crux_fleet//APPLICATION

[geneticallyunsound]

PLAYER INFO
Name: Lavvy
Age: 21
Time Zone: EST (UTC-05:00)
Contact Information:

BlueFlewFedUQueen
AIM: blueflewqueen
hissarfcaws

Other Characters Played: Eve (spearsurfing)

CHARACTER INFO
Name: Haseo (AKA Ryou Misaki the artist formerly known as Sora guest starring Skeith the Terror of Death)
Canon: .hack//G.U. + a_facility CRAU
Age: 17 (but probably closer to 18 in age by now, technically)
Appearance: THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM!!!
But for the most part, he'll be dressed as thus:
Notably, he has a plain (black) metal collar around his neck inscribed with "A1-2107-A". His tattoos change with his outfit (world's most useless superpower).
Canon Point: After the final battle of vol.2; After the station crashes (aka a_fac endgame)

Canon History: Haseo + .hack//G.U. covers pretty much everything you need to know.

Previous Game History:

Before I can give you Haseo's history, I must first give a brief history of the Facility itself. Alpha-Omega was space station that housed a large testing facility, run by a group known only as the Consortium. They "pulled" their test subjects from other universes, contained them in a small area (known as Facility 1, or F1, though they sometimes simulated other worlds in the much larger Facility 3 to dump their subjects in) and weakened/disabled their supernatural abilities with an identifying collar. In reality, however, these subjects were actually clones created from those other universes through an unknown method. The testing went on for a couple years as planned, until the subjects started to get sick of their abuse and made allies with an AI who ran the station (Val). With Val's help, they overthrew the scientists and claimed the station as their own, sending it off into the depths of space to find a new world to live in. By this point, there were no scientists or other workers left on the station to continue cloning and experimenting (though Val was kinda programmed to experiment on everyone anyway, but at least she was more geared towards her subjects growing as people rather than breaking them). There were still unawakened clones in stasis, however, who were steadily awakened and added to the station's numbers as they travelled. Haseo was one of those clones, waking up long after the Consortium had been overthrown and everyone was uncomfortably aware of their own cloneiness. He also arrived just in time for the Consortium's first and only attempt to reclaim their station, complete with battleships and a small army of soldiers armed to the teeth. During the Consortium attack, Val's was attacked and her AI was damaged so that she'd become more brutal (and possibly kill off everyone on the station saving the Consortium the trouble of getting rid of them themselves). But despite this loss, and some heavy damage to the station itself, the subjects managed to force their attackers to retreat. In a very short span of time, Haseo was forced to 1) adjust to being not in his real body, 2) accept the fact that he could never go home, 3) see people get killed, and 4) kill some of those people himself. It was kind of a traumatizing first month. Despite the horrors he'd experienced, and being the stubborn person he is, Haseo refused to accept any sort of death or brutality he'd seen as 'normal'. He quickly started helping out at the clinic, even though he only had shitty healing spells to help with, and swore to basically everyone he knew for more than five minutes that he wouldn't let them die. This also took its toll on his mental state, of course, since death was very common among the subjects, but he was fortunate enough to end up with a decent number of friends who didn't die during his stay. The major turning point in his character (giving over way more control to Skeith than should be considered wise) began with a buildup of several things over a few months, converging at one critical point. First, he befriended Homura Akemi, who was... kind of crazy, at the time, thanks to her own unfortunate experiences and a certain friend of hers. This friend-of-a-friend was Asura, who happened to also be a god of madness who took an interest in Skeith, the AI connected to Haseo's mind. Being the concerned, well-meaning guy he is, Asura pressured Haseo to give Skeith more free reign (and Haseo never quite found any reason to think ill of Asura, so he thought of it as nothing more than annoying but innocent meddling). While this was going on, there was one particular week where the experiment was "shadows" of everyone wandering around the station, trying to make their real selves face the things they don't want to accept. For Haseo, this was his lost memories of his previous character in The World, Sora. The shadow was unable to convince Haseo of anything, mainly because he had no idea what the hell it was going on about, but it did give him a nagging feeling that he was missing something. Sometime after this, Haseo was brutally murdered during an experiment. He was ripped limb from limb by Nara Shikamaru, who was under some shitty mind control, and the damage was beyond repair or revival. Haseo was killed, permanently. It was pretty depressing for everyone he knew. But death was still an obstacle that could be evaded, thanks to the magic of science and implanting memories into newly cloned bodies, and Haseo was "revived" with some new memories from his homeworld along with his memories of the Facility. These memories also happened to end at, oh, the point in his life where he finds out his MMO idol and father figure was actually the guy who betrayed him and put his Internet girlfriend into a coma. So ontop of dealing with the fact that hey, he just died for real and also he's basically a clone of a clone, he also had to deal with the fact that the life he could never return to also sucked and he fucked everything up forever. The next step of this process was an experiment where "ghosts" of the past and future appeared to tell everyone about how fucked they were. For Haseo, this meant two things: more being haunted by his lost memories of Sora, and a ghost of "the Facility's future" where Val was allowed to deteriorate until everyone went completely insane (or dead). This version of Haseo had already given in to Skeith fully and went out of its way to remind Haseo about all of his insecurities and failures and how it would be so much easier if he just gave up. At the tail end of this week was when Asura finally got sick of meaningless pressure and decided to take the whole Skeith matter into his own hands. He used his powers to greatly weaken Haseo's mental blocks, if not shatter them outright, in order to give Skeith more control. Unable to deal with everything he knew being a lie and the constant pressure from Skeith, Haseo finally snapped. He surrendered the last of his control over to Skeith and retreated into his own mind, thinking life would be easier if he didn't actually have to live it. He remained in this dormant state for nearly three months. Unfortunately, this plan didn't go quite as well as Haseo had hoped, since he was still at least partially aware of everything Skeith did and felt incredibly guilty for worrying all his friends. With time and encouragement, Haseo eventually came back out of his shell, though he still remains somewhat distant and apathetic. TL;DR SUMMARY OF THAT the Facility made him depressed + god of madness made him crazy over the course of several months, so he gave up his body to Skeith for three months. And then the station fucked up and crashed into the planet it was heading for this whole time. Haseo got knocked out during the crash.

Personality:

Haseo is, first and foremost, a huge antisocial jerk. He's brash, rude, and selfish, always working to become stronger and taking down anyone who gets in his way. He prefers to play solo, rejecting and pushing away others when help is offered, and quick to complain whenever he's forced into playing as part of a team anyway. Despite his abrasive attitude, however, Haseo is actually a pretty decent guy all around (even if he gets super embarrassed when he's caught being nice to anyone). For all his complaining he's never the type to ignore a person in need, and he always shows up to help when asked. He's extremely protective of his friends and despises people who look down on others. He started his career as a PKK to obtain information on Tri-Edge, but protecting the weaker players of The World was also part of his motivation. Children are another soft spot for him, and he tends to act like slightly less of a jerk when talking to kids. It takes a long time for him to open up to anyone, but when he does he's a very honest person. Haseo is incredibly blunt and to-the-point, and though his criticisms are usually harsh he's always looking out for the best interests of others. He is also extremely emotional oh my god this kid cries so much it's unreal. In a way, his jerkish selfish attitude is just a sad attempt to cover up how much of a delicate crybaby he is. He is so tsundere it's probably unhealthy. He might act tough and uncaring when beating people up in video games, but that act shatters into a million goddamn pieces the second someone is in real, actual danger—hell, when someone might be in real, actual danger, considering how badly he flips the fuck out when Shino gets killed by Tri-Edge, long before Haseo should have any idea what's actually going on there. Apparently, seeing someone's online avatar explode is grounds for spamming their voicemail and bawling all over your computer while screaming their name dramatically. Yeah. Haseo doesn't deal well with people getting hurt. He is also super-competitive, and very easy to rile up. When Haseo sets a goal for himself he doesn't stop until he succeeds, often reaching a point of unhealthy obsession. Whether it's gaining more power, rescuing his comatose friend, or grinding for days to reach the top PvP rankings just so he can beat up some jerk who told him off, once you get Haseo going he's guaranteed to keep at it until he succeeds. He's very hard working, never the type to cheat his way to victory or lie about his accomplishments. Haseo also tends to... repeat things. A lot. He likes to remind himself of things out loud so he doesn't forget. He usually does this in his head but sometimes it creeps into his speech. It's kind of annoying. As a result of his time spent in the Facility, Haseo is a lot more grown up. He deals with death and grim situations much better than he normally would, as well as flat-out bizarre situations. He's also more detached and depressed, with very little self-preservation when Skeith isn't involved (being a clone tends to do that to you). That said, he remains incredibly protective of his friends and other lives in general. The increased influence from Skeith also leaves him more emotionally unstable and prone to fits of anger and violence if provoked. And, of course, there is also the small matter of Skeith to discuss. Skeith was an AI connected to Haseo within The World (who is also actually himself through shenanigans, .hack is confusing) who was carried over with him to the Facility. When it isn't manifesting as a giant golem-like creature or hijacking Haseo's body, Skeith exists only as a voice in Haseo's mind. It's goals and desires are incredibly straightforward: Skeith was created with a fascination with pain and fear (and anger, to a lesser extent), and it goes out of its way to produce those emotions in others. It's incapable of empathy or emotion, though not without its own twisted sense of loyalty. Skeith is protective of Haseo due to the fact that they share a body, and it understands that actions have consequences and won't do anything that would put itself or its host at risk. It also won't try to hurt anyone if it thinks it can produce better results by keeping them alive (basically, if it finds them amusing or interesting in some way). It can't actually "befriend" anyone, but it can... not want to kill a person? That's as close as it's ever going to get with Skeith.

Abilities/Powers/Skills:

Lots of bullshit, that's what. Superhuman strength/speed, at least enough to be able to skillfully wield a sword larger than he is (among other things). Inventory system that allows him to easily store and retrieve weapons and small items. It looks like he's pulling shit out of thin air (with fancy lightshows sometimes). His storage is limited, however, and he can only store objects that you'd normally expect a person to be able to carry (ie. nothing bigger than a breadbox). Really shitty basic elemental spells that you would expect from a fantasy MMO (fire, water, earth, wind, dark, light). They would probably be decent, if he were an actual magic-based class, but NOPE. Please note than his MP pool is hilariously small so these are basically the most useless spells ever. Some actually useful (!!!) healing spells of varying strength (except, y'know, tinyass MP pool). One of them can resurrect dead teammates, but I'm forever running with the assumption that it would only work on someone recently killed (ie. clinically dead but still possible to save) and only bring them back to just barely living. His more generic healing spells can only restore minor injuries and ease the damage of larger ones. He's definitely not a pro healer. THE STEAMBIKE which is a motorcycle with really shitty controls that actually runs on the magical orbs of tiny blue animals that you kick the shit out of, it's only called the steambike because steampunk is cool. He can summon/store it at will (outside of battle, though he can also ride it into battle and smash it into things if he chooses). It cannot be summoned while he's engaged in a fight for completely arbitrary reasons. Haseo is the proud owner of Skeith, the Terror of Death. The simplest way to put it is that Skeith is a large summonable monster (around 15 feet tall) that exists on another plane known as Avatar Space. Haseo can control it directly thanks to spooky AI mindlinks, using his own movements, kind of like a puppet. Since Skeith exists on a different plane of the game (and thus in reality, another plane of reality), it can only be seen by others who have access to that plane. However, Skeith and other Avatars can affect things in the regular plane. Skeith is the smallest of the phases, but its also quick and powerful, and if a regular person was attacked by it they could be taken out in a single blow. Skeith wields a large scythe and can also shoot energy bullets, but its real power is in its Data Drain, which allows it to remove and rewrite data in other entities. Skeith also gives Haseo a natural immunity and defence against other Avatars attacking him, as well as powerful entities and viruses like AIDA. IN SHORT: Skeith is a fast and powerful monster with additional powers Haseo can utilize as well as a built-in firewall. TO SIMPLIFY HOW THIS WORKS OUTSIDE OF THE .HACK UNIVERSE Skeith is summoned as a physical entity rather than a spooky internet ghost... thing, which is significantly more tied down by stuff like "physics" and "not being complete bullshit" (so, still fast+strong but not to the point of ridiculousness because a giant hunk of rock can only go so fast). Skeith is still a dangerous and powerful entity, but he's not invisible or invulnerable to damage. He can still recover (slowly) from damage, but not while summoned. Building off the last point: Data Drain. That's a thing he can do, with assistance from Skeith. It The World, it had the ability to extract and rewrite data, including data that's actually people. In reality, it works the same, except since nothing is actually made of readable data it just kinda scrambles things around 90% of the time. If he's careful, he can still use it for it's intended purpose (removing viruses/glitches from programming) by firing his beams at a computer or device containing the program he wants to repair. This might take some practice to be effective, however, since he's not exactly versed in using it this way. Theoretically, he could also use Data Drain to remove infections from living, physical entities, but the chances of this being successful are hilariously low even compared to the usual success rates. If it comes up in plotting as an option, it will only be done with both player and mod permissions. Skeith can hijack Haseo's body at will, thanks to Asura breaking down most of his mental defenses. Haseo remains in control most of the time (partly because he's more used to having a body than Skeith, and partly because Skeith finds it more amusing when Haseo is in control). This also means that Skeith is more capable of acting independently when summoned as a separate entity, buuuut it's not really something they've actively practised at all just yet, so this will probably be a thing later down the road once they've had some time to adjust properly. Since he has two separate minds in one body and Skeith is quite adept at manipulating Haseo's actions, Haseo has a slight amount of resistance to mind control/telepathy. He's not totally immune, but since Skeith can interfere it might be more difficult for someone to manipulate him that way. His tattoos rearrange themselves whenever he switches outfits. This only works for his armour taken from 'The World', and only for Haseo (so stealing his clothes won't give you magic shapeshifting tattoos, sorry to disappoint). Why? Because it's canon, stupid, and useless, and such things amuse me. If he puts on normal people clothes the tattoos stay the same as whatever he had on last. As a footnote, since he was basically still a virtual person in a physical world during his stay at the Facility and that doesn't work for Crux, all his weird game bullshit power-flavouring can be explained as illusions tacked on to his abilities. Appearances aside, he's physically 100% human.

Weaknesses:

All his spells are garbage because shittyass SP pool, already gone over this. Skeith is OP as fuck, but also kind of a wildcard, since it has a will of its own and Haseo is more aware of this than ever before. So, Haseo doesn't really use Skeith much unless it's a situation that demands it (like, say, giant mech fights are happening). Besides the risk of Skeith taking control and fucking things up, the two of them have an incredibly strong mental link, such that attacking either body will hurt the other. They're basically the same entity when Skeith's Avatar form is out and about. This also makes Haseo an extremely vulnerable target when Skeith manifests, since he has to concentrate on controlling and directing Skeith and thus can't multitask or properly defend himself, and Haseo is a hell of a lot easier to kill than a giant magical internet golem. AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED they do have the potential now to act separately, covering up part of that weakness, but that's gonna require some practise and maybe some sort of bonding episode. Things Data Drain has: necessary charging time, slow firing rate, trouble hitting moving targets, high fatality rate whether you want it to or not, tends to outright fail to work if the target isn't in a vulnerable/weakened state (meaning it can be resisted)... Basically, it only works reliably as a finishing blow. If it's used on a living entity and fails, it might make them feel disoriented or sick for a few minutes, but it won't do any long-term damage. If it fails on technology, it'll either scramble the data to the point of uselessness or be blocked by the program's firewalls. As for using it to fix things instead of just trying to break/kill things, this requires a lot of precision that Haseo seriously lacks. Fixing technology is a solid 50/50 chance of success, anything alive is probably going to end up dead outside of a miracle or otherwise unusual circumstances. Clone sickness. In short: the Consortium's cloning process is flawed, and all subjects of the facility suffer from a chronic illness creatively named clone sickness. Basically their DNA is unstable and sometimes their organs fail for no reason, leading to a lot of time spent in stasis to recover. Considering the Consortium's technology was also quite advanced and they still never got around to fixing it, I'm going to say the fleet's doctors can treat, but not cure it. So he might be prone to randomly collapsing every now and then and will probably be taking some serious space meds. He still can't figure out where the breaks on his steambike are. This thing was not designed to actually exist. It's basically a deathtrap on wheels. He also doesn't actually know how to fight even though he has all this bullshit weaponry. Most of his ability comes from muscle memory (implanted muscle memory?) or Skeith interfering. Any experienced fighter should notice that his fighting style is incredibly easy to predict and that he kind of sucks at adapting to the situation/any weapon besides what he's used to. Skeith is a lot better at combat, but only experienced with using a scythe. Basically, he's still a skinny teenaged nerd in an edgy warrior's body. The collar around his neck is capable of completely neutralizing all of his powers, among other things. On the bright side, it's not so easily tampered with and thus can't be activated by just anyone. The downside to this is, well, it's not so easily tampered with and thus can't be removed without decapitating him. The material it's made out of is nigh-impenetrable and any attempts to take it apart will activate its defences, which range from electrical shocks to sharp spikes jabbing into his neck. If anyone found a way to hack into it, he'd be completely at their mercy.

Special Items:

His three weapons (Dual Blades, Broadsword, Scythe). They're special because they have chainsaws built into them for no apparent reason except the scythe but I'm listing it anyway. All but the broadsword will be stored in his virtual inventory on arrival, for the record. The Steambike (god help us all). Also arriving in his inventory. The identifying collar around his neck, which cannot be removed. A single Chim Chim. It generates Chim Spheres (the little blue orb on its head) that are used to fuel his bike, some...how. I guess they're full of concentrated energy of some sort? Basically, it's a soccerball-sized animal that's completely harmless and makes magical energy spheres.