Lloyd Weathers (Counsellor)

Weight: 155

Apparent Age: 60

Archetype: Mercenary

Preferred Weapon: Colt Manhunter

Runner Song:

 Bio: Well for this squirrelly little man being a runner is hard to believe but war makes strange bedfellows and also has a tendency to drag the unwilling straight into the fray. For the Counsellor this is exactly the case and this man was once a guidance counsellor and worked in the same school as the Conductor, Thirteen and Casper he didn’t have a violent bone in his body and was a man who always spoke about piece and trying to help those in dire straights. Well do to events that accord during the war, the Counsellor was zeroed and was reported as dead. This didn’t leave him many options as his life savings was gone, his home no longer existed and he never had a family of his own and his own family was long deceased. The Counsellor was forced to enter a very violent world, a world he loathed, and a world he spent his life dedicated to helping the young students to steer clear of.

        The Counsellor found himself homeless when the condo building he lived in became another causality of the war, when it was overtaken by the UCAS military and the citizens inside where being forced to fight for the military or be executed. When the Counsellor refused to fight he found himself being handcuffed and taken to the basement, this is where this man would learn his supposed fate. He saw fellow tenants being executed either by having their necks slashed and left to bleed out, they where being shot in the heart and head or they where being hanged in the rafters. The Counsellor was placed in the line for the hanging, he was stripped of his clothing and forced to stand on an old rusty bucket. His dignity, shame and pride had been stripped from him as he stood there naked as the noose was being put around his neck. He looked around and saw the soldiers going through the condemned’s possessions like they were at a swap meet. One of the soldiers took the gold watch he was wearing of his wrist saying “You wont need this were your going coward.” The Counsellor was unable to respond do to the gag in his mouth.

         The sounds of war could be heard in the distance and the building kept shacking from nearby explosions as dust fell from the rafters. The young soldier who stole his watch said time to die coward and he kicked the bucket out from under the Counsellor’s bare feet. According to reports the Counsellor struggled for a bit before blacking out, the next thing he remembers is partially resting on the floor being held up by the noose. The room was on fire and debris littered the room. The scent of burning flesh and plastic was noxious and the Counsellor remained hanging there struggling to breath as his weight was slowly constricting the noose tighter and tighter. He looked around and there was nobody alive to save him and with his hands bound he couldn’t work the knot on the noose. The more he struggled the more the cuffs shrieked and tighter they became until both his wrists snapped under the crushing metal of the cuffs. The Counsellor bellowed out in pain through the dirty gag shoved into his mouth, as he just came to grips with his fate and awaited a slow and painful death. The building again shook violently from a nearby explosion and with a resounding crack the beam he was partially suspended fully cracked and he unceremoniously fell to the ground and was met with the crushing weight of the support beam across his chest.

         The Counsellor laid there for a few moments before he found away out from under the beam. His chest burned with pain, he struggled to breath and his wrists had begun to go numb and he could no longer feel his hands. The screamer cuffs had burned out and were frozen in place, he was as naked as a jaybird and unable to even free himself from the noose that now dragged on the floor. He couldn’t even put clothing on, though his situation was even more dire as the building was slowly starting to show signs of collapse and he was in a room that was on fire and near the boiler and hot water heater. The Counsellor swallowed what was left of his broken dignity and fled the building mere moments before one final explosion and the building came crumbling down on itself.

       He had jumped out of the frying pan and landed directly into the fire and for this poor old man his trials and tribulations where only beginning as he was in the middle of one of the bloodiest battles to ever touch the city of Settle and he was standing there naked, bleeding and injured. He had no where to run and no where to go as the sought shelter from the fighting, the Counsellor would find out quickly that he was about to enter the wrong building. As he ran down he street trying to dodge incoming fire, the noose dragging behind him and his feet being torn asunder by broken glass, rocks and debris. He was heading for what he thought was an old apartment building, but what he didn’t know was that the building had recently been taken over by a vile street gang that wasn’t concerned about the war or the citizens. They were using this as a time to abduct, loot and pillage the citizens and this gang saw the Counsellor as a target and a viable target for there human trafficking ring. As he entered the buildings blown out lobby he was meet with a swift blow to the back of his head and the Counsellor would once again find himself unconscious.

       When he awoke his hands had been severed, he had a chain rapped around his neck and secured to the floor and he wasn’t alone there where dozens of other citizens in the same situation both male and female, old and young all chained to the floor and all naked. Forced to lay in each others waste and fight like wild animals for kibble that was thrown into the room. The Counsellor was forced to eat the kibble of the floor like an animal since he was without hands. This was bad and his will was cracking, but it got worse for this man, he like many in the room would be beaten daily and raped repeatedly. He was forced to do things he found both physically and morally vile, he could also hear his captures making deals and selling the prisoners off as slaves for the elite of society. He also overheard that any slave unsold would be killed and left for the rats. This sent shivers through the Counsellor as he survived one situation only to be killed in a worse.

        As the days went by, he had lost track of time by this point and was unaware of how long he was held captive. He had barely eaten and was slowly dehydrating and suffering from infection and other injuries his body weight was falling off and he was able to eventually slip out of the chains that bound him to the floor. His captures had forgotten to put the neck chains back in place after he was gang violated that evening and they only left his waist chains in place. The Counsellor knew that this was the only chance he had to escape, since he could see that they were getting ready to clear out the left over inventory and he surly wasn’t going to die in that hell hole.

        He slid free of his chains and with sheer determination he got to his feet and somehow managed to walk out of the basement and onto the street. He is not even sure how this happened, since the his feet where torn apart, his ankles where practically broken and his muscles where partially atrophied. His journey had led him back out into the streets and this time he could see the lasting affects of the war, he gazed around to see burned out and rumbled buildings, the streets littered with holes and rescue operations undergoing. The Counsellor eventually made it to a rescue tent, only to be turned away at first but when he pressed the issue and then collapsed from pain, hunger, dehydration and shock he was seen by a doctor. The Counsellor was given a shot that caused him to blackout and when he awoke he was in a rat infested motel. He like Thirteen had a 100 credits, a ratty old suit, a 1/4 bag of kibble, some pain medicine and a second rate pair of cyber hands.

        This man is still in bad shape, but he has been forced to suck it up and deal with the hand he was dealt. The world thinks he is dead, his SIN long gone, the UCAS would rather execute him as a traitor then admit he lived, and the gang that held him prisoner is still very much out on the streets and would like to take care of this loose end. The Counsellor has only been left one option and that is to enter to world of the shadows and start over once again, or die on the streets hungry, alone and afraid.

Page Written By: Henry Crandall