Cassie ★

PLAYER
Name: Cassie
Age: 21
Journal: tokyocentricity
Best Method of Contact (AIM/EMAIL/PLURK): tokyocentricity@AIM, tokyocentricity@gmail, starfishing@plurk

CHARACTER
Name: Reno
Age: 25
Canon: Final Fantasy VII
History: Wiki!

Personality: The first thing most people see in Reno is the lightest part of him: the inner (and sometimes outer) dork, good-humoured and flippant, prone to saying stupid things and frequently making an ass of himself. There's a marked lack of common sense, completely unrelated to his actual intelligence. He takes offense easily, as he's very sensitive, but his reactions are often comical, and he isn't taken very seriously. Luckily, he doesn't hold grudges, so he's over it quickly — if it's a minor slight, he shrugs it off; if it's more serious, he gets mad, then he gets even.

With women, he tends to be flirtatious to the point of being inappropriate. He uses bad pick-up lines, and sometimes they work. One-night stands are a staple of his diet, since his work doesn't leave a lot of safe room for serious relationships (and who'd want one, anyway? Monogamy is for chumps). He can be combative with men, as either the cause or the result of his fondness for the ladies, and both of these things are magnified when he's drunk (which is occasionally, but only when he's not working).

Generally easygoing, reckless and adventurous, he comes off as that scamp of a puppy who's always chewing things up and peeing on the furniture: annoying and useless, but way too cute to get rid of.

Just barely beneath the surface of all of that, however, Reno's as serious as a heart attack. He's a consummate professional, talented in many fields, dedicated and responsible with a good head for leadership. He takes his work very seriously, even if he doesn't act like it, and (even if he doesn't act like it) some of the more unsavory aspects of his job can get to him sometimes. He'll get pensive, a little unhappy, but much like his anger, it doesn't last. He won't dwell on it, and being a natural optimist, he can't look at the dark side of things for long.

IN GAME

Brief In-Game History: Reno's mother was Bianca Sinclair, an Englishwoman living in Reggio Calabria, Italy, working as an escort. His father was presumably a client, though Bianca never bothered to find out. She actually went through with the pregnancy for the sole purpose of potentially making money from a private adoption; she got herself clean and sober for the duration, and gave birth to a healthy baby boy, whom she ultimately sold to a recruiter from the Mendolia family. It was set up as a legal adoption, and papers were signed preventing her from any legal recourse or further contact. Presumably, Bianca went on with her life.

Her son was used as an experimental subject by the Mendolia until the age of twelve. His childhood wasn't altogether miserable, but it was definitively loveless: he was treated as a guinea pig, effectively. It didn't ruin him as a person, so to speak, but the Reno Sinclair of today is a man who knows little of love and affection, and it shows in his personal relationships. He cares about others, but has a hard time showing it, and his romantic trysts are marked by a lack of either commitment or actual romance.

Aside from his role as a test subject, he was a relatively normal boy. He played with toy cars and planes and action figures, and liked cartoons and movies where people fought and things blew up. As he was showing promise for the perforare from a young age, he was consistently overexposed and desensitized to violence and death; he was expected to become one of the Mendolia's many talents, once he was old enough, so this was an essential part of the process.

At twelve years old, his skill with the perforare had reached a point where it could be developed by Reno alone. He continued to receive frequent physical and psychological evaluations, as most test subjects did, but the experiments themselves came to a stop. Reno continued to train, both physically and with the perforare, though he showed more of an affinity for basic physical training.

Through junior high and high school, Reno's focus on his training and studies took a blow in the form of hormones. His female classmates were enough to sufficiently distract him from anything else for a while. His weekends were soon being whiled away on dates and in the backseats of cars. This actually became something of a staple of his lifestyle, even as he got older.

His studies funneled abruptly as he entered highschool, narrowing his focus to the maths and sciences: physics, chemistry, calculus, algebra. These things would culminate in his eventual enrollment at a technical institute in Siracusa. He showed a penchant for mechanics, and came out of five years in college with a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, as well as an aptitude for piloting airplanes and helicopters (both skills he acquired via courses outside of college).

Now twenty-five, Reno has fulfilled most of the expectations the Family had for him, and is still loyal to the Mendolia. He has no reason not to be, as it's the only family he's ever known. Within the family, his roles include mechanical engineering and repair, enforcement, assassination and espionage. Outside of the family, he works as a mechanic at a garage in Caltagirone, and spends his free hours clubhopping.

Type of Bullet(s) Requested: Scortesia.
Abilities gained from bullets: Allows him to channel, amplify, project and absorb deadly amounts of electricity. There has to be an existing current; he isn't (yet?) capable of generating electricity on his own. Because of this, he carries a stun baton, which he uses as his primary weapon, and when he does utilize the perforare (which is fairly rare), it serves to generate the necessary current.

Famiglia: Mendolia.

SAMPLES
First Person: Here!

Third Person: The little helicopter only came apart in three pieces: the rotor, the body and the landing gear. The tail boom didn't even separate from the cockpit! Boring.

He tossed it aside, not even bothering to put it back together, and glanced at the television briefly as he picked up a promising-looking fighter jet. On the screen, a man's fingers were being broken, one at a time, while his wife and son — a boy about Reno's age — cowered in the corner, crying.

The top half of the jet's cockpit came off, and there was a tiny seat and tinier controls inside. Neat.

"Would you like me to turn the television off?"

Reno didn't look at the doctor. "I don't care." It wasn't bothering him, just occasionally distracting him from the toys.

"It doesn't bother you?"

"Nope." Reno set the jet down for a moment to put the helicopter back together.

"Do you think the man deserves to have his fingers broken?" the doctor pressed.

He thought about it. The boss doing the finger-breaking said something about 'give me the money.' "... Does he have the guy's money?"

"Yes."

"Well, yeah." Duh. You don't steal from your boss.

"What about his family?" asked the doctor.

Reno looked up at the screen again. The woman was covering the boy's eyes; the boy was shaking. He frowned a little. "The guy should just give him the money. It's his job to protect his family, right? Family's more important."

He knew he'd said something good when the doctor smiled, scribbling on his clipboard.

It's been a while. Reno almost forgot what it felt like to have his ass handed to him. Tseng won't let them get rusty, but sparring with Rude is a totally different circus than — this shit.

The pavement tears his skin again as he's slung across it, but the pain doesn't kick in until he's on his feet. He can't see out of one eye, and he isn't sure if there's blood in it, or if he just got hit in the head hard enough to blind him. Wouldn't that be something. He shakes it off, watching his opponent approach in leaps and bounds, like some kind of fucking gazelle or something.

A wave of dizziness rushes over him just as they clash again. Shit. The sheer force behind the silver-haired man — nothing but momentum, hardly any weight at all — is enough to knock Reno off his feet again. He stumbles into the corner of a building and ends up backing into the alleyway. Not exactly ideal, but it's not like he's trapped here, either.

Before the other man can get the jump on him, Reno turns the careening motion into a flat run. He hits the back wall of the alley and starts upward, but he doesn't get very far.

The man lands in front of him — in fucking front of him, standing on the wall like it's nobody's business. The only thing this guy gives less of a shit about than gravity is how badly Reno and Rude are gonna blow his ass up when this is over. Reno's tenuous grip on the bricks slips, and with his momentum stalled, he feels his own weight begin to sabotage his safety.

"Fuck —"

Those rough black boots take a single step toward his fingers, and he's falling.

The cold ground knocks the air out of his lungs. He struggles to get purchase on the asphalt, to get a breath before the dark floods his eyes. Too late, he inhales, his vision clears, and there those boots are again, like he never left.

There's something wrong with his arms, because he can't get them under him right now, and that's why the creepy bastard is able to just reach over and lift him off the ground by the shoulder of his jacket. He hefts Reno up and pitches him against the wall, and he's there to catch him before he slides to the ground. He pins him there with his body; the leather is cold, and Reno can feel it through the thin material of his dress shirt.

"Where's Mother?" he asks again, then, patiently. His voice is startling and deep, and it resonates through Reno's chest.

What he says next takes effort (and balls, he'd like to think). "Probably still in bed after our little romp last night. I think I wore her out."

Pain cracks through his skull, unprecedented (at least today). Reno's vision goes white for a moment. All he can hear are the roars of the beasts in the background and the screams of the city, all of it so far away.

"You think that's funny?" the silver-haired man hisses, his words a burr at the edge of Reno's consciousness. "Let's see."