Real Name: Unknown
Race: Human
Age: Unknown
Height: 160 cm
Weight: Between 60-80 kg
Occupation: Manual Laborer/Meat Shield
Affiliation: Professional Freelancers
Attack Potency: 8.84 x 10^8 J

“Holy shit! I was too angry to notice.”

Probably The Metal’s closest friend by both factors of proximity and frequency. They hang out a lot. So much so that many people have mistaken them for cousins or even brothers despite some distinct visual differences between them. He hasn’t been in the group quite as long as Sentri or some of the others, but he is definitely as ingrained into it as anyone else. Though it is noted that he typically doesn’t participate in many meetings unless The Metal is there.

Personality

Buck is angry. Rightfully so. He was angry before he met The Metal and while his anger is more controlled now, it is likely also much more justified than before. He is constantly putting up with The Metal’s shit, confused by all of it as any sane person should be, and can’t decide whether it is better to be subjected to it all or stay home and be bored.

History

Early Life

The earliest we know about Buck is that he mentioned he was born near Area 51 when they were in New Mexico hunting for aliens. He eventually met The Metal, and then Sentri, around the same time during school. It was likely closer to high school than elementary given that Buck is missing from earlier flashbacks. They’ve remained close since then. He also met The Metal’s brothers, The Kidd and Joe the Short, through him at around this time. After he ran into them, he also met people like Kavi and Pitaya, though it isn’t clear when for either.

Adult Life pre-Ex Dynamis Chaos

Buck is mysteriously missing from mentions during the years leading up to the events Ex Dynamis Chaos. It is known that Buck and The Metal were really close and spent a lot of time together during their early adult lives, but he’s been away for quite some time. He was around during the founding of the Professional Freelancers, though he was always considered a member of the group all the same. He also had never met Laney Lin until the fight in the Parks Mall at Arlington, Texas.

Ex Dynamis Chaos

Eventually, Buck returned to Dallas-Fort Worth. According to his own words, he is at least aware of many of the on-goings since his departure since people had been filling him in, with somewhat conflicting takes on events. He joins The Metal on a trip into a subspace highway located in Oak Cliff, Texas where they fought demons running an underground, or more underspace, fighting ring. The demons formed together into a giant, vampiric clown that wanted to eat them, which pissed The Metal off and they barely made it out of the subspace before he nuked it into nothing. In tradition, once Buck returned he went on every job The Metal went on because it beats doing nothing and pays better than stocking shelves.

Tricked into a lunch with friends, Buck finds himself trapped in the Parks Mall at Arlington with the others as The Metal competes in the King Kong of Combat. Buck and the others try to find a safe place to hide when he meets Laney Lin for the first time, who was there to fight The Metal. After the fights concluded, they all left and met back together the next day to take on more work. The crew headed to New Mexico to search for aliens and Buck was given the job of documenting it as the cameraman. They ended up rescuing the aliens from Jerome Gallagher’s mercenaries and returning home.

He and Sentri accompanied The Metal to his semi-finals match with Pitaya and helped Sentri drag The Metal out of there after it ended in a destroyed laboratory and a draw. Needing some more training himself, Buck went with The Metal on a trip to China, but they were interrupted by a hijacking on the way to Hong Kong. Joe the Short needed their help dealing with the Hexxhunter. After dealing with him, they continued into the mainland and joined up with The Metal’s friend Shadow in the Proving Grounds. Three days later and nearly dying multiple times, they make it through the trial and return home to America.

It was time for The Metal’s rematch with Pitaya and Buck once again joined the crowd of onlookers. This time the fight ended with Pitaya forfeiting after a lab explosion somehow led to The Metal being transformed into a woman. The crew then boarded Joe the Short’s airship and headed to Crete, Greece. Joe refused to stop and Buck nearly hit the ground without a shoot if The Metal didn’t switch with him in midair in time. When they reached their destination, they met Laney, who sent them into the infamous labyrinth to fetch an old sack. There they ran into Herakles, who tried to kill them until he realized The Metal wasn’t his archrival Hera. They then gave the artifact to Laney just for Gallagher to show up and ruin their day further. Laney agreed to fight him in their stead so the crew could sneak off to their next destination.

Attributes

Stats

Might: Buck doesn’t pride himself on how hard he can hit, but he can still hit pretty hard. Not only does he seem to hold his own against demons and the like, but he often spars with The Metal when he needs to try something out on a sturdy object. The important part here is that despite the gap in ability, Buck can still hit The Metal hard enough that he finds it worth actually sparring and not just using him as a striking post. Buck is probably around the same general ballpark as The Kidd, give or take some.

Vigor: What Buck does pride himself on is how much he can take. He is much tougher than he is strong and for different reasons The Metal or The Kidd. He doesn’t heal exceptionally fast, but he has a really hard head and extremely thick skin. It used to be an exaggeration, but getting tougher over the years hitting Buck is like punching a rhino or an elephant. Sure, The Metal has always been able to hurt him, but that’s an extreme case. The vast majority of people likely couldn’t even harm Buck if they tried.

Alacrity: Buck is slow. Well, compared to his teammates anyway. He often finds himself lagging behind or out of breath, but you have to look at who he is running with. Despite being behind some of the fastest people on the planet, he manages to somehow keep up even when being followed by undead rhinos or Herakles. And have some boxing training, his footwork in close space is probably also faster than most people.

Intuition: The only sign of cognitive function Buck has had the opportunity to show is rightfully questioning anything that comes out of The Metal’s mouth. But strategy and trivia aren’t what Buck is there for anyway. He fancies himself more a manual laborer and often the meat shield. His answer to most problems is to break the thing causing the problem. And to be fair, in their line of work that is effective more often than you’d think.

Morale: It is hard to tell the level of Buck’s spirits. He is angry so often that we can’t be certain easy or hard it would be to break him as a person. If anything, he is at least consistent.

Luck: Buck will tell you himself that he has horrible luck. Maybe he even chalks meeting The Metal in the first place to such bad luck. But, he is also getting hurt all the time on his own. It doesn’t appear to be extremely bad luck, which may be why spots of good luck aren’t as noticeable, but it is nearly consistently bad.

Abilities

Moderate to Advanced Martial Arts Training: Buck has been fighting on and off for a long time. He has had some boxing training and some practice in Judo. He’s also picked up some forms and techniques from The Metal and is technically, loosely considered a student in his art. They spar often enough, and Buck has survived more than one extreme training trip with the maniac. Even if he might not be the second most competent fighter in their group for one reason or the other, he is definitely the second most skilled behind The Metal.

Hammerspace: It is assumed that The Metal taught the other members of his crew to access hammerspace, although there is no direct evidence yet that Buck has used his.

Equipment

Cell Phone: A normal cell phone that he uses to keep up with clients and the crew. Comes in handy for anything a cell phone can be used for these days.

Trackers: The Metal and crew keep little tracking nodes on them so that they can find each other using their phones. The signal becomes active again the second they leave hammerspace.

Official Character Art

Terzich’s Codex Pages