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    1. Virgil 9 yrs ago

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Haban Armun Mirza:


Age: 24
Height: 5'9"
Build: Lean-muscled, of slightly less-than-average weight, with accordingly fitted mechanical replacements for the right hand and left leg.
Skin: Light, smooth hazel
Eyes: Deep brown right, organic eye - followed by a silver mechanical left with a gleaming red camera-pupil.
Hair: Bald to a shine.

Attire:
—Scorched, torn and blood-speckled (if you can notice it) burgundy button-over jacket (see: Historical Fencing Jacket) with a black collar, cuffs and trim, topped off with brass buttons.
—Scorched, torn and creased burgundy pants with a black belt matched by a brass buckle, with black lines running down either side of each pantleg.
—Dusty, pitch black tie-up boots into which the ends of each pantleg are stuffed, with brass buttons running down either side of each boot.

Distinguishing Features:
—Clean-shaven face.
—Silver mechanical replacement with gleaming red camera-pupil for left eye.
—Silver mechanical replacement for right hand.
—Silver mechanical replacement for entire left leg.

(I'll see if I can whip up an avatar sooner or later - excuse the stand-in for now)
The fiercely inquisitive red gleam of the officer’s mechanical eye trailed the nearer threat, recalibrating in response to the reflective glare of the shimmering silver barrel. It catalogued the medley of wires streaking up and down the shaft, disappearing into the grip through a series of small, roughly bored holes. Custom? Possibly. Unregulated? Definitely. “Street-Wise”, assumably. One thing was for certain - a job like that was going to either take off the user’s hand, or the target’s head...though either outcome might not be entirely unwarranted in this particular scenario. A weary smile crept up around the corners of the man’s mouth, and billowing trails of sickly vapor seeped from out between them in a manner not unlike that of a dragon’s - he shifted his weight to better position himself against the alley wall.

That expression stopped short, warped and contorted itself in a sudden and violent reaction; an offhand bolted for his abdomen, and the cane’s support buckled from out beneath as Haban dropped onto all fours, retched and vomited.

A moment passed as he stared down at the consequences of his overexertion, taking in heavy breaths to compensate for this sudden, overpowering bout of vertigo. A tinge of anguish passed across his brow as the glint of the pipe caught his attention in between the mess of putrid sand and bile; he raised his organic left to retrieve it, but stopped, reconsidered the action, and carried through the task with his mechanical right instead. Pocketting the pipe, the wretch pulled himself back up onto his knees with a hoarse series of groans, eyes wide from the pain and one hand sparingly clutching his midsection. The shock of the blast, it seemed, was fading...

Out of habit, Haban’s gaze shot to and fro between the two strangers idling opposite him; the gunslinger clearly wasn’t in the habit of regularly exercising his weaponarm - or at the very least, he couldn’t be seen as fanatical about the idea. Average clothes, average character...or so it seemed at first glance; there was something shifty about the way he held himself, loose but clearly fashioned according to the laws of second-hand bars, backdoors and, of course, seedy alleyways. Plus he had a stupid haircut - like someone had set him down under a cow’s slobbering grazing for an hour before blow-drying. Probably wasn’t much of a threat outside of the pistol, but not the type you’d want to hang around for long without the risk of getting caught yourself. The Azurei, on the other hand...

Independent of any movement by his organic, his red eye shot over onto the bullish woman with an unnerving curiosity - cold, calculating, attempting to flush out the slightest signs of weakness...and lo, there were many. A battered, barefooted, yet ferocious posture sought in vain to act as a shield against the public eye - as a wounded animal hisses and snaps at its attackers, trying to feign the threat. Despite the faults of her heritage and the repugnant organizational-scar marring her naked shoulder, whatever she’d happened to be prior to...”then”...it wasn’t Eija. Or at the very least, he’d seen better. Hopefully she wouldn’t go pulling anything ridiculous in the coming minutes - somehow it just didn’t seem right to die by the hands of idiots, kicked when you were down at your lowest.

...Perhaps she was feeling similarly.

“...Put the peacemaker down, friend - she ain’t gonna rush ya.”

He was feeling confident, now - more so than when he’d first fallen in this mess. He extended a handshake out towards the street rat standing adjacent him, putting on his most prize-winning smile as he continued:

"...Did you know, your average Bull can take Six - SIX shots to the chest and still gore the matador? Nature's a fascinating spectacle, ain't it?"
It was odd witnessing such a spectacle of patriotism perpetuate itself year after year; as Haban glanced up over the side of the fan-powered cooler, he could just make out the chancellor's weedy frame a midst the burgundy sea of officers huddled before the plasma screen - their eyes fixated to an unhealthy degree upon each rigid smile and half-hearted jest. The man had such a plastic personality - molded by the tenuous connections of politics, muddied by spots of degradation and wasteful indiscretions, and worn to the breaking-point by the typical stresses of the Brahneian elite. It was almost amazing how a concept so fundamentally corrupt could receive any level of reverence at all, let alone the bulk of an entire city-state...but, thus was the way the winds of time blew.

“Causality defines Reality...”

Haban flashed a familiar smile as he emptied a strongly scented coffee pot into the once transparent vessel in his hand, now possessed by the tenebrous body of a rich burnt umber; intoxicating aromas wafted up from within the piping liquid’s stout depths, transfixing him in a haze of idle memories: He regaled himself with recollections of the rebellious nature of his generation’s youth, of the adventurous exploits of renowned ‘Sky Captains’ young and old that he’d idolized in years bygone, or the prosperity influenced by the city’s boom in military infrastructure. All those moments brought with them a surreal sense of pride and wonder...all buried by the misery and torments of war. The smile on his clean-shaven face faded as quickly as it’d come.

It was little wonder that the motley of officers behind him looked up to their superiors like so many devoted goats, with over half of them not even surpassing his own age. What remained of generations “X” and up had stamped a firm lesson into the families of the survivors: no gains ever came without a cost, and rarely was the cost ever worth the gains. The burning spirit of old Brahaenya had snuffed itself out through the smothering weight of its own ambition...and where once had been radical progress and a fast and untamable will for change, there now stood an iron shield of secure familiarity; safe, certainly - but who could ever see the radiance of the sun while cowering behind the shadows?

Maybe that was sick...maybe it was fair - he didn’t particularly care either way at the moment. He took a final tilt of the cup and hurled it aside, returning from his isolated reality at the chime of the crumpled vessel rebounding down into the adjacent waste bin; right now, he needed to relax. With a steady gait and a tempered eye, Haban made for the wood paneled arch of the doorway...

...Yet, for the short space between the dining table and the doorway, a sickening wave overtook him. For a microsecond, the air flashed hot, then cold, and a supernatural force propelled itself through his chest as a violent gust erupted throughout the room. The world spun on its axis as glass and wood and a plethora of office accessories manically fled in front of, around and into him - the roar of a thunderclap tore after them, scorching stone and ripping flakes of paint off of the walls in its wake...and then in an instant, he recognized the split-second nature of these events.

...A dull silence overtook the remnants of Outlook 15; it would not have long to cherish this morbid serenity.

Aches and groans arose from the conscious survivors - those lucky enough to have been shielded from the blast by even the thin walls separating the ground floor from the rest of the building. Though staggered, with a heavy ringing in his ears and a burning torment in his heart and across his face, the floored cripple tried his utmost to regain control of his senses. The room, not to mention the building itself, was completely trashed - the only light to see by now were the rays streaking in from the blown open front wall staring down the street. His tongue felt bruised, and the taste of iron escaped through the corner of his lips. He was lying on his side, cane gripped in a deathclutch in one hand, and everything smelt of ash; the only system left to fully check was that of his hearing.

The crackling of glass underfoot was more than enough to confirm the attentiveness of that receptacle.

Reaching for his pocket, Haban quietly retrieved his pipe, springing the previous vial with a trained efficiency as he loaded in a new, slightly different pill into the metal shaft. Then, he slipped it between his teeth and waited, quietly, as a pair of footsteps drew closer to the room. By the time he could make out their weight, they’d entered the ‘breakroom’...or what was left of it - coyly ignoring the doorway in favor of the half-shredded sidewall that’d previously separated it from the main room. Small to medium sized due to the light nature of their steps, the intruder padded further in as they examined the damage; they were four meters away...then two...then...

It’d only just now occurred to Haban that his mechanical eye didn’t have an eyelid - which probably explained why the soft-footed hunter had decided to stop and admire the scenery just above him. The popping of knees and the creak of taut clothing fibers gave away the stranger’s inquisitive streak, as he knelt to examine the stiff glare of the glowing red pupil beneath him.

Well...no one ever said curiosity was good for the cat.

With a sudden jerking motion, Haban hurled himself onto his back and gave the pipe a hard BLOW, spewing forth a noxious cloud of vapors across his victim’s face; caught off guard,“He” retched a horrified scream, hurling himself back, then stumbling, clattering to the floor. With all the speed he could muster, Haban pulled himself to his feet and bolted past, briefly glimpsing the flurry of fingers clawing at the agonizing man’s own disfigured visage; the chemical reaction was swift and unstoppable - he doubted there’d be much left to see in a few minutes...if there was anything left of the flesh at all. Stranger still, however - he thought he recognized the attire to be-

Haban stopped short of rounding the corner, the figure of a man hurling himself towards the officer with unrelenting speed and ferocity. A short, curved knife glinted briefly in one of his hands - ragged attire and a host of tattoos coated this offender’s stampeding body...

-...Azurei. Ignoring the slow pace of his organic eye, Haban shifted his weight laterally, using his newfound positional advantage to swat down the overreaching swipe of the blade with a powerful rap of his cane. With his weapon arm preoccupied, the assailant attempted a quick roundabout with his freehand towards Haban’s head, but was again denied as the latter raised his retracted forearm to catch it. Then, in one savage motion, the officer reached towards his mouth and to the all-too-brief surprise of his adversary, unsheathed the pipe from within itself, revealing a short spike where the mouthpiece had once been. With intuitive accuracy he shot the blade point-blank into the Azurei’s eye, forcing the man to reel in pain from the gouge; but Haban hadn’t finished, and with another serpentine strike he lashed out at the unwary foe’s larynx, puncturing a bloody hole where flesh was normally more appropriate to see. Using his bodyweight to shove his neutralized opponent onto the dusty remnants of a three-legged table, the rapidly breathing officer resheathed the pipe and glanced back up over the ground floor.

Four more Azurei had retrained their attention from the wreckage to him...and he wasn’t exactly keen on sticking around to see what they were looking for. With a brief glance back behind him, the bald, mid-twenties war veteran took off for a side door, rapidly hobbling over corpse and officeware alike as he struggled to maintain his initiative over any possible attempts at pursuit. Within seconds, he’d busted his way out the door, lungs screaming and wild limping leaving a trail of dust in its wake as he practically pogoed his way across streets, ducking around shops and through bewildered civilians, before crashing to a rough halt down the start of a nearby alley.

“...Come............on...”

The man leaned wearily against the sandstone entry, one eye closed from an irritation of dust and the other trying madly to record every ounce of detail retained within the depths of the passageway. His resplendent burgundy livery was matted with dust-stains and scorch-marks, his tan face hung heavily with exhaustion and sported patches of singed flesh and a speckles of fresh blood. His mechanical leg gleamed through several ripped layers of a pant leg, and rested part of its weight through his use of a smooth wooden cane. A dim metal pipe hung haphazardly out of his mouth, and lent to the mutual feeling expressed throughout the whole of his person:

Utter disbelief.
(Thinking up the next post outline - should have the first draft done by tomorrow and the final by tomorrow or Thursday at the latest.)

Edit: Sorry about the delay - I've been trying to make this next one the best that I possibly can, so there've been a lot of scrapped drafts leading up to it; However, I'm feeling reeeeeaaally good about this version - pacing seems solid so far, world-building is on-point, so I'm happy ^_^). Finishing up the second half as we speak (perhaps another two-three paragraphs, just to make sure the action has space to breathe - should take another couple of hours at MOST), and then it's off to the press!

Further Edit: FIN!
@vFear Ooooh - N E F A R I O U S; Can't wait to see how his reciprocity blackmail skills in action!
@vFear Innnnteresting - quick question though: Near the end of the post, is he swiping the patrons' phones, or is that his own phone?
...Eija have neither of these--instead they have a blue and white star tattooed on the upper bicep of the left arm. Spoiler alert, Ridahne has one of these so Haban would know she either is or was eija. Should make things fun when they all meet up for the first time. Heheheh.


XD) - someone's going to die before the plot even gets going *^*)...(should be fun!)

Ah, no problem, it's good to get a broader perspective on the military aspect of Azurei culture. Haban's moderate paranoia sort of feeds into his skill, as he's constantly looking for ways to exploit the enemy; when he can't take them head on, he prefers tricks (the pipe is a prime example of this) or stealth. He hasn't actually fought Taja before, as I figured they were small in number during the war and would probably come out even smaller afterwards, but his baptism through fire in the closing years of the war gave him more than enough experience in learning to make up for weaknesses. For example, he quickly learned that he needed to fight as fast or as dirty as he could during his time in the main army due to the fact that he was a teenager when he graduated from the training academy - lacking size and strength, he and those others that survived alongside him ironically took to fighting like Azurei when they could. In fact, it's *Because they broke from the traditional...(just going to nab "Brahneian" from your first post as I can't think of a better name at the moment - could we say they're the dominant ethnic group in this particular nation?)...fighting style that they actually survived the war, and it took a little longer to conclude. Murdering Eija would practically be his bread and butter - he 'might' be able to take on a Taja provided he controlled the conditions of the fight (setting, supplies, et-cetera), but he'd be at a serious disadvantage against more than one, especially given he can no longer move as well as he could in the past (although his mechanical eye does give him a bit of a perception/reaction advantage - but I think it could be fooled like the Viper Witcher is in "The Witcher", where the protag "Geralt Of Rivia" hurls a bag of coins at him to distract his overly-attentive snake-eyes). I suppose they're the Jason Bournes of this universe in that way XD).

I love the contexts of the acid-attack, but the chances of him revealing much of anything outside of important details to Ridahne later on are pretty slim >_>). We'll see though - could be fun!

So he'll definitely be knocking out two Eija instead of two Taja; I also like the idea of him noticing the ease with which two white-robed assassins are cutting down his allies, noting that they appear to be the same type that completely owned the Chancellor, and just booking it from there XD). Can definitely see them looking for particular officers among the group, as the bombing was meant to be a sort of "We can touch any one of you at our leisure" threat (Outlook 15 isn't the only Outlook that's being hit), so that style makes sense. Sorry about the ramble overall, but thanks for the questions!
Also:





...So yeah, still working on pacing myself better - I think those creative paragraphs are starting to help though.
Sloooowly working towards the mythical "Substance"; I thought about including the action scene, but figured it'd be cooler to give Vilĉjo the opportunity to do a sweet transition of information - like, say, watching a shop-window of live TV screens show the Taja assault on-stage, physically feeling the ensuing chaos in the streets, and becoming apart of it himself. That being said, I've got some interesting ideas for Haban's fighting style once the focus shifts back over to him. Sorry again about taking so long - I adapt gradually!
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