Name: Luke Pozolota
Age: 32
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 168 lbs.
Appearance: Thin and wiry, somewhat lanky. A mildly emaciated appearance belies his strength and speed. Messy straw-coloured hair growing out, but usually no facial hair – not when he can afford to shave regularly, anyway. The method used sometimes leaves small scars though. Otherwise a forgettable kind of face, with mild light blue eyes. Walks with a slight limp in his right leg. Usually wears ordinary working class civilian clothes – khakis, a long-sleeved shirt, a vest. When on the hunt, however, he tends to wear a heavy dark blue military overcoat with all the insignia torn out and a gasmask.
Race: Human – what, have you seen someone who ain’t?
Nationality: Amestris, or at least it used to be. Got quite a bit of Drachma in him too.
Personality: Before the event that changed his life, Luke was more or less a typical young officer of lowly origins, if somewhat on the impulsive and reckless side: obedient and disdainful of superiors, stern and fatherly with subordinates, a loyal comrade to his peers, and at once contemptuous and protetive towards mere civilians. His uncouth and presumptuous bearing won him few friends in the finer kind of society, and his position towards alchemists “and other intellectuals” was always that of confusion mixed with instinctive distrust. All in all that suited him just fine.
Since the incident that caused his desertion, the low class soldier changed, and not for the better (not that he would agree). He had become a maniac, obsessed with the enormous danger posed by Alchemy and alchemists, and his all-important mission in putting a stop to them. Amiable bravado and camaraderie are still masks he can put on with relative ease when needed, but when fighting or hunting down a rogue element, his serial killer side comes out to play. When it comes to that, he is ruthless, monstrously resourceful and quick on his feet, though sometimes betrayed by his very singlemindedness that causes him to ignore things not clearly connected to the conflict as irrelevant.
That being said, it would be a mistake to dismiss him as yet another ripper. On some level Luke is still driven by a quasi-rational sense of justice. He does not have a shoot on sight policy towards alchemists and he does try to protect the innocent. However, once convinced that someone is guilty, Luke will go out of his way to neutralise the target, and he very rarely changes his mind. In addition, he retains some genuine sympathy for soldiers (not including State Alchemists) and has a considerable protective streak towards children – after all, they are usually innocent, and are too often the victims of alchemists. Luke can work with others up to a point, if convinced that this cooperation serves his cause, but his recklessness and his mania tend to complicate any prospective teamwork.
Background: Born into a poor family of second-generation Drachman immigrants in western Amestris, Luke made up for his scrawny physique as a youth with cunning and determination, using those traits to overcome more powerful opponents. The same approach has served him well later in life. Like many other poor young men, Luke Pozolota saw the army as a ladder out of poverty. Unlike many other poor young men, Luke thrived in there, learning all the tricks of the soldier’s trade and quickly working his way up from Private to Sergeant. While there were no real wars to fight or uprisings to suppress, Luke proved himself in border skirmishes and disciplinary actions against rogue alchemists or their creations. This was how the young man first discovered his inborn talent for hunting down and killing those who play putty with the laws of nature. His superiors discovered it too, and earmarked him for an early incarnation of what would later become the Alchemy Control Task Force.
Sergeant Pozolota’s career really took off with the destruction of Table City and Fate’s first ultimatum. He was allowed to gather an elite squad, informally called the Witchhunters, and roam the land hunting down renegade alchemists. Standard Witchhunter tactics were simple and brutal; they would try to get the drop on their target, then hit it hard and fast with everything they got. Usually that was enough; all the alchemical prowess in the world could not save an undisciplined, untrained miracle worker from an elite unit that he does not even see coming. Sometimes things went wrong at one stage or another, and Luke was forced to improvise. He and his men came out with quite a few scratches from such fights, but miraculously, none of them died, giving them even more of a legendary reputation in military circles. Luke continued to climb up in nominal rank, without resigning his command or taking on new responsibilities, as was often the case in Amestris’ armed forces. As Lieutenant Pozolota, he enjoyed considerable privileges, the most pleasant of which for him was the access to seemingly infinite resources. Weapons, ammo, safehouses, edible food – the Witchhunters lacked for nothing. Meanwhile, both the state of Amestris and its military were falling apart all around them, unable to withstand the strain of the War on Alchemy. But for the moment, this did not seem to affect them directly – in its panic, the government continued to cling on to the hopes of a military solution to its problems, and units like the Witchhunters were essential to this approach.
Finally, the inevitable happened, and the Witchhunters bit off more than they could chew. They and two other squads teamed up against a particularly powerful and dangerous alchemist called Fantomas. As they pursued him, however, they fell into an ambush. One squad ran afoul of the Verdant Alchemist’s trademark monstrous plants and vines at the entrance to the small town where the man had set up shop; when another squad moved in to help them out, both were set upon by ravenous, never-before-seen beasts. As they fell back to a more secure position, their flesh rotted away from their bones in clumps due to some bizarre disease spread by the beasts. The Witchhunters, who were providing cover fire and moving in for a flanking maneuver, might have simply pulled back then. But Luke could not accept defeat, and his men could not refuse him. They executed the monsters from a distance, burned the corpses of their comrades, and infiltrated the town itself. In desperation, Fantomas unleashed every trick at his disposal, having killed all of the town’s residents to power his alchemy. But by the end of the day, only Luke staggered away from the town; both his squad and Fantomas were dead.
Those in the know had speculated that it may have been Fantomas’ gratuitous and desperate displays of biological alchemy that led to the more famous event that happened shortly afterwards – Fate’s second urbicide and second ultimatum. Scattered intelligence reports suggest that Luke walked to the lost city, which was not far away from the site of his fateful confrontation with the rogue alchemist. There, on the flattened plain, he acquired an odd silver medallion with a big cracked orange gemstone inside it. The cracks oozed with unearthly power, which drew the soldier there and acknowledged him as the medallion’s owner. Having accepted it and his destiny, Luke never returned to the military – not that there was much to return to by that point. Over the next five years, a man vaguely matching his description was reported travelling throughout Amestris and stepping in against rampaging alchemists, taking them out using a combination of his old tactics and new, unprecedented, bizarre powers. At other times, rumours spread about a serial killer in a gas mask, relentlessly hunting down alchemists and their supporters regardless of their reputations. An effort had been made to investigate corruption in the military leading to the theft of weapons and ammunition from various provincial warehouses, some of them in the vicinity of those sightings, but due to budget problems and the chaotic nature of the times, nothing definite could be established.
Profession: Former Amestrian soldier, now a deserter, a bandit and a vigilante.
Art: World Asunder. During a rare theorising mood, Luke theorised that the medallion he found does not so much distort reality as take advantage of its distorted state caused by alchemy. It is a power born of a world that is wounded, broken and crying for revenge. It is quite unlike alchemy or alkahestry in that it does not manipulate natural laws; instead, it manipulates their absence or temporary weakness, which is likely a direct or indirect result of such manipulations. It seems to follow a few set rules. Firstly, the changes wrought with this power are always (very) temporary, though the effects of those changes are not. Secondly, the power seems a bit stronger in areas that have been subjected to considerable and recent supernatural manipulation. Thirdly, only one effect can take place at a time, and multiple uses in rapid succession are physically and mentally draining, to the point of serious self-injury. Fourthly and perhaps most strangely, thus far, the art appears incapable of directly affecting humans in any way. As an obvious sidenote, those powers are tied to the medallion, and cannot be used without wearing, holding or at least touching it.
Specialty: Augmented Combat. So far, Luke’s application of the art amounted almost exclusively to seeking out new edges to use in combat, especially against alchemists.
Techniques:
Firearms Training: Luke retains access to and proficiency for a wide array of modern military-issue firearms. He normally favours his service revolver and his Amestrian battle rifle, both of which he usually has either on his person or in the nearest safehouse; however, his remaining contacts within the military, his newer ones with the criminal underworld and his knowledge of ACTF safehouses means that given freedom of movement and enough of an advance warning, he could acquire and use some more specialised weapons as well. A more pressing issue for him tends to be acquiring and conserving ammo for his main weapons. Luke is not a marksman; however, he has the training and combat discipline to keep up a persistent and more or less precise rate of fire, and the iron will to keep shooting at approaching enemies. But his true area of expertise is...
Bayonet Combat: ...using his rifle as a melee weapon. Idiosyncratic training incorporating elements of stickfighting and even more idiosyncratic combat experience has allowed him to turn this into an art form. While using the detacheable bayonet to stab or cut enemies is the most immediate part of this technique, the rifle can also be wielded as a club or a fighting stick. It can be a frighteningly versatile weapon.
Cut the Distance: The power given to Luke by the medallion allows him to “teleport” a short distance (no more than a dozen meters so far, and that in an area strongly affected by alchemy; eight meters is more normal) by momentarily compressing reality between him and his destination. No damage whatsoever is done to contracted area, which returns to its previous state a second or so later. Humans appear to block this effect naturally – the effect is either terminated or the length covered by it is cut short. Still, the disorienting nature of this phenomenon can prove very distracting or nauseating to most anyone who looks at it, while those who don’t are at serious risk of getting blindsided.
Wall of Rest: Luke can create a four-meters-wide barrier, which manifests as a strange shimmer in the air and disappers after half a minute or so. In that time: any objects that move into the barrier lose all inertia and stop; any natural or supernatural processes that run into the barrier likewise run out of any energy that is put into them and either cease altogether or are kept from spreading past it. Humans can run through it without any problems except for a faint ticklish sensation.