IMPEDIO SOCIETY. BRANDT, SEBASTIAN

Male

Heterosexual

Twenty Four

October 26, 1988

German-American.

German. Italian (Basic +). English. Sign Language. More Details On Main App.

Currently none.

1.50
(0.50 without item)

Impedio Society

n/a

Sekhem’s Safeguard

10/4/13 - Jess

CATHAL

ATTICUS JAEGER
MIRACH DIA
DOMINIC MARSTEN
ELENA ANDERSON

No.

Hans Günsche from Hellsing

Sebastian has found himself in the precarious situation of owning a small, personal apartment in LA for the sake of saving expenses, even if it places him close to the more "shady" sections of the city. He can afford the simple things most people his age bother to have for the sake of necessity, but doesn't possess much in the way of luxury items, particularly as he has a bad habit of leaving home for days on end. You could technically classify his living situation as lower middle class, but it would be highly inaccurate as a permanent status, as Sebastian is prone to hoarding his money and never spending it. In other words, he has the capacity to move up, particularly with the funds funneled into his account from his parents and the society, but he's content, for the moment, to stay exactly where he is. Most of his time is now spent at the Headquarters or out in the field anyway.

Artifact Hunter/Patrician Status: Sebastian's current job within the Society. He prefers to spend time out in the field, either testing new weapons, locating them in foreign lands and bringing them back, or tracking them down in the city of L.A. (For some reason L.A. has had a rash of sudden magical items cropping up everywhere, which scarcely happened in Italy). Sebastian has more than enough combat experience to get by in this job, but most noticeable about his position is how independent he is from teams or groups, which he is attempting to correct for a number of reasons.

Ex-Creature Hunter/Patrician Status: After the incident that took place Varese, Italy, Lorenzo Salvatore "suggested" that Sebastian switch career paths, concerned that the young man's "impediment" might affect his ability to work well in a combat specialized team that required intensive communication between members. Suffering a mild case of depression and intense frustration with his new impairment, he accepted Lorenzo's judgment, though he also knew damn well that fighting a man that adamant was impossible. To save face, Sebastian stepped down from the position willingly and rehashed his skills to fit the path of independent, instead of team based, Artifact Hunters. He had aspirations to resume his status as a fully fledged Creature Hunter in the future, but has found it difficult. His transfer to L.A. still has him listed as an Artifact Hunter, with a firm approval of that job by Lorenzo (not helping).  In order to reclaim the job he actually wants, there's a good chance that Sebastian will have to resubmit himself to training with the rest of the recruits and trainees, particularly as he's been raised and trained mostly abroad of the U.S., and some believe foreign standards of training might not be as intensive as those in the U.S.  Anyone could understand how that would be irritating. (Hence: Ich hasse dich.)

Basics: Sebastian does not blend with a crowd very well. He's a 6'3" tall guy with light hair and aggravating bangs that often creep into his line of sight, an intense, amber-eyed gaze and an uncanny silence about him. He does have a preference for keeping to himself in a crowd, which only makes him seem all the more unapproachable, and as if that isn't enough, there's frequently a language barrier between him and his peers. Health wise, he's athletic and physically fit (further raising the intimidation factor), but he does bear the brunt of numerous scars and "war" wounds from his past years as a Creature Hunter. They range in size from thin, finger sized scratches to deep, clawing rivets--the most pronounced of them hooking around his back and toward his lower abdomen. Though these are the most physically obvious ones, Sebastian's also lost a fair amount of his hearing capability in a battle with a Fate monster. To this day he still suffers spontaneous, extreme "ringing" headaches and unpredictable bouts of deafness, however he's become adept at reading lips and using sign language when he can't hear or doesn't feel the urge to speak.

Other: Mind the German accent and the trouble he seems to have pronouncing certain sounds in the English language (not to mention understanding slang or more modern phrases). Sebastian also relies rather heavily upon sign language to communicate when he doesn't feel like speaking or feeling self conscious about his accent (nobody ever seems to not notice). Because of minor difficulties with English as well, this is always a fallback.

Most people, particularly new recruits or even a few Patricians, take one look at Sebastian and peg him for the kind of guy that doesn’t enjoy the thought of company and certainly isn’t looking for it. He has a distinctly self-reliant atmosphere about him, and because of his recent transfer, doesn’t seem to have much in the way of what you’d call ‘friends’ to socialize with either, further affirming their assumptions. Rather, Sebastian spends most of his day seemingly brooding around the laboratories, testing new equipment, tracking down artifacts or dedicating free time to combat training and personal advancement, completing his duties with a fierce, single-minded determination before setting out to look for more work. It’s given him quite the cold, stoic, and relentless reputation around headquarters, which in some ways, he’s content with. Assumptions amuse him and serve a purpose after all. At times he is abrasive and distant, locked in his own thoughts and hesitant to speak with others, but you would be poorly misguided to think Sebastian is cruel, frigid and completely dismissive of others.

He used to work on an team, after all.

The reason Sebastian doesn’t socialize more with his peers is simple: he suffers from a serious condition that is slowly debilitating his ability to hear. One day, he fully expects for it to render him completely deaf. This is naturally an extremely frustrating discovery, often complicating matters of communication and further drawing him into himself. To make it worse, Sebastian is a naturally quiet person, and he hates drawing too much attention, especially in large crowds, which often can’t be helped (a thick German accent, a tall height, pale hair and an athletic build has a tendency to do that). When he isn’t in the mood to speak he often interacts with others more through gestures, expressions and sign language, which, quite frankly, might be too much to ask some people to bother with. Though he often laughs about it to himself later, Sebastian is well aware he’s a general pain in the ass to talk to and put up with, so he doesn’t hold it against anyone for keeping their distance. Sadly enough, he's grown used to the alone time; some of his childhood charm and charisma has become rough around the edges because of it.

However, for all the focus he puts in his work and the ruthlessness he displays in the field and in combat exercises, Sebastian is respectful, even gentle. Granted, he has no problem speaking his mind when he disagrees with a decision or has an opinion that differs from someone else’s, but generally speaking he isn’t dismissive, easily angered, or particularly stubborn. Once you've managed to get on his good side, he's loyal and ironically enough--somebody that's easy to talk to. Sebastian's a fairly open guy, and wouldn’t mind the company or a chance to work on a team again (he just needs to kick himself into gear and be given the chance), but most people can't see past what he exposes to the rest of the world. If anything, it could serve to feed an intellectual side he’s been neglecting, and might help to take his mind off of his personal problems; thankfully, while he's lost some of his natural talent at pizzazz with communication, he's not an idiot, and fully capable of behaving like a rational, reasonable adult. Simply put, some things plague him more than others.

Like the damned headache that frequently, and randomly, imposes itself upon him through the span of a week. On bad days he’s more prone to giving everybody the silent treatment or growling out his frustration toward the people he actually cares about, even if he doesn’t mean it. Sebastian also has intense night terrors about the monster that induced these lasting pangs (another thing he doesn't want to discuss), and when he’s experiencing a particularly nasty bout of it he actually does lose his cool and take it out on the nearest inanimate objects he can find. At least he’s kind enough not to vent his frustration out on actual people. As such, his sleeping habits are rather poor and all over the place; he frequently looks as if he could always use an extra hour or two of rest because he doesn’t bother to sleep as much as he should. He’s considered a night owl because of how often he gets up in the middle of the night because of these fits, before desperately seeking more work to distract himself with. If he can’t manage that, he’s off to the shooting range, venting bullets at a target, pushing weights or repeating training exercises.

It's all the same.

Sebastian spent much of his childhood years, up until the age of 14, in Germany. He was relatively unaware of his family origins or the obligations he would have to answer to, primarily because his parents were not married and it wasn’t deemed necessary at the time. His father, American military (Marines), would acknowledge paternity in writing under oath (a process that included multiple significant court sessions) finally granting Sebastian U.S. citizenship and making it much easier for the boy to visit the United States for extended periods of time. This was mostly for the sake of knowing his father, which thereby introduced him to English as a second language. While Sebastian’s mother was charming and charismatic (traits he himself sometimes shows hints of), his father was a very different sort of person. No, the man wasn’t cruel or in any way treated his son poorly—but his personality was overbearing. He was a large man with equally large ambitions and expectations for his son, perhaps because he had no one else. Nonetheless, in the middle of his 14th year, Sebastian was introduced to his father’s second role in the Impedio Society, and all that it entailed.

This did not go over well, not immediately. Sebastian was forced to grow up quickly because of his family situation, and it is very difficult for a teenager, who up until then, had lived a relatively normal life, only to be reintroduced to concepts of monsters and magic again, this time with the express purpose of impressing upon him the fact that they were real, not fake. This bitterness with his father lasted months, and if Sebastian had been given a choice about it, would likely have never involved himself in the Society’s business and forgotten about the whole thing. Unfortunately, his father already set things up with the Italian branch. It took effort (and money) to convince his mother to pick up stakes and move their son so suddenly, enrolling him in this supposedly “important” training while simultaneously finishing the rest of his basic education there as well, but it was done. The Society was always on the lookout for more recruits and trainees anyway; people were often lost in the field, and the benefits they would both receive from it were irresistible.

Regardless, it was a shit thing for his father to do, and though Sebastian would argue he and his father are on speaking terms, he has never forgiven him for the complete and utter lack of consideration—or choice—that was offered there. It was simply assumed he wanted to be part of the Society and would be part of it.

Ironically, Sebastian lost some of the easy going attitude he’d grown up with and adopted his father’s hard, focused determination around this time. He meant to give his parents the cold shoulder and instead became more like his dad than he wanted to. The single mindedness suited him well; he excelled at physical training, and spent four years, until the age of 18, honing skills, relegating free time to the Impedio Society and studying the overall fate phenomenon and history, though he would never get too far on the latter. His father hadn’t been particularly high in ranking, and therefore what Sebastian was allowed to know was relegated to an area of “not much”. He was simply told what to do and completed it. Lorenzo expected nothing more and nothing less. He was finally granted an artifact and expected to take part on team missions to hunt and kill low ranked fate creatures. He excelled at this for three years, slowly moving up the ranks until Lorenzo pushed to put him on a more intensive team.

Which would end poorly.

Sebastian was twenty one years old when he and his team met Grido Verde, the “Green Shriek”. A large, lithe, salamander type monster about the size of a horse, it became most infamous for its lungs, barreled chest, and the earsplitting, ringing shrieks that left its throat after a deep inhale. If there is one thing Sebastian remembers, even during moments when he can hear nothing, it is the sound of that lizard sucking back air into its broad, glistening muzzle, that heavy chest inflating like an absurd balloon before it released its cry, and the inexplicable screech that punched the air and made your ears bleed. They had arrived under the assumption that specialized equipment would spare them, but no amount of technologically advanced sound nullifiers spared them. In the beginning, Sebastian had been able to fend off these cries after their equipment shattered under the brunt force of those shrieks—much to the suffering of his team mates—thanks to his personal artifact. He covered his ears with his hands, using the barrier magic of Sekhem’s Finger Bones to repel the Grido Verde’s attacks. It worked; though his teammates were quickly left stumbling, dizzy or unconscious, their ears and noses gushing blood after their equipment broke during the first few minutes.

In short, the first wave of attack was a complete disaster, and Grido Verde used the abject confusion and disorientation of Sebastian’s team to its advantage; it fled, and eventually found itself close to a smaller town in the countryside of Italy. This time Lorenzo would order more forces out there to deal with the monster, while simultaneously equipping his Hunters with the best defensive artifacts that they had in their possession. Again, Grido Verde overwhelmed their forces, though Sebastian and the rest of the Hunters had plenty of opportunity to get enough shots in and weaken it horribly. Limping, bruised, bleeding and terrified for its life, it retreated—straight to the one place where they didn’t want it to be: the town. Exhausted but duty bound, the Hunters took after it. Grido Verde was fast and fierce in battle, making him extremely difficult to pin down and kill, but no one was willing to abandon their task, and Lorenzo was not about to pull his people out.

So they rose to the challenge and hunted the creature down in this town—it was devastating for the people that lived there, and the destruction and cataclysmic nature of the battle itself was a bitch to clean up later, but it was done nonetheless.

It was here, in the last moments before its death, that Sebastian suffered the full brunt of one of those whistling shrieks. A little girl, caught in the fray after chasing Grido Verde through the streets, had her hands clasped over her ears, tears streaming down her face as she cried. The monster had already destroyed numerous areas, and cost several lives. She now stood behind the rubble of a home that might have been hers, coated in dust, dirt, scrapes and bruises. She must have barely been six years old. While his comrades moved in on Grido Verde, Sebastian noticed her; he froze for a long minute, contemplating what he would do. It was admittedly, a difficult decision. The hesitation he felt in that moment still bothers him, but eventually he chose to go after the little girl. He must have been a center, a calm, physically strong point in the chaos that happened just beyond that rubble. He would smile and speak gently as he pulled her hands away from her ears. He would sit with her for a few seconds that seemed more like minutes, revealing to her the secret magic of his rings as he comforted her.

Eventually he would take them off, he would give them to her, he would tell her to cover her ears and wait. He would promise everything would be okay, and then suddenly, he would leave. Time would crash back on them both, an unforgiving tidal wave of hectic action. Sebastian would steal some equipment from a fallen comrade and resume the fight, but again, no amount of protective headgear could compete with his artifact. By the time he and his companions drew closer to Grido Verde and readied the killing blows, his gear was thoroughly damaged. The monster released a last dying cry; a sound that would ring forever in his memory and haunt his ears. He would be rendered deaf for the first few months that followed, with spurts of sound breaking through like bad static.

But Grido Verde was dead. Sebastian was able to recover his rings, but collapsed not long afterward, intensely dizzy and out of sorts; he would later be told he was bleeding from his ears and nose when they found him, mumbling and dazed amongst the dust. He was hospitalized for weeks following the incident, but would eventually move back to Germany for a full year of rest and recovery. By some miracle or grace of god, his hearing was not entirely lost—in fact he was shocked to learn that it had begun to return to him more regularly before fading back into the voidless nothing. Sebastian was forced to resort to sign language, just in case, but by the time he returned to the Society, Lorenzo had already reasoned he, like many of the other afflicted individuals, needed to be reassigned for everyone’s safety.

It was difficult to digest.

Eventually he would be convinced by his father, after a two more years of excelling as an independent Artifact Hunter, to transfer. Surprisingly, Lorenzo gave him the best blessing he could offer—an outstanding recommendation. He was unaware Sebastian wanted to restore his former occupation of Creature Hunter and resume work on a team, but he was nonetheless allowed to go, particularly with L.A. suffering a flare of fate activity.

And that, my friends, is why there’s a German guy running around L.A. headquarters.

It is important to note that Sebastian has been primarily raised abroad, even if his father acknowledged paternity under oath and granted him U.S. citizenship after he was born. Much of his childhood and some of his teenage years were spent in Germany, with lengthy visits to America to visit his father, before he joined up with the Society in Italy, working under Lorenzo Salvatore. English was more or less his second language at this point. However, the move is where his basic knowledge of the Italian language stems from as well—he lived and trained there for six years, so it would be extremely important that he learned to at least speak and read it half decently. The understanding of sign language followed directly after this, when the accident happened. He studied and relied on it heavily in the beginning, as he was extremely vulnerable in the first year or so, when he returned to Germany to rest and recuperate; thankfully he was a fast learner and adapted accordingly. Now that he’s in America again, he’s finding it interesting to fall back on English and its complicated ugliness, but what the hell. He’s dealt with change before and doesn’t see this as a particularly daunting hurdle. Just an annoying one.

Sekhem’s Safeguard

Defensive Item. Potential for Offensive Development.

This artifact is actually a complete set of ten, solid white, bone rings, fashioned from the skeletal remains of an ancient Egyptian sphinx named Sekhem. Sebastian wears all ten of them on his fingers and thumbs, and they are magically inclined to fit the hand of the person that possesses them, making it difficult for anyone but that person to remove. It is also impossible to use their gift without the complete set of ten—primarily because after many years of wear and tear, the magic has begun to show hints of weakness. While the rings themselves are delicate, when their magic is pulled or used, they have the capability to enshroud or coat the hands of its master in a near impenetrable field of white, crackling energy that can repel the elements and behave as a powerful, physical shield. Though its range is small (therefore requiring great skill and willpower to manipulate) and this shield can be broken with enough hits, these rings are usually only helpful in a one on one circumstance. Sebastian has utilized them in the past to stave off the jaws of beasts without their teeth gouging or snapping off his fingers and they’ve come in handy fending off elemental strikes. These days they are relegated more to the use of handling volatile artifacts with elemental affinities and helping him in the field, though it was once said these rings had the capacity to offer much more, their limitation defined by the imagination of the owner. Technically speaking, Sebastian could will or manipulate this energy into different forms, making larger shields or even weapons forged by their magic, but that requires much more training and time spent using them. At the moment they are at their most basic level of tolerance for him, and therefore only offer the most basic protection.