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Al

Meanwhile in Japan, Tokyo Prefecture at 02:30 PM or so...

No matter where you go, there you are.

There Al stood, hands in his pockets looking over the field of heads out to the busy intersection. Steel structures towered overhead, vehicles lined up nose to tail down the paved streets. There were boards of all kinds and signs too, all written in a dialect foreign to him. More often than not their meanings were not lost on him however. Buy this, buy that! Come spend your money here! The words changed but the meaning remained.

Being in Japan Al stood over a foot taller than everyone for the most part. Standing out was something he was used to by this point. It's been a while since that fateful day he was attacked. It was as if in the eyes of the public he had suddenly transformed, like a veritable werewolf. They didn't fear him though. It wasn't like that. It was just... Different. Nomads were people who were apart from everyone else, different, So when Al became one suddenly the sheer stigma of the title clung to him.

Funny. He didn't feel different at all. He was still his dreary, listless self, still passing through life as though he hadn't really lived the things he did. No matter how people saw him he was still him.

_
At this point he had long relinquished any meaningful attempt to grasp the ways of people around him. Traveling from country to country just to fight for some more money so he could afford to travel to another country, another fight. It was wearisome, something he did not care strongly for. Fighting was but a means to an end, that end being to find something, anything that could lead him back to those guys that attacked him in the first place. He had little stakes in the actual victories or losses he sustained along the way.

The lights turned red, bringing one cycle of traffic to a close to open way for another one. The walk signal came alight as well and the crowd he was standing in started walking their way across. Al crossed as well as his destination was just across the road. The Annual Japanese Championship, something that was the source of some stir as it had come in the relative wake of the events in Rio. Hosting another fighting tournament of a similar breed while the last big disaster was still on people's lips was a gutsy choice. Either that or there was more to this tournament than just entertainment for an audience. If there was something more to this he figured it was best if he showed. He'd of been kicking himself if he chose to sit this one out right as something of a lead reared it's ugly head out there.

Just as he was crossing he felt drops upon the back of his head, something light, less than a drizzle even. He looked up to make sure it wasn't something foul. Nothing, just a clear sky which seemed to start growing a little greyer as clouds started to gather. It was a little strange but nothing that bothered him too strongly. He just kept on forward, ignoring the slight bit of moisture which reached him.

_
At last he finally made his way to the place in question. He had gotten lost a couple times just on the way from his hotel room to here. Not speaking the local language he mostly got by on land marks and a bit of dumb luck. The lobby looked very similar to any othe bustling local center, just thousands upon thousands of Japanese people walking to and fro. What seperated it from other places was the presence of unique characters, folks that were like him in that they didn't fit in with the crowd. They were all sorts, each sporting the gait of a fighter in their own sense.

Looks like this is the place He looked at the pamphlet in his hand. It presented a general blurb about the tournament as well as where to find it, luckily in a language he could read which was only one as he was not the most cultured sort. He walked up to the front desk which had a nice young Japanese lady sitting behind it.

"Er... This the fighting tournament thing?" His plain toned voice had a sound of uncertainty about it. That was largely due to the fact that he was uncertain.

"Yes, this is the Annual Japanese Championship. Tickets to the stadium are twenty three hundred yen." She answered him politely with a friendly smile.

"Tickets? Ah, no. I came to sign up as a fighter. A contestant, you know?"

"Oh. In that case you'll need to pay a twenty three thousand yen signup fee and sign these waivers."

"Twenty three thousand? Yikes, that's like, er, two hundred and thirty bucks."

Though the price for entry was high for folks like Al he had some money set aside from his last winnings to pay for his entry. After all this wasn't his first time getting shaken down by tournament registrars. Handing over the money he grabbed the waivers and took a seat over at the far end of the benches, away from any unwanted company by about at least a seat or two. Bracing the papers against his knee he gave them a quick read over before returning to the front desk. He would of signed them where he was sitting but he hadn't the forethought to bring a pencil or pen along so he had to use the desk one which was chained to the desk. It sure was the sign of a shitty world when people didn't even have enough common decency to not steal people's pens, resulting in these ridiculous pen protection measures.

After Al had signed and handed back the waivers they led him to a room where they ran down what he had brought and scanned him to make sure he hadn't brought anything that wasn't declared beforehand. Just the usual safety precautions these dubiously legal sports had to carry out to ensure the safety of people before they step into the ring. Once the contestants enter it seemed it was no holds barred, an outright blood sport where little wasn't allowed. At least, that's the impression it gave Al. He had little clue as to what was up with this one. He figured he'd have time to read the rules to tournament combat while he waited to be called up to fight.

After being given his number and told to wait for a while he made his way along when he spotted a coffee shop, something that drew his eye immediately. Set in the building that hosted the tournament was a plain old-fashioned cafe, not one of those creepy Japanese novelty cafes that Al avoided like the super plague. Stepping in he ordered a black coffee and took a seat at one of the round tables. When his coffee arrived he idly sipped it while he read a written copy of the tournament rules and regulations.

Sitting calmly, drinking coffee and reading something just to occupy his mind. This right there was the high point to his day. The rest was only going to get worse from there.

It always found a way.
Omnivore

Meanwhile on the roof of the Bow and Arrow Theater...

On the roof of the building two men stood. The only light that shone came from the bulb just above the roof access door. It was otherwise mired in the darkness of night, far removed from the street lamps and the light of the theater itself. Both these men were dressed for a fine evening out, black suits and different colored bow ties for each. They bore masks like the sort people would find in a masquerade, ornate and concealing little more than the space around their eyes. In their hands they casually clutched m16's, their eyes searching out upon the edges of the roof top.

"Man, it sucks being stuck up on roof duty. There's jack shit to look at and it's dark as hell." The slightly taller man with the dull chestnut hair grunted in acknowledgement.

"Yeah. Didn't think coming into the assassination gig that this was how I'd be spending my nights."

"I get 'ya. Say, what rank are you at anyhow?" The shorter man with short spiked up platinum blonde hair asked the taller one.

"Six hundred and fifty two. Name's Dredger Douglas by the way." The shorter man nodded with interest.

"I'm six hundred and sixty six myself. Kill Grave's the name. Nice to meet you Doug." The shorter fellow who identified himself as Kill Grave stuck out a hand to shake with. The tall man gave him an odd look due to the name but reached over and shook his hand nonetheless.

"Nice to meet you too." The tall guy known as Dredger Douglas looked out across the thin hint of moonlight gracing their open and wide ward.

"Think this assassin that's supposed to be fighting the boss is even gonna come up to the roof?" Kill Grave let his gun hang loosely in his grip to the side as he went over to lean against the wall by the access door.

"Nah. Don't envy the guys down below if they do. The folks in the one hundred range and down get pretty downright weird. You heard about the guy hiring us right? Bloody psycho-kinesis or some bullshit."

"Yeah. It really leaves you wondering how on earth you're ever gonna get past the two hundred mark without something pretty major."

The air stood still for a couple moments. There was a thought nagging at Dredger's mind that he heard something as he just spoke. That thought manifested into a note of alarm as he turned only to see no one standing in the area where he last saw Kill Grave.

"Kill Grave?" The man's note was audably nervous, his gun now clutched tight in his grasp with his finger on the trigger as he slowly crept forward into the radius of the door light's glow where Kill Grave last stood. At the edge of his hearing he could faintly make out the sounds of wet splatters and a gun clattering to the floor. Before he could make his way around the extruding compartment that housed the stairs down a head fell into view, most likely lobbed to him as an underhanded toss from what he could deduce as it hit the ground and rolled past his feet. He could hear his heart beating within his own ears. Time seemed to run slow.

Taking his eyes from the man he was just previously sharing a conversation he was only able to momentarily glimpse a faint gleam of metal before a sudden flash pierced his eyes, both in the figurative and literal sense as the plasma blade ran directly through his skull, killing him instantly.

_
Not long into her mission and Anny was already drenched in her first victim's blood. Having removed his head with her teeth she was splattered quite thoroughly in his life fluid. She was hunched over her first kill of the night's body, scooping a heap of his lower organs into her sizable metal maw.

Man is Rainbow Stakes ever a stupid name for a guy. I guess they'll be calling him Rainbow Steaks very soon since I'll cut him into country fried steak strips when I'm through with him. Even as she fed on the flesh of fallen assassin's of lesser rank she cared about them so little that they registered as little more than idle food for her.

Finished with her gory snack break she went over to the nearby ventilation system. She quietly pried the grate off from the opening with ease, her claws making short work of the screws that held it fast to the thin sheet metal. She climbed inside the entrance she created, slipping silently into the network of small tunnels that provided heating/air conditioning for the entire theater. Ordinarily it would be a bad idea for most to try and sneak in through there as the tunnels aren't meant to bear passangers. Most tunnels were only being large enough for a child to pass through, let alone traverse. Anne was no ordinary person however. Her small waifish form was narrow enough to let her pass into the tunnel works while both her claws and her tongues allowed for improved grip and vertical movement options not ordinarily available to most.

Most important of all was her enhanced audio and visual capabilities which allowed her see and listen to anyone outside the vents within her vicinity. Between this and peaking through the several grated openings in the vent shafts she was able to eventually located her first destination, the basement level entrance. Down below a lot of buildings were the guts of the facility. Things like heating, water and air conditioning required big machinery to handle, things like furnaces and other large unseemly installments which are best kept separate from the public. She had done her homework a few hours back and learned that this building, like many, did have a backup generator for those times when the power supply to the area goes down and they don't want everything to just go pitch black right off the bat. She planned to knock that out first. If she was going to deprive this building of power then making sure it didn't switch back on for a time was necessary.

_
In an opening where nobody was walking the hall her vent led out into she quietly slipped out and approached the door barring her way to the downstairs level. It was locked but only by a mundane key based lock. It was a simple enough barrier for her to overcome, even when the job required the silent treatment. She extended a tongue against the lock, the metal claw shifting and working itself into shape enough proper to pick the door's lock. After about a minute of working the lock with her tongue claws there came that satisfying click, a familiar note that indicated her efforts were fruitful.

The door opened to a dimly lit brick stairwell, tiled stairs led down. Shutting the door behind her she proceeded to stab her middle finger into every light along the path as she proceeded down, plunging the path behind her in total darkness. She eventually arrived at her destination, the bowels of the theater itself. There the backup generator sat, unguarded for reasons likely owing to Rainbow's oversight during the arena planning phase. Carefully she confirmed the lack of cameras watching before getting to work.

She drove her claws into a side panel, pulling the battery right out of the side of the generator. Looking at her little prize like it was a tasty ham sandwich she fit the large battery into her mouth and bit down, her metal teeth cutting through it's metal casing like it was butter. Gooey battery acid poured from the open gash that was once the other half of the battery into her maw, Omnivore heartily swallowing the charged solution along with the pieces of the battery's casing. Tossing the remaining half of the battery into her mouth she swallowed hard, the powerful crusher inside her nanomechanical throat smooshing the sharp uneven metal into swallowable shapes with complete ease.

After her lovely dessert she slashed up the remains of the generator just to be thorough before turning and leaving back up the pitch black hall. It was quite easy for Anny to exfiltrate herself from the theater, coming back out the way she came in. Back up on the roof where the remains of one of her meals laid she set her eyes on the power lines feeding electricity to the building. Once that was cut everything would go black inside. Complete darkness, a fine curtain call to life. Eyes fixed on the lines she primed one of her tongues to cut the wires with a beam of plasma, standing atop the roof right over the room to the main stage where she presumed he would make his arena. Everything was ready to fall... Like dominoes.

Or like other things that fall, like apples from trees or deadly cyborgs from the ceiling. Dominoes are overrated.
Al is probably certain to be in Clouded. You can sign him up for there.


@Savo - A hearty thanks for the approval. With that being the third I shall move Al over to the Characters tab immediately. I look forward to discussing the future with you, as well as roleplaying with you all.
@redbaron1234 - Awesome. All I need is one more approval and that'll make three.
@redbaron1234 - It's basically my explanation for how he can have flesh as tough as steel without it rendering him an immobile statue or an actual robot. So yes, in practical terms he has high defense. I can downgrade the material comparisons a level if his current defensive stat seems a little high.

@KaiserElectric - I'm quite happy to hear. I do look forward to roleplaying alongside you all if and when I'm accepted. I've had plenty of reading thanks to these interesting bunch of characters.
@KaiserElectric - I was just thinking since after I implemented the changes asked I changed the healing ability but I forgot to tag you in my last post with the updated version of Al. I'm curious to know your thoughts on the power I put in place of the one that was there when you approved Al. Do you think it's a suitable replacement for the original power?
@Savo@redbaron1234 - Here's Al, now with the fixes asked for implemented. I changed his healing a bit to hopefully better represent the changes requested of it. The Version 2 tag is temporary, it won't be staying should the sheet be accepted.

@redbaron1234 - Excellent advice. I'm working on the formatting and moving of the powers right as I write this (Perhaps not EXACTLY as I write this but the idea remains).

Given both your and Savo's advice I'm thinking I should put Al's second iteration up with my proposed alteration to his healing. From what you described the changes that I'll be making to his healing should cover that particular change request quite well, or at least I hope so.

I'll be back shortly with a slightly different Al, his CS hopefully cleaned up to spec.
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