Golden Age Laughing Jack

* Casual
* Serious
* Reverting

## Personality

A good man at heart, Jack is a generally easy-going fella who does his best to not let life get the better of him. He isn't optimistic, and is more sarcastic and cynical than anything else, but is still overall fun to hang around. His demeanor can easily change to one of serious determination when he’s dealing with something that personally involves him, or that he is extremely passionate about, and the switch between casual and serious is so drastic that it can oftentimes seem out of place, though its something most people in his life have come to accept about him.

He also has a few sore spots due to his past, all of which can very easily have devastating effects if triggered.

## Backstory

“Time to make the world a better place!”

This was the phrase that drove a young Solomon as he joined the Tokyo police force at the ripe age of 22. He truly believed that he could, through sheer determination and a will to do right, change his home city for the better.

He was only partially wrong.

Rising through the ranks due to not only his inspiring optimism but his strong sense of justice no matter what, he quickly landed a place on the undercover task force. Why? He was one of the only cops in Japan they could fully trust to stay loyal, no matter how deep their cover. And just like that, he joined the yakuza.

“It’s a simple op, Jacques”, he had been told. Spend a couple of months in deep cover, get intel on a certain lieutenant that needed to be shut down or else, and get out safely before any of the higher ups realized what had happened.

It wasn’t.

The weeks slowly dragged on into months, the months into years, the years into a full decade.

They wouldn’t let him out.
He had gotten the intel within the first few weeks, he had done everything the op had required, why weren’t they taking him out? No matter the reason, he was forced to remain undercover, as exposing himself would get him and everyone he loved killed. And deep he went.

Slowly being welcomed as a genuine member, he was forced to do things, horrid things, completely against his own will, things that would easily get him arrested and fired from his job as an undercover agent. His penchant for chaos when his quirk was used to for pure chaos earned him a name amongst the underworld: Laughing Jack.

He wanted out. He needed out. Every day he send a message to his superiors pleading to get him out of there before he could do more damage.

But undercover he remained.

8 years passed since he had joined. His will was broken, and he was slowly beginning to accept his new life as a genuine member of the yakuza, indulging in his new life. He was a changed man, a complete dichotomy of the man he once was. He was turning violent, often raising his voice and getting this pure, cruel sadistic smile and nature when angered. He had completely stopped any and all attempts to communicate with his superiors, and didn’t even consider them superiors anymore.

He was becoming the monster he had fought to destroy in the first place.
A monster that, like all monsters, had it’s dues.

It was a Tuesday, March 5th, 2019. He had answered the door for what he had expected was a simple package being delivered. He was met with the end of over two dozen armed Police Special Forces. He was being raided.

What happened next all happened in a blur.

He spent days being questioned, interrogated, and even tortured. He tried explaining what had happened to him and how he had lost contact, but to no avail. They denied him the right to appeal his case on every occasion he tried. After a long night of thinking, it had finally hit him: he had been set up.

The whole failed extraction, his entire spiral into the further depths of the underground. It was all very intentionally set up.

His entire op was off the books, completely illegal. They had planned from the start to use him for the info they needed, burn him, and let him take the fall for their shadow op, and let his entire career as a cop crumble for their own intentions.
He was devastated.

After hearing the news and figuring out what had happened, he was taken over by a complete fit of rage, and got out the only way he knew how.
.
.
.
It was only thanks to miraculous amounts of luck and his underground connections that he not only managed to escape that police station alive, but the country as well. He was wanted for more crimes than one could count, some illegitimate, some fully legitimate. He fled to WayHaven in an attempt to start a new life, ditching his old name, alias, and past.

He was disgusted with the man that he had become. He hated the yakuza, the things they had made him do, the things he had willingly done, and the people who let him burn for it. He hated them all.

Going on a righteous conquest, he made it his goal to do the one thing he had set out to do from Day 1: “Make the world a better place.”

The underground was a putrid hellhole of corruption, a foul hive of villainy so present that they were allowed to run rampant and do whatever they wanted. But the exact same applied to the police force. He knew all police were either like him, too optimistic and naive to really know how futile their efforts were in the grand scheme of things, or had some sort of paycheck from the underground and didn’t want to give up that little bit of power, money, etc.

Unable to ever pursue his dreams of being a policeman again due to his past, he decided he’d achieve his goal in the only way he had left: becoming a vigilante. But he promised himself that he’d never stoop to the point that he had been before. He would always remain civil, and play by his own rules. No matter how violent his opponent was or got, he would never kill unless absolutely necessary.
Or, at least he thought.

You see, being around so many murderous, violent criminals for as long and as close as he was changes a man, consciously or not. He had lost a good portion, almost the entirety of his optimism. He had seen too much to think that there was always a bright side to things. And those sore spots I mentioned earlier? If or when they are triggered, he has a tendency to blank out, and while out his personality almost completely reverts back to his full dive yakuza personality: violent, loud, brash, and completely and utterly apathetic.

Despite this, he does his best to work to make this new city better, working to redeem himself after he failed his hometown.

## Resources

A small apartment, a car, and a few basic home accessories and furnishings. Nothing that would make his house stand out among thousands, but enough to give it a little touch of home.

### Equipment/Weaponry

Jack carries around basic, makeshift weaponry that anybody could obtain with any basic amounts of effort.

* a sledgehammer with a railroad spike through the head, his signature weapon.
* a metal baseball bat
* a basic and nondescript katana, a reminder of his days as a lethal gangster.

### Specializations

Due to being deep undercover for so long, Jack’s picked up a few habits, both from his fellow police and his fellow yakuza, that have helped him a good amount in the long run. These include:

* Telling and detecting lies more easily than average
* Self defense/CQC techniques
* Interrogation and intimidation techniques
* Basic medical knowledge/treatment, mostly for minor first aid wounds and the like
* An extensive knowledge of both the legal system as well as the underground systems
* He’s also completely bilingual and can speak both Japanese and English fluently, a talent that actually comes in handy far more than it doesn’t.

## Quirk

### **Wonderland**

The user of this quirk is able to emit a loud, shrill whistle, that has twice the normal range of a whistle, at about 25m. Anybody who nears the whistle will hear a long, cackling laugh not too long afterwards, as the environment slowly begins to morph into a alternate, twisted version of itself. The ground turns to a cracked, dark miasma type surface and plants wither away and die, replaced with thorns and brambles.

This is Wonderland.

The environment getting changed affects everyone caught in this quirk, though it isn't actually changing. It's part of the quirk's illusions. None of the environmental changes actually affect one's layout and movement around the world, it simply makes it look different, so one could reasonably navigate from A to B unhindered, it'd just be a bit trickier. For example, they’d have to get over their reflex of walking through thorns, even if they knew it wouldn’t actually hurt them. Once within Wonderland, no matter how far away one goes, they will be stuck in it until the ability runs out, or until Jack dispels it manually. The withering effects will follow them no matter how far or fast they go. They can also escape it by knocking Jack unconscious.
While in Wonderland, Jack gets access to his "cards", figments he's capable of summoning and having fight by his side. These figments are all illusions, just like Wonderland itself, however these can actually harm people due to them being specifically created to do so. They cannot actually interact with the environment, but can freely interact with the people caught in Wonderland itself. Each “card” has a special trait and different usage compared to the other. Jack has 5 total, but can only call out up to 2 at once, and a card will last 5 turns before going on a 5 turn cooldown which is carried into the next usage of Wonderland as well. Wonderland itself lasts 10 turns with a 5 turn cooldown.

**Cheshire -** A boy with a young-ish appearance, completely covered in bandages and brandishing a long, sharp scythe. Cheshire is the fastest of the cards, and moves at 50mph around Wonderland. He can also turn invisible for up to 2 turns non-consecutively, the only indication of where he is being his wide, sharp smile, which stays visible even after he isn’t. After turning visible again he must wait a full second before attacking someone, giving one time to dodge or counterattack. His strikes deal a normal 15kN and he can be forcefully dispelled by taking over 30kN total damage. He acts as the hunter of the cards.

**Lady Maria -** A beautiful, fair-faced woman with equally white skin and hair, and one missing eye covered by a constant stream of dark energy, Maria is the “Guardian Angel” in Wonderland. Once summoned, she will not once leave Jack’s side, staying to guard him at all times, humbly floating behind him when not needed. Her gimmick is that, while she can not move more than 5m away from Jack at any given point, she can freely teleport to any point within those 5m once one has been shown to be hostile towards Jack. The teleport takes a full second between when she starts and when it ends before she can do anything else, and she can only teleport once a turn.

This works completely independently of Jack, and he has no control over who or when she attacks. This plays both to his advantage and as a disadvantage. If someone can seem non hostile to Jack, even if he knows for a fact that they are, she won't attack. Her attacks all do a normal 15kN, and she can be forcefully dispelled with 30kN.

**Jabberwock -** An animalistic illusion, completely unique from the others cards in Jack’s deck, this beast is about as tall as Jack on all fours, twice as tall on its hind legs. This card’s gimmick is a simple one: its pure strength and size. With a 10kN slashes, 20kN bites, and 16kN tail whips, its clearly the most offensively powerful as the other illusions. With this sheer size and strength comes a few major drawbacks, most of which are what one would expect: his speed. His sluggish windups and attacks normally mean that anyone with decent reaction times and/or agility can avoid them.

The size also means that he’s nigh useless in small, tight areas, and normally has to be used in conjunction with another card that can trap or guide others into his attacks in order to truly be utilized properly. He can be forcefully dispelled with the same force as the other cards (30kN).

**Knave of Hearts -** The brutal and lethal “Executioner” of Wonderland, KoH nonstop torrents the opponent with blows, not giving them time to relax and reorient themselves. His gimmick is that, along with the fact that he completely specializes in ranged attacks and harassing his opponents from a distance, he constantly emits a foul smelling smoke from his cigarette that also minorly obscures vision and makes it harder to aim and track him, as well as harder to see his shots coming. He has three different types of shots, each with their own advantages and disadvantages in battle. His durability is also the same as all cards.

Type I - The smallest and lightest of Knave’s armaments, these small cannons deal only 8kN per shot, but have the fastest speed, at 50m/s, highest range, at 45m, and can be fired up to 5 times in one turn. It has the quickest firerate of all types, with only .5 seconds between each shot.

Type II - These medium-sized guns are a nice middle ground between the alternate two options, with a decent speed, at 35m/s, a nice range of 35m, and can be fired up to 3 times a turn, with each shot dealing 10kN. It has a medium firerate, with only a second and a half between each shot.

Type III - The biggest and bulkiest of Knave’s guns, this weapon is purely a “level the building they’re in” weapon, with a nigh unusable 15m/s, 15m range, and can only be fired once a turn. Its only redeeming feature is its 20kN damage per shot. It also cannot be fired if any of the other weapons have been fired more than once, and takes 5 seconds to load, prime, and charge before firing.

**Mad Hatter -** Taking the shape of a wide-eyed, pale skinned girl with an appearance not too different from Maria’s, the Mad Hatter is unique in that its the only one of the cards purely based around being a support-type fighter instead of an all out offensive one. While in play, the Hatter will actively work to repair or stitch up any wounded person that Jack deems important or an ally. This is made especially easy by the hands she can summon to help her with her job, up to 4, in fact, which allow her to be able to treat up to 5 people at once, or 1 person up to 5x as efficiently. These hands all have 5kN durability and take 1 full turn before they can be summoned again.

The only limits to what she can repair / heal is the severity of the wound or damage. Being a nurse, she specializes in healing living organisms. She can patch people up with bandages, stitch wounds close, and the like. The only limitations is that the wounds have to be something she can treat in 5 turns or less, she has to be able to actually physically repair it, i.e. she couldn’t fix getting poisoned, and the wounds she fixes can’t be something that ordinary medical attention couldn’t treat.

MH has some basic offensive potential, however. She can strike with needles for 10kN. She can also throw them for 3kN per needles, and throw up to 5 a turn. They move at 50m/s and have a range of 10m. She can only attack and throw these with her main hands, however. She can have her extra hands healing while she attacks, though.

**Strengths:**

While Wonderland is active, the enhanced capabilities + disorientation caused by the illusions twisted, warped world + the figments make this especially effective in tight, close corridor fights, even more so when Jack is outnumbered and without allies, and he doesn’t have to to worry about protecting or avoiding damaging someone.

Because of how his illusions function, he can also not be outran once trapped in Wonderland. Well, you can keep your distance for as long as Wonderland lasts, but he has special little precautions to deal with people like those. That’s a common theme in his quirk overall, actually. Being prepared for everything through creative usage of his cards.

**Weaknesses:**

There are a good amount of weaknesses associated with this ability despite all the strengths it may seem to have. A good amount of these and due to the nature of illusions. For instance, Wonderland itself is just his illusions cast over the actual environment, and the cards cannot affect anything in the real world since they are illusions, only people caught in Wonderland itself. As well as this, having enough knowledge about your environment completely negates most of the effect of Wonderland, as you know for a fact that nothing has actually changed and can navigate like normal.

Another core weakness is that Jack’s cards can only be used inside of Wonderland, and even if used then, cannot affect anybody who was not initially affected by the whistle, so outside force (calling for backup mid-fight, having a partner who wasn’t originally affected, etc.) is extremely effective against Jack as he will be forced to simply use his cards on those affected and deal with the others himself.