(OOC: Hey Meg! Sooo... since this is my first attempt at an Elliquiy rp, please bear with me if I'm rusty and/or awkward at this style lol. Also I know you said something about having the other characters meet up with mine in the States when we talked the other day so I'm going to build my character around that history if you don't mind. If there's anything you need me to change just let me know and I'll gladly do it.<br/><br/>(http://givemesometwi.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/cam-gigandet.jpg)<br/><br/>Marcus Valentine, born to Daniel and Marilyn Valentine, grew up in anything but the lap of luxury. His father was a career alchoholic and drug abuser, choosing to destroy brain cells at an alarming rate while collecting an unemployment check, and his mother was constantly high on a plethora of pills around the clock. Needless to say, Marcus learned from a young age to fend for himself, not to mention he learned how to take a beating whenever his father decided that Marcus had a striking resemblance to a punching bag. So Marcus spent much of his childhood years away from his house, running through the streets of the very crowded and crime-ridden Brooklyn, New York. Eventually Marcus fell into the 'bad crowd', getting involved with the local gangs and even dabbling into drugs himself. More than once Marcus was forced to brandish a handgun and fight his way out of a situation, otherwise his life would have just been added to one of the many statistics regarding gang-related deaths in New York City. Marcus' criminal rap sheet began to grow at the same rate he did, adding several felony charges by the time he'd reached adulthood at 18. When Marcus was busted along with a few of his fellow gang members with a large amount of illegal weapons and drugs, he was offered a plea bargain that would ensure he wouldn't be forced to serve any jail time. The choice was simple, spend the next 15 to 20 years behind bars in one of New York's maximum security penitentiaries, or to join the military.<br/><br/>Neither option sounded particularly interesting to Marcus at the time, but joining the military seemed like the lesser of two evils to him and so he opted for the latter choice. Marcus soon realized that the military itself was no joke, and found himself in a completely different environment than he'd ever been in before. However as the months went on and Marcus graduated his basic training, he came to find that he truely enjoyed what he was doing and began to strive to make himself a better soldier with each passing day. As the wars in the Middle East continued to escalate, Marcus was shipped into the heat of battle. It was there that he fell into his role as a United States soldier and earned himself several campaign ribbons, including the Congressional Medal of Honor. He rose quickly through the ranks, far quicker than many at his age could even hope to achieve, and found himself very comfortable with his life in the military.<br/><br/>It was also at this time that he discovered his affinity for any type of bladed weapon. He began to train more heavily in the arts of swordplay, all but disregarding his training in other forms of projectile weapons. This earned a few raised eyebrows, as the others in his branch didn't particularly see a reason for the ancient weapons when everyone fought with guns and rocket launchers in this day and age. To Marcus though, it was just something that came natural to him. He believed that to shoot someone from a distance was a cheap way to kill someone, requiring little to no skill and even less honor. When you stabbed someone with your own blade, an extention of your own body, and looked into their eyes as they died, you were fully able to accept the consequences of your actions when taking another person's life from them. It was after this point that he was asked to join a special segment of the military, a black-ops division that dealt in the nastiest of the government's work. Very few knew about the division itself, and even fewer knew anything of the work that they performed. They were the government's assassins, their peace-keepers, their very shadows.<br/><br/>For years Marcus worked along with this black-ops squad, growing very close to each member and learning to rely on them and trust them as if they were his own family. They were insanely gifted in what they did, never finding a mission that they couldn't complete with what seemed like natural ease. Marcus was truely happy for the first time in his life, eventually falling in love with one of his squad members, a particularly attractive blonde headed woman named Rachel. Life seemed like it couldn't get any better from this point, and in a way it couldn't, because life began to take a tragic downfall a short time afterwards. During a particularly difficult mission in North Korea, something went horribly wrong. One of their squad members had defected, letting himself be bought out by a rather wealthy terrorist group, and had sabatoged their mission to recover a large amount of W.M.D.'s. Everything fell apart as the squad realized they had been led into an ambush and an epic battle for their very lives ensued. Somehow Marcus managed to escape, and soon came to realize he was the only one that had.<br/><br/>Marcus was destroyed internally by this, losing the people he'd come to know as his family for the last few years, and the woman he loved. He quit the military, moved away to a distant mountain cabin in the Appalachians away from everything he'd ever known, trying to forget the world around him. After nearly a year of his self-loathing and pity, Marcus was contacted by a member of Trionfo, explaining the current situation and exactly what the consequences would be if they didn't succeed in their current mission. They seemed to know everything about Marcus' military history, even the highly classified information from his days as a black-ops soldier, and explained to him how much they could use his talents. It took a large amount of convincing and time to think on the issue, but Marcus finally relented and decided to accept the offer, knowing that he had no other choice. He couldn't idly sit by when he knew the fate of the world may be at stake. So he launched back into his training with more force and urgency than ever before, awaiting the day when the elite squad from Trionfo would meet up with him in the States and he would join them on their mission.<br/><br/>(Hopefully this is alright. It's like 6 a.m. and I haven't been able to sleep all night so I'm running on fumes lol, but I wanted to get this up so I could join you guys as soon as possible. Like I said if there's anything you want me to change, I'll gladly do it.)