Trailblazers

Blazers are an aspect of the Crimson Blaze theme.

Trailblazers

Short for 'Trailblazers', Blazers are humans designed from the DNA up and enhanced with cutting edge cybernetics to avenge humanity's destruction at the hands of the Rastala. The development project that produced them no longer exists, destroyed a hundred years ago by the Rastala or the plague or the supervolcano or the lunar debris impacts or the worldwide nuclear offensive.

Designed also to spearhead the re-introduction of humanity into the world, Blazers are engineered to be highly resistant to the hostile environment they'd be exposed to. They are unaffected by temperature extremes, being just as comfortable in desert heat or on Antarctic ice. Blazers are also highly resistant to toxins, pollution, and high levels of radiation.

The nature of the augmentations that produced the Blazers has given them access to a mysterious natural energy that has since been named Chakra. Manipulation of Chakra allows Blazers to warp physics and perform feats that would be impossible even for their finely tuned bodies. Their weapons strike harder, and in turn they are much harder to injure, than their appearances would suggest. Manipulating Chakra also allows them to augment their attacks to have crippling effects on their enemies or curative effects on themselves and other Blazers.

Chakra allows a Blazer to fight in any clothing what-so-ever, as their chakra protects them better than any suit of armor ever could. Blazers do prefer certain kinds of materials for clothing, however, if only because these materials can survive the punishment that a Blazer's typical life puts their clothes through. Even a plain-clothes Blazer probably wears a skintight suit underneath for this reason.

There are currently eight Blazers known; each one has been designed with a specific role in mind, and engineered both physically and mentally to master a specific weapon in pursuit of that role.

The weapons used by Blazers are the most cutting edge devices that could be produced by the Ark Project, fusing human ingenuity with Rastala technology. Combined with their respective wielders, these weapons should turn the Blazers into the ultimate weapons against these destructive aliens should they ever return. Blazers undergo serious mental conditioning alongside their genetic and cybernetic augmentation. In some cases, this training aids or enables them to fulfill their roles in combat. In every case, aspects of the conditioning help to instill loyalty towards the Neo-Human race (and humans in general) while also driving Blazers to be less tolerant of non-humans such as the often-murderous mutant creatures inhabiting the surface, and the Rastala.

As a result of the severe mental conditioning and combat training, however, Blazers are almost universally socially retarded. To help fix this, post-activation Blazers are assigned to a Mentor. A Mentor is a Neo-Human (or an approved Multiversal Elite) assigned to interact with their Blazer and temper the weapon she was born to be into a well-rounded human being who is capable of functioning off the battlefield as well as on it. The secondary function of the Mentor program is to provide additional loyalty anchors to the Blazers and make them even more unlikely to turn on their creators.

Mentor

Mentorship comes with the responsibility of wielding the assigned Blazer’s Controller. The Controller is a bracelet worn by the mentor. It is directly powered by the wearer’s biometrics and is uniquely encoded to burn out if exposed to passive chakra fields, meaning Blazers are incapable of wearing them. The Controller’s purpose comes in when it is removed or when the wearer dies: When shutting down, which happens within a few seconds of either case, the Controller emits a signal which causes the corresponding Blazer’s cybernetics to shut down. This leaves her with no augmentations and puts her at a level about equal to a Neo-Human in light armor. Though she still retains her ability to use Chakra, all of her gear which requires Chakra to function no longer works and as a result her Chakra use is a lot less refined. The condition is reversed by re-powering the bracelet. Due to the Controller, Mentors also act as a “leash” for the Blazers, an additional level of control insisted upon by the Defense Force. The socialization aspect of the Mentor program is the brainchild of die-hard Freelanders.

Blazers by Class

Melee

• BZ-01 Cleaver (Corrosive) – (Debuffs) The Cleaver is the master of suffering. Possessing both an innate connection to corrosive chakra and absolutely no interest in healing others with it, she utilizes her intimacy to push her chakra's destructive influence as far as possible. Her specialty is in doing great damage over extended periods, reducing enemy capabilities, and slashing them apart with intense combination attacks. Her weapon is the Reaper, a war scythe designed with a mono-molecular edge. A narrow chakra engine on the back of the blade can be activated remotely, adding considerable force to her swings on demand.
• BZ-02 Defender (Gravity) – (Tank) The Defender is the master of the melee. Her innate connection to gravity chakra has resulted in an incredible passive defense which, when bolstered by active use of her chakra, results in a nearly impenetrable defense. Capable of wading into battle, attracting the attention of her enemies, and shrugging off incredible amounts of damage or regenerating what injuries she does sustain, the Defender becomes something of a juggernaut in combat. Her weapon is the Guillotine, an enormous modular sword with a blade comprised of numerous smaller blades. The edge can change from smooth to jagged on mental command. The Guillotine is also well suited to channeling Chakra offensively into ranged attacks.
• BZ-03 Lasher (Plasma) – (AoE) The Lasher is the master of area control. Utilizing her innate connection with plasma chakra and her segmented whip-sword, Scourge, the Lasher's use of chakra involves numerous wide-area attacks that seriously injure or kill everything within reach. The most important cybernetic augmentation the Lasher possesses is a system that greatly enhances her peripheral vision, giving others the impression she can see in all directions at once. In combat, her behavior is quite bloodthirsty, transforming her into an image of savage grace on the battlefield.
• BZ-04 Whisper (Atomic) – (Focused) The Whisper is the master of assassination. Her innate connection to atomic chakra helps her when she attacks, disrupting her enemies' attempts to fight back or escape. A combination of chakra and cybernetic augmentation allows her to completely fade from sight, giving the Whisper opportunities to make surprise attacks even in broad daylight. Her weapon of choice is a pair of enormous mono-molecular wrist claws, known only as Talons. Channeling chakra through her Talons, the Whisper can ambush a single target and deal an incredible amount of damage very quickly.
• Unused (Particle) – There is no current melee Blazer with an innate connection to Particle chakra.

Ranged

• BZ-06 Blaster (Plasma) – (AoE) The Blaster is the master of bombardment. She uses her innate connection to plasma chakra to empower destructive long range assaults over a large area, hammering enemies even if they are behind cover and protected from more direct attacks. She is known to empower her bombardments with other chakras to debilitate her foes as well as causing great harm. Easily the most potentially destructive of the Blazers, she makes use of augmentations which allow her to perfectly calculate arc trajectories as well as any blast radius in order to minimize unwanted collateral damage. Her weapon is a multi-function Rastala energy cannon called the Trebuchet, which resembles a futuristic rocket launcher with an impressive bayonet. The Blaster does not hesitate to use either.
• BZ-07 Medic (Corrosive) – (Heals/Buffs/Debuffs) The Medic is the master of support. Though some might consider her weaker than her sisters on an individual basis, her mastery of corrosive chakra is so great that she regularly utilizes it to heal rather than harm. In a supporting role, she's the lynchpin of the Blazers in any group offensive. She has also devised numerous assistive uses of other chakras, shielding or increasing the capabilities of her allies. Along with her chakra, her shield-like Aegis contains a small chemical production plant which produces anesthetics, coagulants, curative drugs, and other helpful chemicals that assist the Medic's chakra from the side of science. Additionally, the Aegis also produces a variety of toxins to aid the Medic's use of chakra in debilitating her enemies.
• BZ-08 Punisher (Atomic) – (Focused) The Punisher is the master of long range elimination. Her innate connection to atomic chakra gives her shots incredible disruptive power, allowing her to more easily kill a target that has somehow survived the first shot. Her focus is on single target eradication, focusing her chakra attacks on causing as much pain to one victim as possible from as great a distance as possible. Like the Blaster, she possesses augmentations which allow her to accurately calculate arcing trajectories for the purposes of estimating bullet drop over long range. Additionally, she can accurately calculate wind speed and direction just by feeling it blow against her skin. The Punisher's weapon is the Ballista, a Rastala energy cannon repurposed into a sniper rifle, which boasts incredible power and range for its size.
• BZ-09 Slinger (Particle) – (Anti-Tank) The Slinger is the master of mobility. Harmless-looking by design, her innate connection with particle chakra enables her to empower shots from her Stiletto energy pistols so that they ignore harder materials. This gives her pistols an innate armor piercing quality which makes her uniquely suited to contending with robots, heavy armor, mechs, or other machines. The Slinger also uses chakra to augment her mobility, bending physics to allow for impossible athletic feats which give her an enormous advantage against more heavily armored opponents who would typically be much slower.

• Unused (Gravity) – There is no current ranged Blazer with an innate connection to Gravity chakra.

Blazer Mechs

Each Blazer has access to a personal Mech. Unlike the Mechs fielded by un-augmented Neo-Humans, the Blazer Mechs directly utilize Rastala technology, which in turn allows these mechs to channel their pilot’s Chakra. Additionally, the mechs used by the Blazers are controlled through thought impulses rather than proper controls, allowing them to be controlled as if they were their user’s own body. The Mech is called on demand, materializing around the Blazer’s body instantaneously and drawing power from the user’s Chakra in lieu of a bulky on-board power source, which makes them light and fast but limits the Blazer’s ability to use them to short periods.

Melee

• BZ-01X Shiva (Cleaver) – The Shiva mech has been designed to accentuate the Cleaver’s speed and strength, while granting her a larger weapon with which to carve through large groups of smaller foes. The Shiva’s Harvester is an enormous scythe with a chakra engine, similar to the Reaper it replaces. The difference is the blade is articulated and can assume a variety of positions, allowing it to be used in numerous deadly forms. Within the Shiva, the Cleaver becomes an envoy of death for her foes.
• BZ-02X Freya (Defender) – Inside the Heavily-armored Freya Mech, the Defender becomes a veritable juggernaut. She cleaves through her enemies with Freya’s flaming sword, swatting away attacks from creatures ten times her size. When surrounded by smaller foes, she can spin her blade to cause a burning cyclone, damaging anything in the area. With the full power of the Freya behind her, the Defender is practically unstoppable.
• BZ-03X Athena (Lasher) – Though the Lasher is already incredibly dangerous in a melee, the Athena mech amplifies her strengths tenfold. Its elongated, segmented, serpentine arms grant an unmatched range of motion, and the Athena’s Energy Lash demolishes anything it comes in contact with. Based on captured Rastala technology, this fearsome Mech allows the Lasher to burn through anything that stands against her.
• BZ-04X Epona (Whisper) – Abandoning stealth in favor of pure power, the Epona mech transforms the Whisper into an implacable hunter. Centauroid in design, the Epona’s four feet grant incredible speed as well as unmatched agility, allowing the Whisper to quickly close distance with her prey. Its lightning fast speed and raw strength ensure that with the Epona, no one can escape the Whisper’s sights.

Ranged

• BZ-06X Hestia (Blaster) – The Hestia mech combines the Blaster’s talent for wide area assaults with the explosive might and heavy armor of a battleship. It abandons any pretense of subtlety that the Blaster’s ordinary loadout might attempt to allude to. With its massive shoulder mounted plasma shell launchers, it rains destruction down on the Blaster’s enemies in untold amounts. If enough chakra is pushed into the Hestia’s weapons, the Blaster is capable of relocating mountains while boasting enough armor to survive front line combat.
• BZ-07X Kali (Medic) – By empowering both her combat and healing capabilities, the Kali Mech transforms the Medic into an invaluable asset on the field. Heavy plating keeps her alive in even the worst firefights, and the Kali’s chakra system amplifies the capabilities of her Aegis. The Kali’s true strength, though, comes in the form of its ability to mass-produce fields of nanobots. Using this technology, the Medic can deploy a strategic safe-haven in the middle of a hectic battlefield, passively healing any allies in the area and turning the battle in their favor.
• BZ-08X Ishtar (Punisher) – The Ishtar mech combines the accuracy of a sniper with the firepower of a Rastala gunship. Twin artillery arrays built into the Ishtar’s chest and shoulders grant deadly area suppression ability, while the mech’s massive rail gun allows the Punisher to utilize her long-ranged skills at their full potential. While the Punisher is a valuable addition to the Blazers, the Ishtar transforms her into a one-woman army.
• BZ-09X Kumori (Slinger) – Specifically designed to accommodate her smaller size, the Kumori mech arms the Slinger with a deadly rapid-fire machine gun. While the Kumori is lighter and more fragile than those used by other Blazers, it amplifies the Slinger’s already impressive mobility and allows her to employ devastating hit-and-run assaults. The Kumori clearly amplifies the Slinger’s strengths while covering for its pilot’s fragility, though its armor is too light for front line combat.