Division Zero. [OOC | Procedural]

[Forest State]

'This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the land of the brave.' - Elmer Davis

GM: Forest State | Co-GM: TBA
IC Thread | Theme Song | The Pub

"Sir, are you from the FBI?"

"You could say that."

"We were told that the FBI would be showing up here to take over for us-"

"Well, we're here."

"I've worked with the FBI many times in the past, and you and your men don't look like you're with them. Can I see your badge?"

"Here it is."

"That's not an FBI badge-"

"Read it. It says FBI, Division Zero. And this argument is wasting time, officer. Call the FBI up if you don't believe that we're legit. But while you do, move aside. We have a job to do."

"Alright. Apologies for the trouble, sir. We'll back up and let you set up."

Welcome to Division Zero, a law enforcement RP that also takes a few themes from the spy genre. You control a member of Division Zero, a secret FBI task force that handles black operations. Zero also responds first to emergencies and terrorism, making them one of the first and last lines of defense for the country. The organization doesn't officially exist, and often handles tasks that the FBI cannot, due to legal reasons. Everyone who works for the organization got there by either performing well in another agency, or by graduating near the top of their class at the Quantico FBI Academy.

As a member of Zero, you're expected to deploy anywhere in the country at a moment's notice. When there's terrorist activity, you will be the ones to work with the local police and with other intelligence agents to solve the situation with as few civilian casualties as possible. You'll also handle black operations, and investigations that may have dubious legality. Members reside in government owned housing, with one housing complex per FBI region. However, this RP will follow the agents of the South Region, and your agents will live in apartments in Dallas. Most of the planning for operations will take place in the nondescript office building that's located across the street from the apartment complex.

The RP itself will be squad based and will be something like a procedural. You'll have to handle a varietry of things, from investigations to counter terrorism. Every character will be assigned to a small unit, and every unit will have their own job during each operation. Certain actions that are important to the story will be taken with the use of dice, to make things interesting. Dice rolls will be based on difficulty. Something with a 20% difficulty will only need a roll of 2 or higher. Something with 50% difficulty will need a roll of 5 or higher. The difficulty of each task is up to the discretion of the GM and Co-GM.

Instead of a little list for the rules, I'm going to get a bit more specific. I'm not mentioning the super obvious stuff, either. You already know to follow the main forum rules. Basically, don't do anything crazy enough to get the mods to warn or ban somebody or get the thread in trouble. With that being said, this is a thread about an intelligence agency that does black ops sometimes. Everything isn't going to be sunshine and rainbows. Also, this is a semi-realistic RP. While it revolves around a fictional organization and stretches realism in some areas for that, things like combat and the investigations should be handled realistically.

Your characters won't know everything during investigations, and while Division Zero often operates illegally, you won't just be able to kick doors down and start shooting up the bad guys without anything backing up your case. You also aren't invincible during combat. The dice system ensures that your character can be wounded or killed. That fact should make you a bit more careful about initiating combat without making sure it's the best way to deal with something. You also have to play a balanced character, even though this should go without saying. Your application is going to get denied if you sign up with someone who excels in many areas while having little to no weakness.

If you're fine with all of that, go ahead and enlist.

APPLICATION

When filling out this applicatin, BE SURE TO DELETE EVERYTHING WRITTEN IN PARENTHESIS. YOUR APPLICATION WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED IF YOU IGNORE THIS. Make sure to be detailed and specific, also. Your app is where you actually get to explain why your character is a good fit for a special FBI unit.

Code: Select all

[box][align=center][b][size=130]Application[/size][/b][/align]

[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Aliases/Nicknames:[/b] (Some Zero members had other names before joining the unit).
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Appearance:[/b]
[b]Ethnicity:[/b]
[b]Hometown:[/b]

[b]Skills:[/b] (Don't just include random things, but things that are relevant towards being an FBI agent.)
[b]Weaknesses:[/b] (Make sure to add enough weakness to balance the skills out.)
[b]Past Occupations:[/b]
[b]Intelligence Experience:[/b] (Either from the FBI, the FBI Academy, or another agency.)
[b]Pysch Evaluation:[/b] (This is where you can put personality info.)

[b]Biography:[/b]

[size=50]1776 - Tag, don't remove.[/size][/box]

[Forest State]

OPERATIVES

Command
Blue = NPC
Director John Smith

Unit Phoenix
Johnathan 'Blackjack' Callahan | Brusia
Colter 'Groovy' Fairburn | Rodez
Tamineh Alizadeh | Dayganistan
Rodrigo Vidal | Ubaria

Unit Falcon
Blancardo | Cylarn
Jessica Hong | The Knockout Gun Gals
Andrea 'Lucky' Meer | Forest State

Unit Spade
Darren 'Phantom' Rozier
Marcus 'Hawkeye' Danielsson
Julius 'Caesar' Keller

[Kingdom of Tunisia]

Tag.

[Ubaria]

Excellente

Consider this a tag.

[Kingdom of Tunisia]

Application

Name: Gizaw Berihu
Aliases/Nicknames: Golden Boy (ወርቃማ ልጅ)
Gender: Male
Age: 19
Appearance:
Ethnicity: Ethiopian
Hometown: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Skills: Helping people who suffers from depression, Expert on Counter-Terrorism, Very good at Somali and Nigerian, Martial Arts
Weaknesses: Very uncomfortable on Spiders, Don't like eating Thai food especially Burmese, Very poor on Hindi and bad at playing Basketball.
Past Occupations: Tourist Translator
Intelligence Experience: FBI
Pysch Evaluation: (This is where you can put personality info.)

Biography:

1776 - Tag, don't remove.

[Anowa]

Tag

[Rodez]

Tag

[Brusia]

Hoping the group could use a pilot:

Application

Name: Johnathan Callahan
Aliases/Nicknames: "Blackjack"
Gender: Male
Age: 38
Appearance:

Ethnicity: Caucasian
Hometown: Austin, Texas

Skills: Excellent helicopter pilot, decent fixed wing pilot, solid combat skills
Weaknesses: Minor PTSD, borderline alcoholism, slower than many of Division Zero's younger folks due to his age (can add combat injuries to further impair him if additional weaknesses are required)
Past Occupations: US Army
Intelligence Experience: Graduate of US Army OCS, Aviation School, Operator Training Course, and the FBI Academy
Pysch Evaluation: Subject demonstrates strong patriotic tendencies, devout religious beliefs, and an extreme loyalty to his comrades. Multiple deployments and years of combat have left their mark however, and the subject has displayed some symptoms associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; namely disturbing dreams and self-reported "flashbacks." The subject has not sought treatment for these symptoms however, so the possibility of self-medication is a concern. However, it is the opinion of the evaluator that this concern is not sufficient to eliminate LTC. Callahan as a possible candidate for Division Zero given his skill and experience, so his psych-eval is approved; however CBT with an agency psychologist for the duration of his service is highly recommended.

Biography: For as long as he can remember John Callahan wanted nothing more in this world than to take to the skies for a living. Growing up on a farm in Texas, he got a good deal of flying experience behind the stick of a crop duster, and managed to do well enough in school to get a scholarship to Kansas State University. After graduating, John signed up with the US Army, and after completing their OCS program, he proceeded on to aviation school, where he successfully completed his flight training. Shortly after completing that training, he was deployed to Afghanistan and later to Iraq, and between the two he served four tours flying UH-60s and other helicopters into combat zones.

After his fourth tour, he was selected as a possible candidate to be a pilot for the Army's 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta. After completing their grueling Operator Training Course, he would go on to fly Delta Force operators on classified missions throughout the world, including several high-risk missions in REDACTED. After a classified number of years with Delta, he received a job offer from the FBI which promised a considerably more attractive salary and pension plan, and which offered to count his years with the military towards his retirement. As he knew he wasn't exactly a spring chicken anymore, and with retirement inching ever closer, he decided to take them up on the offer and moved himself out to Quantico to begin training with at the FBI Academy. Little did he know, he was being monitored by Division Zero as a possible recruit along the way. Thanks to his experience with Delta, he had little problem rising to the top of many of his classes, and Division Zero was sufficiently impressed to offer him a position as a pilot for the secretive group.


1776 - Tag, don't remove.

[Forest State]

-snip-

There's not too much wrong with this app, but there's one thing to change and one thing to take note of. First, if he had PTSD symptoms, they would have to be hidden. The military doesn't recruit people with PTSD who will inevitably have their symptoms become a problem when under pressure and in combat, so a special operations unit in the intelligence community wouldn't do it either. You said it's minor PTSD though, so he could have it while hiding it from his superiors. Wouldn't be easy, because it's the FBI, but it's not impossible.

Second, there wouldn't really be designated pilots. You don't have to change anything with that, I'm just giving you a heads up that agents are generally well rounded in their skills even if they do specialize in something. You wouldn't have someone who just flies planes, or someone who just has some other specialty without handling other tasks.

[Brusia]

-snip-

There's not too much wrong with this app, but there's one thing to change and one thing to take note of. First, if he had PTSD symptoms, they would have to be hidden. The military doesn't recruit people with PTSD who will inevitably have their symptoms become a problem when under pressure and in combat, so a special operations unit in the intelligence community wouldn't do it either. You said it's minor PTSD though, so he could have it while hiding it from his superiors. Wouldn't be easy, because it's the FBI, but it's not impossible.

Second, there wouldn't really be designated pilots. You don't have to change anything with that, I'm just giving you a heads up that agents are generally well rounded in their skills even if they do specialize in something. You wouldn't have someone who just flies planes, or someone who just has some other specialty without handling other tasks.

Well, that was why I just listed the two symptoms of PTSD in his psych-eval: he's displaying some symptoms of the disorder, but not enough to actually make a PTSD diagnosis. (Specifically, under the DSM-V criteria, his symptoms would only meet criteria A,B,F, and H; he would still need to meet all the other criteria before that diagnosis could be made: https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/PT ... a_ptsd.asp ). That's also why I had CBT recommended, if treated properly, he may never fully develop PTSD.

And gotcha, I think his training should be enough that he'd be well-rounded enough to fit in with Division Zero and keep up on missions (the Operator Training Course alone should make him fairly well-rounded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Force#Training ) though if we do have any missions where we fly to the target, I'd appreciate it if you'd consider him for one of the pilots

[Forest State]

There's not too much wrong with this app, but there's one thing to change and one thing to take note of. First, if he had PTSD symptoms, they would have to be hidden. The military doesn't recruit people with PTSD who will inevitably have their symptoms become a problem when under pressure and in combat, so a special operations unit in the intelligence community wouldn't do it either. You said it's minor PTSD though, so he could have it while hiding it from his superiors. Wouldn't be easy, because it's the FBI, but it's not impossible.

Second, there wouldn't really be designated pilots. You don't have to change anything with that, I'm just giving you a heads up that agents are generally well rounded in their skills even if they do specialize in something. You wouldn't have someone who just flies planes, or someone who just has some other specialty without handling other tasks.

Well, that was why I just listed the two symptoms of PTSD in his psych-eval: he's displaying some symptoms of the disorder, but not enough to actually make a PTSD diagnosis. (Specifically, under the DSM-V criteria, his symptoms would only meet criteria A,B,F, and H; he would still need to meet all the other criteria before that diagnosis could be made: https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/PT ... a_ptsd.asp ). That's also why I had CBT recommended, if treated properly, he may never fully develop PTSD.

And gotcha, I think his training should be enough that he'd be well-rounded enough to fit in with Division Zero and keep up on missions (the Operator Training Course alone should make him fairly well-rounded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Force#Training ) though if we do have any missions where we fly to the target, I'd appreciate it if you'd consider him for one of the pilots

I see. I'll accept you, but know that the Division leadership is going t be wary. We do need a few characters who have specialist roles, but the last thing they want is someone getting a flashback during crunch time and blowing an operation.

[Brusia]

I see. I'll accept you, but know that the Division leadership is going t be wary. We do need a few characters who have specialist roles, but the last thing they want is someone getting a flashback during crunch time and blowing an operation.

Gotcha, that'd certainly make sense. (I was also thinking that might make for an interesting RP opportunity; I was thinking he'd be ordered to meet with an agency psychologist as was recommended in his psych-eval after every mission or two, and could reflect on the mission happenings and his past IC'ly during those therapy sessions).

[Anowa]

Application

Name: Damian Wilhelm
Aliases/Nicknames:
Gender: Male
Age: 35
Appearance: Roughly 6'1 and 188 pounds
Ethnicity: Germanic
Hometown: Tulsa, Oklahoma

Skills: General Firearms Training, Airborne and Survival Training, Exceedingly High Stamina, eye for detail.
Weaknesses: Ironically a bit lazy and low effort in most aspects of his life, abnormally stubborn, lacks a few vital communications skills.
Past Occupations: US Army MP (16th Military Police Brigade, Fort Bragg, NC)
US Army CID (Criminal Investigation Command, CB Quantico, Virginia)
FBI Field Agent (Houston Office, Texas)
Intelligence Experience: US Army CID, FBI Field Agent.
Psych Evaluation: Agent Wilhelm is an abnormally polarized individual, his actions seem to contradict his psychological profile to an enigmatic degree. To start Agent Wilhelm is self-admittedly an unmotivated and lazy individual, however his claim is somewhat proven false due to his service length, and the events in which he has participated in, namely successfully entering and passing through United States Army Ranger School without being recycled, as well as his success in his unit's Jump School. His attempt to dismiss such actions as boredom induced decisions have been dismissed almost entirely, as Wilhelm's service length indicates a need to remain in his nation's service. Outwardly, Wilhelm seems to be a laid back and unmotivated man with little conviction, however his actions indicate he is a very driven and capable man.

Biography:Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to an Elementary Schoolteacher and Construction Foreman, Damian's early life was one torn between academics and physical ability, as such Damian had few honest friends, and no real path for his future. When Damian was in 11th grade, US Army recruiters came to his school to explain the benefits and possibilities that would open if one were to join the US Armed Forces. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on who you ask) Damian fell for it, and when he turned 18 he signed on the US Army, specifically as an MP.

Shipped off to Leonard Wood in Missouri, Damian spent the next few months learning the basics of wartime goals, and then spent another few months learning how to be a functional police officer in a war zone. Eventually he deployed to Afghanistan, spending a full tour in the boredom of policing idiot boots and unruly civvies. He found it a tad bit boring, so he did what many would see as a bad move, and signed up for Ranger School. Much to the surprise of others, and himself, he passed, not with flying colors, but he didn't drop out or get recycled.

When he returned to his post in Afghanistan, the 'shining' Ranger tab on his shoulder put him a perceived step above his peers. And after several more tours, all without much in the terms of what he expected, he re-upped as a CID. Spending another five years in the US Army before eventually being released, and then joining the FBI. After a year of that he was contacted by Division Zero, where he now stays.

1776 - Tag, don't remove.

[Dayganistan]

Tagging, I've had a character in mind that I've been looking to use in a police procedural or spy RP.

[Rodez]

Application

Name: Colter Fairburn
Aliases/Nicknames: "Groovy"
Gender: Male
Age: 34
Appearance:

Ethnicity: White/Caucasian
Hometown: Reno, Nevada

Skills: Interrogation, negotiation, diverse network of contacts, Spanish fluency
Weaknesses: anything to do with forensics, prone to flashes of bad temper, mistrustful and paranoid
Past Occupations: DEA FAST operative
Intelligence Experience: 8 years' experience in the DEA FAST Division, 2 in the FBI
Pysch Evaluation: Fairburn exhibits fanatical devotion to his job, but struggles at times to fully trust teammates. He seems to thrive best when alone. Subject's paranoia does not extend to alarming circumstances, but it does bear watching. Combat and investigative skills seem adequate despite hazardous nature of assignments to Mexico and Colombia. No signs of PTSD. Despite lingering paranoia concerns, Fairburn is cleared for service given that he his among the better negotiators and interrogators available to Division Zero.

Biography: Born in Reno, Nevada, 1983, Fairburn was raised in a lower middle-class household, third of four children. Fairburn excelled at basketball and was actually a Division I prospect by his junior year of high school. However, his world came apart when news broke that his older brother Tyler was involved in a local drug running ring.

Tyler became indebted to a biker gang and tried to skip town, but he made a fateful stop at the Fairburn household to say goodbye to his siblings. There, he was cornered, and in the ensuing gunfight, Tyler and his older sister Grace were both killed. The horrific episode shifted Colter's entire worldview as well as his career track. The day before he had dreamed wistfully of the NBA. Afterwards, he committed himself wholesale to law enforcement.

Colter got a full ride basketball scholarship to New Mexico, but he had already set his sights on a life off the court. A criminal justice major and prolific forward, he received a job offer from the DEA right out of college. Faced with the NBA draft or a career fighting crime, Colter chose the latter.

Fairburn immediately discovered that his preference lay with the DEA's Foreign-Deployed Advisory Support Teams, or FAST division. After passing their rather more militarized training, he was deployed with FAST Unit 3 to Colombia, which was promptly put to work assaulting the flow of drugs through that country. After some success and a stateside reprieve, Unit 3 was redeployed to Mexico, where they infiltrated and fractured a number of cartel organizations, turning a handful of members and assisting the Mexican government in achieving several gargantuan busts of cocaine and methamphetamine, along with prominent cartel lieutenants. FAST Unit 3 developed a sterling reputation; Fairburn in particular was marked as an operative who's interrogative skills were essential to breaking a number of suspects, and who's negotiations acquired contacts crucial to the DEA's Mexican operations.

At the end of 2014, Fairburn received a major promotion and looked set to continue in the DEA in a leadership role. However, he received a job offer from the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group. Not wishing to spend the rest of his days at a desk job, Fairburn accepted the FBI offer and transferred over. Although his tenure with the Bureau has been brief, Division Zero was quite receptive to his DEA track record and offered him a position within their ranks.

1776 - Tag, don't remove.

[Dayganistan]

Application

Name: Tahmineh Alizadeh
Aliases/Nicknames:
Gender: Female
Age: 30
Appearance: Link
Ethnicity: Persian
Hometown: Los Angeles, California

Skills: Speaks Farsi, Turkish, and Arabic, good pistol marksmanship, able to adapt quickly to changing situations, knowledge of foreign cultures, particularly of the Middle East
Weaknesses: Bad at hand to hand combat, less field experience than some of the other operatives, bad driver (at least by FBI agent standards), physically not the strongest person, moderate fear of heights
Past Occupations: NSA analyst, FBI federal agent
Intelligence Experience: NSA, FBI
Pysch Evaluation: Although it's not always apparent on the surface, Tahmineh is driven to be the best that she can be, no doubt as result of her desire to prove to the average American that not all Middle Eastern people are bad. However, this is not taken to an extreme. She certainly still sees failure as a possibility and something that is bound to happen at some points despite the best effort of her and her teammates. She's generally an effective team player and is more likely to be the one trying to resolve conflicts between teammates rather than cause them. It is unknown how she will react to the tresses of working with Division Zero, but there is no reason to believe she'll be unable to adapt and handle them. All in all, she's fairly level headed and goal oriented.

Biography: Tahmineh was born in Los Angeles in 1987 to fairly recent immigrants from Iran. She had a fialr uneventful middle class upbringing. However, seeing the discrimination faced by Americans of Middle Eastern descent, Tahmineh felt a need to give something back to her country and hopefully prove to at least one ignorant person that not all Middle Eastern people are bad. She considered joining the military, but decided intelligence or federal law enforcement was probably a better idea.

After graduating high school, she attended UCLA for international relations, and also studied Arabic and Turkish during this time. She worked hard to keep her grades up and networked well with her professors and anyone she thought could help her get a job in the fields she was looking at. However, her studies in Arabic and Turkish were what really paid off, along with her native Farsi. Several agencies, most notably the NSA, CIA, and FBI, expressed interest in her application due to her knowledge of these languages. Initially, she chose the NSA.

The NSA, however, was not what Tahmineh was expecting. It did feel rewarding, knowing she was doing her part to stop terrorist attacks. But in all honesty, she found the work incredibly boring, listening to phone conversations and reading over thousands of emails, many seemingly about nothing. After a couple years, she wanted a change and to be able to do something that involved more field work. She started sending out applications to federal law enforcement agencies and eventually heard back from the FBI, who were willing to allow her to attend the FBI academy.

Tahmineh had good scores in the FBI academy. They were by no means perfect, but definitely on the upper end of the candidates in her class. She was assigned to the Los Angeles field office. She was relatively successful here. with some of her major accomplishments including busting a medium scale drug running operation run by an Armenian street gang in cooperation with the DEA, finding intel on an operation to smuggle Afghan heroin into the United States involving US Air Force personnel, which she then passed on to the DEA and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and finally, her most notable accomplishment, uncovering a suspected Iranian intelligence asset who had been hiding out in Los Angeles.

Uncovering the Iranian intelligence asset had gained the attention of the FBI's secretive Division Zero. Tahmineh was reluctant about accepting the offer to join at first, she thought it seemed dangerous and a little suspicious. However, after a few days, she accepted the offer. She figured it was better to accept this offer than to wait for another chance at a promotion or a transfer to a more prestigious unit within the FBI that may never come.



1776 - Tag, don't remove.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Tagging.

[Ubaria]

Can i use a character from another similar RP that never took off? Obviously substituting information to fit it in the timeframe here.

[Forest State]

We're doing good with signups so far. I imagine the teams being four or five agents strong, and we should already have enough for at least one team once the WIP apps are done. I'm going to add my own app also, a DMPC type of character I guess, so that brings out numbers up two. I'll aim for an IC launch when we're able to get two teams together for an opening operation.

-snip-

Command isn't going to want to have him in a leadership role if he can't get over paranoia and not trusting anyone. If you're fine with that, accepted.

-snip-

Looks good, accepted.

Can i use a character from another similar RP that never took off? Obviously substituting information to fit it in the timeframe here.

Of course.

[Ubaria]

Application

Name: Rodrigo Vidal
Aliases/Nicknames:
Micheal Bale (Assumed Identity)
Raul Capello (Assumed Identity)
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Appearance: Rodrigo
Rodrigo stands at 6ft 1" tall and weighs around 160 Pounds (72kg)
Ethnicity: Latino American
Hometown: Sacramento, California
Skills:
Scrutinizing and analytical almost to a fault, Rodrigo's methodology of thinking and problem solving has been commended by his peers and superiors on more than one occasion, able to piece together a situation at the drop of a hat with equal amounts of intuition, gut feeling and logical problem solving, this balance is what makes Rodrigo a capable individual. His time working in a missing persons unit has given him insight into the criminal underworld and multiple incidences of undercover work gives him an alternate perspective on many situations. Rodrigo is also very persuasive, possessing a unique wily charm that few others do, he can wring information from people, often without them even realizing it.

Physically, Rodrigo is an athletic and physically fit individual, a track runner in his youth, Rodrigo has had to chase down many a' suspects in his career and when it comes to blows he can sure hold his own. Aside from this, he is versed in advanced firearm protocols and can handle weapons from various pistol, shotgun and carbine platforms. Rodrigo is also fluent in both Spanish and English and can read, write and converse in both if need be.

Weaknesses:
Rodrigo suffers from chronic insomnia and is often dependent on sleeping aids and sedatives to even begin to rest. Vidal also can sometimes appear to be a 'lone wolf', preferring to go it alone even if it isn't his best interests, probably from his naturally skeptical mind, for this reason he is often distrustful of people he doesn't consider family or close friends.

Past Occupations:
Sacramento Police Department - Cadet
Sacramento Police Department - Police Officer
Sacramento County Sheriff Department - Search and Rescue
Sacramento County Sheriff Department - Homicide Detective
Federal Bureau of Investigation - Criminal Investigation Division Agent

Intelligence Experience:
See Above

Pysch Evaluation:
Obsessive, Compulsive but not disorderly, Vidal is first and foremost a dedicated individual for whatever cause that there may be that benefits his interest, or the interest of those he trusts and respects and often puts others before himself, altruism or just naivety for his own self worth? Hard to tell, could be equal amounts of both. Rodrigo is a highly analytical individual, we ran him through our intelligence and independent thinking trials and found little to scrutinize, whilst he does appear to prefer working on an individual or partner basis it can be said that his team worksmanship is up to par. Socially, Rodrigo can be described as the 'grey man', neither making himself the center of attention whilst not working to hide himself from group discussion.

Polygraph tests came up clean, we can be sure Rodrigo has nothing to hide and shows no signs of long term mental illnesses. It has been noted that he suffers from chronic insomnia though is adamant that it doesn't affect his work at all and keeps it in check.

Biography:
Raul was born on the 14th of July, 1985 at the maternity ward of the Methodist Hospital of Sacremento, born to one Maria and one Anton Vidal at precisely 10 minutes to midnight, birth and medical records show no abnormalities or causes for concern upon being admitted and was kept overnight before being allowed to return to his home in Elk Grove, Sacremento the next morning. The neigbourhood that Raul grew up in was notorious for its gang related activities and was well known by the police to be a hotspot for drug dealing, theft and homicide, attributable to the Los Torres gang, a small-time mainly petty gang with connections to larger U.S and Mexican based cartels. Needless to say that the Capello family wasn't well off and lived in one of the poorer 'barrios', a meager income was earned by both his parents, his father worked various cleaning jobs at local office firms and his mother a waitress at a nearby restaurant, they got by with what they had, keeping a roof over their heads and meals on the table.

Rodrigo grew up among thieves, gangbangers and general ne'er-do-wells, was witness to many crimes on a perhaps almost daily basis, by the time he had reached elementary school he had already seen the darker side of human nature and this had rubbed off on him more than he probably cared to admit, quickly he found himself isolated and confused by the other children, as the saying goes 'if you can't beat them, join them', Raul tried the opposite and first picked on the smaller children and even the bigger ones if he was feeling particularly plucky, quickly he gained a reputation among the children and teachers at the school, quickly he carved himself out a small friendship group that was more a following of the kids who didn't want to get beat, rather than a mutal respect.

Middle school was much of the same except very quickly, Rodrigo found himself surrounded by people quite bigger and tougher than he, not that he let that deter him from trying a similar tactic of physical intimidation, more often that not it backfired. Eventually he found himself being reclusive and withdrawn from both his social theater and his academic studies, he often missed classes and roamed the streets in search of something he couldn't find, acceptance, a dangerous prospect considering this was a prime reason many children joined the street gangs in the first place.

Laguna Creek High School was where Rodrigo had a change of heart, he aspired to be something more and invested a huge amount of time and effort into his studies, not really aiming for any particular goal but just to be something more than he was, his more genuine attitude to life attracted a larger flock of friends than he had ever found with bullying and intimidation tactics, Vidal by no means was a stupid child and his untapped intelligence simply flowed into his work, achieving some of the highest grades in the county and was quickly accepted into the University of California to study Criminal Law, something he had simply chosen at random but found it to be engaging and relevant, University is where he would meet his love interest and future wife, Camilla who was enrolled on the same studies.

Rodrigo joined the Sacramento Police Department soon after and found himself patrolling the suburbs on a daily basis, close to the place he grew up and even though the work was great, he felt that he wasn't being challenged and quickly aspired to raise through the ranks, eventually transferring to the Sherrifs office on the missing persons unit, because of his natural problem solving skills he quickly found his calling, cracking many cases and quickly became something of a small time celebrity around the department, earning the fond nickname 'The Spanish Bloodhound'. Eventually he was transferred to the homicide division where he spent most of his working career. Still, there was that yearning for something more and eventually he found it, the FBI.

The recruitment process was grueling, physically and mentally he was pressed to his very limits but failure wasn't in Rodrigo's nature and he would eventually pass and become a full time agent of the FBI, specializing in Criminal Investigations, here he would find a case that challenged him more than anything he had experienced thus far. On the surface the case looked like any other, a missing young female adult, an undergrad and not one to go missing according to those who knew her, normally this was a job for the local police or sheriff's office, however there were more nefarious elements at play, Emilia as she was known had fallen into the wrong group, her boyfriend was a known drug trafficker and a high ranking member in a known drug cartel.

Several weeks of digging unearthed little but dead ends and loops but a breakthrough occurred in the form of a suspect vehicle, the cherry red 2015 Camero's plates had been clocked leaving an industrial waste plant in El-Paso Texas, this is where Rodrigo and his partner were led. The car belonged to a known criminal in the same cartel as Emilia's partner and had before managed to slip under the Radar. According to local authorities the waste plant was abandoned and not known for criminal activities, however in recent weeks it had seen an unusual increase in activity, mainly industrial vehicles leaving and entering the plant with an unknown purpose.

A quick external recce of the site revealed that internally, the place was far from abandoned and initially it was suspected that this must have been a stash warehouse for narco traffickers running out of mexico, though inside was a far more sinister deal. Not only did they find stacks upon stacks of drugs of all description, but the warehouse was also a human trafficking ring and 'pleasure house' for cartel members. Emilia had been lured and kidnapped by her 'boyfriend' to be sold like cattle. Outmatched and certainly outgunned, Rodrigo and his partner Clarke, decided it would be best to report their findings and return the next day with a warrant, however they were too late. Obviously knowing they had been discovered, the Cartel burned the plant down with people still incarcerated inside. Emilia's remains were never found among the ashes though it is presumed she was inside the building, her boyfriend was never caught and only a couple of low level thugs of the cartel got pinned with arson and possession of narcotics.

Rodrigo's actions had not gone unnoticed by the FBI however, a new opportunity within the Bureau had arisen, one that needed his particular skillset and intuition. Division Zero didn't exist on the books, they were very specific about that part. Who was he to judge?

1776 - Tag, don't remove.

[Cylarn]

Application

Name: "Blancardo, to most. Full name's Manuel Oscar Luis Blancardo Ayala."
Aliases/Nicknames: "Like I said, Blancardo."
Gender: "Male."
Age: "Thirty-four."
Appearance: Manuel.

"I'm about 6'1, give or take. 185, mostly toned muscle, but who's bragging? I am what I am. Skin's tanned, mostly because I'm Mexican and a little bit because I spent a lot of time in the Middle East. As for my tats and such, I'll talk about those later.
Ethnicity: "Mexican, or Mestizo, to be more precise. My dad's family came from Castille in the 1800s. Mom's a native. In layman's terms, I'm just Mexican. Derive from that what you will."
Hometown: "Gotta say East LA."

Skills:

• Marksman: "I've been fucking with guns for a while. I grew up in a bad area, hung with some bad motherfuckers. My first gun - when I was twelve - was an S&W Model 10, just in case someone tried to jump me and take my dope. I learned how to take it apart by watching other people, and I learned how to shoot by watching TV. Made my first 'presumable' kill at fourteen, but I can't be entirely sure about that. In any case, the Corps gave me a much more formal and insightful experience with gun operation and maintenance. I'm a sniper and I have shot just about every gun that's being used by soldiers, cops, and crooks. What more do you want me to say?"
  
• Well-Adjusted: "When I say 'well-adjusted,' I'm talking about the fact that I can move shit to the back of my mind and focus instead on the here and now. It's better to approach a situation when you're not thinking about a million other little things, and that has taken great time and concentration to do. When I'm behind closed doors, when the situation has subsided, I might vent a bit; I'll curse and brood and perhaps grace the drywall with my fists, but for the past couple of years, I've been meditating, turning my thoughts inward and counting my breaths.
  'The committee of the mind,' it's something I heard a Buddhist monk say. As a man of danger, that committee can be your ultimate weapon,
  or your ultimate enemy."
  
• Trained: "The government has spent a ton of time and money on me, time and money that has contributed to perfecting me for not only the role of sniper, but so many other things. I can formulate and initiate tactics of my own design, perform first aid, live off the land and travel with no food and little water, scuba dive, rappel from helicopters and buildings, parachute from different types of aircraft, and do a lot of other things pertinent to my job."
  
• Critical Thinking: "Critical thinking starts with the little things, or at least it did for me. I've always considered the opportunity, risk,
  and reward of pretty much every major action I've taken, some more than others. To supplement those three things, I've learned how to gather things, pick up on cues, recognize emblems and faces and that kind of shit. Whatever information I might have, I use it for the operation. So far, I'm not dead yet."
  
• Bilingual: "I speak, read, and write English and Spanish fluently, and here's the kicker: I can also speak and read French, Arabic, and some Korean, Dari, and Pashto."
  
• Athletic: "I've been on my feet for most of my life. As a kid, I was always out and about El Sereno, riding my bike, walking, or hitching a ride on the side of a truck. When I was living in Santa Monica, I was in damn good shape from rugby and the weight room. The same story goes for the Corps and LAPD, but fitness in those lines of work depends more upon endurance if anything. Carrying a ruck over twenty miles over rocky terrain, or being in a ten-minute ground fight with a suspect; those things require endurance so that you won't die."
  
• Empathetic: "Another thing I've worked on. Yeah, I ran with gangs and popped domes overseas and at home, but that's work. When it comes to judging people, I'm not a harsh guy. I've got flaws, you've got flaws; we've all got flaws. As masculine as this line of work is, you've gotta have a shoulder to cry on, and that's a cooperative trait. I can't tell you how many times I've sat there and just listened to one of my guys talk about the shit we'd gone through. I'm not going to throw shade or slam you unless you deserve it; in my eyes, folks just deserve to get back on their feet."

Weaknesses:

• Addict: "Benzos and stims, man. Xanax and Speed are my drugs of choice, because one will keep me up and alert, and the other will steady me when I'm behind the scope. Would you call the military a 'drug-free work environment,' because I sure as shit wouldn't. When I'm not shooting and popping my pills, I'm drinking in order to fill the depressant void. If I'm shooting without drugs, I'm good for about twelve to twenty-four hours, when my withdrawals will set in. Shakes, nausea, body pains, hallucinations; the works. When that happens, the last thing I should be working with is a gun."
  
• Frustration: "I'm not a guy who likes bullshit, or dealing with people I find toxic to me. I'm still young and all, but I've come a long way in my life, and if someone is coming at me from what I perceive to be a lower standing, I'm going to bring it all out. Going out of my way to express openly my irritation, that's not me. I'm a reactive guy when it comes to getting in my face. I'll be vocal, I'll say what I know, and if you don't take a step back - depending on who you might be - I'll make you step back. It's also a toxic behavior.
  
• Hearing-Impaired: "My left ear is about done for. Not only is it partially mangled, but I've got hearing damage that stems from when I was a kid. I got an ear infection at five, and if you couple that up with the innumerable gunshots I've been around, not to mention all of the yelling, and yep, I've got barely any hearing left in my left. Heh."
  
• Marked: That tattoo on my back - whenever it becomes common knowledge - gives me problems. Sur-13 is not a reputable group and the tats have stayed with me, even though I'm not doing that crap anymore. The Corps pressed me about it and so did the LAPD, but I talked well enough that they let it slide. Believe me, I've tried to get rid of the tat on my back. No such luck."

Past Occupations:

• My First Job: "Should've just worked in a gas station and been boring, but that's not how I rolled young. Mid-nineties, I was slinging dope and fucking around with Sur 13. Look at the top of my back; the irony is that I'm a Fed who happens to have gang tats."
  
• My Second Job: "After I got shot and scared into sobriety from a life of crime (but not grass nor drink), I ran with the "physically-fit" crowd. I played rugby in Santa Monica, back when I lived in a studio with this bipolar bitch named Sandy. Pardon my French there, but I'm pretty uncouth with my language. Back when I wasn't training, I was either lifeguarding or cleaning shit in order to make cash. Shitty, shitty pay."
  
• My Third Job: "The Corps is where I hit the gold. 0311 - Infantry, with the 1/5 and then 0317 with 1/1 Recon. I did ten years and got my stripes, and ended up getting a lot out of it. It was way more than work; you know you've found a labor of love, when you feel like you belong. Violent parts of the world have given me valuable opportunities to take courage and initiative. Anyways, I went 0317 in '06, which paved the way for work when I was blessed with my DD214."
  
• My Fourth Job: "With my DD214 in hand, I became a free man, only to hitch myself with the LAPD. Ironic, huh? Did a year with Hollenbeck Patrol before going Metro, D Platoon. You'd probably guess that I was a sniper, and you wouldn't be wrong. I've been deployed to hostage situations, bank robberies, firefights, and about everything under the sun in LA. I've taken shots and killed men, but I could care less about the numbers. It's better not to obsess over killing people; it's just part of the job, not the job."
  
• My Fifth Job: "Well...I really started competition shooting before I left the Marines. I competed at the international level in '10,
  got Fourth to a South African, a Brazilian, and a dude from the Ohio National Guard. From the time I went 0317, I did some minor shooting competitions at whichever bases I was stationed at. With the LAPD, I was sent to the SWAT World Challenge every year except for 2016, when I competed in Rio 2016. I did the 50 meter rifle and once again, I was fourth."

Intelligence Experience: "There's more to being a sniper than staring through a scope and popping dudes. Understanding the AO, the environment in which you're in, is totally beneficial. Every opportunity the Corps or LAPD gave to me to learn about intel-gathering and research, I took. I learned to discern the 'probably true' from the 'probably false' by breaking things down and comparing it with what I already knew. Being a sniper, from a vantage point, I gathered quite a bit of intel that would later come in handy whenever we needed to make the Muj bleed."
Pysch Evaluation: Forest, could my first-person bio serve as a judgement of Manuel's psych profile?

Biography: "I was born in the back of a van, one crammed up with I-don't-know-how-many other chingones looking to head North, hoping that the Gringos would give them work instead of tossing them back down south. The earliest memories I have are from East LA, where I grew up. Neither my mother nor my father spoke English, thus the survival of my family was ensured by the meager paychecks my parents got from menial labor. My father worked as a day laborer for rich folks, while my mother was a hotel maid. I was three when my sister Teresa was born, and two years later, Fernando and Carlitos were brought into the world. We lived in a shitty, run-down little house on one of the shittiest streets in town."

"I remember my father always talking - in the beginning - about how great this country was; how if we were in Mexico, we'd be living on the streets or dead. It's like he blinded himself to the fact that our street had a homicide every week, or that the paychecks he and my mother brought in could barely support us all. My mother was more realistic, if a bit more sensational; if I wasn't in the house by 9pm, she'd call the cops on me, telling them I was missing. Anxious as she might be, she never felt the need to drink away her anxiety, but my father started eventually. That whole bucket of worms is your typical sob story: my father started beating us all when he was drinking, he'd spend his paycheck on booze, and spend the night away from home."

"The belt was enough of a reason for me to defy my mother and stay out of the house. Eventually, she stopped calling the cops on me and would just worry herself to sleep at night, hoping that I didn't turn up dead. I was a confused kid, and thus I fell in with a bunch of other confused kids. We'd go out and find things to do, like buy beer underage or walk the train tracks on our way home from school. Got picked up by the cops for shoplifting, and got some community service for it. Started smoking pot at eleven, and eventually I wormed my way into the next phase of my life."

"Sur 13, or 'Los Sureños.' That's where I usually got my pot from, and I knew a lot of them. Cool fuckers, I thought. They'd walk around with bling and blue threads and tats and pieces tucked into their waistbands, just hanging out and shooting the shit from what I saw at the time. One of the older guys, Pablo, took me in. At twelve, he had me working the block for him while he and his boys made their deals. A year later, I was rolling with them into trouble, when the other gangs started trying to fuck with them. Pablo gave me a .38 to carry in case I got jumped. I killed my first guy at fourteen, y'know?"

"That night, we were chilling at Pablo's and we were drinking and smoking. Someone came in and said: 'hey, I think some Bloods are at the corner store.' I forgot who said that, exactly. Pablo was already fucked up, so he said: 'let's get those maricones.' We all got pumped up by that and started passing around the guns. Pablo gave me a Mini Uzi to use, and four of us crammed into Pablo's Caprice. We took off down towards the corner store, and didn't even make it there when we saw the fuckers walking down the street. Four or five blacks, all dressed in red, walking around on the wrong side of town. I was sitting closest to them, behind the front passenger. Pablo, who drove, told us to roll the windows down."

"He yelled something and I immediately stuck that gun out the window of the car. Up until then, all I'd shot was a dinky old revolver, so I wasn't ready for the recoil on that Uzi when I mashed the trigger down, arm stretched out straight from the window. Instantly sprayed the whole street; left, down, right, and up, the bullets went and cracked. I just kept my trigger finger mashed down, right until I heard the gun click. It was so loud and distracting that I didn't realize until later that the guy sitting beside me was leaning up to shoot as well, firing a 9mm right beside my ear. Got some hearing problems in my left ear from that. Pablo floored it before my Uzi was spent, so we had no time to look at what we had done."

"Did I know what I had done? Sure, I thought I did; if anything, that made me feel proud. Made me feel like I was right there with Pablo and the big dogs. That paved the way for me to earn my first tats at sixteen; got 'Sureños' in all capitals tatted on my shoulder-blades, the number '13' right below it. I also had a 9mm casing tattoo'ed on my upper right clavicle to represent my first kill, but I got that fucker removed before I joined the Corps. Unfortunately, I can't remove the Sur-13 tattoo, on account of it not coming off. Branded for life. Ended up getting a full tribal sleeve down my left arm, and Mother Mary on my upper right bicep. I thought I was tough shit in high school, because how many other kids were sporting gang tats? I would go and get into fights, just so that I could rip my shirt off and show them who they were fucking with. Everyone avoided me unless they wanted to buy pot from me, which I had a lot of back then."

"I turned eighteen in March of '01, and I had decided that Sur-13 was my life. I got another 9mm casing put on, except I got it for stabbing a two-bit pusher in an alley. Still felt big, until I got shot the first time. A few of us were just sitting on Pablo's doorstep, listening to rap and drinking beer, when a Camry pulled up and stopped in front of us. We saw that the guys in the car were black, so we started shouting slurs at them and talking shit. I even waved my piece at them. Bad fucking move. First, they all leaned out of the car, black pistols in hand. I heard a bunch of loud cracking, and everything went black."

"I woke up in Central Health four days later, hooked up to all sorts of gizmos. Apparently, I had been shot four times that day - and I was the lucky one, according to one of the detectives that stopped by to talk to me. On my second-to-last day there, an LAPD fucker walked in, said he was with the Gang Unit. He asked me who shot me, and I told him it was none of his fucking business who shot me because I don't talk to cops. Said some real tough-guy shit to this whitey, moustached motherfucker, but I guess it didn't bother him none. He smiled, and pulled out this folder. Up until then, I didn't know that I was the only guy out of four, who were sitting on Pablo's doorstep, who survived the drive-by. He started showing me pictures of the crime scene..."

"Y'know...I never understood my own mortality until I saw those pictures of the four of us, sprawled out and bloody on the steps, chocked full of bullets. Sure, I talked about how the streets ate up the weak and how I needed a piece just to go down the street, but the more I contemplate on my youth, the more I realized that I was just putting up a front. I had seen bodies up close and personal, but looking at pictures of my dead friends...?"

"That next day, I resolved to stop with the shit I was doing. I told Pablo straight up that I was done, and while he could have just rebuffed me, I shook my hand and told me 'vaya con Dios, hijo.' I went back home to my mother, who had since divorced my dad and gotten herself a Green Card, not to mention a new home in Van Nuys, thanks to her new job. Yeah, she was happy to have me back home, and she even got me a job working at Footlocker. I started going to Mass with her every Sunday, praying to God that I would get on a good path and put everything behind me. I started playing rugby at the club in Santa Monica. Hell, I was even thinking about going off to college and becoming a social worker. It was one of the more uplifting moments of my life."

"Mid-way through all of this, I ended up meeting a girl on the beach named Sandy. Yep, she's a sandy blonde; your stereotypical beach/valley girl. We rolled in the same circles, and that led to us partying together, which led to us hooking up on the reg. I made the stupid decision to move in with her, at which point I realized that she was a total psycho. She would drive around and question all my friends about what I was up to, and she'd flip if she couldn't find me. Not only that, but she drank like a fish and would spend hours berating me. Eventually, I grabbed my shit and pulled a brazen escape from her apartment complex, with the help of my rugby team and some clowns."

"That...that's a weird story, one you'll just have to wait to hear."

"9/11. I was in the weight room at the club, benching 210 when everyone suddenly turned to face the TV. Even my spotter turned away, at which point I lost control of the bar and almost choked myself to death. Ended up getting the bar off of my neck and putting it up to see that no one gave a shit. What they did give a shit about was what the TV was showing. Smoke was billowing from the Twin Towers, monoliths that - until this moment - had never piqued my curiosity. My heart sank when I saw the little black dots falling out of the building; those were fucking people, man! Then, when the Towers crumbled and sunk onto the street below, I lost it. About everyone in the room started getting emotional. I thought, 'what the fuck is this shit? Terrorists? We have terrorists now? They can just shove planes into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people?'"

"I got sick thinking about how I was just watching all this go down. For the first time in my life, I gave a shit about America. When I got on the bus, my blood was boiling and I was seething with rage. As the bus took us to Van Nuys, I saw the front entrance of a military recruitment center. Once I convinced the driver to stop the bus, I walked my ass in through the front door of the office and spent two hours talking to the Marine Recruiter, Sgt Nichols. Old guy was a Sergeant who had fought in the Gulf, and pretty cool all around. He didn't give a shit when I told him about my gang tats. I guess they just needed bodies at the time."

"What would've happened had I not enlisted? Well, a buddy from home told me a year ago that the Bloods were still looking for me. Chances are that had I remained in LA, I would've gotten shot - or much worse, gotten my mother or my siblings killed. Best case scenario would have been that I'd go back to Sur-13. I went to Camp Pendleton - and later Camp Geiger for Infantry School - and got my shit kicked in for half a year. Y'know, I hated at first, which is how it's supposed to go. Eventually, I stopped caring about screwing up, and just starting 'doing.' Became one of the top recruits in my training battalion, as it turns out. I genuinely felt like a changed man during Basic, even whenever I looked at myself in the mirror. I still had the gang tats and the sleeves and boy, were they conversation pieces? Well, one-sided conversation pieces, because my mouth stayed shut."

"I got shacked up with 1st Bat, 5th Marines, still at fucking Pendleton. I was eighteen or nineteen at the time, but I didn't feel that urge to go out and party like I did in my youth. I still drank and smoked cigarettes, but going out to get trashed? Getting into fights? I stayed outta trouble, for the most part because I was scared that they'd kick my ass out. I took up reading whenever I wasn't training or doing something else. Cormac McCarthy's one of my favorite authors. Basically up until we invaded Iraq, I was stateside except for the rare occasions in which I'd take leave in order to drive my mother back to Mexico to see my grandparents. God, you should've seen my mother when we reunited at my graduation. I have never seen her more happy than then, to see her first-born son representing something greater than himself."

"1/5 was the first unit to enter Iraq, my friend. That first phase was scary then, but it was probably the easiest I had it in my career. We got into several pitched firefights with the Iraqis, but most of them threw down their guns and gave up quickly. I got the Bronze Star with Valor for tackling, disarming, and subduing a Republican Guard Colonel in Baghdad. The shooting didn't bother me none; I was already numb to it, not to mention I could barely hear it outta my left ear. I got a first-class education in urban warfare at Baghdad - or so I thought, until we got sent to Fallujah. Apparently the militants had killed and strung up four Blackwater contractors on a bridge, which is some fucked-up shit, I might add, but nothing like what I would be seeing."

"Every fucking window, every fucking archway, every fucking hut or apartment or what-have-you; they all had someone in there, either a civie who'd shit their pants, or a fucker with an AK in his hands and PCP in his veins. Have you ever shot someone who's on PCP? I shot a guy in the chest, and he stayed up. Twice. It took me six shots, plus one to the dome, to kill that motherfucker. Gotta stay moving, gotta stay violent, gotta stay intense in a city where everyone wants you dead. Hell, I thought East was the same way, but it ain't shit compared to any city we fought for in Iraq, no matter how many times some 'community activist' says that the streets are becoming 'like Fallujah.' Yeah no; that's bullshit. For one, I ain't seen a hood blowing up cars with an RPG yet."

"I got the Silver Star, too. Our squad was tasked with assaulting a police precinct that was being held by the rogue cops who staffed it, as well as some hardcore Mahdi motherfuckers armed for bear. We were approaching the precinct on foot through some alleys when we started taking fire, so we did the logical thing and moved to cover. Lead had us press the attack, and I was able to suppress the precinct rooftop for a short time, armed with an M203. Our guys kept pushing closer and closer - until those fucking snipers started scoring hits. We were half-a-block from the precinct, and they had us pinned down behind some concrete barriers. Two hours into the assault, and all squads assaulting the precinct were pinned down by rockets, sniper fire, and machine gun fire. My fireteam was combat ineffective, I had tried in vain to stop a guy's bleeding, and we were starting to run low on ammunition and morale."

"Ever had one of those moments where you're just like 'fuck it,' and then you wade into some really dangerous shit? No, well lemme explain what happened. All my guys were wounded, and I was the least-wounded one in my fireteam. Me, the Corporal in charge of the team, almost unscathed. Y'know, that pissed me off. Why were my Marines torn to bits, and I was unscathed in the face of uninterrupted gunfire? What did I do; I ran. I ran forward, carrying about five grenades I'd taken from my fireteam, and took cover behind the wall of some destroyed structure. The power of fucking adrenaline, right? That put me within 80 meters of the precinct, and every fucking gun in that place was trying to light me up. I could hear the rockets flying around me, cork-screwing into the air before they exploded. I just started yanking out pins and chucking grenades at this building, threw all five in under a minute. Then, I grabbed my M16 and just started ripping rounds on any figures I saw moving in there. According to one of my guys, I was just screaming 'motherfuckers' the entire time I pulled that spectacle. A bullet knocked me onto my back and another one flew up through my left foot and embedded itself in my helmet, right in the brim in front of my left eye without doing much else but scaring the shit outta me. I looked up to see Marines running past me, firing at that precinct. We took it, at the cost of twelve lives of our own."

"My foot got fixed up and I finished out the remainder of my tour. Prior to heading back State-side, I was selected by my Battalion Staff to attend the SSBC - the Scout Sniper School. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't change a damn thing. So what if Recon tried to drown me over the course of forty-eight hours? I kept my cool and trusted in myself, and came out shaken but not stirred-"

"Okay, that was a stupid thing to say. Point is, going forward was all I could do. All I wanted to do. I got through MART, Airborne School, Selection, the SSBC, not to mention all of the other shit they put me through. It took around two years to complete everything, maybe more or less. They shacked me up with 1/1, a Recon outfit, and we deployed in '08. You could say that's when my 'intelligence' experience sprouted up. I began to read mission intel in more depth and detail than I did as a grunt. I learned faces, names, patterns that people took; I took that shit seriously, even started keeping a journal with everything I knew about every important asshole they expected us to kill."

"I went home for a bit at the end of '09. My mother was doing fine; she'd married a white guy on my first day of Selection, and they were living good in Van Nuys. Doug's his name; Doug Epstein, 'El Contador.' He's a funny guy; basically just Woody Allen, in the way that he's clumsy and witty at the same time. My mother loves him well enough. My siblings were doing fine; Teresa was living in Barcelona and doing grad school for Anthropology, Fernando got a good job at the Port, and Carlitos was training for the LA Sheriff's Department. What about my father? He tried coming around to Doug's one night when we were having a family dinner. That fucker - pardon my language - had the audacity to show up drunk and raise his hand at me. I knocked his ass down the front porch steps."

"On the family front, everything was good. I went back to my unit early, and competed in an international sniping competition at Fort Benning. Like I said earlier, I got fourth overall. I'd be deployed to Afghanistan - finally - in '10, shipped out to Helmand with the 1/1. That deployment garnered us over three-hundred EKIAs, and the moniker 'Sons of Satan.' If I had to sum up that last deployment with one word, it'd be robotic. I went through the motion of moving into the AO (usually on-foot), laying still for hours, watching the same spot for hours, and then either taking a shot or returning to base."

"We came home the following year, and that's when I decided to leave the Corps. I was a Sergeant and a Scout Sniper; not many people could say the same. I took my Honorable Discharge, my DD214, and went back home to LA. Carlitos suggested that I should consider becoming a cop. He got me in contact with a certain 'Lieutenant Knowles' in LAPD SWAT, also known as Metro Division, 'D' Platoon. I went through the Academy, did alright, and then was assigned to Hollenbeck, for FTO training and my mandatory Patrol stint. The big pro was that I knew the area I was working in better than a lot of the other officers, whites and blacks included. Worked primarily around El Sereno, where I still knew folks. Most of them didn't trust me in that uniform at first, until I proved to them that I wouldn't fuck them up as much as the white or black cops."

"Still, I got my hands dirty and my face bloodied plenty of times. I always had my partner backing me up, but I got thrown around quite a bit. After my year was up, Knowles arranged for me to attend D Platoon's training course. I passed that shit fine, and sailed into my role as sniper once more. That's how y'all found me. My marks were good, fitness reports showed nothing of concern, and I maintained my standing with my superiors through simply doing my job. I got a PMH commendation for resolving a hostage crisis in a daycare. Not much sticks with me, to be honest. But those kids in that room, watching that nutcase's head explode like a damn watermelon..."

"Yeah, they're definitely scarred for life."

"Let's talk about Rio! On a whim, Knowles decided to have me shoot the ISSF 50-Meter Rifle, after which he submitted the scores through to the IOC. Through some amazing stroke of luck, I became part of Team USA at Rio. It was fucking incredible and fucking intimidating at the same time; I was in this wonderful, unimaginable place, surrounded by people who were at the summit of their fields. No one really attended my match, but I saw my family there. I had no idea that they were in the audience until I looked up into the stands. Teresa said that our mother was in a state of disbelief up until she saw me shoot. I got fourth, or as I like to say, fourth in the world."

"I came back to the LAPD, and then lo and behold, if it wasn't the FBI burning up my phone. What've you guys got here, a special operations outfit? A police special operations unit. You're wanting me on board because I'm one of the best at what I do. This is work, meaningful work. I'm in."

1776 - Tag, don't remove.

[Hastur]

I'll try and get something up by Friday.

[Forest State]

-snip-

Accepted. Going to start the IC when there's just a couple more apps, but I shouldn't be closing signups for awhile.

[Cylarn]

Bio is complete. I will finish with his weaknesses, skills, psych profile, and appearance over the course of the next few hours. If anyone is interested in forming some pre-Division Zero history or connections with Blancardo, feel free to let me know.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Application

Name: Jessica Hong
Aliases/Nicknames:
Gender: Female
Age: 30
Appearance:

Ethnicity: Korean
Hometown: Koreatown, LA

Skills: Beside standard military training comprised of marksmanship, close combat, and physical fitness given by the USMC in their training regiment, Jessica is skilled in computerization and software, with degree in IT. Analytical, investigative, and curious.
Weaknesses: Despite the training, Jessica has yet to spent times in operations on foreign soil and thus has no field experience military-wise. Also, she is obsessive and when she focused on one thing, she tend to disregard other things.
Past Occupations:

United States Marine Corps - Sergeant
United States Marine Corps Criminal Investigation Division

Intelligence Experience: United States Marine Corps Criminal Investigation Division.
Pysch Evaluation: Quiet, but friendly. No signs of mental illnesses, but it is noted that she felt inferior with her brother because he was at the very least, deployed on foreign soil, has field experiences, and got at least one medal. Basically she felt inferior to those who have accomplishments more than her, and she was cautious and sort of paranoid.

Biography:

Born in Koreatown, Jessica was the third-generational Korean-American family, her grandfather moved to America before the start of World War 2, while her grand-uncle joined the US Marine in the Korean War, already an American back then. Ever since then, her family has been involved with US military, though all of them joined or at least became part of a Marine, Navy, or their respective federal agencies. Her father was a USMC, Colonel. Her brother, meanwhile, was part of NCIS though as of now he was retired and opened up store at Koreatown. She, meanwhile, was more interested in IT degree and the technology stuffs, but also has the baggage of joining the military at one point or another.

Which of course, she joined after graduated from UCLA's Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. Joined the USMC straight away, she went through the training well but not entirely comfortable with the training, preferring to be behind the computer and be the mission control rather than involved in the field experience. Luckily, or unluckily for her, she was placed at the reserve forces and never really involved in any field operations, despite at one point deployed to Afghanistan, but it was only on the bases as soldiers guarding the bases. Perhaps that was also because she was expertly skilled in technology-related stuffs.

Her superior encouraged her to took tests at USMC-CID where she got the good scores and passed the test, eventually placed at USAMPS for six-months of training before worked at the USMC-CID properly. She was involved in illegal drug smuggling with several junior officers at USMC where she investigated the thing, and was praised of course. She found them online, and through tracing the IPs and the sources, she managed to found the roots of the crime, even managed to shut their site down and tracked whatever remaining of their crew in Alaska and Hawaii. Division Zero was interested in such a computer whiz like her, someone who can traced things just as fine. She accepted the offer to work for the Division Zero, perhaps of another chance to work properly in investigative-based division.

1776 - Tag, don't remove.