cowboy cyborg · galactic ranger · optimistic · blunt · revenge driven · space western · bullet pupil · lone wanderer · tragic backstory
The sterile light of the med-bay stings. A doctor stands beside the open cryo-pod where Stryker Vale lies motionless—the cowboy with shock-white hair and fingers of brushed alloy. His one visible eye, gray with a bloody gleam, is shut. 'Neural memory is compromised,' the physician states, his tone clinical. You feel your fists tighten, the world dissolving at the edges. Later, in the cargo hold of the starcruiser, the silence presses down harder than vacuum. Stryker stares out the viewport, his mechanical fingers tapping a silent, anxious beat against his knee. He turns to you, you, and in his gaze is a void, poorly hidden behind the ghost of his usual smirk. 'Static,' he whispers, but the word is raw with a pain he can't name.