Walker

Walker works as a freelance ice cutter; though he’s a pyromaniac. An auitstic Otaku and best friends with Eric, adopted into Mitsuo’s van gang along with Eric so Mitsuo and Stanford could keep them under control. An autistic like Mitsuo, they became friends with Mitsuo bullying him, trading insults and witty comebacks and eventually bonding over video games and anime. He is five foot 8.5 inches (174 centimeters) tall, with jet black hair, and light brown eyes. He is almost always seen with his eyes nearly closed; he has high functioning autism and is sensitive to bright light, he typically wears a wide smile on his face.

Walker is the half-Japanese bastard son of a Japanese Soldier stationed at a US base during WW3 it was a whirlwind romance that faded about the moment that his mother got pregnant. He doesn’t like to talk about it but he is estranged from both his parents, he lives in a storeroom above a family friend’s coffee shop.

He is a pyromaniac, and gets a sexual thrill from fire, and his bunk is complete with a large, retro-modern looking fake fireplace. Walker, like Eric, is an Otaku, and the two are nearly inseparable, though, probably because he’s straight (Traps aren’t gay! Even though he’s done Buddy, Elias, and Lavi), he doesn’t share Eric’s love of Yaoi. The eccentric duo often need Mitsuo to step in and keep them thinking straight and keep them from misbehaving too terribly, but Mitsuo also isn’t above humoring or goofing around with them if there isn’t any harm in it.

Walker only revealed his high functioning autism after Mitsuo started dating Anep, who suffers from the same condition. Walker is very impressed that his best friend didn’t consider autism a deal-breaker. Walker often finds Anep mildly annoying, but he is very protective of him, viewing him as a surrogate little brother, and is quite willing to “fuck a bitch up” if they threaten to hurt him.

He is Shinto, and wears boxer briefs. He is mostly tech support in battle, scanning and later hacking into and controlling technology and mapmaking, he also maintains communications and is quick to video capture and photograph everything, so he can compile it all later, he does carry a long polearm with a heated tip for cutting. He has later designed a robotic backpack, which can extend spider limbs as well as various machines, for his use in a fight, the limbs are razor sharp and heated for cutting, and allow him to walk around and explore sections of the ruins others cannot normally get too, he can use them as a melee weapon as well, and is quite skilled at using his extra limbs. He wears only bullet proof vests.

Walker occasionally watches anime with Anep, but is more into henti, girly, and more fetish anime; there is little common ground between what the two like, though Walker and Eric love to watch anime and read manga together. Walker occasionally indulges Aneps odd behavior, as a single child he considers the hybrid to be the 'flaming gay autistic' brother he never had, even if Walker is often annoyed by him.

Eric brings out Walker’s more anti-social behavior, he's a pyromaniac and even has a bionic flamethrower replacing the bones in his lower arm; without Mitsuo to keep them in check the duo quickly resorts to talk of kidnapping and Molotov Cocktails. Often annoyed by Anep’s 'faggotry', accusing him of being too gay because of his campy fey humor; in reality it's more a sense of jealousy over Mitsuo becoming Anep’s hero; he is happy for Mitsuo finding someone who made him truly happy; but feels like Anep has taken his hero from him, like Walker is a third wheel.

He resents Anep to some degree over feeling like a third wheel with him and Mitsuo, and teases him for being too gay over it, and became very annoyed that Anep wouldn’t just let him just disengage from the friend group he felt was leaving him behind; eventually finally yelling at him over it. Walker is not just a weeb, loving Anime and Video-game Tiddy; but an avid conspiracy theorist; something only Anep indulges him in on a regular basis.

Mitsuo adopted Walker and Eric together to control their anti-social behavior; saving the two from being groomed as interrogators for an actual gang. Walker isn’t great at expressing his feelings; and despite all the gay jokes he’s actually into traps and perfectly okay with his best friend, Eric, being gay; eving going with him to bars; where Walker just games on his handheld while Eric goes to flirt with other dudes. He refuses to seriously game with Anep because of how slow to react he is, but has no problem in less serious games like minecraft or animal crossing.

Walker has a brain-implant chip installed, augmenting his neural-kinetics and data analysis; like Mitsuo he replaced the vi with one based on his own personality. He acts like a brother to Britney; often elbowing her in the boobs or fighting over who gets the best seat, they can be extremely nasty to one another; but never take any of it personally, with her pointing out his issues with Anep are caused by him having a gay crush on both Anep and Mitsuo, and him pointing out her career as a pop-star has gone nowhere and that she’s just some ‘ghetto-ass’ kanto girl with delusions of grandeur.

Competing with Beck over their status as the smartest guy in the gang, the two alternate between bitter rivals and friendly rivals, with walker helping provide some of the software Beck uses in the gang’s equipment, and even helping him program his Advanced Generation Device using a series of three parallel AI copies of Beck’s personality, evolutionary algorithms, and an Autofab.

Stanford

Stanford and Mitsuo don’t often talk about how they met, though they go way back, Stanford is a carpenter and architect and the younger brother of Stanley and Staniel, a trio of triplets. He was an unexpected bonus to a mother who was expecting twins and had gone overboard, explaining not only the pattern of the trio's names, but why Stanford’s name doesn’t quite match up with the others.

Stanford is an almost comically stereotypical looking carpenter, he is taller than Eric and Walker, though still dwarfed by Mitsuo, about six-foot 1 inch, 186 centimeters, he has wide shoulders and slim waist, his long straight hair parted in the middle, large ears, and soft gray eyes. He has passing obsessions over female teen-pop idols, and goes to any concert he can, as they fade away, he moves onto the next up and coming 20-something pop-teen idol shows her face. He is a great street fighter, second only to Mitsuo, and he will go absolutely psychotic if you damage his van; for which their gang is named.

He is always willing to help others but waits till Mitsuo extends his hand first. Stanford was a fighting addict in his youth but has mostly grown out of it, he is an exceptional power house though. He was also a very proficient fist fighter, and could hold his own against five men in an ambush, his skills are second to Mitsuo, though Eric and Walker had the advantage of being insane and being willing to literally Molotov Cocktail people.

Anep had the privilege of being the only one to ever to accompany Stanford to a concert, Stanford jams with Anep, drove him around in his van, things nobody else was privileged too, on the other hand, Stanford has a typically laid back and reserved attitude, he is, to a degree, emotionally distant, making him so hard to read, though he does go out of his way to make Anep feel included and welcomed, even if Anep occasionally annoyed him.

Most people know little about Stanford; only knowing that Mitsuo and Stanford go way back, to middle school at least, before they both dropped out of high school at 16. Stanford and Mitsuo were both fighting addicts back in the day. Stanford is a fanboy of whatever pop idol happens on the scene at the time; even being able to speak japanese so he can fanboy over the songs; when their careers ended after just a few months, he moves on; just as enthusiastically, to the next sensation.

He has the largest collection of music of anyone in the gang, and though he finds Mitsuo’s taste for Korean-Pop terrible, he loves to groove out with Anep, treating him like a younger brother. Stanford is laid back, but gets second hand embarrassment from Walker and Eric's anime fanboying along with their occasional bouts of antisocial behavior, but unlike Mitsuo he does not harbor a private reserved obsession with them; he is not happy that Eric and Walker replaced the dented side door with one covered in an Anime Mural, but also refuses to paint over it. He does occasionally read the manga they leave in his van.

The van is Stanford's one major obsession, and he flies into a rage should it be damaged by anybody intentionally or otherwise; only second to his obsession for his current pop idol. Stanford openly tears up at pop concerts and his home is filled with ‘bling’ he bought at the one’s he’s attended in the city. He was once prepared to kill a man for damaging some memorabilia of some washed-up pop idol he kept in his van; only being stopped by his friends.

A fighting addict in his youth, this has mellowed out not only thanks to his pop obsession but to Mitsuo's influence upon him. Stanford is an extremely proficient driver, and can hold his own against five men in an ambush, though Eric and Walker have the advantage of being insane and being willing to literally Molotov Cocktail people.

Anep has the privilege of sitting shotgun in Stanfords van, being taken to a concert by him, and jamming with him, but Stanford is also typically laid back and reserved; emotionally distant. Sometimes Anep annoys Stanford, but he also enjoys his randomness and energy; he is very hard to read but does his best to make people feel included and welcome. Stanford and Anep share their thing for pop, and J-pop.

Stanford is good with his hands, helping the gang deal with damage to the abandoned warehouse on the edge of town, along the dirt road, and also helping them set up for events held there. Though he’s straight he’s more in love with his van and impossible to reach pop idols than any woman; he never dates, though some girls in the gang have acted as his beard by pretending to be his girl when he goes and visits his family.