Post by Twysper on Mar 30, 2010 13:41:00 GMT -5
Name:Yankee
Original Name: Ehan (pronounced like Ian) Kysheer (pronounced kye-shear)
Race: Human
Age: 25
Height:5’11”
Weight: 164
Birth place: Corellia
Appearance:
Yankee’s skin is mildly tanned, the color of a light mocha. His body is of average build, yet lithe and densely muscled like a jungle cat from harsh training regimens and further augmented by steroids administered by Green Meadows.
He has straight dark brown hair that is brushed loosely off to the side. It terminates sharply right before it has the chance to get in his eyes and obscure his vision.
Yankee has keen hazel eyes that seem to shift between aqua blue and forest green. Regardless of color, they constantly glint with inbred cunning and emotionless calculations. These have been further fitted with lenses to enhance his vision far beyond that of a normal human’s, even in lowlight and distant conditions.
In field conditions that require it, Yankee wears light, flexible body armor provided by Green Meadows that covers his torso, thighs, and shoulders, so as to not hinder his range of motion. Depending on the details of the mission, the armor provided to him will contain the appropriate camouflage pattern. However, this is not his primary role when deployed; as throwing knives are easily concealable, Yankee is often put into undercover situations for solo assassination missions, where body armor would be ineffective.
Personality: N/A.
Calculated, efficient.
Equipment:
-Light Armor
-Throwing Knives
+Wrist-sheaths
-Heavy blaster pistol
-Civilian Clothing
Profession: Assassin
Skills:
~Green Meadows Assassin Training
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 7
Intelligence: 8
Speed: 9
Leadership: 3
Unarmed: 4
Melee Weapons: 6
Ranged Weapons: 5
Specialized Combat Skill: Throwing Knives: 9
Specialized Non-Combat Skill: Tracking: 8
Alignment: 0
Ship Name: N/A
Bio:
A Spin of the Knife.
(birth-4)
Yankee, once Ehan Kysheer, was born on Corellia, to parents who were both heavily involved in the design and engineering of prototype ship designs for the Corellian Engineering Corporation. Both of them were extremely competitive, driven people; stellar at their jobs.
The birth was an ordinary textbook case in every way, and Ehan was delivered without incident at a Corellian hospital. After a day’s lodge at the facilities provided, the baby boy was taken home by his workaholic parents. Said parents, Corran being the father, and Perri, the mother, gave the child as much attention as they could in-between their all-consuming projects for CEC; Ehan was left with one of Perri’s friends on an extended ‘vacation’ almost immediately.
She lived in a far more rural part of Corellia in comparison to the Capital, for Kor Vella was where she made her home. His parents would occasionally drop by about twice a week to check in on him, but he was generally devoid of their influence, spending most of his time with his sitter, though her own older, fourteen year old son was living in the same house, keeping out of the way of the baby. Perhaps it was due to the lack of attention that the little one became unusually solemn, as well as affectionate towards everything that paused to give him heed.
His early education was taken care of in the way of trusted tutors sent by his parents, and his favorite of them all was the woman who took him outside for his lessons, allowing him to wander around the garden Perri’s friend owned. His tutor occasionally stepped in to point out an animal track on muddy days or a scattering of seeds from one of the small feeders, before proceeding to tell him a story about what had occurred there. She may have been accurate only 50% of the time, but Ehan, for his part, and after staring at the indicated tracks himself intensely, little face scrunched up in thought, marveled at his teacher’s ability to pick out small discrepancies in the terrain. He made a point of showing off his newfound knowledge to his parents when they next visited, pulling them both around the garden by the hand. They matter of factly, and not unkindly, informed him that “formulating a hypothesis without sufficient data leads to an undesirable conclusion.”
Ehan was two and a half. He had no idea what that meant, only understanding that mommy and daddy weren’t appreciating what he was trying to show them. So he wandered back inside. Corran and Perri left shortly afterwards.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A month rolled by, further nearing Ehan’s third birthday. He had won most of his tutors, hired by his parents, over with his quiet attention and willingness to learn by this point, and life was generally pleasant and serene for him. His parents started to fade out in importance; they became “the checker-uppers” and were replaced with imaginary friends and personal games of make-believe.
It was around this point in time that his father’s life was suddenly taken in a shocking accident while out shopping for a new woodchipper that was to be the new center piece for their living room. Needless to say, Perri was an eccentric decorator. Some say that the speeder that hit him was driven by a cross-eyed, spice-jaded maniac, the more paranoid that it was a hitman from a rival business organization trying to stall CEC’s prototype development. Whatever the case may have been, Ehan’s father was dead instantly, and the culprit gone just as fast.
Ehan’s sitter received word shortly after via a hysterical wife. Perri had been overworked, stressed about the upcoming presentation they were to give on their new design, and now her husband, who had memorized half of the technical specifications and talking points for said ship, was now dead. Thus began a spiral of despair for her.Their Her ship design would fall through the floor. The press meeting would be a bust! She would be FIRED!
Sobbing and broken down, Perri half-heartedly started to rummage through the house for the ancient slugthrower Corran had purchased years before. She found it under their bed, and with a great degree of effort and a steeling of will, finally managed to chamber a round in the old gun. Slowly, comfortingly, the barrel moved up towards her head, brushing a tear stained streak of hair out of the way gently, and she closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.
Without writing a death note, without either of them leaving Ehan anything in a will, both of his parents were gone. Gross lack of foresight would see their son onwards to lose his life.
With both of his parents dead, full responsibility for their child fell on the sitter. She had grown attached to the quiet, unassuming child that so very much loved to cuddle with her, and she tried her best to keep him. But with the instant decrease in funding, and her own son’s further schooling payments looming on the horizon, she had no choice but to let him go. Ehan was sent to an orphanage in Kor Vella a month after the death of his parents, leading to a sudden panic and frantic crying. Where were his teachers? Where were his toys? Why wasn’t he allowed to wander outside anymore?
Three times in his week stay, Ehan managed to get outside the orphanage. Twice he was brought back kicking and screaming by a caretaker, the third time he was never seen again.
Like a will-o-the wisp, he flashed out the door that day, as soon as the caretakers’ attention shifted. Ehan ran about half a block before a large nondescript speeder pulled up in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. Before the speeder had even completely come to a halt, two men in black had gotten out. Ehan, thinking they were sent by the caretakers, spun on his heel and started to run the other way. Needless to say, his efforts were in vain, for he was caught and picked up after a three step pursuit. Then he started screaming bloody murder, flailing, causing the pair to hurry back to the speeder.
He thought he was going back to the orphanage.
He was wrong.
Ehan was abducted not just by any kidnappers, but by Green Meadows employees. These same spent the better part of the hour carefully lying to the three-and-a-half year old once he stopped his hysterics.
They were going to a special home for other children just like him. Ones that had no family, no possessions; they were to keep each other company, in exchange for being observed by a few doctors, and doctor’s weren’t so bad. It was so funny! If he hadn’t fled the orphanage at all, they would have even picked him up sooner! Content and well at ease, with boogiemen caretakers suddenly turning into guardian angels, Ehan took a nap.
In reality, Green Meadows was a top secret facility for the training and operations of 26 specialized assassins, each given a name from the military’s alphabet callsigns. Three year old Ehan was to be number 25, codenamed Yankee. He was from the very instant he walked through the door into a bleak world of blank white halls and sterile lighting.
This was Green Meadows?
An explanation that didn’t make sense, a scary looking state-of-the-art operating room, and a barrage of needles filled the next few minutes of Ehan’s life. The last few minutes of his proudly being three and a half.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When he awoke, it was to a bleak world gone completely monotone. The yin and yang of joy and fear were both nonexistent. He did not know who he was, and he did not care. This was due to the RELIC chip that had just been implanted in his head, and the subsequent memory wipe afterwards. Shortly, a doctor was along, and referred to him as Yankee. The new entity that had been created took this to be his name, and followed. Thus it began.
They were being prepared, always prepared. The growth hormones that were administered to them, accelerating the rate their bodies matured, were evidence enough of that. The twenty-six were a huge investment, and quite predictably every single thing they did was observed and noted by scientists and researchers so as to prepare them for their ultimate purpose. Or personal lack thereof.
This continued for a year and a half with no reprieve or variation in between, until the fateful day when Yankee’s classes delved into the realm of more physical hands-on combat. His instructors, already accomplished much older assassins, the best of the best that were to be found, cycled him through a wide selection of ranged and bladed weapons with no definite results. He was as proficient with them all as was to be expected by a normal child being developed as an assassin, but “normal” or “decent” was not what Green Meadows had in mind when they started this project. Finally, Yankee was handed a throwing knife, and finding its appearance to be similar to the other combat knife he had been using earlier, started to run through the motions of attacking with it. His instructor shook his head, promptly took the weapon away from him, neatly spun the weapon around in his hand until he was holding it by the point, and then proceeded to effortlessly flick it into one of the nearby targets. Yankee’s eyes never left the man. He was quickly supplied with another knife identical to the one that had just been thrown, and he mirrored the older assassin’s form and stance perfectly. Then, without hint of trepidation or excitement, he sent the knife spinning directly into the target. The hilt of it to be more precise. It clattered off the hard, man-sized target with a cacophony of ringing steel; anyone other then the chipped twenty-six would have felt disappointed.
This did not concern the instructor. He shifted Yankee a foot forward, and handed him another knife. He threw again, imitating the stance and grip of the assassin a second time. His motion was smooth and fluid in a way that only one completely oblivious to the pressure of the moment could possibly be. This throw would decide his direction and specialization for the rest of his life at Green Meadows.
The knife blade sunk into the torso of the target, next to the assassin’s first throw. There was a nod of approval from the teacher, though Yankee did not, could not, glean satisfaction from it. He repeated the feat two dozen times before he was given knives of varying sizes, weights, and designs to experiment with.
He had found his specific calling as an assassin.
~~~~~~~~
With this, his training regimen set into further patterns with more specialized classes. Rather then learning with the whole rest of his brethren the entire time, a few of these classes were specific to only himself and a few others. It was towards the end of this period of time that Yankee started to lay down further ground-works in the areas of security, pistols (of both slugthrower and blaster persuasions), close quarters combat, speed training, stealth, driving, and weapons handling, among other things.
At nine, a gangly Yankee experienced the fun effects of accelerated puberty. This event doggedly pursued him throughout his training while it ran its course. Knives that were thrown at all other times with the accuracy of an unerring machine occasionally missed their intended target by entire inches. Sprinting exercises saw him trip and fall over his own feet. A mass influx of testosterone and other hormones tested the RELIC’s ability to overpower strong emotions, but the chip proved to be irrefutable in its programming; Yankee was kept under control while his body grew used to the intense growing pains that plagued him.
Five years passed quickly for the dark haired, emotionless child and his classmates. Five years of monotonous training; honing raw skills and natural talent into keenly forged instruments of death. It was during this period of time that old, forgotten preferences returned to the forefront of importance; the inquisitive nature of Yankee’s childhood exploration of the garden was to become a valuable asset to Green Meadows. The trace of this particular skill manifested itself during a training scenario in which he was to locate and subdue, non-lethally, a target in the woods just outside the Green Meadows facility. It was done, and it was done as expertly as Green Meadows could expect.
Yankee had an instinctive eye for noting the smallest of oddities in the natural terrain; broken twigs, disturbed loam, foreign objects; knowing exactly what was and wasn’t supposed to be there. With the added benefit of having no emotion, there was never any panic as to having missed a trail; there was never any aggravated impatience while methodically searching an area; and thus almost never a mistake. Yankee fared extremely well in all exercises similar in later years, whether he was working as a spotter for one of his brethren with a sniper rifle, or as a lone wolf.
By the time of his fifteenth birthday, Yankee’s body had finally stopped its steroid induced, enhanced growth spurt. Motions began to smooth over completely as he got used to his new figure. Then he was under the knife again. It was both terrible and amazing at the same time; a magnificent monstrosity of science and technology, for he was only being perfected to kill, kill swiftly, and return.
Yankee’s eyes were fitted with lenses, enhancing his vision, his lowest set of ribs was removed allowing him a greater range of flexibility, the cartilage in all of his major joints was replaced with far more durable synthetics capable of taking further strain, all of these major surgeries and more labeled under the title of ‘improvements.’ He immediately spent a number of months recuperating for their trouble, but when he had finally recovered fully, the improvements were shown to be worth it.
In the eyes of Green Meadows.
The being known as Yankee merely acknowledged that he had become that much more efficient. With augmentations in place, the assassin’s training accelerated further as motions became smoother, throws stronger, and running faster. Yankee would’ve been on top of the world had he been able to feel emotions. He was sixteen and near-perfect.
With uncanny apathy, Yankee watched as the other 24 assassins before him were dropped off on Dxun for their survival test, leaving just himself and Zulu in the transport for a few moments. Then he too had his feet on the ground, with nothing but the clothes on his back, a combat knife, and a length of rope.
It was a simple fact that he in particular had a higher chance of survival then most of his brethren. Yankee already had a weapon he was trained to use in most deadly fashion, whether thrown or held, and his other most prominent skill was tracking in such terrain.
Sans a glance back up at the sky, the figure of the 25th assassin quickly disappeared from view, clawed shadows cast from leafy foliage pulling him.
Survival for the assassin during this final testing rested on finding water, food, and shelter.
Yankee’s eyes had been looking for the whispered signs of a game trail immediately after being dropped off. The local fauna would stay away from the landing site for a short time, and then the bolder and more curious would come to see what had encroached on their territory. The bolder animals would be the predators, and logic dictated that they should be avoided until no other options were available.
The trail he did eventually find brought him to a small stream; a watering hole for smaller herbivores, and a feeding ground for voracious carnivores. Insects buzzed and hummed in the background as he settled in to wait for an opportunity.
Before two hours had passed, Yankee had ambushed a wandering mandalorian scout. As soon as the man had bent to refill his canteen and removed his helmet to take a drink, Yankee’s knife had taken him in the side of the throat. The assassin himself followed a split second afterwards, slipping from his hiding place to retrieve his weapon.
Yankee looted the man’s corpse with the efficiency of a natural scavenger, though he had to leave sections of the Mandalorians beskar’gam behind due to large differences in size. Rustles in the brush and nearby footsteps caught the assassin’s hearing then, and he fled out of sight, retreating figure looking as guilty as a raccoon’s masked face, though he felt none of it. Blaster bolts streaked crimson on a canvas made of earthy shades before burning out, narrowly missing Yankee.
The rest of the group of Mandalorians chased after him, but did not find any further sign of the being that had killed their comrade. Yankee was already putting as much distance he could between himself and his pursuers, looking for a place to hole up and regain his bearings. Eventually, he found himself among a particularly large, ancient grove of twining trees, web-like roots exposed above ground. It was deemed suitable as temporary shelter immediately, and Yankee began to climb.
Almost immediately, he was attacked by a pack of territorial Maalraas, those that already called the higher stratosphere of the jungle home. Needle-sharp fangs ripped into his shoulder, causing Yankee’s embedded RELIC chip to respond with endorphins and adrenaline, before being blasted clear off the tree with the business end of his ‘borrowed’ weapon. Another swiped the heavy blaster out of his hands, to be lost on the forest floor. More started to flood towards the assassin in order to protect their grounds, and Yankee calculated the odds of killing them all without attaining mission jeopardizing wounds was very low.
He strategically withdrew from the area, first working his way back to the stream, to clean and bandage the deep puncture wounds the Maalraas had created, before picking up another game trail and continuing on.
As fate would have it, Yankee tracked to a sealed weapon cache left over from the Mandalorian Wars. A quick rummage through the previously stolen gear saw him rigging a thermal detonator to the door after cursory interfacing with the control panel.
He retreated to a safe distance before the explosion ripped a large passageway through the front door.
What Yankee found was a stockpile of weapons and a small duracrete shelter.
What the Zakkeg that had been trailing Yankee found was conveniently cornered prey.
The huge armored creature, confident in its strength, approached slowly, offering no chance for the assassin to escape. Its bulk started to push against the remaining fragments of the doorway, and the thick metal started to bend inwards, allowing it to inch in.
Yankee, assessing the threat, quickly started to scan through the collected weaponry around him. An RPG was smoothly pulled out of a dated weapons case, and with a twist of Yankee’s body, the knife in his other hand spun towards the Zakkeg, lodging itself in the creature’s eye with no small bit of blood.
Instantly, an ear-splitting roar echoed around the enclosed space, before the Zakkeg’s bulk moved away from the doorway. Yankee jolted forwards to take advantage of the wounded creature’s retreat, and resting his arm against the frame of the entryway, fired the RPG flat into the quadruped’s face. Concussive force killed it instantly.
Now, with immediate threats removed, Yankee moved back inside the cache to inspect what he had to work with. In short order, a replacement barricade made of natural materials took the place of the ruined metal door.
The rest of his time on Dxun was devoted to hunting for sustenance, fending off other predators from his home, and resting. Simple tools for essential needs were easily fashioned out of materials found in the rainforest, and protection in the form of weapons was more than abundant.
His mission was to survive. There was no desire, no need, to surpass this.
And Yankee succeeded.
Upon Yankee’s return to the Green Meadows facility with the other twenty-five, his training took a further turn. Yankee’s talents were suited for stealth and infiltration operations, getting up close to the target before killing his mark. He was taught how to make conversation to manipulate others, how to imitate emotions without having any himself. He didn’t need to be charming or suave, merely basely human, able to put on the front of a cold, calculating lawyer, politician, or businessman. His skills in this area plateau’d quickly, and after a while it was agreed among the scientists that any further training would require altering of the RELIC’s programming.
This was not an option.
Also during this time, tracking techniques were further honed to an edge that could split a dropped hair on contact. Yankee’s awareness of his surroundings became near-perfect; trained to notice the most miniscule details, to find trails that bordered on being non-existent. His instructors were hard-pressed to find flaws in his technique and methods.
Yankee had always been fast, one of the fastest among the twenty-six, but now, now the scientists pushed him to the ground with speed drills. He performed to the best of his ability, nothing less would satisfy Green Meadows, though speed did not encompass merely sprinting. It was speed through complex obstacle courses designed to mimic scenario environments, and extreme agility was required as much as speed to achieve a passing grade. Targets were added at later stages, and failure to hit all of them resulted in electric shock and further repetition afterwards.
Yankee’s first assignment was the assassination of a man that had done something to piss off a criminal organization with sufficient funds to hire him.
Most details concerning the mark were not required, and thus, not given. His handlers told him who to kill, and Yankee killed them, simple as that.
His mission took him to the other side of Ralltiir. The target was the owner of a marble quarrying company, and the large, airy office complex was niche’d on an alabaster shelf of the blocky cliff. Yankee’s cover as an extremely wealthy investor looking for a tour gained him access to the inside of the luxurious building, and his three concealed throwing knives were missed in the quick informal pat-down the security gave him.
A short time later saw the small group consisting of Yankee, the mark, and the mark’s favorite bodyguard walking in bright sunlight along the railed gray scaffolding that lined the work area. Lumbering droids manned by workers carved away at rock six stories below them as the trio meandered above the facilities, and further flocks of smaller, agile repulsor-driven droids passed right below the catwalk. They were nearing the middle of the walkway now; the assassin knew opportunity would present itself soon.
Yankee’s hazel eyes took in his surroundings, and he saw.
The bodyguard’s gaze was drifting from him now, relaxed in the balmy weather, and the mark had just turned to point out a piece of advanced equipment at work below.
Now.
Cold steel made no sound as it was suddenly unsheathed from hidden holsters, and Yankee’s hands both lashed forward, burying a long, thin blade in each man’s heart. His RELIC chip saw the need for adrenaline and allowed the assassin’s system an appropriate dose. With unnatural speed, he was moving again, catching both dead men and leaning them against the railing before sprinting towards the opposite end of the walkway. Yankee’s peripheral vision picked up another swarm of flying drones coming in, and he lunged for them, lithe form clearing the railing before pouncing on top of a droid. Nimble fingers turned into grasping claws, holding onto the circular chassis of the droid, but Yankee’s descent still continued at a perilous rate as the droid’s repulsors proved inefficient to keep the combined weight aloft.
The struggling droid barely cleared three hewn marble steps in quick succession while Yankee hauled himself to the top of the circular domed droid, balancing carefully as he calculated the droid’s trajectory. It was dropping far too fast and not gaining enough ground to compensate; there’d be a collision with solid rock in a moment if nothing was altered. A half-second scan gained him a glimpse of a huge crane lifting a large block of marble via chain, and it was this chain he leapt for, making hard contact with it but still managing to hold on.
The body of his dead mark shifted, high above.
Yankee quickly slid down the metal links, and jumped off the block of marble before rolling in the dust to break his fall.
The flashy speeder he had arrived in was parked nearby, and it was this he briskly walked towards, straightening his posture and dusting his clothes off in the same motion. Appearances would keep the alarm from being raised by a vigilant worker.
A monstrosity of a grinding machine started boring through bedrock, shaking the earth around it with the strength of a mild earthquake.
The mark’s body fell over the railing. For a moment, it was airborne, and then the figure collided with the hard packed earth. Quarry employees supervising various machines around the point of impact turned to look, and the shift of attention in the air made the RELIC chip see fit to give Yankee another cold shot of adrenaline.
He ran then, jumping into his speeder before veering away as quickly as possible, and driving off into the distance.
Precautions had been taken; his extraction point was in the closest city’s spaceport, where a passenger would easily be able to leave unnoticed.
Once Yankee returned to the Green Meadows facility, his memories of the mission, the mark, and his own exploits were erased, as surely as if someone had splashed white-out on a calendar.
So it was with this mission, and so it was with all others undertaken during this period of time, until his twenty-third year.
Suddenly, there came a new mission. A number of his brethren had escaped Green Meadows’ facility, Alpha, Delta, Echo, Uniform, Oscar, Victor, and Tango; he was to help track down and retrieve them.
Foxtrot was leading the effort, and Yankee technically was under her command, but as the virus implanted in the RELIC chips slowly worked away at eroding its control, a tinge of envy seeped through. The small, bitter tendril’s sudden appearance warranted Yankee’s full attention, and he focused on it, only to find a questioning pang in his chest.
What was this?
He did not arrive at a conclusive answer before he fell asleep.
It was during this time that one of the other Merchant of Death assassins sent with them, November, fled from the ship, using a knockout gas to make her getaway. As soon as her escape was noted, Yankee’s mission changed. He was to track her down and bring her back to Green Meadows. Initial efforts to track her down in the local vicinity proved fruitless; trail was too cold, November too intelligent and careful.
And so he had time to gear up at the facility and go through a bout of last minute preparations before he was given her most likely location, a top of the line ship, and sent off like a hunting dog.
It’s a shame when expensive nanochip collars have defects.
RP Sample:
The man known as Yankee peered down at his cards. His mark sat across from him, and a rather small pile of chips sat in front of her, each representing a set sum of currency.
The human woman had blonde hair and light blue eyes, but the dossier on her revealed that they were actually dark brown, for colored lenses were behind the deception. She stood at exactly 5’9”, with an athletic build that seemed to have been designed to draw men’s eyes.
Perhaps it had been designed. The information about her was lacking on that point.
If she was, that would make two of them.
Hazel eyes peered through straight dark brown hair as Yankee’s head tilted downwards again; as if he had forgotten what his cards were already. The woman was anxious and fidgeting, but that was to be expected after losing seven straight hands of cards.
Who knew that an emotionless assassin would have the best poker face in the galaxy?
Not to mention being able to calculate odds well beyond the grasp of most humans…
Her two personal bodyguards stood nearby in the posh room whose most prominent feature was a gambling table. Prominent politicians could afford to reserve that kind of luxury.
Yankee had been slapping down his cards on the table with a flourish, simply to get the other occupants of the room used to the motion.
The sleight movement was quick, unnoticeable to any of the other three in the room. It slipped a standard card from his dealt hand into his sleeve, to be replaced with a lethal weighted and bladed card.
When it was time to reveal his hand, Yankee sent the card spinning directly into his opponent’s neck in a lightning motion that caught both guards unaware. It took them a moment to realize that the person they were supposed to be protecting had a thin metal implement lodged in her jugular.
By then, it was too late. Identical cards were already on their way to end their lives. Someone in Green Meadows had seen fit to make them all jokers, and the eccentrically garbed figures still grinned as blood smattered them, seemingly pleased with their role in others’ death.
His business here was finished, and so Yankee left the politicians’ quarters, melting first into the atmosphere of the gambling club, then out into the streets.
He keyed the microphone hidden in his collar, before crisply reporting, “Mark eliminated.” The message was transmitted to his nearby transport, and from there, back to Green Meadows on an encrypted channel.
Password: Vornskr
Original Name: Ehan (pronounced like Ian) Kysheer (pronounced kye-shear)
Race: Human
Age: 25
Height:5’11”
Weight: 164
Birth place: Corellia
Appearance:
Yankee’s skin is mildly tanned, the color of a light mocha. His body is of average build, yet lithe and densely muscled like a jungle cat from harsh training regimens and further augmented by steroids administered by Green Meadows.
He has straight dark brown hair that is brushed loosely off to the side. It terminates sharply right before it has the chance to get in his eyes and obscure his vision.
Yankee has keen hazel eyes that seem to shift between aqua blue and forest green. Regardless of color, they constantly glint with inbred cunning and emotionless calculations. These have been further fitted with lenses to enhance his vision far beyond that of a normal human’s, even in lowlight and distant conditions.
In field conditions that require it, Yankee wears light, flexible body armor provided by Green Meadows that covers his torso, thighs, and shoulders, so as to not hinder his range of motion. Depending on the details of the mission, the armor provided to him will contain the appropriate camouflage pattern. However, this is not his primary role when deployed; as throwing knives are easily concealable, Yankee is often put into undercover situations for solo assassination missions, where body armor would be ineffective.
Personality: N/A.
Calculated, efficient.
Equipment:
-Light Armor
-Throwing Knives
+Wrist-sheaths
-Heavy blaster pistol
-Civilian Clothing
Profession: Assassin
Skills:
~Green Meadows Assassin Training
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 7
Intelligence: 8
Speed: 9
Leadership: 3
Unarmed: 4
Melee Weapons: 6
Ranged Weapons: 5
Specialized Combat Skill: Throwing Knives: 9
Specialized Non-Combat Skill: Tracking: 8
Alignment: 0
Ship Name: N/A
Bio:
A Spin of the Knife.
(birth-4)
Yankee, once Ehan Kysheer, was born on Corellia, to parents who were both heavily involved in the design and engineering of prototype ship designs for the Corellian Engineering Corporation. Both of them were extremely competitive, driven people; stellar at their jobs.
The birth was an ordinary textbook case in every way, and Ehan was delivered without incident at a Corellian hospital. After a day’s lodge at the facilities provided, the baby boy was taken home by his workaholic parents. Said parents, Corran being the father, and Perri, the mother, gave the child as much attention as they could in-between their all-consuming projects for CEC; Ehan was left with one of Perri’s friends on an extended ‘vacation’ almost immediately.
She lived in a far more rural part of Corellia in comparison to the Capital, for Kor Vella was where she made her home. His parents would occasionally drop by about twice a week to check in on him, but he was generally devoid of their influence, spending most of his time with his sitter, though her own older, fourteen year old son was living in the same house, keeping out of the way of the baby. Perhaps it was due to the lack of attention that the little one became unusually solemn, as well as affectionate towards everything that paused to give him heed.
His early education was taken care of in the way of trusted tutors sent by his parents, and his favorite of them all was the woman who took him outside for his lessons, allowing him to wander around the garden Perri’s friend owned. His tutor occasionally stepped in to point out an animal track on muddy days or a scattering of seeds from one of the small feeders, before proceeding to tell him a story about what had occurred there. She may have been accurate only 50% of the time, but Ehan, for his part, and after staring at the indicated tracks himself intensely, little face scrunched up in thought, marveled at his teacher’s ability to pick out small discrepancies in the terrain. He made a point of showing off his newfound knowledge to his parents when they next visited, pulling them both around the garden by the hand. They matter of factly, and not unkindly, informed him that “formulating a hypothesis without sufficient data leads to an undesirable conclusion.”
Ehan was two and a half. He had no idea what that meant, only understanding that mommy and daddy weren’t appreciating what he was trying to show them. So he wandered back inside. Corran and Perri left shortly afterwards.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A month rolled by, further nearing Ehan’s third birthday. He had won most of his tutors, hired by his parents, over with his quiet attention and willingness to learn by this point, and life was generally pleasant and serene for him. His parents started to fade out in importance; they became “the checker-uppers” and were replaced with imaginary friends and personal games of make-believe.
It was around this point in time that his father’s life was suddenly taken in a shocking accident while out shopping for a new woodchipper that was to be the new center piece for their living room. Needless to say, Perri was an eccentric decorator. Some say that the speeder that hit him was driven by a cross-eyed, spice-jaded maniac, the more paranoid that it was a hitman from a rival business organization trying to stall CEC’s prototype development. Whatever the case may have been, Ehan’s father was dead instantly, and the culprit gone just as fast.
Ehan’s sitter received word shortly after via a hysterical wife. Perri had been overworked, stressed about the upcoming presentation they were to give on their new design, and now her husband, who had memorized half of the technical specifications and talking points for said ship, was now dead. Thus began a spiral of despair for her.
Sobbing and broken down, Perri half-heartedly started to rummage through the house for the ancient slugthrower Corran had purchased years before. She found it under their bed, and with a great degree of effort and a steeling of will, finally managed to chamber a round in the old gun. Slowly, comfortingly, the barrel moved up towards her head, brushing a tear stained streak of hair out of the way gently, and she closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.
Without writing a death note, without either of them leaving Ehan anything in a will, both of his parents were gone. Gross lack of foresight would see their son onwards to lose his life.
With both of his parents dead, full responsibility for their child fell on the sitter. She had grown attached to the quiet, unassuming child that so very much loved to cuddle with her, and she tried her best to keep him. But with the instant decrease in funding, and her own son’s further schooling payments looming on the horizon, she had no choice but to let him go. Ehan was sent to an orphanage in Kor Vella a month after the death of his parents, leading to a sudden panic and frantic crying. Where were his teachers? Where were his toys? Why wasn’t he allowed to wander outside anymore?
Three times in his week stay, Ehan managed to get outside the orphanage. Twice he was brought back kicking and screaming by a caretaker, the third time he was never seen again.
Like a will-o-the wisp, he flashed out the door that day, as soon as the caretakers’ attention shifted. Ehan ran about half a block before a large nondescript speeder pulled up in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. Before the speeder had even completely come to a halt, two men in black had gotten out. Ehan, thinking they were sent by the caretakers, spun on his heel and started to run the other way. Needless to say, his efforts were in vain, for he was caught and picked up after a three step pursuit. Then he started screaming bloody murder, flailing, causing the pair to hurry back to the speeder.
He thought he was going back to the orphanage.
He was wrong.
The Grass is Always Greener...
(age 4-5)
(age 4-5)
Ehan was abducted not just by any kidnappers, but by Green Meadows employees. These same spent the better part of the hour carefully lying to the three-and-a-half year old once he stopped his hysterics.
They were going to a special home for other children just like him. Ones that had no family, no possessions; they were to keep each other company, in exchange for being observed by a few doctors, and doctor’s weren’t so bad. It was so funny! If he hadn’t fled the orphanage at all, they would have even picked him up sooner! Content and well at ease, with boogiemen caretakers suddenly turning into guardian angels, Ehan took a nap.
In reality, Green Meadows was a top secret facility for the training and operations of 26 specialized assassins, each given a name from the military’s alphabet callsigns. Three year old Ehan was to be number 25, codenamed Yankee. He was from the very instant he walked through the door into a bleak world of blank white halls and sterile lighting.
This was Green Meadows?
An explanation that didn’t make sense, a scary looking state-of-the-art operating room, and a barrage of needles filled the next few minutes of Ehan’s life. The last few minutes of his proudly being three and a half.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When he awoke, it was to a bleak world gone completely monotone. The yin and yang of joy and fear were both nonexistent. He did not know who he was, and he did not care. This was due to the RELIC chip that had just been implanted in his head, and the subsequent memory wipe afterwards. Shortly, a doctor was along, and referred to him as Yankee. The new entity that had been created took this to be his name, and followed. Thus it began.
Here it goes again.
The 25th time, to be exact.
(ages 5-9)
The 25th time, to be exact.
(ages 5-9)
They were being prepared, always prepared. The growth hormones that were administered to them, accelerating the rate their bodies matured, were evidence enough of that. The twenty-six were a huge investment, and quite predictably every single thing they did was observed and noted by scientists and researchers so as to prepare them for their ultimate purpose. Or personal lack thereof.
This continued for a year and a half with no reprieve or variation in between, until the fateful day when Yankee’s classes delved into the realm of more physical hands-on combat. His instructors, already accomplished much older assassins, the best of the best that were to be found, cycled him through a wide selection of ranged and bladed weapons with no definite results. He was as proficient with them all as was to be expected by a normal child being developed as an assassin, but “normal” or “decent” was not what Green Meadows had in mind when they started this project. Finally, Yankee was handed a throwing knife, and finding its appearance to be similar to the other combat knife he had been using earlier, started to run through the motions of attacking with it. His instructor shook his head, promptly took the weapon away from him, neatly spun the weapon around in his hand until he was holding it by the point, and then proceeded to effortlessly flick it into one of the nearby targets. Yankee’s eyes never left the man. He was quickly supplied with another knife identical to the one that had just been thrown, and he mirrored the older assassin’s form and stance perfectly. Then, without hint of trepidation or excitement, he sent the knife spinning directly into the target. The hilt of it to be more precise. It clattered off the hard, man-sized target with a cacophony of ringing steel; anyone other then the chipped twenty-six would have felt disappointed.
This did not concern the instructor. He shifted Yankee a foot forward, and handed him another knife. He threw again, imitating the stance and grip of the assassin a second time. His motion was smooth and fluid in a way that only one completely oblivious to the pressure of the moment could possibly be. This throw would decide his direction and specialization for the rest of his life at Green Meadows.
The knife blade sunk into the torso of the target, next to the assassin’s first throw. There was a nod of approval from the teacher, though Yankee did not, could not, glean satisfaction from it. He repeated the feat two dozen times before he was given knives of varying sizes, weights, and designs to experiment with.
He had found his specific calling as an assassin.
~~~~~~~~
With this, his training regimen set into further patterns with more specialized classes. Rather then learning with the whole rest of his brethren the entire time, a few of these classes were specific to only himself and a few others. It was towards the end of this period of time that Yankee started to lay down further ground-works in the areas of security, pistols (of both slugthrower and blaster persuasions), close quarters combat, speed training, stealth, driving, and weapons handling, among other things.
Specialization and Scientists.
(ages 9-15)
(ages 9-15)
At nine, a gangly Yankee experienced the fun effects of accelerated puberty. This event doggedly pursued him throughout his training while it ran its course. Knives that were thrown at all other times with the accuracy of an unerring machine occasionally missed their intended target by entire inches. Sprinting exercises saw him trip and fall over his own feet. A mass influx of testosterone and other hormones tested the RELIC’s ability to overpower strong emotions, but the chip proved to be irrefutable in its programming; Yankee was kept under control while his body grew used to the intense growing pains that plagued him.
Five years passed quickly for the dark haired, emotionless child and his classmates. Five years of monotonous training; honing raw skills and natural talent into keenly forged instruments of death. It was during this period of time that old, forgotten preferences returned to the forefront of importance; the inquisitive nature of Yankee’s childhood exploration of the garden was to become a valuable asset to Green Meadows. The trace of this particular skill manifested itself during a training scenario in which he was to locate and subdue, non-lethally, a target in the woods just outside the Green Meadows facility. It was done, and it was done as expertly as Green Meadows could expect.
Yankee had an instinctive eye for noting the smallest of oddities in the natural terrain; broken twigs, disturbed loam, foreign objects; knowing exactly what was and wasn’t supposed to be there. With the added benefit of having no emotion, there was never any panic as to having missed a trail; there was never any aggravated impatience while methodically searching an area; and thus almost never a mistake. Yankee fared extremely well in all exercises similar in later years, whether he was working as a spotter for one of his brethren with a sniper rifle, or as a lone wolf.
By the time of his fifteenth birthday, Yankee’s body had finally stopped its steroid induced, enhanced growth spurt. Motions began to smooth over completely as he got used to his new figure. Then he was under the knife again. It was both terrible and amazing at the same time; a magnificent monstrosity of science and technology, for he was only being perfected to kill, kill swiftly, and return.
Yankee’s eyes were fitted with lenses, enhancing his vision, his lowest set of ribs was removed allowing him a greater range of flexibility, the cartilage in all of his major joints was replaced with far more durable synthetics capable of taking further strain, all of these major surgeries and more labeled under the title of ‘improvements.’ He immediately spent a number of months recuperating for their trouble, but when he had finally recovered fully, the improvements were shown to be worth it.
In the eyes of Green Meadows.
The being known as Yankee merely acknowledged that he had become that much more efficient. With augmentations in place, the assassin’s training accelerated further as motions became smoother, throws stronger, and running faster. Yankee would’ve been on top of the world had he been able to feel emotions. He was sixteen and near-perfect.
Dxun.
(age-16)
(age-16)
With uncanny apathy, Yankee watched as the other 24 assassins before him were dropped off on Dxun for their survival test, leaving just himself and Zulu in the transport for a few moments. Then he too had his feet on the ground, with nothing but the clothes on his back, a combat knife, and a length of rope.
It was a simple fact that he in particular had a higher chance of survival then most of his brethren. Yankee already had a weapon he was trained to use in most deadly fashion, whether thrown or held, and his other most prominent skill was tracking in such terrain.
Sans a glance back up at the sky, the figure of the 25th assassin quickly disappeared from view, clawed shadows cast from leafy foliage pulling him.
Survival for the assassin during this final testing rested on finding water, food, and shelter.
Yankee’s eyes had been looking for the whispered signs of a game trail immediately after being dropped off. The local fauna would stay away from the landing site for a short time, and then the bolder and more curious would come to see what had encroached on their territory. The bolder animals would be the predators, and logic dictated that they should be avoided until no other options were available.
The trail he did eventually find brought him to a small stream; a watering hole for smaller herbivores, and a feeding ground for voracious carnivores. Insects buzzed and hummed in the background as he settled in to wait for an opportunity.
Before two hours had passed, Yankee had ambushed a wandering mandalorian scout. As soon as the man had bent to refill his canteen and removed his helmet to take a drink, Yankee’s knife had taken him in the side of the throat. The assassin himself followed a split second afterwards, slipping from his hiding place to retrieve his weapon.
Yankee looted the man’s corpse with the efficiency of a natural scavenger, though he had to leave sections of the Mandalorians beskar’gam behind due to large differences in size. Rustles in the brush and nearby footsteps caught the assassin’s hearing then, and he fled out of sight, retreating figure looking as guilty as a raccoon’s masked face, though he felt none of it. Blaster bolts streaked crimson on a canvas made of earthy shades before burning out, narrowly missing Yankee.
The rest of the group of Mandalorians chased after him, but did not find any further sign of the being that had killed their comrade. Yankee was already putting as much distance he could between himself and his pursuers, looking for a place to hole up and regain his bearings. Eventually, he found himself among a particularly large, ancient grove of twining trees, web-like roots exposed above ground. It was deemed suitable as temporary shelter immediately, and Yankee began to climb.
Almost immediately, he was attacked by a pack of territorial Maalraas, those that already called the higher stratosphere of the jungle home. Needle-sharp fangs ripped into his shoulder, causing Yankee’s embedded RELIC chip to respond with endorphins and adrenaline, before being blasted clear off the tree with the business end of his ‘borrowed’ weapon. Another swiped the heavy blaster out of his hands, to be lost on the forest floor. More started to flood towards the assassin in order to protect their grounds, and Yankee calculated the odds of killing them all without attaining mission jeopardizing wounds was very low.
He strategically withdrew from the area, first working his way back to the stream, to clean and bandage the deep puncture wounds the Maalraas had created, before picking up another game trail and continuing on.
As fate would have it, Yankee tracked to a sealed weapon cache left over from the Mandalorian Wars. A quick rummage through the previously stolen gear saw him rigging a thermal detonator to the door after cursory interfacing with the control panel.
He retreated to a safe distance before the explosion ripped a large passageway through the front door.
What Yankee found was a stockpile of weapons and a small duracrete shelter.
What the Zakkeg that had been trailing Yankee found was conveniently cornered prey.
The huge armored creature, confident in its strength, approached slowly, offering no chance for the assassin to escape. Its bulk started to push against the remaining fragments of the doorway, and the thick metal started to bend inwards, allowing it to inch in.
Yankee, assessing the threat, quickly started to scan through the collected weaponry around him. An RPG was smoothly pulled out of a dated weapons case, and with a twist of Yankee’s body, the knife in his other hand spun towards the Zakkeg, lodging itself in the creature’s eye with no small bit of blood.
Instantly, an ear-splitting roar echoed around the enclosed space, before the Zakkeg’s bulk moved away from the doorway. Yankee jolted forwards to take advantage of the wounded creature’s retreat, and resting his arm against the frame of the entryway, fired the RPG flat into the quadruped’s face. Concussive force killed it instantly.
Now, with immediate threats removed, Yankee moved back inside the cache to inspect what he had to work with. In short order, a replacement barricade made of natural materials took the place of the ruined metal door.
The rest of his time on Dxun was devoted to hunting for sustenance, fending off other predators from his home, and resting. Simple tools for essential needs were easily fashioned out of materials found in the rainforest, and protection in the form of weapons was more than abundant.
His mission was to survive. There was no desire, no need, to surpass this.
And Yankee succeeded.
Working Man
(Ages 16-23)
(Ages 16-23)
Upon Yankee’s return to the Green Meadows facility with the other twenty-five, his training took a further turn. Yankee’s talents were suited for stealth and infiltration operations, getting up close to the target before killing his mark. He was taught how to make conversation to manipulate others, how to imitate emotions without having any himself. He didn’t need to be charming or suave, merely basely human, able to put on the front of a cold, calculating lawyer, politician, or businessman. His skills in this area plateau’d quickly, and after a while it was agreed among the scientists that any further training would require altering of the RELIC’s programming.
This was not an option.
Also during this time, tracking techniques were further honed to an edge that could split a dropped hair on contact. Yankee’s awareness of his surroundings became near-perfect; trained to notice the most miniscule details, to find trails that bordered on being non-existent. His instructors were hard-pressed to find flaws in his technique and methods.
Yankee had always been fast, one of the fastest among the twenty-six, but now, now the scientists pushed him to the ground with speed drills. He performed to the best of his ability, nothing less would satisfy Green Meadows, though speed did not encompass merely sprinting. It was speed through complex obstacle courses designed to mimic scenario environments, and extreme agility was required as much as speed to achieve a passing grade. Targets were added at later stages, and failure to hit all of them resulted in electric shock and further repetition afterwards.
Yankee’s first assignment was the assassination of a man that had done something to piss off a criminal organization with sufficient funds to hire him.
Most details concerning the mark were not required, and thus, not given. His handlers told him who to kill, and Yankee killed them, simple as that.
His mission took him to the other side of Ralltiir. The target was the owner of a marble quarrying company, and the large, airy office complex was niche’d on an alabaster shelf of the blocky cliff. Yankee’s cover as an extremely wealthy investor looking for a tour gained him access to the inside of the luxurious building, and his three concealed throwing knives were missed in the quick informal pat-down the security gave him.
A short time later saw the small group consisting of Yankee, the mark, and the mark’s favorite bodyguard walking in bright sunlight along the railed gray scaffolding that lined the work area. Lumbering droids manned by workers carved away at rock six stories below them as the trio meandered above the facilities, and further flocks of smaller, agile repulsor-driven droids passed right below the catwalk. They were nearing the middle of the walkway now; the assassin knew opportunity would present itself soon.
Yankee’s hazel eyes took in his surroundings, and he saw.
The bodyguard’s gaze was drifting from him now, relaxed in the balmy weather, and the mark had just turned to point out a piece of advanced equipment at work below.
Now.
Cold steel made no sound as it was suddenly unsheathed from hidden holsters, and Yankee’s hands both lashed forward, burying a long, thin blade in each man’s heart. His RELIC chip saw the need for adrenaline and allowed the assassin’s system an appropriate dose. With unnatural speed, he was moving again, catching both dead men and leaning them against the railing before sprinting towards the opposite end of the walkway. Yankee’s peripheral vision picked up another swarm of flying drones coming in, and he lunged for them, lithe form clearing the railing before pouncing on top of a droid. Nimble fingers turned into grasping claws, holding onto the circular chassis of the droid, but Yankee’s descent still continued at a perilous rate as the droid’s repulsors proved inefficient to keep the combined weight aloft.
The struggling droid barely cleared three hewn marble steps in quick succession while Yankee hauled himself to the top of the circular domed droid, balancing carefully as he calculated the droid’s trajectory. It was dropping far too fast and not gaining enough ground to compensate; there’d be a collision with solid rock in a moment if nothing was altered. A half-second scan gained him a glimpse of a huge crane lifting a large block of marble via chain, and it was this chain he leapt for, making hard contact with it but still managing to hold on.
The body of his dead mark shifted, high above.
Yankee quickly slid down the metal links, and jumped off the block of marble before rolling in the dust to break his fall.
The flashy speeder he had arrived in was parked nearby, and it was this he briskly walked towards, straightening his posture and dusting his clothes off in the same motion. Appearances would keep the alarm from being raised by a vigilant worker.
A monstrosity of a grinding machine started boring through bedrock, shaking the earth around it with the strength of a mild earthquake.
The mark’s body fell over the railing. For a moment, it was airborne, and then the figure collided with the hard packed earth. Quarry employees supervising various machines around the point of impact turned to look, and the shift of attention in the air made the RELIC chip see fit to give Yankee another cold shot of adrenaline.
He ran then, jumping into his speeder before veering away as quickly as possible, and driving off into the distance.
Precautions had been taken; his extraction point was in the closest city’s spaceport, where a passenger would easily be able to leave unnoticed.
Once Yankee returned to the Green Meadows facility, his memories of the mission, the mark, and his own exploits were erased, as surely as if someone had splashed white-out on a calendar.
So it was with this mission, and so it was with all others undertaken during this period of time, until his twenty-third year.
Hunter.
(Age 23)
(Age 23)
Suddenly, there came a new mission. A number of his brethren had escaped Green Meadows’ facility, Alpha, Delta, Echo, Uniform, Oscar, Victor, and Tango; he was to help track down and retrieve them.
Foxtrot was leading the effort, and Yankee technically was under her command, but as the virus implanted in the RELIC chips slowly worked away at eroding its control, a tinge of envy seeped through. The small, bitter tendril’s sudden appearance warranted Yankee’s full attention, and he focused on it, only to find a questioning pang in his chest.
What was this?
He did not arrive at a conclusive answer before he fell asleep.
It was during this time that one of the other Merchant of Death assassins sent with them, November, fled from the ship, using a knockout gas to make her getaway. As soon as her escape was noted, Yankee’s mission changed. He was to track her down and bring her back to Green Meadows. Initial efforts to track her down in the local vicinity proved fruitless; trail was too cold, November too intelligent and careful.
And so he had time to gear up at the facility and go through a bout of last minute preparations before he was given her most likely location, a top of the line ship, and sent off like a hunting dog.
It’s a shame when expensive nanochip collars have defects.
RP Sample:
The man known as Yankee peered down at his cards. His mark sat across from him, and a rather small pile of chips sat in front of her, each representing a set sum of currency.
The human woman had blonde hair and light blue eyes, but the dossier on her revealed that they were actually dark brown, for colored lenses were behind the deception. She stood at exactly 5’9”, with an athletic build that seemed to have been designed to draw men’s eyes.
Perhaps it had been designed. The information about her was lacking on that point.
If she was, that would make two of them.
Hazel eyes peered through straight dark brown hair as Yankee’s head tilted downwards again; as if he had forgotten what his cards were already. The woman was anxious and fidgeting, but that was to be expected after losing seven straight hands of cards.
Who knew that an emotionless assassin would have the best poker face in the galaxy?
Not to mention being able to calculate odds well beyond the grasp of most humans…
Her two personal bodyguards stood nearby in the posh room whose most prominent feature was a gambling table. Prominent politicians could afford to reserve that kind of luxury.
Yankee had been slapping down his cards on the table with a flourish, simply to get the other occupants of the room used to the motion.
The sleight movement was quick, unnoticeable to any of the other three in the room. It slipped a standard card from his dealt hand into his sleeve, to be replaced with a lethal weighted and bladed card.
When it was time to reveal his hand, Yankee sent the card spinning directly into his opponent’s neck in a lightning motion that caught both guards unaware. It took them a moment to realize that the person they were supposed to be protecting had a thin metal implement lodged in her jugular.
By then, it was too late. Identical cards were already on their way to end their lives. Someone in Green Meadows had seen fit to make them all jokers, and the eccentrically garbed figures still grinned as blood smattered them, seemingly pleased with their role in others’ death.
His business here was finished, and so Yankee left the politicians’ quarters, melting first into the atmosphere of the gambling club, then out into the streets.
He keyed the microphone hidden in his collar, before crisply reporting, “Mark eliminated.” The message was transmitted to his nearby transport, and from there, back to Green Meadows on an encrypted channel.
Password: Vornskr