BMDR - Martin


Name: Martin Quail Gender: Male, prefers male Age/DOB: 25ish / 1997 Origin: Armacham/Aperture Enrichment Center genetic program Family: Shares 4 of 7 donor parents with Avery 'Cricket' Boone and acts as her 'little brother'; with the Reborn children, is actually an 'older' brother to Laura; may be spliced with other donors in the future for children but has no interest in them normally. At some point when Rachel Cooper is around, Melissa splices them and puts their daughter Archie into storage for future use Other: As with Cricket, has several relatives among the Pantheon but only really attached to her as 'family'. However, as he has teleported around electronically, Martin has found a sort of (sooort of) mentor in the form of Cave Johnson. Height: 5'6, pretty short for a male Weight: 125, small and meek in posture, easily overlooked Hair: Dark, brick red with fluffy texture but stiff when cut short, usually in the form of a mullet Eyes: pale blue, dusty even shade, blinks often and seems to fixate on things which are invisible to others (yes, he does see things, yes they really are there) Appearance: pale skin with numerous marks, moles, freckles, and a scary set of scars from his injuries sustained in the depths of GLADOS's Containment Unit (burns, deep scarring on shoulders); reasonably effeminate in body and voice, potentially can pass as a woman if dressed up right - and doesn't have issues with trying to do so; he enjoys a casual approach to everything, including dressing and communication. Usually is seen wearing the sleek, black undersuit and Icarus armor, when he's not playing dressup with people.	Image Credits: V3rc4 and Tektek
Genetic Abilities: Electrical control, sense and manipulation to a degree that is almost unmatched in the Pantheon - he can detect any electrical impulses including those found in living things, and to a great ability manipulate electronic data and live electricity. Can siphon electric energy from any source and funnel it into teleportation, though the caveat there is that the location he arrives at must also have some form of electrical energy source. This has not been tested for his long distance limitations, though he generally uses it to move from place to place in a single building or from one Pantheon locale to another. He can very literally stick his finger in a wall socket and come though a light fixture. While he can do this with ease, it often causes some amount of damage to the fixtures and his specially designed outfits. It also causes a sharp sonic burst on arrival, as well as a strangely unpleasant smell of burnt electronics where he has departed. In addition to this ability, he can focus on electronically carried signals and waves, effectively able to ‘edit' broadcasts or monitor views. The infiltration applications of his powers are quite obvious, and it is to that end that he is being groomed as an operative for both external gathering and internal counter-intelligence ops. Martin has yet to divulge a third and rather important facet of his power, that while he is in transit he has frequently encountered other minds. It may just be that he is sensitive to others along the path of his movement, but it may equally be possible that the artificially intelligent GLADOS program can be perceived by him. He may be able to reprogram independent units or androids, with careful application of his powers. He may also be able to completely counteract or wipe out rogue AI units up to and including GLADOS if need be. However he has not informed anyone but his sister about these incidents, and she has warned him away from letting it get out. (( This helped him alter the corrupted Cores and install a new OS.)) Also has a Moderate ability with the standard Psionics - telepathy, empathy, and mental sensing, generally best used in groups.
Icarus Processing: Yes at the age of 4 along with his sister. Improved reflexes to around 3x speed of normal humans, but no other discernable effects. Put to the test in the Containment Unit, it was clear that his body is also quite durable, but only in that it kept catastrophic damage from outright killing him, and he's not eager to try again to test it out on smaller injuries.
Skills or Profession: As his ability to sense and manipulate data is his best aspect, Martin had been in the process of training for infiltration and data collection. He recieved a lot of downloaded skills in the direction of spying - reading blueprints, understanding civil engineering to infiltrate a location, security systems, defense and offensive fighting techniques. He doesn't care for fighting, and tries to avoid it at any cost, though he's quite skilled with electrically disrupting Combine hardware and messing with their programming. He is incredibly good at stealth and wall-climbing, since he's quite small and uses his Icarus suit to its best potential. He can in fact power up the suit with his own energy, as well as drain it to use in other ways. His own enjoyment of programming, math, sciences and engineering proved to be his best aspects, given that he could sit down and design, build, take apart, and reprogram almost any piece of electronics available to him. Even though he wasn't necessarily given skill downloads, his innate knowledge is clear on those subjects. He prefers to work with other engineers, than go out looking for trouble. Among the Pantheon, he's known as quite a good cook - he can take a headcrab and make it into things that you just don't expect. He took Wilson up on an offer to trade secrets and recipes, and they've certainly bonded on that level.
Personality: Martin is an enjoyable sort of person to be around, though trouble does seem to follow him. Most of that trouble does stem from his homosexuality, a facet of his personality that he simply accepts and wishes others would as well. Those who do are much closer to him and often act in his defense if someone else decides to pick on him for it. He doesn't mind this, in fact he prefers not to fight at all, and given that he is still quicker than any normal human he can dodge most of what the bullies might try. That said he doesn't like other people to jump in where it's not needed. He is a very open and caring individual, surprisingly tolerant of the antics and the good-natured jibes that his peers often toss around. But he can tell an insult from a joke, and spends some time away from people every day in order to sort his own thoughts out. While the girls who often accept him into their dorms for late night ‘girl talk' enjoy his company, he does occasionally feel left out of the boys' activities. Oddly enough it is the gruff Geoff that accepts him and encourages others to do so, claiming that Martin is very reliable. He does enjoy being relied upon and does his best in group activities. When younger, his dorm was situated directly above Melissa's quarters, Martin uses the air ducts connecting the floors in order to ‘escape' to the girls dorms. His room is clean and tidy, and if he was given the opportunity, he would decorate it similarly to Lynne's with pop stars and colorful art. Several staff members have discouraged this, but after the Events he was too busy surviving to worry about it any more.
Events or History: From early in his life, Martin knew that he was different from other boys for the most part, and spent a good amount of time hanging out with the girls in their dorm parties playing dress up. (literally, they would doll him up and he loved it.) He dutifully attended classes and did as well as he could in all subjects, though was never going to be better at history than math. He didn't hesitate to work with his keepers when they demanded his performance, learning basics of infiltration as well as combat tactics and stealth. When the Events occurred however, he took it upon himself to free Natascha from her isolated dorm (as she was, shall we say, less than cooperative most days, and outright dangerous at all times) and bring her back to the ELL's central dorm to hide. He performed lots of scouting missions and was integral to Geoff's plans when it came to disabling GLADOS, which happened more than a year after the initial Synchronicity. He was able to reprogram a good number of the Cores which others brought back from their storage area. What he never told anyone was that he knew how to do that, and how to recognize what had happened to them, because of his prior encounters with the disembodied, electrical 'ghost' Cave Johnson. When Cave was brought back to the Enrichment Center by the Mystery, they got to meet in person for the first time, and Martin became both keeper and apprentice to the cloned, very weird, man. Martin remained behind most of the time at the Enrichment Center, while the others in the Pantheon moved about the countryside looking for news, goods, and supplies. Even though he nearly died in the attack on GLADOS, the same attack that killed Alonzo, he worked directly with the AI and her enclosure to make sure that the facility didn't fall into Combine or Armacham service. He was also key to having Paxton's Replica soldiers released from their stasis chambers in the Medusa facility. Martin travels regularly from EC to Medusa to Icarus, and often enough to the Black Mesa facility, but rarely does so on foot, usually teleporting electrically and in the process making sure that their lines of communication and power are still sound. When the move to the Rookery was announced, Martin was hesitant. However, in their wide dimensional travels, he was made aware of a specific dragon that the Combine of one world had caught and begun experimenting on. He was the only person able to both free the dragon as well as keep him clean of Combine reprogramming and their friendship has lasted since then.
Dragon Name: DMM-001FSUP (draconic male modified 001 flying support) aka Clank Gender: Male Size/Shoulder/Length: Medium-large / 10' shoulder / 33' long / 55' Wingspan Colors: Black bodied, light blue wingsails, chrome/metal limb, blue piping, dark blue claws, readout-eyes Features: Clawed feet, four horns on head/jaw, strongly hooked chin, small eyes, tall on limbs, long stabilizing tail, 3-tined leathery wings with sensor clips and extra Cybernetic alterations, left foreleg entirely replaced with Combine parts; internal organs heavily modified (requires little food, but must eat meat), monitored internally and externally, tubing seems to have replaced many waste and heat management systems; eyes are completely replaced with monitor/sensors and can detect much greater information than just visuals; neck sensors were likely for future processing and are unused, can be plugged into computer systems. Powers: As above, many processing and biological changes; flight - poor, wing sails are not delicate, but their size at body join limits the amount of glide possible, so he limits flight to quick climbs, is more maneuverable than many though; can interface with computer systems both Combine and other sources; electronic speech produced by speakers (it is unclear whether he had a voice before, he does not 'speak' with his mouth/lungs); he like his rider can interpret electronic signals and information, but he can also store an incredible amount of it as data, tending to purge it only when there's a danger of capture. His 'signal' has been modified by Martin so that the Combine cannot 'see' him easily, but if they get visual confirmation on the dragon his instructions are to vacate as quickly as possible. Martin can actually teleport the dragon provided he's got enough power stored up - Martin accesses the dragon's power cores. Parentage: Unknown, possibly bred by Combine but more likely the only survivor of his nest when they found it Origin: NeekoX3 on Deviantart Other Info: Clank is a very intelligent, but seriously shy dragon given his size and strengths. However his life was meant to be when he was laid 5 years before Martin found him, everything changed with the Combine's discovery of the nest of dragon eggs. Experimented upon even within the egg, and labeled with the same kind of 'name' as any other generic soldier or cell in the Combine's forces, he was meant to become part of a flying survey unit. Given that the Combine's techniques for adding parts to other animals was only barely successful, they knew that the dragon's mind was going to need the processes they'd put to Human or other sentient creatures in order to make him compliant. Fortunately, Martin discovered the dragon when they were sending him out to strengthen his wings, and managed to wrest control over his programming before they were able to wipe his potential personality. Clank has always been grateful to Martin, but more than that they see themselves as all but equals. Martin has been through a tremendous amount of damage, and takes solace in his programming and engineering, and Clank knows that other dragons - and in fact many humans who have encountered Combine technology - mistrust him. They are not inseperable physically, spending a lot of time in various locations apart from one another. However, their minds are clearly a match, and Martin enjoys 'seeing' out through Clank's artificial eyes as much as Clank does the same through the young man's real ones.