Sonic OC: Izumi/Cutter-6 (Diamond Cutters AU)
Next, one of my more "controversial" OCs: Izumi Conrad, a character from a Diamond Cutters-centric project I'm working on.
"Have you ever noticed that when the sky is cloudy and gray, the world below appears brighter and more vibrant?"
IZUMI CONRAD
Age: 13-15
Birthplace: Unknown
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Height: Slightly taller than Sonic
Likes: Science, studying Mobian biology, Yurashian tokusatsu shows (Sentai Rangers, Rider Mask, Metallic Heroes, etc.), the other Cutters (especially Smithy and Claire), Halloween.
Dislikes: Crowded, noisy places; being dragged away from his work; people he's unfamiliar with; science being used for evil; people pointing out his height; people messing up his lab; silly superstitions.
AFFILIATION: Diamond Cutters (Medic)
DREAM VA: Erik Scott Kimerer (Gowther from The Seven Deadly Sins; Secco from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind)
POWERS & ABILITIES
*Eagle Wispon proficiency
*Grenade throwing proficiency
*Chemistry
*Medical knowledge
*Biogenetics knowledge
BACKGROUND
Sometime before rise of the Eggman Empire, former soldier-turned-freelance mercenary Smithy the Lion was hired by the New Shamaran Liberation Front to hunt down the White Eagle, a terrorist cell employed by the region's tyrannical king. The group had been attacking cities that supported or were suspected of supporting those who sought to depose the king, using deadly chemical weapons to flush them out, destroy crops and livestock to coerce them into giving them up, or just wipe out the entire population. While attempting to infiltrate the city the group was hiding in, Smithy encountered the one responsible for creating these weapons: Izumi Conrad, a human child with glasses, red hair, and almost supernaturally high intelligence.
After helping Smithy escape from some of the Eagle's soldiers and treating several injuries he had received, Izumi revealed his story. He had been taken from his family at a young age and eventually landed in the "care" of the White Eagle, who wanted to use his intelligence to make weapons of war. Tired of seeing innocents suffer because of his inventions and fearing for his life, Izumi began making plans to escape the group; only to end up trapped in the city and forced into hiding until the lion discovered him.
After a fierce battle, Smithy managed to destroy the White Eagle's weapons and free Izumi from their clutches. With nowhere else to go, Izumi began traveling with him, eventually becoming the medic for his spec-op mercenary unit: the Diamond Cutters.
PERSONALITY
In contrast to the loud, boisterous, and outgoing Smithy, Izumi is quiet, introverted, and bookish. While the other Cutters engage in all manner of wild shenanigans in their off-time, he spends his time in his lab working on new ideas and projects to help his friends on the battlefield, as well as the world in general. Izumi often spends hours, even days, working at a time, often forgetting to eat or sleep forcing the others to bring him food or drag him out so he can take a break.
While highly intelligent and mature for his age, Izumi's life both in and before the White Eagle have left him stunted emotionally. In particular, his thought process is predominantly driven by logic and reason, giving him impressive deductive abilities and keen intellect, but he struggles with understanding other peoples' perspectives and non-lateral thinking. This can cause him to come off as blunt and insensitive, or even cynical and pessimistic, as he often fails to factor in details like others' morality and emotions. He's also lacking in world experience and is easily fascinated and impressed by things others would find mundane or never notice; like how colors pop out more on cloudy days or the way raindrops move on a windshield.
Izumi is extremely passionate about science and knowledge, seeing it as the key to understanding the underlying mechanics of the universe and the human nature, and the key to allowing humans and Mobians to take control of their destinies and make the world a better place for everyone. As a result, he's highly critical of those who use it to hurt others, both because it hurts peoples' belief in it and because of his past as an unwilling weapons' researcher. He especially views medicine as sacred and considers knowingly and willingly harming a patient or taking advantage of their trust as the worst thing you can do.
Izumi is a closet fan of Yurashian tokusatsu dramas. He's especially fond of the Rider Mask franchise, often using poses and catchphrases from the shows.
POWERS & ABILITIES
As the youngest member of the team and a human, Izumi is significantly weaker than the other Cutters. As a result, he tends to keep to the back lines or in the shadows, usually relying on one of the other Cutters to watch his back. But what he lacks in power, he makes up for with quick thinking, a keen eye for details, and an extensive knowledge and arsenal of biochemical weaponry like acids, poisons, and incendiary and cryonic grenades, as well as his skill in medicine and biology.
After the team encounters the Wisps, Izumi takes a Crimson Eagle as his partner. His Eagle Wispon takes the form of a crossbow-like weapon that can fire eagle-shaped blasts of Hyper Go-On energy. The shots aren't particularly powerful, but they're able to be controlled remotely, like a drone, and can lift and carry small to medium-sized objects like grenades, supply crates, and cameras.
RELATIONSHIPS
SMITHY THE LION
As the one who got him out of the White Eagle and gave him a place to stay, Izumi is especially close to Smithy; whom he sees as an older brother. Though he finds the lion's energetic, larger-than-life attitude annoying, and his idealism and optimism frustrating at times, Izumi can't bring himself to stay mad at him forever and in fact, admires these qualities about him. He especially respects Smithy's mechanical expertise, and the two often collaborate on projects in their spare time.
CLAIRE VOYANCE
Being one of the more intelligent and level-headed Cutters, Izumi gets along well with Claire. He finds her calm demeanor relaxing and, despite not as intelligent or well-read as him, enjoys that the monkey is able to keep up with him whenever he starts rambling on about his passions. In particular, he appreciates how patient and understanding she is when the less pleasant side of his overly logical mind starts acting up.
SLINGER THE OCELOT & MIMIC THE OCTOPUS
Though close friends with all the Cutters, Izumi finds his other "brothers-in-arms" insufferable. Slinger and Mimic enjoy pushing his buttons, often engaging in playful teasing, practical jokes, eating his food, or just moving everything in his lab a few inches to the left.
WHISPER THE WOLF
Whisper tends to keep her distance from Izumi, both due to her lone wolf nature and her distrust of humans in general. In fact, when they first met, Whisper hated Izumi and believed that letting him stay with the group would result in their deaths, solely because of his species. Time has allowed her to mellow out a bit though, and while they aren't especially close, they care about and look out for eachother.
TRIVIA
*Izumi is inspired by Hal "Otacon" Emmerich from the original Metal Gear Solid, in keeping up the Diamond Cutters being inspired by characters from the franchise. However, his hair color and the style of his coat are reminiscent of Marionette Owl from the Game Boy Color Metal Gear Solid (known as Metal Gear: Ghost Babel in Japan).
*Izumi's name is derived from "Izumicon", an anime/video game convention.
Izumi is owned by me.
Sonic the Hedgehog is owned by Sega, Archie Comics, IDW Comics, Paramount, and Yuji Naka. Please support the official release and all official materials.
Original artwork by WaitoChan.
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05/06/2022 - Day 2
We wake pretty early after the Château was beaten within an inch of its life after a heavy rain storm which passed in the middle of the night.
Meeting the team and the rest of the tour guests at the front of Château, Keith briefed each vehicle individually on today’s agenda and the importance of these locations.
The Longues-sur-Mer battery
Omaha Beach
Pointe du Hoc
Maisy Battery
La Cambe German War Cemetery
The Longues-sur-Mer battery
We use mostly paved roads until we reach Manvieux, here we traverse unpaved roads parrallel to the coast overlooking the British channel and arrive at our first point of interest Longues-sur-Mer battery. The battery is a Huge, preserved WWII gun installations, built by the Germans to defend France from sea invasion.
It was part of Hitlers Atlantic Wall defences consisting of four rapid firing 152mm navy guns, each housed in large concrete enclosures. The site also includes a fire control post, ammunition stores, defensive machine gun posts and accommodation for the soldiers.
The battery is actually located between Omaha and Gold beach which made it a massive threat to the Allied landings. Because of this, the area was heavily bombed on the night before D-Day. This was followed by a naval bombardment in the morning. Although the bombing did not cause much damage to the guns it did destroy the phone line linking the fire control bunker to the guns which severely disrupted the batteries ability to engage with the Allied ships that eventually knocked the guns out of action during a duel in which no Allied ship was damaged despite the battery firing around 170 rounds. On the 7th of June the major responsible for the battery surrendered to the British with 184 men.
Gravel paths make access easy from the gun enclosures all the way to the coast line vantage points.
Omaha Beach
18.5km west is the infamous Omaha Beach which was part of the D-Day Operation 'Overlord'. I could bang about this place for ages as it's such an important piece of the D-day puzzle. But i'm sure readers are already familiar of what happened here, so i will talk about what is here now... and you wouldn't think it was a place of a blood bath where Americans (1st Army, 5th Corps) suffered roughly 2,400 casualties. White sandy beaches and apart from the traffic noise the sound of waves crashing on the break on the beach was tranquil.We get chance to have a quick bite to eat before we head over to another location made famous by the Americans. One last thing to note is a white house nessled under the cliff, this house managed to survive the naval bombardment and Ally landings, it can be easily found as the owners have a picture of the house on D-day next to there letter box.
Pointe du Hoc
Not what i expected and though i went with zero expectation it is how i can describe as suprising. Prior to this trip inpreparation i had watched a documentary / read some articles of what is described as the most dangerous mission of D-Day and where the first American Forces on D-Day accomplished their mission objectives.
The 2nd Ranger Battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel James E. Ruddler were tasked with assaulting the battery on D-Day to silence the guns, protecting Allied ships and soldiers on the beaches below from artillery fire.
Today the site remains cratered from the aerial and naval bombardment prior to the Rangers assault and features a memorial and museum dedicated to the battle. Many of the original fortifications and bunkers remain which you can access as well as the edge of part of the cliff. Given we are attending a around the anniversary of D-Day, an American ceremony was taking place attended by the new generation of US service men and women, as well as some vet's which was awesome to see.
Maisy Battery
The BF4x4 team always have something up there sleeves and it was the Maisy Battery and this was annouced over CB radio whilst driving through rural normandy. I would be very suprised if many people would know about Normandy's best kept secret where you can walk through 2km of original German trenches and explore their WWII bunkers.
The Maisy Battery is a group of World War II artillery batteries that was constructed in secret by the German Wehrmacht near the French village of Grandcamp-Maisy in Normandy.
British military historian Gary Sterne rediscovered Maisy Battery in 2004, after he had found a hand-drawn map in the pocket of a US Army veteran's uniform he had bought. The battery was about 1.6 km inland marked on the map as an "Area of high resistance".
The battery had been recorded as the second highest D-Day target in the Omaha Sector group of fortifications, but the exact location had been lost from later records. Using the old map, Sterne was able to locate a bunker entrance amongst the undergrowth. He (Sterne) then investigated further and found additional fortified buildings, gun platforms, and a hospital. Over 3 kilometres of trenches were uncovered and apparently there's still more to discover with time and permissions.
Making this a little Land Rover related after enjoying the site i saw another defender parked up, a swiss TD5 110 Hicap which would be the definition of 'overlander spec' unfortunately i didn't get the oppurtunity to meet the owner(s) but had a good nose around. Make this location one to visit if you are in area as it’s really interesting and there are also a collection of WW2 guns and vehicles to view.
La Cambe German War Cemetery
I wouldn't say saving the best till last in this situation and like i had mentioned on our first BF4x4 trip (WW1) you don't see too many German cemeteries. Whether it be Allie or German, cemeteries are a place of reflect and appreciation. Though the enemy, these boys and men lives were needlessly cut short, what makes it worse is the value of these individuals post death.... forgotten and it took the families of the fallen to get this site erected.
La Cambe was inaugurated in September 1961. Spread out over 7 hectares and located close to the American landing beach of Omaha, 25.5 km north west of Bayeux. It is the largest German war cemetery in Normandy where 21,222 German soldiers are buried. In fact, the mass burial mound holds the remains of 207 soldiers whose names were never discovered.
This ends Day 2 of our D-Day tour, we retreat back to the Château where we join the BF4x4 team to take advange of the fine dining offered as well as on the house calvados... which i still don't like.
Tomorrow marks the anniversary of D-Day and we don’t have a clue what is installed for us.
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