Hey guys, thought I'd post this here, and have a thread in case anyone else has a character intro they want to post. ****************************** Two men were seated in the room. One man was seated in a frail looking wooden chair, and idly thumbed through a sheaf of papers from the manila folder lying on the white plastic folding card table in front of him. His uniform was dirty, a ragged reminder of better times, though an excessive amount of gold braid remained on the sleeves and epaulets, as did a number of meticulously shined medals. The man himself was as ragged looking as his uniform, his hair unkempt and greasy, the shadow of a beard on his chin, and a thick cigar clenched in his teeth. He thought this look gave him a menacing appearance, but it was spoiled somewhat by the odor of old sweat and the fact that he was severely overweight. On the table, next to the manila folder, the uniformed man had placed a large caliber, gold plated pistol. The harsh light from the single lightbulb overhead shone down almost exclusively on the other man, who was tied to his chair by a thick chain that wound around both arms. He wore only a pair of battered cargo pants. His naked torso, shoulders, and neck were crisscrossed with old surgical scars and new bruises. Non-reflective black and grey metal gleamed dully from the man's arms, which were made of titanium and duraplast. Despite the situation, he had a smirk on his face as he carefully watched the man across from him read. "Gaius Julius Halestrom? An strange name." The man in the uniform looked up from his reading . "My mother had a thing about Shakespeare." Gaius shrugged, and the chains clinked together. "Ironic, no, that you were betrayed to us by your supposed friends in this town. Just like Caesar." The uniformed man gave Gaius a confident smile. "We have more friends than the Central Intelligence Agency thinks." "I'm sure you think that." The uniformed man spat angrily. "You Americans. Always arrogant. But you are the one in chains, here, and now you will answer my questions!” “Are you ever going to get around to asking them then?” Gaius smiled, showing bloodstained teeth and a split lip. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” The other man seemed surprised at Gaius’s willingness, but recovered fairly quickly. “Why are you here, American? What interest does the UCAS have here?” “I was looking for you. You ARE General al-Waihani, aren’t you?” Gaius nodded at the uniformed man’s dress. “Fallen on hard times since the coup, haven’t you?” Al-Waihani reached across the table and slapped Gaius across the face. “You know nothing, Mr. Halestrom! We shall retake what was ours, and then the infidel puppets you put in place over my country will burn!” Gaius shrugged again. “It took a while to find out what region you were hiding in, and once we knew roughly where you were, it didn’t seem likely you’d just show yourself to us. So, we thought we’d lay a trap for you, draw out your fighters and get you to attack a target you couldn’t resist. Then, once you were close enough, we’d just reach out and take you”. Al-Waihani laughed. “But your oh-so-clever plan did not work, did it, American? Instead you are the one who is captured”. He gestured with the cigar. “Now, tell me where your friends are. Where are the other spies who pollute my nation’s soil?” “Oh, they’re close, general. They were in an encampment five miles east of the town you found me in. I don’t think your men will have trouble finding them.” The General looked searchingly over Gaius’s face. “Why tell me all this? I thought you American spies would rather die than betray your country. Yet you are as cowardly as the lowest snake.” Gaius grinned. “You don’t understand what’s happened here at all. I wanted to be captured, I knew it was be the only way I’d have a chance to be face to face with you. Your countrymen in the village were more than happy to help, they want you dead more than the UCAS does. Your men have been terrorizing the local district for months now, and what little goodwill you had is long gone. General, it doesn’t matter what I tell you, because you’re going to be dead in thirty seconds.” There was a moment of stunned silence, then several things happened at once. Al-Waihani reached for his pistol. Gaius stood up, his arms pivoting in their sockets, bringing them up over his head and down onto the table with astonishing speed. Gaius’s chair was still bound up in the chains, and as it hit the table it smashed into a dozen pieces, spraying al-Waihani with shards of wood. Gaius kicked the table into the general’s generous stomach, sending al-Waihani toppling to the floor. Scooping up the pistol, Gaius fired two rounds into the chest of the guard who came rushing into the room. The guard fell backwards into the hallway. From the floor, the general raised a hand pleadingly. “Wait, I-“ His words were cut off as the pistol in Gaius’s hands sounded, dropping al-Waihini to the floor permanently. Another guard fired a submachine gun wildly into the small room, causing Gaius to dive to one side of the door, losing his pistol in the process. As the guard stepped into the interrogation room to finish the American off, Gaius brought up his hands, and a pair of long blades slipped out of his forearms, under the chain still holding his arms together. With a fluid motion, faster than the guard could track with his eyes, the blades whipped around and carved through his chest. He fell to the ground with a sigh. Gaius paused to survey his handiwork, crouching over the general to verify he was dead. Awkwardly, Gaius reached down to his belt and activated the locator beacon in the buckle. In the silence, he could hear distant gunfire, as the rest of his team began their attack on the general’s mountain hideout.
an illustration of Gaius that my illustrator friend did. I'll have another one done of him in combat gear.
