Xavier Holderan: Detective

Xavier Holderan is a tough-as-nails detective who was transferred from the LA PD to Sunnydale after an incident involving a criminal that 'just wouldn't die'. The Last ran across him in a graveyard, where he was investigating the death of one Keith Dicks. He's currently trying to cope with life in a police department that would rather call the demons "criminals with lizard masks", and is most useful for his ability to access police information in a legitimate manner. Unfortunately, his tendency to not back down from problems frequently gets him injured in the line of duty.

Character Name: Xavier Holderan
Character Type: Hero

Description:  Late 20s, 6'1", black hair, green eyes, generally wears jeans and a long, thin overcoat.
 

Attributes:
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 4
Constitution: 2
Intellegence: 3
Perception: 5
Willpower: 4

Qualities:
Hard to Kill 5
Attractive +2
Natural Toughness
Cop
Nerves of Steel
Photographic Memory
Fast Reaction Time

Drawbacks:
Honorable (minor)
Advesary (-4)
Obligation (cop, important)

Skills:

Acrobatics: 1
Art: 0
Computers: 1
Crime: 4
Doctor: 1
Driving: 3
Getting Medieval: 3
Gun-Fu: 4
Influence: 2
Knowledge: 2
Kung-Fu: 2
Languages: 0
Mr. Fixit: 2
Notice: 4
Occultism: 0
Science: 1
Sports: 0
Wildcard: 0

Special Equipment:
Bulletproof vest (armor 10)
Nightstick
Holstered .45
Concealed .38
Police Badge
Handcuffs

Favorite Manuvers: 

Aiming: Bonus 9
Dodge: Bonus 6
Punch: Bonus 6, damage 6
Kick: Bonus 5, damage 6
Stake: Bonus 5, damage 6
    Through the heart -3 
Disarm: Bonus 3
Nightstick: Bonus 5, Damage 9
Parry: Bonus 6
Grapple: Bonus 8
Handcuff: Bonus 8
Pistol: Bonus 8, Damage 15
Hand Taser: Bonus 5, Damage 5
Backup Pistol: Bonus 8, Damage `2

The Journals of Xavier Holderan:

I remember thinking I'd gotten the equivalent of a hicktown assignment when I read the transfer order. That I'd been moved out of the way. Sunnydale, California- about 50,000 people, and the 3rd lowest crime rate in California. Probably not in the bottom 100 for our fair country, but you get the idea. Quiet, dippy city nobody'd ever heard of. Yeah, right... Now I wonder if it wasn't some sort of sign.

It all started with the Subway Mauler. That's what the papers called him. The Los Angeles Police Department called him Nathaniel Davis, an agressive loner who worked nights as a janitor, and the prime suspect in the violent deaths of four people. The bodies were generally found directly on the subway tracks, and the first three hadn't been very intact - the trains found them first. But on the fourth body, we found it first - our lucky break. Throat had been gouged, like a clamp had just torn out a chunk. Not much blood, except on the clothes. I've been reviewing that in my mind a lot lately. Anyhow, the body also had glasses, and a big fingerprint on the left lens. Nathaniel had been on file for an assault case several years ago, so his print was matched up quickly. Guess that 'have you ever been convicted of a felony' box doesn't get verified too often.

So I was heading in to make the collar. I'd been working solo for a while since my last parthenr took early retirement (being shot at gets to anyone sooner or later), and maybe I'd gotten a little too self-assured. The plan was simple - arrest him when he left his apartment for work. Well, formally, it was more 'taking him downtown for questioning' - the official arrest would occur downtown.  Of course, if he resisted... Nevertheless, I was almost surprised when, instead of panicking or surendering when I approached with badge in hand, he took out a knife. Naturally, not one to be one-upped, I drew my pistol and ordered him to drop the knife. In retrospect, it was the closest he came to compliance when he threw it at me and fled it around the corner.

Fortunately, the knife sunk into plasterboard wall, and I followed to Nathaniel's apartment, taking out my radio to call in the situation. Nathaniel's apartment had no back door, but it did have a fire escape, and I wanted it covered. Unfortunately, Nathainel opted to do something stupid - shooting through his door in an attempt to hit me. I called in the 'shots fired', and kicked in the door - then got out of the way as Nathaniel fired off a few more shots. I managed a swift glance at the situation - he was near the exit, obviously planning a departure - and decided I'd better do something fast. He obviously wasn't loathe to shoot at a cop inside a populated apartment building, which meant if he got away...Well, anyhow, I didn't count on the strength of my voice to carry the day, and squeezed off a couple of torso shots at the first opportunity, then ducked back again.

Everything went silent briefly. I called Nat's name, but no answer. Sure enough, when I peered in, Nat's gun was on the floor and so was Nat. Distant sirens could be heard through the glass of the fire escape as I closed in to check for life - no pulse, no breathing. Damn. I don't like shooting someone I'm there to arrest - innocent until proven guilty, after all - but this had been particularly bad. I was just beginning to radio for an ambulance when... something latched onto my arm and threw me through the patio doors. I got a brief glimpse of Nathaniel's face, but rapidly found myself going over the fire escape railing and had to stop thinking for a minute. My hat took the plunge to the street, but I managed to grab the railing in one hand, kept from falling myself. No time to think as I pulled myself back up...

Nathaniel had a vest... He was on a drug high... I'd gotten careless... those thoughts came to mind unbidden, quick explainations for implaussability as I ran to follow Nathaniel. He was just clossing the door to the stairwell as I entered the hallway, but to my luck, the elevator doors were opening. I took a leap of faith and headed through the small family of elevator car passangers, barking out my identification and ordering them to call police immediately as  I pressed the Lobby button. Wonder if they called.

The elevator, as I remembereed , was a fast one, and I reached the lobby less than a minute later. A quick glance told me that no drugged-up murderers had come through yet, so I unholstered my pistol and headed for the stairwell. The sounds of shoes rapidly striking concrete were clearly audible, and sure enough, Nathaniel sprinted out in front of me a minute later - only to meet the butt of my gun head-on. He stumbled and rolled neatly to a stop.

This time I wasn't taking any chances. I handcuffed Nathaniel, put him in a fully prone position, and placed my foot squarely between neck and shoulder. Without reholstering my gun this time, I extracted my radio from the pocket I'd hastily shoved it in, and began relaying the situation. Shots fired - perpetrator wounded - backup requested. Maybe I was starting to think this wasn't  good day for solo. The dispatcher informed me that help was on the way, and to maintain the situation, so I was trying to do just that.

When you start to move, there's a set of muscels that tenses or relaxes or moves, right by the shoulder. So when I felt the first stirring of movement, I thought I was ready for it. I pushed my foot down harder, and was pretty sure he wasn't going anywhere.

I was wrong.

He bucked sharply, knocking me backwards, and got to his feet with eerie grace. With a crack sound, he jerked his hands apart, and made my shiny steel handcuffs look like cheap Taiwan plastic. Then he looked up - and his face seemed strange, more angular and dented. "Almost like a pale Klingon,' that thinking art of my brain uttered, 'a very angry one.' I must confess, I was very, very surprised. He started my way, and I opened fire as if I were at the speed shoot at the training range. I clearly saw the shots hit, but none of them seemed to slow him down. I started beating him with the pistol again, but this time he was ready and he grabbed my arm instead, flinging me very solidly into a wall. I was stunned, and barely cognisent, in the few seconds after impact, but I clearly saw him closing in, smiling... and that's when the backup crew burst in. There were a few more shots, but for me, everything was already blackness.

I woke in a hospital bed. Flowers and sympathy and all that... and the debriefing process. Describe what happened, what the perp did, the whole thing. But... maybe it was just my perception, but the guy doing the debriefing didn't take many notes. Didn't look familiar, either. I told my story and got my reply- Nathaniel was apparently a drug user who had been on a high at the time. Funny, I thought, I hadn't remembered any razor blades or straws in there. The face? Probably my delusions - I'd apparently suffered a concussion from hitting the patio (not from slamming headfirst into a wall).

When I was released from the hospital, I expected that either I'd find the case already closed, or open and waiting for me. Imagine my surprise when I found someone else running the case, and looking for a different suspect! Newer evidence... fiber samples on a body or something. I wanted to know what had happened to Davis, but htey were simply treating him as a minor case - "assualt, possession, the usual"- and mostly expecting him to show up at a hospital. I kept pressing.

I guess I pressed too hard. Instead of information on the Davis case, I found a transfer slip in my inbox one morning. Sunnydale, California. I envisioned a 'Leave it to Beaver' town, full of smiling faces and the worst crime being vandalism - usually by bad kids who also smoked cigarettes. I probably could have resisted; frankly, though, I almost welcomed it. In the land of the placid, the active reign... and besides, there was something interesting about a town with a low crime rate and a high death rate.

So a few days later, I'd bidden farewell to my L.A. apartment and moved into a Sunnydale apartment. To its credit, my new place was bigger, and the rent was lower. Considering the commercial diversity of the area, that should've been my first warning. The Sunnydale police department welcomed me without comment, and within a day I was reviewing cases and reporting to a CO. So much for Beaver - the amount of gang violence rivalled downtown Los Angeles, the missing persons file had to be computerized to fit anywhere, and the death rate was astounding... but the unsolved case file was very light. Second warning.

Things only got worse when I started reviewing recent missing persons cases. Since two flamboyant gangs - the Vipers and the Granites - were at work when I started, it seemed logical that some missing persons cases would turn out to be gang members, or victims. I was looking for a chain of associations between victims - an optimistic hope, I later found.

Such was the case of one Keith Dicks. His disappearance was first reported by a teacher at Crestview High, a week before the Vipers/Granites debacle became public. It remained unsolved, according to the report, for only two hours, at which point NBN Inc. called to report a break-in and vandalism at their defunct - but still monitored occasionally, apparently - Channel 13 local broadcast building. When officers arrived, accompanied by an NBN representative, they found several broken doors and a trashed game show set. Surveillance tapes showed the nocturnal entrance of a weedy young man, later identified as Keith, and then were mysteriously shut down entirely. A cryptic symbol was discovered on a broken television at the scene; this symbol later proved to be part of the Viper's graffitti. A corpse identified as Keith was found near the first graffiti scene, and speculation was that he had been murdered in a gang-related incident or for failing an initiation test. There was no coroner report though, simply a burial location. Third warning.

It all sounded too convenient. A missing person, a crime, a gang sign, a corpse, a burrial. Procedurally, I shouldn't have dug in- it was before my arrival, after all, and it was already a closed case. Still, I decided to find out a bit more. I quickly discovered the first oddity about the case at the Dicks house. According to school records, Keith had been under the guardianship of his father; the mother had presumably run off at least four years ago. However, the Dicks residence was conspicuously missing an occupant, but not furnishings or even the family car. The door had even been left unlocked, and the only sign of foul play was a broken television set. Joseph Dicks was simply not there... and may have been gone for some time.

I decided the next step was to investigate the burial site. Who had buried Keith Dicks, and what had he died from? His father likely hadn't, and he hand no other local family. Yet someone had apparently held a burial... someone had recieved the body, but there were no release papers on file. That night, I headed to the graveyard, determined to find out what was going on. Maybe I should've been more careful about what I wished for.

I was standing in front of the grave, comparing dates to my notes when I first saw them. Since I was the only person in the middle of the graveyard, in the middle of the night, and they were skulking towards me when I noticed them, it was safe to say they'd noticed me first. I glimpsed a shadowy group of figures, a flash of metal, a suspicious hand object, and turned my light towards the source.  To all appearances, it seemed to be a small gang of young punks, one, with red-dyed streaks in his hair, seemed to be wearing metal gloves, a boy with glasses and a girl with a star charm were each hiding knives or clubs, a peroxide-blonde thuggish fellow was carrying a nasty looking hatchet, an overly perky girl was waving around a sharpened club, and the apparent leader, a dark-haired woman barely out of her teens, was carrying a heavy duffle bag that rattled, and what looked like a loaded crossbow behind her back.

Perhaps fortunately, things did not promptly degenerate into violence. They wanted to know why I was there, which I explained (amidst ocassional bemused smirks and commentary on Keith Dicks' demise on their part), and I wanted to know what they were doing out on a Thursday night armed for a siege. A 'field trip', the woman, Tamara by name, said. They were also interested in the grave, because apparently (they claimed) they were in part responsible for his death, and no body had been left behind. Apparently these people also patrolled the cemataries on a nightly basis, and were involved in dealing with unusual problems.

They wanted to explain - and to dig up the grave - and continue their, ah, 'graveyard shift'. Since I was curious about the burial (and buying time to think about the cryptic comments), I drafted them to help gravedig (alright, so they were the ones who kept shovels in their car). I had come to the determination that, whether they were accessories to murder or not, they were not immediately threatening... and that there was something peculiar about them, though I hadn't figured it out yet, merely filed it as 'neighborhood watch gang' in my mind.

The coffin turned out to be empty, sure enough. Again, 'come with us', and 'allow me to explain'. It was like I'd seen the Wizard of Oz walking downtown and abruptly been accosted by Emerald City Secret Service munchkins; I wasn't sure why they were wearing the know-it-all smiles, but I knew it wouldn't be good. I agreed to accompany them, and have them explain things to me there... so that when I got in my car, I had time to get my interview recorder out of the glove compartment, load a fresh tape, and pocket it. Whatever these people had to say was bound to be interesting...
 
 

 Buffy and assorted characters copyright to Mutant Enemy; Btvs RPG matterials copyright to Eden Studios. Pictures of characters were made using Heromachine. All other characters, graphics, matterials, etc. are copyright of Laura and Aus Cushing of Lab Arc Desgins. Permission is granted to use these Lab Arc created characters, adventures, settings, etc. in your own campaign or world provided that you do not claim them as your own original work and/or make any money off of them. If you do use and enjoy these matterials, why not drop us a line and let us know? We'd love to hear about it!