Background: He sits in a bar somewhere in
Lowtown, sipping on a simple glass of scotch. He sits and he waits. Maybe
it’s for a job offer, maybe it’s for some information. No one’s sure.
People would think he had learned his lesson the last time he had been to
Khazan. But even after being left for dead by a man unaffected by fire
then nearly digested by the essence of Gluttony itself, he refused to stay
down. He had done so for decades. His sheer will in refusing to let go got
him placed alongside Ichiro Miyazawa, Bailey Farragut, and Lucas DiCardi
in the ranks of the four greatest mercenaries of the world, the ‘Four
Horsemen’ as they were called. He refused to let go with the maddened
death of Ichiro, the sudden disappearance of DiCardi, and the reported
demise of Farragut. Even when ‘they’ tore his life apart by sending him to
look after ‘it’ every chance ‘they’ got, he held on. No one even knew who
‘they’ were and what ‘it’ was. Both were assumed equally dangerous, so
dangerous that Greyson received semi-immortality so he wouldn’t die before
finding ‘it’, but that was not important for the time being. The
gray-haired mercenary wanted his guns and his knife back. And he would
find them. They were part of his legacy. Near-immortality and the
mile-long lists of people he left dead and people who wanted him dead in
his wake aren’t the only parts to it. It also meant he had no weaponry.
But that was no matter. He had many people who owed him for various
things. He had called in three. One was made to a man who kept to the
shadows, when he wasn’t on the rooftops readying his own method of
‘altering destiny,’ as a seer called it once. The others were to his main
employers, those who spearheaded the Random Task Agents. First, they would
send covert agents to collect information for several weeks. They would
tell him to avoid if he didn’t want to die yet again. Then, they would
provide him with something that could guarantee his safety once he went
back. And come back he did. He didn’t just come back for his guns. He
wanted whatever honor he should’ve had from going there, instead of
leaving looking the fool for battling those he had no chance against. He
refused to merely tuck his tail between his legs, choke on his own blood
and saliva, and let his coworkers retrieve his lifeless corpse from the
mess ‘they’ had put him into. He had scores to settle.
Character Personality The stoic mercenary still sat in the bar, reservedly
waiting for whatever reason he had in mind. He sat there for hours,
apparently not doing anything other than sip at his scotch and
occasionally get a new glass. Sometimes it would be the same scotch he had
been drinking for the past several hours, others it would be simply ice
water in his glass. He said not a word. No one had heard smooth spoken
words wrapped in a light British accent since he had come in, and even
then the only words they heard were ‘scotch on the rocks’ or ‘ice water.’
Some people would take a good look at him and his ice-blue eyes, and
leave. Were they annoyed by his silence, bothered by his stillness, or
maybe even frightened of his presence? One drunkard received as much as a
soul-piercing glare from him, and went sputtering off in a fit of abruptly
sobered and unexpectantly maddened hysteria. The mercenary sat until
nightfall, paid his tab, and then he left, as wordless as he had come.
Only did the man who went to take the recently-vacated seat noticed what
etched onto the counter. It had been said long ago that mothers would
frighten their children by telling them that Hannibal the conqueror was at
the gates. ‘Hannibal ad portae,’ or something of the fashion. This message
was scribed ‘The horseman is at the gates.’ The barfly didn’t realize the
significance of the scrawl. Perhaps it was a warning of sorts...
Powers and Abilities
Eclecticity
Power,
agility, endurance, ingenuity, speed, he had all of them in spades. No one
could really tell with the way he carried himself. He would stand just
like a normal person, until an act of self-defense was needed. Then, of
course, he learned the multiple ways of inflicting punishment. Flow like
water. Anger is not power. Rage is a weakness. Take out the legs first.
The environment can be an advantage. Try to disable if you can, only kill
if you must. Silence is key to survival. So many styles have so many
methods and lessons. It’s a wonder he knows so many of them. Tae kwon do,
jujutsu, aikido, capoeira, hints of ninjitsu; only the sharpest and most
analytical minds can pick out the styles presents in Greyson’s mixture,
the art of motion he has unintentionally created after decades of
learning, studying, and implementing. No normal human fighter had stood a
chance against him in his glory days, and many a fighter will remember the
ice-blue eyes and grayed hair of a nameless man from long ago.
Domineering Ways
‘The
horseman is at the gates.’ He had been called War once. The only reason no
one calls him War now is because it would bring back bad memories of the
three that had been lost. But some still see him as War, because he knows
how to wage it, if in only the form of one man. He has a high side-kick
that could smash concrete and break jaws. He can take the legs of an
Olympic runner right out from under them. He can knock a blade away before
it has the chance to draw blood. No matter how much power he puts into a
single strike, a lack of force to hold him to the ground would merely send
him airborne. Normally, he fights with no trace of rage, anger, enjoyment,
or anything else. It’s just business. But now, some say he grits his teeth
somewhat and holds a slight glare in his eyes...
The Third Favor
- Power: Eldrich
Blast
- Level: Standard
- Advantage: Ranged and Melee Attack! Attack is equally
effective at range and up close.
- Advantage: Multi Attack Attack can hit multiple times during
one strike.
- Weakness: power in item - Hard to Lose item
He called in three favors before he came back to
Khazan. The first was to an old friend who owed him his life. The second
was to his employers, for he wanted information. The third was strapped to
his back. It’s a piece of weaponry, just out of its prototype phase. It
had no name, but, for now, it has been dubbed the Gatecrasher. The last
time he was there, his use of hand-to-hand tactics led to his downfall.
Now he plans to stay as far away from his opponent as he can, and use a
weapon with a high-enough yield that would only require him to point it in
his enemy’s general direction and fire a large volley of many blasts at
once. It’s strapped very firmly to his back whenever he’s not firing it,
and no one would really have a chance to knock it aside once he readies to
fire. He keeps it to low power for the time being, as he would prefer to
learn more of his opponents’ strengths before going into a fight, and he
would also prefer not bring a place crashing down around his head. He
prefers to stay away from any building with an unstable structure, but he
especially keeps away from caves, caverns, and such...
Focus
- Power: Mental
Defense
- Level: Standard
- Advantage: Reinforced Defenses Defense blocks Armor Piercing
attacks.
It was required for the line
of work he chose; his physical stamina would have to match his mental
endurance. He sleeps only when he feels the need to. His soul had hardened
to the likes of the manipulative long ago. Attempts at seduction only
serve to annoy him. Those he ignores see him as bitter, uncaring, full of
himself. He merely has better things to do with his time than pay
attention to those who would want to play around with him. Those who don’t
leave him alone find themselves with the barrel of a revolver pointed
under their chins. But he has none of his own weaponry for the time,
except for the newly-acquired ‘means to an end’ which was never his in the
first place...
‘...a fool for life...’
A man can’t
live as long as he has and see the things he has seen without losing a
part of themselves. He just will not let that happen. Endless amounts of
people have told him that he has no purpose in life other that to hunt and
kill for other people’s predetermined purposes. He won’t even acknowledge
the idea. ‘They’ suck him into a portal regularly, and make him serve
their purpose to fulfill some silly prophecy that he would have a hand in
getting ‘it’ for them and effectively having a hand in the end of any
universe they deemed fit. He refuses to succumb to them, to live his life
in their servitude, to become their toy soldier. He has been stretched to
a limit no human has let themselves survive, but he will not sit and wait
in some puddle of muddy water or a snow-covered street curb to wait for
‘them’ to take him again. Greyson Black holds on to the life he has,
futile as the struggle may be. He tries to ignore pain in his attempts to
do what he is meant to do. The masterful fighters have fallen. The
greatest strategists have been outsmarted. The luckiest gamble has been
trumped. Even deities have seen the brink of defeat when he has the right
tools in his hands. All because he refuses to give up to pain and
suffering and despair, and continues to trudge on through the bleakest of
times. He will be set free one day. He will find ‘them’ and their hiding
place in whatever corner of whatever dimension they occupy. He will track
them down, and bring along all of those whom ‘they’ have wronged. And then
he will kill them all.
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