BCTheEntity

Sundering Artifice

We have our first staff member's profile up in the 0th post of the Characters tab. So feel free to look at that if you like.

Sundering Artifice

Staff Members

Mechanics and Weapon Training Teacher

Name: Violet Sapphire

Age: 32

Gender: Female

Appearance: Clad in a black, one-piece combat skirt with blue highlights at its edges and a similar blue cape, Violet strikes quite an impressive figure. Just as notably, she stands at a modest 5'4", with a slender athletic figure one might expect from a Sunderer and short-cut, very dark hair that almost appears to fade into a deep blue at its edges. In the presence of students, her expression is almost always excited, even stunningly wide-eyed for her age; when students are impresent, though, she reverts to a more standard look of total disregard for her surroundings, often with a smoke between her lips.

Personality: In the presence of students, Violet makes for a most peppy teacher indeed, showing off her strong sense of justice and her intense love of weapons through her classes: Mechanics, where she shows how to maintain weapons as well as identify weaknesses in the robotic foes of the Sunderers as a whole; and Weapon Training, the actual handling of weapons in both simulated and occasional live-fire combat scenarios.
When she's alone with the adults is a different story. Violet is kind of jaded; less patient teachers may see her as an asshole, whilst more sexist folk might refer to her as a chainsmoking megabitch. Granted, she does inhale a large number of deathsticks a day, insulated from their worse effects by her inherent power, but her apparent bitchiness comes from a resignation of sorts: for all its flaws, the nation needs Sunderers to avoid being devoured by the machines, and the best way to get them is to ensure the students don't see the state's propaganda for what it ultimately is, at least until they're in too deep to back out.

Powers: Violet's basic power is essentially a body-permeating force-field, by her own words "the power emanating from her soul". This protects her from serious harm save from extremely powerful blows, heals very small injuries quickly, and allows her to exert far more strength than somebody of her size ought to by both reinforcing her body structure and rapidly repairing muscle and bone tissue as it suffers microscale damage. Incidentally, this feature also repairs any microscale damage from other sources too, allowing her to recover without permanent disability from most wounds that would otherwise inflict career-ending damage, as well as smoke a hell of a lot of cigarettes without any lasting harm to her lungs or circulatory system.
Her secondary ability, supposedly an extension of this force-field soul power, is a sort of super-speed discorporation: she can disassemble her body, as well as that of any person she is in direct contact with, into a mass of molecular-scale particles that conglomerate into a swarm of "petals", moving around incredibly quickly in this form, then reforming herself and others later on. Naturally, this is extremely potent in combination with sweeping weapon attacks such as those she prefers, as well as for keeping away from danger when it draws close.
However, both of these powers run on an internal energy source of sorts. Her force-field doesn't particularly drain energy in day-to-day use, but the more attacks she takes in a fight, the weaker it grows, and the less effective her discorporation power is; if all of this energy is lost, she cannot use either, greatly lowering her defense and speed, though she retains a decent proportion of her physical ability nonetheless. Even at her weakest, she is still a very highly trained and dangerous Sunderer.

Equipment: Violet's weapon is a transforming combination of sniper rifle and combat scythe. In a melee, she uses the scythe portion as a wide-sweeping weapon, striking many foes at once with a combination of its broad arc and her innate high speed; at range, she can shoot foes from afar with a wide variety of high-caliber bullets. In either case, she is a less effective fighter in hand-to-hand combat, though she is still more than capable of defeating most human warriors in an unarmed melee.

Additional Info: She goes through at least ten packs a day.

Brain in a Can

Name: Alex Grigory

Age: 128

Gender: female

Appearance: Just a plain old brain.

Personality: As she lived over a century as something more inhuman than human, Alex sounds a bit off. Her words may be too blunt or unapologetic and aggressive. It is hard to know whether she means good in her harsh comments or if she just wants to insult people. Countless years of staying inside doing the same things over and over had done enough of negative effects on her.

Backstory: Alex was born with a generic psychic power- she could move stuff with her mind, shoot weak bolts of energy, all the nice stuff. She started training her power ever since youth, soon joining the Sunderers with the nicely honed set of skills. She never stopped training, finding out her limits and going over them. Such process repeated for the countless years she lived. Weak bolts of energy turned to a small thunderstorm, and she could crumple weak robots with just a thought. No doubt, she became one of the strongest psychics in human history.
On one unlucky mission, in an epic fight, her body was broken beyond repair. There was nothing the bleeding edge technology could do about the dying psychic. After all those years, it seemed that Alex's journey had finally come to an end.
Except she had a backup in mind.
Using the overwhelming power she had, the final missing piece of a trick she had been researching was finally finished in her dying moments. Soon, she was a human no more. She was a brain, and a psychic one at that. Preserving herself with her powers, Alex continued on with her duty as a Sunderer. Her power still grew over time, as usual life routine of research continued-only now she had more time as some of the things she had to do as a human being was now unnecessary.
Now stuck with immense amount of energy that may go out of control when not taken care of well, Alex ended up stuck in the Sunderers HQ expending her powers to make sure it didn't go haywire. Her taking part in the education of Sunderer initiates has been a recent try, as many viewed her larger-than-life ideal for training young fighters.

Powers: The Psychic
Alex is a psychic. She can move things using her mind(though there is a limit to the amount of force she can exert), or use her supernatural psychic energy to conjure lightning-like exertion of energy from thin air. The specific mechanics of said psychic energy is vague- sometimes it is like magic, sometimes it is like science. She can mimic matter a bit to form bodies, shoot energy bolts to destroy things, or even render herself technically immortal by preserving her brain and providing necessary nutrition for it. All of this, of course, resulted from her endless training, which only intensified after her turning into a brain.

Equipment:
VOP: Vital Organ Perserver. A piece of tech recovered years after Alex's change, it allows for a human being to survive with only a few vital organs (such as the brain and spine) rigged up to machines in a tube filled with fluid. While this is not a required gear of survival for Alex, it lessens her burden on monitoring herself, so she usually rests in this container.

Principal Man

Name: Darren Hitchcross

Age: 57

Gender: Male

Appearance: An old man with a balding head and a rather well managed beard. He is almost always seen wearing his iconic boonie hat and a sportswear top. Despite his old age, he managed to keep a muscular build with workout routines. He doesn't have any visible scars, only a pair of staring dark brown eyes.

Personality: He is the headmaster of the Institute, and has been for the last ten years. Though he is not a battle hardened veteran who went through nigh impossible missions, but he did prove to be a decent leader by staying in the high rank of the military for dozens of years. He was suggested an honorable role of commanding the war against robots in the frontline, but he declined humbly and agreed to instead focus on educating the young Sunderer initiates.
Darren is a man of honor, emphasizing the honor of Fidelis and its past glory days. While he believes the training method of Sunderers isn't as effective as the way they used to train soldiers, he admits their tactics are more fitting to fight against these inhuman foes.

Fellow Students

Plant Boy Bully

Name: Rick Wrenfield

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Appearance: Quite strongly built for his age, but also somewhat short at only 5'1". He has dark brown hair, brown eyes that belie the hardness in them, and heavily tanned skin. His clothing, interestingly, seems to be of only modest make and quality compared to many other students present.

Personality: Rick is kind of a dick. He's very physically strong and knows it, but moreover he is highly confident in his approach to the world, which gives him the opportunity to bully and otherwise lord it over those he sees as lesser- more specifically, those he feels haven't actually worked for their powers and abilities- and with a degree of crude charisma can handily draw a fairly decent crowd to him given time. In his downtime, he likes to use his power over plants to engage in some light botany, a hobby he doesn't typically discuss. For some reason, he refuses to do anything that might upset one Danver Wilkes.

Powers: Rick's raw strength is very high even for his physique, to the point that he could bring a speeding car to a dead stop with one punch, totalling it in the process. This, however, is purely in terms of output, and being hit by the same car would probably kill him or at least seriously injure him - he can dish it out, but he can't take it, so to speak. This is, however, supplemented by his other ability, acceleration of plant growth and control of their forms, allowing him to build up rapidly-sprouting barriers of wood, lashing vines, and biting flytraps in a fight, not to mention providing mobility in a pinch.

Equipment: Rick's only on-hand combat items are a heavy, reinforced metal tower shield that can take huge hits for him in a pinch, and a punch dagger to further concentrate his attack force into a point for even greater impact damage when push comes to shove.

Mister Nerdo

Name: Danver Wilkes

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Appearance: An almost stereotypical nerd - pale with black hair and eyes, 5'3", and rather skinny to boot. His usual uniforms tend to include at least three pens and one calculator in their ensemble; this frequently consists of a checkered t-shirt with a chest pocket and trousers that are slightly too large for his frame.

Personality: Shy, computer-absorbed, just a bit too friendly with pretty girls. Whilst highly intelligent, Danver is not hugely sociable as a result, and he struggles to speak up for himself in most cases. Whilst he has a bit of a mean streak given the chance to be in charge of something or someone, he also tend to fold like paper if pushed. He does, however, maintain that technology is the key to the world - case in point, the machines that have largely destroyed it.

Powers: Superintelligence is often underrated, and comes in far more forms than merely logical. In Danver's case, his is focused on his proficiency with and speed in constructing a huge range of mechanical and electronic devices, from computers to remote-controlled drones to power armour. With enough time and resources, he can even build quite large and powerful mechas in various forms. Though he greatly prefers not to engage in combat in-person, having no actual superhuman abilities beyond his intellect, he is more than capable of controlling androids or other machines of his design from far away with his mind alone, and in a worst-case scenario he has built a suit of power armour he can pilot personally.

Equipment: Whatever he can craft, usually a number of multi-tools and/or whatever machines he's sent out in his stead.

Sundering Artifice

So, Purple's character could more or less aimdodge out of the way before the rounds are shot, rather than avoiding the bullets once they've been fired. Good to know.

NEOTOKYO - Shadow Conflict [Open!]

Tanaka Yukako

_{Interacting with @Lady Selune Caitlyn Ellesworth and @Smike Kazankova Bykov}

It had only been a couple of days at work for Yukako so far. This meant that, frankly, she was still getting used to her new accommodations - most of her stuff was still in its boxes. Well, no, a lot of her stuff was in the hands of the Japanese government, actually. Part of the moving in process, at least for her specific situation - security or something, since she was technically on probation for the role. Job stuff, a probation period had happened with her initial police training in Kyoto. It did suck, but oh well, her things were coming through to her, except the engineering bits that had already been transferred to the proper bay in the NSF compound, which was really the point she'd been trying to reach in the first place.

Her new living quarters were on-site. Like, literally in the NSF base, right near all of the buildings. You could get pretty much anywhere in there with a few minutes of walking, and she liked to jog or even run places when she could. In fairness, that didn't factor in clearance so much, and for a C-Class operator on security probation, that clearance was surprisingly limited. Main hall and lounge; shooting range, gym and locker rooms; and in her case as well as a few others, the engineering bay. Those, at least, were what she normally went to. Actually, there were probably other places she could go too, but those were the main ones. Maybe she'd use the engineering bay resources to set up further education later on.

Getting to the main hall took a rather short span of time, was basically the point she wanted to make to herself. It was an activity hub, anyway, with quite a few operatives coming and going at any given moment. Even with just a brief scan, she saw, who was that again, Itou Itsuki- no, wait, that'd be Itou-san, or probably Itou-senpai, like her parents always said. Though actually, he didn't mind, did he? A lot of people minded very much indeed, she didn't, she seemed to recall he didn't either? She'd have to ask again. Same with Mrs. Caitlyn Ellesworth, Ellesworth-sensei; and Miss Kazankova Bykov, Kaz-senpai; and Shunsen-sensei, Mr. Takai Shunsen. But uh, Shunsen-sensei was leaving at this stage, so that left Mrs. Ellesworth and Miss Bykov. Miss Kaz. She could just ask, and she went over to do just that, and also greet them.

'Good morning, Ellesworth-sensei, Bykov-senpai,' she called to them, smiling and waving energetically as she approached. 'It's nice to see you both today! How are you doing?' She used Japanese at first, then switched to English for the basic smalltalk that people liked for some reason, since these guys weren't Japanese. It was actually a little ironic that her English was a bit better than her Japanese - it had faded a touch, but it was her primary language for about twelve years- no, French was, honestly. That still made her tri-lingual by default, though, which everybody loved on a resume, which was probably partly why she'd been let into the NSF too perhaps? Or the police. Both. Had she walked in on a conversation? Shit, she hoped not.

Warhammer 40k: Beyond the Pale - A Rogue Trader Adventure

Ah, yes. Her desirability in the assault was not unexpected - if nothing else, her presence would be suitable for enhancing the group's resolve and ensuring the boarding action's success. Bidding her Choir continue to contemplate their next message outward, and designating one to lead them in her absence, she let them be, heading on to the assault point in due course. She had everything she needed with her, of course.

And yet, the Eldar still reached the location long before anybody else. She had a knack for physicality, not to mention intense arrogance and a soul that could be singled out from well across the ship. Granted, its potency compared to the others on board was significant, but it was the strange form that really stuck out when it came to seeing her. Naturally, this made her no easier to communicate with - especially with such mocking greetings as "highmind".

'Ah, and a distinct greeting to you too, xeno,' she replied , her sardonic grin cutting. Her glare would have been too, but... well. 'I certainly hope you get your fill of combat today - why, you must be raring to get to the front line ahead of us mere humans, mustn't you?' Even as she said this, she set her mind upon bolstering the group's resolve in advance of the attack, her soul reaching out to touch those of the others in the group. Severus', mostly gilded from fear already, but precise and specific in its function, and simple enough to add extra reinforcement to. Isaiah's, tired of the galaxy as it was, but proof against most fears, and yet worth proofing further. Even Laeveyla's. Eugh, like prodding grox refuse with her toe - not that Laeveyla had any relation to a grox, of course, because those were actually useful, but one could all but smell the pompous crap spewing from her mind if only one had the capacity to sense it.

NEOTOKYO - Shadow Conflict [Open!]

Tanaka Yukako (多仲 優香子)

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(Yukako was drawn by AlternateMan, a.k.a. WalkingOnThinIce. Thank you very much!)

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Name
Tanaka Yukako. Friends get to call her Yuya.

Nationality
Japanese, with some foreign ancestry.

Age
24

Sexuality
Bisexual

Birth
Kyōto, Kyōto Prefecture (京都, 京都府) - July, 2007

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Appearance
For somebody who's largely Japanese by genetics, noted by her usual skin tone and dark brown eye colour, Yukako looks very foreign indeed, or perhaps like somebody who never left their delinquent phase. She tans readily, has lengthy and naturally platinum blonde hair, and most notably has a figure that wouldn't look out of place in certain types of modern Japanese media; she is also tall, and courtesy of her background in the police force quite fit indeed, with lean musculature only further enhancing her physique.

Her usual outfit when out of the field tends to be a combination of shirt and skirt, occasionally wearing trousers instead of a skirt if formality is a requirement, in a variety of patterns that may or may not work together or clash horrendously, as well as various black heels usually accompanied by white socks to prevent chafing. In uniform is another story: she typically opts for one of the basic Assault outfits, consisting of a blue fabric bodysuit covering her entire frame, black kevlar protecting her torso and groin with storage for ammo and grenades, and a full optics mask hiding her face.

Height
6' flat.

Personality
Yukako is on the autistic spectrum, a relatively high-functioning example. This colours a lot of her personality both on and off duty, but primarily as a poor understanding of social norms and facial expressions that can make her look unempathetic or impolite. Granted, understanding exactly why certain social matters are so important can be hard for her, in particular with the stringent demands Japan often makes in that regard, but she is nothing but empathic, perhaps overly so, once she recognises how somebody is feeling; indeed, trying to sort out how people feel consistently does lead to a degree of anxiety about it all. By default, however, she presents as highly energetic and friendly to the majority of people, often talking rapidly and to great length when describing a topic or situation, and may well flirt with them egregiously depending on circumstance, most commonly when smalltalk has taken over and she is struggling to find anything meaningful to say.

This energy transfers over to her approach to a fight. In some sense, she is professional, and certainly trained for combat scenarios, but she tends toward a great deal of movement and intense laughter in a firefight, often showing a reckless attitude as she travels toward the foe. Funnily enough, this is not out of pure lunacy: her tolerance for sensory overload is significantly lower than that of a neurotypical person, and she tries to keep moving in battle specifically to keep herself from freezing up and becoming a sitting duck.

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Role
Assault

Equipment
ASSAULT-01 Armour - One of three standard NSF Assault-grade suits. Bullet-resistant kevlar provides moderate protection to the center of mass, leaving the limbs free to move and remaining light enough that sprinting for a brief time is viable. Also bears utility boxes to contain ammunition clips, grenades, and other relatively small items. Built-in camouflaging systems allow the user to refract visible light around them for just under ten seconds, with recent advances in thermoptic technology adding infrared radiation to this spectrum to avoid detection by thermal vision; this will recharge gradually when not in use.

Motionvision Visor 01 - A visor with advanced motion detection technology implanted throughout. At a moment's notice, the user can switch between standard visuals and motionvision, showing the world in a faint reddish-yellow tinge and displaying any and all movement as a bright yellowish burst even if a target is camouflaged from visible light, though it cannot detect motion through dense clouds such as from a smoke grenade. As a bonus, the ASSAULT-01 model covers the full face, blocking identity, and allowing the user to draw from a small internal oxygen supply in case of a gas attack.

Directed Energy Weapon Prototype - A rather large custom weapon of Yukako's design, comparable in size (though not in recoil) to a handheld Minigun or LMG, much of which is the large battery pack powering it. The rest is a combination of LASER emitters at the "barrel" end, and a switch and dial just above the cell to toggle between electrolaser and PEP modes, and determine the degree of incapacitation or lethality desired. The battery pack uses similar technology to the NSF's thermoptic camouflage to recharge over time, but takes much longer comparatively due to the greater stored charge.

HRV ZX68S Assault Rifle - Relatively standard secondary weapon with suppressed muzzle flash. Well-rounded for distance, accuracy, and stopping power, and capable in most circumstances. Thirty-plus-one round Stanag magazine, 7.62x51mm projectiles.

JH Industries Tachi Pistol - Basic Assault sidearm, custom-tooled for NSF use. Fifteen rounds, .40 ACP projectiles, with a toggle between single shot and automatic to perform a "mag-dump" when needed.

Frag grenades - Standard issue fragmentation explosives. Pull the pin, throw the explosive such that the lever comes away, do not move in range of flying shrapnel. Easy enough, and sufficiently powerful to kill even heavily-armoured targets in close proximity to ground zero.

Combat knife - Last resort weapon. Relatively poor in the situations faced by the NSF, but can potentially instakill if a stab to the right place is made.

Previous Careers
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (Tokyo Keishi-chō, 東京 警視庁) - Police Sergeant (Junsa-buchō, 巡査部長)
Kyoto Prefectural Police Department (Kyōto Fu-keisatsu, 京都 府警察) - Senior Police Officer (Junsa-chō, 巡査長)

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Biography
Yukako's childhood was, one could say, eventful. For starters, her young self had clear difficulties in fully comprehending the basic behaviours taught in childhood in her home country, and her parents often took her to be slow or a trouble maker rather than cottoning to the actual issue. Then, of course, her family moved from Japan to southern France after the nuclear attack on Tokyo - they lived in Kyōto at the time, but her parents decided it would be best to avoid any possible additional attacks. She was only four or five at the time.

Adapting to the new environment was quite tough on Yukako. Aside from anything else, the behavioural standards set at her new school were vastly different to those her parents set for behaviour, and much different to those of her preschool in Japan; suffice to say, language barriers in both French and English made learning quite difficult in kind, and in the end it was specialised tutoring that gave her both a leg up to the necessary educational standards, and an insight into the idea that she had something happening in her brain that warranted investigation. A couple of testing sessions later confirmed a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder; whilst it was hard for her parents to adapt and account for Yukako's condition, emphasis was placed on the fact that doing so would make things a lot easier for both her and them, and it is likely that this change led Yukako to be much closer with her parents in the years since.

Even still, friends were hard to come by for her. She managed to form a very strong bond with another girl in CM2, only to be separated from her when they went to different middle schools, a fact that still stings whenever it arises for her; collège, ultimately, was a somewhat lonely affair in its first two years, supplemented by quite a bit of exercise, but began to look up when Yukako began to express herself more outwardly. People began to look to her as... a friend? An acquaintance? An idol? She wasn't sure, but despite her oddities, and perhaps because her tendency toward athleticism made her seem more interesting, she suddenly stuck out as one of the cool kids, a fact that continued into high school and ultimately propelling her to her baccalauréat at the age of 17, with specialities in languages and engineering sciences - foreign languages, ultimately, were something that she was naturally adept in by then, but she'd found herself quite fascinated with optics too, lasers and the like, and was considering even taking a tertiary education course in.

At which stage, her parents threw her a fresh curveball by announcing that they were moving back to Japan. Why? They wanted her to receive higher education in her home country. Did she get a choice? Not really, no. Thus she was moved back into a nation whose social norms she still didn't fully comprehend even after drilling on them by her parents, now with an additional barrier of looking rather foreign to boot. Suffice to say, her enrolement and education in Kyoto University was a somewhat difficult affair, and a mouth that had already learned to speak fast reinforced the habit there as stress and anxiety ramped up to terrible levels. Even so, she got in on her first try; she endured great amounts of discrimination for her sex, appearance, and autistic traits, nullified in part by her intentionally dressing and speaking as a delinquent to throw people off and, occasionally, awkwardly flirting and sleeping with people who would otherwise have been bullies; and in the end, she hit 21 having acquired a very solid degree in engineering and cemented her interest in optical technologies.

But, funnily enough, her physicality remained ever-present as something of importance. When word came of Jinrai's attempted coup, she decided she couldn't just let it go to waste. She felt, rather, that she had a duty not to allow that, and even that she should take up work to keep herself and Japan in good standing - even though her degree would have inclined her to potentially much more immediately prestigious scientific work, her profession and hobby ultimately swapped places, and she signed on to the Kyoto Prefectural Police Department as a police officer, and after a year or so a senior police officer.

The men there hated her. The women found her strange. She did wonder if she'd made a mistake at points, but reassured herself time and again that she was helping people, keeping them safe! Until she was reassigned as a sergeant in Tokyo, of all places, at the start of 2031. Quite suddenly, the only people she had consistent connections to were more or less cut off from her, as she was moved to a technically more prestigious academy, but with even fewer support mechanisms. To keep herself sane, she began putting her technological knowledge to use in her downtime, by designing a blueprint for a directed energy weapon with multiple purposes. Electrolasers could be done, it was just a matter of finding a strong enough power source!

Then came September. She and her squad were informed of a firefight occurring in the Kanagawa Ward area, and pursued the affair fully armed and ready to deal with, in theory, anything. What they weren't ready for was the conflict to be between the pseudo-governmental terrorist group trying to claim the country's rulership, and what amounted to the government's secret special forces. Most of the squad survived the raid, largely thanks to Yukako's firm instruction and at least two moments where she shot down a foe who had trained their sights on her team, plus a third where she did the same for somebody from the NSF. This, however, only led to their being brought into custody as the government tried to figure out who they were with and how much they knew.

To the government's credit, the others were eventually released back to the public, with a signed NDA and a very clear understanding on their relevant superiors' part that they weren't talk about what they'd witnessed. As for Yukako... her skill intrigued them. For somebody who'd only been with the police for a few years, she was shockingly capable, and when it transpired what she'd been working on in her spare time too, a decision was made by somebody somewhere. She'd be trained up; she'd be incorporated into the NSF as a new agent; and, with testing allowed of course, a weapon that was basically functional in theory and just needed a more efficient battery in practice could be built for her to wield on the field. Their recent advances in thermoptic camouflage and its recharging would prove to be the ironic final piece of that lattermost puzzle: the battery could recharge on its own merits.

Come November, Yukako would officially join the NSF's ranks as a Class C Operator, with multiple extra languages and some input into the mechanical side of matters to boot. She was quite excited for her new job, suffice to say.

Affiliations
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and Kyoto Prefectural Police Department - Former places of work, source of much field training.
Tanaka Hideyoshi and Akane (多仲 秀吉, 多仲 (茜) - Father and mother. Currently living in Kyoto, but moved to southern France with Yukako for over a decade after the 2012 bomb dropped. Yukako's foreign ancestry stems from her father, whose own grandfather was a soldier from another nation, possibly Germany.

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Relationships
Parents: Very traditional, and not massively inclined toward change if they can help it. This led to tensions between them and their daughter at younger ages, but once they realised she was autistic, and were outright told to do so, they became much better about accounting for her needs. Nowadays, she is quite close to them, in fact the only people in Japan who she is especially close to; being forced to move to Tokyo on account of her career was a heart-wrenching affair, and to this day she maintains regular video contact with them as best she can.

NSF: None specific yet - Yukako really is quite new to the NSF, and so hasn't gotten more than a bare-bones impression of anybody else in its ranks.
Takai Shunsen - Didn't meet him yet. Hearsay suggests that he was recently maimed in another raid.
Kazankova Bykov - Strong, so you'd think a good workout buddy. Kind of hostile, though.
Takeda Ochisuita - The boss' boss' boss. He's pretty okay. Hard, but not a dick.
Caitlyn Ellesworth - The boss. She seems to know her stuff. Kind of distant, unfortunately.
Takeuchi Yukiko - Kind of boring? Doesn't stick out a bunch.
Yamamoto Mikasa - She makes a lot of sense. Dark sense of humour, is all.
Hattori Naomi - Not super sure what to make of her. A bit distant, maybe.
Li Dàiyù - Pretty cool. Kind of a badass, maybe? Not sure.
Itsuki Itou - Don't have to be so formal with him. What a relief.

Character Theme

Become Anime Girls, Destroy Robots

@Frettzo It's anime inspired, so I imagine a dog kemono would be entirely acceptable.

Warhammer 40k: Beyond the Pale - A Rogue Trader Adventure

'As before, sir, none whatsoever,' the Choir-Master confirmed, 'and an additional message will take more time to send out.' She'd been leading the choir in the process of distress signalling for most of those two days - "We are in peril, unknown enemies pursuing our ship, send assistance immediately", roughly encrypted as follows: A tide of teeth pursues a lone grox across an empty plain, attempting to devour it. It is destroyed by a solid projectile rifle from a distance, a flurry of shots shattering the teeth and allowing the grox to turn and slay what lies underneath. Well, she suspected they could destroy this unknown foe with support. The problem was getting the support, if it was even forthcoming - and since the message took several hours to even contemplate, let alone properly encrypt, they had broadcast a grand total of four actual distress signals so far. Which, granted, was a great deal better than most astropaths could pull off in just two days, helped by the fact that the actual content remained similar from projection to projection, but came at the cost of physical exhaustion and sleep deprivation even beyond the usual for her and the rest of the choir.

And it wasn't as if she hadn't tried to find life elsewhere. But, within so many Void Units, there was just theirs and the pursuing ship, and its strange xeno minds. She had yet to establish what those were, only that they lacked humanity - but then that was obvious by the ship's actual design. And whilst she had the theoretical option to insinuate fear into the attackers or make their ship appear to be in many places at once, with great effort on her and the choir's part of course, those only really mattered if and when the ship started firing at them again. Maybe she should start practicing her telekinetic abilities to try and break something on the other ship... or figure out how to convey Voidfrost across as vast a distance as its nature implied.

Still, she had the option of enfearing them if they attempted to invade, or empowering the crew if they boarded back, or even trying to make an enemy gunner aim incorrectly if they began firing again. For now, she and her choir could only continue the process of contemplation anew - and she had to ensure her choir remained healthy, as well. If anyone burned out, it was on her head; she knew very well the agony of burnout and how it aged its victims, and she was quite intent on keeping the Rogue Traders' in good health for a long time.

The Emperor's Duty: A Warhammer 40K RP

Justicar Hektor Autark

The outer wall was secure. It was inevitable, frankly - the rogues had numbers, but much like the Imperium against any other barbarian horde, discipline and superiority of equipment proved their might over those who would pit themselves against humanity, even other humans. And when it came to what amounted to thugs in carapace armour against the true upholders of the Lex Imperialis...

Well, it was an inevitability regardless. The Guard's melta bomb bought them the entrance, opening it up for the vehicles to enter through; the cyber-mastiff handler bought them the parapets, ending the threat of heavy weaponry for the time being. The assassins declared their intent to enter at this stage, leaving the men and women on the ground to plan the second level of the siege.

'Arbites, regroup at my position!' Hektor called out through his shield-vox, the men and women of the Adeptus Arbites moving to him behind one of the buildings in the structure as the last of the Enforcers fled into their inner keep. Amongst them, Handler Ceras and Adept Frea appeared, along with the two cyber-mastiffs - though they were both clearly quite battered, marks and dents scarring their outer shells, and on one of them the telltale signs of plasma burn, they certainly weren't destroyed yet.

'Good work thus far,' the Justicar addressed the team. 'The facility is breached, but it is yet to be taken back in full. From here forward, we will likely need to approach on foot; the Rumblers don't have an angle on the mansion, and the Repressor will need to be brought in later, unless some of you want to risk being caught in a fresh crossfire to open the door.' Kowl and Lance glanced at each other, Hektor could only assume debating with themselves whether they could get the other to do it, but when they said nothing, he turned to the breaching team. 'Handler, Verispex, your role was well-executed. Anything to report?'

'Sir, we've gotten a Rumbler into the inner walls,' the brighter woman announced, smiling with just a hint of worry. Worry? 'Incidentally, some fresh welding may be needed at the access point later.' Ah. And by "got the Rumbler in", she presumably meant "used it as a battering ram". Hektor sighed with minor annoyance. Those weren't indestructible, for the Emperor's sake.

'Additionally, sir,' Michael added, 'we have secured the majority of heavy weapons on the outer wall, including the lascannon and a plasma pistol. I would recommend relaying these to the Imperial Guard; they will see more use under them, I suspect.'

'Sir! Permission to equip Verispex Adept Michael with the plasma pistol?' Victoria asked, utterly out of step and clearly unexpected on his end.

'Denied. We don't know whether it's been properly maintained or engineered, and if it overheats, it'd likely kill any of us, let alone him. And watch when you speak, Handler.'

'...wul- well I can throw it-'

'Denied, Verispex. You can examine it later if you're still intent.' The enthusiasm was appreciated, but like a plasma pistol's power, it needed to be directed. And he suspected Michael just wanted to try and back up Victoria, rather than actually putting himself at risk.

'Magistrate Kowl,' he continued, seeking to proceed with the matter rather than giving the Enforcers more time to regroup than necessary, 'lead half the Arbitrators plus Handler Ceras to the Guard Captain, inform them that they are recommended to take control of the autocannon and lascannon installations for the next phase of the operation. Marshal Lance, everybody else, you're with me. Lockshields primed for movement.'

'Yes, sir!' the team replied - Rheanna in particular with a growl of enthusiasm, and Darius much less so. That rivalry really needed to remain unencouraged as far as possible, in his mind. Nonetheless, the split was made: the Magistrate's team of six moved out in the direction of the Imperial Guard's forces, cyber-mastiffs and all, whilst the Justicar led his party of nine in the opposite direction, moving quickly between structures to minimise exposure to the Enforcers and get as close as possible. Should any show their faces, of course, he'd do what he could to put rounds in them, but then one could only do so much at a distance.

OOC Footer

@Monochromatic Rainbow A Magistrate, five Arbitrators, and two cyber-mastiffs are headed your way with good news! Or should I say gun news.

NEOTOKYO - Shadow Conflict [Open!]

Tanaka Yukako (多仲 優香子)

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Name
Tanaka Yukako. Friends get to call her Yuya.

Nationality
Japanese, with some foreign ancestry.

Age
24

Sexuality
Bisexual

Birth
Kyōto, Kyōto Prefecture (京都, 京都府) - July, 2007

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Appearance
For somebody who's largely Japanese by genetics, noted by her usual skin tone and dark brown eye colour, Yukako looks very foreign indeed, or perhaps like somebody who never left their delinquent phase. She tans readily, has lengthy and naturally platinum blonde hair, and most notably has a figure that wouldn't look out of place in certain types of modern Japanese media; she is also tall, and courtesy of her background in the police force quite fit indeed, with lean musculature only further enhancing her physique.

Her usual outfit when out of the field tends to be a combination of shirt and skirt, occasionally wearing trousers instead of a skirt if formality is a requirement, in a variety of patterns that may or may not work together or clash horrendously, as well as various black heels usually accompanied by white socks to prevent chafing. In uniform is another story: she typically opts for one of the basic Assault outfits, consisting of a blue fabric bodysuit covering her entire frame, black kevlar protecting her torso and groin with storage for ammo and grenades, and a full optics mask hiding her face.

Height
6' flat.

Personality
Yukako is on the autistic spectrum, a relatively high-functioning example. This colours a lot of her personality both on and off duty, but primarily as a poor understanding of social norms and facial expressions that can make her look unempathetic or impolite. Granted, understanding exactly why certain social matters are so important can be hard for her, in particular with the stringent demands Japan often makes in that regard, but she is nothing but empathic, perhaps overly so, once she recognises how somebody is feeling; indeed, trying to sort out how people feel consistently does lead to a degree of anxiety about it all. By default, however, she presents as highly energetic and friendly to the majority of people, often talking rapidly and to great length when describing a topic or situation, and may well flirt with them egregiously depending on circumstance, most commonly when smalltalk has taken over and she is struggling to find anything meaningful to say.

This energy transfers over to her approach to a fight. In some sense, she is professional, and certainly trained for combat scenarios, but she tends toward a great deal of movement and intense laughter in a firefight, often showing a reckless attitude as she travels toward the foe. Funnily enough, this is not out of pure lunacy: her tolerance for sensory overload is significantly lower than that of a neurotypical person, and she tries to keep moving in battle specifically to keep herself from freezing up and becoming a sitting duck.

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Role
Assault

Equipment
ASSAULT-01 Armour - One of three standard NSF Assault-grade suits. Bullet-resistant kevlar provides moderate protection to the center of mass, leaving the limbs free to move and remaining light enough that sprinting for a brief time is viable. Also bears utility boxes to contain ammunition clips, grenades, and other relatively small items. Built-in camouflaging systems allow the user to refract visible light around them for just under ten seconds, with recent advances in thermoptic technology adding infrared radiation to this spectrum to avoid detection by thermal vision; this will recharge greadually when not in use.

Motionvision Visor 01 - A visor with advanced motion detection technology implanted throughout. At a moment's notice, the user can switch between standard visuals and motionvision, showing the world in a faint reddish-yellow tinge and displaying any and all movement as a bright yellowish burst even if a target is camouflaged from visible light, though it cannot detect motion through dense clouds such as from a smoke grenade. As a bonus, the ASSAULT-01 model covers the full face, blocking identity, and allowing the user to draw from a small internal oxygen supply in case of a gas attack.

Directed Energy Weapon Prototype - A rather large custom weapon of Yukako's design, comparable in size (though not in recoil) to a handheld Minigun or LMG, much of which is the large battery pack powering it. The rest is a combination of LASER emitters at the "barrel" end, and a switch and dial just above the cell to toggle between electrolaser and PEP modes, and determine the degree of incapacitation or lethality desired. The battery pack uses similar technology to the NSF's thermoptic camouflage to recharge over time, but takes much longer comparatively due to the greater stored charge.

HRV ZX68S Assault Rifle - Relatively standard secondary weapon with suppressed muzzle flash. Well-rounded for distance, accuracy, and stopping power, and capable in most circumstances. Thirty-plus-one round Stanag magazine, 7.62x51mm projectiles.

JH Industries Tachi Pistol - Basic Assault sidearm, custom-tooled for NSF use. Fifteen rounds, .40 ACP projectiles, with a toggle between single shot and automatic to perform a "mag-dump" when needed.

Frag grenades - Standard issue fragmentation explosives. Pull the pin, throw the explosive such that the lever comes away, do not move in range of flying shrapnel. Easy enough, and sufficiently powerful to kill even heavily-armoured targets in close proximity to ground zero.

Combat knife - Last resort weapon. Relatively poor in the situations faced by the NSF, but can potentially instakill if a stab to the right place is made.

Previous Careers
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (Tokyo Keishi-chō, 東京 警視庁) - Police Sergeant (Junsa-buchō, 巡査部長)
Kyoto Prefectural Police Department (Kyōto Fu-keisatsu, 京都 府警察) - Senior Police Officer (Junsa-chō, 巡査長)

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Biography
Yukako's childhood was, one could say, eventful. For starters, her young self had clear difficulties in fully comprehending the basic behaviours taught in childhood in her home country, and her parents often took her to be slow or a trouble maker rather than cottoning to the actual issue. Then, of course, her family moved from Japan to southern France after the nuclear attack on Tokyo - they lived in Kyōto at the time, but her parents decided it would be best to avoid any possible additional attacks. She was only four or five at the time.

Adapting to the new environment was quite tough on Yukako. Aside from anything else, the behavioural standards set at her new school were vastly different to those her parents set for behaviour, and much different to those of her preschool in Japan; suffice to say, language barriers in both French and English made learning quite difficult in kind, and in the end it was specialised tutoring that gave her both a leg up to the necessary educational standards, and an insight into the idea that she had something happening in her brain that warranted investigation. A couple of testing sessions later confirmed a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder; whilst it was hard for her parents to adapt and account for Yukako's condition, emphasis was placed on the fact that doing so would make things a lot easier for both her and them, and it is likely that this change led Yukako to be much closer with her parents in the years since.

Even still, friends were hard to come by for her. She managed to form a very strong bond with another girl in CM2, only to be separated from her when they went to different middle schools, a fact that still stings whenever it arises for her; collège, ultimately, was a somewhat lonely affair in its first two years, supplemented by quite a bit of exercise, but began to look up when Yukako began to express herself more outwardly. People began to look to her as... a friend? An acquaintance? An idol? She wasn't sure, but despite her oddities, and perhaps because her tendency toward athleticism made her seem more interesting, she suddenly stuck out as one of the cool kids, a fact that continued into high school and ultimately propelling her to her baccalauréat at the age of 17, with specialities in languages and engineering sciences - foreign languages, ultimately, were something that she was naturally adept in by then, but she'd found herself quite fascinated with optics too, lasers and the like, and was considering even taking a tertiary education course in.

At which stage, her parents threw her a fresh curveball by announcing that they were moving back to Japan. Why? They wanted her to receive higher education in her home country. Did she get a choice? Not really, no. Thus she was moved back into a nation whose social norms she still didn't fully comprehend even after drilling on them by her parents, now with an additional barrier of looking rather foreign to boot. Suffice to say, her enrolement and education in Kyoto University was a somewhat difficult affair, and a mouth that had already learned to speak fast reinforced the habit there as stress and anxiety ramped up to terrible levels. Even so, she got in on her first try; she endured great amounts of discrimination for her sex, appearance, and autistic traits, nullified in part by her intentionally dressing and speaking as a delinquent to throw people off and, occasionally, awkwardly flirting and sleeping with people who would otherwise have been bullies; and in the end, she hit 21 having acquired a very solid degree in engineering and cemented her interest in optical technologies.

But, funnily enough, her physicality remained ever-present as something of importance. When word came of Jinrai's attempted coup, she decided she couldn't just let it go to waste. She felt, rather, that she had a duty not to allow that, and even that she should take up work to keep herself and Japan in good standing - even though her degree would have inclined her to potentially much more immediately prestigious scientific work, her profession and hobby ultimately swapped places, and she signed on to the Kyoto Prefectural Police Department as a police officer, and after a year or so a senior police officer.

The men there hated her. The women found her strange. She did wonder if she'd made a mistake at points, but reassured herself time and again that she was helping people, keeping them safe! Until she was reassigned as a sergeant in Tokyo, of all places, at the start of 2031. Quite suddenly, the only people she had consistent connections to were more or less cut off from her, as she was moved to a technically more prestigious academy, but with even fewer support mechanisms. To keep herself sane, she began putting her technological knowledge to use in her downtime, by designing a blueprint for a directed energy weapon with multiple purposes. Electrolasers could be done, it was just a matter of finding a strong enough power source!

Then came September. She and her squad were informed of a firefight occurring in the Kanagawa Ward area, and pursued the affair fully armed and ready to deal with, in theory, anything. What they weren't ready for was the conflict to be between the pseudo-governmental terrorist group trying to claim the country's rulership, and what amounted to the government's secret special forces. Most of the squad survived the raid, largely thanks to Yukako's firm instruction and at least two moments where she shot down a foe who had trained their sights on her team, plus a third where she did the same for somebody from the NSF. This, however, only led to their being brought into custody as the government tried to figure out who they were with and how much they knew.

To the government's credit, the others were eventually released back to the public, with a signed NDA and a very clear understanding on their relevant superiors' part that they weren't talk about what they'd witnessed. As for Yukako... her skill intrigued them. For somebody who'd only been with the police for a few years, she was shockingly capable, and when it transpired what she'd been working on in her spare time too, a decision was made by somebody somewhere. She'd be trained up; she'd be incorporated into the NSF as a new agent; and, with testing allowed of course, a weapon that was basically functional in theory and just needed a more efficient battery in practice could be built for her to wield on the field. Their recent advances in thermoptic camouflage and its recharging would prove to be the ironic final piece of that lattermost puzzle: the battery could recharge on its own merits.

Come November, Yukako would officially join the NSF's ranks as a Class C Operator, with multiple extra languages and some input into the mechanical side of matters to boot. She was quite excited for her new job, suffice to say.

Affiliations
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and Kyoto Prefectural Police Department - Former places of work, source of much field training.
Tanaka Hideyoshi and Akane (多仲 秀吉, 多仲 (茜) - Father and mother. Currently living in Kyoto, but moved to southern France with Yukako for over a decade after the 2012 bomb dropped. Yukako's foreign ancestry stems from her father, whose own grandfather was a soldier from another nation, possibly Germany.

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Relationships [Optional]
None specific yet - Yukako really is quite new to the NSF, and so hasn't gotten more than a bare-bones impression of anybody else in its ranks.

Takai Shunsen - Didn't meet him yet. Hearsay suggests that he was recently maimed in another raid.
Kazankova Bykov - Strong, so you'd think a good workout buddy. Kind of hostile, though.
Takeda Ochisuita - The boss' boss' boss. He's pretty okay. Hard, but not a dick.
Caitlyn Ellesworth - The boss. She seems to know her stuff. Kind of distant, unfortunately.
Takeuchi Yukiko - Kind of boring? Doesn't stick out a bunch.
Yamamoto Mikasa - She makes a lot of sense. Dark sense of humour, is all.
Hattori Naomi - Not super sure what to make of her. A bit distant, maybe.
Li Dàiyù - Pretty cool. Kind of a badass, maybe? Not sure.
Itsuki Itou - Don't have to be so formal with him. What a relief.

Character Theme [Optional]