Post by Flint Salvador on Nov 11, 2012 17:24:49 GMT -5
F L I N T
[/color][/center][/font]"Got the world on its knees, taking all that you please, you want more, but you'll get nothing from me but enemies."
Name: Fineas "Flint" Salvador (self-given)
Nicknames/Alias:
- Flint is a name he uses as his primary moniker and is what he'll be known as.
- Occasionally he is addressed as Salvador, or "the Savior", in an ironic sense.
FF: Flint draws his basis from Final Fantasy XIII.
Age: 221 (187 of these years were in crystal sleep, so Flint is only actually physically 34).
Height/build: Flint towers over most at a colossal height of six feet and eleven inches - not to mention that he's built incredibly heavy, stacked up and muscular to the point where it's almost insane.
DoB: Unknown.
Race: Human
Weapon: Flint's weapon is the Godhammer. Similar in function to a gunblade, it's a large, gilded white hammer shaped like a revolver cylinder. Flint initially studied with warhammers when he joined PSICOM, but this, a gift from his late wife, is truly the pinnacle of the art of smashy.
Flint's Godhammer is three weapons in one. First off, it's a hammer; the back-side of the hammer (adorned with a pentagram, Flint's favoured symbol) is forged of carbonised steel and is rather durable. Secondly, it functions as a spear, with a eight-inch blade attached to the end of a six-foot long handle which is excellent for shivving the odd moron or two.
Thirdly, a trigger-button on the handle will launch a missile from the docked chamber of the cylinder, and cause a hydraulic hiss to occur as the cylinder turns. This "cylinder" has five chambers, each of which contains a missile (which can be reloaded) containing the explosive strength of three or four handgrenades.
Flint always has his twin sidearms from his old PSICOM days, Law and Anarchy , both Visceroy Troubleshooter models, with the names adorned along the frames - but he hardly ever uses them.
Level: 63
Strength: 189 overall.
Physical: 80
Magical: 46
Agility: 63
Special Skills:
- Guardian Angel - Passive. Flint can communicate with the archangel Michael (his summon) whose essence dwells in his mind. It's a pseudo-telepathic link, and Michael often serves as a motivation and morality chain. This Guardian Angel ability also allows him access to the four Archangel Skill Materia, ancient Materia similar those used by Cloud Strife and his party in their endeavours.
- Fist of Gabriel - Flint raises his hands, clasps them together, and as with all the Archangel Skill Materia, an ethereal halo appears for a moment above his head. Great, phantasmic hands appear above his, and act as puppets of these actual hands - anything Flint makes punching movements towards, the hands will give a ruddy good pummelling.
- Blaze of Uriel - Flint raises his hands, clasps them together, and as with all the Archangel Skill Materia, an ethereal halo appears for a moment above his head. Flint stomps the ground and unleashes a terrible, radial spherical blue-white explosion of flame which pushes outwards ten metres in every direction about him. Enemies struck by this will be forced back - weaker enemies set alight. Residual blue flames will be left afterwards - this attack carries both fire and holy elemental status.
- Call of Raphael - Flint raises his hands, clasps them together, and as with all the Archangel Skill Materia, an ethereal halo appears for a moment above his head. Flint then calls a small guardian spirit from a nearby deceased enemy (the corpse must be remaining and no more than a few minutes old) and a ghostly visage of it appears, miniaturised, and follows Flint as his companion for a minute or two before vanishing.
- Blade of Michael (Finisher) - Flint raises his hands, clasps them together, and as with all the Archangel Skill Materia, an ethereal halo appears for a moment above his head. He then opens his palms, and seemingly materialises a great blade from within, a spectral imitation of Michael's blade from when he's summoned. Flint leaps high above all enemies, then, with the Godhammer in one hand, and the Blade of Michael in the other, spirals downwards towards his targets, launching all five missiles from the hammer's chamber, and creating a great holy shockwave when he lands of a spherical radius of around fifty metres when he lands, dealing high amounts of damage to demonic, undead, or vampiric enemies.
Magic:
- Thunder, Thundara
- Blizzard, Blizzara
- Fire, Fira, Firaga
- Slow, Slowga
- Holy
- Flare
Summon: An original Materia, obtained from his time travelling the Merged world, Michael is an archangel and Michael's summon. Communicating inside the halls of Flint's regretful and often bitter mind, Michael has a strong mental collection with Flint and numerous skills he has access to.
- Merciful Deluge - Michael plunges his blade into the ground and calls down a holy white rain upon his allies, rejuvenating them.
- Archangel Sigil - Carving a pentagram into the ground, Michael can guarantee temporary release from fighting inside that area - all enemies of the party or low-powered hostile attacks will not be able to penetrate the barrier the pentagram creates for approximately five minutes.
- Zenith Edge (Finisher) - Michael raises his blade, and around him, ethereal, ghost-like energy copies of the blade - six in total - float around him, and mimic the blade's every move. Flapping his wings and rising into the sky, Michael aims himself like a bullet towards the target, plunging his sword forwards, and launching himself at them. This move will cause Michael to evaporate into white, holy energy, and return into the Materia.
Appearance: Flint stands at 6'11 with a head of messy blonde hair, a pair of vivid, determined, yet seemingly somehow empty hazel eyes, a fine coat of stubble, and a cigarette always propped between his lips. His face is chiselled and weary, and he moves with knowledge and subtlety at the same time.
Flint tends to wear an open shirt which reveals his musculature, a pair of ragged, torn dark jeans, a black duster longcoat, a pair of spurred boots, and the atypical desperado-style hat. His Godhammer his slung over his back at all times, and Law and Anarchy are typically holstered in a gunbelt at his hips. A six-pointed medallion serves as his belt buckle, golden and faded. He also wears two weighted-knuckle fingerless gloves.
Very occasionally, Flint may activate his ancient PSICOM armour unit, the Origin model. Ignore the sword and shield in the picture.
Personality: Death changes a man.
Flint was once calm, level-headed, cheery, and a good addition to any table. He had his priorities straight; he loved his work, he loved his wife, and he loved his friends. But all that changed when Esmeria died.
Flint is silent, stoic, and cold. He responds with single word answers and grunts. His spiky, sadistic humour, coupled with a wave of alcoholism, is signature of him, and he shuts everyone and anyone he can out before they even get close to him - only the most persistent and addictive of souls get on Flint's good side.
His moral compass is still very much regulated and correct: but Flint is too torn, too haunted by his wife's death to wish to get close to anyone.
His movements are sporadic, and the now-bounty hunter seemingly has a religious connection with what he calls an "Ancient God" of some sort - whilst he does not explain it often, this is indeed the dormant and presumed dead Gran Pulse fal'Cie, Anu.
Flint is by no means unintelligent, and in spite of his cowboy attire and his constant temptation to rise to violence, he possesses a very solid logistical sense.
When he gets into battle, Flint is ruthless and uncontrollable, thinking first for offense and speed rather than defense. He focuses on long strings of barrages and putting every enemy he can out of action; his trembling, inner rage is one that uses battle as a conduit. His often-spiky and intense passive-aggressive stance also shows this well, but watching Flint in battle, truly a destructive monstrosity, will also prove testament to his unwavering, inner bitter anger.
In reality, Flint is not sure he can love or care again, and, now a bounty hunter, acts, seemingly, without rational thought or understanding behind his actions, only socialising with others when HE chooses to - it's an odd way to live, but, for Flint, the only way.
History: Flint Salvador was born another on Gran Pulse, but this is a memory he can no longer access or prove. Living in harmony in a small village, one day, his distraught mother took them on a pilgrimage, Flint barely twelve years of age.
They moved swiftly through the forest near their village and happened upon many zombified beings, the pair skirting around them. His mother called them Cie'th; it all comes in flashes to him, now. It was not long before they reached the Vestige of the fal'Cie Anu, where Flint's desperate mother offered him up in sacrifice, in return for her late husband. Grieving and left with a child she no longer wanted, she held up the squirming boy, sobbing.
A tendril of lightning flew out from inside the great fal'Cie and struck the pair of them. When Flint awoke, his mother was ash, and he was left with a burning hot Pulse brand on his stomach.
"...you.. are my servant..."
"But what am I to do!?" Flint responded in terror and misunderstanding.
"...return... to your village..."
With that, an adorned mace materialised in front of him, lowered into his open, waiting hands.
"...and kill them... kill them all..."
Tears streamed down his face. He did not understand the machinations of this being; but the village had rejected him, and so had his mother. He balled up his hands in fear and walked to the village, swatting aside Cie'th like they were flies with his newfound vigour and determination. And he returned there, and one by one, struck them down, until they ran from him.
Except they ran the wrong way. Into the forest.
He chased them for hours, hunting with a malicious grin, and swatted through them, licking his lips and smiling to himself as he caught the final few - but still he felt incomplete, the mace still very much in his hands. And he saw the opening to Anu's Vestige - what place more fitting than the temple of his lord?
He entered into the foyer, swinging his weapon as he went, smashing through them with ease, until, finally, he found the last. The bald, tiny village elder, sweating and trembling in fear. He pleaded and he pleaded but it was no use - the man who would have cast him out.
He brought down the mace upon his head again and again until his skull caved in and his face was a bloody, torn pulp.
His brand sealed over and he felt the cold rush over his skin. He looked up to Anu's form: the being seemed... pleased. Collapsed, bloody, bruised and almost dead, even from fighting a village of those who did not do battle, Flint's task as a l'Cie was complete. He was engulfed in solid crystal. He slept.
It was many years before he awoke again, but it felt like a brief sliver of sleep, deep and heavy beneath an ocean, yet he still felt restless. He recalled nothing, not how he garnered the scars or the bruises or the spatters of dried blood. The crystals shattered and he awoke once more on the floor of Anu's Vestige - yet this time, he was somewhere different. He could feel it. The air was different, the taste of it, the smell of it.
He was no longer on Gran Pulse... no. He stepped out past the viewing deck... this was a museum. An old, abandoned museum. He watched as the lights flickered below in the city. No... he was on Cocoon.
For years he became an urchin, his memory blank and nothing left to him. His smoking habit developed at fifteen, and for his hours of unconscious wearing through lighters, rolling back the wheels and clicking them even as he slept - or so it was told, a defense mechanism he had developed to discourage others from stealing from him - he gained himself a name. A moniker. Flint.
Another three years passed by, and that was all he had. It was when, in the very depths of Eden, a man dressed in a formal suit and flanked by ten guards on either side marched into a bar and pointed a gun at the bartender, accusing him of treason and hauling him away as he moved to run, Flint smeared with grime, that he made a decision. He had some sense for it, some understanding; that bartender had always been off, strange. It was justice. Yes, that was it; justice, that they were hauling him away like that.
The man at the front, in the suit, approached him with a smile, appearing in a pleasant facade in spite of his occupation. "I'm Commander Shiba. You look like you could use a hot meal and a good night's sleep, boy."
Flint nodded, rubbing the back of his head wearily. "I could say the same..." He had known it was rude to be presumptuous; and rudeness would get him nowhere. But this man was offering him more than a few Gil to get some sleep, some drink, a packet of cigarettes and a meal. Instead, he pushed his hand forward and grinned.
"How would you like to work for your Cocoon, Flint?" The boy had since known to smear over his l'Cie brand with dirt - that was something that had only taken a few weeks to carve into his head. Everyone shied away from him and hissed in near-silence, shuffling off, when he bore it proudly, unaware of what it meant; when the others had whispered it in response, he decided it was best to conceal it. "How would you like to join me in PSICOM?"
It was typical conscription, but the man had just offered Flint his dream on a silver platter. The boy was well-built and skilled in close combat; it was all he needed. Formulating a "real" first name and surname to go on his record, he signed the appropriate papers, and spent the next few months in a PSICOM training scheme, then, finally, he shouldered a rifle and joined the unit - under Shiba himself, no less.
A series of routine ops later, and Flint forgot the shattered remnants of a past he never remembered. He cast out everything, aside from the occasional prayer to a pentagram medallion he kept in his footlocker. The sealed brand on his stomach had been painfully scorched away, and the contorted flesh rolled over the whitened skin, concealing it as best he could. It perhaps looked a bit suspect, but a third-degree burn from the "house fire that had tragically taken his home and family and left him alone on the streets of Eden" was the best story he could come up with, and the most concurrent. He was living a lie; but he didn't really mind.
It was only two years before he made it to officer with a sterling field record and over fifty kills to his name as a PSICOM sniper. By the time he was 27, Flint Salvador had ascended to the rank of Commander, one of the youngest in all of the department's history. Commander Fineas Salvador. He liked the sound of that.
It was not too long after that he met Esmeria. It was in a political meeting between the Primarch's department, PSICOM, and the GC, and for the entire meeting, Esmeria Angella and Commander Salvador were cheekily meeting each other's gazes. It wasn't until the intermission that they got to talking - Salvador had wooed women before in bars and such, he was no stranger to these sorts of courtship methods, but Esme was such a strange and perplexing woman that he was confused and enthralled by her all at once. It was that perfect coupling you see on TV. A year later they were engaged.
All the bureaucracy that went along with it, it took the pair of them two years to actually get married, but the ceremony was grand; and tying in with it was Flint's resignation. He'd only had three years as Commander, but he had money to show with it; and he was turning thirty, now. That slapdash lifestyle was behind him; he was a family man, a loving husband, and someone who just wanted to sit and grow old with a wife who he hoped would love him back for eternity. The l'Cie he'd once been was a world away, and though he'd confessed to Esmeria the fragmented memories of what he knew, and the truth behind his "burns", she didn't care: she loved him for what he was, his true form shunned or not.
The pair of them moved for Palumpolum and for the next three years, were as happy as could be. He hung the Godhammer above the fireplace and the pair of them just found solace in each other's company.
Until the Merge.
Palumpolum was struck by it, just as anywhere else; even the fugitive activities of the l'Cie group a year earlier - which had scared him - was nowhere near as devastating as this. As he dove into their living room to fetch his weapon, Esmeria screamed from the front room, and when he returned, she was there, trembling, hand tapping spasmodically against the floor, stab wound in her side, whooping looters darting out the front door.
That was when vengeance consumed Flint.
He didn't care that the worlds had merged, just that she was gone. He took to wandering, he took to hunting, he took to whatever he could. He marched wherever, just so long as he could keep moving: it was like he was an urchin again. Flint was a l'Cie once more; the worlds were devastated, and so was he.
Six months ago, Flint stopped at a small inn in the once-scorched and recently-rebuilt Nibelheim, taking a break from his bounty hunting: he hadn't moved too far. He hadn't wanted to - there was something about this place. So he knew he wasn't moving. Not til his business here was done.
It was that night that an angel visited him in his sleep: he said his name was Michael, and to travel to the ruins of the abandoned Mako reactor nearby. Glass crunching underfoot, he moved to the the test tube inside the ancient, overgrown ruin, and Flint saw a glinting in the corner of his eye. A sphere, like glass, but tougher, warmer, and yet colder, all at the same time.
He scooped it up. He tucked it behind the medallion in his belt. And over the coming months, he learned to use it: Michael, his confidant. Michael, his summon.
Michael: his guardian archangel.
Since then, Flint has wandered the merged world, still empty, still cold, still waiting for reason and purpose, stuck in the same loop. Is he dead, just as she, and just wandering his own purgatory? Or is this some divine punishment for the crimes he committed all that time ago?
He doesn't know. He just wishes that something would take the pain away. Solace can only be found in a battle or the bottom of a bottle.
