Raiden

Raiden, also known less formally as Jack and formerly as White Devil is a cybernetic soldier from the future who has been sent to the past. After joining FOXHOUND, he served as a legendary front-line soldier in Shadow War II and became an old wartime partner of Big Boss. He is played by Somberstarr. 
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Category:Characters
Category:Gmod
Category:Shadow War Saga
Category:Somberstarr
==Biography==
===Early Life and Career (1983-2004)===
Raiden is a well-worn soldier who has seen his fair share of battles throughout his lifetime. Born in Liberia in 1983 as Jack Usui, he remained in the country long enough to witness the beginnings of the Liberian Civil War. As conflict grew more and more rampant and violent, he and his parents attempted to flee the country, however, the three were captured by a team of mercenaries. Although he was able to escape, his parents were not as fortunate, as they were brutally slaughtered, leaving young Jack to fend for himself. Devastated by the loss of his parental figures, he wandered through the Liberian jungles before being found and trained as a child soldier by a rival mercenary group.
Jack was turned into a skilled and ruthless child soldier and was easily able to be manipulated to do as he was told. He and many other children were subjected to this cruel fate and any surviving child was left with a permanently scarred psyche and were forced to live the rest of their lives hating their past.
After the war ended, Jack was able to escape to the United States by hiding in a box and boarding a cargo plane. After being discovered, he was put under the care of an unspecified non-government agency. During his stay, he was put under intense counseling to help ease his mind. Later, he was put into a foster care system and bounced around the country. Even with extensive counseling, Under his unfortunate circumstances, Raiden found himself struggling to live a normal civilian life. After years he found himself in his "permanent" home: the residency of Republican politician George Sears. 
Life under George was comfortable in financial and physical terms. His father being a politician meant he got to live an upper-class life. He attended a prestigious high school, had regular after-school activities, and attended frequent counseling sessions. His relationship with his new parents was difficult for the young man to comprehend. He received an unbearable amount of attention from Sears' wife, while simultaneously receiving very little from Sears himself. Living in a Republican household meant he had adopted some of the social ideologies they typically preach. 
Nonetheless, he completed what years he could of high school and decided to join the U.S. Army. His skills were eventually recognized and soon found himself taking part in the Army's Task Force XXI trials.
===Task Force XXI Incident (2009) ===
Task Force XXI's main goal was to revolutionize and modernize tactics on the battlefield. They made soldiers take part in virtual reality training to enhance their skills with less risk, and even improved communication by implementing chips into their heads to catch radio transmissions from great distances. Their most ambitious goal, however, was to weaponize teleportation. Raiden, along with a margin of other soldiers, was set to partake in rigorous specialized training to prepare for his role in the upcoming project. They took part in the TFXXI's new VR training, allowing subjects to simulate the experience of teleportation cheaper, safer, and more effectively. The VR training was also set in place as a screening method to determine which soldiers were best suited for the task. He and nine others were selected to be part of the FIRST ADVANCEMENT, the group that would take humanity a leap forward. Here he was assigned the codename "Raiden". 
After less than two years of training, he was finally prepared to be the first human to partake in the Task Force XXI Teleportation Trials (TFXXITT). The chances of success were promising, and reassuring results were predicted by the scientists, with a relatively small margin of failure. However, the trial ended with disaster when an unforeseen circumstance led to a catastrophic failure in which Raiden was lost to time. Hours, days, and weeks passed with no sign of the soldier, and the young man was deemed officially deceased.
===FOXHOUND (1978)===
The rain poured the night he was thrown into a strange new world. Raiden, unable to comprehend what had happened to him, lay fatally wounded in a dark alley, the troubled shouts of FOXHOUND personnel and heavy rain obfuscated by a terrible ringing in his ears. His eyes were barely able to remain open, and whether that was due to the blood pouring into them or his severe concussion, paired with his numerous other injuries, was unknown to him. 
His body was in a terrible state. The paramedics on the scene were unable to describe the damage effectively, with some claiming that it was "something they had never seen before." Almost everyone present deduced that he was a lost cause; everyone except one. Amongst the search crew that found the boy was none other than the leader of FOXHOUND himself, Big Boss. He demanded that his soldiers take him back to the base and treat him to the best of their ability. The whole thing was a blur, as Raiden had been drifting in and out of consciousness.
[MORE TO BE ADDED]
===Shadow War II (1981)===
During the events leading up to the Second Shadow War, Raiden was entrusted with watching over Shinji, Big Boss' adoptive son. At first, Raiden was not fond of the idea of babysitting someone else's kid, but after learning of the child's situation, he took some pity on the boy and decided it is best if he didn't voice his objections. He drove Shinji around South Side and kept him safe from the growing number of Shadow Monsters perusing them. 
Raiden was present alongside Big Boss the day Shadow War II erupted. He ultimately failed his duty when he was overwhelmed by the opposing forces, leaving Shinji defenseless. It was during this moment that Shinji was fatally injured and called for help. Raiden quickly carried the wounded boy onto his bike and made his way for the hospital, but was forced to retreat to a nearby alleyway due to an overwhelming number of shadow monsters. There, Shinji, lying in Raiden's arms, whispered his final words and passed away, filling his caretaker with immense guilt and regret. He stood in silence and mourned the boy's untimely death before eventually being dragged back into battle by the cries of his comrades and the screams of monsters.
[MORE TO BE ADDED]
=== Cleanup Operations (1981-1988)===
After the incident in Southside, Shadow Monsters were released all across the globe, wreaking havoc on billions of lives and causing destruction and chaos wherever they went. The Cleanup Operation was a joint-effort global-scale operation brought about by numerous military groups in efforts to eradicate the Shadow Monster's presence from the surface world. Raiden, along with a majority of FOXHOUND, took to arms and joined the fight against the demons, who had escaped from their realms when the seal holding them from the surface world was broken. 
Under the command of Big Boss, Raiden was put in charge of other platoons of cybernetically enhanced soldiers and typically fought alongside them on the frontlines, however, conflict was long and bloody, forcing him to further enhance his cybernetic body to adapt to the brutality of the front-lines. It was during this time that Raiden experienced the full terror of war, which numbed his sense of violence and led to an even deeper development of his sense of protection.
[MORE TO BE ADDED]
===Post War (1988-1996)===
After the Cleanup Operations were concluded, Raiden was left lost and without a sense of direction. Fighting was what kept him alive for almost a decade, but now the readjustment back to civilian life would be another battle in and of itself. 
It is unknown what exactly Raiden had done in the immediate years after the war, but he did not remain idle. He allied himself with various mercenary groups to fight against injustice. He also did many solo missions for clients that aligned with his ideals. He did all of these while undercover, successfully escaping the U.S Government and FOXHOUND's radar. He remained terra-incognito for years before eventually returning to the public after hearing of Big Boss' "death" in Zanzibar.
===Reuniting with Big Boss and Shinji ===
Raiden, out of touch with his former Boss and also surprised by his "death", went to his housing in Southside to confirm his suspicions. There he discovered that Big Boss was alive, but still not over the death of his partner Sniper Wolf, who had perished at the end of Shadow War I. Big Boss tells Raiden of his plan to commit suicide to go to heaven and retrieve her. Raiden, who believed he would be unable to stop him from executing it, allows him to do so. 
During this visit, Shinji was somehow brought to the living realm after he escaped from Catholic Hell and was reunited with the two. Raiden was overjoyed to find that the child was alive. Big Boss was happy, but his grief over his lover and his desire to see her again overweighed the return. Raiden watched as the mercenary spent the next several days mercilessly killing himself, not able to convince him otherwise. After setting up a room for the child and having one last talk with his old Boss, he was informed that he had one life left. Raiden, at the last minute, tried to convince him to keep living and raise Shinji. Already set on what he needs to do, Big Boss handed Raiden a revolver and ordered the soldier to kill him. Raiden made it clear didn't want this, but he mustered up the strength to point the gun at him. Raiden hesitated, as he couldn't bring himself to kill the man that he believed gave him everything. During this hesitation, Big Boss entrusted the care of taking care of the boy and the house to the soldier until his return. As his final request, he ordered the soldier to pull the trigger, and Raiden, seeing that his situation was inescapable, does so, killing him instantly.
==Personality and Traits==
Raiden's past as a child soldier, as well as his possession of PTSD, has led him to be somewhat distant and cold to those that want to be close to him. Even those he knew, such as his then-girlfriend Rosemary, seemed to be affected by his tendency to push people away. He valued personal space and was prone to emotional outbursts. These conditions seemingly only got worse during his time spent in FOXHOUND during SWII, especially his time during the Cleanup Operations, as being faced with the war environment led him to recall repressed memories of his time in Liberia. During this time, he began to suspect that he enjoys killing, garnering a low image of himself, especially when comparing himself to the achievements of Big Boss, whom he idolized. Raiden respected Big Boss immensely and held him in a hero position, wishing to be more like the legendary war hero. 
His exposure to the significant violence and cruelty of the Cleanup Operations had left Raiden a cold, emotionless killer. He grew more and more miserable each passing day, turning to smoking and drinking as a means to alleviate stress. These ultimately failed to make him happier with himself, and only lead him further into depression. However, a fire in his robotic heart kept him alive and willing to fight. The simple idea that what he was fighting for would save lives and help end the war kept him within the warzone until the Operations were officially called off In late 1988. By this point, the effects of the conflict had altered his personality significantly as he had become solemn and bitter in his many years of war. This chapter of his life was probably the worst he had experienced in his adult life.
Raiden has a strong sense of justice and believes he must fight to protect others. This mentality primarily developed in opposition to his past, which was filled with harming others to fulfill orders, but was dramatically built upon in the years following the Second Shadow War. This mentality was what fueled his sense of living and also numerous other decisions he would make in the future. However, this way of thinking is highly exploitable (I sure hope no one gets any ideas)
Raiden's idolization of FOXHOUND's commander, Big Boss, is identical to how his canon counterpart views Solid Snake. His admiration of Big Boss stems from when the two first met and developed heavily throughout his training and the story's major conflicts. It is to be said that their relationship is in no way romantic, but rather an extreme show of loyalty from Raiden.
==Trivia==
* Raiden's favorite show is "The Static Show", a television program only visible to cyborgs and is unable to be understood by organic beings.
* Although he does not physically need to eat or sleep, he enjoys these activities and occasionally comments that he is "hungry" or "sleepy"
* Whenever he "dies" it is explained simply that he is extremely resilient and had just powered down temporarily.
* He received his signature motorcycle as a second-anniversary gift from his then-girlfriend, Rosemary.
** Although the bike has been destroyed numerous times throughout roleplay sessions, it returns under the guise that it had been repaired by a mechanic.
* His natural hair is slightly wavy, but he preferers to straighten it.
* Due to his childhood trauma and also trauma from the Cleanup Operations, Raiden has a significant fear of rain and water.
** It had been raining the day his parents were captured and killed.
** The majority of the Cleanup Operation was accompanied by heavy rain.
* He was originally 5'10 but was made 6'2 with robotic enhancements.