Cross the Crow

This character profile was last reviewed and approved by: Admin 15:59, 26 February 2010 (EST) Please notify a moderator if any major changes are made.

Cross the Crow
Name	John Jason "J.J." Cross
Species	Crow
Age	34
Height	112 cm
Weight	35 kg
Special abilities & skills	Extensive military training and experience--well-accustomed to combat and warfare, firearm use, squad-based tactics, parachuting, rappelling, etc. Some minor melee combat expertise (hand-to-hand & knife-fighting) Experienced and competent in stealth maneuvering
Unique ability	Unrivaled lung power. When he's barking orders, watch for avalanches.
Carried items	9mm submachine gun (Closest real-life equivalent: H&K MP5K) .45 ACP semiautomatic pistol (Closest real-life equivalent: Colt Defender) Flash and sound distraction grenades ("flashbangs") High-magnification binoculars Night-vision goggles (mounted to helmet with flip-up/down attachment) Single-edged combat knife Earpiece communicator Two sets of handcuffs Other assorted weaponry and devices, depending on the situation
Ability Ratings
Agility	Capable of running 80 MPH, but bulky gear usually restricts him to about 60 MPH. Athletic — Flexible, and capable of performing decent jumps, average acrobatic feats, and even gliding (when not hindered by equipment). He's also pretty quick on his feet.
Strength	He's stronger than he gives himself credit for, although he's average as far as his line of work goes.
Toughness	Well-conditioned, battle-hardened, flexible, and a trained fighter. He's taken enough hits in his life to be a little used to it, and ballistic protection helps.
Energy	Tenacious. He's not going to get fatigued easily, but long operations and fights can take a toll.

General Info

Major J.J. Cross doesn't have many friends, and a little time around him demonstrates why. He's hardly personable, preferring to keep his private life to himself (people who rant on about themselves irritate him) and thus doesn't make it easy for anyone to get to know him too well. If one does manage to get some personality out of him (he tends to exude all the chipperness of a cinder block), they'll get more of the same, except in spades: he's a generally unfriendly military guy with a dark, dry sense of humor, a high level of appreciation for the authority he wields, and absolutely zero tolerance for crime, threats to peace, and basically anyone who gets in the way of whatever goals he's set. What's truly unsettling about him is that if violence will solve a problem easier than diplomacy will, he won't hesitate to resort to it. When you get down to it, he's everything the military loves in its leaders: cold, calculating, relentless, and good at what he does. If he were a cop, he wouldn't be Internal Affairs' biggest headache; he'd be their worst nightmare.

On paper this might make him sound like hell in a uniform, but the truth is that deep down, he's really not that bad a guy, and when he's not rappelling through people's windows or teargassing reporters for writing nasty articles about the army, he's actually fairly bearable company. He genuinely wants to see justice done, even if he does tend to do the wrong things for the right reasons. Still, his reputation and penchant for being a kind of "renegade" among army personnel have made other soldiers and officers wary of him, but his methods have produced results in the past, and he's proven himself a relatively capable commander, hence the reason he's in charge of the Special Services Division counter-terrorist squad.

Appearance

Cross' attire differs vastly depending on the situation: if he's on the job in the field, he's somewhat expectantly decked out in standard counter-terrorist combat gear (ballistic helmet, safety/shooting glasses, ballistic vest, tactical belt, BDU pants, and so on, sometimes in whatever style of camouflage is appropriate), plus the typical gadgetry and weapons one might expect. In time off, he'll dress simple, sticking to military olive green tees--he doesn't like to dress up (it reminds him of the days when he was first dating his ex-wife).

Ability Info

While Cross probably has enough history in military work to fill the shoes of five separate soldiers, he's not quite one of the Olympic-quality athletes of the world. Looking at him piece-by-piece, he's mostly average for a fellow in the sort of rough-and-tumble line of work like his. He's tough and hardy, but as far as physical highs go, he's pretty garden-variety stuff. Even swimming and flying (aside from gliding) are both out of the question, in most instances.

This doesn't necessarily make him a push-over. For all his vanilla physical aspects, his real strengths come from his constant training, field experience, and combat exposure. If there's any indication that South Island's efforts in counter-terrorism are working, Cross is the poster boy for it. Marksmanship, squad tactics, stealth maneuvering, parachuting, rappelling, even HALO jumping--he knows every ounce of his career like it's his blood brother. People with his level of training are rare, considering the government's largely indifferent approach to being a capable military power, but Cross is one of those men who do everything possible to better themselves, because with as run-of-the-mill as he otherwise is, that's the way it has to be.

Miscellanea

Trivia

• Closest friends: Probably the guys he works with. Out of all of them, he gets along best with Sparky (although the robot's perpetually pleasant nature gets on his nerves sometimes).
• Worst enemies: None in particular yet, besides his parents when they visit, along with his cousin.
• Biggest rivals: None in particular yet, but if he had any it would probably get settled pretty fast.
• Favorite color: White
• Favorite foods: Dry toast
• Likes: Party crashing (the "this party's over" kind), skydiving, double-timing, PAIN! IN HIS KNEES!, mountain climbing, cleaning and repairing (and shooting) guns, motorsports, golf
• Dislikes: Liberals, democrats, teenagers, rubberneckers, snide insinuations, Elegant Joe's insistence that a zombie apocalypse is due "any day now," Elegant Joe's obsession with obnoxious internet memes, Elegant Joe's annoying chain letter e-mails...
• Birthday: January 27th
• Birthplace: Starlight City, South Island
• Home: Has a house on-base at Towers Air Force Base in Spring City
• Character themes:
  • Paul Linford & Chris Vrenna - The Mann
  • Paul Linford - Kick It Up a Notch
• Other trivia:
  • Cross used to ride motorcycles when he was younger, but one too many cases of road rash led him to hang up the helmet.
  • He's really good at golf--not quite Woods the Tiger good, but he's got skills (he won the first annual SSD Employee Golf Tournament, although only two people entered; McBride being the other, who lost because he left at the fourth hole).
  • Secret shame: he was a kid once, and as a result, has a thing for old video games. Like, super, archaic old, the kind Elegant Joe would be embarrassed to play or archaeologists dig up and wonder what kind of bones they are. They have no identifiable music, can never display more than two colors, and the controller is always a knob with one button. He claims anything more technologically advanced confuses him, but he's actually afraid he'll turn into Elegant Joe if he starts playing newer ones.
  • He hates the Kangaroo Yum-Yum Spot. Unfortunately it's the favorite restaurant of almost every other SSD staffmember, and thus many lunch breaks and happy hours are spent there.
  • He enjoys writing and singing military cadences while jogging with the men (and the woman). He didn't expect them to play along, but it's proven popular with them. It doesn't keep the team's two resident robots from fussing about why they need to join in on the exercise, though.
  • He doesn't like watching movies--the last one he watched all the way through was years ago. Honestly, a lot of movies just really bore him, and he'll always start to wonder what better things he could be doing when he tries to watch one. Besides, he feels his life is more interesting than a lot of movie plots anyway.
  • He hasn't dated since his divorce. His co-workers know virtually nothing about the whole debacle, and he refuses to discuss it.

Beyond the Profile

Played By

Rusty

Credits

Character design and information written by and property of Rusty Dillingham

Image by and property of Mie Shipe

Only for use on spindash.net