Suicide

''This Scythian, mentor and instructor to me since I was fourteen. He taught me. . .how to stanch a puncture wound, set a broken collarbone; how to take down a horse upon the open field, drag a wounded warrior from battle using his cloak. This man with his skill and fearlessness could have hired himself out as a mercenary to any army in the world. . . Yet he chose to remain in the harsh academy of Lakedaemon, in service for no pay. --Xeones, Gates of Fire ''p. 328

''You little turdnuggets must be floating under a lucky star. --Suicide, Gates of Fire ''p. 126

Agent Suicide, originally a character from the novel Gates of Fire, was a casualty of Thermopylae who was noncanonically resurrected in clone form by person or persons unknown. He began in the Department of Bad Slash, but after a few. . . incidents. . . he was transferred to Mary Sues. He was paired with Agent Diocletian until she feigned insanity, whereupon he was paired with Ithalond. He worked with Rowan while Ithalond was recovering from a Dibbler pie. The last recorded mission of his original tenure was working with Dio on Subjugation, where they vanished in the middle of the PPCing and went AWOL for several years.

The two of them were eventually rediscovered hiding in Azeroth, and have recently (reluctantly) returned to active duty.

Appearance
Lacking a physical description in his home universe, Suicide's appearance defaulted to Bishonen Standard. He's unusually tall, with darkly tanned skin, long dark-gray hair, and a plethora of interesting scars. Being technically attractive has proved troublesome in the past&mdash;as seen during Agent Rowan's first mission, when she had to repeatedly inject herself with Anti-Lustin in order to prevent herself from doing something regrettable. When not on missions, he tends to smoke constantly (he prefers Sobranies) and does not bathe regularly, two factors which tend to counteract the unfortunate effects of his looks.

Personality
Unlike his partner, Diocletian, Suicide is mostly laid-back. He drinks heavily (Bleep-beverages and just plain old alcohol), charges into highly dangerous situations simply for the fun of it, and likely subscribes to top-shelf porno mags. He has a recorded fondness for novelty kangaroo jerky.

Suicide's version of a moral core was provided by his priestess mother, who taught him that ''"those things alone are real which cannot be perceived by the senses. The soul. Mother love. Courage. These are closer to God, she taught, because they alone are the same on both sides of death, in front of the curtain and behind." (Gates of Fire, ''p. 332.) However, he doesn't think or talk like that often: he only discussed it once in his home canon, and that was with the Spartans at Thermopylae. Recently, he talked about something similar with Jenni, though whether this is a testament to Jenni's skills as a psychiatric nurse or just the effect of the alcohol has yet to be determined.

Overall, Suicide is fun to spend time with--for a little while. Unless you know him very well, though, he's one of the worst possible people to be stuck with for a whole mission. His carelessness with his own life often translates to carelessness with other peoples' as well, resulting in prematurely-exhausted and terrorized partners. Any person working with him definitely needs to be the forward-thinking, responsible one of the partnership.

Agent History
Suicide's early history is difficult to parse. Being an uncanonical copy of a canon character, even he only knows what the original text said about him, and though he's been able to fill in the gaps somewhat, there are still some uncertain things. He's a Scythian (making him one of the few people at Thermopylae who would have conceivably worn trousers), and his mother was a traveling priestess of the goddess Na'an. As a young man, he killed either his father or father-in-law in a dispute over a woman, a sin which should be punishable by death. Unfortunately, he couldn't commit suicide, since it would either be hugely unworthy or too good for him&mdash;depending on which version of the story he's telling.

He wandered for months, trying to find someone who would kill him. Nobody would do it; they were all certain that the crazy young man had some kind of curse on him, and nobody wanted to risk it. His travels eventually took him all the way to Lakedaemon, the Spartan nation, where he met a Spartan nobleman by the name of Iatrokles. Iatrokles advised the youth to join the army, assuring him that it was a sure-fire way to get killed.

Unfortunately, joining the army to let yourself be murdered by some enemy would be just like killing yourself outright. To do it right, the young squire now christened Suicide had to fight back. Too bad he kept winning.

He did eventually get his wish, after at least twenty-five years of constant war. The battle of Thermopylae saw him die serving as a human shield. Yet the Ironic Overpower intervened, and the one guy on the killing ground that wanted to stay dead wound up resurrected.

Due to the massive injuries he sustained pre-and-post-mortem, resurrecting Suicide required an awful lot of replacement parts. At 11% artificial components, he's now technically a cyborg and is well on his way to switching from "animal" to "mineral."

Interactions with Other Agents
Suicide's interactions with Nume have been marked by tension, sarcasm, and a healthy display of macho violence; Nume appears to resent him for being one of the agents that cut and ran during the aborted attempt at PPCing Subjugation, and it doesn't help that Suicide is allergic to behaving himself. During the PPCing of Ring Child, after some unwanted physical contact and one episode of pantslessness, the tension reached the point where the two actually got into a fistfight. Fortunately, the target escalated the situation by blowing up the universe, which gave them other things to think about. They've now reached a cautious truce, though how long it lasts will be anyone's guess.

Eamon Brightbeard was utterly disgusted by Suicide's abandonment of his post (during the aforementioned Subjugations SNAFU) and refused to deal with him when the two met in Azeroth. Since Brightbeard is an intelligent, honor-bound and industrious individual, there's no chance of him getting along with Suicide any time soon.

Diocletian is his partner, so it's a good thing they can actually stand each other. She's the responsible one most of the time, freeing Suicide to be as violent as he likes, and has spent enough time with him that she can predict most of the potentially damaging mistakes he'll make and try to head them off. She's also become concerned about his diet and is attempting to steer him towards healthy food choices, which Suicide isn't too happy about. In general, they can be summed up by the Jay and Silent Bob phrase "hetero lifemates."

Suicide has also recently realized that FicPsych, which he normally avoids like the plague, has a good-looking nurse. Since the nurse in question appears to have a thing for broken men, and it's difficult to be more broken than an actively suicidal maniac with a Sue-skin quiver, further developments may be on the horizon.

Writer
At one point, Agent Suicide's writer retired from the PPC, but he was awarded into the custody of Neshomeh in order that he might be borrowed with Neshomeh's permission. However, since said writer has made something of a return, Neshomeh relinquishes custody back to her.

Some time after leaving the PPC, his writer deleted all of his missions from her Livejournal. Fortunately, the missions are also available on the PPC: The Lost Tales archive.

Mission Reports
Home Page

Partnered with Diocletian

 * Ranariel, Elf Ranger of the North (Lord of the Rings)
 * Of Sar-Plasm, Sue Pies, and Other Affairs of the Organs (Narnia)

Partnered with Ithalond

 * 'Twas Many and Many a Year Ago, in a Nondescript Random Town by the Sea (Pirates of the Caribbean)
 * In Which Logic Is Seen as Optional, at Best (Lord of the Rings)
 * Ow, Ow, and Ow Again (Harry Potter), temporarily partnered with Rowan.
 * Just One Letter (Harry Potter)

Re-partnered with Diocletian

 * Subjugation (Harry Potter), incomplete, NSFW. Dead link; mission failed under mysterious circumstances and has Not Been Spoken Of since.
 * Ring Child (Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings), along with Nume and Ilraen.
 * Tough to Take (G.I. Joe)