Sam Clarke

Sam, Renegade, KINGFISHER FALCON

Male

34

6’0”

190 lbs

Knightdale Rows

Dark brown

brown

English, Mexican, Cherokee, though he is still caucasian.

Sam is a decently handsome individual, muscular and well-built. He is a man who obviously knows his way around the gym, and it is clear that he is quite physically active. He has strong, broad shoulders, a barrelled chest, and chiseled abs. His skin is tanned from spending long hours outside. Sam’s right bicep has a tattoo of the American flag on it. Around said flag are the words “Don’t tread on me.” On the upper right side of his chest is a tattoo of a Mendel NEST badge. Around the badge are seven names, presumably of Sam’s friends who died in combat. The badge is tattooed over a bullet scar.
Sam’s head is rectangular, long with a sharp jawline. He’s got slightly larger-than-average ears and an average nose. His hair is a dark brown and is combed in a fade, with the top combed back and the sides shaved down to a buzz. Sam has a wide mouth and a smile of mostly cleverly-disguised false teeth, especially along the right side of his lower jaw. His eyes are brown and his eyebrows are dark and tough-looking.
Sam generally walks with his chest puffed out and his head scanning around him. He seems confident in his posture, but yet his eyes are always darting around behind his aviators, looking to see if he’s being watched. His voice is low and intense-sounding, with a definite southern drawl.

On-duty: When on-duty, Sam wears full NEST KINGFISHER tactical gear, which essentially looks like full police tac gear minus the helmet. The gear is reinforced at vital spots with Dragonskin, a kevlar-like material which can stop most ballistic weapons. As it is armor designed to fight metas, it is equipped to handle several common meta threats. The armor is insulated from electricity, is fireproof up to 600 degrees Fahrenheit, and is shock-resistant, reducing the amount of damage taken from physical attacks (though if anything with super strength hits him, he’s still going to feel it). On the shoulders of his gear are patches displaying the NEST KINGFISHER badge. Sam doesn’t wear a helmet, but he always wears a pair of blue-tinted mirrored aviators to cover his eyes. When in assault mode (like, he’s about to attack a heavily-armed facility or something) Sam will don a pair of night-vision goggles as well as a helmet and a face shield.

Since Sam is a NEST agent and might be seeing a good bit of combat, I’ll describe his weaponry here. Sam’s go-to gun is a nickel-plated Glock 22 with a modified 20-round magazine. This weapon he keeps on him at all times, even when he’s not in-uniform. When fighting, he screws a silencer onto the gun. When he’s on a mission, Sam also carries with him the Beretta ARX 160, an automatic carbine. The gun is designed to fire 5.56×45mm NATO ammunition (what an M16 generally fires), but Sam generally loads the gun instead with magazines containing Praetoriphor capsules, though in NEST circles said substance goes by the more foreboding name of Serum 17. Serum 17 is a gaseous serum which targets and destroys cells with atypical human DNA. It was originally designed as a cancer treatment (known as Praetoriphor) but a scientist working for NEST KINGFISHER altered it to be used as an aerosol weapon against metas. Exposure to the serum causes chemical burns, severe pain, and weakening of physical defenses (biological armors of any kind). The serum is nonfatal, however. Sam also carries a basic combat knife with him.

Off-Duty: Sam’s off-duty attire is generally cargo shorts, a tee shirt of some kind, and his trademark blue aviators. He wears a gold wedding band on his left hand (he always wears this, but when on duty his gloves conceal it) and around his neck he wears a bullet on a chain (also on when he’s on-duty). Said bullet was taken from his chest when he was shot on-duty during the Mendel Gang War. He never takes it off. When it gets cold, Sam wears a denim jacket and jeans.

Sam is a tough warrior of a guy who’s just beginning to settle down into a normal life. He’s generally a confident (maybe a little over-confident) and mentally-tough guy, doing whatever he needs to do to get the job done. You can accuse Sam of many things, but being a coward is not one of them. Sam puts his life on the line time and time again. He’s known to be pretty reckless in battle, and were it not for his power he probably would’ve died years ago. He’s as loyal as he is brave. Being more of a follower than a leader, he will generally listen to commands and has trust that whoever is in power knows what they’re doing. Over the years Sam has gained a great deal of pride, however, and he will not do other people’s dirty work. Sam generally tries to stick to the plan, but on a few occasions his reckless nature has caused him to go all Leeroy Jenkins on a mission.
Sam’s not some ideal hero, however. He’s a workaholic, first and foremost, and worse than that he often uses work to avoid problems back home. He took the Verthaven job to attempt to escape his marital problems, which are becoming quite troublesome on his mind. While he is fearless when facing the barrel of a gun or the fire of a metahuman, Sam isn’t quite so courageous when it comes to family matters. Sam’s family in itself has definitely taken the edge off of the old Falcon. He can’t really be as reckless as he used to be because he has a wife and a kid to come back to now. This makes him hesitant, especially when in a highly-dangerous situation where hesitance could spell failure.

Being a dad now, Sam has begun to enjoy more dad-esque things such as fishing and grilling. He absolutely will not do golf, however, and any friend of his who offers him a game of golf knows that they’re in for a facefull. Sam smokes cigars a lot, and is quite a cigar aficionado, though with the kid around he’s begun to stop smoking as much. When his buddies are in town, Sam will hang out with them and share a beer or two, though he generally doesn’t drink unless in a group. On clear nights, he will go out for a drive with his Harley. Sam’s music is generally rock, and his favorite bands are Foo Fighters, AC/DC, Shinedown, Bon Jovi, and Avenged Sevenfold. He’s begun to listen to country some as well, and it’s not uncommon for Sam to be listening to Toby Keith or Kenny Chesney. He watches Sportcenter a lot. His favorite football team is the Cowboys and his favorite baseball team is the Rangers.

Well let’s get all the combat out of the way before we talk about normal things. Being an elite member of an elite squadron of NEST, you don’t generally want to get in a fight with Sam. He is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and is a killer streetfighter. Having once been a boxer in high school and college, he has fairly good feet and throws one hell of a jab. He is a master marksman on the Glock 22 (it means he passed the highest level of accuracy qualifications) and is fairly accurate on the rifle as well, though he’s still training to get marksman status for it. He’s fast too. Sam’s certainly not as quick as he used to be, but he can still outrun your average goon.
Aside from fighting, Sam’s decent at many things, but he’s not really good at things which don’t require punching or kicking. He’s handy around the house, meaning that he knows how to change a lightbulb or install appliances. He knows his way around a toolbox, but he’s no carpenter. When he was a kid, Sam was in a band, and he still remembers how to play guitar, though he has only just recently begun to practice it again. Sam is also good with a barbecue, and makes the best pulled pork you’ve ever eaten, an old family recipe. He’s a master at Cornhole.

He used to say the bullet around his neck, but now he’s a grownup so he feels required to say “my family”.

“Time to watch me disappear.”

Sam was born in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. He was born into a military family, with a father who fought in Grenada and the Gulf War, an uncle who served in Vietnam (his uncle was actually a helicopter door gunner in ‘Nam, possibly the most dangerous job you could have) and a grandfather who served in World War II. As such, he spent his childhood listening to war stories. Though his father was in the military, the family didn’t move around very much, though Sam did spend a few years at Quantico in Virginia. When For the entirety of his childhood, Sam Clarke wanted to be a United States Marine, just like his father. In high school, he played football and was an all-star linebacker (which in Texas is saying something), and he was captain of his school’s ROTC. He was all set; at his mother’s request, he would attend Texas A&M on a football scholarship and do Navy ROTC so that once he got out he could enlist. However, just as he was about to go to college, the government enacted Proclamation 18: a law which outlawed metahumans in the US military.
Now Sam knew about his power since he was young. One night when he was ten, Sam’s house was broken into while he was sitting in the living room. He was so terrified that he turned invisible, and later his parents walked around the room trying to find him as he cried. He had never really cared much about his powers, though, and rarely used them. Knowing how much discrimination metas were put under, his parents never told anyone that their son was a meta, and Sam never told anyone either, not even his best friends.
But not telling people wouldn’t get you through a genetic test. Sam was denied entrance to Texas A&M’s ROTC. He was crushed, and nearly failed out of school. He came with the news to his father; his father just told him how much of a disappointment he was. Crushed, Sam dropped out of school and turned into a bum for a year or so, sitting around and drinking, wallowing in his own self-pity. Then a friend of his took him to Mendel, Louisiana, and introduced him to NEST. Immediately, Sam decided that he was going to join them. With their help, he got into Mendel University and got a degree in criminal justice. On the side, he worked with the Wright Institute, which trained him how to use his powers properly.
After graduating college and the Wright Institute, Sam began NEST training, which lasted two years. Due to his football and boxing when he was young, Sam was very talented at hand-to-hand combat, and his powers made him even more effective. For about three years, he patrolled as a normal member of NEST, and quickly showed himself to be an excellent warrior. Then, in 2005, the Mendel Gang War began. The Vanguard lieutenant known as Black Mamba was murdered by a member of the Skulls known as Jack Frost, and a war broke out which would last about six years. Sam was instrumental in the fight against the gangs, and at the fever pitch of the war in 2010, he was promoted to KINGFISHER, an elite unit of NEST designed to combat metahuman gang violence. Using a combination of his powers and deep-cover operation as a member of the Skulls, KINGFISHER was able to topple the gang and put the leader of the Skulls, a bloke who went by the name Skeleton, behind bars in a maximum-security prison designed specifically to combat his power. Sam himself killed one of Skeleton’s lieutenants, known as Diablo. The battle took its toll on KINGFISHER, however, and five of its fourteen agents were killed. This was the battle when Sam was shot, and the bullet around his neck is the one that was taken from his chest. This pretty much ended the gang war, and ever since NEST has been attempting to hunt down the leader of the Vanguard, who disappeared after her home was attacked by a KINGFISHER strike. Now that Sam was thirty, he figured that it was time to settle down. He got married relatively quickly, and now has a three-year-old son. Recently, he’s been having some problems with his family. His wife wants him to be home more often, and the pressures of being a father are taking a toll on him. So he decided to take a job in Verthaven with a few other KINFISHERs, an operation aimed to stop the war between the Red Crowns and the Iron Cross. Little does Sam know, however, that a much worse threat is about to terrorize Verthaven.

SgtMaj. Daniel Clarke - Father - 61
Carla Clarke - Mother - 60
Capt. James Clarke - Uncle - 65
(the older) Sam Clarke - Grandfather - Deceased
Miranda Clarke - Wife - 31
Sam Clarke Jr - Son - 2 ½
Bravo - Dog (German Shepherd) - 6

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Super-System Biological

Invisibility: You can’t hit what you can’t see. Sam Clarke has the ability to bend light around him, causing himself to become completely invisible. When his power is activated, he becomes impossible to pick up with the naked eye and motion sense technology. In addition to this, since Sam bends light around himself, he is invisible to thermal cameras as well as night vision of any kind. Sam has the ability to cause any object touching him to also become invisible, though the largest thing which he’s done this with is a ten-year-old boy. Through training, Sam has learned how to use his power so well that he can independently cause different parts of his body to disappear, allowing him to, for example, cause his leg to turn invisible as he’s kicking, making it harder for enemies to dodge. Sam also has the ability to, when completely invisible, make himself sound-proof, allowing him to move in silence. He can switch off his soundproofing to use comms devices, however.

As with all things, there is a time limit to how long Sam can stay invisible. The most that he’s done in one sitting is two-and-a-half hours, and by the end he was incredibly exhausted.

Vibrations, primarily. Intense vibrations cause Sam to shake so much that he becomes visible temporarily. This prevents him from turning invisible while on his motorcycle, and also causes him to flicker into appearance for a split second every time he fires his gun (this, as you will see, is both a weakness and a strength) and when he’s running particularly quickly/bumping into things. This means that Sam must become at least visible for a split second when fighting, making it easier for enemies to identify him. The vibrations cancel out his soundproofing too, so you hear the gun firing and such.
Secondly, while others cannot see Sam, Sam can’t see himself when invisible either. This means that in order to prevent himself from being an uncoordinated mess, he has to have very good kinesthetic awareness. If he’s distracted, he could literally forget where he is and hurt himself. This also presents a problem with aiming. While Sam has memorized where he keeps his guns, he cannot see down a sight that is invisible. This is where his vibration weakness comes in handy slightly. Sam has learned how to aim in the intervals between shots, allowing him to see the gun at the same time that his enemies see him. On the first shot, however, Sam might as well be blind, and he is absolutely dreadful at shooting from the hip.
Thirdly, Sam is not immune to certain forms of detection. Pressure plates, for example, will still trip when he steps on them, and telepaths can sense his brainwaves. If Sam is discovered, his powers give him no protection from a well-placed bullet, and his lack of headgear makes it not so difficult for a well-trained marksman to end Sam Clarke’s days with a bullet to the head.

Sam rides a black Harley Davidson XL883 Sportster into battle. It is painted all black. Sam also owns a black 2013 Chevy Silverado with a ram bar on the front. It doubles as an undercover police car, and contains a NEST scanner as well as sirens.

Rafael Davila-Martinez

Ralph

Male

29

6’3”

157 lbs

Knightdale Rows

Black

brown

Mexican-American

Rafael is a pretty average-looking guy, albeit rather tall and lean. Though thin, Rafael doesn’t work out much, so he’s not very big in the muscle department. Fighting isn’t his thing, and he figures he’s stressed enough already without lifting immensely heavy weights. Despite being of Mexican descent, Rafael has rather pale skin (though it is still obvious that he is of hispanic heritage). On the left side of his chest above his nipple is the tattoo of a gothic cross, and on the right side of his right calf is a tattoo of an acoustic guitar with wings. All of his tattoos are in black ink. He keeps them concealed at all times when working. Rafael’s always a pretty tense-looking guy, someone who really needs a vacation. His shoulders are tight, and he walks extremely quickly, as if slowing down would get him killed. He wreaks of “news reporter” and cologne. He is seen almost exclusively with a Starbucks coffee in his hand (a venti caffe mocha with a triple shot of espresso). No one knows how the man ever sleeps.
Rafael’s head is heart-shaped, with medium-sized ears and a bush of curly black hair on his head kept exactly at regulation length. His face is somewhat gaunt and tired-looking, though he usually looks professional at least when on camera. Often when he doesn’t have work makeup concealing it, he has dark circles under his eyes from stress and tiredness. He has a small, rounded nose and high cheekbones. He has a small goatee which is well-trimmed to look professional.

Business formal 24/7 unless he’s on vacation (spoiler alert; he’s never on vacation). Since he has to deal with soul-sucking media almost constantly, Rafael comes dressed for the job. He wears a slim-cut black suit with a button-down dress shirt under it. Usually this shirt is plain white, though occasionally Rafael will mix it up and wear a plaid shirt instead. Rafael has a massive tie collection and wears a different tie every day of the year, though he always switches to a black tie when he needs to go to a press conference. His suit jacket has a NEST badge on the front, and NEST patches on the shoulders. He wears a black belt and black dress shoes. There is always an earpiece in his ear. He carries a Beretta 92 SF inside of his jacket in case he is ever attacked, but he has never had to use it and hopes that he never will. On rare occasions when Rafael isn’t working, he wears a casual oxford or polo and cargo shorts, showing off his leg tattoo.

Rafael needs a vacation. Badly. It’s a running joke in the NEST office that Rafael is really a robot and every night Director Caryl shoves him in a closet and plugs him in to charge. Rafael is one of the first people on the NEST scene every day, and one of the last to leave. As such, he is both somewhat caustic and tired almost 24/7. Rafael is known to be viciously deadpan and has a short temper, causing him to often shout at employees. He isn’t well-liked around the office, but his determination earns him a degree of respect. Everyone knows how tough a job Rafael has, being pretty much the only shield between the inner workings of NEST and the soul-sucking vampires that work in the news media. He may be an ass, but he does one hell of a good job. Through years of training, Rafael has managed to learn the ultimate media poker face, an incredible sense of restraint and calm that picks up as soon as he sees the first camera. Remarkably intelligent, he is good at picking his words wisely and thinking before he speaks.
Outside of work, Rafael tries as hard as he can to relax. It’s difficult, though; Rafael is high-strung almost around the clock, and when he gets a chance to calm down, it’s really difficult for him to be calm. This generally causes him to drink a lot, and while few would peg him as an alcoholic, he sure does love himself some wine. Rafael is single, which makes sense considering that he usually works a 98-hour work week. Yep, Rafael is a bigtime workaholic, and while he hasn’t really felt that big a degree of isolation, he has definitely alienated a lot of his friends by almost never being home.

Drinking coffee, bossing around interns, arguing, addressing the media. As the Director of Media Relations for NEST in Verthaven, Rafael works a lot. When he’s not working, Rafael reads, worries, and hangs out with his friends at local restaurants and bars. He prefers acoustic music overall, and isn’t a big rock person. He has a pretty big condo in Knightdale Rows (he gets paid a lot), though he doesn’t see it much. When he is there, he usually sits on his leather sofa, drinking wine and watching TV. He is a fan of seafood, especially Hawaiian-style seafood. Despite being Mexican, Rafael doesn’t really like Mexican food. Rafael loves to play guitar, though since he works so much he rarely gets to. His dream is to someday retire to a beach in Hawaii and play guitar or ukulele.

If faced with a large crowd of reporters, Rafael is your man. Having once been a reporter, he knows just what makes them tick and is great at bullshitting stupid questions to get people to shut up. He’d make a good politician someday. In addition to this, Rafael is remarkably intelligent, having graduated from Harvard, though he graduated with degrees in English and Journalism, so don’t expect him to pilot a spacecraft or hack a computer or something. He’s a pretty good guitarist, though considering he doesn’t get to play much, he doesn’t do this often.

His Taylor acoustic guitar, which he keeps locked-up in a glass case in his condo so that it doesn’t get damaged.

“Out of my way! Out of my fucking way! I’ve got to go do my fucking job again!”
“As I have said before, NEST is not a transparent government agency. Our purpose is to protect the interests of Metahuman-Americans and, more importantly for the general population, to protect the interests of the American people from Metahuman threats. To effectively accomplish this goal, we cannot afford to allow the general population to understand NEST’s inner-workings. Doing such would put the people of the United States of America at an incredible risk. Next question?”

I tire of doing these things…
Rafael Davila was born in Mexico, though he doesn’t really remember it. Before he turned two his family came across the border (legally) and settled in Los Angeles, where his father worked at a law firm. Unlike many other Mexican immigrants, Rafael’s father wasn’t terribly poor, and he had gone to American college to get his law degree. Rafael still felt the pang of discrimination, and he was often made fun of by his white schoolmates. He overcame this by working harder, and soon he was the smartest kid in school, blowing away every test and quiz.
When college time came, every liberal arts school in the country seemed to pounce on Rafael and beg him to come to their school. He wanted the biggest and the best, though, and so he applied to Harvard. By some miracle of God, he got in. At Harvard, Rafael majored in English with a minor in journalism, hoping to become a writer. He graduated and found a job working for the LA Times. He worked there for a few years when he was offered a job by People Magazine, which paid significantly more. Rafael was an above average writer, but the true key to his success was his skill in working with people. He wasn’t as stressed in that point in his life. Due to his people skills and their influx of problems, NEST asked Rafael to come aboard as a media relations officer. After showing that he was particularly good at dealing with media sources, NEST promoted him to Director of Media Relations. (Yeah yeah crappy backstory don’t care).

Felix Davila - Father
Antonio Davila-Martinez - Younger Brother
Jesus Davila-Martinez - Older Brother
Ana Martinez-Davila - Mother
Cecilia Davila-Martinez - Younger Sister

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NA

Does dealing with the media count?

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