PRATTEN, levi thomas

[levi]

[atrb=style,background-color: 000000,bTable] levi thomas pratten

[atrb=style,background-color: transparent,bTable] hey guys. my name is levi thomas pratten, but you can call me levi. everyone else does, so i guess you can too. i'm fifty years young, and if it isn't already obvious, i'm a bloke. it should be. what isn't so obvious is the fact that i'm a were, but you can keep that a secret for now.

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personality

[/size][/right]Right, so you want to know a bit about me, eh? Well, I suppose that I'll have to oblige. 'Course I'm not exactly going to tell you every little detail, now am I? OPSEC and all that, you know.

So, the first thing that you should know is that I'm a really good actor. To most of the town, I'm a pretty laid back bloke, not getting bothered about anything. Some kid accidentally scratches my car? No problem. My birthday is interrupted by an earthquake, tsunami and swarm of killer bees? Why, that'll barely put a dint in my day. I'll just smile, make some wisecrack and get stuck into cleaning up. In actuality, I'd want to chase down that kid and listen as he screams and begs for mercy, and I'd want to use a flamethrower on those bloody bees.

See, the downside to being a werewolf is that you become very aggressive. How it manifests in people varies, probably based on their original personality but, in my case, I've been turned into a little bit of a psychopath. Now, instead of feeling nothing, I enjoy killing. You could almost say that it's an addiction. Oh, don't worry, I haven't killed anyone in a couple of years, and even then it was only a couple of low life thieves, but the urge is still there. I plan to kill everyone I meet, and it's only through sheer force of will that I don't lash out and attack people who annoy me.

What else do you want to know? Hobbies? Well, most of my hobbies revolve around keeping fit and guns. Actually, my job is also my hobby. You know that I'm the owner of the local gun company, right? Well, anyway, I own a small company that manufactures guns, mostly low volume repros or custom stuff. We do have a line of 7.62 Tok pistols, but we mostly focus on making custom stuff, like barrels, bolts or furniture. It doesn't matter how difficult or unusual the project, we'll take it and, truth be told, I love the more unusual projects. Not only does it let me justify some of the more expensive equipment in the shed, but it gives me a challenge that doesn't involve trying not to kill people. I'm also a huge collect of rare and unusual firearms and, if I do say so myself, I've got quite a nice collection.

You want to know what it's like to be a werewolf? I've already...Oh, you want to know what it's like to be my wolf form! Right, well, I guess I'm a bit unusual in this aspect, because I'm one of the few who can remember the transformation and events afterwards. What can I say? It's bloody terrifying. As a wolf, all that aggression and hunger is multiplied by a few orders of magnitude and I simply can't control myself. Often I'll scream at myself to clam down and stop slaughtering the wildlife, but it's as though someone else is controlling me. I'll tell you what, it's fucking terrifying being able to remember all that, especially the feeling of power that comes from killing. It's even more addictive than when I'm in human form, and I'm starting to suspect that the reason I'm not in control of my wolf form is because I enjoy it too much.

What are my feelings on the vamps? Well, I reckon that they're either up to no good or they're overestimating humanity's capability to keep them in check. Let's face it, vampires are superior to humans, and humans aren't going to like it. So far we've managed to avoid too many fights between religious nuts and the leeches, but it's going to blow up sooner or later, and I reckon that the bloodsuckers stand a good chance of winning, especially some of the older ones. After all, we all know what happens when one group of people have an advantage over another group. War. Conquest. Slavery. All those nice, lovely things. And, while I hope that it doesn't come to that, I'm ready for it.

history

[/size][/right]I was born in the arse end of nowhere, also known as Gregory Downs, a 190 000 hectare cattle station in Western Australia. It was, and still is, a vast, rocky plain with just enough scrub and bush grasses to support about two thousand head of cattle. Actually, it's not as bad as I make it out to be. We could, after all, get 95 cattle to the hectare, which isn't so bad.

Anywho, Gregory Downs was where I spent the first ten years of my life. I'll tell you what, growing up on a cattle station is an experience like no other. Sure, it's as hot and dusty as hell, but there's so much freedom. In those first ten years I learned how to ride horses and bikes, how to tie dozens of different knots, how to herd cattle, how to train cattle dogs, how to shoot and so much more. For a kid, it's a good life, even with all the chores and work. 'Course it wasn't all work. I used to run feral with all the other kids on the station, there were about ten of use all up, and we used to get into so much trouble. I'll never forget the time we spiked the water trough with the vodka we'd stolen from a couple of jackaroos. I've never seen a bull so drunk in my life!

None of that could last, though, and I was sent away to Perth for boarding school. I missed the dust and the heat and, above all, the freedom, but I knew that my parents were forking out a lot of money to give me the best education possible, so I knuckled down and tried to focus on the task at hand.

Inevitably, I got distracted by footy, booze, smokes and girls, not necessarily in that order, and dropped out of school at the age of sixteen. My parents were disappoint, sure, but probably not as much as they would have if they were relying on me to take over the station. I had older brothers who'd had to shoulder that burden.

Mooching around for a couple of weeks, looking for some work, I stumbled across an army recruiting station and was attracted to the challenge and adventure promised to me by the recruiter. Understandably, my parents weren't entirely happy but, as my father said, sometimes you've just got to let people make their own mistakes. Fortunately for me, joining the army was no mistake, and I enjoyed it, despite the rigid discipline and occasional bastardry of my fellow soldiers.

I'd joined up as an ordinary foot slogger, but it didn't take long before I became completely and utterly fascinated by the workings of my SLR and I started to dissemble my fire team's gimpy to see exactly how it worked. So, after my first three years in the army I renewed my contract for six years and transferred to the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineer Corps, where I became a Fitter Armaments. It was a good job, and often had me wracking my brains as to how I could salvage one piece of equipment or another. Still, there was still some restlessness in me, and it took me about five years to work it out. I was being challenged mentally but, physically, I got nothing. And so I decided to join the SASR.

And so I began training for the absolutely insane tests that I was told I'd have to go through and, when it came time for re-enlistment, signed up for another six years. Then, at the relatively young age of 26, I applied for the SASR's selection.

Those three weeks of selection seemed like the worst time of my life. Sure, I enjoyed it, but there's only so long that one can go without food, sleep and sanity before one decides that life sucks. Still, it was the happiest day of my life when I finally passed and began a year and a half of extensive training to expand my skills and make me into the warrior that the SASR was looking for.

The next thirteen years were, in my opinion, the best years of my life. It's hard to explain to an outsider what it's like to be a member of the SASR, but it's kind of like being in a big family. Sure, we didn't always get along and we often pinched each others kit and food, not to mention playing practical jokes on each other but, when it came down to a mission, everyone pulled their fingers out of their arse and got stuck right in. The less said about those years, the better, though, considering our lack of official operations.

All good things must come to an end, though, and I left the SASR at the age of 40, just before September 11. I'd grown too old and, while I was still good, I just didn't think that I was good enough to remain in the field. I could have taken a job training new recruits or gone back to my old job of fixing stuff, but I decided to cash my chips and leave the army.

At a loose end, and not entirely sure about how to proceed as a civilian, I applied for a work visa for America, pretty much on a whim, and taught gun safety classes for a couple of years in a New Jersey town called Jamerson Falls. Despite what people say, America isn't really all that bad, and I soon began to enjoy myself.

A year into my stay in America, I went deer hunting in the forest, taking my brand new Mossy 500 for a spin. I camped out over night and didn't really think I was in any danger until I was woken by a ravenous, slavering beast that was rushing through the forest towards me. I'd kept my shotty loaded, albeit without a shell in the breech, so I picked it up and went to meet the threat.

The monster burst into the clearing I'd camped in and paused for a moment, watching me. Now, if I'd been a civvie I'd have pissed myself. Hell, if I'd been anything but special forces I'd probably have pissed myself, but I was in control of myself and opened fire on the giant wolf.

I'm probably luckier than most, because I got two shots off before it floored me, one to its head and the other to its chest. I was using slugs, so the first shot should have blown the wolf's brains right out the back of its skull, and the second should have caved in its rib cage and destroyed the heart and lungs. And yet, despite that, the wolf seemed to ignore the slugs and charged me.

I'd be lying if I said that I knew exactly what happened next, but I woke up the next morning with my shotgun resting on some naked chick's completely wrecked head and dozens of scratch and bit marks all over my body. I suppose that I must have stuck my shotgun in the wolf's mouth and blown out the rest of its brains.

It took perhaps half an hour before I could sit up and get my bearings, and that was when a couple of guys carrying guns burst into the clearing and looked at me open mouthed. My first instinct was to kill them and hide their bodies but, fortunately for me, I didn't have the strength, or unbroken bones, needed to lift my shotgun. See, the two men werewolves and good friends with the woman whom I'd killed and, when they saw that she'd turned me, they explained everything for me.

And so I became a werewolf and, after my visa was up, applied for an extension so that I could stay with my new family, made up of a mixture of supernatural creatures. I was granted another two years and decided to take a gunsmithing course, which I passed with flying colours, and use my savings to start up a company that would tackle custom projects that other people had the money but not the skills needed to complete. After a couple of years, I was granted residency and celebrated by expanding and starting up my own line of pistol.

And that, my friend, is where I am right now.[/div][/td][td]

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role play sample

[/size][/right]When any king considers sending the bulk of his army off to war he always needs to know that his borders are secure. One of the ways he can do this is by making a treaty with any enemy countries. The other way is to check how strong your opponents military is. Normally this would be a job for the Rangers, but they were mobilising troops, scouting the potential battlefields and keeping law and order. The Royal Scouts were also busy with their various duties and so Dougal had been told that the SWC had the job. Bored with the paperwork that was required to run the Corps, Dougal handed command over to his second in command and took a section up to Norgate. After getting more provisions, the section had headed into Picta, avoiding the border guards completely.

It was surprisingly easy to gather intelligence about your enemies if you know how. One of the men in the section - a tall, lanky man named Blàr - spoke excellent Pictish and was in charge of asking the questions. He went in with one or two others and pretended to be a merchant or wealthy man. Blàr was able to get quite a bit of information, most of it useless, from the locals and the others either picked up snatches of conversation or made friends with traders who spoke their language. Right from their first day of inquiries the section knew that an army was headed towards the Araluen border, but finding out why was much harder. Many of the peasants and even some of the village chiefs had a limited understanding of what was going on. However, once they met up with the Scotti army, Blàr was able to work out that the army wasn't going to invade Araluen but wanted to help fight the Aslavians. Well, that was all well and good, but was it a ruse? Figuring that it was better to be safe that sorry, Dougal decided to follow the army and then cut them off at the border, demanding an answer as to what they were doing.

By now the section had been inside Picta for ten days and the men were getting fed up with the whole business. They were tired of being wet, cold and hungry but they kept on going. In fact, finding the army was actually beneficial for them all. The army could only move as fast as its supply train, and the Scotti's supply train moved slowly. For the men of the SWC, following the army was a walk in the park. Not only did it travel slowly, but the Scotti's scouts were not quite up to the standards of the Araluen Rangers. While Dougal's men weren't quite up to Ranger standards, they were still better than your average scout.

A few days later and Dougal was watching the army from near the pass. As he watched, a detachment of cavalry rode out from the Scotti lines and headed up into the pass.

"Okay, that's strange. Alf, Fred and George, you go and find out what's happening. Make sure that no one can see you, from either side of the border. They might have an agent that they're meeting."

The three men Dougal had singled out gave a brief salute and crept away, keeping low and using all the available cover. If the army started to move before they returned, the Dougal was going to head back to the narrowest point of the pass and set up a defence there despite the party of eight that had already been that way. However, Fred was back within minutes.

"There's a knight and her man at arms parleying with that group of men."

"Is it sus?"

"No, it looks as though the leader of the group is a diplomat of some kind. Besides, the knight seems to have set up some defences against the Scotti and her man-at-arms is covering her. He's not in a very good position, though."

"Did you just say 'her'?"

Fred grinned slightly, knowing his Captain's distrust of all women.

"Yeah. From what I could see she's Katrina de Montgomery."

"Knight of the Silver Unicorn, eh?"

Katrina was something of a curiosity. One of the very few women whose job involved fighting for the King, Katrina had proven herself to be a very talented and skilled fighter. This made some men angry or jealous, but most of the men in the SWC felt admiration for her and many of them wanted to meet her, if only to see if Katrina had a feminine side. Dougal wasn't one of these. He merely wanted tog et her measure and see how strong she was mentally, which was something that he felt was more important than physical strength.

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, let's get moving. We'll watch what happens at a distance and then make contact if it's needed."

"Sir."

The section moved rapidly to where the action was taking place, being careful that no one saw them. Camouflage cloaks would have been nice, but Crowley had sunk that idea straight away on the grounds that the SWC would then be able to pose as Rangers. Ah well, he did have a very good point, because Dougal would have done just that on a couple of occasions where he needed to keep his job a secret. By the time all ten men were in position, the discussion was nearing completion. The faint sounds of conversation that drifted up to Dougal contained no hint of malice or danger in them so he hung back, taking everything back. He watched as Katrina rode up to her man-at-arms and told him to stay.

A couple of men from the Scotti diplomat's guard headed back towards the Scotti side of the border. Dougal's paranoia screamed at him, telling him that this was proof of a trap. Dougal told his paranoia to stuff it. If the Scotti were planning treachery then they would try that kind of stunt on border guards, not a lone knight and her man-at-arms. Still, Dougal thought, it might be a good idea to follow Katrina and the Scotti envoy. Apart from not trusting the Scotti and also not trusting women, Dougal was curious about what the Scotti were planning.

"Okay, let's move out. We'll go around the man-at-arms and then run to the castle."

There were several groans from the men as Dougal mentioned excessive physical exercise.

"Anyone who beats me gets my pay for the month."

Seeing as Dougal was paid double what any of the regular soldiers were being paid, the entire section perked up and looked eager for action. Dougal gave them a cynical grin and they realised how they had been manipulated. Returning his grin, the men shrugged and started up the mountain. It was going to be a long trek home. Hopefully they would make it before anything happened.[/div][/center][/td][/tr][/table]

[atrb=style,background-color: 000000,bTable] LEVI | FIVE YEARS | EDWARD WINTER

application created by demi, inspired by you could do better from caution.