Eames, Leopold

[Guest]

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CASE FILE: Xingese Militant

"And in the emptiness, there's a solution - just look within yourself for absolution."
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FULL NAME:
→ Leopold Douglas Thomas Ricard Eames IV
→ Generally goes by 'Leon', 'Eames', or 'Mr. Eames'

AGE:
→ 35

SEX:
→ Male

BIRTH PLACE:
→ Birmingham, Creta

RACE:
→ Cretan

DATE OF BIRTH:
→ 16th March, 1977

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HEIGHT:
→ 6' 3"/191cm

WEIGHT:
→ 16st/224lbs/102kg

PICTURE:
→

Spoiler:

DESCRIPTION:
→ Eames stands at 6'3 with an impressive figure. The man seems to radiate power: you can tell he's aristocracy almost immediately, but he's no stranger to combat, either, as can be seen from numerous nicks, cuts, and scars, as well as his specialised combat automail limbs and the eyepatch covering a vacant socket.

His eyes are gold, and his hair jet black; a single black eyepatch runs around the back of his head, the turned-up collar of his odd, blue suit, gold trim, and all. The man speaks softly when it's necessary, but his voice can carry gravity and a booming echo to it should the man wish so.

He's fast-moving, and tends to be decisive, hammering out an answer quickly. His retorts are sharp, and fast, rapid-fire and rapid-response. He's very vocal with his dislike of certain individuals, but, generally apathetic in mannerisms towards most. To stray into the 'friend' or 'intrigue' category, you must first prove you're worth further investigation.

Eames wears black trousers and heavy combat boots. His automail arms are sleek, and the metallic hands fitted with a leather glove membrane in keeping with colour scheme and pattern. No expense has been spared - the innards are fashioned of carbonised lightweight steel, and the outer layers carbon-reinforced polymer.

Durandal can always be seen clipped to the man's back. A large black sheath lies concealed beneath his longcoat, which billows in the wind behind him. An imposing figure, to say the very least, Eames epitomises power upon a quick glance - and further investigating it, true, he is a network of various personality aspects, but all the same a man of position and status, as despicable as they might be. Durandal itself is now renowned as 'the blade Ace would hold in his left hand', due to Eames' position as his Envoy.

It's not the title that matters - it's the person and how they fight.

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PERSONALITY:
→ Leon Eames is a striking man at first. He's blunt and cold, generally acting in a very harsh way. He doesn't like letting people get close, with the exception of his late family members, and Karen; whilst others are of this mindset because of the weakness it can show, Eames effectively rides solo because of the guilt he feels about being responsible for the death of a squadmate in his past. He doesn't want to feel the same way again, and definitely doesn't want to be on the receiving end of all that guilt.

Eames is a man who radiates power upon first glance. His persona, visage, and upbringing all seem to be integral to this; he's a refined person who seems to enjoy that which is typical within the upper echelons of society. But, really? Eames hates the class system and everything it represents. He hates how people are put down because of their background, and, to an extent, because of the way they are - with his experiences, he can sympathise.

Eames is prone to fits of odd kindness, even to random passers-by who he takes pity on. This is rather strange, as he's generally insistent and perseveres until he reaches his goal, whatever it may be in the particular instance. This somewhat links on to the whole fact that he hates political bullshit and generals who command men, human lives, as if they were pawns.

He's a strong man both in willpower and mind, and will strive to achieve his goals and targets. He has many a regret from his past, and has taken his sweet time overcoming the guilt, but now he knows that dwelling in the past and the horrific memories of his time in the RTF will do him no good.

Behind the scenes, Eames' bitterness shows itself as real, true anger. He hates that people take pity on him because of the way he is, when it was his own mistake that got him into this mess in the first place. He seems to take solace in his own practice of meditation, generally found through engineering - Eames has a great affinity for machines, and feels more at home at a workbench than anywhere else, the sight of oil, bolts, and rivets very calming. He has many personal projects he works on.

When in battle, Eames can be said to be a very loud, and passionate man. He understands morale well; and in the heat of the moment, when things transcend the feelings of regular, day-to-day life, when it's truly necessary, Eames buckles to the will of the battlefield. He becomes a true fighter: nothing can stand between he and his target.

Bottom line? Eames' methods are unorthodox and his apparent morals confusing and questionable at best, but deep down, he does care, he is kind, and those that fight past the bitter hostility to get to know him for the quirky individual he is... well, he'll do just about anything to defend them.


LOVE:
→ Blades
→ Products of fine craftsmanship
→ Engineering
→ Developing the odd bit of weaponry
→ Karen Lo, his assistant/bodyguard
→ Combat
→ Xing
→ His blade, Durandal
→ Comic books

HATE:
→ Creta
→ His background
→ His company/legacy
→ The nature of his condition
→ Money, status, and those who abuse them
→ Criminals
→ Alchemy, to a certain extent - crossing some lines shouldn't happen
→ War
→ Politicians and generals


DEEPEST SECRETS:
→ Leon attempted to perform human transmutation on one of his squadmates during an operation in Esparia, but failed, and instead lost both arms, one eye, and had his alchemy taken from him. Because of this, he was honourably discharged from the Cretan military, and resents the country now as a whole, despite it being his company's base of operations.


IDOL:
→ Bruce Wayne (no, seriously)
→ Winston Churchill
→ Joseph Stalin

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HISTORY:
→ Born in 1977 to Leopold Eames III and his sickly wife Marie, Leon was a rather lonely child. His mother died in the days as a child he no longer remembers, and he was left simply as an heir to the Eames empire, comprised of a massive set of factories and corporate buildings in Creta. For some time, Eames Corporations supplied Creta with weaponry, renowned for being reliable, producing efficient firearms, and it was no secret that Eames III and the old Cretan Prime Minister were good friends.

Raised to be a businessman through and through, Leon himself was brought up to live life by the corporate textbook. School was uneventful for him; he was a bright boy, one with a mind that his father would say was almost too close to his own. Around the age of 13, Leon began to look into the arts of the engineer, as the corporation called; from a young age, he had been obsessed with the inner mechanics of even the most basic of constructions. He was fuelled not by a desire to create, but a desire to fathom and understand.

However, it quickly became evident that the young Eames heir was something of a wild, unrestrained child, often said so because of the lack of a supporting and caring mother figure in his life. No matter what his father said, he tossed and turned and kept him at a distance, eternally hostile. He didn't want his path to be set out for him. He wanted to write his own destiny.

Seeking to rebel against his future in the land of opportunity, at the ripe old age of 18, sheerly on impulse, the fourth Leopold Eames enrolled himself in Creta's Royal Task Force. The new decade was near, and what with technological advancements sweeping across the land in spades, army engineers were thoroughly encouraged. With a scientific and technological mind, he went to RTF-Tech boot camp, and trained there for six months.

Having studied the art of alchemy, Leon had found in his childhood that he too was a scientist at heart. He hadn't given much thought to it; synthesising the odd component that went missing, fashioning an extra rivet or bolt of the right size down to the serial number from the odd plate of iron... it was second-nature. Alchemy supplied, engineering created. His mind was strong, and his willpower too; he simply did what he'd been brought up to do, but wanted to do it not to make money, but to serve his company. The young boy was naive, to say the very least.

Boot camp passed quickly enough, and then Leon was dropped into another camp for a four-week crash course in combat. He would be fighting on the front lines as an engineer; if anything went wrong with any tech in the heat of battle, it was his job to see to it. During these four weeks, Leon met someone he knew he could then call his best friend: Sergeant Joseph 'Joey' Garza.

His senior and a fellow squad-member when they were finally assigned their regiments, Joey acted as a big brother figure to the nineteen-year-old Leon, despite only being eighteen months his senior. For year after year after year, operation after operation, people came and went in the squad because of various reasons, and still not having spoken to his father since that day he left behind his future at eighteen, Joey was the only person that Leon was truly close to.

Joey had long since advanced to the position of Major, and was in charge of the squad. The year was 2004, and recruit Leon Eames IV was now Technical Sergeant Eames, second-in-command to Garza himself in their platoon. 27 years old, with a no-kill record behind him, the platoon one of the RTF's most prestigious front-line squads, they were sent into the jungles of Esparia for a textbook operation - flushing out a bandit cell that posed a threat to the nation's infrastructure, so the guys up in IA said. Their FOB was a small village; only seven of them went in, including Garza and Eames.

Their third day in Esparia, Eames, Garza, and another two were out looking for more bandits in the jungle. It had always been that Garza was the forward soldier, taking point for his men. Progressing slowly, gently, quietly, they continued into the thick of the wild brush, half a mile away from the village, their base... and then Eames heard it.

The click of Drachman Kalashnikov rifles. He was the first to hear it, his perception sharp and trained, and immediately threw himself to the ground. The other two behind him followed suit, but Garza was too late; three rounds struck him, and he fell down, a punctured lung and his femoral artery seeping blood.

By the time they dragged Garza back to the base, he was unconscious. Another half-hour, and he was dead. Eames' throat was dry and he hadn't spoken in hours, just sitting there, staring at the corpse of his best friend. He couldn't believe it - he wouldn't. So then... he made the decision that every alchemist vows never to. Human transmutation.

35 liters of water, 20 kilograms of carbon, 4 liters of ammonia, 1.5 kilograms of caustic lime, 800 grams of phosphorus, 250 grams of salt, 100 grams of saltpeter, 80 grams of sulfur, 7.5 grams of fluorine, 5 grams of iron, 3 grams of silicon, and trace amounts of fifteen other elements. Everything he needed to bring Garza back to life. Tears dripping onto the amalgamated mulch that he'd created himself, array carved into the floor with the sharpest block of chalk he'd ever held. Door locked, latches set... this was it. Do or die.

Clapping his hands together and slamming them against the floor, the air crackled with a purple-black discharge. One so ghastly that every alchemist hoped, wished never to see it. He felt something; in the back of his mind, a niggling feeling, the darkest he'd ever experienced. Chaos whirled around him, the array on the floor flashing and crackling; that niggling feeling tugged at every part of his mind, overriding his senses, controlling him completely, until finally it felt as if his brain was ready to explode-

And then, it was all gone. He opened his eyes, the sweat still on his tongue, the blood on his lips dripping into whiteness. There wasn't any definition in the room - it wasn't even a room at all. He could just see blinding light... and another, single defined figure. No eyes, no hair, no nose. Just a mouth. A mouth of grinning teeth, and the most ear-splitting and soothing voice he'd ever heard, like nails on a chalkboard and the most soothing of melodies both intertwined together to create this grotesque, surreal sound.

"Do you wish... do you wish to see... the Truth?"

Leon couldn't manage anything but a whimper. The truth? The truth? He already knew it. He'd seen it with his own eyes. The truth was that this world was cruel, immeasurably so. There was nothing beyond that. This world had taken his closest friend from him, and left him with a gaping void in his soul and a bloody pit in his stomach. Not even alcohol could delude him from this.

"Well?" The voice pressed on. The figure there, static, quiet, statuesque... almost... mirroring him. Slumped to the floor in just the position he was... and yet that grin upon his face...

What would he do? What could he do? The truth? Questions reverberated around his mind, until... finally, he gulped. This wouldn't and couldn't all be for nothing. If the truth was what would bring Joey back to life, then it's the truth he wanted. "...y-yes."

A chuckle. Wrought stone gates, adorned and patterned, appeared. With a deafening thud, from out of nowhere, they swung open, and it felt as if the very strength of the world pushed him from his place and sent him tumbling into this black, immeasurable void.

Memories and feelings that weren't his swirled around him. Facts that he'd been taught in school. Ideals which none else could understand. Philosophies impossible to behold. A tornado, a relative hurricane of... knowledge. It felt as if his brain would split in two, like someone was shooting liquid nitrogen into his skull through his eye sockets. It wasn't right... it felt unnatural-

But... there it was, on the horizon. The truth he so desperately wanted. The truth he so desperately needed. But then he felt himself swirling backwards, reversing, tumbling in the exact opposite way he'd been thrown into this void. He was retracted from the void of knowledge like a plug being pulled from the socket, and before he knew it, he was back there, facing the figure with that horrific grin... left only wanting to know that next little bit more.

"Please," He blurted, the wrought gates slamming shut before his stone gaze. "You have to let me... you have to... I need to..." Despite all that knowledge... he couldn't even fathom a proper sentence.

"Want more, do you?" That voice again. Leon winced, and nodded. "...get up, and grasp it for yourself." ...what? He was... what?

It seemed simple enough. Just stand up, move along, and get the knowledge he needed. Spiral back into those gates, confident now, and dive into the pit a little further... then he could have Joey back. He stood up, stumbled towards the gates, and tried to raise his arms to grasp them, but... no... no...

It felt as if his heart was made of lead and his lungs were filled with cold black tar. He spluttered, vomit at the back of his mouth. The chuckling of the figure escalated into cackling, maniacal giggling... another person left to their toll, fate's cruel irony having taken its quarry again.

And there he was, in the bunkhouse, again. Before him, a golem. An immovable golem, one forged of flesh and iron. A corpse... Joey's corpse. Every detail right down to the last scar and cut before his eyes. A tear brimmed, and Leon slumped upon the floor, spewing up yesterday's melancholy lunch all over again.

He tried desperately to pull himself towards the body, to just press it, and grasp it one last time, wake him up. Wake him up from the slumber... that he was... yes... just... dreaming... sleeping...

As Leon collapsed, his bloody stump brushed the faux body's shoulder. Before all went black, his blurry vision caught sight of just one thing: that corpse disintegrating into naught but white dust and powder once more. He had failed Joey... for the second and last time.

They found him a couple of hours later, lying in a pool of his own vomit, evident what he had tried to do. He was hospitalised for a day, but the unit was recalled to Creta after the government threatened the Prime Minister with all-out war. Dishonourably discharged for attempting human transmutation and with two arms sheared off below the elbow, Leon Eames IV continued life for two months as a static vegetable - alongside his father, who'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer, so he discovered, five months earlier, now hooked up to a life support machine.

Sent tumbling into a depressive spiral, Eames felt nothing but guilt and regret. He had done his family, friends, and country wrong, and everyone hated him for just trying to resurrect his best friend. What was so wrong with that? It was the alchemist's taboo, but... he just wanted to right wrongs.

Leon Eames III died a few weeks later with nothing but disappointment in that faint, unconscious, comatose, old wrinkled face of his. His son... his son couldn't face being heir to the empire, not now. He needed to get away. Setting up a proxy figurehead in charge of Eames Corporations, Eames IV decided that now... now was the time to leave. Creta was only home to bad memories and disappointment. Maybe a trip east was in order.

The corporate leader, now 27, fled to Xing. To sustain himself there, he signed a deal with the Emperor. The corporation he couldn't face would ship in arms and artillery, and he'd be officially affiliated with them come what may. As a symbol of honouring the agreement, Leon was granted a mansion on the border of Xi'an, a great building, and was given an assistant, free of all charges, waiting for him at the mansion.

It was a huge, beautiful structure, but it was... empty. Lonely. Atop those stairs, she stood, waiting for him. That beautiful Xingese woman, Karen Lo. His new assistant and bodyguard, the alkahestrist. And... somehow, some way, despite his initial bitterness and hostility, thanks to his past, things... things finally began to look up from there. The pair grew closer over the new few years, Karen teaching Leon Xingese, and various blade disciplines and martial arts: before long, Leon taking a shine to it all and taking these initial self-defense methods further, coupled with his original Western combat knowledge, he enrolled in the military as Ace's envoy and now a close friend - a militarised one, at that.

Karen soon confronted the issue of Leon's automail arms. He then explained that his arms had been cut off below the elbow with such dangerous precision, and he'd had simple prosthetics in place immediately, then his own specialised variants added a few months later.

When asked how such a thing could happen, Leon initially... regressed, and retracted back into silence. Eventually, however, he explained to her, one day as they sat on the horizon. He told her of what he had done, what he had tried to do. The ultimate sin. The alchemist's taboo. And he had committed it.

Her reaction was... surprising. She didn't look down on him for it - it was honourable, to say the very least. This... this development... it was... astonishing. The pair struck an agreement. Together, with Leon's mechanical skills, unable to use alchemy since his attempting a crossing into God's territory, and Karen's nerve-based alkahestry, the two would attempt to confront this disability and overcome it. They'd fashion organic arms again, and remove the lumbering synthetic automail, and Karen would seal the wounds shut and connect the nerves with her alkahestry - it was but a matter of time.

Leon Eames' story has only just begun, three years into his taking the position of envoy. Still an engineer, and still fascinated by mechanics, Leon is the true middle-ground between Xingese and Cretan culture: a bladesman mechanic, the humblest and most emperor-friendly of all arms dealers in the East.

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TRIVIA:
→ Leon is missing one eye and two arms. For the latter, he has automail prosthetics; and the former, he simply wears a badass eyepatch.
→ Leon is Ace's official envoy and a good friend to the monarch.
→ Leon's fairly confident he has feelings for Karen, but isn't at all sure how to voice them.
→ Leon can no longer perform alchemy because of his mistakes with human transmutation - and even if he could, he wouldn't.
→ Leon is the head of Eames Corporations, a Creta-based weapons development and manufacturing company. In earlier times, under Leon's father's rule, the corporation supplied Creta with weaponry, but the trade agreement has now diminished drastically because of Leon's newfound bitterness towards Creta.
→ Leon is an INTP - the 'Engineer' type.
→ Leon's a dab hand with a wrench and a blowtorch, able to disassemble and put together just about anything - and he really does enjoy it, too.
→ Ex-Cretan RTF. Discharged after attempting human transmutation.
→ Speaks Cretan, fragmented/accented Amestrian and fluent Xingese.

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ALIAS:
→ Ross

OTHER CHARACTERS:
→ Ayden Derocha, Balthazar, Marcus Frostbrook, Zen Howler, Alastair Carson, Nazario Alvarez

CREATOR'S COMMENTS:
→ V3.0

FACE CLAIM:

Code:

[b]SENGOKU BASARA[/b]/[i]date masamune[/i]

CUSTOM RANK:
→ FLASH OF THE BLADE

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[Guest]

All done. ^_^

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The member 'Vivian' has done the following action : Rank Roll

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