mechanic] ★ He has some idea of the fundamentals for repairing motor vehicles and doesn't mind getting dirty under the hood. One summer, he and his friends fixed up a moped purely out of boredom. There's some overlap there, but it's mostly apples to oranges. And his self-taught patchwork repairs are no substitute for an actual trained professional.
[Sewing] ★ A skill learned from his time with the crusty kids. So long as he's got a needle-- he can perform basic alterations, repair most rips and tears, and sew in fairly professional looking patterns.
[Physically active] ★ You skip classes to smoke some pot with your friends enough times, and you'll run into trouble with the law. Luckily, Riley is physically active and fairly quick on his feet.
[Excellent eyesight] ★ This is inherited directly from his father who also had a marksman's eyes when he was young. Riley doesn't have the training or practice his father did, that made the man capable enough that he could have been a sniper with the rangers-- but the boy's sharp eyesight does help in various ways. Since the mist, he's grown accustomed to driving at night without lights on and has good enough visual acuity that he can notice things far in the distance before others.
[Misc. Skills] ★ Riley, in addition to his more practical skills and talents, does have a few situational skills he brings to the table; Notably, he is a talented artist, with an eye for graffiti and design. Another skill picked up from the older punks is DIY tattooing and piercings-- currently he's limited by only knowing how to make black ink, as well as using a held sterile needle instead of a gun. His designs for tattoos need to be simple and small as a result of this, but he has a few permanent reminders on his body that he does know what he's doing. Hairdressing is another talent of his, maintaining his locs is something his extended family taught him when he was very young, and he currently serves as his father's barber. In the time before the mist, Riley was good enough at shoplifting to either not get caught, or at least be in a good enough of a position to run away from security when he did. Lastly, while not an official skill with much use in combat, Riley was decent at a game he and his friends used to play, in which they would get high stab at each other's hands with knives. Usually switchblades-- his is currently held by Maya, though.
EQUIPMENT & GEAR
"I guess I really got in my bag... Ugh, I'm sorry."
[2017 Cadillac SUV] ★ This is, for all intents and purposes, Riley's car. It's his baby, and the overuse and strain it's seen since all of this started is killing him. He can give basic repairs-- but it's giving out soon-- he's good enough to at least diagnose the various issues, and repairs he can't make. He'll be sad when it finally goes. It's terrible what's happening, sure, but the freedom he's had on the road since this all began is something he could only dream of before. Inside the car he keeps a few cans of food, some spices, two changes of clothes, and some cleaning/hygiene or keeping the clothes and himself from smelling too bad.
[Bags] ★ Both black, with one clearly designed for students, and the other travel. The big one contains 4 rolls of duck-tape, a roll of toilet paper, a multi-tool, sharpies, pens, and a notepad, needles and thread, a tube for siphoning gas, a length of wire, two bottles of water, assorted spice packs from ramen and sauce packets from entirely too many fast food places, as well as silverware both metal and plastic, a nearly empty travel container of hand sanitizer-- and a well read book of poetry. The smaller, is less filled, it's got more pills than Riley would care to mention-- he was always a weed person before all this, so he doesn't really use them to get high while scavenging or driving-- but they do reliably help him get to sleep. He's holding the bag for Maya because he's worried she may just OD if she had it to herself.
[Leather jacket] ★ Cumbersome in the desert sun, perhaps. But this jacket is invaluable for keeping warm at night. It's a sturdy enough leather to keep you protected from scrapes and cuts when you fall, and he has further altered it to include many more pockets in the interior than it originally had, allowing him to keep all kinds of things on his person. They range from things like an adjustable wrench and lighters to his car keys and his phone and charger, he's even got some candy and a few emergency joints squirreled away.
OTHER
"I only like Death Grips ironically."
A few songs from a typical Hattie playlist:
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"I'll say this much-- we weren't trained for this in basic."
[ 59 | 6'/183 cm | Black | He/Him | 230 lbs/104 kg ]
APPEARANCE
"I uhh... I make due."
Tom Lacey, quite obviously from his graying hair and the chocolate tone of his skin, is a bit of an unassuming older black man. He's very much got a bit of an "average" face, mostly unremarkable, save for his near-sight alleviating glasses and a well maintained salt and pepper beard. Physically, he's a bit pudgy, most noticeably the beginnings of a small gut-- (very much a 'dad bod' as his son would say), though his arms and legs still posses muscle from his time in the armed forces. He's bespectacled, he's balding, and despite this, he could pass as younger than middle aged, were it not for the tired gleam one can clearly see from his eyes. Years spent working in exhausting jobs or studying so that he can work, compromising to build up something he truly believed in, only to have it all come crumbling down-- have taken a toll on the youthful glow that runs in his family.
Perhaps as a result of all of his friends who aren't vets being teachers-- Tom dresses like a bit of a college professor. He wears thin sweaters with shoulder pads over button down shirts, slacks or khakis, patterned socks, and some flavor of pleather loafer. Though, since the mist, he tends to forgo layers, either wearing only the button down or the sweater. He favors dark, neutral colors, dark beige, brown, navy, olive and the like-- with white being the only exception. It is very rare for his tops to have any kind of design, he likes monochrome simplicity. Since beginning to traverse the desert regularly, he dons whatever brimmed hat he can find to protect against the sun. The man does have more than a few scars from his time in active duty, though, he keeps these hidden with his clothes-- his most revealing display is rolling up the sleeves of his button-down or sweater, to which a few scars may be visible. He doesn't like talking about them.
Like any esteemed older gentleman, he goes absolutely crazy for sweater vests and Hawaiian shirts.
PSYCHOLOGY
"This is kind of my thing."
MAIN GOAL Achieving stability.
PHILOSOPHY After losing everything he'd worked years to achieve, Tom focuses less on protecting the world, or broad concepts like that. He can work with individuals-- that, he understands. Right now, the individuals are his son, and one of his former patients. He would sooner die than see any harm come to them.
SECRETS He keeps much of what he has seen in the service a secret. He is fairly tight lipped about the time between being discharged and earning his doctorate.
SEXUALITY Heterosexual.
FEARS Failing.
QUIRKS PTSD.
FLAWS He doesn't like talking about himself, which he knows means some people will be less likely to trust him. He tends to apply therapeutic solutions to more problems that it may apply to. He doesn't practice what he preaches all the time when it comes to his therapy, as he hasn't particularly worked through many of his issues and trauma. Can act impulsively when people he's invested in are threatened.
BACKSTORY
"There are some wounds that don't heal."
What Riley knows of his father is only half the story.
Tom Lacey was born some decades ago to a large but poor family in a small rural town in southern Georgia. His childhood was relatively normal-- he was known for being bright as he grew up and took to his studies with a vigor his siblings and cousins couldn't replicate. He was certainly a citizen of the times and his location, and saw some unsavory attitudes and actions committed by those who saw him as lesser simply because of the shade of his skin. But he was happy, and he still believed in the American Dream in spite of this. So, logically, once he graduated from high school, believing further academia wasn't an option for him, he joined the Army.
His results from the ASVAB, as well as his natural talent with various training meant he has his pick of jobs-- many times it was mentioned he could have excelled as a special operative, or ranger-- his incredible eyesight and aptitude for marksmanship made him a natural candidate. But he always had his eyesight set on the medical path-- his argument was that there was no point in being good at killing, if there was no one there to help you when you got shot at. And shot at he did get. The death and suffering he witnessed during his years in service have left him with scars he might never recover from. It's not that he doesn't believe in the country, or even the Army anymore. So much that, he saw it's effect on people, in particular his brother and sisters first hand.
Coming back home, he found himself unable to reintegrate into civilian life. At first his family was supportive, but with time even they grew cold, not knowing what they could do to help him. Eventually, he made like Otis Redding, and left Georgia to move in with a unit member of his in San Francisco. There he stayed for years, spending much of his time with his new roommate drunk, or high, wasting time and his body. It wasn't until his roommate died from an OD-- something he hadn't considered could happen outside of the shit-- that he got his act together. With a bit of help from the VA, he got himself in school-- starting with an associates from community college, he worked his way up to earning a doctorate. Just like he thought when he first became a medic, he wanted to support the soldiers who made it home-- mentally now, not physically.
A few years later-- add in an affair or two, a kid, a marriage, and an office of therapists that rely on him for support and guidance-- and you've got the overworked mess that is Tom Lacey. At least, you did until everything went to hell, and he was in the shit all over again.
SKILLS & TALENTS
"Everyone brings something to the table."
[Licensed therapist] Tom is more than familiar with the horrors of combat and the traumatic specter of PTSD. As a therapist, he specialized in helping his patients work through trauma, though his talk therapy can be used to work through many issues.
[Combat medic] Tom blew the ASVAB away, as well as his AIT, excelling as a combat medic with his unit. Firing a weapon was a weak point for him, but he was always willing to rush into the line of fire to save his brothers and sisters (earning him more than a few scars and brushes with death). His specialty was stabilizing wounds while under fire and under-supplied.
[Old soldier] At the end of the day, despite it being decades ago, Tom was a soldier, a notable enough infantry medic that he could have gone on to special ops if he wanted. While his body is no longer in it's prime, and he doesn't remember everything. Some things stuck with him like muscle memory.
EQUIPMENT & GEAR
"You know how it is, with the back and all."
[2017 Cadillac SUV] Not the navigator or repairmen, and certainly not the driver, (he's had his fill, thanks) Tom is the group's lookout, often sleeping during drives and staying up whenever the other two park to get some sleep. If his son wants to handle the driving-- he figures it only benefits them all, and he's glad he got this overpriced ride for that alone. He's not the pack mule he once was, and hasn't really taken to scavenging like his son has, and such keeps pretty much all of his gear in the car. This is mostly clothes, he has the second most changes of clothes of the three of them, though this is still only about a third of Maya's supply. Aside from that, he has his own hygiene products, and has socked away a few rolls of toilet paper and some food from the communal supply for his own use.
[Sturdy pipes] Near the beginning-- Tom and co. were riding through what seemed like abandoned suburbs, looking for others. Eventually Maya and Riley went to look for anything useful, while Tom kept back, He picked up two thick copper, oxidizing green from their time spent without use, from a nearby construction site as he kept his eyes on the road. Giving them a few test swings in the air, he noticed a figure skulking toward the building Maya and Riley were in-- he stopped himself from excitedly calling out when he noticed the gun the figure was holding. Not caring to see what might happen next, he acted on fatherly instinct and old soldier's training-- coming up from behind and subduing the man, despite the risks. By the time the other two came back from their sweep-- the trio had a great lesson about taking more precautions in this brave, new world. They haven't left his side since that incident, when not holding them, he keeps them tucked between his belt and pants. The pipes screw into one another, allowing them to serve as twin bats, or a single spear if Tom wishes-- Riley filed down one of the ends to increase lethality as a spear.
[1911 .45 Pistol] The trio unanimously decided Tom should be the one to hold on to the pistol. He had been particularly fond of gun play in the Army, but he was the only one with actual training. The pistol is all black, and visibly old. Tom has done what he can to maintain it since acquiring it, but an old gun is still an old gun. The magazine had 5 bullets left when they first got it, and since then, Tom has only needed to fire the gun once. Typically it is kept in the glove box if he's near the car, since he doesn't care for having it on him without a holster.
OTHER
"Trauma responses are natural. But remember, we don't have to let them live our lives for us."
The good doctor's favorite artist is Prince (RIP). But he's also fond of Bowie, Janis Joplin, and Deep Purple when winding down. He has a real weakness for 'Dad Rock' and crime dramas.
kapuchu
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