"You used to mistrust Arms Masters too, but chose to become one as a sacrifice for your country. As for myself, I gained my own Noble Arm after realizing that my previous side - The Disablers - and the Hammer of Masters were merely two ends of a cycle of revenge. I admire your willingness to put the good of others above one's personal... stances; thank you for coming to our aid."
The Liberator gave Myron a subtle, but piercing side-eye as the thanks, which came across as quite backhanded, left Myron's lips. "Mister Makaraig, with all due respect, please don't equate our service histories. I'm going to have to side with Baalphegor here- it seems like supremely bad praxis to talk about this sort of thing out in the open, especially knowing what enemy Arms Masters are capable of when they have you their sights. I'm very, very open to a mixer and getting to know everyone here, because you all seem like reasonably pleasant people, but our individual backgrounds should stay as things to be discussed in private."
As for whatever was going on with Kaitlyn, The Liberator gleaned enough from her vitals to know that she wasn't in any danger of injury or death, and once she popped her medication, he was fully dissuaded from intervening altogether- nevermind the fact that her heart was thumping like a fucking jackrabbit's every time she looked his way. He could literally smell the cortisol coming off of her like petrichor after a harsh bout of rain; she was terrified of him. If this wasn't the default emotion most of his handlers displayed in front of him, he'd be pushed to feel a little worse, but part of being the best gun around was learning to be perceived as one.
She glanced at Everett Gilman, the (in)famous Liberator, darling miracle child of America's fumblings with Occult Programming Language, and wordlessly inclined her chin. One could perhaps call her interjection a kind of olive branch to the walking advertisement for patriotic American Superiority, despite that in nearly any other setting, she might as well have been the Lex Luthor to his Superman. For now, however, they were nominal allies, and she intended to convey as much.
Everett smiled warmly at Baalphegor- his icy blue eyes softening enough to show that he did sincerely appreciate their allyship with one another. Part of him hoped he could be friends with most of this Task Force; he'd long had his fill of overly-formal lieutenants and generals tripping over eggshells because they were afraid he'd laser them even though hadn't for a second shown that it was a reasonable thing to fear.
More importantly, one of Myron’s statements stood out to her. She leaned slightly towards The Liberator. “You used to dislike Arms Wielders?” She asked, curious rather than judgmental. “What changed?”
Turning away from the group slightly and shifting his body towards her, The Liberator gave Peony most of his attention when he heard her pipe up. "My responsibilities. Becoming what I used to fear forced me to look into that world- y'know, the world of Arms Masters, and it turned out that most of 'em weren't psychopaths with nukes, so to speak. They're people with a lot of hard power tied to them, but still just people in the end. There's good, there's bad, and there's gray, just like there is with those that don't have NAs." He then looked back at the group, and exerted his x-ray vision and super senses at a small scale, just to gauge how everyone here was feeling about each other and also in case they'd invited unwanted attention. "What's with the guys up on the buildings? They with us?", he asked, voice casual but stern as he scanned the horizon and saw Baalphegor's security through the walls of their respective hiding spots.
Fort Richardson, Anchorage, Alaska, United States of America - 12/31/2023, 2:00 PM, UTC-8
As The Liberator stepped into one of the base's conference rooms, an ever-permeating tension filled the air, making it almost thick enough to cut through like jelly. There was very little substance to the feelings of surrounding personnel- after all, Everett had done everything in his power to make himself seem affable, but it was human nature that came to bite him in the ass once again. After all, humans instinctively feared uncontrollable variables, and he was a walking, talking example of one.
"Liberator- glad you could make it. Please, have a seat anywhere.", said the presenter, voice slightly edgy.
What followed was what felt like an eternally-long debrief on Task Force Obsidian; their members, leadership, command structure, all that good stuff. It was evident that they were powerful, but as the conference went on longer, it was also apparent that the power they held, however vast, required assistance from somewhere. That was, naturally, where he came in. Why wouldn't it be? It made sense that their top domestic asset was converted into their only international one. It was simple law of the jungle.
Once it was all over, the same presented asked the same question he'd heard hundreds of times in his career. "Any questions regarding your objective?"
"Nope, all clear. Thank you.", he said before excusing himself from the room. Opening the double doors without more than a slight tap, he then made his way to the canteen at enhanced, but not quite super speeds, taking his time to serve himself what would likely be his last meal on American soil for a long time. Grilled chicken with seasoned rice and mixed vegetables was hardly a bad meal choice, and it was this that he took to an empty table and ate slowly, making sure to take his time to savor the dish.
After finishing it, he checked his watch, and upon seeing that it now read 5:30 PM, he quickly tossed the disposable tray into the garbage and headed to the nearest clearing without much else but a wave in the way of goodbyes; unfortunately, the meeting and his meal had gone on way longer than expected and he was about to be late, so without much thought, he manifested his Noble Arm and practically threw himself into the sky, breaking the sound barrier once it was safe to and speeding up ridiculously once he reached the stratosphere.
Since he was relatively skilled at geography, pinpointing Luzon wasn't exactly difficult once he ascended enough for his standard vision to be undisturbed by cloud cover. Remembering where Pampanga and Lubao were was a bit more difficult, though, so even though he'd taken around six minutes to arrive, he took another nine to actually find the meeting spot once he began flying lower.
Sightings would've been reported far before that, though, so Obsidian likely knew he was in the area before he finally spotted the restaurant from about five kilometers up. In order to land, The Liberator simply allowed himself to freefall downwards, making sure to keep his feet pointed at the ground like a cliff diver before kneeling down and touching his fist to the ground the split-second he landed in order to execute a perfect superhero landing.
As a plus, he also subtracted all of the momentum he'd generated so he didn't pothole the ground he landed on; a detail that was not seen nor felt by anyone other than him, but would probably be helpful in a minor way; like not getting the party banned from the restaurant. It was then that, after seeing a familiar face from the debrief, he introduced himself, giving the Task Force a small wave before smoothing his collar and adjusting his cape.
"Hey there! I take it you wonderful people are gonna be the ones I'll be working with for the foreseeable future. I'm The Liberator- you should have had all the other stuff you needed to know sent to you a few days ago, so I won't go on boring you with extra details you've probably already seen." he said before pulling up a chair and taking a seat on it. "So... what's good here? No, seriously, I've never been to this particular restaurant -or country- before."
Everett’s Noble Arms take the form of two golden knuckle dusters that are usually worn over his suit’s gauntlets. They’re themed after an eagle with its wings spread, with the body of the eagle being in the centre and the wings serving as the main “impact surfaces” of the dusters.
Power: A- Speed: B+ Range: A- Persistence: A (?) Precision: B Potential: G
Noble Arm Type, Element, and Range: DPS/Tank Hybrid | American Superiority | Variable Range
Noble Arm Abilities:
Air Force One: Everett’s attack speed and agility scales proportionally to his enemies’ as long as he is actively focusing on them. His max travel speed hasn’t been properly measured, but is estimated to be massively hypersonic at its peak, although his Noble Arm artificially decelerates him to a top speed of 60 mph in active conflict zones if he isn’t locked onto anyone. Lastly, he can alter his own momentum, making him able to achieve and brake from incredible speeds on a dime.
America’s Constitution: Everett’s body is much tougher than most other Arms Masters’. He can lift a Ford-class carrier overhead, survive nuclear bombardment, and hold his breath for a day while also requiring elephantine amounts of highly potent drugs to knock out. Furthermore, his senses are sharp enough to filter individual persons, sounds, or smells up to 20 kilometers away, with x-ray vision that can see through anything that isn’t lead-lined. However, his senses are so fine-tuned that it is fairly easy to overwhelm them with sufficiently advanced crowd control weapons like sonic devices or high-powered strobes, as they cause him enough pain to render him unconscious within 3 turns of exposure.
Freedom’s Beacons: Everett has heat vision that is effective up to his visual range limit of 20 kilometers. It is laser-accurate and can cut through almost anything, but can only be fired for 3 turns before requiring a 5-turn cooldown. He can alternatively recover a charge of heat vision in exchange for 1 full turn of non-use in order to avoid the lengthiness of a full recharge.
Misc Abilities:
Home Cook: Everett is well-versed in cooking numerous types of foods from the southern United States. He's particularly good with a grill, with a talent for making barbecue good enough that some think it should count as a superpower in and of itself.
Car Guy: Unsurprisingly, the American superhero knows a lot about cars. More than most people, at least. He's no mechanic, but his engineering background and hands-on experience courtesy of his father makes him able to perform diagnostics and repairs that are outside of the skillset of most laymen.
All-Star: Having played American football, soccer, and volleyball in high school, Everett knows his way around most ball sports. His specialty is football, as he managed to get good enough to represent his school at the state level when he was a teen.
Personality: Everett is a pragmatic humanitarian when he's on the job. While he thinks in terms of what would be the quickest and cleanest solution to a problem, he additionally weighs the fallout of it in ways most other military men neglect- where they see statistics, he sees hurt or dead people he could avoid if he took another route, and will oftentimes adjust or modify what he needs to do in order to minimize collateral. He will also comfort distressed people where possible in the interest of keeping the peace. It's hard to imagine him as a powerful Arms Master when he's in civilian garb, though. He allows the Liberator 'persona' to dissolve when he's living as a human, and tends to be quite pleasant and more 'real' when speaking as a result because his statements aren't overanalyzed. Most of the time, he enjoys talking about programs he enjoys or books he's read, with a penchant for making pop culture references and terrible jokes. He's a solid man, all things considered, though his age is definitely notable.
Everett’s life was fairly normal until around 16 years ago. After graduating valedictorian from his high school and receiving a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, he made the choice to try out for the U.S. Army Special Forces by way of an 18X contract at 22, allowing him to simply drop into their highly-selective pipeline. He passed all required courses with flying colors, emerging from the grueling trials with the right to call himself a Green Beret. However, despite the harsh and lengthy process that proving himself turned out to be, the worst would prove to be far from behind him. His first couple of deployments were nothing special; he dismantled paramilitary cells, executed terror group leaders, and trained his detachment in the use of various foreign and domestic weapons platforms. But these organizations, however dangerous, were all led and staffed by mundane humans; a fact that made each mission painfully boring to him since all he had to do was calibrate a given weapon, aim it, and push a button once his squadmates gave the okay. All in all, he considered it a very uninvolved and slightly cowardly affair.
This would change once he was authorized to join deployments that involved (and targeted) Arms Masters directly. Suddenly, he was given systems enhanced by the OPL– tech so hot off the presses at DARPA that the rest of the world took another decade to catch up with the formation of the Paragons. During this time, he’d also find out about the existence of numerous Arms Master-led organizations and receive debriefs on their at-the-time most dangerous group, the Hammer of Masters. Said experiences planted a small fear of Arms Masters in his mind, which translated into an extremely cutthroat attitude when performing his duties in the field; to him, enemy Arms Masters were walking, unregulated time bombs, whereas allied ones were always potential enemies that needed to be closely monitored. This was exacerbated when he was assigned to one of the first OPL-enhanced mech squadrons ever fielded– a decision that cost the Americans a very sizable chunk of intel due to his tendency to outright kill enemy Arms Masters unless specifically instructed otherwise.
Unfortunately, his very palpable prejudice against Arms Masters alienated him from some of the most influential members of his detachment because they considered him rash and overly paranoid, which resulted in his squad leader requesting his reassignment in late 2015. However, they wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing his career crumble alone, as come 2016, the new President had every military asset abroad pulled from their posts and reassigned to domestic affairs. Troops moved back home, military bases were closed down, and the nation that had once been the World Police unexpectedly began looking inward. Normally, this would’ve been a career-ender, with Everett stuck in reserves writing books about his experiences. But someone– or rather, a group of people, watched him carefully during his deployments as part of something far greater than a single SF detachment.
The data they collected made him stick out to exactly the right people in his local chain of command, and so, he was chosen to be a test subject for DARPA’s Project Hoplite only a few years after the US’s new isolationist policy began. Hoplite was an experimental Noble Arm-related black project that finished field testing in late 2018 after a 30-year development period, and was based on experimental OPL-enhanced alloy technology that managed to produce an amorphous, ‘blank’ proto-NA made of ‘living’ metal. The core mechanic of Hoplite was that the blank NA would tap into a prospective wielder’s soul through its OPL-enhanced matrix to force a manifestation event that would identify the proto-NA as the its willpower conduit, causing the ‘template’ to assume the shape and abilities desired by it. Once completed, the project was to be used to create 4 artificially-made Arms Masters in total as part of an experimental super-soldier program that would slot them into different detachments across all SF branches in order to further bolster American military dominance.
What made Everett different from the other candidates was the unique power suite his soul manifested. Even though Hoplite had no rank-dampening flaws, his abilities were measured as having the highest potential out of all the other subjects by a long shot, effectively shifting the project's focus away from the 3 other subjects and onto him specifically. He was initially extremely resistant to the idea of being labeled an Arms Master, but after the government promised him a sorely-needed increase in pay that'd lift him out of "struggling" and into "well off" territory, he acquiesced. What followed was four years of image-building through a carefully-curated debut that included a flawless first save, an impeccable speech after the fact, and continued top-tier performance where the margin of error was razor-thin and lives were at stake in the hundreds or thousands.
As a result, he became a top-tier domestic asset that was eventually called upon to serve overseas when the President realized America was getting way too much negative PR; largely because Everett was essentially a walking solution to the dilemma of sending his own countrymen to die for foreign interests. After all, someone as powerful and trained as him would only be able to fall due to extraordinary carelessness. He was thus ordered to tend to the ASEAN War; specifically to help the coalition while they were busy recovering after a notable victory against the Chinese. Everett has since been transferred to Task Force Obsidian to aid in this endeavor due to their high concentration of powerful Arms Masters, making it even more likely in the American President’s eyes that he’ll help them recover their long-lost image as the world’s premier military and industrial powerhouse.
Current Goal: To salvage whatever’s left of America’s international reputation.
Military or Civilian Rank: Arms Master General (N-10, RL Equivalent to O-10)
Everett’s Noble Arms take the form of two golden knuckle dusters that are usually worn over his suit’s gauntlets. They’re themed after an eagle with its wings spread, with the body of the eagle being in the centre and the wings serving as the main “impact surfaces” of the dusters.
Power: A- Speed: B+ Range: A- Persistence: A (?) Precision: B Potential: G
Noble Arm Type, Element, and Range: DPS/Tank Hybrid | American Superiority | Variable Range
Noble Arm Abilities:
Air Force One: Everett’s attack speed and agility scales proportionally to his enemies’ as long as he is actively focusing on them. His max travel speed hasn’t been properly measured, but is estimated to be massively hypersonic at its peak, although his Noble Arm artificially decelerates him to a top speed of 60 mph in active conflict zones if he isn’t locked onto anyone. Lastly, he can alter his own momentum, making him able to achieve and brake from incredible speeds on a dime.
America’s Constitution: Everett’s body is much tougher than most other Arms Masters’. He can lift a Ford-class carrier overhead, survive nuclear bombardment, and hold his breath for a day while also requiring elephantine amounts of highly potent drugs to knock out. Furthermore, his senses are sharp enough to filter individual persons, sounds, or smells up to 20 kilometers away, with x-ray vision that can see through anything that isn’t lead-lined. However, his senses are so fine-tuned that it is fairly easy to overwhelm them with sufficiently advanced crowd control weapons like sonic devices or high-powered strobes, as they cause him enough pain to render him unconscious within 3 turns of exposure.
Freedom’s Beacons: Everett has heat vision that is effective up to his visual range limit of 20 kilometers. It is laser-accurate and can cut through almost anything, but can only be fired for 3 turns before requiring a 5-turn cooldown. He can alternatively recover a charge of heat vision in exchange for 1 full turn of non-use in order to avoid the lengthiness of a full recharge.
Misc Abilities:
Home Cook: Everett is well-versed in cooking numerous types of foods from the southern United States. He's particularly good with a grill, with a talent for making barbecue good enough that some think it should count as a superpower in and of itself.
Car Guy: Unsurprisingly, the American superhero knows a lot about cars. More than most people, at least. He's no mechanic, but his engineering background and hands-on experience courtesy of his father makes him able to perform diagnostics and repairs that are outside of the skillset of most laymen.
All-Star: Having played American football, soccer, and volleyball in high school, Everett knows his way around most ball sports. His specialty is football, as he managed to get good enough to represent his school at the state level when he was a teen.
Personality: Everett is a pragmatic humanitarian when he's on the job. While he thinks in terms of what would be the quickest and cleanest solution to a problem, he additionally weighs the fallout of it in ways most other military men neglect- where they see statistics, he sees hurt or dead people he could avoid if he took another route, and will oftentimes adjust or modify what he needs to do in order to minimize collateral. He will also comfort distressed people where possible in the interest of keeping the peace. It's hard to imagine him as a powerful Arms Master when he's in civilian garb, though. He allows the Liberator 'persona' to dissolve when he's living as a human, and tends to be quite pleasant and more 'real' when speaking as a result because his statements aren't overanalyzed. Most of the time, he enjoys talking about programs he enjoys or books he's read, with a penchant for making pop culture references and terrible jokes. He's a solid man, all things considered, though his age is definitely notable.
Everett’s life was fairly normal until around 16 years ago. After graduating valedictorian from his high school and receiving a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, he made the choice to try out for the U.S. Army Special Forces by way of an 18X contract at 22, allowing him to simply drop into their highly-selective pipeline. He passed all required courses with flying colors, emerging from the grueling trials with the right to call himself a Green Beret. However, despite the harsh and lengthy process that proving himself turned out to be, the worst would prove to be far from behind him. His first couple of deployments were nothing special; he dismantled paramilitary cells, executed terror group leaders, and trained his detachment in the use of various foreign and domestic weapons platforms. But these organizations, however dangerous, were all led and staffed by mundane humans; a fact that made each mission painfully boring to him since all he had to do was calibrate a given weapon, aim it, and push a button once his squadmates gave the okay. All in all, he considered it a very uninvolved and slightly cowardly affair.
This would change once he was authorized to join deployments that involved (and targeted) Arms Masters directly. Suddenly, he was given systems enhanced by the OPL– tech so hot off the presses at DARPA that the rest of the world took another decade to catch up with the formation of the Paragons. During this time, he’d also find out about the existence of numerous Arms Master-led organizations and receive debriefs on their at-the-time most dangerous group, the Hammer of Masters. Said experiences planted a small fear of Arms Masters in his mind, which translated into an extremely cutthroat attitude when performing his duties in the field; to him, enemy Arms Masters were walking, unregulated time bombs, whereas allied ones were always potential enemies that needed to be closely monitored. This was exacerbated when he was assigned to one of the first OPL-enhanced mech squadrons ever fielded– a decision that cost the Americans a very sizable chunk of intel due to his tendency to outright kill enemy Arms Masters unless specifically instructed otherwise.
Unfortunately, his very palpable prejudice against Arms Masters alienated him from some of the most influential members of his detachment because they considered him rash and overly paranoid, which resulted in his squad leader requesting his reassignment in late 2015. However, they wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing his career crumble alone, as come 2016, the new President had every military asset abroad pulled from their posts and reassigned to domestic affairs. Troops moved back home, military bases were closed down, and the nation that had once been the World Police unexpectedly began looking inward. Normally, this would’ve been a career-ender, with Everett stuck in reserves writing books about his experiences. But someone– or rather, a group of people, watched him carefully during his deployments as part of something far greater than a single SF detachment.
The data they collected made him stick out to exactly the right people in his local chain of command, and so, he was chosen to be a test subject for DARPA’s Project Hoplite only a few years after the US’s new isolationist policy began. Hoplite was an experimental Noble Arm-related black project that finished field testing in late 2018 after a 30-year development period, and was based on experimental OPL-enhanced alloy technology that managed to produce an amorphous, ‘blank’ proto-NA made of ‘living’ metal. The core mechanic of Hoplite was that the blank NA would tap into a prospective wielder’s soul through its OPL-enhanced matrix to force a manifestation event that would identify the proto-NA as the its willpower conduit, causing the ‘template’ to assume the shape and abilities desired by it. Once completed, the project was to be used to create 4 artificially-made Arms Masters in total as part of an experimental super-soldier program that would slot them into different detachments across all SF branches in order to further bolster American military dominance.
What made Everett different from the other candidates was the unique power suite his soul manifested. Even though Hoplite had no rank-dampening flaws, his abilities were measured as having the highest potential out of all the other subjects by a long shot, effectively shifting the project's focus away from the 3 other subjects and onto him specifically. He was initially extremely resistant to the idea of being labeled an Arms Master, but after the government promised him a sorely-needed increase in pay that'd lift him out of "struggling" and into "well off" territory, he acquiesced. What followed was four years of image-building through a carefully-curated debut that included a flawless first save, an impeccable speech after the fact, and continued top-tier performance where the margin of error was razor-thin and lives were at stake in the hundreds or thousands.
As a result, he became a top-tier domestic asset that was eventually called upon to serve overseas when the President realized America was getting way too much negative PR; largely because Everett was essentially a walking solution to the dilemma of sending his own countrymen to die for foreign interests. After all, someone as powerful and trained as him would only be able to fall due to extraordinary carelessness. He was thus ordered to tend to the ASEAN War; specifically to help the coalition while they were busy recovering after a notable victory against the Chinese. Everett has since been transferred to Task Force Obsidian to aid in this endeavor due to their high concentration of powerful Arms Masters, making it even more likely in the American President’s eyes that he’ll help them recover their long-lost image as the world’s premier military and industrial powerhouse.
Current Goal: To salvage whatever’s left of America’s international reputation.
Military or Civilian Rank: Arms Master General (N-10, RL Equivalent to O-10)
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