Augustine "Nail" Strafer

[Dan Dark]

NAME: Augustine "Nail" Strafer

AGE: 27

SPECIES: Fox

GENERAL LOOKS: His body is covered with fur that's a dark shade of gray, in addition to a lighter shade of gray on his muzzle and chest. His hair is the same color as his body fur, and it is cut short, although some of it flops down over his face messily. He also has eerie yellow wolf eyes that he got from his father, which shine in the dark under the right conditions. One other distinctive feature of his body is that he only has half of a fox tail, the other half having been cut off at the age of 19.

CLOTHING: In public or when he is working undercover, he could be wearing anything. It depends upon the occasion. The only thing that's consistent is that he usually wears a garment like a coat that can keep his pistol and holster hidden.

When he's on a mission or only around his fellow mercenaries, he often wears a blue shirt with a flak vest over it. The flak vest has a holster for his knife on it, in addition to other pockets to carry spare ammunition and whatever else he needs. He wears green trousers, fitted with kneepads and a holster for his handgun. For shoes, he wears durable army boots.

FAMILY:
Gail Strafer - Father - Wolf
Faye Strafer - Mother - Fox
Carrie Strafer - Sister - Wolf
Ayecaye Strafer - Sister - Fox
Canma Neuyan - Ex-wife - Fox
Cebran Neuyan - Son - Fox
Ellia Neuyan - Daughter - Fox

PERSONALITY:Nail for the most part is happiest when he is by himself. He treasures solitude because it allows him to think deeply, which he likes to do a lot.

Often when he's around other people, he tends not to speak up much. When he does, it's often something that he feels is important. It's rare for him to engage in small talk among several people.

Nail also tends not to show a lot of emotion in a group of people as well. Since his life has been in danger more times than he can count, it's hard to get him excited about anything less. He will crack a smile at a joke or something to be polite, but he rarely goes beyond that. People have tried all sorts of things to get him to do more than that, and most of the time they fail. However, he isn't afraid of cracking a joke here and there if it will help ease tension or help keep a conversation going.

Nail does tend to be more open with his feelings if the conversation is with just one or two other people, or if he doesn't think anybody is watching. He might actually start broadly grinning, laughing jovially, come out and cry, whatever. Also, the topic could shift to small talk, even.

Despite being a mercenary, Nail has some sense of morality, and he avoids killing civilians or innocent bystanders during his missions if he can. He's not into killing for the fun of it.

BACKSTORY:

Augustine was born to Gail Strafer and Faye Strafer in the city of Gerrant, which is in the mountains of Western Isle. His mother had insisted on the name "Augustine," but his father thought it was too long and started calling him just "Aug." Two years later, his first sister Carrie was born.

For most of his childhood, Aug and his family lived in the rough slums of Gerrant. Violence there was almost always a daily part of almost everybody's life. Augustine learned very quickly how to take care of himself in the midst of battle, as how to tell when it was time to retreat. He wasn't a great street fighter. He only learned enough just to keep from getting trampled by the gangs that prowled about. Often he would help to protect Carrie as they went on their way to school through the neighborhood.

However, everything changed Nail became ten years old, because of a deal going down between father Gail and his boss. Nearly all of his life, the work Gail did to put food on the table tied into some sort of criminal element. The job Gail held at this time was no exception. He was the bodyguard of Elliot Ghostig, the leader of the wealthiest gang in Gerrant: the Ghostig Mob.

When Elliot contracted a fatal form of cancer, he personally told Gail that he and his family would receive ownership of the Ghostig Mob after he passed away. This was written into Elliot's will and final testament. Gail also received a small gift at the end of that conversation, and it was an AWP sniper rifle. Furthermore, Faye had just had another child: Ayecaye. The Strafer family seemed destined for nothing but happiness and wealth in the future...but unfortunately that wasn't the way it happened.

Elliot's son Dualian became jealous of the fact that his father was giving away his inheritance to someone else. The Strafers got the money instead because Elliot knew that Dualian didn't love him, and he was only waiting for his father to die so he could get the Ghostig Mob Dualian took steps to get back his money. First, he hired assassins from another gang in the city, called the Black Hearts, to kill all of the Strafers. Second, he planned to kill his father so he could get his inheritance faster, and get his revenge at the same time.

Elliot heard of the plan ahead of time, and he managed to warn Gail of it shortly before the mission went into action. The wolf immediately ran to his pickup truck and sped homeward, hoping he could beat the killers there and save his family.

Unfortunately, the killers did manage to get to the Strafer house before Gail could make it. Augustine heard a crash from the house's front window, and he crept downstairs to investigate. Voices could be heard from his parents' room, so he tiptoed over and peeked through the cracked door. Right before his eyes, the hired thugs murdered his mother. First he was heavily hit by the emotional blow, nearly breaking out and crying right there.

However, he quickly switched over to rage, and searched for a way to make the two killers pay. He saw his father's brand new AWP sniper rifle lying on the kitchen counter. Augustine hurriedly snatched up the weapon, but it weighed quite a bit more than he thought it would. The barrel clanked off of the kitchen floor before he could get it in his hands properly.

The killers heard the noise and came to investigate, but they stopped dead when they saw a little kid pointing such a big gun at them. Augustine, too overcome with anger to think rationally, immediately shot both of them dead before they could move. However, as his anger subsided, he realized what he had done. He began to cry, both over his dead mother, and the fact that he was now a murderer.

Carrie came downstairs to see what happened, and she recoiled in shock at the dead bodies on the floor and her dead mother. She said they had to call the police, but Aug said no. He told her that he was the one who killed the other two people, and that he had to get away from here before the police arrived. Aug rushed upstairs and began to change from his pajamas into his winter clothes. Carrie did the same, thinking she might end up chasing him out into the street.

Just as Nail finished and bounded down the stairs, he heard the sound of Gail's pickup truck screeching to a halt in front of the house. The wolf burst in through the front door, a look of terror upon his face.

"Get in the truck!" he shouted. "Hurry!"

Before they could move, a gunshot tore through Gail's shoulder. He roared in pain as another gunman came in through the front door with a smoking revolver. Gail attacked him, and the two wrestled around on the floor. The gunman fired more shots, but due to the fact he was caught in a scuffle all of them missed. Aug and Carrie ducked behind the kitchen counter to keep from getting shot.

In the midst of fighting, Gail shouted, "Don't stand there! Get Ayecaye and get in the truck now!"

Augustine jumped in fright at his father's command, and rushed upstairs to get Ayecaye from her crib. However, as he was bounding down the stairs with his baby sister in his arms, he heard a crash. The floor of their living room, Gail had warned in the past, had been pretty weak. It looked like it had finally given way, because now there was a big hole in the floor down to the basement. Aug tried to peer down inside the hole, but it was hard to see since the lights weren't on. He didn't hear any sounds coming from down there either.

Suddenly, his ears picked up the noise of a car roaring down the street. Nail figured that was backup for the thugs who'd already failed. In a rush, Aug dashed for the front door, with baby Ayecaye in his arms and the AWP strapped across his back. Instinctively, Carrie followed after him. All three of them piled into the rusty old pickup truck that was the Strafer family car, just as a dirty white sedan flew around a corner behind them. Guys in the windows started to lean out and shoot at them.

Aug shouted, "Hold on!"

He took the controls of the car, and pressed down on the accelerator. Smoke flew up from the tires as the truck dashed down the road. That's not to say they got away so easily though. It was Aug's first time behind the wheel of a car, and he just couldn't handle driving such a large vehicle. The truck crashed into a pole at the end of the road, not far from the house.

Aug jumped out of the driver's side of the truck, while Carrie jumped out of the other side. However, neither of them realized they were leaving Ayecaye behind, due to the confusion and fear in their minds. They took off in opposite directions down the street, with Aug ducking down an alleyway nearby and Carrie running into an apartment building.

The thugs piled out of their car to continue the pursuit, but then the wail of sirens sounded in the distance. The police Elliot called earlier had finally arrived on the scene. And with that, the thugs scattered as quickly as mice from a cat. Aug ran even harder as he heard the police approaching. He knew he'd be in deep trouble if the police showed up and found out he'd shot two people. He ran out of the city on foot, cradling to his father's new AWP rifle as he hid it underneath his jacket.

Aug didn't know what he was going to do now, although one idea came to him rather quickly. Many years ago, Gail became friends with a shaggy dog named Tom Gracy, who formerly worked as a cargo pilot for the local airport. Now though, he had formed a gang that hijacked aircraft and scrapped them for cash. While Gail never joined the gang, he still remained friends with Tom even to this very day. His father had taken him to see Tom's hideout before, so he knew the way.

Aug figured that since he was a criminal now, his best home would be with other criminals. It took a while to walk there from Gerrant, but he made it within a couple of days. Since Tom and Gail had been such good friends, Tom quickly accepted Aug into the gang as soon as he arrived at the hideout. Over the next nine years Aug received extensive training in the arts of tactical espionage, marksmanship, and gun maintenance and repair.

At first, Aug was trained as a sniper. Tom considered himself as Aug's new godfather, and so he didn't want the boy to die too quickly in combat. By having him be a sniper, Aug would be far away from the action, and thus there'd be less chance of him getting taken out during a gunfight. This was where he earned the nickname Nail, because he showed an aptitude for the art of sniping, and almost always "nailed" his target during training with his father's AWP sniper rifle.

Nail was considered old enough to go on hijacking missions once he turned 16, and the difficult conditions of these jobs improved his skills in close quarters gunfights very quickly. The interior of a plane calls for tight maneuvering, and well-placed bullets. Otherwise, Aug would be easily killed, or he'd cause critical damage to the plane that would result in mission failure or death for all on board.

However, at the age of 18 he had a scary experience on one mission that convinced him he needed to get out of Tom's gang. While trying to take over a cargo plane, someone accidentally opened up the rear cargo door, and Nail nearly fell out of the plane through it. He just managed to wrap his hands around the end of a cargo net that was poking out from around one of the crates nearby before he could go falling out, and for about three minutes he just swung around over open air, just by one hand, and scared ****less the entire time. Finally though, one of his comrades noticed he was missing and rushed back to pull him in.

Nail was terrified of the thought of what could have happened if he had let go of that net - and if it could happen again. Because of this, after the mission he immediately told Tom he couldn't do this work anymore. Tom was caught off guard by Nail suddenly wanting to quit, but he respected the young fox's decision.

Giving him his best wishes, Tom said goodbye to Nail and he left the gang's headquarters the next day. For his next occupation, Nail took on the role of a mercenary for hire. However, it didn't pay as well as his work with Tom's gang, and not to mention he didn't have the support of the large organization anymore. He was starting to run into debt.

Also, one solo mission he went on at 19 would haunt him forever. He was to assassinate a general at a GUN army base. Nail snuck inside the base where the general resided, and managed to snipe him from afar with his rifle. Unfortunately, a guard saw him as he killed the general, and tripped the alarm. Nail hurried out of the base as quickly as he could, with guards running after him and security doors locking down everywhere.

One of the doors crushed down on his fox tail, and he screamed in pain as he tried to get the door to go up or slide his tail out from underneath. Neither worked, and guards were coming in from all sides to kill him. In the end, Nail was forced to use his combat knife to slice off one half of the tail in order to break free. He just barely managed to escape the base with his life.

In desperation, Nail finally decided to join Freedom Fighters for Furs, or F4. He personally did not care about their mission of "justice" to "free the world from the human tyrants," but it at least would earn him a paycheck.

However, Nail got more than he bargained for though when his recruiter, Canma Neuyan, took a fancy to him. She approached him to begin a relationship, since in Canma's culture the females are typically the ones to call the males, rather than the other way around. Nail was a bit afraid because of her making the first move, although he decided to go along with her anyway. He didn't say it to Canma, but the fact that he might get some special perks by being a boyfriend of one of the heads of F4 was a big factor in his decision.

Little did the pair of them know what would happen next, when the parents found out about their relationship. Ikono and Veraba were so overjoyed that Canma finally found a mate that they immediately arranged for a marriage. Nail would have tried to back out - except for the fact that the parents said they would take over the F4 organization once they were wed. Still though, Canma was oblivious to the fact that Nail was mostly marrying her for the perks rather than her love.

In their honeymoon, they did a tour on the seas of Earth that lasted about three months. Fortunately for Canma, Nail discovered he actually was starting to feel some attraction to his new wife. They had a magnificent time as they went around the islands and the oceans.

But all of that changed when they got back to F4's new headquarters, hidden in caves underneath the Southern Island. The organization was finally ready to go out and fight for its cause, with a new hidden base, an army of five thousand furries, and a big variety of weapons and vehicles. The first mission that Canma arranged was to blow up an oil pipeline the humans used in the Desert Area.

As they traveled there though in a small convoy of jeeps, the F4 encountered a busload of human tourists traveling across the desert to see the ruins. One of the trigger-happy furries in the army, unable to hold back his rage against the humans anymore, blew up the bus with an RPG without receiving an order to do so.

From where he sat in the driver's seat of a jeep, Nail gasped in horror as he saw the humans screaming and burning within the wreckage. Some of them climbed out of the vehicle while on fire and then falling down but not getting up. Meanwhile, a small smile crossed Canma's lips, as she surveyed the destruction. Turning to Nail, the grin faded when she saw the look on Nail's face.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He responded by turning to her and screaming, "This whole thing is wrong! I was wrong! I can't do this, going around and killing innocent humans who didn't do anything to us!"

Now it was Canma's turn to gasp in shock.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked. "I thought you were like me! I thought you hated humans too! Besides, they're evil! Who cares what happens to them?"

"I can't take this ****! I'm not your husband anymore!"

Nail tossed Canma out of the jeep's passenger seat, and slammed down on the accelerator. The jeep rocketed across the sand and was quickly beyond the horizon. He was able to easily get away, because after all he was still a leader of F4 and the furries were unwilling to shoot at their leader. Nail went into hiding shortly thereafter in Radical City.

However, F4 had enough resources to track him down. Luckily for him, even though Canma could have easily kidnapped Nail and forced him back into the organization with what she had to work with, she decided he should come back in on his own.

At his rundown apartment, she confronted him alone a few weeks later, with their two kits in her arms. It turns out Nail had left her former wife with a parting gift before he divorced her. She pleaded with him to reconsider joining F4, not just for destroying the humans but to be a father for their children. Unfortunately, using their children as a device to try to strengthen her begging didn't work, and Nail turned down rejoining F4.

"I don't care if they'll be fatherless Canma. I'm not helping you kill innocent humans. Hell, you're lucky I don't kill you right now."

"Why aren't you killing me then?"

"Because then our kids would be motherless, and the least I can do for them since they're my children too is to let you live. Now get out of here, before I change my mind."

To shake off F4, Nail moved to another apartment in Station Square, and he lived there for the next several years. One day though, as he was taking the garbage out of his apartment, he bumped into someone. It was Carrie! It turns out she'd spent the last fifteen years or so wandering the Earth until recently, when she'd gotten married to someone in the same apartment building as Nail: a wolf named Spyke Hitomi.

What's more - she also knew what happened to Gail and Ayecaye the night Dualian launched his assassination attempt. It turns out Gail wasn't dead, but merely knocked out for a bit after he'd fallen through the floor of the living room of the old house. He'd staggered out of the house, and ran to where his truck was crashed into a pole. After finding Ayecaye inside, he discovered the truck wasn't that badly damaged, and still driveable.

While he hadn't been able to find Nail, Gail did find Carrie, and the three of them had lived in Capitol City until Spyke married Carrie. Then, they'd all moved to this apartment building so they could stay together. Carrie went around and introduced Nail to her new husband Spyke, and then he had a very happy reunion with Ayecaye and Gail.

It turns out Spyke was also a mercenary, and now he and Nail work together on missions, with Spyke's close range martial arts abilities complimenting Nail's long range gunplay.

However, Nail still sometimes thinks of Canma and the children that he had with her. He wonders if he should have tried to take them away from Canma, so she couldn't brainwash them into the F4 mindset. It still bothers him to this day - especially now that F4 is stepping up its activities again.

ABILITIES:

Marksmanship - Nail is quite gifted as a gunfighter and his talent shows easily. All you have to do is watch him for a couple of minutes. His accuracy is quite amazing, even at very long ranges. Also, he can easily adjust to almost any type of firearm, even if it's his first time using it.

Gun maintenance and modification - Nail is also skilled at maintaining firearms and upgrading them as well. His AWP sniper rifle was formerly chambered to fire weaker .308 rounds, but he altered it to fit more powerful .338 rifle rounds instead. He also knows how to make his own ammunition with a reloading tool he has at his home.

WEAPONS:

Arctic Warfare Police Sniper Rifle - This is Nail's primary weapon, and one of his most cherished possessions. It is a bolt action rifle, so only one shot can be fired per turn. Also, this gun must be reloaded every five shots. However, with a high-powered scope, and Nail's natural marksmanship, this isn't much of a problem. What's more, the .338 Lapua Magnum rounds this gun was rechambered to fire pack quite a punch. They will easily penetrate most types of armor.

Glock 18 - This is Nail's sidearm, which he uses when a target is too close for his sniper rifle to be practical. It's a 9mm handgun that holds 20 shots, and it also has semi-auto and three-shot-burst modes. On the other hand, the 9mm bullets lack punch, and will be easily stopped by most types of armor.

Combat knife - When a target is very close, Nail pulls this out. It is a simple knife, with no special modifications made to it (unless you count sharpening). While it could probably do quite a bit of damage, Nail is nowhere near as gifted in melee combat as he is with guns.

NPCS:



Name: Gail Strafer

Species: Wolf

Age: 50

Relation: Father

Special Skills: Transporter

Nai's father Gail has since ditched his old truck, and purchased a newer model: a large, dark blue pickup truck with a V8 engine, a crew cab, and a small camper on the back. It's suitable for transporting up to five people and a large amount of cargo. The truck is also quite capable offroad, and it can tow large weights.



Name: Ayecaye Strafer

Species: Fox

Age: 17

Relation: Sister

Special Skills: Computer hacker

With just her father to raise her, Ayecaye became a wild tomboy. At an early age, she tried to emulate her father's days of being a street fighter, but she quickly discovered she was far too weak to be a big fighter. So, changing her hobbies, she turned to computers and has become quite adept with them. She has a small degree of hacking skill now.