Rezicaz Ilix

Ixaraum Ilix Rezicaz, twin brother of Ixaraum Ilix Kalanz, is a Gox soldier, naval officer, and engineer. He is the captain of the IVZ Zor-Kalos Reian, an experimental frigate-class Synth warship that serves as the mobile base of operations for Operation Fallen Nexus

Appearance
Rezicaz is a middle-aged Gox, standing at just under 2.5 meters, and sporting a lean yet muscular build despite his age. His leathery skin is of a slightly faded purple color, with lighter ossified scales and plates covering his back, shoulders, and tail. Like most male Goxi, he has a beard of bony spikes protruding from his jaws and his chin, and a loose sac of skin on his throat.

He has a narrow, angular face with sharp cheekbones, a cleft chin, and heavy brow ridges. His large eyes, one of them an advanced prosthetic, are of a golden brown color. He has multiple scars as a result of his decorated military career, with the most prominent one being the mangling web that radiates out from his prosthetic eye.

Personality
Sharp Wit - Rezicaz's sarcastic (sometimes sardonic) sense of humor is clearly evident to everyone who knows him. It is often many people's first impression of him.

Friendly Leader - Rezicaz, despite many people's first impressions of him, dislikes the Gox stereotype of cold, soulless pragmatism, and attempts to foster a sense of warmth and camaraderie among his subordinates.

Rule-flexible - Rezicaz tends to play fast and loose with standard protocol. To a certain extent, he believes that a job well done is determined by the results, rather than the process taken; during missions, his strategies tend to be far more underhanded and devious than others of his position would be comfortable with.

Savior Complex - Scarred in more ways than one by the Iziran, Rezicaz believes it is his sole responsibility to ensure the safety of every single one of his subordinates.

Childhood
Rezicaz was born in 2195 to unknown parents in Ixara's capital city of Aranxil. He and his twin brother Kalanz were found in a too-small tank on the doorstep of a nursery with nothing but a note with their names. As a consequence, they were raised entirely by the nursery's matrons,

Rezicaz became something of a troublemaker at the nursery, often being the mastermind behind the many practical jokes played on other pups, and indeed the matrons. He was also known for the rickety, makeshift toys he would build out of discarded junk. Despite his frequent mischief, he became fiercely protective of his sickly twin brother.

As the twins got older, they helped the matrons in the nursery raise new incoming pups. When time came for them to pursue their Tier 2 Ixaran citizenship at 20 years of age, it was the matrons who paid for them to be sent to the Naval Academy on Ixara's largest moon Roikh.

Roikh Naval Academy
While Kalanz pursued a management degree, Rezicaz pursued the 6-year course mechanical engineering, with a minor specialization in starship systems, as he had always dreamed of working on a starship. For his final citizenship examination at the end of the course, Rezicaz designed and prototyped the modular utility drone. He was given top marks for his work and granted Tier 2 citizenship as a result. He was accepted into the Naval Engineering Corps, and for a time worked at the Ixara Naval Shipyards, where he would help build and repair ships for the Ixaran navy.

Iziran War
Main Article: Iziran War

In 2227, at the age of 32, news of a rising threat known only as the "Iziran" prompted the twins to enlist in the navy. Rezicaz, with his engineering expertise, was assigned the designation of combat engineer, and given the authorization to repair and deploy all forms of military machinery.

Though starting out no more skilled than the standard grunt, Rezicaz, through ceaseless practice and training, slowly honed his marksmanship. His propensity for quick mental calculations allowed him to eyeball shots that his peers struggled with. They soon began calling him "Ironsights".

Midway during the war with the Iziran Hivemind, Rezicaz, along with hundreds of other promising Gox soldiers, were drafted into the Directorate's highly confidential Avandrigox Genetic Modification Program, which sought to create Gox supersoldiers resistant to psionic attacks. In addition to making their bones and muscles physically stronger, these supersoldiers were implanted with biomechanical chips (developed from the neural tissues of captured Iziran drones) designed to protect the soldiers from the Iziran drones' psionic attacks.

Thus equipped, the avandrigoxn became the spearhead in the Galactic Assembly's efforts to contain the psionic threat. They proved instrumental in winning the war against the forces of the Iziran. On one such victory, Rezicaz was assigned to lead a company of his fellow avandrigoxn in a covert operation to destroy an Iziran spawning ground on the former Vethari planet of Torosh'ka. The mission was successful, but Rezicaz lost virtually all of his company fighting off the Izirans while awaiting extraction. Rezicaz himself suffered a severe injury to his face that destroyed his right eye. Thus injured, and with his status as a war hero firmly cemented for the remainder of the war, Ironsights became his official callsign

Rezicaz was jaded by this encounter and developed an unhealthy savior complex to deal with his loss. Though he would eventually regain his sense of humor and friendly demeanor over the course of the war, the scars, both physical and mental, remained. Rezicaz again led a platoon of soldiers, more successfully this time, during the final battle of the war that saw the death of one of the Iziran overminds. When the war ended in 2232, he was awarded the Twin Star, one of the highest honors bestowed to any Gox.

Equipment
AT-15 Power Armor- This nearly 50-year-old suit of armor, given to him upon the completion of his genetic modifications, is a hydraulic-powered exoskeleton incased in a plasteel shell, which needs to be assembled around him before it can be used. Rezicaz keeps it with him for sentimental purposes, and because he believes it may still be useful one day.

TI-ILIX1 Power Armor - Given to him by Tenuriat Industries as thanks for saving their headquarters from a pirate assault, this particular suit was built according to Rezicaz's own preferences and design prototypes. With true synthetic muscles, an improved neural uplink, and more power-efficient kinetic barrier projectors, this suit is more flexible and versatile than his old AT-15 suit.

Wrist-mounted Hard Light Blades - Carefully integrated onto both the gauntlets on the TI-ILIX1 suit are two kinetic barrier projector arrays that shape a pair of kinetic barriers into shimmering, triangular blades that can cut through most materials. The wrist-mounted blades are quite unwieldy, however, and the suit cannot triage enough power to keep the blades powered for longer than a max of 10 minutes. Despite this, Rezicaz hopes to develop the technology further, with the possible end goal of creating a proper hard light sword.

R390 Sledgehammer - This semi-automatic rifle is Rezicaz's preferred weapon for most engagements. In its base form, it is a full meter long and is a serviceable mid range weapon. When outfitted with its 50 cm rail extension, its range extends to a staggering 3 km, allowing Rezicaz to assassinate targets from extreme range.

X55 Judge - When fighting at ranges too cumbersome for his rifle, Rezicaz wields a single heavy pistol, though he carries a spare for emergencies. It has a slow rate of fire and the kickback makes it hard to use untrained, but it has stopping power seldom matched by other guns of its caliber

Custom-built Modular Utility Drone - Rezicaz came up with the design for these beach ball-sized drones as his dissertation work during the final years of his education as a mechanical engineer. While he never released the blueprints for profit, he builds several throughout Operation Fallen Nexus to assist him on missions. The tools within the drone can be switched out at any time, meaning that the drone can be outfitted for combat or for housekeeping at a moment's notice.

Abilities
Enhanced Muscles and Bones - As a result of his genetic modifications, Rezicaz's muscles and bones are around 75% stronger than those of his fellow Gox, and he outpaces them accordingly. More importantly, his strength allows him (and only him) to bear the weight of his equipment without tiring.

Mind Shield - The Izirans often employed dangerous psionic attacks when engaging the forces of the Galactic Assembly. To counter this the Assembly captured and experimented on thousands of Iziran drones, workers, and even a few queens. The Mind Shield was the result of those experiments; biomechanical chips grown from parts of the Iziran brain that would constantly emit a weak psionic dampening field in a large area around them. Implanting these onto the brainstems of the avandrigoxn allowed them to resist most direct psionic attacks.

Camera Eye - In addition to replacing the eye he had lost, Rezicaz's prosthetic eye can see a wider range of light frequencies than his normal eye can, meaning that it acts as a camera that can see into the high-infrared and low-ultraviolet.

Expert Marksman - Rezicaz has extremely good aim brought about by decades of training; capable of landing a clean headshot on a moving target at extreme range. He claims his best shot to date was on a target inside a speeding maglev train at 2.3 kilometers.

Hand to Hand Combatant - Being a seasoned veteran, Rezicaz is a skilled unarmed combatant, having himself spent some years training new recruits. His enhanced strength makes his blows much more dangerous; blows from his power armor are often lethal as a result.

Mechanical Engineer - As Rezicaz was an engineer before he was a soldier, he has intimate knowledge on the workings of many machines, both Ixaran and alien. This deep well of technical knowledge allows him to build, repair, disassemble, and even replicate almost any machine he can get his hands on.