|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:53 am
Welcome
This is Pandy’s second quest…a quest for a Nobody-child based in the Kingdom Hearts universe.
In a way, Angelique is directly connected to XIIIDestinyKeys’ quest for Leviathan, a child from the same universe and associated with the same characters. Ange has been a fixture of this setting the two of us created together, and I have Des's permission to mention her characters in this quest, just as she has mine to use my character (Juno Dagon) in hers.
Angelique is a Nobody, a unique creature created in the formation of a Heartless, a beast born from the darkness in people’s hearts. A Nobody is the shell that remains when a heart is ripped out, the body and soul that bind together and reform. Strong-hearted people form human-shaped Nobodies, while weak-hearted ones become the hive-minded lesser Nobodies, most frequently seen as Dusks.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:54 am
Navigate
.1. welcome
.2. navigate
.3. kingdom hearts and nobodies
.4. angelique
.5. mercury gamma
.6. family
.7. angelique sample
.8. npc—juno dagon
.9. credits
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:54 am
About
Here are the reports of the great scientist Ansem as pertain to Nobodies and the basic information on Heartless needed to understand these strange beings. I have included the full text, but the information pertaining to within each report has been bolded for convenience.Quote: Ansem Report 2
It is my duty to expose what this darkness really is. I shall conduct thefollowing experiments:
- Extract the darkness from a person's heart.
- Cultivate darkness in a pure heart.
- Both suppress and amplify the darkness within.
The experiments caused the test subject's heart to collapse, including thoseof the most stalwart. How fragile our hearts are! My treatment produced no signs of recovery. I confined those who had completely lost their hearts beneath the castle.
Some time later, I went below and was greeted by the strangest sight.
Creatures that seemed born of darkness... What are they? Are they truly sentient beings? Could they be the shadows of those who lost their hearts in my experiments? Quote: Ansem Report 3
The shadows that crawl beneath the castle... Are they the people who lost their hearts, or incarnations of darkness? Or something entirely beyond my imagination?
All my knowledge has provided no answer. One thing I am sure of is that they are entirely devoid of emotion. Perhaps further study will unlock the mysteries of the heart.
Fortunately, there is no shortage of test samples. They are multiplying underground even as I write this report. They still need a name. Those who lack hearts... I will call them the Heartless. Quote: Secret Ansem Report #4
The distant days spent in that beautiful paradise are an illusion to me now.
How long have I been here, banished to the realm of nothingness?
It is only by relying upon my anger and hatred that I have been able to retain my sense of self here where all existence is nullified.
My heart is being overcome with hatred toward my apprentices, possessed by the darkness, and with the anger I feel for stupidly allowing myself to be betrayed.
Is this darkness, eating away at my heart?
I cannot continue to idle away my time here.
What are Xehanort and the others attempting to do?
I must unravel the mystery of these Ansem Reports, intercept my apprentices, and defeat them.
That is my mission... the only way to repay the world for my sins.
Those beings who lack hearts- the Heartless- must be the key.
The darkness of the heart, made flesh. Cursed shadows who not only lack hearts, but multiply by seizing hearts from any and all living things.
Where have they come from, and where are they going?
Three elements combine to create a life: a heart, a soul, and a body.
But what of the soul and body left behind when the heart is lost?
When the soul leaves the body, its vessel, life gives way to death, but what about when the heart leaves?
A being does not perish when its heart leaves its body. The heart alone disappears into the darkness.
There is little time.
If I remain in this realm much longer, I will certainly learn these answers the hard way.
My heart is already a captive of the darkness. Quote: Secret Ansem Report #6
My choice to befriend darkness here in the midst of nothingness was a sound one.
The moment I stared straight ahead with a calm heart, neither rejecting
darkness nor fearing it, I gained a newfound power.
A superhuman power- the power of darkness.
It is likely Xehanort and the others were enraptured by this power, eventually becoming its prisoners.
I do not intend to allow my heart to be devoured by the darkness, as they did, of course.
With this new power, I uncovered a "corridor of darkness" that connects the realm of nothingness to the outside world. While it is still difficult to come and go as I please, my banishment is now a thing of the past.
To deceive Xehanort and my apprentices, I first used my power to change form before returning to the realm of light.
As I had suspected, Xehanort had become a Heartless.
Under my name, he commanded other Heartless in quests to snatch away the hearts of many different worlds.
At the center of the heart Xehanort has stolen was "Kingdom Hearts," which attracts tremendous darkness itself and attempts to send any and all matter back into its depths.
The other five have disappeared. Have they become Heartless, like Xehanort?
Or did they vanish after Xehanort exploited them?
I became familiar with an unusual "entity" while pursuing the truth.
It is the soul and body that remain when a being loses its heart.
When a Heartless is born, these entities disappear from the realm of light, to be reborn as entirely new beings in an completely different realm. Quote: Secret Ansem Report #7
While beings born of darkness and those lacking hearts may find them convenient, it is dangerous for others to make much use of the corridors of darkness. Darkness erodes the heart.
In search of a place to proceed with my research and planning away from prying eyes, I found myself in "Twilight Town." It is a quiet village, forgotten in the chasm between light and darkness. I situated myself in the basement of an abandoned mansion standing beyond the woods.
My underground research resulted in one new discovery after another.
When a Heartless is born, the body and soul left behind are reborn into this world as a different being.
They possess different intentions than their Heartless brethren, and while it is unclear what these sentient "things" are after, it would appear they are responsible for much bedlam in the world.
My erstwhile friend the King and is subjects, along with a hero wielding the Keyblade, are battling the Heartless even as a new threat approaches.
This new threat... they have given themselves a fitting name, I suppose.
These non-beings: "Nobodies."
A great number of Nobodies have lost human form, as have the Heartless. Yet the Nobody born of someone with a strong heart retains its shape, with but the faintest visible changes.
It appears my betrayers have retained their human forms as Nobodies, and are gathering more followers in hops of furthering a new scheme.
"Organization XIII," formed of 13 Nobodies with my betrayers at its core, has divided into two; they are said to be carrying out some sort of research.
Seeking to uncover the plans of this Organization, I have decided to head for where six of its members have gathered. Towering over the outer limits of the realm between darkness and light: Castle Oblivion.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:57 am
Child
Name: Angelique
Gender: Female
Base: Nobody (a combination of an Organization member and a Dusk)
Universe: Loosely, the Kingdom Hearts one
~~~
Appearance:Hair:
Slightly reddened gold, not strawberry blonde but close, down to mid-back.
Eyes:
Hazel, with a bit of a slant.
Skin:
Light tan, with a slightly reddish undertone.
Other:
Angelique has stripes across the backs of her hands and down her sides from armpit to ankle. The stripes are dark blue, almost black, and somehow have more sheen than the rest of her skin. She has the Nobody sigil (~x~) on the back of her neck. Her clothing preferences are monochromatic even from an early age, as she identifies very strongly with Dusks and tends to strive to be like them. At the teen stage, she gains use of her weapons (tessen—Japanese war fans) and it would be great if she were shown in a stance as if holding them (they are invisible—see abilities below). Those are the basics, and I don’t have much preference otherwise.
~~~
Personality:Likes: Playing pretend, spending time with Mercury, animals, sunshine, flowers, black and white, baking, watching people do experiments.
Dislikes: Juno, getting hurt, being pulled out of her illusions, nightmares (they are more real to her), being ignored.
~As a cabbage~
Pretty basic plant. Large. Green. Would prefer that it be watered, kept in the sun, allowed to grow without being eaten, and kept away from slugs. That sort of thing.
~As a baby~
Angelique is an almost-silent baby, crying only if something drastically bad happens. She loves being held and coddled by her guardian, and she is very affectionate towards both Mercury and Sable. Even at a young age, she seems to be very submissive, and this might be part of her silence. She does like to play, especially with stuffed animals. She is already demonstrating a taste for monochromatic things, and will grab onto a black-and-white patterned blanket or toy more readily than a colourful one.
There are times at night when she will wake up shrieking and cannot be calmed down for a long time. For a while, Mercury is puzzled as to what is causing it, although she eventually decides that it has something to do with the ‘night terrors’ some babies have. A night-light kept in her room tends to calm her down some, and the terrors become a little bit less frequent. Even so, Angelique is very frightened of shadows, to the point where she will not crawl into a dark room and has to be picked up and carried. Even then, she fusses.
~As a toddler~
Angelique’s obsession with black and white has continued, and while she doesn’t make a fuss if she is put in coloured clothes, when she is allowed to dress herself she dresses in black, white, and grey. She has a large collection of stuffed cows, Dalmatians, pandas, and zebras. The obsession is slightly worrying but nothing life-threatening, and for now it is allowed to continue.
It is completely obvious now that Angelique is totally submissive. Her relationships with the other lab denizens, as well as with all three of Sable’s charges, are completely dom/sub, except for that with Levi. She seems to rather like him. Even at this age, she is frightened of Rook and goes out of her way to avoid being caught in the same vicinity as him. She is absolutely terrified of Saint. She cries if she has to be left alone with either of them, and Mercury goes out of her way to indulge this fear. In some ways, this reinforces it, making Angelique even weaker and more susceptible to bullying.
Her fear of the dark persists, becoming even more irrational. Angelique now spooks at every shadow. Even with the night-light, the night terrors are coming back in full force. Angelique now needs to sleep with the real light on. Mercury isn’t entirely sure how to deal with this, and her reassurance doesn’t seem to do anything to keep the fears away. Angelique is developing a phobia of sleeping, and putting her to bed is almost impossible.
She does not learn to speak in this stage like most children do. In fact, she remains stubbornly silent. This worries Mercury. But the girl does not seem to be able to speak at all, although she obviously understands what is being said to her. Other than that, her development is normal, and she runs around and plays, laughing and crying normally, like any other young child.
~As a child~
She has finally learned to talk, although she still does not say much at all. Her vocabulary is very limited, as is her capacity to speak in complete sentences. Though Mercury cannot be certain, she is beginning to suspect that something has gone wrong with Angelique’s development, as Rook seems normal enough. But Angelique still cannot—or does not—speak fluently. She understands commands, though, and she is frighteningly obedient. If she is given a command by Mercury, she almost cannot disobey.
Her fears seem to be lessening, again. She can sleep without the light on now, although she still needs a night-light. The shadows no longer hold all of the irrational terrors they used to. She can walk into dark rooms, although she tends to do it with her eyes squeezed shut and fumble immediately for the light-switch. There are still some shadows that she is terrified of: human-shaped ones and ones cast by things outside of immediate view.
Her collection of monochromatic toys has continued to grow, as has her collection of monochromatic clothing. Since she is allowed to help make her own decisions in shopping, she has made it perfectly obvious to Mercury that she only wants black, white, and grey clothing. When she is asked to explain this odd preference, she says simply, “Like the others.” She either cannot or will not explain that further. She seems to think it is explanation enough.
Angelique is getting impertinent, and she loves to challenge the other Nobody in the vicinity. Her engagements with Rook grow ever-violent, and she seems altogether too good at getting on Rook’s nerves. Mercury tries to keep her quiet and out of the way, but it doesn’t much work.
She is fairly friendly with other children, although she still does not talk, preferring to express herself in gestures or in vivid imaginings. It seems easier. She and Mercury play extensive pretending games, and Mercury is the first one to discover her unique skill with imagining and conjuring illusions. This is the first insight Mercury has had into perhaps the reason Angelique is so frightened.
~As a preteen~
Angelique has become only slightly more articulate, and she still has trouble expressing herself beyond a few simple sentences at any one time. She has, however, learned to write. Her writing is a little bit better than her speaking, and she prefers using notes to talking, when she can. In school, she is doing quite poorly. She is much too apt to daydream, and she has a tendency to slip into her imagination when she should be doing something important.
Her friends are beginning to grow tired of her imaginings and to leave her, but Angelique seems unable to be interested in the things that most girls her age are: boys and clothes. Her unusual taste in clothing has persisted, but now her explanation for her desire to dress in black and white is, “Like the other Dusks.” Perhaps this explains the stripes on her hands and sides as well as her odd mannerisms. Angelique seems to think she is one of the lesser Nobodies, and she cannot be convinced otherwise. She insists that despite her human appearance, she is one of “The white Dusks.”
Her night terrors, though they have lasted far later than they should have, finally seem to be abating, as Angelique is learning to control her powers of imagination. She still sleeps with a night-light, though, and is still afraid of shadows. Her fear of these shadows is finally understood: natural Dusks are easy prey to the Shadows that attack them in large groups. Angelique, thinking herself a Dusk, is rightfully terrified of what she sees as her predators.
Even as other children grow out of their imaginations, Angelique is finding it harder and harder to pull out of her fantasies. She is learning how to control them to her advantage, and it is here that she first learns that she can use people’s nightmares against them. She does not do this often, but it becomes a subtle way to get back at people. She has not yet learned that she can wound people using this unusual skill.
Mercury has made the decision to keep Angelique away from the others, except for Levi, because while Angelique cannot match Rook or Saint physically, she has accidentally projected enough daydreams of herself injuring them that Mercury is not willing to trust her ward around them. Angelique’s fear and dislike of these others has grown into full-out hatred.
Her imaginings are more heavily based in the real world than they were when she was a child, and she finds refuge in illusions of a perfect family. She feels guilty that she has these imaginings and tries her hardest to hide them from Mercury. In this stage, Angelique’s essential Dusk-ness is beginning to pull her apart from her guardian. She still admires and respects her, but she finds it completely impossible to stay dependent on her, because Mercury cannot possibly understand.
~As a teen~
Angst and raging hormones. The interest in boys Angelique once failed to display has come on full force. She is a little bit bewildered by what she is feeling, and for a while she loses the iron control she once had on her illusions, occasionally displaying strange imaginings for the world to see. She mortifies herself constantly during this stage and is convinced that she is a freak. Mercury needs to constantly reassure her that what she is feeling is completely normal. Even so, Angelique hates her strange powers and, by association, herself.
For a while, she enters a stage almost like depression. Mercury decides it is time to explain to Angelique that since she is a Nobody, she does not have a heart and cannot feel emotions. This only upsets Angelique further, and while she is not technically depressed, she enters a self-hatred that she is perfectly capable of. For a while, she goes into a stage where she wears only black, as a mirror to the emptiness where her heart should be.
This should pass when, at age sixteen, Angelique earns her tessen. The fans will present her with an outlet for the fury and pent-up energy she has boiling within her. She will discover just how powerful her illusions really are, and she will enter a phase where she becomes slightly cruel, with a deep desire to damage people who have wronged or hurt her. She will perceive almost everything as an insult, and she will again become acutely aware of anything people say about her. Except this time, she will be cataloguing it away to punish them later.
She continually attempts to challenge Rook, although her powers barely work on him and her fans are no match for the physically-manifested chains Rook wields. After the first time she is bloodied, Mercury tries to come to her rescue and save her from herself. Angelique resists and continues to challenge authority and the things she once feared. The only thing she still retains absolute terror of and respect for is the darkness. She still thinks that she is a Dusk, and thus the Shadows will always plague her. She is still completely petrified of Saint.
~~~
Abilities:Pretender (manifest childhood): Angelique can manipulate people’s imaginations. She discovers this ability some time in childhood. When she plays pretend, she discovers that she and her friends can actually venture into the worlds they’re imagining. Initially, these imaginings will affect every receptive person in a wide range. With age and practice, Angelique will learn to localize this. As she grows older and her friends begin to abandon her in these expeditions, Angelique begins to find that she can use her powers for more interesting things. She can set someone’s nightmares loose on them, and she finds that if someone truly believes in what she’s pulling out of their head, they can be hurt or even killed by the wounds they obtain in the imaginings. She can summon monsters or even, later on, arm herself and hurt people of her own volition. This only works, though, if the person she is working her magics on fully believes in what she is showing them, in the same way that not everyone can be hypnotized.
Tessen (manifest teen): When she turns sixteen, Angelique will discover that she can call a pair of Japanese fans to herself. The only problem with these fans is that they are imagined. Unlike most Nobodies, her weapons lack a physical form except for in illusion and imagination. Angelique, as she learns to better control her powers over imagination, will learn to wield these fans. Like the war-fans of feudal Japan, they are razor-ribbed and can inflict massive damage. When Angelique wields them, anyone not trapped in her illusion will see an empty-handed Angelique, her hands spread as if she is holding a pair of paper fans.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:00 am
Guardian/NPC 1
Name: Mercury Gamma
Gender: Female
Age: 37
Nationality: American, though she is a Romani Gypsy by blood
Occupation: Electrical engineer/quantum physicist
Appearance: Mercury is fairly short, about five foot three, and, at about 140 pounds, weighs more than the ideal but not enough to be considered fat. She is the kind of scientist who puts not much effort at all into maintaining her figure, because, let’s face it, there’s no point. She’s a physicist, for crying out loud! Even so, she dresses well and tends to be quite caught up on all the latest trends, somehow. When she is in the lab, of course, she dresses in the typical unisex code of scientists: dress shirt, tie, neat trousers, and a white coat. Outside of the lab, Mercury is fashionable and neat. She is fond of brighter colours and patterns.
She is descended from Romani stock, and although she is not actually a member of a tribe, her blood is evident in her appearance. Her hair is curly and dark, falling to about her collarbone; she wears it tightly pulled back when she is in the lab, but the rest of the time she lets it fall where it will. She is olive-skinned. Only her eyes are distinct from her Romani ancestors: they are large and pale grey, without any of the slight slant typical of her people. She wears thick-rimmed oval-lens glasses, and goggles when she’s in the lab.
Personality: Mercury is an engineer to the core, viewing the world through a slightly skewed perspective. She seems to think everything is a problem for her to solve, and the more troublesome the problem, the more she seems to want to solve it. She is a very moral woman, in tight contrast to her partner Juno, and she adheres to the typical codes of ethics as strictly as she does to the instructions on a dangerous piece of equipment. She values all human life, especially the lives of her friends, above her own and would readily sacrifice herself if she thought she would be more useful dead.
She loves people and children, and she is the lucky type of engineer who fits in perfectly with normal society. Although her sense of humour is skewed and generally not at all funny to non-engineers, she has an innate ability to put people at ease. She is extremely laid-back in most company, preferring to chat and take it all in than to take the lead. She is not a good hostess, as she has a tendency to become engrossed in one person and will listen to them for hours to the exclusion of others.
She is incredibly devoted to both Sable and Nereus. She views Sable as a little brother, someone to be protected, especially from Juno, whom she thinks is using Sable for his own twisted devices. Nereus is her longtime boyfriend, and although the two live together, their relationship is based completely in affection and, oddly enough for Mercury, chastity.
There is a dark spot in Mercury’s past, one that scarred her emotionally and physically. She refuses to talk about it and gets moody and quite vicious if people bring it up. Other than that, however, Mercury almost never gets angry. She sometimes gets short, especially if she is interrupted in the middle of an important or dangerous experiment, and she will yell only if someone is in extreme danger—or if she is dealing with Juno. In fact, Juno is the only person she does get angry at.
Mercury is brilliant and rather proud of her intelligence, but she is not driven to arrogance by her accomplishments. Nor is she given to false modesty. If she is asked, she will recount her achievements objectively, and she does not downplay her intelligence in company. But if she is not asked, she will not offer. She prefers that her lab and personal life stay separate, an odd thing to ask when she is dating her lab partner. But she views her work as just that: work. She doesn’t see herself as special beyond acknowledging that she is lucky to be able to do what she does. She doesn’t like thinking of herself as above others. It’s just not her style.
Likes: Reptiles, birds, physics, building things, challenging electrical work, reading, spending time with Sable, Nereus, children.
Dislikes: Chemistry, biology, arrogance, Juno, rudeness, insolence, forgetfulness, getting angry, small dogs, anything that tries to hurt Angelique, blood.
History: Mercury was born and grew up in the suburban United States. Her parents were a nurse and a reporter, both college graduates who had found their niches and were content. Mercury grew up the middle child, with an older sister, an older brother, and twin younger brothers. She was neither coddled nor ignored, rather cherished in the same way all her siblings were. She grew up patient and willing to share, understanding of perceived slights to the ego.
In school, she was always a bright student, eager to learn and an active participant in class. She had a tendency to talk, and was occasionally moved around the classroom when she became too disruptive. This never seemed to affect her, though, and the apparently biannual seat reassignment and notes were not a problem to her parents. All through her childhood, she got straight A’s, and she graduated top of her class in eighth grade.
In high school, her parents divorced. Mercury fell into a depression, letting her grades slump for her freshman year. Sophomore year, however, she realized that her newly-single father couldn’t pay for her college on his reporter’s salary and began putting effort back into her schoolwork. She quickly rose to the top of her class again, and graduated with honors, salutatorian of the senior class.
She got a full scholarship to the best engineering school in the country and, though she was no longer always top of her class, graduated again salutatorian and with an MBA in electrical engineering. She went to work at a major scientific institute, more as a lab tech than anything. Two years later, she met two freshly-graduated young men: Juno Dagon and Nereus Hess. Shortly after, Mercury returned to school and earned an exceptionally early PhD in quantum mechanics. She returned to the company, again falling into company with Juno and Nereus.
She explored a brief tryst with Juno that resulted in a catastrophic pregnancy. Panicked, Mercury did the only thing she thought she could do to save her career. She aborted. This choice left her almost completely destroyed emotionally, and only Nereus’ gentle presence kept her from suicide. She blamed Juno for this and blames him to this day. It is this darkness that keeps Mercury from discussing her past in-depth to anyone.
A bit over a year later, she, Nereus, and Juno left the company to start their own. Juno is considering breaking away now, and Mercury is not in the least upset. She is hoping that if Juno leaves, some of the internal problems that her close group of cohorts has will die out. She would welcome the distraction of a child in her life.
Position: Teacher—science (preferably 3-4, or physics)
NPC blurb: Born and raised in America, Mercury had to rely on her brains to land her the education and degree she wanted. Now in her late thirties, she has decided to combine her love of children with the knowledge she has gained. She is stern but not cruel, and she loves teaching and her students. She prefers hands-on learning to book learning and her classes will doubtless spend much of their time doing labs. She hates chemistry.
NPC Type: Restricted, please
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:02 am
Family
Juno DagonRelation: Uncle-figure
Description: Juno is clinical and cold, and he will be more of that constant annoyance in Angelique’s life than anything truly useful. He will, however, probably teach her quite a bit about the scientific method and how to conduct experiments. Granted, she will learn some of that through being those experiments. Juno does not much like children, and he favours Sable’s Rook over any of the other experiments in the lab.Nereus HessRelation: Father-figure
Description: Nereus is Mercury’s long-time boyfriend, and he is truly in love with the physicist. He is rather quiet and surprisingly gentle for a chemist, and he has learned patience from his work. He would be a ready teacher and is looking forward to helping Mercuy raise a child.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:03 am
Sample
“Angelique…” Mercury took a deep breath and sighed, relaxing her grip on the stuffed panda slightly and looking her charge straight in the eye. Angelique frowned at her, hazel eyes bright with about-to-be-shed tears. She bit her lip as Mercury kept talking, watching her guardian’s glasses instead of her eyes. Mercury thought she was still a baby, and she was going to keep trying to take away the black-and-white until it all disappeared.
“No!” she said, voice rough and on the edge of tears. She yanked back on the panda, tearing it from Mercury’s grasp. “Black-white,” she said desperately, using the stuffed toy to gesture to her dress. Like she always insisted on, it was black and white: black hibiscus outlines stitched on a white cotton frock. Mercury had sewn it for her. And it was the colours it needed to be. Mercury shook her head and reached for the panda again.
“Yes, I know you like black and white, but isn’t this a little bit much?” Mercury asked reasonably. “You’re ten years old. I don’t think you need to buy any more stuffed animals. You already have lots of black and white plushes, Angelique. Why do you need more?”
The girl shook her head and held onto the panda, backing away when Mercury reached out. “Need back and white,” she insisted. Mercury shook her head and Angelique repeated herself, voice reaching an edge of desperation. “Black-white! Like the others!”
“Like what others?” Mercury asked, but Angelique only shook her head and backed farther away, bringing her treasure out of her guardian’s grasp. She couldn’t explain the others; she had never seen them before. She just knew she needed to be black and white, mostly white, like the others. Just like she knew that she needed to stay away from the dark and the shadows, because the shadows hated her and the others.
“Others,” she answered simply, the tears finally starting to fall. “Need to be like.” Her shoulders shook in a suppressed sob, and Mercury murmured something. She put her hand out and Angelique took it, allowing herself to be drawn into Mercury’s hug. Mercury leaned down, resting her cheek on Angelique’s head and petting her hair. It took a while to run her fingers through the entire length of it: mid-back was long hair. Angelique just kept crying almost silently, burying her face in Mercury’s shoulder and mane of black curls. She didn’t know how else to explain to Mercury.
It was like trying to explain the fact that she felt all the time that someone else was watching her, was with her. Like how she felt that she had to move in a pack that she couldn’t see. Mercury would probably call them ‘imaginary friends.’ They weren’t, not like Saint’s. They were just feelings, but they were strong feelings. They were the same kinds of feelings that made her know how dangerous shadows were.
“Can you tell me anything more?” Mercury asked softly. Angelique took another shuddering breath and shook her head, sniffling. Mercury kept petting her hair and murmuring soft comforts. “I know, baby, I know,” she whispered. “You can have the panda.”
Angelique pulled back to look at the toy she had forgotten. It was a ball of black-and-white fluff with rings around its eyes. Angelique looked from the toy to her hand and the blue-black stripe across its back. There were stripes on her, like a zebra. Black-and-white, only…not. She was tan and indigo, not white and black.
Thus the white clothes. “Mercury,” she said, looking desperately up at her guardian. Mercury tilted her head, making it obvious that she was listening without saying anything. “Why stripes?” she asked, pointing at her hand and then at her side.
Mercury looked at Angelique and wondered how to explain. Angelique wasn’t entirely right, after all. She was rather like Juno’s experiment Rook, and in a way, like Saint. It was obvious that she was a Nobody of some sort. But the stripes were…strange. She had never seen anything like them. The emblem on the back of Angelique’s neck could be explained in the same way that the emblem on the Heartless explained in Ansem’s reports could be explained—Angelique had not been born of the destruction of a heart. In a way, she was synthetic. But the stripes…
“I don’t know, sweetie,” she said eventually, petting her charge’s head and brushing a tear from her cheek. “But I do know that you’re here so I can watch you. And we’ll remember black and white for you, okay?”
Angelique nodded and Mercury smiled a little bit. “Let’s go get you that panda, honey. Then maybe we can go get ice cream.” Angelique’s worry faded; ice cream was good. She liked ice cream.
“Stripes?” she asked. Mercury smiled and nodded. Angelique’s fascination with white and indigo extended to blackberry swirl ice cream.
“Sure.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:05 am
NPC 2
Name: Juno Dagon
Gender: Male
Age: 35
Nationality: Canadian
Occupation: Genetic/biochemical engineer
Appearance: Juno is moderately tall and quite thin, standing just under six feet in height. His hair is orange-red, straight, and sleek. He wears it cropped to somewhere almost-shoulder-length, with long bangs that fall across and into his eyes. Those eyes are hazel, and Juno neither wears nor needs glasses, although he spends most of his time in lab goggles. When he works in the lab, which is most of the time, Juno ties his hair up in a ponytail and pins his bangs back. His overall appearance is vaguely feminine, offset by his obviously masculine movements and mannerisms. Generally, unless he is at home—which is almost never—Juno wears a simple dress shirt and tie under a lab coat. The coat always starts out pressed and spotless, although by the end of the day it has usually acquired some stains or burns. His pants are generally pressed and usually khaki. Overall, Juno is tidy in appearance.
Personality: Juno is not a very nice person. He is cold and clinical, and he seems to be under the impression that he cannot be a nice person. From a very young age, he was the best and the smartest, and he has not been wrong about anything in his area of expertise (science and academics) since he was about five years old. He is egotistical, cold, and disdainful toward everyone else. The laboratory is his life, and he has no problem with spending day after day in there working. He has never had a relationship grounded in affection, viewing people with the same sort of interest that he views experiments with. That said, he is beginning to learn otherwise, though he doesn’t realize it. He is slowly falling in love with his laboratory technician—young Sable Hazard, though he doesn’t realize that he feels any differently about him, other than feeling bad when he does something rude.
In general, Juno has absolutely no remorse. He will hurt or use or insult people and not feel the least bit bad about it. His clinical upbringing and engorged ego from an early age seems to have left him rather empty. He takes real pleasure in embarrassing people and pointing out how wrong they are, and also in making people cry. Guilt is such a rarely-felt emotion in Juno that he cannot actually identify what it is. In short, his conscience is dead.
That-said, Juno does have one real love: his science. Juno is enamored with the lab and works tirelessly on his projects, putting his entire being into them until they are perfect. He is fascinated by the human genome, and his successes with cloning are the result of the effort he puts into his craft. His passion for genetics and biochemistry and his brilliance are what earned him his status and honours.
Because of the areas on which Juno is now experimenting, his heart has been affected by darkness, and he is beginning to develop a sort of mild psychosis. It hasn’t revealed itself yet, and only time will tell if it becomes true insanity. For now, Juno is not a mad scientist. He is merely a scientist.
Likes: work, the lab, making Sable miserable, playing with DNA, experimenting on living subjects, hurting lesser animals, flipping the bird to the codes of ethics, Sable
Dislikes: the liberal arts, poetry, ‘feminine’ things, people who challenge him, people who infringe on his territory, having to leave in the middle of an experiment, messy lab areas, physics
History: Juno was born the only child to a quantum physicist and a college chemistry instructor, who died in a lab accident when Juno was two. He did not have much contact with his father, who worked long hours at the lab, generally dumping Juno in nursery school until late hours, when he would bring the boy home and lecture him on in-depth science topics. So basically, Juno grew up a scientist. His father taught him basic addition when he was three, and he learned to read at an early age. While he didn’t understand much that Dad talked about, he was a very bright boy and picked up on early childhood learning much more quickly than an average child.
He was sent to kindergarten when he was five, where he learned absolutely nothing and gave up in disgust. He found that making fun of the other children, none of whom seemed to know anything about atoms or math beyond counting, was a good way to pass the time. He was frequently sent home with notes from the teacher about his bullying problems and, although he never laid a finger on another student, he was almost always in trouble. These problems continued, and Juno continued learning at a far more rapid pace than his peers.
By fifth grade, Juno had exhausted the science and math class possibilities in his kindergarten-to-eighth school, and his father had him removed from classes and set him up with a private tutor. The eleven-year-old progressed rapidly in those areas, but he did poorly in other subjects, like English and the social sciences. This didn’t seem to bother father or son, and by the time Juno was fifteen, he had completed chemistry and biology to the college level and was excelling at calculus. His sophomore English grade was a B, and he was barely passing social studies. All the same, he was accepted into a prestigious institute of technology for dual-enrollment courses in biology and calculus.
At age eighteen, Juno had completed four years’ worth of college science and math courses, and he moved into graduate programs, obtaining the college credits he needed for his MBA in biochemistry. He spent two years as a lab tech for a prestigious genetic engineering company, and then went for his master’s degree in genetic engineering. Now aged twenty-five, Juno and two classmates moved on to work as scientists in the same company they had once all worked in as techs. Two years later, fed up with the company, they branched off and started a company of their own.
This company, an independent research organization, is flourishing, but Juno has decided to break from it for now and seeks work someplace else—his arrogance is driving him to find something better to take credit for, something he won’t have to share with partners.
Position: Scientist (genetic engineer?)
NPC Blurb: Juno grew up a brilliant child, but his upbringing in a highly scientific Canadian family {{nothing against Canada, I promise}} always left him at a bit of a disadvantage socially. He is better at experiments than he will ever be at human relations, and he will most certainly never enter into a career where he has to deal with children, other than perhaps engineering them. He has been acknowledged for his phenomenal work in cloning and in-vitro human production, and he is completely arrogant about it all. He despises most people, viewing them as beneath him.
NPC Type: Restricted
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:09 am
Credits
Juno, Mercury, Nereus, and Angelique are mine.
Sable, Rook, and Saint belong to XIIIDestinyKeys.
Kingdom Hearts, Nobodies, and the Ansem Reports belong to Square Enix.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:23 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
