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Player One
Played By: Landon

Player One by Landon

TEAM: Freelance Villain

SECTOR: UPTOWN

KIT CLASS: Everyman


Hall Of Fame!

Survival - 9 wins!

Fight Record
League Wins: 9
League Losses: 3
Out Of League Wins: 0
Out of League Losses: 1
Total Wins: 9
Total Losses: 4
Mavros - Win 16-14
Think IDIOT! - Win 20-13
Renee O'Shea, KCVPD Officer - Loss 13-16
Jenny "Jinx" Li - Win 15-11
Zephyra, the Wind Dancer - Loss 13-15
Sarah "Doll" Sheol - Win 14-12
Recluse - Win 17-12
Zane - Win 16-15
Sand in the Scales, the Famine - Win 17-11
Seruac Aranax - Win 15-13
Frost Rats - Loss 13-26
Ponce El Gadis - Win 20-16
Young Adel - Loss 14-17

"We're like Nirvana." Molly told me the other day. "Out of all of the bands that created the Grunge scene, Nirvana was chosen as 'the one.' Sure, there's other bands that MTV decided to toss into the mix to create the 'next big thing,' but Nirvana is THE group. Never mind that they weren't the first or the best. None of that crap matters. All that matters is that they were chosen. Its the same with us. We were chosen. It doesn't matter that there's no REASON we should have been chosen. Its pure dumb luck. Shitty luck, if you ask me, but shit can still be lucky. So if the whole battle for the fate of the universe was Grunge music, we'd be Nirvana."

That has some charm, the idea that your destiny has little to do with your actions. It takes away some responsibility. "Oops! Some bad stuff just went down. Not my fault, that kind of thing happens." That might be the truth, but since when did the truth ever mean much of anything? If you try to give someone that sort of explanation in real life, they're liable to turn around and smack you up against the head, or some metaphorical equivalent since head-smacking is frowned upon in most public situations. People like those little, or not so little, white lies-- those lies that give you warm fuzzies on the inside. If I were cynical I'd say those lies were like drugs. Its like a heroin addict getting his fix. "Gotta get me my sweet, sweet lying on, make me feel better about my life." But I'm not cynical, so you can ignore everything I just said.

I wish I could be cynical. If I were as uncaring and apathetic as I pretend to be, my current situation wouldn't be so irritating. Through no fault of my own, I've found myself in the center of what could be described as the battle for the fate of the universe. Prophecies foretold my arrival in this world, saying that I would play a role in the upcoming Apocalypse. All sorts of names have been thrown around to describe me. "Chosen One." "Legendary Hero." "Savior of Humanity." "Anti-Christ." I'm rather fond of that last one, since it shows that even these god-like beings that appear out of the Dreamtime have no clue what's going on. Some think I'm the one that will lead the world to a new Golden Age while others think I'm the herald of The End. That's comforting, the idea that even the "gods" are as clueless as we mere humans and can't make heads or tails out of their own prophecies.

Then again, believing that the "gods" are ignorant could be yet another cozy little white lie. Now I'm confusing myself. Which is more cynical, to believe the Powers That Be are even more foolish than mortals or to give in to the notion that any comforting idea is a lie? Sounds like a lose-lose situation.

Come to think of it, maybe I AM cynical.

 

Personality: My life's defining moments are all the result of lies. My most profound memories revolve around dreams, movies, TV shows, and video games. These things hardly fit the standard definition of "lie," but they're all ways that we lie to ourselves. Entertainment, when you think about it, is little more than an elaborate lie to distract you from the truth. You escape into some fictional universe where everything "works out." Even with game shows and other "real" TV shows, you have a controlled environment where the creators of said show dictate the rules of the game's reality. Lies lies lies.

As much as I love, say, Street Fighter, and relish the fact that I can outwit and out-hadoken just about any opponent, it is only because I realize the nature of the game's lie. I'm not winning because I'm better than my opponent in any concrete sense, I'm winning because I have a better understanding of the lie. A few guys over in Japan created a set of rules by which the lie of Street Fighter will operate. I come along, insert numerous tokens and quarters, and little by little I come to understand the lie these men and women created. When I do a quarter circle forward followed by a weak punch, or when I charge down for two seconds and follow that with a joystick movement up and a fierce kick, all I'm doing is working within the confines of a carefully crafted lie. Its a lie that's a hell of a lot of fun to exploit, and I take more pleasure in this lie than any sane guy should, but at the end of the day all I'm doing is wasting my time with something that has no relevance to reality.

This is where I think my destiny lies: Replace the truth with the lies I enjoy. Isn't that what every great prophet, hero, and legend has attempted throughout history? Jesus wanted lies such as "turn the other cheek" and "love thy brother" to become the truth. He failed because, while many believe in these tenants, many more see through the lie. And that is the key: Convince all of reality, both Waking and Dreaming, that MY lie is the truth. Every soul, half-soul, and non-soul needs to be convinced of the lie.

Who am I kidding. That would never work. I'll stick with my "let my friends use their killer moves to kill the bad guys" strategy.

 

Strength:

 

Standard Normal human strength.Agility:

 

Superior This fighter can dodge, weave and move
with the grace of an Olympic gymnast.
Body:

 

Standard Normal human endurance. Mind:

 

Standard Normal human mental resources.

The Main Character

"That's typical of a main character." Josh told me after I gave him a rundown of my Mass Paradigm Shift Theory. "You let the supporting characters do all the dirty work while you sit back and get all the glory. Bastard."

This wasn't the first time Josh, or someone else, has called me "the main character." During one of her ever-so-creepy diatribes, my "friend that everyone but me calls my girlfriend" Kiran detailed why exactly I fit the mold: "Main characters are boring." she said. "Other than the plot device that makes them important, the main character sucks. He's usually just some guy that's a victim of his circumstances. He might be nice and he might be likable, but that's because he doesn't have any defining traits of his own to offend anyone. He's only interesting because of the people around him and the things that happen to him. Its the plot and the supporting characters that make the main character cool, and that's you, dude. That's. You."

I proceeded to ask her why she liked me so much. "Beats the bloody hell out of me," she smirked, "plot hole I guess." That was one of the most profound statements I had heard in my life, and if it weren't for my self-loathing, I'd almost call it romantic, but we've already established my cynicism. Regardless, I am The Main Character. My importance in this life is defined by my circumstances and surroundings. My path cannot be deterred until the plot deems it necessary. No matter what challenges I face, be it a faceless denizen spawned from the great beyond or a term paper for school, I will persevere. Hell, I might not even try, but I'll win. That's what main characters do, they win until its their time to lose.

I'm the Main Character, dammit.

The Ace of Swords

  • Power: Sword Master
  • Level:Superior
  • Weakness: Power in Item -Easy to Loseitem
Continuing with the bit about Kiran, she has a thing for fortune telling. Not a "she gets a kick out of making up stories by looking at pretty pictures" thing, but a genuine "I see the future and the future SUCKS" thing. It could come down to the fact that when we do Tarot readings we get the "future" stuck in the back of our minds and we MAKE the future happen. I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it works. I've told her god knows how many times to stop with the readings, since they seem to jinx us more than help us, but that only seems to encourage her.

One of her recent readings resulted in the Ace of Swords playing an important role in my fortune. The Ace of Swords reversed. I forget the reasoning she gave me, but push come to shove and her conclusion was "you need to learn how to fight and fast." Sure enough, the next day we received a letter stating that our Club had been entered into some sort of ridiculous tournament where our lives would potentially be on the line and blah blah blah she was right, as usual.

My idea? Go buy a gun. I can point and click and make things die with minimal effort on my part. "I've played Duck Hunt," I told my friends, "that's all the combat training I need."

Fire seemed to erupt in M's eyes. She's the violent type by nature, but she's never been THAT angry at anything I've said, and I've made her plenty angry on plenty of occasions. "Frickin' Legendary Heroes don't go around with frickin' guns," she growled from under her gritted teeth, "that's breaking the mythos! All these frickin' monsters go around saying you're the frickin' hero of heroes. If that's what those frickin' creeps want, then we better frickin' give them the whole frickin' shebang! You're going to become a frickin' old school swordsman if its the last frickin' thing I make you do!"

Fast foward through a few months, which consisted of finding a Legendary Sensei deep within the Dreamtime and having him and M put me through grueling training on weekends, and I became "someone that can actually keep himself from getting killed in the first frickin' five seconds of a fight." That was M's assessment of my training if you didn't notice. My Legendary Sensei was far more flattering, calling my skills "on the verge of becoming quite special," which I'm sure is just M's rant translated into zen-speak.

The Page of Wands

  • Power: Bashing Attack
  • Level:Superior
  • Multi Attack Attack can hit multiple times during one strike.
  • Weakness: Power in Item -Easy to Loseitem
Regardless of the above title, this has nothing to do with Tarot cards. I just wanted to continue the motif.

Despite my training, practicality keeps me from using my skills to their fullest. Let's put it this way: Josh can throw fireballs from his hands, Mack's knives are easy to hide, Molly is a living weapon in and of herself, and DVD, our gang's de facto leader, has a fake ID that allows her to get away with her fake concealed firearm permit so long as the police don't harass her too much about not looking 28. Even M, who fancies herself a modern day paladin or whatever, can more or less pick up any blunt object and turn it into a lethal weapon. Everyone else can get away with carrying around their weapons of choice, while I can't exactly get away with toting around a sword everywhere I go.

M, being the anime freak that she is, bought me a bokken, a wooded sword samurai would use to train their sword skills. "Just say its a walking stick and you'll be cool," she told me, and that argument works when anyone bothers to ask me why I go around with a hunk of wood everywhere, but I'd feel a lot safer if I just had a gun.

The Arcade Effect

"Its not like you need a gun, Landon," Lee told me. Coming from Lee, the only sensible person in our motley Club of high schoolers, I actually took the time to hear him out. "Unlike the others," and he gave a sideways glance out of buddies, "you and I have brains on our side. Not that they're stupid. Far from it. Brains is probably the wrong word. You know why you and I whup everyone else when it comes to Tetris? That's the difference. You and I may have different playing styles, but we both get a similar end result. You don't plan ahead as many moves as I do, but you place yourself in risky, but potentially lucrative, positions in the game. You take the risk, knowing that more than likely you'll get what you need to pull off two Tetrises in a row.

"Its probably through some instinct that comes with being whatever it is you're supposed to be, but you calculate risk. You have a knack for finding situations that seem like suicide at the time, but they always have a way of working out perfectly. Sure, you seem incapable of seeing the REASONABLE way out of a situation, which many would think would be the more tactically sound option, but your mind doesn't work that way. It works on a high risk/high reward level, and when you boil things down, you need that kind of attitude for what we're dealing with."

I nodded in agreement with Lee's assessment. "Despite all of that," I countered, "wouldn't a gun still help me out?"

Lee paused for a moment, then grinned. "Yeah, when you think about it, a gun would still help. But wouldn't that spoil the game? A gun would be like using a Game Genie. You don't want to be a cheater, now do you?"

I returned the grin. "Yeah, when you think about it, a gun would be cheat... hey! What do you call fireballs and all that other stuff? That isn't cheating?"

"Super Mario Brothers had built-in warp zones. You aren't Super Mario Brothers."

Continue?

  • Power: Super Speed
  • Level:Standard
  • Weakness: Power in Item -Easy to Loseitem
  • Weakness: Limited Uses -One Use
I quickly formulated a counter to Lee's Super Mario Defense.

"Yeah, I'm not Super Mario, I'm Contra! I should at least get my own Konami Code!"

"Wouldn't you call having a posse of people with superpowers the equivalent of the Konami Code?"

Lee had me there. I may be quick-witted, but I never claimed to be quicker than Lee.

Pocket Full of Tokens

  • Power: Lucky
  • Level:Ultimate
"Lee has a pretty damn good point," DVD added, "you're lucky to have us. Sure, Jesus had his disciples, but one of them turned on him and what did that get him? And all the other famous dudes that had a chance to make a difference? Ghandi? Martin Luther King? Did any of them have a marksman from the future, a former Dreamtime border patrol guard, the daughter of Kali, the reincarnation of every major magician in history, a mythological hero, a technological genius, and... whatever the hell Mack is... on their side to help them in the good fight? On top of that, did any of them have the ability to escape their fate? MLK couldn't stop his assassination, but you have managed to sidestep several attempts on your life either through our aid or your own damn ability. You get put on the cross but you find a way to chop the damn thing down and use it to impale the Romans for daring to off you. You have it made, dude."

"That was appropriately blasphemous," Josh quipped, "but she's right. For once in history, the cards are stacked in favor of the good guys. We have this won already. Am I right or am I right."

There was silence, then Mack finally decided to join the conversation.

"You assume we're the good guys."