Rally Vincent

Gunsmith Cats and Gunsmith Cats: Burst

 Irene "Rally" Vincent is an expert marksman with her CZ75, the toughest bounty hunter in Chicago, and a muscle car enthusiast who drives a Shelby Cobra Mustang GT500.  Despite being a bit naive when it comes to love, there's no one all around as competent as Rally for her high octane adventures against gun runners, drug dealers, kidnappers, organized crime, corrupt cops, and all manner of villainy.

Rally's adventures take place while she's between the ages of 18 and 23 (by the end of Burst), but operates under falsified documents which report her age as three years older.  Her profession as a bounty hunter acts as a pretense to allow her to use firearms in justifiable situations, to help those in need, and to hone her skip tracing skills in order to find her missing father.

An assertive and strong woman, her attraction to firearms, fast cars, and action is almost a fetish.

Occupation 

 Rally owns the full service gun shop called "Gunsmith Cats" which sells firearms, ammunition, range time, gunsmithing services, and firearm customization, tuning, and lessons.  The shop relies on Rally's expertise for most functions, but the administrative and mundane tasks are handled by Rally's diminutive explosive-fixated bounty hunting partner, May, and later by their reformed cat-burglar and pick-pocket friend, Misty.  The shop does not discriminate against clientele who are largely mild mannered and jovial shooters and members of law enforcement.  However, the shop has seen its share of new shooters, shady characters, and even one hardened killer.

While the shop is Rally's main source of income, she is relaxed about running it, readily putting up the "Gone Fishing" sign when out hunting a bounty or needing a day off.

The main source of adventure in Rally's life revolves around her activities as a licensed bounty hunter or bail enforcement agent, which allows her to use her guns legally.  As a bounty hunter, Rally makes a modest living, but has a reputation because of the lengths she will go above and beyond the reward money.  She is famous in the Chicago underworld and known as "Rally the bounty hunter babe", "Deadeye", and "Thumb Snatcher" among other nicknames.  Her success rate has garnered the attention of high profile clients and put her into a working relationship with the Chicago Police Department.

However, Rally's involvement in bounty hunting is less motivated economically than it is for adventure and developing experience enabling her to find her long lost father.  Many of Rally's adventures do not directly involve a bounty and is merely Rally standing up for friends, protecting the innocent, following a lead on her father, or battling the criminal element her profession often bumps up against.  For example, Rally once worked for a "bounty" of $6 in order to reunite children with their parent.

At the age of 23, after finding her father and the departure of her partners, May and Misty, Rally retires from bounty hunting but continues to hone her shooting skills should the need for them ever arise.

Appearance and Attire

 Rally is a young, attractive, and lithe woman.  She has a dark complexion and black hair due to her father's heritage and blue eyes from her mother.  Rally's hair is generally worn short with a slightly curly bob although she wore it long and straighter as a young child.

As a contemporary woman, Rally can wear anything, but generally has to primary outfits she wears while working.  The first is her everyday professional clothing composed of a blouse, tie, jacket or suit, short skirt and nylons or pants suit.  The other outfit is for "heavy" missions where she anticipates combat composed of light Kevlar body armor under a shirt and a motorcycle outfit complete with boots, shoulder pads, and armored knees.

While a smart dresser, Rally is inexperienced at wearing heels and has difficulty walking in them.

Family History

 Born Irene Vincent, Rally grew up a daddy's girl.  Her father was a writer, shooter, and Olympic medalist in marksmanship.  An Indian, Irene's father was easy going adventurous type who began teaching her to shoot when she was eleven and only wanted Irene to have fun.  Irene's mother was a blond English woman looking to raise Irene as a proper young lady.  Her mother was a disciplinarian who wanted Irene to be nothing like her father, attempting to manipulate Irene by monopolizing her time with violin practice and horseback riding lessons.

When Irene's mother was killed, her father disappeared, intent on tracking down the killer.  The killer turned out to be a made man within the Gambucci family which Mister Vincent single handedly tore apart killing as many as twenty men along the way.  Now a mass murderer, he could not return to Irene and lived in the safehouses of the destroyed crime family until his path would again cross with Rally's.

Weapons

 As a markswoman and firearms expert, Rally possesses nearly every firearm conceivable between her home collection and gun store, a number of them of questionable legality in Illinois.  As a connoisseur of weaponry, Rally appreciates the best of the best in terms of firearms, but her actual choice of field weaponry tends towards quality proven work horses run stock rather than exotic, particularly expensive, or custom weaponry.

Her standard load out consists of: a loaded CZ75 with four spare magazines in a shoulder holster, a CZ DuO backup gun in her boot or on her back or in an ejecting wrist holster, and a boot knife.  Rally has carry permits for the CZ75, DuO, and P10 but not the Colt .25 which she sometimes wears on the wrist holster.

Rally prefers handguns and pistols in general, however, she keeps a stockless and short-barreled Remington 870 shotgun with a pistol grip in her car along with an accurate rifle (such as the SIG SG500 or Walther WA2000).  Rally uses all manner of firearms including Sig P10, Glock G19, etc. but always opts for the accuracy and precision of pistol fire over the firepower of automatic weapons.

Rally has a particular sentimental connection to two weapons, the CZ75 and AR-7, because of her father.  The CZ75 was her father's favorite handgun and the AR-7 was her first firearm gifted to her by her father.

Personality

 Rally is supremely competent, loyal, and hopeful even in the most dire of situations.  In her comfort zone she is mature beyond her years, critically intelligent, and passionate.  Out of it, however, she is sheepish, easily embarrassed, and somewhat immature.  In romance, for example, Rally is unable to deal with May without being inelegantly blunt.  It is implied that Rally is a virgin and a largely celibate lesbian (sharing kisses with Goldie and Misty) who prefers the company of women.  Rally's male friends tend to be professional contacts such as Roy or Bean.  Rally's lack of sex life seems to work itself out in a form of eroticized hoplophilia where Rally will, on occasion, become sexually aroused by firearms.

To Rally, the law is merely a formality.  Despite trying to stay within the law for her profession, she routinely breaks the law by using forged documents, owning illegal weapons, and acting far beyond her authority as a bounty hunter.  Nonetheless, she tries to keep to the spirit of the law, having a quirky enjoyment of home invasion providing her an opportunity to use justifiable lethal force.  While she might denigrate the law, she has a high view of justice and honor.  To Rally, her word is bond and the professionalism and code of someone like Bean is something she greatly respects and is respected in kind.  As a rule, killing does not bother Rally and being under fire does not faze her.  She is not at all squeamish about permanently maiming enemies or killing as necessary.

Rally's code tolerates a certain amount of organized crime accepting the orderly and peaceful ruling of the underworld as a necessary evil, however, Rally draws a line at drugs and slavery and any harm to her friends to which she is fiercely loyal.  Rally has a soft spot for hearts of gold and sentimentality colors what she values materially.  Rally is supremely analytical even in dire straits which would compromise the reasoning of others and her impulse is always to fight and put faith and hope into the capabilities of allies and herself before giving in... in the few times she succumbs to hopelessness she allows her friends to pull her out of it.  In general, it is Rally who is calling the shots, leading the charge, and saving the day.

Abilities

 Rally is supremely competent and impossibly skilled for her age in all things an action heroine needs.  While Rally may not be the best in any individual skill, in her world she is incredibly well rounded as the second or third best at nearly everything.  Rally is second only to Mr. V in shooting, to Bean in driving, to Goldie in toughness, to Misty in agility and lock-picking, to Mr. Smart in sleight of hand and dexterity, to May in spunk, and to Becky in intelligence gathering and analysis.  Between her many talents and her deep pool of expertly talented friends, there is almost no challenge the Gunsmith Cats cannot overcome.

As a bounty hunter, Rally has developed a keen intuition for the criminal mind and world capable of predicting her prey's every move.  She possesses the necessary skills of surveillance, disguise, interrogation, negotiation, lock-picking, and tailing as a bounty hunter would need.  Her driving skills mean she can out run or chase down all but the best drivers.  Although she is not particularly strong, Rally's determination enables her to operate through incredible pain despite an otherwise normal pain tolerance.  She has ambidexterity and is able to shoot with her off hand with enough accuracy to sever a thumb even if her strong arm is shot or her ribs are cracked.  Rally is fast, flexible, and possesses aggressive and efficient fighting techniques focused around judo take downs, kicks, elbows, and evasion.  Her speed and reflexes makes her a fast draw and enables her to parry fast knife attacks with her pistol.

In terms of more esoteric abilities, she is a charming sales woman able to draw customers to her shop.  Rally has been able to resist hypnotic techniques to an extent with her own focus.  Finally, Rally can fall fast asleep so long as there is a gun under her pillow which she reflexively draws unconsciously if ever another reaches for it.

Of course, Rally is an accomplished markswoman able to hit incredible long ranged shots (700 yard cold shot through a villain's hand), tricky moving shots (striking a RPG in air), and a master of firearms in general.  Some of her techniques are described below.

Signature Techniques

Thumb Snatcher - Showing Rally's speed and accuracy, Rally often disarms her opponents by taking a bullet-sized chunk out of their thumbs, preventing them from cocking, grasping, or firing their guns.  A variation of this is Hammerless, where she shoots off the hammer of a gun.

Russian Roulette Interrogation - Rally's spin on this is that she doesn't just pull the trigger once, but five times for a six cylinder gun.  She shows off her mastery of timing the spin intending the round to stop in exactly her desired spot before rapidly pulling the trigger through all the empty chambers terrifying the subject.

Faux Surrender - A body of sleight of hand tricks, Rally can hand over a pistol grip first only to spin it back into her hands to fire in a blink; she can fool the eye by tossing her "gun" when she had only tossed a spare magazine or left a round in her chamber; or she can eject her small caliber gun from her wrist holster.

Aimed Casings - Rally knows even the trajectory of her spent casings and when her muzzle is at an awkward angle she can aim the spent ejected casings into the eyes of her attacker to blind him.

Acrobatic Shooting - Rolling, jumping, leaping, falling, crashing, wounded... Rally routinely makes difficult shots look easy.

No-Hands Reload - A body of techniques for reloading her pistols without any free hands, her signature technique is juggling a magazine on the top of her foot and kicking it up into the magazine well of her pistol.

Engineering Shots - A synthesis of her speed, accuracy, tactical assessment, and expert knowledge of guns, cars, or the like to use the mechanical or structural properties of the guns or targets to amplify the effect of her shot.  For example, by shooting specific parts of a gun's magazine or drum she can disarm the foe, unload their weapon, and render it inoperable or she might assess the penetration capacity of a weapon to perform trick shots through cover or shoot the shoulder strap holding up a particularly heavy gun or she might use a gunpowder distraction to make up for the range deficiencies of a weapon, etc.