Death: Ilija's frequent trips to the Undercity attracted a great deal of suspicion from the Ministry. After covert surveillance revealed an unusual behavior pattern in the young hybrid, the Ministry initially summoned him for routine questioning, which was ended by a firm cautioning against the dangers of dealing in the Undercity among the outer class for such a great deal of time.
However Ilija did not heed the Ministry's warnings and continued his activities shortly after. When his clumsy vigilante acts unknowingly crossed paths with an undercover Ministry operation and resulted in a disruption of the mission. This reckless act, coupled with his rather antisocial tendancies which added little to the betterment of the UniClass, deemed him an undesirable by the Ministry.
Since he hadn't commited any official crim, Ilija was not punished overtly, but instead died in what the press called a "terrible purebred hate crime against an innocent hybrid" in which he was mysteriously murdered in a drive-by shooting while on one of his Undercity trips. A handful of outer class "suspects" were captured and sentenced for, according to the Ministry, taking part in his shooting to provide a satisfying resolution to his case.
“We are reasoning rather than reasonable”
Player: Epemral
Character Name: Ilija Dragomir
Age: 19
Sex: Male
Species: Striped Hyena and Ocelot
Height/Weight: 6'0 180 lbs
Social Status: UniClass
Physical Description: Ilija has the physique of a middleweight boxer. He retains the shimmering silver-blue fur and tail of his hyena family, black marks from the feline side of his lineage thrown like inked brush-strokes over his body; the fur on his belly blends and fades into white. Each black-padded paw ends in several retractable but wickedly curved black claws. The short mane running down his neck is velvet-black, with a few stripes of silver thrown in here and there. Both of his eyes are piercing silver. Thin white and black whiskers sprout from his muzzle and just above his eyes and his fangs are unusually sharp.
When serving as a bodyguard he's usually in a suit of expertly sculpted, non-reflective silver armor. The long-nosed helmet's carved into the visage of a dragon, the open, snarling maw and narrowed eye-slits suggesting a roar of anger or defiance. Two obsidian antlers extend from the back of the helm and a thick, white mane of synth-fur cascades from between them down the wearer's back. Black robes flow up into the armor, pooling around his feet and giving him an almost priest-like look. Every piece of armor's padded on the inside with synth-fur and leather, and under this there's a second suit of tight, form-fitting leather armor. A thick plastic riot shield along with his thunder lance is usually slung over his back when not in use. Strapped to his thigh and hidden under his robes for quick access are a long-bladed knife and silver pistol. There's a compact communicator on the inside of his helmet. The thunder lance he carries is his own creation: a weapon as tall as he is, made of shimmering metal. Its haft is wrapped in thick, black non-conductive tape. The weapon's settings are adjusted with a dial located near the 'shock-stud', the activation button for the spear’s power field. For safety's sake Ilija usually carries it with the weapon powered-down. However, the charge the lance produces can also be manipulated to arc over short distances, providing him with a bit of range. Both depressing the activation stud and sharp impacts to the bottom of the spear can activate it.
He’s taken to disguising himself for his many trips through the mid and under-hives. Nothing overly complicated, just a white hoodie and faded black jeans; the hood’s always up, and large enough to keep most of his features hidden from sight unless under inspection from perceptive eyes. His tail’s bound in white cloth, both to shelter the appendage from the biting cold and to conceal it as well. Under his clothes he wears a form fitting, semi-armored bodyglove, more for a minimum of protection than for extra warmth. His telsa spear’s bundled up with burlap; two simple, loose knots near either end secure it just enough to keep the cloth wrapped around his lance.
Background: Initially, the hybrid’s name had simply been Shepard. A little pup, his father used to say, that had dropped right out of a thunderstorm into his mother's arms. Every time he said that the child would grin like an idiot and do his best impression of the rumble of rolling thunder; his parents had always considered that his version of a first word. He was raised in the colony of Essex, proclaimed by its citizens to be the ‘city of thunder’. Storms were commonplace there, so much so that a veil of smoke born of nightgrass fires often obscured the settlement. By some odd stroke of events (or, as it’s written in Einheit’s records, genetic meddling), the native population of Essex developed their own special characteristic: silver eyes. Ilija inherited this trait from his hyena mother.
Ilija’s father had found his way to Essex from the fungal forests of his home colony by way of his trade, which was the buying and selling of AI technology and components; it still baffles Ilija how his parents ever managed to meet in the first place. To his knowledge, his mother had been a doctor at the settlement’s hospital when the two met. He doesn’t know much else.
Through most of the Species War, Essex went under the radar. By all intents and purposes, they were neutral, peace-loving people. However, as the War outside the settlement raged on into its final years, refugees began to arrive. A trickle soon became a flood, and it wasn’t long before the displaced colonial species outnumbered the natives. Along with this new wave of uninvited guests came a sea of disease, violence and fanaticism. The hospital overflowed with the hurt and dying, the streets became a religious battleground; law enforcement was nothing but a distant memory.
Einheit’s ultimatum came at a time when the original population of Essex had become the target of a witch-hunt. It was during these last frantic days that Ilija lost his parents, but not before his passage on a Ministry rescue ship had been guaranteed. A curiosity to see what his dead colony looks like has burned in him ever since he learned of Operation Boreas.
Like other hybrids rescued from the colonies, Ilija was raised in a community environment. Rather than being nurtured and cared for by true parents he lived and learned with other hybrids. He was taught the idea of sacrifice: the forfeiting of one’s rights, even one’s life, for the sake of the whole. That ‘whole’, he was forced to see, was no longer family or friends. He was almost immediately ‘adopted’ (in this case his adoption was simply to groom him for future services) once he had finished his schooling. The rest, as they say, is history.
Personality: Ilija has always found conversation with fellow hybrids to be strained at the best of times, painfully short and to-the-point at the worst. Unlike many others, he sees cults, not purebreds themselves, as the source of many of the world’s evils, and has begun to take a proactive- and very puritanical- approach to the problem. Although he considers himself a perceptive individual, his thought process works in terms of black-and-white; there’s good, there’s evil, and there’s nothing else. Although he travels through the purebred-dominant portions of Einheit often, he hasn’t seen much of its darker world, so his mind’s still relatively innocent. The telsa spear he carries serves as both his weapon and his comfort, and when pressed or agitated he’ll often toy with the weapon to take his mind off the issues at hand. Certain noises and objects easily attract his attention.
He’s a very visual thinker, making more use of images and their associations than his other senses for information purposes. Even with his visual-based method of thinking he's an enthusiastic lover of music, leaning towards tunes that are easy on the ears and relaxing to the mind.
Weapons/Equipment: Handmade thunder lance (telsa spear), pistol and long-bladed knife, all of which are licensed.