Jack “The Bare” Burton

Echo: Morphborn

Alias: The Bare

Fragrance: Unscented

​

Jack Burton didn’t earn his name in a saloon joke or as some stunt to get attention. He earned it because his body changes shape, and whatever he’s wearing gets shredded clean off him like paper caught in a cyclone. Shirts slow him down. Coats rip instantly. Even leather vests don’t stand a chance. So, he stopped wearing them.

​

Jack “The Bare” Burton walks the streets of Boot Hill bare chested, boots dusty, tattoos crawling across his skin like stories written in old blood. The brands and symbols on his chest shift with him… distorting… lengthening… tightening… whenever he channels his Echo.

​

Jack is a Morphborn slinger, able to bulk muscle instantly to absorb impact, lean out and elongate limbs for impossible draw angles, shift bone density to deflect bullets, twist his frame mid motion for inhuman dodges, and amplify strength just enough to overpower anyone at arm’s reach. His shapeshift isn’t monstrous. It’s subtle… lethal… efficient. Just enough change to win any duel.

​

His Weapon... a matte black revolver is the only thing he consistently wears. Bare Judge never reflects light, never glints, never betrays him. His matte black pistol has Zero shine. Zero reflection. No polish. Gunmetal so dead flat it looks carved from shadow. Heavy cylinder, long barrel. A duelist’s weapon. Intimidating, accurate, brutal. Squared, angular frame with no curves or harsh lines. Feels more industrial than ornate. Bone grips, blackened. Not glossy bone. Think charred ivory, or burnt deer antler turned obsidian black. Rivets instead of filigree. This gun isn’t pretty. It’s unforgiving. Echo scorched edges. Faint deformation near the barrel like it’s been heated from within. Not glowing… just warped enough to make people nervous. A single engraving sits on the underside of the barrel, almost invisible. BARE JUDGE. Seen only when someone’s about to meet their maker.

​

He’s quiet. Direct. Eyes like someone who’s fought too many fights and won all the wrong ones.

His presence makes even seasoned slingers shift their stance. Some say The Bare doesn’t fear death. Others say he simply doesn’t consider it a fair opponent. But the truth? Death fears him… because it never knows what shape he’ll take next.

Matte black. Zero shine. Zero reflection. No polish. Gunmetal so dead flat it looks carved from shadow. Heavy cylinder, long barrel. A duelist’s weapon, intimidating, accurate, brutal. Squared, angular frame. No curves. Harsh lines. Feels more industrial than ornate. Bone grips, blackened. Not glossy bone. Think charred ivory, or burnt deer antler turned obsidian black. Rivets instead of filigree. This gun isn’t pretty. It’s unforgiving. Echo scorched edges. Faint deformation near the barrel like it’s been heated from within. Not glowing… just warped enough to make people nervous. A single engraving sits on the underside of the barrel, almost invisible.BARE JUDGE. Seen only when someone’s about to die.

​

The Bare is a Morphborn... they don't glow bright or dramatic like other slingers while flaring. They pulse. When Jack's flaring it’s translucent and clear. Light heat emanating from scorched earth. Instead of swirling wisps, Jack’s Echo flare presses outward against his skin, looks like heat distortion over metal, ripples like a mirage, and distorts the air around his muscles. Sometimes you momentarily see two versions of his arm overlapping before they merge into one. It’s not flashy… It’s terrifying.

When Jack activates his Echo in a duel, his tattoos distort, his body flickers between shapes, the air shimmers like something heavy is pushing through it, and his silhouette becomes unstable. And then suddenly… everything snaps into perfect focus and by then… its usually too late.

​

The Day Jack Snapped

​

Before the Echo, Jack Burton was just a ranch hand on the outskirts of the Whispering Plains. Strong. Quiet. Kept to himself. Worked sun up to dusk fixing fences and breaking horses for pennies under a tyrant foreman named Rook Talbot, a man nobody crossed. Jack didn’t talk back. Didn’t raise a hand. He saved every ounce of himself for the work. But, he had a little brother… Caleb. A skinny kid with a big smile who followed Jack everywhere. Caleb worshipped him.

​

The Night of the Branding

​

Talbot caught Caleb sneaking into the stables after hours. The boy was just trying to free a horse Talbot beat half to death. Instead of yelling… instead of sending him back to the bunkhouse… Talbot tied the kid up. He pressed a white hot branding iron against the boy’s chest and said, Mercy makes men soft. Jack walked in right as the iron touched skin. Something in him… something that had been coiled and dormant and waiting… snapped. He didn’t shout. Didn’t lunge. Didn’t roar. His shape broke first. Jack’s bones shifted. His back widened. His arms thickened. His skin rippled like something beneath the surface was waking up. The shackles of his old self tore off him like smoke. Talbot swung the brand toward Jack. Jack didn’t move out of the way. His body reshaped around the strike. Flesh hardening. Bone thickening. Muscles reforming in real time. The iron bent. Bent. Talbot backed up as Jack’s silhouette flickered, one moment huge, the next lean, then huge again, Translucent steam-like flares pulsing from his skin like heat distortion. Then Jack grabbed the man. And everything got quiet. The air went cold. And Jack… broke him. Not out of rage. Not out of revenge. Out of instinct. The Echo inside him wasn’t awakened by anger… it was awakened for protection. Caleb lived. But their lives would never be the same. Jack’s Echo saved the only person he ever loved but they lost all they knew. Jack didn't rerated it.

​

Boot Hill would later come to call him The Bare. Not for laughs. They gave it to him because when Jack’s Echo flares, he sheds everything but the fight. Shirts tear. Coats explode off him. Fabric can’t keep up with the shifting mass. He stopped wearing them not out of vanity… but out of necessity...  They tangled him up. Slow him down. He refuses to ever be slowed down again. Bare skin… Bare truth… Bare instinct… Bare Judge. A slinger whose shape is never fixed and whose rage isn’t hot… it’s cold, devastating precision.