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Fantasies of Steel and Lead
 Piercing Weapon: superior (rank 2)
- Ranged Attack
- Multi-Attack
His old man was a cop. Tactical. Expert with all sorts of things with triggers. Had a nice little collection of them. Hell, could have just about started World War III with the shit in his armory. Except the old man uses the same four digit combination for the garage door as he does for his gun cabinets. So, if Tony ever needed a high capacity semi-automatic shotgun and shells, or a fully automatic assault rifle with folding stock, or a pair of desert eagle 50s, he knew where to get them. And because Tony told me the four digit code – what idiot uses the year he was born as a garage door code, much less an armory code – I know where to get them too. Now, if only I could find his dad’s ATM card, I could go shopping.
The color left his life
 Armor: standard (rank 1)
Black. Every damn piece of clothing Tony wears is black. Stupid black boots, stupid black jeans, stupid black shirt, stupid black ballcap, and a stupid black leather jacket. I mean, for crying out loud, what’s wrong with working in a few different colors. I don’t know if he thinks it makes him look badass or goth or what, but I almost called in a couple fashion designers to put him on a “what not to wear” show. Funny thing is, the bullet proof vests he’d steal from his dad’s if the shit ever hit the fan, they’re black too. Oh, wait, it’s that stupid poem he wrote about how Jeanne “took all the color” out of his life. If I wasn’t Tony’s friend, I’d have to smack the stupid out of him.
Fraternity Softball League
 Crushing Weapon: standard (rank 1)
It’s funny. The first time Tony and I met was at a fraternity softball game. We both have the metal bats from that day, dinged up from many nights at batting cages venting work, family, and relational frustrations at lobs thrown by machines. It’s awful scary to think of Tony taking a baseball bat to somebody’s head, but he’d do it if he thought Jeanne was in danger. In fact, I almost think he’d get off on it.
And this, my friends, is the kicker
 Mental Defense: superior (rank 2)
Here’s the kicker. About six months ago, somebody had the bright idea to come up with a virtual reality console. The E-Volution. It wasn't cheap, but since Tony didn't have a girlfriend to buy candy/jewelry/flowers for, nor a therapist to charge him $200 an hour to let him vent his deep seated angst, there was plenty of room in the budget for one of them. And of course, the first game he bought for it was BCT: Vindication. Seems that the one happy memory he had was playing the old BARE CHESTED THUGS™ at his next door neighbor's house.
Let's think about this for just a second. We take an emotionally fragile and somewhat mentally disturbed guy who's never been shot at with anything more than a squirt gun and put him in a virtual reality world where he's getting shot at from forty different directions by a hundred different virtual bad guys, with shit blowing up all over the place. Anybody else see the problem with this?
He really shouldn't have started on "BCT: Hardcore Badasses Only" difficulty. Should have probably started with "BCT: No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem" rookie level, or the moderate "BCT: Shirts vs. Skins".
That by itself wouldn't have been so bad, if he hadn't tried the "Player Two" mode that created a BCT level out of his own mind. Seriously trippy shit. Instead of playing a map in some unreal technobop megaopolis, his mind created a map out of his own hometown. Really bad idea.
Yeah. Fried his brain. Except he didn't quite realize it. He's not sure whether he's still in the game or not. He’s convinced Jeanne is in danger, and he’s already stopped by his dad’s. I’m afraid anyone who gets in his way is going to wind up dead.
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