Conner King

Conner King is a parahuman from Oakland. He was a player character during Inbetween: Oakland and Inbetween: A Quiet Place. He was a secondary antagonist during Inbetween: New York.

## Personality

### Background

Dark and brooding, Conner is a walking stereotype. He has spent his entire life running. Running from bad people; running from his responsibilities, but most of all, running from himself. He has incredible internal drive, able to push himself to accomplish almost anything. A broken man, he has lost everything not once, but twice. He used to have a softer side, but his rapid descent into the criminal underworld destroyed much of his lighter side. It is unclear how much of Oni’s original personality is left.

He would prefer not to talk to others, saying the bare minimum to get his message across. He is horrible at first impressions and awkward when having to talk to others, particularly those in positions of power and has had bad experiences with powerful figures in the past. Despite his introvertedness, he is good at picking up innuendo and social cues.

He has thrown people under the bus in the past, and would have no problem doing it again. He has no true allegiance to anyone but himself. He holds grudges, but is mostly talk when it comes to exacting revenge. He tries to make himself scarier and more dangerous than he actually is.

Harley, his de facto, only real friend, came to New York after Oakland was destroyed. Conner keeps the younger man in the dark about what he does and Harley acts as his one link to society. He has a wife and child in the city that he keeps extremely loose tabs on.

## Relationships

### Parahumans

#### Kevin Jeong; Hypothesis

Co-leader of the Outcasts, Conner frequently disagreed with Kevin on how things should have been run.

#### Stygian

Teacher and student, Conner refining his skills with the veteran killer over the course of a year and a half. The two are similar is personality and tactics.

## Appearance

### Civilian Identity

Short and lanky, not the image most people think of when they hear ‘professional killer’. He is toned, but more lithe than muscular with a runner’s build. He isn’t particularly attractive and has black hair and fair skin from little sunlight. He wears dark, baggy clothing that covers much of his body. His complexion is overly pale and his body is riddled with scars. He constantly has bags under his eyes from sleep deprivation.

After a near life ending injury at the hands of the Slayers, Crux saw it fit to save Conner's life. Conner's right arm is covered in a half dozen surgical scars that run up his hand and end just above his shoulder blade. He has a number of artificial bones and metal screws in this arm. Unbeknownst to Conner, Crux installed a GPS tracker within the technology that saved his life. The injury is still painful, even after these two years.

### Parahuman Identity

In costume, Conner wears a solid black, single bodysuit that covers his entire form, fingers included. He further covers this suit with a fraying, Kevlar cloak with steel plates covered in dried mud and blood. He covers his face behind a snarling red mask depicting a Japanese demon. The cloak is designed in such a way that, when he frictions up his entire body, it creates a number of hard angles that deflect attacks. He carries Ninjato in a black scabbard. He has a utility belt with smoke bombs, high tensile line, flashbangs and similar supplies. He carries a number of knives and a handgun all hidden by the folds of his cloak. He also carries a pair of electrical grenades, the only thing Harley (and Conner, realistically) feels comfortable giving him to use.

The sword was given to Conner by Leer and is of exceptional craftsmanship.

## Abilities and Powers

Conner's power allows him to control the friction of objects he touches in either direction– either high or low friction– and is unable to affect living material. His control is absolute, though not particularly fine, meaning he can’t exactly ‘slide’ it across the scale. He can either increase or decrease friction on either ends of his spectrum. He can also use his power to return the friction to the baseline. As he has used his power, he has gotten quicker at switching from high to low friction, allowing him to do it in a second.

He is able to use it on his suit to grant himself increased defenses, at the cost of being unable to move. He is also able to use it offensively by freezing others in place with a touch. Recently, he has practice with increasing friction in an area on surfaces, freezing those that are in contact with it. He also uses this ability to climb up sheer surfaces, though it gives him no special ability to perform the athleticism required to make some climbs, and walk on liquids. If he freezes objects in motion, momentum is conserved, potentially resulting in disastrous consequences.  He isn’t able to freeze objects in mid air, and sufficiently strong individuals are capable of breaking through the increased friction. On the other end of the spectrum, he is able to reduce friction on himself to allow himself to move significantly faster by ‘skating’ along the ground. He must be careful when moving like this, as even relatively small attacks can send him flying. He can also use this ability on others to increase their speed, though most people aren’t used to maneuvering with no friction.

He is able to affect a somewhat sizeable area, around thirty feet in diameter, with his power. He is able to greatly manipulate the diameter his power affects, but not who or what it affects within the area. His power requires objects to be physically connected to each other. Once applied, his power only lasts about twenty seconds, though he can infinitely reapply his power.

His power has odd interactions with parahumans who are made of non-living material, such as his teammate Shale, his power usually not work.

He is exceptionally strong against certain Tinkers, the friction manipulation making mechanical technology near useless.

Beyond his parahuman abilities, Oni is an expert in hand-to-hand combat, sword play, marksmanship and subterfuge. He is consistently able to kill unarmored individuals from several dozen meters away with throwing knives, even while moving. A marked feat of his infiltration skills was his ability to infiltrate Rikers Island virtually undetected until releasing several dozen inmates and, even still, kept his identity safe from PRO. He is a protégé by Stygian.

He purposely exposes himself to dangerous situations to harden his body such as ingesting smalls amounts of toxins to build up a natural immunity, swimming in freezing water or going days without sleeping.
He dislikes using firearms and prefers knife and sword play, a trait he shares with Stygian.

## History

Was previous known as Recurve, though this was a lifetime, team and city ago. After abandoning what little remained of the Outcasts in Oakland during the Merry Band attack, he fled the city. After three months of bouncing up and down California, barely surviving, he was inevitably hunted down by the Runners, who brought him back to Crux. Crux kept him on retainer, mostly trying to get his money’s worth, so to speak. At the request of some higher ups, Crux loaned him out to Godfather in New York.