Okay, updated the Bio. I might still do some minor tweaks, but it's largely finalized. I didn't have as much time as I hoped for today, so I don't have the finalized character sheet (mostly minor stuff anyway) yet or hooks for the other PCs. I'll try to get those up tomorrow.
Bio for Song Woo-jin (AKA James Woo):
The Spy Game
Bond. Bourne. Hunt. Woo-jin had grown up on Western trids, especially remakes of the classic secret agent movies. He wanted to be an agent when he grew up - gun fights, fist fights, daring missions testing one's physical prowess and mental acuity. And the women. Especially the women.
It all came so easily to him - he was naturally gifted when it came to athletic prowess and his intense interest fueled his ability to learn the craft. He was hampered by the difficulty in obtaining guns, so the blazing gun battles remained a fantasy, but a good agent didn't need a gun.
Athletic and affable, Woo-jin was always popular in school. While not the brightest in his class by a long shot, he managed passable grades mostly by dedication and sometimes sheer force of will.
Woo-jin's mother worked for a small company funded (but not officially owned) by a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Ares. There might have been another level or two of subsidiaries involved, but it hardly mattered. His mother was a cog, and a very unimportant one at that. No one paid attention to the Song family.
Until he Awakened, that is.
The Awakening
Hu Il was a kindred soul to Woo-jin. They loved the same movies, which is how they came to be friends. But where Woo-jin was athletic and amiable, Il was not, but he was fiercely intelligent. These things made him the target of endless aggression at school, and so Woo-jin became his protector as well as his friend. Normally, due to Woo-jin's intimidating stature and popularity, it rarely ever came to a fight.
But one day it did. They were walking to Il's house where they were going to watch a new movie together on his family's Trid system (the Hus had the best stuff) when a pair of kids from school came out from where they had been hiding, apparently waiting for Il to pass by. They were only mildly surprised to see Woo-jin with him.
They made their demands - lunch money or whatever, Woo-jin couldn't recall - and as the situation developed a crowd gathered. Woo-jin stared down the pair, confident he could take them, and did not back down when they offered him the opportunity to throw his friend to the wolves to save his own skin. What he didn't know was that there were three other bullies moving up behind him from the crowd - they'd apparently planned for the possibility that Woo-jin might be present.
The first bully made his move and Woo-jin put him down easily, only now noticing the three other bullies bearing down on him. The adrenaline flush of fear infused his body, and time suddenly slowed. He was fast, faster than he'd ever been in all the years he had practiced martial arts, in all the times he'd sparred with students in class. And he could see every move they made as if it was a video game where the bad guys over-telegraphed or froze for a split second at the beginning of the attack. Blocking and dodging their attacks was so simple, and the fight was won without his opponents landing even a single blow.
The crowd was dumbstruck, and the video of the fight was all over the school the next day. The day after that, Woo-jin's mother was given a promotion and Woo-jin was moved to a new school, a nicer school. The timing should have seemed suspicious, but with the thrill of his new abilities, he thought nothing of it.
The Shark
His “education” was different than he’d had prior. In addition to the usual studying from knowsofts and sitting in lectures, he took tests that asked questions like “do you sometimes see things that others don’t?” or “Have you ever had what could best be described as an ‘out of body’ experience?”. He had physicals where he was hooked up to machines he’d never seen before with multiple doctors looking on. In short order he was training in hand to hand combat instead of soccer or other sports. They said that they were testing him, seeing what career paths he would be best suited for.
And they were, after a fashion. They were seeing how he could best be of service to them, not so much how he could best find fulfilling and gainful employment.
His mother had been given a promotion at work about the same time he had moved to his new school, and he assumed that the two were related, but had not considered that both were due to him, or the changes he was experiencing.
After four months of the new school, a man and a woman stopped by their house, a new house, thanks to his mother’s promotion. They were dressed in suits, and Woo-jin's spy sense barked in alarm. He listened in on the conversation they had with his parents. They were recruiters, they said. They had seen the results of Woo-jin's tests and were impressed and they wanted him to work for their company - a security contractor that provided services to such corporations as Ares, which their parent company was a subsidiary of - this was how they’d come to obtain the results of their son’s tests.
Woo-jin's parents were thrilled that he would be working for a AA corp, but security? That sure sounded dangerous.
But it wasn't a request. If they accepted, they would all be moved to company housing - a significant upgrade even over their new place - and Woo-jin's mother would be transferred to the new company - an obvious, though comparatively minor, promotion. If they declined, the family would not be provided for and Woo-jin would be "drafted" anyway.
Woo-jin never found out what his parents had decided. The meeting ended without a commitment - though an ultimatum was more than implied - and his parents, unaware that he had been listening, did not bring it up for the rest of the day. That night, he was kidnapped. While he slept, at least two individuals, in black and wearing masks, broke into his room and drugged him before he had even fully woken up. The drug knocked him out - for how long he couldn't tell - and he awoke in a stark plascrete room with no windows and one reinforced door.
When he called out, there was no answer. He waited, for hours it seemed, and in that time a voice spoke in his mind. At first it was like it was his own voice - stray thoughts coming to him unbidden, but eventually the voice was strong and undeniably separate. It told him that he was powerful, that he would crush his captors with ease. It would show him how. They talked, and eventually the spirit appeared - a Great White shark, ethereal and very much like the shark in the movie Jaws - not one of the remakes, but a remastered version of the original forced to modern Trid fidelity by potent algorithms.
Finally there was a sound at the door and Jaws faded from view. The door was unlocked and two men - still in black, but with no masks this time - came to "escort" him from his room. He had been bound when he awoke, but with considerable effort had managed to free himself of his shackles. He pretended that he was still bound, and waited until they got close.
The first one went down quickly - caught completely by surprise - but the second got in a good hit. He had never taken pleasure in hurting people - winning, sure, but never in causing pain. But when he saw his own blood seeping from his wound, his whole world went red. When he finally regained his composure, the lifeless eyes of the second man stared up at him. The first man was merely unconscious, but this man was dead. He'd never killed anyone before, and he felt sick.
But the shark urged him on - always swimming forward. The spirit's voice in his head urged him to kill, to slay his enemies as they deserved. It shook him from his stunned reverie. He ran, eventually finding the exit, and with it freedom.
The Fugitive
He did not go home. He couldn't be sure that his parents hadn't sold him out. And if they hadn't, going home would only put them at risk. It was unlikely that the men had reported the death to the authorities as they were likely working outside the law themselves, but that didn't mean they didn't work for people that might have pull. So he put his lifetime of spy training to use and went to ground.
Jaws was a constant presence, and conflict. He eschewed weapons in favor of his own fists to make it almost impossible that he might kill someone if he lost control again. Jaws gifted him the power to kill with his bare hands. He avoided situations that might lead to violence. Jaws goaded him on, or emasculated him, in order to encourage it.
But eventually, they came to a rough balance. Jaws is sure that Woo-jin will become a great slayer some day, feeding the spirit's desire for blood, and Woo-jin attempts to satiate the spirit's hunger with food, and with plenty of violence, though always stopping short of killing. So far.
In the beginning, life on the street was hard. In the movies, the spies had safe-houses and stashes. They lived in comfort while laying low. But Woo-jin froze and starved. He needed to pay the bills, and he had to put distance between him and his old home.
So he did some odd jobs so he could afford a fake ID and headed south.
Today, he is known as Woo. James Woo.
