Rick Furzeland

This article, Rick Furzeland, was written by Suicidal Skydiver. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission.
A young (23 years old) and unexperienced member of the Marauders, like his two best friends, James Palmer and Tom 'Torch' Burch, struggling with the harsh reality that he never felt he should have had to experience.
==Appearance ==
Rick is of an average height and weight, with neck length blonde hair. He wears glasses, and has light blue eyes. He is fairly well-built from his training in the gears, but is still of average build.
Ricks armor is based on the original COG armor, but heavily padded with old scrap metal and similiar materials, with the mentality of 'Protection over Mobility'. This armor is also designed in order to be removed as quickly possible, as there will ALWAYS be a time when running is the only option. Doing this leaves RIck completely unprotected however, and so he has always done his best to drop his armor somewhere where he may be able to pick it up again soon.
Rick also wears a heavily customised COG helmet. He removed most of the front of the mask, and made a new face-plate on a hinge (similiar to a welding mask), which could still be sealed to completely cover his face, in case of smoke, dust or any other hazardous material. The helmet often gets him criticism, for being impractical and the disadvantage it gives when on the lookout for snipers. Any abuse to his headgear normally results in a flick up of the visor, a retaliatory 'Fuck You', and his visor being flicked down again. Palmer has a habit of painting faces on his visor, a habit that never ceases to amuse him.
==Background ==
Rick was brought up by his two parents, along with his older brother, in a small rural community. He never truly fitted in with other children, due to his lack of desire (or skill) at 'outdoor' entertainment, He found two friends half-way through his education who he ended up sticking with for much of his life. He did his best to ignore the Pendulum Wars, seeing it as 'Politicians wasting lives instead of money'. His perspective of war was changed drastically on E-Day: This wasn't the fake patriotism that they tried to brainwash the people with in the Pendulum Wars, this was a last stand. Fighting back against the bastards that tried to take away everything that millions of years of evolution had given the humans.
He and the rest of his village all left a few weeks after E-Day. Most of the other nearby villages had already been ravaged by the Locust, and it was a matter of time until they too were attacked by the Horde. Upon reaching Jacinto, enlistment was the first thing they did. They were given their armor and lancers, and thrown straight into the fray, with their superiors knowing that they would most likely end up as cannon fodder, dead within a month or two.
A year after enlistment, the three were still going, barely. Coming close to death so many times had made a dramatic change to all of them. They started to relax a little more on the battlefield, but never over-cautious. They still had lots to learn, but the list of lessons had grown shorter. They were part of a support team, working to reinforce local outposts, and clear major lines of Locust obtrusion. Not long before setting out, things went completely FUBAR. Their superior was the first to go down, after being shot down on a dash for cover, leaving the rest of the squad like headless chickens. Not long afterwards, Rick, Palmer and Burch were cut off from the two remaining members of the squad. WIth no place left to turn to, they doubled back, to find themselves almost caught in the middle of swarm of Locust, setting up an ambush for when the others inevitably returned. They ran. Hours later, the three (looking for somewhere safe) found a village, unfortunately filled with Stranded. They heard of an 'army' of the Stranded that was also fighting the Locust. Customising their armor with whatever material they could find, they adapted their COG armor, sacrificing mobility for protection on the long road ahead. Not long after, they finally reached the HQ of the Marauder's operations, and began their fight for Sera again.
Currently working with the Marauders, he has earnt a small amount of merit for being able to customise and improve armor for different people's needs. This is evident in the gear he always wears where he goes.
==Personality ==
Rick is not the kind of person who would have imagined himself in a war: Naive, but passionate when it came to the things he believed in and cared about., a trait that he often is told he shares with his grandfather. He tries to keep happy when around his friends, but can never truly relax: WIll one of his friends die in the next firefight? Will HE? When in battle, humour is the last thing on his mind, eyes always darting to watch for anything and everything that may be the cause of damage to anyone in his squad. He also refuses to use an enemy as a meatshield, due to the sheer inhumanity of what he is doing. 'Kill them, but don't make them suffer' is the way he thinks about fighting.
Out of battle, Rick is nervous around those he is unfamiliar with, but is perfectly at home around Palmer and Burch. It is difficult to get on his badside after being around him for a while, but talking negatively on certain topics can often coax him into getting very angry and passionate to prove his point, or incapacitate the person who wishes to disprove it. He also feels the need to help those who need it, whether it turns out wrong or right.
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Category:Characters
Category:Reconnoiter