Isaiah Shaw

by **Spartan999** October 11th 2012, 12:39 pm

Real Name: Isaiah Shaw
Renegade Name: Faint Shadow
Title: N/A
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (leaning towards good)
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Height: 5' 10”
Weight: 207 lbs.
Appearance: Isaiah has reddish skin typical of Native Americans, dark gray eyes, and coarse raven-black hair that is cropped short. He has a lean, narrow body that bears a plethora of scars across the skin--most are battle wounds, but a few, specifically the star-shaped ones on major nerve centers, the spine, and the base of the skull, are due to the surgery that grants him his augmented abilities. His handsome features are angular, and he always seems to have a permanent expression of intense thoughtfulness mixed with displeasure upon his face; but when he truly smiles--a rare sight in recent years--it conveys one of the most intense expressions of happiness upon a human face.

His “costume” looks something like [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], though having strong but light armor plates covering vital areas. He also usually carries a small arsenal of stealth tools and weapons with him.

Personality: Isaiah generally has a devil-may-care sort of attitude, reflecting his chaotic personality. He is very protective of those he sees to be weak and/or incapable of defending themselves; this is dramatically different to his view those who have committed crimes, who he relentlessly hunts down and exacts “justice” upon. Obviously, he has a very pronounced moral compass.

History:
Before gaining his abilities, Isaiah Shaw was quite an ordinary person, albeit noted for both his intellectual and physical prowess. He passed every single class he took while in school, and was the leader of the all the sports teams he was on. Another interesting fact about him was that he always stood up against bullies when they were unjustly attacking other children. This trait would echo through the years, shaping the man he would become.

By the time he turned eighteen, he has already passed several college courses and was bored of most academic subjects; he wanted to continually challenge himself, but even high level physics proved to be fairly easy for him.

In a sudden and unexpected move, he joined the military. There, his physical limits were tested beyond anything he had imagined. In boot camp, he vomited, ran farther than ever before in his life, and fired live weapons for the first time. He was absolutely miserable. And he enjoyed every second of it.

At the end of his tenure in the Army--though he didn't know it at the time--a recruitment officer from a subdivision Isaiah had never even heard of before approached him with an offer to be a part of an experimental team. After mulling it over for a day, he accepted.

Upon arriving at the subdivision's hidden away base of operations, he was introduced to his team: four other soldiers who qualified for the barely mentioned “procedure” they would all go through. Soon after, they were escorted to the room where it was explained they would be “improved” one at a time.

Isaiah was first, and the chosen surgery was targeted at his nervous system, which would make him faster with both reflexes and his mind. Through the use of nanotechnology and various biochemical injections, the procedure succeeded. After experiencing tremendous amounts of pain during the operation--morphine and other numbing drugs would have interfered with the surgery--he found that he could think and move far faster than before; his abilities would only improve with time as his body adapted to the augmentations.

After the entire team had undergone the procedure, they were given state of the art technology to aid in their missions. Indeed, they covertly destroyed many a terrorist and enemy installation in their three active years.

In the final assignment the team went on, they were unprepared as the enemy, who knew they were coming and prepared accordingly, ambushed them and killed all of the team save Isaiah and the “tank” of the group. Together, they counter-attacked the opposition and eliminated them. They continued on to the small, remote town the insurgents were using as a hideout and proceeded to plant a bomb that would annihilate the entire area.

Then, Isaiah realized that if they did this, the innocents, the civilians would perish, all because they wanted to make sure the insurgents were all dead. In that moment, he stopped. He disarmed the bomb, rendering it inert for the moment, then started an evacuation of the town. When the civilians were clear, only then did he activate the bomb.

Upon returning to headquarters, Isaiah resigned from the subdivision. He did not even consider the offers to come back, even the ones promising lavish riches beyond his wildest dreams. He walked out and never looked back.

Several months later, without anything to do, any goal that would help him progress, he decided to take action once more. He set up shop near the Pittsburgh tri-state area, and started to put his abilities to good use, mostly to act as a sort of lethal protector of the innocent.

Soon after, people aware of his existence described him as: “...a faint shadow you see briefly before he takes you down...”. He promptly adopted the moniker of Faint Shadow, which seemed to suit him fairly well.

He has spent the last few years as a vigilante, and currently shows no sign of stopping in his exploits.

Abilities:
~Augmented Nervous System Transmit Speed: Due to the rapidly increased transfer of sensory information from his nerves to his brain, he has gained superhuman reflexes and thought speed. He was always very intelligent and skilled before the procedure, but afterwords he found that both were increased exponentially.
~Augmented Neural Pathways: During the procedure, his neural pathways were improved to allow faster information transfer through them, as well as becoming tougher than before. The result was that he can resist and recover faster from electrical shocks and other attacks upon his nervous system to a greater degree than the average human; if he is shocked, his body will still be damaged, but he won't be paralyzed/disoriented to the same degree as an average human, for example. This also makes him more resistant to pain, though his durability hasn't been altered.
~Combat Mastery: Having been taught various martial arts before joining the military and later going into special operations, he is an expert on how to stealthily eliminate a target or brutally take down multiple hostiles. He is also an excellent marksman with practically all ranged weapons, even improvised ones. Both are of course improved by his augmented reflexes and speed.
~Linguistics Training: He is knowledgeable on basically all languages currently spoken in the world, and has taught himself several of them extensively to where he can speak them flawlessly.

Power Grid:
Intelligence: 6
Strength: 3
Speed: 4
Endurance: 3
Energy Projection: 0
Fighting Skills: 6

RP Sample:

Isaiah Shaw, known as the deadly vigilante Faint Shadow by most who had heard of him, stalked through the suburban area of Pittsburgh unseen. His armor's color shifted as he moved, allowing him to blend in with his surroundings. He knelt on the edge of a small house's roof, eyes narrowing as his helmet tuned into the police radio transmissions; he had long ago cracked their security COM's, and so could listen in whenever he desired.

At that moment, a target car was outmaneuvering the officers a few kilometers away, and it sounded like the man accused of armed robbery and murder would manage to escape. He nodded, then stepped off the roof, rolling to disperse the momentum from the fall when he hit the ground. As soon as his feet touch the street, he was off, arms pumping furiously as time seemed to slow around him.

In seconds, he was nearly at his peak speed of just under 180 kilometers per hour. He raced through streets, nimbly avoiding cars when they drove past and occasionally hopping over a lone person on the sidewalk. Within minutes, he was in the outskirts of the main city itself. Huge skyscrapers reached into the low-hanging clouds overhead, the windows twinkling brightly when any form of light was projected onto them. It was undoubtedly beautiful, but was unfortunately rotten almost to the core.

Shadow couldn't afford to focus on the sights, though. He made a sudden sharp right turn at an alley upon hearing that the chased man had abruptly changed direction, causing a police car to careen suddenly into the side of a building.

He merely grunted under his breath as he ran up the side of the alley, one hand going down to the tall fence blocking the narrow space off and pushing off so he didn't fall onto it and lose momentum. His knees absorbed the impact of the drop, but he was already off again.

The vigilante jumped, cleanly soaring over the roof of a car before vaulting into the air again as a jeep came hurtling down the road from his left. He flipped to the side as he brought his left hand down on the hood and pressed off, the momentum from the jeep allowing him to continue his easy spin until he landed on the sidewalk and continued to hurtle towards his target, his HUD keeping him up to date on the fleeing man's movements.

And he ran on, eventually coming to the suburban area the criminal had managed to evade the police in. He got up to the rooftops, which afforded him a better view of the surrounding area. His HUD flashed as it calculated the three most likely routes the target had gone, but of course it could not be one-hundred percent accurate.

Shadow took a single step in the direction of the most likely route, but stopped suddenly when he heard a car driving over the road behind him. He whirled and sprinted for the edge. As he put his foot on the roof edge to vault into the air, his HUD did an automatic sweep of the interior of the car. An invisible but faintly audible pulse swept through the air and into the vehicle, creating a vague outline for the vigilante to see.

By the time the schematic appeared, digital image overlaying the real car on the visor, he was already in the air. To his pleasure, he saw the vague outline of a sawn-off shotgun on the passenger's seat. He continued to travel through the air unabated until he slammed into the hood of the car.

The driver started at the nearly invisible Faint Shadow almost directly in front of him. One glance inside the vehicle confirmed his suspicions. Congealing dots of blood dotted the man's shirt, and his hand was reaching out to the side to grab his sawn-off that was lying on a plastic bag stuffed with money.

Before the man could even reach out past the gear shift, Faint Shadow had drawn his arm back and punched through the windshield. His fist connected with the target's face, breaking his nose and jerking his head back into the headrest.

The car sped up and swerved wildly. Instead of fighting to hang on, the vigilante jumped off forward and to the side to let himself keep inertia from being on the car. He started running again, and in a couple seconds had caught up to the car. He dived forward, smashing through the back windshield. He grabbed hold of the driver's seat and used it to pull himself forward.

Shadow wrapped a powerful arm around his target's neck from behind the seat and squeezed. The man bucked and flailed his arms, but he couldn't manage to dislodge his assailant. He slumped forward after several seconds.

The now driver-less car accelerated to the side, and the corner of an apartment complex was directly in the way. Shadow released his hold, lied on his back, then double-kicked the door open. He used his leg's momentum to roll forward and out of the car.

The vehicle slammed into the corner with an almighty bang, the force even making the back wheels come up off the ground. Glass flew everywhere, scattering around the area while smoke drifted out lazily from under the crumpled hood.

Shadow approached the wrecked car steadily, eyes narrowed as he considered the feebly stirring form barely visible through the wreckage. He stopped at the driver door, then reached out to open it. He ducked to the side as a shotgun blast shattered the window--apparently the man had feigned being on the verge of unconsciousness.

He quickly reached through the window frame and grabbed the shotgun, deftly twisting it out of the man's hand he could pull the trigger. He pulled the murderer's gun-arm out of the window and shattered the elbow with a jab from his other fist. A scream of agony sounded from the man's wide mouth, which was abruptly cut short as Shadow reached back in, took hold of the man's jacket with both hands, and hauled him out onto the street.

Shadow stepped onto his target's throat, silencing him.

“Justice is swift.” He growled softly, just loud enough for the man to hear him. In one brutal movement, he pressed down until the bones beneath his boot twisted and broke, leaving a limp form beneath his sole. He lifted it off before muttering one last time. “And it has been met.”

Faint Shadow turned away, vanishing into the night long before any police arrived at the crash site.

He never looked back.