Knox, Calvin J.

[Guest]

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CASE FILE: Civilian

"Have you got any idea just who you're dealing with?"
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FULL NAME:
→ Calvin J. Knox
→ Often uses disposable aliases. The only thing these have in common are that they are all two first names, e.g. "Michael Benjamin", "James Thomas", etc...

AGE:
→ 23

SEX:
→ Male

BIRTH PLACE:
→ Knightsbridge, London, Creta

RACE:
→ Three quarters Cretan, one quarter Cerisian

DATE OF BIRTH:
→ 21st March, 1990

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HEIGHT:
→ 6ft 1in.

WEIGHT:
→ 16st 4lbs

PICTURE:
→

Spoiler:

DESCRIPTION:
→ Looking at Calvin, it swiftly becomes clear that you're dealing with someone who's not to be trifled with.

He stands at a fairly strong 6'1 with a deceptively slender frame; for Calvin himself is hiding beneath that layers of muscle which he has built up from year upon year of training in mixed martial arts, and, his personal favourite, boxing. He's managed to maintain a toned, athletic look, and isn't some insane steroid-abusing behemoth of muscle and sinew. His eyes are of a deep turquoise-blue colour, and his hair is a jet black, though in some lights it seems to possess almost a very dark navy blue sheen.

Everything about his appearance is trimmed and cut exactly to the way Calvin wants it. Tailor-made jacket. Tailor-made tie. Tailor-made shirt. Tailor-made trousers. All of them cling to his frame giving a perfected, sharpened image. Nothing extra. Nothing beyond. Just the minimum package and that's it. You're dealing with someone who knows what he likes and, far more importantly, knows how he likes it.

Calvin travels light (well, light, for him, anyway) and dresses not to impress but to strike a knowing image into people that catch a glimpse of him on the street. He's a black-clad phantom who strides in silence. An all-black suit with dress shoes and a tie. Black leather gloves. Sleek black sunglasses. A leather belt with a sharp, chrome, square buckle. Cigarette hanging from the edge of his mouth. The only thing that would give his game away would be a criss-cross network of scars on the back of his hands, but he keeps those obscured. Over his suit jacket, in the cold, he'll tentatively either wear a black trenchcoat or just a black leather jacket with a furred lining. Whichever he chooses.

Calvin Knox is new money and that much is distinct from his appearance. He represents the decadent and indulgent "dark side" of yuppie culture taken to an extreme. He's the black-jacket-and-briefcase type who wanders from club-to-club half drunk picking up girls and fucking them in the bathroom. His back and torso are slashed to pieces with scars from faded bullet holes and knife wounds; a testament to two things. The infamous nigh-on invincibility of the Knox family, and the vicious tenacity of this little bastard.

He walks with an air that people can easily pick up on. He knows where he's from. He knows his background and his reputation, and he doesn't take that lightly. He doesn't namedrop and through his weight around but he's still definitely aware of it, and he isn't afraid to make things clearer with the embossed sleek "C. K." on his carry case, and that smile on an eternally clean-shaven chin carries weight.

Bottom line: one look at Calvin Knox and you know he's up to no good.

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PERSONALITY:
→ Calvin Knox is halfway between a party animal and a perfectionist.

Precision is his calling card and that's instantly clear from the moment you lay eyes on him. Everything about him is smooth and tapered, sharpened and straight. No creases in his voice or his clothes and no faltering in his confidence, everything about this man is reliable. Because the Knox family bring their children up with one creed: you're only as good as your word.

You could say Calvin's a man of few words, but that wouldn't be entirely true. He values his silence, but at the same time he's proud and haughty, and he knows his background. He's not afraid of flaunting that cocky streak to get what he wants, and to show girls that he's arrogant. It's the deceptive flaw of the lifestyle of the young, and without a doubt as this occupation hardens him it'll eradicate this part of the young Mr. Knox's personality, as it'll soon get him into trouble, but how much time that may take to happen is as of yet undecided.

If one thing can be said of Calvin's relationship of his work is that he loves it. There's no sadism, and he's one thing above all else: detached. He doesn't take that bloody, murderous, insane glee on whenever he ends someone. That's a quick way to get yourself with a one-way ticket to the asylum. No, Calvin bathes in the silent pleasure of things going his way. And when they don't? Nothing like a firefight and a car chase to sort things out.

To elaborate: Calvin is a criminal for hire. He'll do the legwork. Anything from getaway car to bank robbery, kidnapping to murder, he remains detached, he remains impersonal, and he can complete any job to any parameters required; provided the price is right. He's reliable and he's functional, and he doesn't let morals get in the way. He has no limits with what he can do and doesn't think twice about doing something.

However, Calvin off the job is different to Calvin on the job. When relaxing, Calvin sits back and smiles and lets that aforementioned arrogance flow. He appreciates his drinks, a neat scotch with a few drops of spring water to open up the flavour, he likes his cigarettes, and he loves a woman that can sort out his more carnal needs in the bathroom after fifteen minutes and three vodka martinis. Because Calvin knows that whilst off the club floor he can get himself whatever he wants through force and money, it's nicer to know that sometimes you don't have to rely on that.

Calvin is a hallmark of the corrupted yuppie culture, definitive questionable morals and all. He likes sharp suits and fast cars, and that poster-boy image, that twinkling smile, that dashing charisma: he's a regular Patrick Bateman. He knows he's got money in his pocket and a gun under his arm, and with that, it's him against the world.

Calvin's relaxation comes from him devoting his life to the simpler pleasures. Alcohol. Sex. Petrol. The young Knox loves nothing more than a midnight swerve through a metropolitan labyrinth of street lights and up-and-coming hotels. These rich districts are practically made for street racing - and, hey, whilst he's at it, why shouldn't he add a few more fun charges to the list of things he's done?

However this disposable lifestyle as many know all too well does not last forever. One way or another it all comes falling down and coming to an end. The occupation itself is shaky; and the decadent hedonism that falls in parallel with it eases the boards further aside. Everything begins to creak and it can quickly collapse: this lifestyle is self-destructive and eventually it kills everyone. It killed Calvin's Uncle Jake, it killed his father, and if he's not careful, it'll kill him too,

The final cut is that Calvin's amoral. He's impossibly precise, a complete perfectionist, and a man who appreciates simple yet fine things. He's a professional criminal, and he never goes anywhere in public either unarmed or unprepared - if he's anything, he's prepared, both body and mind. And lastly, something which any and all who even consider challenging him really should remember, for all their stupid determination:

If he says he'll do something, he'll do it.

LOVE:
→ Adrenaline, expensive scotch, sports cars, fine suits, Esparian cigars, Cretan cigarettes, the spark in a drunk girl's eye when you know you've got her under your spell, nightclubs, strip bars, the smell of petrol, the feel of fire, the last scream of a man who truly knows what fear and agony is, disposable pleasures, subtlety, car chases, gunpowder, knives, driving, his "homes", and money.

HATE:
→ Lethargy, boredom, shotguns, beer, T-shirts, fake cigars, roll-up cigarettes, cheap and dirty girls, prostitutes, fake tan, kids, marriage, family, dependence, the cold, the countryside, explosions, people who don't honour a deal, and anything remotely tacky or garish.

DEEPEST SECRET:
→ His late uncle, Jacob Knox, was killed by Victor and Selina Dresden, and he resents the pair of them bitterly for it.

IDOL:
→ Dietrich Von Vermont. Creta's greatest criminal.

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HISTORY:
→ The Knox family has always been one of prestige and wonder, but it was only in the generation prior to Calvin's that things became a tad more corrupted.

To rewind the clock: fifty years ago exactly. 1963. Marijuana and LSD had just hit the scene. It was the decade of peace and love, and they'd just hit the scene. And two teenage boys, sixteen and eighteen, had more money than sense in a world where the rich could afford this length of indulgence. They were James and Jacob Knox.

No-one gets into Knightsbridge without money, and the Knox family were no exception. But James and Jacob were two spoiled kids who had no idea what they were getting into. It became habitual for them, to put up a small tent on some private farmland one of their friends owned and spread about all this magical herb into their papers and share it all around. James, two years Jacob's senior, had the brains of the pair. Even with all the dope he bought he could crunch numbers and smile at the dealers, but everyone was happy. It was the sixties. It was a golden age.

But before long it progressed beyond two boys pissing about with their pocket money. Their parents had money, and they slung it about, sure, but James and Jacob wanted to taste excess. Come 1965, James was living at uni on the other side of the city, reading at Oxford, and Jacob was preparing himself to go, but the Knox family were trying to let their two little boys become independent. So they did. They pooled towards all of the money they could scrape together and they begun their own little side business.

They bought up grass an ounce at a time and sent it across the city just the pair of them, working out of James' flat at Oxford. It was beautiful. They had the capital investment from their parents, the supply from James and Jacob's contacts, now older and all having gone down their different paths, and before long, the pair of them had half of the school's night maintenance staff on the sell too. Anytime things got a bit suspicious or someone wanted to take a peek, or maybe even they were caught stinking of weed, any names that got put down were wiped off the record that night.

Little did the Knox boys know that this empire would soon become their life.

Jacob finished college and never went on to university. James, though, always the educated one, got his Maths degree from Oxford and stood ready to take on the world. By 1967, James twenty-two and Jacob twenty, the pair of them had enough money between them to buy up their flat and still have enough capital for a fresh investment. And with every new investment, the business became bigger, and with every growth in business, the turnout increased. Then as the profit rose, the brothers took what they could of it, and invested it straight back in. To these two, drugs were a foolproof way of making money.

With the turn of the seventies came a revolution in this business. It stopped being about the plant and turned into the little white powder, Colombia's purest. Cocaine. It was the rockstar drug, and everyone wanted a bit of it to be a star of their own. It was smaller, lighter, more expensive, and easier to shift, but it was riskier. Customers could die, whereas a joint or two wouldn't do shit to someone who already had a bad heart.

Things began to take a dark turn for the Knox brothers - and it wasn't long before one day, Jacob, coming back from a deal with half an ounce of coke in his jacket pocket, got rushed by three junkies and kicked so hard in the ribs and gut he was bleeding internally and pissing blood for a week. When he came to, the money and the drugs were gone, and James, as angry as he'd ever been, was standing at the foot of the bed. Things had gone from bad to worse.

The pair of them had always had musclemen on the side but this wasn't Knightsbridge anymore. These weren't old school mates and businessmen, these were people who wanted harder drugs. Harder drugs, bigger money... worse people. And so in turn the Knox brothers knew what they had to do: they had to take things up a level. They hired enforcers. They started taking lessons. Carrying weapons.

Another decade was passing and the empire grew and grew. But as the shift from bud to coke became proper and the numbers continued to grow, their eyes bulging, the criminal kingpins realised that the electronic revolution was dawning on them too. Credit cards, ATMs, PIN machines... everything was starting to work against them. Sure, paper could get you far enough in this town, but these two wanted luxury. And for luxury, you had to have a plan.

New Year's Day 1981, the brothers, Jacob now with a pregnant wife, a hulking, 6" 6' beast of a man, veins bulging in his forehead as he grinned at James, purchased what had once been a block of flats in an up-and-coming neighbourhood in London. They spent the next year putting a hold on their business as they kitted out this block and renovated it completely. Fresh elevator system, penthouse flat, just for the two of them on the top floor, top-of-the-line defense and security, numerous club floors and kitted it out with gun-toting bouncers. And in February of next year they opened up their plan to clean this money, do their laundry, so to speak. Take a slice of the profits and throw it into the club, let it cycle, and come out of the front looking legitimate. Maybe a bit big, but legitimate.

The club was now their front and their draw; customers would buy their drugs on their turf and the club would clean the money. If they turned them down, they got a punch and sent flying through the back door into the alley. If they tried to sell or bring their own, they got a knife to the gut and a kick in the head as a warning to any other upstart little fucks who wanted to play games with the Knox brothers. It had been twenty years and they'd gone from wet-nosed teenagers to truly corrupt, independent, criminal men. The Knox brothers. The most feared criminals in all of London.

It was late in 1988 that James, though, still stewing over the fact that his brother had three ex-wives and six kids, and he had no makings of a legacy, happened upon that woman. Cassandra Rizzi. Cerisian father, Cretan mother. Ties to the Family back in Napoli, the Falzones. She was beautiful. She was a reporter from Philly who'd come here to do a segment on something or other, and been drawn in by the London nightlife. One drink later and the pair of them were doing lines in James' private bathroom, and before long, one thing led to another, and the next morning they woke up to each other in bed.

James had kicked dirty, skanky, embarrassed women out of his bed before. But this was the first that had rolled over and continued to just lie there with him, fully aware of who this barrel-chested Cretan was and what his status meant. She liked the lustre, the power, and it all. Nine months later she became Mrs. Cassie Knox, and another six after that, on the very eve of the ecstasy decades, gave birth to a single, beautiful baby boy.

And his name was Calvin J. Knox. This is where his story begins.

The Knox empire had expanded beyond just drugs now. It was guns, it was drink, it was smuggling, it was just about anything that the customers asked for. Showers of purple and yellow pills and illegal Esparian cigars fell upon open, hungry crowds and outstretched hands with little resistance. The club was constantly being worked on during the day, making a private executive VIP lounge for the more "special" guests. The nineties was the height of fashion. And for a child growing up around all this? It certainly took a toll.

James Knox was smart, though, and Calvin spent most of his time in Knightsbridge with his grandparents, away from the club and, most importantly, away from the drugs. But it runs in some peoples' blood, corruption, like an icy fluid which chills you to the bone. He had the most lucrative upbringing of them all, with two collective fortunes, one legitimate and one not so, to be heir to and to grow up around. He grew up a learned child like his father, a natural academic. But things changed. Things always changed.

In the early hours of the morning, the 6th of December, 1997, James Knox passed away of a shock heart attack in his sleep whilst in the VIP lounge of Club Vivid. He was uncovered that morning clutching a litre bottle of Jack Daniels' in one hand, a huge bag of ecstasy pills in the other, and surrounded by three nude prostitutes with only one paltry sheet between the four of them. To say that it was a tragedy and that it should never had have happened would have been a lie. James Knox had it coming all his life, and when Cassie walked in with little Calvin on her waist, she didn't cry and neither did he. Because, for years, this man had been an alien to the both of them, for reasons that a very confused seven year old would later uncover in full.

It was later that the reality of it truly hit home for Cassie, though. James had been a silent protector for the family, and not just his son and wife; his legacy stretched far beyond that. What did Jacob do, now? He was useless without James. He had just been there to help and do what he was told, and offer his ideas and support. James handled the logistics. Jacob spent millions trying to recollect his efforts but in the two years following the empire of what had once been the terrifying Knox duo, profits plummeted.

Jacob Knox was still the greatest and most feared kingpin in London, but times had changed, now. James was gone. And he wasn't coming back. He commanded respect and he sat at a lonely throne at the top of the club, drinking and drugging himself into a lonely, bitter old stupor as he realised that he had nothing left for his life. The two brothers had been everything to each other, and then more.

Cassie couldn't take it. The money was starting to run out and no matter how many fights came between them, she truly loved James and he loved her. So sobbing, she took her little boy's hand and looked down to him, smiling through tear-streaked make-up as Calvin asked one question. "Mama, why did what happened to Daddy happen?"

"There are b-bad men in th-this world, Calvin," She took his hand and she clenched it, sniffing back the hoarse sobs and the tears. "Y-You'll u-understand one d-day." A single pause. Another sniffle. "I l-love you, Calvin Knox. N-Never forget that." A very confused child sat back down as he watched his mother leave alone. Three hours later she was found in the barricaded wine cellar of the house having hung herself from the frame of a halogen bar light with a makeshift wire noose. The worst thing was that it hadn't killed her immediately; instead it had cut into her skin and scraped open the skin of her neck, bleeding her before her spine finally snapped and ended it, two days later after her husband.

The seven year old didn't understand what had happened. How could he? He sat and he cried and he cried and he sat, but things didn't change no matter how he wished them to. Calvin Knox only knew one thing that his mother had told him, one thing he misinterpreted even at this age: "There are b-bad men in th-this world..." Instead of vowing not to become one of these bad men, instead, Calvin Knox promised that he'd find a way to defend himself against them for when they came on this hopeless charge. He clenched his tiny child fists and sniffed back the last of those tears.

The events of those three days changed the course of Calvin's life forever.

Whatever spoiled existence he could have had changed dramatically. Straight away Calvin began martial arts classes; no amount of writing or playing or music could soak up all the pain. Instead, what he could do was use his body as a channel, a conduit to force the pain out and reset himself, turn himself into an empty shell. Maybe if he punched the bag and hit the target enough times he'd break it, and with it be able to just pour all those memories away into some vast flowing river, so long as they didn't remain inside his head.

Calvin remained with grieving and callous grandparents who loved him all the same, but left him, as they had their own children, with only money and ignored the rest. Calvin was home-schooled and as such learnt as any regular child, and every week looked forward to the arrival of his lumbering beast of an uncle, Jacob, appearing every Friday with one of his children. And this routine continued until the boy was sixteen.

With every passing year or month his education had lessened and his training had increased. Awards and trophies sat in his room; for numerous schools of martial arts from all around the world, Aerugo, Drachma, Ishval... but the greatest yet was both his favourite and the most simple: bareknuckle fighting. There was something about the lack of gloves or pads, and the knowledge that it was just you and the other man, flesh against flesh, smashing and beating into each other as the sweat slapped in warm tendrils across your body and face. Hair became a matted mess, teeth were lost and found, muscles pulled and skin broken. That training arena became stained with the blood of a teenage Calvin more times than he could count all courtesy of one Creig man standing in that blue-padded corner he learned to hate.

Declan O'Connor.

That smarmy smiling bastard. He had grown up without all this, without the fortune and the money, but taken just as much pain. Declan was destined for an underdog's existence from day one. Originally he'd been one of a set of twins, but only he of them had survived, and then had to fend for his own in a family with eight other siblings for his parents to think about.

Then there were the Creig gangs and the NCA. And fates with them just didn't bear thinking about. In truth; Declan had known Calvin's father, and that was why he'd wanted him there, to try and confront that demon and loose all the anger, and little by little it was working, with every punch Calvin landed releasing some of that pent-up frustration. Why did he have to lave so early? Why couldn't he have said goodbye? Why did he take his mother with him?!

Calvin's eighteenth birthday came and his body was a sharpened frame. Every day it was broken and every day it was reformed again. He descended the stairs and demanded three things from his grandparents. The location of a fine men's barbers, the best tailor in Knightsbridge, and the number of an account containing approximately $43 million. His half of the Knox brothers' fortune.

Suffice it to say that Calvin went to the bank first.

He was leaving this place. It wasn't the money that made him sick, the money he could deal with. It was the memories that still hung in the old family house, the stench of his mother's blood haunting every day of his childhood that he had to venture into that abandoned cellar to try and confront those ancient spirits of his memory and come sprinting back out.

But things weren't finished yet. He bought himself two dozen black suits and a new car, regardless of the insurance cost. He drove back to the Knox Manor where he met Declan on the doorstep and moved inside, raising his hackles as the pair of them danced around each other in the training room. And something had snapped, something had changed within Calvin today, as he weaved under one punch and countered the next, dodging and glancing off Declan's blows, as well placed as they were. His trainer's ragged brown hair was matted with sweat, his face contorted with frustration and confusion, his pale, tattooed skin slick with a coat of blood.

And then Calvin retaliated.

He responded with one punch. And then the next. And then the next. They came in a barrage, knocking the man to and fro until he dribbled blood and fell down, collapsed in a heap with a head against the wall. Calvin knelt down next to him, semi-conscious, and Declan spluttered through a bloody tongue into his ear five words: "You... can feel it now..."

And he could. Exactly what Declan meant is that he felt that emptiness, that satisfaction, that freedom of his fresh-shed bindings by the relinquishing of his demons. That rush, the sweat-lined hairs standing up on the back of his neck. It was gone, the ghost of his parents lingering over his back like a terrible weight upon his shoulders. Finally: he was free.

Eighteenth birthday and Calvin knew what his father had done. But now Calvin knew how things had gone for him, he was determined to prove that there was a Knox out there who could do things right. Who could stray from being a fuck-up, the pre-determined path for him or so it seemed. Who could be a true criminal.

Calvin got in the car without waiting for a bloody, sweaty Declan to come to and made a few more stops to buy some things from around the town, but with that complete, he shifted the Jaguar into gear and looked off into the horizon, before sticking his foot down on the pedal and following the sun for as long as he could until it felt dark. But that chapter had closed in Calvin J. Knox's life. For as much money as his father had made and as much as he had in the bank to live comfortable, Calvin wanted to feel that rush and he wanted to continue the chronicles of the Knox family. He wanted to try and form some connection, to see if, maybe, in thirty years' time, he felt exactly what his father felt. Or to see if... maybe... he could truly succeed.

And, somehow, he had a gut feeling that he could. He would rise above the masses of amateurs and be something else. He had money. He had reputation. He had power. He had background.

He was the specialist.

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TRIVIA:
→ Speaks Cretan, basic Cerisian and some Amestrian.
→ May have minor xyrophilia.
→ Skilled boxer.
→ Fifteen-a-day smoker. Doesn't really resent it. Smokes cigars too (properly) and favourite brand is Marlboro Red.
→ Professional, independent thief-for-hire.
→ Owns safehouses in Vaingloria, New York, London, Philadelphia, Moscow, and Central City. Each have an armoury room and a punchbag.
→ Suffers from bad bouts of insomnia, and as such has trained himself to perform on a sleep schedule known as the "Dymaxion". The Dymaxion divides 2 hours' sleep time every day into four thirty minute naps six hours apart. Provided these are timed appropriately and correctly, with the way the body has been trained to function, these two hours will over time allow Calvin to act as if he has had just as much sleep as the next person.
→ Almost never uses his real name unless he truly trusts someone - he tries to use different aliases with each new person/group of people, all having the same thing in common - they're two first names, stemming from the age-old adage of 'never trusting a man with two first names', e.g. "Michael Thomas", or "James Benjamin"...
→ Has rally training.
→ Failed his driving test three times for speeding.
→ Calvin is ambidextrous when it comes to weaponry, but not with anything else (see Custom Equipment app for clarification).

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ALIAS:
→ Ross.

OTHER CHARACTERS:
→ Ayden Derocha. Noman is for now tentatively inactive.

CREATOR'S COMMENTS:
→ I've got permission to make a civilian on the grounds that Calvin's tentatively taking Noman's place whilst he loses his colour and goes into inactivity, until things can be sorted for the Esparian revolution.

FACE CLAIM:

Code:

[b]Gin Tama[/b]/[i]hijikata toushirou[/i]

CUSTOM RANK:
→ THE SPECIALIST

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[Csilla Angelis]

{APPROVED}


I see no issues here.