Character Concept, Book 2

[Comrade Duck 156]

All rights reserved. This is an original character design by me (Comrade Duck). It is intended for use by myself only. It is being posted here for my own sake for future revision and character building for my future project.

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Duke Cho - The Darkest Shadow

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"Much like the willow tree, I'm always looking for a new beginning."

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A young, single Korean woman, Hae-won Cho, found herself in the United States at twenty-eight years old. Having studied business in her beautiful, bustling hometown of Seoul, South Korea, she longed for something more. A prominent and promising graduate, she ventured out and made her way west, eventually settling in New York City in 1986. She soon opened a popular bodega in Brooklyn, gradually growing her wealth over five years. Some time later in late 1991, she met a handsome, touring frenchman by the name of Jean. She swooned over him but their relationship ended rather quickly when he returned to France some weeks later. She was not without reminders of him, however, as nine months later, she birthed a son whom she named Duke. The child carried his mother's soft eyes and tender lips. His father had left the boy with brown hair and the growth rate of a stubborn weed.

Duke would grow to be six feet tall by the age of fourteen, with another three inches to his height being added over eight years. As a boy, Duke was a handful. He was constantly in trouble, with regular run ins with local law enforcement. Somehow, with his slick, silver tongue, the boy could talk his way out of any lock-box. Unfortunately for Duke, his trouble would eventually follow him home and cause problems for his mother. A shut-down, brought on by Duke's misgivings, caused Hae-won's bodega to soon go under. And while she was able to keep herself and her son afloat for a brief time, Hae-won struggled to get back on her feet. This only furthered Duke's path and led him to perform more daring and more dangerous acts to protect himself and his mother.

It wasn't long until Duke found himself entwined in the grip of heroin, as a dealer. It was good money, and it fed his small household. However, Duke was not yet street savvy, and had to learn harshly the realities that came with being a dealer. The constant stops and harassment he faced on a street corner quickly hardened his heart toward figures of authority. The feeling of running and the fear of getting caught put a chip on his shoulder for a great deal of time. The rage that he felt when a deal went bad or a stash got taken, or the regret he felt when he was picked up and lost his earnings made him colder. The combination of these factors also made Duke much more intelligent, as his involvement with heroin grew and grew. Eventually, Hae-won kicked Duke out of her home, and he was forced to fend for himself. He was neither surprised nor concerned when it happened. He had simply been waiting for the day to come.

He worked his way up the corporate street ladder, from dealer to supplier. By the age of twenty-two, he was a shadow that draped over Brooklyn's streets. He had taken a lot of his mother's business sense and used it to twist the game. He cleaned his money and invested it, doubling his profits. By the age of twenty-five, he was opening his first night club in upstate New York, through every legal channel. It quickly became a regular hot spot in the city, and Duke was already thinking about opening a second.

Unfortunately for Duke, however, it was 2017. And the bombs were about to fall.

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Paige Green - The Light of the Hopeless

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"Papa was dedicated to his work. But so was mom. That's how I got here."

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Born to Lawrence and Janine Green, Paige was still in the womb when her parents mutually separated. Her father, a native Texan with a green thumb and a passion for dirt and mud, had never been outside of his home state. He was stubborn, but he was comfortable where he was. He had dreams of opening his own farm and becoming a regional supplier to Dallas and Houston for their many needs, including milk, cheese, beef, corn, potatoes, and tomatoes. But he was not the only one with dreams. Janine was a medical student, and for a long time, she desired to escape Texas and move further west. Pursuing radiology, she would graduate from the University of Texas at Dallas, with a master's degree in winter of 1992. She took a short break to recover after college, with a year off from '93 to '94, she stayed on Lawrence's ever growing farm. In that time, she became pregnant and discussion of the future became a hot topic between she and Lawrence.  After a difficult decision, she and Lawrence elected to pursue their own paths.

Born in 1995 just shortly after her mother arrived in Los Angeles, Paige's Curly hair was her father's own. Her green eyes and her full lips were taken from her mother. Over the years she would develop a very small but well built frame. Paige was a born athlete. At five feet and ten inches, she was slender and quick. From her days in elementary, she loved to run. When she finally had the chance to do so competitively, she became a track star in high school. Racking up medals around the country, meet after meet, Paige soon set her eyes on the Olympics.

In her downtime, Paige was competitive with her best friend. She grew up in a modest neighborhood, and quickly got to know the red-headed girl next door, named Christina. They went to school together, from elementary to high school.  They were inseparable as friends, but they were even closer when they would compete. Though Christina didn't run track, she would never hesitate to challenge Paige to a race. And despite Paige not being a boxer, she spent a lot of time with Christina in the ring. When Christina eventually dropped out of high school in 2010, Paige went on to graduate at the top of her class in 2011. Always having the Olympics at the back of her mind, Paige needed to confront Christina and tell her best friend that she would be leaving. Paige had acquired a full ride scholarship to any school of her choice, and she wanted to study Sports Medicine. She would take her speed and pursue her goals of the Olympics while she ran for one of the best schools in Texas: Texas A&M. But she didn't want to leave without saying goodbye to her best friend.

The meeting was somber, and left a hole in Paige's heart. She spent the next four years at Texas A&M, graduating with a bachelor's degree in Clinical Nutrition. When she wasn't pulling down high marks in the classroom, she was running with the fastest women in the country, spreading her name far and wide. She quickly became known as 'the Green Light', a nickname for her athletic prowess on the track and relentless effort in her field of study. After graduating, she returned to Los Angeles to visit her mother and see her best friend. She took a year off and spent 2016 catching up with Christina. They took camping trips together. They traveled around Los Angeles and spent time in the splendorous night-life. They even took a cheeky trip to Las Vegas toward the end of the year. But Paige knew eventually that she would have to end her vacation and begin her training for the Olympics.

This was it, for her. The year of 2017 was going to be the year that she put everything on the line.

Or, it was, until the bombs began to fall.

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Edited February 24 by Comrade Duck

[Comrade Duck 156]

Anastasiya Alexeyev - The Coldest Will

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"The will of the people is my will. The proletariat will no longer suffer beneath the boots of the bourgeois."

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Michail and Zasha Alexeyev were very well known peoples throughout much of Russia. Hailing from Yekaterinburg, they were both powerful leaders whose charisma and ideologies reverberated throughout the land. A long history of the oppression of the poor and working class people brought them together. Through their similar circumstances, they found that they shared a common mind and a common enemy. In the winter of 1974, they formed a coalition together with the people of Yekaterinburg. Starting small, they banded together with one hundred others in an attempt to release the people from the vice-grip of the ruling class. From the slums, they climbed out together, hand-in-hand, consciously with their fellow working class peoples, and began to break apart the ranks of the enemy, a piece at a time.

Over the course of four long, challenging years, the Alexeyev duo pushed out and pushed back against their foes. Through community teaching, farming, training, and outreach, they spread like wildfire, suffocating the life out of their oppressors. For a brief time, the people of Russia had found peace. Their communities had united and their suffering had been eased. But like cockroaches, the enemy had sneakily entered into their ranks, looking to establish a foothold once more. It was around this time, in 1979, that Zasha gave birth to Anastasiya. Her cold, icy blue eyes and her white hair were unusual, but her nose was much like her mother's. These two moments would coincide together to change the fate of the people and the Alexeyev family for years to come.

On the day of Anastasiya's birth, Michail was racing home to his wife when he was offered a ride by two men he had fought side by side with for three years: Dimitri Padlov and Sacha Chugunov. On their way back to his home, when out of reach and out of site of Michail's comrades, Dimitri and Sacha kidnapped Michail. He would never arrive home. When word of his disappearance got back to the people, their morale began to fall. Alone, Zasha tried to keep the people strong and together. She championed her daughter to take her father's place as their leader. However, this critical blow to the people sapped their strength and allowed discord to fester among them.

This gave the enemy their perfect opportunity to strike. As the people slowly began to lose faith, more seeds of corruption were sewn. Violence against the poor began to rise. Communities began to splinter. Camaraderie slowly waned. The years seemed to trickle blood from the life of the people, slowly bleeding them of vital resources and power. In 1984, a new power came to be over the Russian people: Timofey Chugunov. And for the next fifteen years, he would reign supreme over the Russian people with his son by his side.

The Chugunov Empire was a mighty one. With influence all over the world, ranging from China to the United States. However, the rebel in young Anastasiya would grow rapidly, with her mother showing her the way. Taking her mother's place would not be an easy task, but by the age of twenty, Anastasiya had become public enemy number one, to the state. Her crimes against the ruling regime -- from destruction of property, vandalism, communing without permit, illegal water sourcing, theft, brandishing a weapon in public, and much more -- had her face plastered across many wanted posters throughout the country. Unfortunately for the state, Anastasiya was protected by the people. She had already proved to be elusive, but having the working class and the poor behind her made her that much harder to apprehend.

Over the next eighteen years, Anastasiya had solidified her place all across Russia. She had become something of a legend, having turned the state's power, albeit slowly, on its head. During this time, she established the New Revolutionary Coalition for the People, or NRCP. Inside of this coalition, she had even begun to turn allies of the state against the ruling class. She had recruited a small number of politicians whom she managed to flip, and turned them into spies for the NRCP. Supplies and power began to flow back toward the people, and the time for the inevitable uprising had finally come.

The year was now 2017. The streets were flooded by the proletariat, with as many boots on the ground as the state had soldiers. Unfortunately, the time for revolution would have to wait, as the bombs began to fall.

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Pierre Jourdain - The Bellowing Wind

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"Music is to me like breath is to the lungs. Like blood to the heart. It is everything."

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A young prodigy, Pierre Jourdain was born in 1987 to his mother, Eloise Jourdain in Toulouse, France. Though young, Eloise was a promising and talented ballerina in her early twenties. Even after giving birth to Pierre, she never lost her way on stage. By the time Pierre was five years old, Eloise was turning into a prominent soloist. With breakout shows all over France, Eloise had made it big. But with that stardom, she sometimes lost sight of her son. She was away often, leaving Pierre with a sitter or relative for weeks at a time. She had a bubbling, bursting career that demanded every moment of her time, and it kept her from giving Pierre the love and attention that she wanted him to have.

At ten years old, Pierre had seen very few of his mother's performances. For those he did attend, he always sat as close to the stage as possible, but not for the reasons you may think. Though he admired his mother's work, his biggest reason for sitting at the stage was to best hear the music. Jazz and opera were his first loves, but Pierre quickly became pulled into the music world for its artistry. And on his eleventh birthday, his mother gifted him a fine violin. That moment would be solidified in his memory for many decades to come, as he then learned of his talent for the instrument. Pierre, however, wasn't solely blessed with talents behind the violin. He began to pick up instruments with great ease. The piano, the harp, the keyboard, the electric guitar, the bass, a snare drum, the cymbals, and many more instruments came to Pierre over his young life. He was redefining music with his abilities, and the world was taking notice.

And when Pierre could find no other instrument he wished to master, he turned himself into the greatest instrument of all time as he learned to sing. At twenty-four, he was performing solo in some of the most high-profile operas in all of France. He received invitations to work at Julliard and The Conservatoire de Paris. His brown eyes and black hair and his tall, slim figure were in high demand all around the world now, and his mother had never been more proud. Having earned an early retirement, she began to attend all of Pierre's performances around the world. There was no show she had missed in over six years. And now, at twenty-eight years old, Pierre had performed hundreds of times across the globe. There was almost no one who didn't know who he was.

Despite his fame and his developing fortune, Pierre was not yet satisfied. He wasn't longing for companionship, but he had an itch he could not scratch. There was something more he was meant to do, but he couldn't figure out what it was that called out to him. He took a year hiatus from the world. He fell completely off the radar, never stepping back into the public eye. Only his mother ever knew his whereabouts.

For a time, he resided just off the waters in Corsica, not far from home. He purchased a small, modest home that gave him the privacy he wanted. He used his time to meditate and study. Over two years he tried to pick up a new topic or hobby every week. Unfortunately, nothing filled him the way music did. For a brief time, he had given up on filling the void that he felt in the pit of his stomach. At last, he finally realized he had overlooked the one thing he hadn't done yet: directing music. And when it came to him, he felt a chord being struck in his brain. His eyes were big with excitement, and he couldn't believe that he had overlooked it for so long. Excitedly, at the end of his two year stint in 2017, he called his mother to break the news to her.

Ecstatic, he returned to Toulouse where he announced publicly that he would be flying out to New York and purchasing a home so that he could study more at the school of Julliard in order to become a director.

Unfortunately, Pierre's next venture would have to wait, as the bombs began to fall.

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Edited February 24 by Comrade Duck

[Comrade Duck 156]

Kolby Jones - The Fire and Forge

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"I can't wait to bring my next greatest invention to life."

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Kolby has not lived a long life, but he has accomplished quite a lot. His parents Marshall and Wanda Jones of Lexington, Kentucky had the pleasure of introducing him to the world in 2005. His curly, red-orange hair was the first thing to grow on him. And at only six months old, he had begun to learn to walk. Marshall and Wanda spent a lot of time encouraging his growth. The wealthy pioneers that they were, they had access to a plethora of knowledge and curriculum. At two years old, Kolby could speak two languages fluently, and hold conversations with his parents and their staff.

Marshall and Wanda Jones were engineers who had developed military grade technology over thirty years. They established an empire which thrust the USA into a great position of power. They were protected by high level government officials and they were prized resources for United States. Even so, their interests after 2005 lay solely on their son. They didn't care about the destruction their inventions had wrought. They did not fear blow-back or infamy. They were happy with what they had accomplished, and they could provide their only child with a shielded, sheltered life of bliss. But Kolby, however, had other intentions. His mind was developing rapidly, and he was eager to learn more. Thanks to his parents unlimited access to the world, he could reach the best teachers and the best schools without issue. At the age of ten, he had learned far more about the world than his parents had hoped for.

He quickly learned that the legacy of the Jones family lie on the backs of dead soldiers and civilians. He learned of the horrors of war and the lasting consequences it had on people less fortunate than he. To have these things weigh on the mind of an ordinary child would surely be devastating. For Kolby, however, they proved to be an early turning point.

Like his parents, he too wanted to become an engineer. His love for science was already apparent, but now he knew just how he wanted to apply it. His goal was to find and study all of his parents creations and create their antithesis. Instead of enslaving the world with weapons, he would create new ways to better it. To provide access to necessities for the poor. To stabilize war-torn communities. To save those caught in the crossfire.

By the time he was eleven years old, Kolby was in line for a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to restore land, water, and wildlife through his newest creation: the KJ Healing Foundation. Funded unknowingly by his parents, the project was meant to send non-combatants on diplomatic peace missions, and use the Jones family fortune to rebuild the most damaged places in the world. The construction was aided by Kolby's second invention: the KJ Helper Bot. A stark comparison to the famous J-Series Infiltration Bot, the KJ Helper Bot was strictly non-combative, and could be operated remotely from anywhere in the world. Kolby used a series of these helper bots to help re-develop the worst afflicted areas, while keeping human lives out of harms way.

In 2017, Kolby was prepared to take on a new project back home in the United States. His goal was to reduce the homeless population by twenty-percent by years end. By using already developed, but abandoned properties to house, aid, and assist the homeless around the country. It was a lofty goal, but it was one he was prepared to pursue with all of his heart.

Unfortunately for Kolby, his pursuit would have to wait, as the bombs began to fall.