The Apex File
Portrait of Dez Marrow. A short man in his late twenties, lean as a wire, with light brown skin and a nose broken more than once. Black hair buzzed at the sides, messy on top. Olive work jacket with sleeves shoved past the elbows, black shirt, cargo trousers, scuffed boots. A red pincushion is strapped to his left wrist, bristling with steel pins. He leans forward, chin up, grinning like he was just insulted. Dried blood under one nostril. His aura is a red haze that crackles like radio static. Apex class

Blacklist Hunter

Dez Marrow

The Last Straw

Manipulator

You swung first. Everything after this is technically self-defense.

Profile

Age
27
Height
168 cm
Affiliation
Freelance. Works from his late grandmother's tailor shop in Vell Harbor.

Appearance

Short and wiry, with a nose broken so often it points slightly left. Black hair buzzed at the sides, a mess on top. Wears a work jacket with the sleeves shoved up and a red pincushion strapped to his left wrist. There is usually dried blood under one nostril.

Personality

Loud, blunt and quick to laugh. He has the shortest fuse in the Association and one strict rule about it: he never throws the first punch. So he talks until someone else does. Generous to strangers, petty with rivals, and honest mostly because lying takes patience.

Likes
Cheap noodles, loud radio, people who hit first
Dislikes
Landlords, slow talkers, being told to calm down
Pastime
Hemming the neighbors' trousers for free. Badly.
Goal
Shut down every debt syndicate on the coast, then reopen the shop.
Quirk
Chews a pin when he thinks. Has swallowed four. Recalled all four.

Backstory

Dez grew up above his grandmother's tailor shop in Vell Harbor, a port town owned by a debt syndicate called the Ledger. She altered suits all day, argued with the radio all night, and gave him one rule: never start a fight, always finish it. At thirteen he saw a Ledger collector slap her over late rent. Dez stepped between them and waited. The man swung, and every pin in the shop rose off its cushion and chased the collector into the street. The man limped for a year.

She died when Dez was nineteen and left him the debt and thirty pins. He passed the Hunter Exam that spring and took the Ledger apart alone. Six more syndicates on the coast earned him his third star. He bought the building. He still pays the rent, on time, to himself.

Stats

Body

Power
A
Speed
S
ToughnessSoft spot
B
Stamina
S
Technique
A
Mind
S

Aura

Reserve
S
OutputBest alive
Star
Control
S+
Presence
S+

Output. No living user releases more aura in one instant. Grand Opening is the small version.

Toughness. He bruises easily. Painkiller hides the damage, so he finds out about it late.

Nen

Fundamentals

  • Ten S
  • Zetsu S+
  • Ren S+
  • Hatsu S+
  • Gyo A
  • In A
  • En 50 m S
  • Shu S+
  • Ko S
  • Ken S
  • Ryu S+

Signature fundamental

Zetsu, “Hard Reset”

Most users need a few breaths to come out of Zetsu. Dez snaps off and back on in one second. He uses it to clear the static when he holds too much. For that second everything he holds drops, and he has no guard. The pins stay tuned.

Affinity

ENHANCER60%TRANSMUTER40%CONJURER60%SPECIALIST0%MANIPULATOR100%EMITTER80%

Manipulators work at full strength in their own type and lose efficiency the further around the chart they go. How the chart works

Hatsu

Tap an ability to open its file.

Wavelength: A narrow street at dusk. A short man stands with one finger raised. Thirty pins hang glowing in the air around him, and behind him a parked car rises off its wheels, one bright pin stuck in its roof. Wavelength 【Thirty Stations】 Manipulation, Emission

Thirty steel pins, soaked so long in his aura they are more aura than steel. Whatever a pin enters tunes to his wavelength and moves on his word: a brick, a car door, a dropped sword. On command, every pin pulls free and flies back to his wrist from anywhere inside his En. He never runs out. Opponents spend the first minute dodging pins and the rest dodging their own furniture.

Conditions

  • A pin must break the surface to tune anything. A guard or hide too hard to pierce stops it cold.
  • Control lasts only while the pin stays in. Pull it out and the thing is ordinary again.

The price

Past ten controlled things, his nose bleeds and his head fills with static. Clearing it takes one full second of Zetsu: everything drops, and he has no guard.

Self-Defense: A swordsman frozen mid-lunge, five glowing pins in his shoulder, hip and back, his own blade turning toward his neck. A few steps away, the short man holds one hand out, fingers curled as if pulling strings, blood running from one nostril. Self-Defense 【Hostile Takeover】 Manipulation

Pins in a person work like pins in a chair, with more paperwork. Three pins in one limb and the limb is his. A sword arm stops mid-swing and turns toward its owner's throat. Five pins anywhere and he has the whole body for a few seconds. It moves at the speed its owner trained it to, which makes strong opponents the most useful ones.

Conditions

  • Only on someone who attacked him first in this fight. A missed punch counts. Insults do not.
  • The full-body hold breaks after a few seconds and throws all five pins out. He has to land them again.

The price

Driving a whole body takes all of his attention. For those seconds, every other thing he controls drops to the floor.

Redline: A city street coming apart: bricks, lampposts and car doors lifting in a wide ring, each edged in red light. In the center a short man shouts, blood streaming from his nose, eyes lit red, pins forgotten at his feet. Trump card Redline 【???%】 Manipulation, Emission

When he is angry enough, the gauge in his head runs past its top and stops showing numbers. For about a minute he needs no pins. Anything he looks at is his: walls, streetlights, a street's worth of rubble, the coat on the opponent's back. All of it moves at once. The limit of ten is gone until it ends. Survivors describe it as fighting the weather.

Conditions

  • Only real rage starts it. He cannot fake it, and one honest laugh ends it early.
  • Lasts about one minute. He still takes a person only if they attacked him first, and only for seconds.

The price

His aim turns sloppy: he grabs whatever he glances at, allies included. After, his aura is nearly gone for a few minutes, and the headache hits.

Techniques

  1. Grand Opening 【Confetti】

    Ren + Emission + Manipulation

    A ball of raw aura packed with all thirty pins. It bursts at head height and sprays them through the room. First come, first served.

  2. Moving Day 【Freight】

    Manipulation + Emission + Shu

    He points, and anything pinned leaves at full speed. Shu hardens it on the way, so a plastic chair lands like a cinder block.

  3. Shutter 【Closed for Business】

    Emission + Manipulation + Shu

    Four pins driven into the ground pull a sheet of hard aura taut between them. It stops a tank round. It also stops his own throws.

  4. Rent Day 【Collection】

    Manipulation + Emission

    Pins in a person siphon their aura back to him. One pin sips. Five empty a master in about three minutes, if nobody pulls them.

  5. Painkiller 【Dead Channel】

    Manipulation + Shu

    One pin in the back of his own neck switches the pain off. Nothing heals. He just hears about the damage later.

  6. Callback 【Homing】

    Manipulation + Emission + En

    All thirty pins fly home at once in straight lines, through whatever is in the way. Nobody stands between him and his pins twice.

Field assessment

Fighting style
Starts nothing and finishes everything. He talks until someone swings, opens with Grand Opening, then fights from the middle of a storm of flying furniture, pulling pins and throwing them again.
How they win
Clutter. Every room he fights in is an armory. Anyone who attacks him hands him their own body, and the stronger they are, the more that body is worth.
How they lose
Opponents who never swing first keep their bodies their own. A guard too hard to pierce stops the pins. A clean hit during his one-second reset costs more than he feels.

Bonds

SuspiciousKaien MuroiSpent an hour trying to make the polite one swing first. Got asked follow-up questions instead. Is sure he is hiding something. OwedToby UkairoLost forty thousand jenny to him at cards and still says the deck was rigged. It was not. He wants a rematch.