[This facility is now owned by the Helios corporation, and will be subject to it's laws. All terrorists are to be captured, and given a jail sentence as appropriate for the crimes committed. For adults, this indicates a 20 year jail sentence. Any members who refuse this offer of amnesty will be hunted down and killed, for the sake of the peace. Gather at the main entrance, unarmed, and you will not be harmed.]
No. No no no. Vivian stared the drones down in stunned silence. She had nowhere to run. Murderers behind her. To her left, to her right and now right in front of her. She had already been locked up in a Helios facility. For too long, she was locked up in isolation. Like a prisoner. For what? Because she was born different. Now it was going to happen again. She noticed that her inky spot of concealing shadow was gone, traded for a violent flare of shifting, celestial light. She told herself to remain calm, to remain under control, but it was no use. Memories of pain and suffering were overriding her ability to keep a lid on it all. Tears streamed from her eyes and she sobbed every now and then, shaking her head and repeating to herself. "No. Not now. Not again. No."
With a shake arm, she retrieved the handgun and raised it to level with one of the drones. It beeped and clicked, sounds becoming violent as she pointed the weapon at it. It made no move. A drone that had cut down so many of the good people she knew without a thought, and it was hesitating with her? It made her grit her teeth and dig her nails into her palm with the anger it brought forth from her. With a quick movement, she fiddled with the safety switch of the handgun and screamed, she remembered to do that much as least. She pulled the trigger.
Click.
Empty.
That is why the drones didn't move. She had been given an empty gun, just for intimidation. And then knew. They scanned her or something. They must have. She didn't even bother holding the gun any longer, just letting it drop to the floor as she fell to her knees. Her arctic blue eyes were puffy and red with tears and she kneeled in a crumpled heap, sobbing like a child.
Alcaeus almost leapt from his stool at the sound of the vulture's skeletal wings flapping past him. A letter fluttered down slowly, a strange spectacle for any watching. It fluttered until it reached his lap at which point he decided that the spectacle was over and it was time to get down to actually reading the letter. He saw that Cain had received one as well and waved it at him with a smile, happy that he wasn't the only one to receive an ominous message. Opening the message wiped the pearly white smile from his face almost immediately, turning it into more of a worried frown. He looked back at Cain again, holding it up at him as if to say 'what the fuck is this?'
Sport of blood, flesh of humans, sensed your thirst, poor uneventful life? None of this made sense to him. He hadn't engaged in a manhunt for decades, maybe even a few centuries. Not an organised one anyway, not since the days of Alcibiades or Darius III. Or Hannibal Barca. Maybe he HAD been involved in a few too many of these, but what would one more hurt, right? Still, he wondered, were there criminals afoot? Was this some sort of supernatural team of crime-fighters that this Lord was putting together? Was this going to end up being a Super Sentai kind of thing, where he'd have to wear a tight costume and strike poses?
He would just have to go along to see what he could do, he guessed. Though he was still rather confused, at least there was one thing he understood.
PERSONALITY: Ursula is very much one to keep to herself. She speaks freely, but does not form attachment as readily. At her core she is a ponderous, deliberate creature, always locked in an almost trance-like state of thought. Some would call her a daydreamer from first glance, but a closer look would reveal very poignantly that there is much more than just recipes and imaginative folly going on up there. To call her 'ditzy' or 'klutzy' would be completely wrong, as she is actually quite intelligent and aware. A more accurate term would be 'space cadet', as most of her thoughts, which she frequently voices, tend to be outlandish and spring from outright fantasy at times, but given the recent developments it isn't hard to see what could possibly be spawning them. She usually gives people the benefit of the doubt, but holds a grudge like no one else. Crossing her once earns a heavy sentence in her book, to be exacted whenever is convenient to her. She seems to have a near-irresistible urge to sing, whistle or hum very frequently.
HISTORY: Ursula grew up in a disappointingly average family, two younger brothers along with her mother and father made five, and five they have remained for a number of years. Ursula was the kid with the headgear, the braces, the back brace. You name it, she had the works, and looked more like a very sad-looking set of building scaffolds than a kid for a while. Regardless, she and her family lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in a nice house in a middle-class neighborhood, within a cul-de-sac that she could frequently be found having a great time with the other kids from the street and streets over. They would travel around in droves of 10-15, making local corner stores richer and dominating parks and playgrounds. It was there that she learned to skate and play the harmonica. Her childhood life was rather uneventful, though she definitely has a few stories to tell about it. Like how Bobby Dewitt once tried to eat a handful of worms, or how Morita Torres accidentally lit her quinceañera dress on fire two days before the actual event.
There is one event, however, that she never tells anyone about. No matter how much she is pushed and probed, she never mentions anything or speaks any ill will about Daria Jameson. Her best friend for years, they were inseparable like twins and just as terribly protective of each other. They would skate together, sing together, and play music for their families at birthdays and on holidays. Daria was the one that taught her guitar, learned Spanish with her and showed her how to do a kickflip. She was always there for her when she needed some kind words, when the other kids would tease her for her headgear. Daria was the one that stuck by her through everything, and drove her to pursue what she wanted for herself. School and everything else was uneventful as well, as Ursula and Daria leaned towards musical and culinary pursuits. Eventually, around the time of the Sophomore year, Ursula grew into a very attractive young woman, having her corrective braces removed.
Then came the end of high-school, and the beginning of tertiary education life. Ursula had secured a scholarship with her work, to the Texas Culinary Academy. As long as she's been able to work the oven and the stove, she's always wanted to open her own restaurant or bakery. The sad thing is that meant moving over a state and leaving everything behind. Many of the other kids hand the same problem, and as a result, they decided to have one last little hangout for old times sake. It was a noticeably tame gathering, no booze or drugs. Just plain old fun like always. As the hangout drew long into the hours of the night, Ursula felt it would do her good to take a walk through the moonlight to reflect. That is when Daria ambushed her. She spoke at a mile a minute, about how she was scared to see her go and how she didn't want to drift apart. Ursula did all she could to ease her worries, but there was only so much she could say. The girl who taught her and helped her learn so much was breaking down into tears in front of her.
Then she kissed her. To say that Ursula was struck dumb would be an understatement. Stutters and squeaks were all that she could manage as Daria apologised for her mistake and took off into the night. It took a while before Ursula realised that Daria had run off into the dark, away from the neighborhood and into the wild. She alerted all the people she could, the police even got called. Search teams went out, but didn't come back with Daria.
Weeks later, as Ursula was getting ready to begin the move to her dorm in Texas, reports arrived that they had found Daria. Or rather, they had found her body. In her panic, she had run out into the dark and fallen over the gnarled roots of a tree into a small ravine. She broke her neck in the fall and was covered by the earth at the edge of the ravine that she had disturbed, covering her and hiding her from the search parties. Ursula moved away with Daria's death on her conscience, and tried as well as she could to move on after the funeral. The sight of her weeping, panicked face still haunts her to this day.
APPERANCE
PHYSICAL: Ursula is a girl of pale, smooth complexion, with skin riddled by freckles from her forehead all the way down to her feet. She stands at around 5'6". Her curly, wild hair is auburn and her large doe eyes are a pale hazel. Her face is an oval shape, she has full cheeks complete with some sweet dimples when she smiles, her button nose has a slight hump to it and her lips are full and soft. Her figure is one that her skinny, weedy former self would have only dreamed of. It is easy to see that she maintains a certain level of fitness through running or yoga, with a pear shaped physique, her hips flaring out in smooth curves and flowing into long legs. With an ample chest and a killer smile, she is used to receiving compliments, but tends to hide beneath baggier clothing. She wears a simple pair of black rimmed glasses at all times.
IN-ZONE:
When in the Nexus, Ursula's clothing is always discarded and exchanged for tight wrappings of brown and grey fabrics, looking like a cross between a monk's robe and a high fashion dress. It is cut short, just above the knee, leaving a little bit of skin before her knee-high shin-guards can be seen above her bare feet. The clothing is tightly bound and shows off her figure in all its glory. Her head is covered by a wrapping of cloth, only allowing a few locks to show through. Dust, dirt and sand seem to swirl around her in barely noticeable quantities when she is in the Zone. Another notable feature is that her skin gains long, angular markings much like a bismuth mineral pattern, from her neck to her stomach and partially on her legs.
In REM, her skin takes on a color and shine similar to that of polished pearls, a flawless golden, impossibly smooth sheen. Her hair goes from being full auburn curls to a cold mane of waist-length silver, looking more like striated mercury than hair. Her features become more angular and her robes become more elaborate and elegant, covering her skin entirely and taking on an angular aesthetic. The collar rises high, almost up to her ears, and all remnants of flowing fabric are removed. From her shoulder-blades emerge craggy, symmetrical outcrops of rock, shooting out and up behind her, around 30 centimeters at a 45 degree angle. The only parts of her skin besides her face and hands that are uncovered by the brown and grey clothing are her feet.
POWERS
NEXUS: As if by some cruel twist of fate, in her dreams, Ursula is able to move gravel, soil and stone with a thought and a flex of her muscles in the form of Geokinesis. This requires that she be in close proximity to some sort of earthen material, but she can make dirt and rocks leap up to 20 meters if she truly concentrates. She can compact, loosen, move through, shape and manipulate the earth in ways that suit her best given her situation at the time.
REM: When in REM, Ursula's power shifts to be able to manipulate metals and alloys as if they were soldiers bending to her whim. Her control over the earth ramps up to great levels, being able to cause small tremors and draw from deeper down to volcanise the earth she summons with enough training, turning sand to glass and bringing up small spout of magma to use as ammunition when it becomes obsidian. When in REM, metal and earth will sometimes seem to jump reflexively to protect and react to threats around her, but this might just be Ursula's imagination.
OTHER: Can play guitar, harmonica, cook well, speak Spanish and skateboard.
NAME: Tyler Franklin Sawyer AGE: 37. GENDER: Male. ZONE: Three.
PERSONALITY: Quiet, reserved, pensive and ever-suspecting of those around him. Fair to say that Tyler is not a happy chap. He is slow to trust, and slower to act for other's benefit. He looks out for number one, but prefers to screw over as few people as he can to get what he needs. His manner of speech can be detached sometimes, broken up by inner monologue seeping out occasionally, he prefers speaking only as is necessary and making sure he is heard when he chooses to speak. To label him as unstable would be unwise, if anything he is just extremely savvy about danger and potential threats to his safety.
HISTORY: 62 counts of burglary, 35 counts of embezzlement, 11 armed robberies, a failed marriage, a loving daughter and a string of corporate plays have landed Tyler where he is today. He spent most of his life split between walking through the unending politics of the corporate world and moonlighting a life of crime, living off of both the money he earned from illicit deals and shady acts, as well as the money from his corporate position. The first of his marriages failed to the discovery of his dishonest life and a salacious affair on the part of his ex-wife, after which his ex-wife moved on and left him with their 6 year old child, Sabrina, and nothing else to his name.
With nothing left to put his mind to, after losing his job, his home and his security to a corporate play motivated by greed, Tyler turned completely to a life of crime and focused on keeping his daughter happy, fed and in school. Theft, drug deals, breaking and entering, armed robbery, Tyler has done most all of it. Living in a small apartment in the bad part of town made it nearly too easy to find work that he was good at, and what he was good at was illegal acts. For the most part, he lived a good life with his daughter. He walked her to school and back, took her to the park, to the carnival, to all the places she asked. All to see her smile.
When his ex-wife returned with lawyers in tow, intent on taking custody of Sabrina and finally leaving him with nothing else. The straw that broke the camel's back, one could say, as the conviction he received for her murder was more than evidence enough that he had been pushed past his limit. Tyler was given a life sentence, and his daughter was sent to live with her uncle. Though she misses her father, they still speak through letters and he still sends his brother the money to keep her fed and happy.
The time he spent in prison that wasn't either writing letters, working out or working in the laundry rooms, he spent immersed in his dreams. Traversing the endless bleak tunnels and spartan surroundings, content to find an escape in which to just wander. There were even moments that he enjoyed being incarcerated.
But that all changed when an Abomination bled through. Within the prison. Some of the staff and prisoners used the opportunity to escape, others perished in the Abomination's wake. Not Tyler. When the debris and rubble came down, it came down around his cell and sealed him in like a hamster in a can. For two weeks, he listened to the gunfire outside, drinking out of his cell's basin and eating whatever rodent's came his way. It took two weeks for a search team to pick through the rubble and find him, wasting away in his cell like a pharaoh in their burial tomb. By that time he was too weak to even speak, far too weak to see where he was being taken.
He just wants to see his daughter again.
APPERANCE
PHYSICAL: Tyler is a rather slender man, lean and nearly 6' tall with a distinctively square head and a lantern jaw. Some would call him a walking skeleton, as his general physique borders on emaciated. His ribs can be easily seen when he is shirtless, and his shoulders stick out like the mantle of a cape. His hair is black and wild, like the classic image of a mad professor, it seems to stand on end, making him look a tad more detached from his surroundings. His skin is golden brown from many hours spent in the yard of the prison. He has green eyes and crooked nose. His lips are thin and frequently pulled into a grimace, and his brow is heavy with a set of square eyebrows, making him look like a very morose man. His body is decorated by various nicks and scars revealing little about his life in the joint.
IN-ZONE: When in The Nexus he appears as a gangly, emaciated skeletal visage of a man. His skin is stretched over his bones, leathery and tough. The leathery texture is interrupted by horrible, sickly green bulbs like great boils upon his wrists, shoulders and neck. All uniform and symmetrical in their formation. His hands deform to have two large fingers in the place of the normal 4 and two thumbs, one on each side of his palm and the palms themselves possess openings from which his repugnant liquids leak from. The skin looks as if it has been surgically removed from his mandible, maxilla, nares and part of his throat. The cartilage of his nose has been removed completely. His teeth are sharp, like a mouth full of canines and he stares out at the work through glazed, whitish-green eyes.
As for mechanical additions, his normal legs seem to have been replaced with bionic variants, as he now stands digitigrade like a steel satyr, rust can be seen where the legs join to his pelvis and near the joints, causing it to squeak constantly. Each foot has three major toes. His arms look as if they are devoid of muscle, slimming down into gnarled, wicked claws. He usually sticks to wearing hooded, concealing clothing, shredded pants and a bandanna tied around his face to hide the skinless horror beneath. In this form he speaks with the voice of a man who has been smoking his whole life, much like in real life.
REM: In REM, however, Tyler appears as a very different beast altogether. His skin is still the same stretched, leathery texture as before, but now it seems to crawl as caustic fluid surges audibly beneath. The putrid boil-bulbs have hence retreated from his neck and wrists, sitting further up his arms in hardened clusters of sickening green like great gangerous scabs. His arms have changed from skeletal claws to thick, club-like appendages, covered in congealed pus starting at the elbow and ending in the same four-fingered claws. Nauseating green residue seeps constantly from the mouth-like openings upon his massive palms, searing the ground as it drips and sending wisps of noxious fumes in his wake.
The two most terrifying features of his new body appear in REM. One of which is his new mouth. All that lies above his shoulders is a bald head devoid of a nose or mouth, skin stretched tight over what COULD have been a maw once. Instead of having a mouth on his face, his new mouth is lower and starts from where his collar bone SHOULD be, trailing down in a fissure over his ribcage before ending where his bellybutton should be. When closed, is just looks as if he has a large scar from his throat to his stomach, but when open it is a maw of horrific, gnashing teeth of both human and animal origin. His robotic lower half exchanges two digitigrade legs for eight rusty metal arachnoid legs that screech and scream when he moves, complete with a thorax and abdomen, each about the size of a normal human torso, made of steel where his organs are contained. The abdomen extends into a thick, stinger tipped tail. He wears hooded, shredded rags upon his upper half and speaks in a voice that hisses and drones in an odd fashion.
POWERS
NEXUS: The bulbs that rise from Tyler's skin are not for show, they house the terrible tools with which he does his work. He possesses the ability to shoot short sprays of the poison that courses through his body from specialized glands upon his palms. This liquid is able to be absorbed through skin but is most effective when it comes into contact with exposed inner tissue eg. eyes, nose, mouth, open wounds. The poison is not particularly potent, only being able to cause nausea, disorientation and dull pain if it comes into contact with eyes, nose or is ingested. The acid he is able to spit in the form of corrosive saliva is only mildly irritating should it come into contact with skin, causing inflammation and mild discomfort. Should the acid touch more sensitive parts, the effect can be worse but not life-threateningly so. He has a limited supply of poison and acid to do around, and must wait or back off occasionally to generate more instead of merely relying on his claws and hand-to-hand skills.
The mechanized lower half of Tyler's body also permits him to jump higher and run faster than the average person, if only slightly. With the triad of large, gripping toes he is able to cling better to surfaces and potentially climb vertical surfaces with greater ease. However, his legs do tend to lock up sometimes due to rust and wear.
REM: In REM, Tyler's abilities become deadlier than before. His ability to fire short sprays of poisonous mist from his palms increases to being able to spray the liquid over longer distances in high-pressure bursts, giving them both range and slight kinetic impact. The poison is also more potent, taking on properties of a neuro-toxin by ways of being able to cause stiffness in limbs, severe nausea, vomiting, faintness, headaches, severe disorientation and acute pains. Tyler's saliva becomes more caustic, able to sear skin and flesh if left to sit for a moment too long. He now fires it from his new mouth, from a gland hidden behind the 'lips' at his throat. The acid can cause blindness if it gets in the eyes, and suffocation if it gets in the airways. From his thoracic mouth, he is able to regurgitate a thick bile, it is not able to be propelled very far at all and is mainly used for breaking food down to feed upon. This bile is also acidic, but to a much greater extent, able to melt metals and concrete if given enough time.
His arachnoid lower half improves his mobility by ways of increasing his climbing skills from scaling vertical surfaces quicker to being able to stalk the various pipes and hallways of Zone 3 from an inverted point of view. As in from the ceiling. The legs do tend to lock up more than in the Nexus, and screech loudly at times. This can lead to him being immobilized for longer stretches of time than in the Nexus.
Name: Július Zdeno Bartolomej "Jules" Rezník Gender: Male Age: 26 Starsign: Crocodile Rank: First Sergeant Armor: Grey Plating Medical and Criminal History: Large area, full thickness chemical burn originating from left pectoral, spreading up to neck, over left shoulder and partially down abdomen on left hand side. Crimes include possession of illicit substances, arson, assault and battery, breaking and entering, vandalism and loitering. Physical Description: A monster of a man, standing at nearly 8' tall and as wide enough in the shoulders to match, Julius looks like he would be more at home as a freight vessel, with brown skin the colour of beaten bronze. Broad, thick shoulders, a chest like a barrel, he looks built for strength and struggle in their rawest forms. Despite this his kind eyes are a dull blue, leaning more towards grey. His black hair is shaven into a short, frayed mohawk. His scalp, along with a good portion of his torso, upper arms and neck, are covered in tattoos of interlocking, geometrical patterns. Chevrons, diamonds and other shapes that seem to have no meaning, at least at first glance. Tattoos are somewhat faded and displaced by his burns, looking like blurred and melted mess. Goddess/God: Svatani, Goddess of Judgment and Conquest. Background: Jules was born in a large family, stricken by poverty on Melet V, a colony who's major export is space vessels and vehicles, and the mechanical components used in space vessels and vehicles. As a boy he was put to work in the factory, assembling various components and making sure they were all neat and in boxes to be shipped out as soon as possible. It paid little and was respected even less as he toiled his days away within the factory, forgoing his chances to go and play with other kids to make money and, as his father always said, 'make a boot-print on the world before he faded away'. With time he grew, and as he grew he began to tower. When he towered, with that came more work. He learned that he could make more money for doing the heavier work like lifting crates and pushing machines around. With time, more work came and his pay grew.
But, on Melet V, money is always tight. Any work you can get is good work. So when Julius received an offer from a slightly more prestigious family to come and do some work for them, he snapped at the offer with an eagerness that both amused and entertained his patrons. Even as a young man, Julius was big. He was put to work as 'muscle'. He as trained to guard, to survey his surroundings and to always do what he was told. Not like he needed the last one, after being beneath the thumb of his father for so long. Julius was assigned to the family's youngest member as he went about his daily business. It was easy work for good money, stick close to his mark, make sure he gets to where he needs to go. Usually it was just down to a function, or over to visit another family member, but eventually the job began to ask more of him. He went from holding vehicle doors open to holding violent miscreants back, trips down to the store became running of illicit substances back and forth. He became involved in gang disputes, got tattoos and watched as he was put up for fights he wanted no business being in. It all culminated in a deal gone wrong within another family member's drug lab. Violence broke out, then chemicals were spilled. Julius was coated, and as he felt it burn through his clothing and into his skin, the chemicals ignited.
Julius was taken into medical care and sentenced shortly after. He would have been serving a much longer sentence, had he not had some intervention from former employers. Following that entire terrible set of circumstances, Julius used all the money he had left to leave his home and his former life behind, and join the military at the age of 19. Three Strengths:
Immense physical strength Follows orders to the letter Somewhat streetwise
Three Weaknesses:
Short temper Slow to trust Uneasy near chemicals or fire