Application to thewake

[passengerseatdriver]

Personal Information
Name: Cybra
Age: 28
Personal Journal: cybra
Email / AIM / Plurk: CybraRP(@)gmail.com / CybraRP / CybraRP
Current Character(s): Six, Luna, Aya, Death the Kid

Character Information
Character Name: Chuck
Fandom: Motorcity
Source: Wikipedia article


Character History:
Note: All episode information is listed in production rather than air date order since they were not always released in the correct order.

Approximately 150 years in the future, Abraham Kane--the billionaire owner of Kane Co--built a city on top of what remained of Detroit, Michigan, along with a good portion of the rest of the state. He called this city "Detroit Deluxe". It was clean and shone brightly, having the latest in modern technology. The citizens were well-cared for and had everything they needed.

However, this Utopia came at a steep price. Personal freedoms were largely banned. Everything in Deluxe was uniform, everyone wearing the same bland clothes, having the same homes, the same bland food, and the same transportation in pods. The city was run like a police state with armed guards everywhere, ensuring that the civilian populace didn't get out of line. Each citizen was simply one more part of the collective whole, all of them under Kane's control.

Still, there were those who recognized the price and were unwilling to pay it. They took refuge in old Detroit, scrounging out a living by growing their own food and building their homes and even their own cars--absolutely forbidden in Deluxe--from scraps. They called this refuge "Motorcity" in honor of Detroit's history.

Unfortunately, Kane was not interested in letting these "rebels" go free. He planned to annex Motorcity and worked to actively destroy it, trying to bring more people back into the Deluxian fold. He largely stood unopposed; the Motorcitizens remained at Kane's mercy.

That is until Mike Chilton, groomed by Kane himself to lead, opened his eyes and saw the evil his boss was really doing and rebelled. He evacuated an apartment building, saving the people though not their homes from the wrecking ball. With his mentor, Kane's former partner Jacob, he would go on to form a group of brave teenagers known as "the Burners" to oppose Kane. Protecting the citizens of Motorcity, they put their lives on the line to ensure that each person had the right to fulfill Motorcity's motto: "Live fast, live free."

Almost a year after Mike's arrival in Motorcity, the fusion battery in the defense grid for the Eastside Gate was dying. Without the grid, Kane's larger attack bots would be able to get through to attack Motorcity. Julie--the Burner's spy who worked as an intern at Kane Co when she wasn't in Motorcity with the guys--managed to pull up information that an attack was being planned by Kane to strike when the grid was down. The day before the attack, Chuck went to accompany Mike in retrieving a new fusion battery from the Under Depths of Motorcity. The two managed to locate a new battery rather easily in an abandoned auto parts store. As Mike went to pull a custom gear shift knob in the shape of a skull from between two shelves, Julie contacted them to let them know that Kane had upped his attack plans and an Ultra Golem was on the way. Pulling the gear knob free and the entire store collapsing around them, Mike and Chuck hurried back to their car Mutt to race back to the gate. As the Ultra Golem stuck its head through where the gate's lasers should've been, they arrived on the scene, Mike slamming the fusion battery into place to reactivate the laser grid. The head of the golem came off and formed a small robot only to be easily defeated by Mike and his spark staff.

Kane sent a message out to all of Motorcity, calling Mike a coward who would abandon Motorcity at the first opportunity. He even claimed that Mike had abandoned his post in Deluxe not because of heroism but because he was afraid. Despite the reassurances of Chuck and the other Burners, the taunt got under Mike's skin. When Kane announced a special, live appearance in Deluxe, Mike jumped at the chance to strike. While Julie tried to find out what was really going on up in Deluxe, Mike led Chuck, Texas, and Dutch in an attack to attempt to capture Kane.

Unfortunately, Julie's warning that it was a trap came too late. Kane had really been a hologram, and the four known Burners were caught. At the same time, Kane was sending smaller bots between the lasers of the security grid and combined to form not one but four Ultra Golems which immediately started attacking Motorcity. Mike berated himself for his mistakes, claiming he always got them into these kinds of messes. Chuck noted that this one was actually worse than normal but also stated that he trusted Mike to get them out of it.

Julie managed to hack open the pods that the other Burners--along with their drivers (and one passenger)--were trapped in. This allowed them to escape though Kane himself took up pursuit as the Burners fled for Motorcity. Julie rejoined the other Burners in her car 9Lives to take on the three Ultra Golems. Unfortunately, Kane had been improving his robots over the past year, and the Burners' weapons had little effect. However, with some quick maneuvering, they managed to destroy three of the Ultra Golems by having them shoot one another at the cost of disabling 9Lives, Texas's car Stronghorn, and Dutch's car Whiptail and leaving only Mutt mobile. The fourth Kane took direct command over by connecting his war pod to it. At Mike's suggestion, Chuck ejected out of Mutt as Mike went head-to-head with the Kane-driven Ultra Golem. Kane managed to catch the car and started crushing it, Mike still inside, but he used his spark staff in addition to his own natural speed and agility to get past the rockets being fired at him and damage the war pod enough that Kane was forced to retreat.

Not long after, Chuck went to the Burners' test track with Mike to test various upgrades including a speed boost to the engine and a last weapon called the Blast-o-saurus. While the testing of the weapon was a general success, Mike felt it still needed boosting due to Kane's own upgrades which had made them practically defenseless against the Ultra Golems. To test the speed boost, Mike suggested the Detroit Doom Jump, a massive ramp over a canyon that no driver had yet survived. Chuck ejected, too afraid to ride alongside what he saw as certain death. Julie interrupted the tests, the Burners having received an encrypted distress call that they needed Chuck to look at. Mike stopped Mutt just before going off the end of the Doom Jump and went to take Chuck back to their headquarters.

Chuck wasn't able to decrypt the message right away, but they did learn that it came from someone inside Kane Co Tower itself. Though it could've been a trap, Mike stated that they should check it out regardless. While Chuck worked on decrypting the rest of the message as they went, the Burners snuck into Kane Co using a utility bot they hid inside of. Chuck managed to decrypt the rest of the message, an SOS from Kane Co's head research scientist Dr. Hudson, warning them that Kane had developed a new, far more powerful weapon. Unfortunately, another utility bot (along with Mike's own terrible lying ability) sent them on to "re-manufacturing" where the robot they were hiding in would be destroyed with them still inside. Fortunately, they managed to jury-rig a motorized platform and snatch Dr. Hudson along with the weapon: a highly-unstable power core. The group retreated back to Motorcity.

The Burners' mentor Jacob--Kane's old partner back when Kane Co was about helping people--immediately suspected Hudson of being a spy, claiming that the teenagers had made a grave mistake in saving the scientist. There was no time to debate, however, as Kane had sent his robotic Hounds to sniff out the prototype power core. Chuck jammed the Hounds' signal so that the location of the Burners' garage remained elusive to Kane, but he absolutely refused Mike's idea to use the core to boost the strength of the Blast-o-saurus since it was too unstable with the potential to wipe out most of Michigan. Neither of the pair budged, Mike taking the power cell and getting into Mutt. When he pulled up beside Chuck, Chuck refused to get in. The other Burners awkwardly followed their leader out, but Chuck remained behind with Jacob and the now-bound Hudson.

Mike attempted to use the power core to boost the Blast-o-saurus, but the laser started to overheat, so he shut it down. The amount of power given off prompted Jacob to head over in his truck Sasquatch with Hudson and Chuck. When they arrived, the power core had been cracked when Mike had shot at the Hound that had stolen it. Hudson managed to patch the crack, but the reaction inside it was still happening. The overload had started and there was little they could do to stop it. They had neither the facilities or the tools to repair it properly. Siphoning off the energy was the best option, so Mike decided to use it in Mutt to power the engine. Chuck decided to go with him despite the danger since Mike needed him to make sure they stayed above 512 miles per hour or the core would overheat and detonate. While the Burners took out the Hound which had survived, Mike and Chuck continued on.

Needing to burn off more energy before the explosion, Mike took them to the Detroit Doom Jump, driving so fast that Mutt was literally coming apart as they drove. Mike attempted to eject Chuck, but Chuck stopped him, claiming that they would do this together. As they flew through the air, they still had 1% energy left in the core with it about to blow. Mike ejected Mutt's engine with the core into the canyon. The resulting explosion hurled them the rest of the way across with little left of Mutt except her frame, her driver and passenger a bit singed but still alive.

The Burners helped Hudson build a new lab down in Motorcity in thanks for his help with the core. Though Chuck initially thought to stop riding shotgun with Mike, he changed his mind upon seeing the rebuilt Mutt's new safety features which had been installed with him in mind.

It was during the test drive to try out the upgrades that Chuck was Called to Nautilus.

Character Personality:
At first blush, Chuck doesn't really seem like much. He's easily labeled a coward due to usually screaming during dangerous situations. When frightened, he can even get a bit clingy, generally latching on to his best friend Mike. Prone to panic, many would wonder how a teenager who's afraid of heights, driving fast, and dozens of other things could possibly have become a member of the Burners. However, if one looked closer, they'd realize that underneath the screaming and panicking, Chuck is actually incredibly loyal and brave. Though he'll scream and beg for alternatives, he will still accompany his friends into danger and possible death. Like the rest of the Burners, he's willing to risk his life again and again for the citizens of Motorcity, most of whom he's unlikely to ever meet personally.

He's particularly loyal to Mike. During an incident when they were racing through Motorcity to burn off the energy of a cracked power core that could destroy the city, Chuck refused to abandon his friend when Mike drove them to the Detroit Doom Jump to burn off the last bits of power even though Mike started to reach for the ejector controls for the passenger seat. He instead insisted that they would perform the jump together though he was clearly terrified of even making the attempt. (Mutt was largely destroyed when the engine with the power core was ejected and exploded at one percent charge, but the two teens survived.)

Incredibly intelligent, Chuck is usually the one who can think his way through a situation even as he's screaming his head off from the passenger seat of Mutt. Of course, he sometimes finds inspiration in the strangest of places. For example getting sick from Jacob's okra mayonnaise muffins provided the solution to stopping Kane Co robots that were eating anything and everything made with iron in Motorcity. He also has extensive knowledge of repairing and upgrading automobiles, him and Dutch being the Burners who build most of the custom parts that they sell.

Chuck's self-esteem level, however, isn't simply low. In some cases, you have to dig for it. Though he can act the part of a brave and confident king in his weekly LARP games with friends outside the Burners, for the most part he's awkward and even a bit clumsy. In the presence of Claire, a girl from Deluxe that he likes, he becomes incredibly shy and goofy. However, no matter the situation, it's very easy to shake his self-confidence or even obliterate it altogether. For example, while searching for two missing members of Chuck's LARP group, Mike accidentally became the new king and Chuck claimed that he hadn't deserved the position in the first place. In his eyes, Mike made a better leader since Chuck himself had originally won the position by tripping and slaying his opponent's dragon by chance. Not even the knowledge that he'd led his group to victory every week for almost an entire year changed his opinion. However, it was during that very same incident that he learned that, should he ever be able to get over his self-confidence issues, he could make a very good leader.

Powers and Abilities:
Chuck has high intelligence and a vast knowledge of both cars and computers. Of course, since he's from the mid-22nd Century, he sees early 21st Century technology as antique. He can repair cars and build custom parts for them along with being able to hack systems, track signals, and program new code.

Despite being afraid of so much, Chuck has incredible focus when need be to get the job done. He might whimper and complain, but he can and has broken through systems while dangling upside-down from twenty stories high.

He also has the capabilities to make a good leader due to being skilled with both strategy and tactics as proven by him leading his LARP group to victory for a solid year along with inspiring some rogue robots to overthrow their monstrous leader. As previously stated, he would need to get over his self-confidence and fear issues first.

Like most Detroit citizens--both of Motorcity and Deluxe--Chuck can call up holo-screens which allow him to access anything from television to the internet equivalent of his time. He generally uses these screens for programming and hacking purposes rather than requiring a physical computer terminal.

When it comes to a fight on the ground, Chuck is weak in hand-to-hand combat. However, he does have a high tech slingshot that can be built up from either arm. The displays assist with his aim by telling him such things as distance to a target along with a fully-functioning targeting system. It launches energy projectiles which can explode on impact. In some ways, this makes him the team's sniper.

Samples
Network:
[There's a young man seated on the far right of a park bench, head down and still. He then groans, bringing a hand to his skull.]

Ow, my head...Mike, did we have to take that turn so fast? I think you gave me whiplash this time.

[He rubs at the back of his neck, bangs in his face like always.]

...Mike?

[He brushes back some of his hair out of the way, squinting, before letting it fall back in place as he rubs his eyes.]

Ow ow ow...why is it so bright? Where are we?

[He looks to his left where he expects Mike to be and freezes. His voice gets higher pitched and a bit squeaky.]

...Okay. So it's more like where am I...

[He's all tense and taking shaking breaths. Someone might want to try calming him down.]

Third Person:
"...This is a reality storm?" Chuck asked, baffled. "Man, I was expecting way worse."

It looked like something straight out of one of his LARP sessions back home. Well, how he and the other LARPers pictured it in their minds at least. The quaint little inn of this tiny village would've been the perfect place for people to meet up for a quest the GM had cooked up. Well, that is if the game wasn't as massive as it had become back in Motorcity.

Well, he had to find someone. Very likely he'd have to go searching for them. Heh. This really was some kind of game.

"Excuse me, but do you have a map I may borrow?" he asked the innkeeper, slipping into his familiar role of Lord Vanquisher. If this storm was set up like a LARP game, might as well play along with the NPCs.

"Of course, my lord. One moment please."

As the man whisked himself away, Chuck blinked, scratching the back of his head in confusion.

"Lord? Why'd he call me--"

A flash of metal on his tunic caught his attention. He looked down to see a brooch in the shape of a shield over his heart. He took it off and stared at it.

"With the passing of the King and the end of his line, the kingdom fell into chaos. When the first of many conquerors came to inspect the treasury, they found it empty. All that remained was a brooch bearing the royal seal of--"

"My lord?"

Squeaking in surprise, Chuck jumped and turned back to the innkeeper who respectfully held out a rolled up map. On instinct, he pinned the brooch back to his tunic before taking the piece of parchment. "Oh. Uh...thank you."

If the man noticed his lapse, he didn't comment on it. "Please let me know if you require anything else."

"Thank you."

Chuck went to a table in the corner and unrolled the map. It couldn't be. It couldn't be.

Familiar names called out to him. The Dungeons of Despair to the west. The Whispering Forest to the south. The map here was more detailed and professional-looking than the one he'd seen before, but it was all there.

No wonder it was like a game. That's because it was a game. Or at least it had been one back in Motorcity.

"Nautilus became...Raymanthia?"