Name: Oswald Connolly, 'The Mutineer'
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Affiliation: Valean Anarchist Coalition
Weapon: The Darkblades, three daggers crafted from the Trepination Blade. One suppressed handgun, and one lightweight, collapsible rifle. Suppressed, of course.
Semblance: Closer- Oswald can instantly close the distance between himself and another living creature (Grimm or no) within fifty feet of him, moving from wherever he is to about four feet from his target.
Personality: Jaded by years of witnessing suffering and death, Oswald has become the personification of
The Grizzled Veteran. Having seen combat for over thirty years now, and having spent
maybe two of those years resting, Oswald is the strategist, linchpin, and secret weapon of the VAC. He's quick to suppress dissent with explanations of his motivations, and believes firmly that the ends justify the means, especially in a society like the one they exist in. Despite this, he's not pure evil: he doesn't tolerate random attacks on civilians, and the VAC has been known to provide medical services to wounded soldiers, though they're often held as Prisoners of War afterward.
Appearance: Oswald slimmed down after his Beacon years, dropping to around 180 pounds of lean, wiry muscle. His scars multiplied, leaving his face lined with ugly blemishes that served to improve his intimidation factor. On assassinations, he chose to don a new set of attire: near-black pants, similarly colored shirt and coat, as well as a full-head mask designed to obscure his flesh. His hands covered by dark gloves, his weapons camouflaged to avoid reflections against the moon, and his feet concealed by soft shoes, Oswald is near-impossible to spot in the shadows, unless one has the natural advantages of a Faunus.
In his role as leader of the VAC, Oswald dons a kerchief that covers the lower half of his face, showing only several of the scars across his face. His clothes are simple but powerful: a tattered brown coat, black pants, and a gray undershirt stained with blood, his feet clad in a pair of brown work boots.
History: The Mutineer was born out of a realization that racism, corruption and nepotism had grown to uncontrollable levels within the Kingdoms. Missions with the Schnee Dust Company, both as a student of Beacon and as an independent Huntsman, eventually broke the pseudo-communist's goodwill towards his fellow man. He'd been bribed, insulted and challenged one too many times by the employees of the infamous Dust supplier's employees more than he could take. On a solo mission, a Schnee Dust executive offered him a small fortune to cover up the typical abuses by their employees, but instead of declining and having the man arrested, Oswald drove his sword through the man's chest, killing him within moments.
Swearing to destroy the SDC and the evil that allowed it to blossom, Oswald disappeared off the radar, reforging his weapons and armor into a set of equipment better suited for assassination. A sword became a trio of daggers, sheathed on multiple points of Oswald's body, his shield and metallic armors became some of the raw materials used for a handgun, and he created a lightweight, collapsible rifle from scratch. His old cloak, forsaken despite its sentimental value, kept its place in Oswald's heart as a small crimson patch sewn into his night gear.
The Mutineer began with simple assassinations. Moving within the shadows, Oswald was able to eliminate swathes of Schnee guards without detection, despite his past as a meatshield. His Semblance was of disturbingly great use, as it allowed him to traverse distances instantly that others would have to risk detection to cross. Soon, his kill counts rose into the double-digits, and Schnee Dust got suspicious. Guard presence tripled, only for entire stations to go dark with a warning scrawled in blood the next day: "More bodies will result in more corpses. Not that you'd care."
Hundreds of Schnee Dust employees resigned in the wake of this revelation. To some, the money wasn't worth their lives. To others, the hazard pay simply wasn't high enough. White Fang leaders stood astonished that their territory had been usurped. Desertion among the ranks grew, as a new criminal enterprise sprang from the ashes: The Valean Anarchist Coalition. Rather than a nebulous goal of equality for Faunus, the VAC stood for something much simpler: the destruction of the Kingdoms. The addition of malcontent Huntsmen and Huntresses among their ranks didn't hurt the efforts, either.
Oswald's vision of a new society convinced some, while anger and resentment convinced others that the status quo was wrong. Those who wondered about the future beyond the VAC's ultimate goals were given a cryptic but simple answer: "We rebuild." In truth, Oswald wasn't exactly sure of what he planned to do after destroying the Kingdoms. Would he return home and raze that place to the ground as well? Had they suffered the corruption that the rest of the world had? Regardless, the plans continued. Deaths skyrocketed as membership rose, and the Valean Council called upon Mistral, Vacuo and Atlas to assist them in declaring martial law.
