Name: Asche Stauss
Alias: Smoker
Appearance: Asche is a tall, muscular man with noticeably broad shoulders, short cut black hair, and black eyes. He has a strong, square jawline and pointed nose with extensive scarring on the right side of his face; including faint traces of corrupted tissue above his eye, in the form of three thin black streaks.
Some components of his preferred clothing are salvaged from his EDENPOL armor; namely the pauldrons, shoulder pads, and boots. The rest of the outfit consists of olive green cargo pants, a black synthetic leather vest reinforced with scrap metal plates (including a knife holster mounted to the right shoulder), and a dark grey t-shirt. In addition to his clothing, Asche wears thick brown bandages wrapped around his arms at all times to hide his ritual scarring and blackened flesh.
Personality:
Asche Stauss is a complicated man. He retains an outward attitude of cold indifference and rarely expresses himself; but this is simply a mask. In truth he is deeply caring, and assigns more value to the lives of others than to his own, preferring not to bother others with his own troubles if he can avoid it. These troubles have been magnified tenfold since the incident that removed him from EDENPOL; he is perpetually plagued by alien thoughts from a mind that is no longer solely his own, thoughts which pushes him constantly towards the abyss from which it was born.
Spending so much of his life as an EDENPOL operative supporting his family, Asche has developed a strict personal code which can be summed up simply; never leave a man behind, always protect your brothers in arms, and the ones you love are more valuable than your own life. Informed by this philosophy he has isolated himself from his sisters, only further compounding his inner turmoil.
History:
Asche Stauss is notoriously private about his past. The only known details are that he has two sisters and worked with EDENPOL for an extended period of time.
He did not leave EDENPOL by choice. During a raid on a group of suspected terrorists, Asche’s was separated from his team when he fell through a rotted out floor in the run-down building where their targets had set up base. Knocked unconscious by the fall Asche awoke to find himself stripped of most of his armor and strapped down to a stone slab, a cultist standing over him and slicing arcane symbols into his flesh. When he awoke, the cultist panicked, unable to finish as Asche struggled against his restraints and called out to his team.
The incomplete summoning had far different effects than they had planned. In their haste to finish a different rite had been performed, rather than ending his life to call forth a monster, the cult had merged Asche’s physical body with the essence and will of that same beast.
After slipping off the blood-soaked restraint on one arm, he seized the knife which had been used to mutilate his body, using it to kill the cultist who had done the deed just in time for his team to arrive and finish off the others.
Upon seeing what had become of their brother in arms, Asche’s squadmates reached a decision. They would return to EDENPOL with his ID tags and what remained of his armor to report him as KIA and spare him what was likely a far worse fate than simple execution.
In the two years between leaving EDENPOL and his recent recruitment into Ultralight Asche lived as a scavenger, surviving on stolen food and wearing clothes liberated from waste processing centers; never spending a night in the same alley twice as he desperately evaded discovery. He spent that time learning to control his newfound gift and coming to terms with the twisting of his psyche, until a chance encounter with Cider ended in his recruitment as a member of her cell.
As a new recruit Asche has not yet been deployed by Ultralight, though he has prior experience in covert operations from his time with EDENPOL.
Capabilities:
Asche possesses the ability to enter a mysterious dimension, traveling instantly between points in the real world. This dimension -dubbed Shadow Space- exists between the corners of our world, and within it neither time nor distance have meaning. It is an alien realm the geography of which is incomprehensible to any mere mortal, and only as a result of his corrupted mind and body can Asche traverse it. Even still, this carries the risk of further wearing down his humanity.
Equipment:
Modified EDENPOL magnetic combat rifle: the weapon has been stripped down to the minimum of parts, removing the stock and shortening the barrel; while it lacks in accuracy and power compared to a stock model, the weapon is lighter and no longer recognizable as an EDENPOL issued weapon.
Carbon fiber combat knife: A simple serrated combat knife made from next-gen carbon fiber and polymer materials. It is lightweight, razor sharp and nearly as hard as diamond; but with greater resilience.
Athame: A traditional ritual dagger made from common steel, with an ebony handle and silver inlays. Used for mundane purposes such as preparing his own personal meals.
Body armor: Asche retains only the minimum of what once constituted his EDENPOL issued armor; his boots, pauldrons, and shoulder pads, all of which have been stripped of identifying markings and integrated with clothing typical of a scavenger.
Other: Carries a locket containing a picture of two identical teenage girls bearing a strong resemblance to himself, and one of a middle-aged couple whose faces have been scratched out
Member
