D U O S
TARIQ IBN HAKEEM AL-BARIQI ◼ 01/04/1997 (20) ◼ M A L E ◼ C E L E S T I A L
"Your race are a collective of interesting creatures, Human."
"I'm so glad that you approve of us Al."
//STATS:◼ HEIGHT | 6 ft 5 in
◼ WEIGHT | 210 lb
◼ BUILD | Lean and muscular
◼ EYE COLOR | Light Green
◼ OTHER | Tribal sand-coloured markings adorn their body, travelling up from their heels, intertwining through the legs and the torso before ending at their forehead. They also have two golden earrings and a silver piercing on their lip. However, this is covered by their ghutrah (غُترَة), a white cloth of cotton mild. In fact, their whole body is covered traditional Arabic cloth that masks their alien features, even gloves covering their hand. All except the eyes.
//DESCRIPTION:Tariq is a "man" of two species, melded and intertwined to create one new specimen. They way they speak, their mannerisms and their way of thinking is both similar and different to what most humans are used to. They walk unnaturally half of the time, a sort of limp to their stride that ruins the confidence and bravado they give off. They present themselves with a tall, straight posture unlike most tall people. They do not bend down and to any passerby, they could be seen as arrogant from afar. However, the nervous drumming of their fingers is always present and they would be seen frequently trying to stop a shaking left knee. Glitches in the otherwise perfect bond they had formed together.
The Alien represents them in physical form, standing at a muscular 6"5 with a rough edge to his look. Humanoid in shape with five fingers, two arms and two feet, under layers of clothing there is no distinguishing him from any normal person walking around. Of course, underneath these layers is anything but human. He was previously of a sand people, a warrior culture and so he has the build that best represents this. Bulging muscles hide behind clothing and wrapping. The white bandages that cover him warms his skin while also making it smoother to the touch when someone touches him while he is clothed. This is because his outer layers of skin are like sandpaper to touch, harsh and coarse with small spikes protruding where humans have joints. He has softer tissue under this hard, carapace-like outer skin and every two years or so, he needs to shed this natural armour that the Human likens to an insect shedding old skin. This is to let the inner tissue beneath the natural armour breathe and during this time, he would look like a skinned human and would be as sensitive as one. This results in him needing time indoors, away from the elements for at least 48 hours in an unconscious state.
Alien's natural birthmarks are like art, telling the story of his long lost family. They are four, large sandy stripes that come in pairs on his two feet. They split and come apart as they run up his body, intertwining and connecting into dozens of different pathways. It forms a flower like pattern over his torso but they all connect once more in a simple pattern on his face. These birthmarks tell a story of his ancestry, woven through years and years in a modified gene-sac. They do not change between the shedding of his skins and they never disappear. Whether this was natural for his species or he was genetically modified to be like this, it is unknown.
A product of the melding, Alien has Human's light emerald eyes. They shine quite obviously in stark contrast to the dark skin. Alien's face is adorned with three piercings, two golden earrings on his right ear and one silver piece on his bottom lip. The rough skin of his outer body carapace doesn't reach his sensitive face, his skin as smooth as a baby's bottom. Under Human's influence, a wry smirk is always present and their mannerisms become much cheerier, giving off an aura of friendliness and love. However, under Alien's influence, their movements become predatory. Face still like stone, eyes seemingly arrogant and judging, hands held ready in case of danger. To most, this is a clear sign of mental illness and so it is Human who is present during most days.
Tariq, in reference to both the Human and the Alien, wears minimalist clothing that is easy to move in but is still stylish. This is mostly due to Human's insistence in keeping up to fashion, something Alien is still trying to wrap his head around. They wear manoeuvrable and expensive sports/fitness gear as casual wear. Left with a small fortune his father gave him, Human immediately hit Los Paraiso's shopping malls and ordered clothing from different online stores. Their current attire (with thick wrapping underneath) consists of expensive Nike running shoes, semi-skintight mini drop-crotch sweatpants, form-fitting long-sleeved Nike shirt and a comfortable hooded jacket with a soft ghutrah to top it all off. Their hands are adorned with slim black gloves to cover Alien's unnatural skin.
"I hope that you know that I find that nickname.. disturbing, Human."
There are two sides to Duos, the Human and the Alien. The Human, who now shares his original name of Tariq ibn Hakeem Al-Bariqi, was born privileged and rich in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. His father, once an oil prince drowning in liquid gold, had realised the sudden surge in technology that would come with the aftermath of the Cold War and the finding of Hyperhuman mutants. Such a thing would scare people, frightening them into advancing technology and he was not foolish to think that they would use Arabic oil to fuel such tech. Instead, he had invested his money into the nuclear fusion industry, against the warnings of his fellow oil barons and friends.
When the value of oil dropped like a stone and the fusion industry skyrocketed, the Al-Bariqi family did not fall like the others. They did not fall into bankruptcy or out of grace, they kept their riches and wealth. His father thrived where most failed and started his own nuclear fusion plant in Saudi Arabia, funded and payed by the government to ensure that the country would be able to keep up with the the West. This was the world that the Human was born into, a family of the top 1% in the world. His parents, Hakeem and Alya, were kind-hearted if a little too dedicated to their work to construct a healthy family. His brother Ali took care of him during his early years, a well-educated high school student who had tutors at home. While their maids and butlers did most of the chores, it was his brother that sung him songs at night to make him sleep, it was him who ordered bed-in-breakfast for him almost everyday.
The Human had come to respect and revere his brother. He was everything to the young one and tried everything to impress him, only being successful in creating amusement. But when Ali had to leave for medical school when the Human was only sixteen, the young boy was left alone once more. With little to no parental figures in his life and the maids and butlers being cycled through mansions every month or so, it was difficult for him to have anyone to connect with. It was through this loneliness that he had discovered his love for hip hop culture and the rich, cash-spending culture that came with it. His parents were okay with him spending their money to get anything he wanted, as long as he was happy they didn't care. Luxury cars, new phones everyday, high-tech gaming, joyrides in the streets, even helicopter rides around the desert. It was a grandeur lifestyle of epic proportions but it never truly spoiled his personality.
The values the Human had been first taught by his brother still stood. A portion of the "pocket money" he got from his parents was given to charity and he made sure not to show off his wealth too much. However, he was still a teen and a rich one at that. He still had an Instagram, posting a few photos of him and his luxurious lifestyle. Some people see him as an arrogant, spoiled rich boy and he was anything but that, however it is not wrong that he is more well off than most people. One day, Lady Luck and the general shit you got in life all fell on him one day, in the form of a helicopter crash. He had been taking his helicopter for a ride in the night, haven taken lessons in how to pilot one. It was a cold night in the Saudi Arabian sand dunes, his helicopter being the only man-made object for miles. His parents never approved of him going alone but he had hit that rebellious streak that every teenager possessed and so he flew anyways.
It was a glint in the night sky, barely perceptible to the human eye. Built from unknown metals and detected as mere debris by any satellite or radar, a small pod careening through space. Coming in slow enough to prevent burning up when it pierced our atmosphere, it seemed as though that it's course was calculated and exact. Whether the resulting crash was a glitch in the system or not is something Tariq has yet to solve. It all happened in a flash, one moment the Human was flying a helicopter costing to the millions of dollars and the next moment, he was lying unconscious, bleeding in the desert sand as his pieces of his helicopter tumbled down the dunes. He had barely even registered the pod crash before he entered into a coma, one that would last the next several days.
When he awoke, he would find himself in a small clinic in the middle of the desert. In a village of around 150 people, it was here that he would awake. Bandaged and dressed in a smooth silk, the Human opened his eyes to a doctor. He had been taken here by a mysterious man, very tall and very wide, dressed in black with a ghutrah on on his head. He had dragged him to this very clinic, and he was informed that the man was waiting outside. Bewildered, suffering from shock and trauma, the Human decided stupidly to walk out of the clinic against the warnings of the village doctor. There, the man waited for him and then, they melded. It was quick and efficient but the results were anything but. The next couple of months were a blur, memories flooded a shared mind, thoughts were confused as to who was in control. Was this a dream? Is this all real? A flood of both nothing and everything entered into their mind, events occurring without their full consent. They didn't mean to leave the house with only a note, they were directed to.
They didn't mean to gather money by selling the Human's property, they were directed to. They didn't want to become the Vigilante of Arabia, they didn't want to leave their home to fight crime. They didn't want to live together, they wanted to be separate from each other. Two individuals cannot be in one body, it merely resulted in a storm of chaos, two people going in and out of unconsciousness rapidly. It was at this point that their thoughts were mostly controlled by the being called the Human, the first couple of months in where the body was in prime directive mode. It was controlled by Alien's instincts but the Human had control over the mind. As he rose to consciousness once again, the Human and the Alien first had their first conversation within their own mind.
Neither remember what took place in those few months, nor their first dozen conversations. Their combined brain was working on overload, trying to sort every memory to create two individuals, two personalities. It was stressed, following the prime directive of it's genetic coding to create two lifeforms within itself while also commanding the body to do what the directive told it to do. It was during this tumultuous and chaotic period that Alien, who the Human had taken to call Al, introduced itself in their shared consciousness. He was a warrior, born from a genetically engineered cloning sac on his home planet. It was a harsh place, sandstorms and deserts as far as the eye could see. Things like an oasis were rare and closely guarded by a tribe.
They were a dying race, doomed to be drowned underneath the desert sands, their planet too harsh to support life any longer. The sandstorms had worsened over time and many of them saw the beginning of the end. Alien was taken from his home by visitors at a young age, kidnapped and put into a strange spacecraft. They coded with his DNA, collecting data samples and genetically engineering the young xeno. His race was of great interest to these strange celestial beings, as they melded. The Meld is a process in which you combine personalities with another warrior out of respect, resulting in one body with a split personality. A combined might, intelligence and will of two individuals. After what felt like years of experimentation and genetically engineering, the young Alien was stuck into a pod and set with an oath to the Celestials.
To continue the legacy of his honour-bound people beyond the stars, to meld with a specimen of a different race and to cement himself as a warrior without peer. Given the knowledge of centuries of warriors across his species, his oath binder him to prove himself by solving injustice within the galaxy. His first planet was Earth, and this was how Duos began. When the Human and Alien finally settled, their body ready and minds prepared, they began small, building on the actions that their body had done without them. Tariq, in their black robes and shining green eyes, armed with the latest advances in modern technology, a vast wealth and out-of-this-world reflexes, became a star in Saudi Arabia. A peacekeeper, a lawbringer in a country which was brought to ruin in the fall of the oil market. They moved out eventually, moving to new places to fight crime and bring the law, some of their actions being questioned by those who didn't understand. Their next destination? New Lilith.
▼ M O T I V A T I O N / O B J E C T I V E:
"Get used to it Al, I got used to the fact that 'Tariq' refers to both of us."
The prime directive. The reason the Alien had been sent here in the first place. To fight injustice, crime and prejudice in a different world, to prove himself amongst another species as a warrior without peer. To continue the legacy of his long lost people, to show that his species would not go quietly thin the night. This powerful force in their minded, genetically coded into their combined personalities, this is what drives them to move forward. To fight criminals and save the innocent. This is what they call the Greater Good, a mental drive within them to do the right thing for the majority. Whether this meant killing a criminal for repeating their crimes or sacrificing one person for the lives of two, it does not matter for they will act with cold logic. This has brought into question whether their actions are justified, whether their value of "no mercy" was immoral or not. This does not stop their almost cult-like following on the Internet, many agreeing in the way they do things. For the Greater Good.
▼ A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:
"You shall learn soon Human."
//ABILITIES:◼ Heightened Senses and Reflexes | The average specimen from Alien's race possesses better senses than the average human. Tariq has very good eyesight, focusing on objects much faster than a human, they can track using smell, hear through soundproof walls and can even taste more and get more out of a meal. They have also been genetically engineered to have very fast and reactive reflexes, their minds when fully tuned to their body, can command it quickly to do their bidding. Take into consideration their athletic body, higher-than-average strength and speed, they are essentially a step above the base Homo Sapien in a physical sense.
//SKILLS:◼ CQC Specialisation | With the memories of Alien's planet, culture and people contained within them, Tariq has mastery over dozens of empty hand and armed martial arts developed over hundreds of years of war. They prefer to incapacitate the opponent through brutalisation, using underhanded tactics and the environment to their advantage. Opponents often end up in hospital with injuries ranging from broken arms to a paralysed spine.
◼ Riches beyond imagination | Apparently, by selling the dozens of cars, a yacht, a mansion and several other luxuries the Human had bought, it would gather a lot of money. When Tariq sold all the things the Human had bought, they could not have imagined the large amount of money that now resided in several international and multi-national bank accounts. With more money than they know what to do with, they spend on weapons, ammunition and high-tech equipment. Sometimes, even shopping sprees that Alien definitely does not approve of but something Human does frequently.
◼ Prince Charming and his loveable Alien sidekick | Two personalities equals double the person! They have the intelligence and will of two people, two opinions from two different perspectives to judge on a situation. Through this, they make more informed observations and more intelligent answers to hard questions. The Human also has quite the charming personality and was known before the melding as a womaniser. This image has been slightly ruined by the fact that he now appears as intimidating to most people but he still has the words of a charmer. He is the talker while the Alien is the warrior, that is how they have functioned for the last two years.
//LIMITATIONS:◼ Two Clashing Personalities | Tariq is still made up of two different entities. This can lead to unfortunate disagreements within their body even with the uniting force of the prime directive. These arguments can occur during totally normal and human situations that Alien does not comprehend, or during high-risk hostage situations where they argue the most viable objective. These clashes result in a delayed reaction time, which can spell the end of a mission and thus it's failure. As the two have become closer, disagreements become rarer but they still happen, usually with very strong points on both sides.
◼ A Glitch in Genetics | The very directive that pushes and motivates Tariq to move forward can be their very end. To be warrior without peer is an insurmountable task that is already chipping at the resolve of both the Human and the Alien. Unknown to them, the Greater Good that they speak of is a mere mind controlling tool, to keep them on the leash. They have become slaves to their own ideology and thinking, some of their thoughts are foreign and intrusive. The directive also leads them to do things that others would frown upon, sometimes even motivating them to do something illogical or overly brutal. The directive is a force of powerful suggestions, almost willing and controlling the two personalities to do it's bidding.
◼ A Slow Switch | To switch control between the Human and the Alien, it takes one to two hours. During this time, they are absolutely vulnerable to outside influences and the elements which is why they spend theis time inside. However, this is a weakness that can be easily exploited and because of how long the switch takes, Tariq can be stuck in a sticky situation where the wrong personality is in control. For example, Alien would be very useful if they were trying to fight a group of criminals in the streets but would become useless in convincing a criminal to drop their weapon. The slowness of the switch restricts their capabilities as the other can advise a personality to do something but they are not tuned to do it naturally..
//WEAKNESSES:◼ Fuck Water | Water is neither personality's friend. Tariq's heavy and rough skin makes him sink in water and with neither the Human nor the Alien knowing how to swim, it is likely that they will one day die because of drowning. Rain or any sort of water splashing unto them can also be harmful as certain properties within water makes them weaker with slower reflexes and normalised senses. Water basically turns them into a normal human being except with an alien biology and appearance. This is why they try and use very waterproof clothing when going outside to avoid being severely weakened. However, the act of drinking water does not affect them nor do droplets of water.
◼ Not That Special | Heightened reflexes and senses are not necessarily "special". There are dozens of hyper humans and other celestials that have better powers than Tariq. They try and overcome this using wit and intelligence combined with superior strength and the use of technology however this comes as a limit. They can only go so far with money and buying high-tech equipment doesn't necessarily equal the ability to shoot lasers out of your eyeballs. There are even some normal humans who have trained themselves enough who are stronger or faster. However, they are still very capable and can adapt, learn and train just like any other vigilante.
//SUPPORTING CAST://STOMPING GROUNDS◼ New Lilith | The city is the current place of crime-fighting that Tariq has chosen. They have seen that the Los Paraiso area is under the scrutiny of the international community and the events of the world seemed to centre around that area. They are in the process of making it their domain, starting rivalries with criminals and the local gangs. The name Duos has yet to stroke fear here, the hospitals still relatively empty of broken criminals as they wait for the correct moment to start fighting once more.
◼ Saudi Arabia | Revered as a hero amongst the people, Tariq arose from seemingly nowhere and tackled crime around the country. They became some sort of folk legend, stories spoken about them at nighttime to make children sleep. They were labelled as a mysterious hero, saving the country from falling into crisis unlike many of their neighbours. Seeing to the stabilisation of the Human's home country and the establishment of a friendly government, they have moved on from Saudi Arabia, leaving many of their equipment and bases behind. It can still serve as a resting place and base of operations on occasion however.
//PARAPHERNALIA◼ Weapons & Equipment | Currently, Tariq is armed with a long and flexible metal staff, knuckle dusters, a knife in their boot and equipped with a SIG Sauer P320. The staff has long been the weapon of choice for them, as well as the knuckle dusters. The handgun is equipped with three different types of ammo, non-lethal rubber, normal and explosive. The semi-automatic pistol has been modified to have more power behind each shot and longer range however, this results in more recoil. Duos is also equipped with a grappling hook, two portable bulletproof metal shields that can be deployed from either their right or left forearms and a headset which can wire tap into police calls and emergencies. The headset also has a red holographic UI interface that can come over the user's eye, it can be used to check a nearby enemy's vitals, movement and thermals. They can also be used to mark targets and indicate how far they are.
◼ Attire | On duty, Tariq wears black synthetic robes designed to be both water proof and easy to breathe in. Their head is covered by a black hood attached to the robes while their face is covered by a white ghutrah. With black military boots and bulletproof kevlar underneath, straps across their body carries their staff, knuckle dusters and pistol. Their shields are strapped to their forearms and can be folded in and out of their slim containers with a press of a button.
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Altered Tundra
