Arsenal

Arsenal
Player: @Fujiwarah (CO), Arsenal (PDB)
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"You can't have an Arsenal without having an Arse".
Biographical Data
Real Name:	Nathan Cutter
Known Aliases:
Gender:	Male
Species:	Human
Ethnicity:	White British
Place of Birth:	Glasgow, Scotland
Base of Operations:	Millenium City and New York
Relatives:	Michelle Bowman(ex-wife), Connor (son)
Characteristics
Age:	32
Height:	5ft10
Weight:	187lbs
Eyes:	Hazel
Hair:	Black
Complexion:	Tanned. Rugged.
Physical Build:	Athletic
Physical Features:	Sneer.
Status
Fame:	██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ National
Alignment:	LG LN LE NG TN NE CG CN CE
Identity:	Public
Years Active:	4
Citizenship:	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; European Union.
Occupation:	Professional Hero
Education:	Batchelor's Degree.
Marital Status:	Divorced
Known Powers and Abilities
Nanotech created weaponry, armour and regeneration.
Equipment and Paraphernalia
See man text

Physical Attributes
	Strength			Weapon
	Durability			Armor
	Speed			Reflexes
	Resistance			Stamina
	Dexterity			Agility
	Combat			Regeneration

Non-Physical Attributes
	Energy			Psionics
	Telepathy			Willpower
	Sorcery			Technology
	Intelligence			Knowledge
	Charisma			Bravery
MaekadaBox created by @Maekada

Appearance

Nathan is 5ft 10, with the build of a swimmer rather than a boxer or tack athlete, with short, dark hair, brown eyes, and a full but neatly trimmed black beard. His blue eyes are perpetually squinted against the sun and he already has faint wrinkles on his forehead and “laughter lines” around his eyes. His hair is thinning on top, so he keeps his hair several inches long on top and combed into a fringe while the hair on the sides of his head is trimmed to just a centimetre or so.

In his civilian clothing, Nathan dresses well in neatly pressed outfits. He tends to prefer stylish, fashionable smart casual and business wear. His shoes and boots are always highly polished and his trainers (on those rare occasions he wears them for anything but exercise) are always clean and usually thrown into the washing machine at the end of the day. He tends to wear short sleeved clothing or long sleeved shirts with neatly rolled up sleeves.

He speaks with a soft, rather than nasal, Glaswegian accent. He routinely speaks at a far faster tempo than most other native English speakers and often has to repeat himself slowly and clearly when speaking to non-Scots.

As a super-hero with a very public identity, Arsenal doesn’t bother to conceal his features. He does normally wear a visor that includes a HUD when in combat, but routinely leaves it at home when making public appearances.

As Arsenal he wears a black leather biker-suit with an almost quilted appearance due to the several dozen layers of Ballistic Nylon with a built in cooling system underneath the leather. By running an electrical current through the fibres, this body suit becomes harder than steel without the weight issues. The electrical current is activated by a suit computer that triggers the internal battery when it detects impending conflict. It can also be activated manually by Arsenal himself.

Over this he wears a simple pair of black, steel-toe-capped Army boots and a utility belt containing several tools and whichever pre-prepared devices he has elected to take into battle. If expecting trouble, he tends to bring along a series of devices ranging in size from back-pack mounted rail guns to thumb sized tracker darts and does indeed, on many occasions, look like a walking Arsenal. While he *can* improvise new weapons and items of equipment on the spot given sufficient raw materials, this takes time and results in a considerable amount of property damage. Consequently, he prefers to come to his fights pre-prepared rather than having to improvise.

Personality

Arsenal does not shy away from violence or hard decisions. His time in the military has made a methodical, careful planner of him. Yet he is also a talented improviser with good, reliable instincts in a crisis. He believes in the hard take-down, ending a fight quickly with over-whelming force, regardless of property damage. It's likely only a matter of time before he seriously injures a villain or bystander.

He’s no loose cannon however. His every application of violence is calculated to produce maximum results for minimum effort and expenditure of resources. He’s a pragmatic fighter, often eerily calm under pressure and with an almost blasé attitude to the possibility of his own death. He doesn’t broadcast his concerns, but while he heals wounds in a matter of seconds, Arsenal’s quite certain that an instantly lethal injury to the brain or heart will still kill him. Nanites or not. On the other hand, he’s not afraid to take risks given his increased survivability. If a task seems particularly hazardous, he’s likely to be the one to volunteer.

Although Arsenal can be charming, cultured, compassionate, brave, self-sacrificing and even insightful, he’s not always a pleasant individual to be around. He despises idiots, hypocrites, and the wilfully ignorant. He has made enemies of several pushy reporters who asked the wrong man an insipid question at the wrong moment. He’s prone to making snarky, sarcastic comments and has a hard-time biting his tongue around politicians, journalists and beuarocrats. He is outspoken, erudite and sincere, but as he himself sometimes admits, he is prone to “Crossing the line between being Frank, and being D**k”.

Long years of military service have given Nathan something of a filthy mouth and he often struggles not to swear in public or during interviews. He also prone to the very British habit of “Understatement” something that has often caused difficulties on those occasions when he has found himself working with other nationalities. Especially when working with those individuals who don’t *quite* realise that Arsenal claiming to be in a situation that’s “a bit dodgy” is rather like someone else screaming for help at the top of their lungs.

Arsenal is an exemplary team player; no doubt the result of his years of service in the military. While he’s prone to berating his colleagues for failures and errors, he is just as swift to praise their successes. He still thinks of himself as a “Father to his men” even when he is *not* in an official leadership role and behaves accordingly. He is a great believer in “tough love” and can be surprisingly approachable and empathic when a friend or colleague is suffering mentally and emotionally. He is a doting father who spares every spare moment with his son and, while desperately lonely and yearning to find love again, would never admit it. Except to himself.

History

Nathan Cutter was born and raised in the tough Scottish city of Glasgow to working class parents in the north-east of the city. Relatively small for his age and frequently the subject of bullying, he learned how to defend himself the hard-way, through violence. On one occasion, he fought back himself so vigorously that he left another boy in a medically induced coma for three weeks. At the time he’d been just eight years old.

Nathan's father took him to a Tae Qon Do and boxing classes as a means of channelling his aggression and teaching the boy some self-discipline. It evidently worked, for young Nathan become a model student by the time he entered high school and easily won himself a place studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Aberdeen as well as a sponsorship deal by the Royal Engineers. In the third year of his course, he took a gap year to attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and completed the final two years of his degree while a serving soldier in the British Army with the rank of Second Lieutenant. During this time, he became an instructor at AUOTC (Aberdeen Universities Officer Training Corps) and took up Krav Maga.

Stationed in Colchester, England, he met the woman who become the future ex Mrs Cutter, Michelle Bowman. Perhaps unwisely, they met and married within six months so that she could accompany him on an overseas posting to Brunei. While there, she became pregnant with their son, Adam, but she soon found the stresses of being an army wife in an isolated garrison too much and she returned to England to live with her parents. By the time Nathan returned home to his meet his son for the first time, she’d already met and fallen in love with another man.

After losing a custody battle, Nathan immersed himself in partying, fully embracing the culture of single young men in the British Army. Angry and seeking an outlet for his aggression, he applied for and won several postings to various combat theatres and even won a place in the 46 week-long Royal Marine training course, exchanging his black, engineer’s beret for the green beret of a Royal Marine. Shortly thereafter he applied for, and was accepted, for training as a Bomb Disposal Officer.

At the age of 26, when his son was four years old, Nathan was caught in an IED explosion and thereafter suffered extensive difficulties with hearing and balance. Forced to retire from the Army, he returned to the United Kingdom and sought about re-connecting with his son. With the country in recession and with his disability it became difficult to find work and so Nathan found himself on the dole, living off his army pension and state benefits.

So it was that one fateful day, he took his six year old son to watch a soccer game at Arsenal Stadium in London. He’d only just left the arena to take his son to the toilet when Emirates Stadium came under attack by the feared, mutant supremacist group “IMAGE”. Quickly hiding his son in a toilet cubicle, Nathan stepped outside into a hallway and was caught in a spray of silvery blood from a man shot in the head by the terrorists while fleeing down the hall. Falling to the ground in agony, hit several times by bullets and left for dead himself, he writhed for several minutes, but when he stood again his balance and hearing had been restored. Moreover, his recent bullet wounds had healed also. For the first time in years Nathan could hear a human voice -and what it said was not reassuring. IMAGE had planted a mutagenic bomb in the middle of the stadium, a bomb which would kill or mutate almost everyone in the stadium. While the mutants gloated, Nathan wished he had something -anything- with which to fight back. To his astonishment, when he placed his hand on a nearby burger kiosk, it turned to a silvery powder which immediately reassembled itself in his hands as gauss-powered facsimile of a British Army SA-80 Assault Rifle.

Further experimentation equipped him with several grenades made from other raw materials and even a suit of silvery body armour. Nathan, unaware that all this had been caught live on security cameras tapped into by the London Metropolitan Police and being streamed by the BBC, proceeded to mount a one-man guerrilla war against the occupying IMAGE forces. With the subsequent arrival of the famous London Knights super-group, Nathan -already dubbed “Arsenal” by the press- emerged onto the pitch from the tunnel leading to the Player’s Changing rooms. Fighting his way to the device, although wounded several times, he proceeded to disarm it using tools melted down and reassembled from the weapons of fallen terrorists. The timer continued to count down until Nathan knew he wouldn't finish disarming the device in time. At which point Lancelot of the London Knights simply asked: “Lad, why don’t you just be a good fellow and turn the blasted thing to powder like you did everything else?”

Not even pausing for a face-palm moment, Nathan did just that. Forever after he has been known to the world by his hero name, "Arsenal". Despite the perilous circumstances prompting his actions was imprisoned pending trial for the multiple murders he’d committed that day. Although later acquitted by the High Court, neither the London Knights nor any other reputable British Superhero Organisation would touch him. Moreover, while his son Adam gloried in being the son of a famous superhero, Michelle resented him for his “grandstanding” and the danger that the revelation placed she, their son, and her new husband in.

Terribly Vexed by the whole thing, Nathan was about ready to simply pack up his bags and find a nice, quiet spot some-where to disappear in. However, it was at that point the board of directors for Arsenal Football Club came up with a solution. They offered to fund Arsenal’s crime fighting career in return for a cast iron contract that required him to appear at home-games to provide security and endorsements for the team. Consequently, he’d also be required to place the emblem of Arsenal Football club – a golden cannon on a red and blue shield -on his costume.

This arrangement worked for several years, with Nathan fighting supervillains as Arsenal by night and performing publicity stunts for the football club by day. Until, that is, a revenge attack by IMAGE on the team bus left six players injured despite Arsenal’s successful defence. This cost Arsenal the FA cup that year, and the Board decided that having Nathan as their “personal, corporate sponsored hero” was attracting too much heat from mutant supremacists.

Consequently, Nathan was let go at the end of his contract. Having had a spotless record by this point (without a single villain fatality and remarkably few serious injuries except to Arsenal himself, albeit a great deal of collateral damage) the London Knights and several other groups offered him membership, only for Nathan to refuse in retaliation for their earlier snubs. Instead, Nathan contacted UNTIL through an old army friend, Major Julie Winters, and spent a further year working alongside UNTIL.

Now, at the age of 32, Nathan is still as fit and healthy as he has ever been. He’s tiring of being a strictly solo hero however, and with nearly six years as a solo-hero under his belt he feels it’s about time he branched out and found himself a good, solid team to work with. Presently, UNTIL have him assigned to guard the UN building in New York, and he’s already swiftly becoming bored with the posting.

Powers

Nathan is able to use the nanites stored in on the surface of his skin to break down any and all inorganic material given enough time (seconds for plastics, ceramics and most metals, minutes for diamonds, adamantium and the like) and then reassemble these same raw materials into any configuration he can think of. It’s worth noting however that Arsenal can’t simply create anything he likes. He’s limited both by the raw materials at hand and his own knowledge of engineering and physics. For the time being this means he can’t imitate a weapon used by an opponent on the spot. He’d need to recover the weapon and spend time studying it’s internal mechanism and electronics first. Once he has this awareness however, forming the new device becomes an instinctive process.

Note that as Arsenal is unable to create inorganic compounds such as most types of lubricant, any device he improvises on the spot rather than building prior to an event is likely to have a very short working life-span. Rarely lasting longer than a scene for most simple devices or perhaps just even one or two uses for more complex ones. Hence he prefer to rely on devices made in his workshop rather than those hastily improvised in the field.

Arsenal can also use his nannites to dissolve and essentially disintegrate inorganic material with a touch. Consequently, simple physical contact is often enough for him to inflict grievous damage on robots, vehicles and items of equipment.

Finally, Arsenal also has two large, additional reservoirs of nannites around his heart and his brain, with other, smaller nodes scattered throughout his body. These work quickly to repair any immediately non-fatal damage to his cells and tissues, healing otherwise deadly wounds and infections in mere minutes and even, given hours and days, growing back lost limbs. This healing process requires a lot of energy however, and an opponent who inflicts enough injuries in a short enough space of time can overload Arsenal’s capacity for self-healing.

Skills

In terms of skills, Arsenal is an academically trained Electrical Engineer with an acquired expert knowledge of Theoretical Physics, Mechanics and Ballistics albeit in a very narrow field concerning weapons and armour. He’s also a trained soldier and marine with all the skills and knowledge that entails -everything from navigation to stripping down and firing heavy weapons such as mortars and anti-tank guided missiles. Furthermore, while his nannite’s haven’t given him superhuman strength, speed or endurance, he maintains himself at the peak of human fitness with a vigorous and punishing training regime.

Arsenal has studied Boxing and Tae Qun Do as a child, and although his skills with these fighting styles have atrophied, his Krav Maga skills have not. Arsenal is a brutal hand to hand fighter, who thinks nothing of gauging eyes and snapping limbs to bring any brawl to a swift conclusion.

Gear

Given time, Arsenal can fabricate just about any device whose workings are known to science and a few that aren’t. However, there are certain staple items which -although they won’t always be on his person- will see use time and again. These items include:

• Body Armour – As described under the Appearance Section. Also has a thinner, less effective body suit about as thick as lycra which he wears under his civilian costume. Will still stop a bullet or deaden a blow, but far less effective.
• Flight Pack – A black, organically curved metal jet-pack with a reservoir of fuel permitting up to 350 miles of flight and a top speed of around Mach 1.
• Multi-Pistol – Normally only carried when making a public appearance in uniform or otherwise wearing civilian clothing and *not* expecting trouble. This desert-eagle sized device contains thirty caseless rounds of ammunition. Usually in the following configurations: 5 Heat-Seeker, 5 Rubber Bullets, 5 Tazer rounds, 5 sleep dart rounds and 5 smoke rounds. He may or may not be carrying additional rounds on his person at any given time
• Stun Baton – retractable.
• Grapple Hook.
• First Aid Kit - always carried. Not for his own use, but for use on casualties.
• Battle Harness – May or may not be worn with Flight Pack. Only brought out -but always brought out- when expecting trouble. Consists of two main weapon systems. The first is a shoulder mounted rotary gauss-rifle with a remarkable resemblance to a chain gun which fires 3mm slivers of metal at high speeds using electromagnetic rails. Muzzle Velocity adjustable depending on the target and whether or not Arsenal wants to stun them or actively hurt them. The second is a fully-automatics mini-grenade launcher with a twelve round magazine that fires a pre-loaded selection of stun, smoke, flash and white phosphorous grandees. Arsenal is unable to create new grenades outside of his workshop but his nannites give him an almost unlimited supply of rounds for the rail gun.
• Battle Visor – With HUD and targeting computer linked to all of Arsenal’s presently deployed weapon’s systems. Internal comlink. Also connected by PAN to his mobile phone.
• Ear-Bud comm system.
• Mini-Drones and Remote: Arsenal is able to deploy up to three monitor drones carried in a single belt pouch and control them using a device built into his wrist (in uniform) or watch (in civilian clothes). Max Flight Speed 30 miles an hour. Range: 90 miles.
• Drone and Remote: Can deploy (from a briefcase) a kite sized drone armed with a single laser for defence. Max Flight Speed 65 miles an hour. Range: 120 miles.
• Browning High Power with armour piercing rounds – Arsenal’s last resort in times of desperation. A simple mechanical handgun that no EMP can render useless. Saved for that opponent who just won’t go down and fortunately, never before used. Always on his person when expecting trouble. Weapon of Last Resort.

Weaknesses

• Ultimately, for all his regenerative abilities, Arsenal is still a mortal man with normal human levels of physical and mental ability.
• Arsenals public identity is well known -as is that of his son and ex-wife and anyone who associates with him now or in the future.
• Arsenal relies on his nannites to fuel his powers. Nannites are machines like any others and can be temporarily deactivated by EMP effects, rendering Arsenal essentially powerless given that most of his constructed devices would also be disabled by the same EMP.
• Nannites are made at least partially of metal. That’s a lot of metal in his body for a magnetic-controller to manipulate.
• Arsenal does indeed set off weapon’s alarms in shops, malls, schools and airports.
• He cannot improvise a weapon or device he does not already know how to build.

Tropes

• At Least I Admit it. [“Sometimes I cross the line between being Frank and being Dick”].
• Angst? What Angst? [Really isn’t troubled in the least by psychological problems as a result of what he does for a living]/
• Brave Scot [He’s a Scot, and he’s Brave].
• Brutal Honesty [No patience for idiots and hypocrits]
• Combat Pragmatist [Doesn’t fight fair].
• Corporate Sponsored Super-Hero [Was sponsored by Arsenal Football Club and still uses a variant of their emblem as his own personal symbol].
• Cultured Badass [Likes to intersperse his speech with quotes].
• Determinator [Shoot him through of holes. He’ll just keeping coming till he’s dead].
• Dissonant Serenity [It doesn’t matter how desperate the battle gets, he never seems to lose his temper or display fear, regardless of how angry or terrified he might actual be.]
• Engineer [He’s an engineer].
• Gallows Humour [Has a very dark sense of humour and makes jokes at inappropriate times].
• Gentleman Snarker [Very, very sarcastic].
• Good is Not Nice [Doesn’t fight fair. Will lie and use dishonest tactics].
• Guilty Pleasures [Poetry]
• Kick ‘em While They’re Down [Doesn’t like to risk them getting back up again, so likes to make sure they really ARE knocked out].
• Martyr Without a Cause [Takes all the Dangerous Jobs]
• Military Superhero [Ex- Royal Engineer]
• Post-Mortem One-Liner [Especially Sarcastic ones].
• Rebellious Spirit [Despises politicians and bureaucrats]
• Tall, Dark and Snarky [Tall, Dark, Snarky]
• Stiff Upper Lip [Gets calmer and more focused the worse the situation gets].
• Super-Hero Packing Heat [Uses firearms]
• Understatement
• Violent Glaswegian [Violent. Born in Glasgow]
• Warrior Therapist [Tries to understand the motivations of his opponents and use them to his advantage].

Trivia

• Likes to read poetry in his spare time -but would never admit it.
• Is a walking encyclopaedia concerning the lessons of ancient Rome and “What we can learn from their mistakes”.
• Calls his ten-year old son every-day over Skype to tell him an original (made up that day) bed-time story about “Pengy the Penguin, Matt the Martian and Gavin.” Due to time-zone differences this can be in the middle of the day -or even in the middle of a Super-fight.
• Loves Deep Fried Pizza and Deep Fried Mars bars. Also yearns for good old fashioned Lorne Sausage, Stornaway Black Pudding and a decent Haggis.
• Has his morning porridge with salt and water rather than sugar and milk. Tends to add Cinnamon and Nutmeg or a dollop of “Jam” (Jelly) or even Nutella.
• Always has a handcuff key concealed somewhere on his person.
• Suffers from atrocious hay-fever.
• Secretly enjoys his late night talk show appearances, however much he appears to hate them.
• Loves a good glass of Port but prefers a pint of decently chilled real ale.
• Loathes the taste of whiskey.
• HATES being mistaken for an Englishman.
• Enjoys painting. Used to enjoy sculpting too, but finds that his nanites take all of the fun out of it, making it too easy.
• Secretly hates Soccer “Football” but is contractually obligated never to admit it. Much prefers Rugby.
• Thinks American football players are “powderpuff girls in armour” and that "real men play rugby".
• His Computer Password is the Latin phrase "nemo me impune lacessit",”No-one insults me with impunity”. This is the Royal Motto of Scotland.
• Detests the way non-Brits pronounce the word “Lieutenant”. “It’s lif-tenant, you twat. Where I come from, a loo-tenant is the guy who cleans the toilets.”
• Arsenal is considered a “hard” subject for interviewers.

RP Hooks

• Arsenal worked with many solo Heroes in Europe and the United Kingdom before his affiliation with UNTIL and his posting to North America.
• Arsenal has been assigned to protect the UN building in New York.
• Arsenal served in the UK and the Middle East as a member of the British Armed Forces.
• Arsenal loves Rugby.
• Arsenal needs to keep up to date in developments in Super Science related fields. Consequently, he attends as many conferences and lectures as he can.
• Arsenal is often a guest speaker himself at such conferences and conventions, despite having more of an engineering background that a scientific one.

Theme Songs

• "Bullets" -Archive
• “We bring an Arsenal” – Lost Prophets.
• "Never Surrender" - Extreme Music
• "Invincible" - Extreme Music
• “Wrong Side of Heaven” – Five Finger Death Punch.
• “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (I feel fine)” -REM