Red

Red is a character from The Spectacular Exhibition.

Weapons/Abilities
Red has built himself a high-tech armored mech suit containing many cleverly concealed (and often highly destructive) weapons, ranging from miniature missiles to pinpoint lasers to high-pressure squirt guns refitted to spray acid. It is also a contained aquatic environment; if the suit were to be destroyed, Red would be left unable to breathe and would die within minutes. The bottom half is very spiderlike in appearance due to the eight legs stationed around a central platform; each has a stabilizing plate at the bottom that has three prongs pointing straight out from the center in a radial fashion. The top is more humanoid in appearance; a bulky, headless torso is attached to a pivoting platform on top of the center of the lower half. Two thick, telescoping arms, each capable of extending to about a yard, are attached roughly where one would expect the shoulders to be on the torso. Lower down on the torso are four spindly arms for fine manipulation, each with a delicate but firm eight-fingered mechanical hand at the end. These arms are normally folded up close and tucked away beneath metal panels to avoid being damaged by the movements of the upper arms, the legs, or anything else that might happen to be flying around in the near vicinity. A number of speakers in the torso allow him to communicate verbally.

Description
Red looks very much like a two-and-a-half foot long, tomato-red lobster. The only major difference (aside from being sapient and all) is that he has twice as many arms as an average lobster, most of which end in small three-fingered hands. His antenna are also more developed, and he somehow uses them to transmit his thoughts to his mech in order to control it. You could ask him how, but he'd probably just glare at you suspiciously.

As his mad scientist-esque nature would suggest, Red is very intelligent, and also very good with mechanics. Given a proper amount of time, a little working space, and an adequate incentive, he'd be quite capable of MacGyvering something crazy out of common materials. However, he is as obsessed with the aesthetics of his creations as he is with the design of them. He wouldn't consider for a single moment making a weapon out of random junk unless it were absolutely necessary, and even then he would dismantle the thing as soon as he possibly could. In Red's mind, an invention that doesn't look like it should do what it does might as well not function at all. He tends to apply this viewpoint to things regardless of whether or not they were built with the same philosophy in mind, which has lead to many problems in the past.

Red invents things for himself and nobody else, and has a number of paranoid tendencies. Usually this simply manifests as a suspicious look and a guarded manner of speaking, but when he feels that he is getting too much attention without reason (the exact amount of attention that qualifies as "too much" is known only to Red himself), he may resort to more extreme measures to ensure his ideas remain his own.

Also, for some reason, he hates classical music with a passion.

Mental Diagnosis
Mild to extreme paranoia, self-centered attitude, associates form with function to an extreme degree.

Biography
Red is a member of a group of genetically engineered lobsters created in a lab experiment. All but three members of the group died within a week. Two weeks later, only one was left, barely sentient and only half-grown. Although disappointed with the rapid loss of specimens, the scientists decided to go through with the next phase of the experiment, which involved attempting to enhance the lobster's mental functions (by way of a recently-developed chemical) to the point where it could perform rudimentary tasks at about the level of a toddler. However, a mixup occured, and the chemical, which was intended to be delivered only in small doses, ended up diffusing into the water of the lobster's tank overnight.

The researchers panicked when they came back the next morning to find their only remaining specimen swimming around lazily in the chemical-filled tank. They quickly switched him to a new one and hoped for the best, but it soon became apparent that the chemical overdose had destroyed any intelligence the lobster had beyond basic instincts. The scientists dejectedly called the experiment done, mourning the loss of the expensive chemical, which had to be mined from the rare deposits at the bottom of the ocean and purified for months before it was ready for use. They piled into a car, drove down to the nearby beach, and tossed the lobster into the ocean, where he quickly swam out of sight, eyes glimmering with an intelligence that he had been carefully hiding for the past few hours. It was then that Red, for he had named himself that after seeing his reflection on the side of the tank, was truly born.

Not only had the chemical expanded Red's mental capacity, but while he had been swimming in the polluted tank, it had inexplicably bolstered his antenna to the point where they were able to pick up radio and television. He had quickly absorbed a good deal of knowledge, but it was not enough; Red hungered for more. He spent years gathering it, learning at a pace far faster than an average human could have, even in far better conditions.

Red found himself fascinated with mechanics, and it wasn't long before he had learned everything he could from written and spoken mediums. Working underwater, cobbling together scrap metal into the shapes he desired, he fashioned his own brand of machinery, made to be built beneath the sea, and to be used both under and above its surface. In just a few short months, he had created his prototype; a year later, the frame underwent its last revision and his mech suit came into being. But among the first broadcasts Red had seen the very first night he became aware of himself was the old black-and-white Godzilla, and he had realized that what humans didn't and couldn't understand, they attacked. He would need to be able to attack back.

He scavenged whatever he could to build the weapons systems; these too underwent many revisions, although significantly fewer than the chassis had taken. Positioning himself within the mech suit, he rode it out onto the surface of a nearby beach. Momentarily dazzled by the sun and the screaming of the beachgoers, he was caught completely off guard when the mech suit, with him in it, was whisked away across the dimensional boundary, not that he could ever have expected it in the first place.