Post by SeaBear on May 26, 2022 1:46:38 GMT -5
Frederick B. Reis
Other Names: Frederick Reis (B. omitted), "Barbarossa"
- Surname "Frederick", First Name "Reis".
Height: 6’0’’ / 183 cm
Blood Type: S- (O-)
Build: Broad / Barrel-Chested
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Devil Fruit: Kacha Kacha no Mi
Occupation: Pirate / Captain
Real-World Nationality: Irish
Animal: Grizzly Bear
Favorite Food: Tomahawk Steak
Laughter Style: Yarhahahahar
Bounty/Rank: 0
Total X-Poinz: 300
Used X-Poinz: 300
Total Rebate: 100
Used Rebate: 0
Earned X-Poinz Record:
+300 (Starting XPz)
-200 (Kacha Kacha no Mi / Kachunk-Kachunk Fruit)
-50 (Rank 1 Technique: Breaker Gear)
-50 (Rank 1 Technique: Breaker Wheel)
Rebate X-Poinz Record:
+100 (Paramecia DF Purchase)
Personality
An Adventurous Heart
Reis is a confident and passionate man, sporting an excitable and daredevil demeanor that’s exactly the sort to get one into all heaps of trouble. He has an undying fervor for adventure and exploration, and proudly wears his dream to “conquer the seas”, to see and experience all that the world has to offer at its every shore and every hidden recess. As such, people of similar drive and iron constitution are the type he respects most, finding nothing more admirable in a person than one who has something they aspire to be or achieve and do their utmost to realize it. Of course, this rambunctious nature and the odd confidence he wears on his sleeve means he's liable to get himself up to various misadventures and shenanigans in consequence for displaying such a bold and boisterous character so readily.
A Hearty Appetite
Reis is a pretty big man for his size group, and the amount of energy he expends in both his physical lifestyle and the large amount of energy consumed in using his Devil Fruit leads Reis to have a big appetite and a big intake. Though his destitute upbringing leaves him being used to going on very little, given the opportunity he'll clear half a banquet table by his lonesome, but will still at least be mindful to be grateful for the food. For a good chunk of caloric intake and a hearty, satisfying meal on the go, he favors a nice, thick tomahawk steak he can easily eat off the bone!
Care to Be Clever
While his flagrant disregard for risk and danger might make him come across as thoughtless, he’s a surprisingly calculated individual when he cares to be, never wantonly entering a precarious situation without having first considered the factors and the ideal angle to approach from. He has a side rife with guile to him, and will always be taking note of his surroundings as to what might be useful in times of conflict or when there’s a need to outwit another party.
The Code of Honor
When it comes to conduct with others, Reis’s belief is that a hand should never be raised unwarranted against a gentleman or a lady, but what this translates to is those who conduct themselves as such; decent types of people striving to live their lives and not obstruct the lives of others. For those who don’t, an aggressor is an aggressor, regardless of what form they come in – and this also applies for mutual challenges of combat, as he feels it disrespectful to pull his punches with an opponent who has put time and effort into growing strong.
Accountability and Responsibility
Reis is the sort who is always up for a scrap, but would personally rather not engage in the ending of life where he can avoid it. However, he recognizes that to lead the pirate's life takes a level of commitment, and a recognition that most crews are the plunder and pillage sort, who won't adhere to the same standard. As he aims to be a strong and reliable captain, he recognizes that this means mutual loyalty to his crew and putting their wellbeing before his personal hangups. If need be, for the sake of his crew's safety and to remove persisting, prevailing threat, he's resolved himself to that there may be times when taking an enemy's life is the only option.
Ousting the Unjust
Reis is on the whole a positive individual who isn’t quick to anger, but where Reis’s risk of rage can be found are in encountering the cowardly and the abusive, and particularly when in the presence of those who tick both boxes. The dishonorable and manipulative who use others to accomplish what they’re too gutless to, those who broker dishonest deals and deceitful premises, and those who have some measure of power that they use to exploit those who aren’t fortunate enough to be in such a position; what they both have in common is treating other thinking, breathing people as a convenience or less than themselves, the exact sort of individual that rails against the kind of standard Reis respects most and strives to live up to, and encountering such sorts as most liable to bring a temper out of him.
Appearance
Reis is a strong-framed, broad-statured man of young adulthood, standing at the upper end of the average human height at six feet. His arms are of the abnormal style sometimes seen in One Piece, with large, rounded forearms ending in hands thicker and bigger than usual, though the rest of his physique is evenly-proportioned. His most striking facial feature is the auburn beard that runs along his squared jawline, threading directly into sideburns that directly link to a short, shaggy crop of hair of the same hue. His face typically sports a large, toothy grin beneath a small, squared nose centered on his face, as well as his wide, rounded eyes of smaller black irises, wearing his devil-may-care and adventurous attitude openly on his visage.
His attire consists of a Marine captain attire he took and repurposed to suit his emergent pirate life. He wears a white, bronze button-down top with short sleeves cuffed at the shoulders, and a pair of baggy navy blue slacks for his lower body, looped by a thick, brown leather belt with a bronze buckle. A pair of brown naval boots covers his feet, his pants cuffed up over them. Over his shoulders he wears a large captain’s coat with a raised collar the same navy blue as his pants, with bronze trimmings and lining matching his buttons and belt buckle. His head is adorned with a white naval captain’s hat, bearing a black band and brim, with the emblem of a Jolly Roger-style skull embedded on the front.
Traits
- Having spent majority-adolescence onwards into his adulthood hefting huge and heavy crates loaded for bear with weightiness from simple provisions to full-on cannons and munitions, working his body until he could manage such loads with relative ease repeatedly in a full work day, Reis possesses an incredible level of upper body strength backed by indomitable core and back muscles.
Sturdy as a Ship’s Hull — Starter Trait
- Growing up a vagrant in the West Blue, Reis spent much of his young life in the seedier parts of town, where mooks and goons aplenty of the West Blue’s notorious crime families owned the streets. An honest young man living in dishonest surroundings and competitive for survival, Reis got into a large number of fights growing up, that helped him to toughen up and learn how to take a licking — especially so once he'd entered adulthood and found himself scrapping with men who'd been toughened by the Grand Line's harsh conditions.
Quicker Than Cannon Fire — Starter Trait
- Heaving tremendous weights back and forth across the docks for eight hours a day didn’t just build up upper body strength, but developed incredible leg strength, as well. By the time a munitions load became a negligible burden, Reis had found his legs had strengthened up enough to launch himself large distances in a blink by pushing against the earth beneath him with full strength within a moment’s passing.
Gearbox Man — Devil Fruit Trait
- The physiology attained by one who eats the Kacha Kacha no Mi, or the Kachunk-Kachunk Fruit. The user becomes able to produce gearwork from within their bodies and transform extremities into it as an adjustable system of mechanism. Reis may use the steely gear formations and projections defensively as well, though carelessness around humidity and heavy waters may stiffen and weaken his formations with rust.
Fighting Styles
Focus: Modular Body, Brawling
Class: E
Description: A self-taught and rough but effective fighting style; Reis combines his well-trained body as well as the freedom of form his Devil Fruit powers afford him to deal heavy blows in close combat while adapting his body's gearwork in order to suit the need at hand.
Techniques
Name: Breaker Gear
Fighting Style: Redbeard Combat
Rank: 1
Description: Reis's arm from the elbow down transforms, shifting into an amalgamation of interlocked gearwork, causing his forearm and fist to enlarge dramatically and become an massive gauntlet roughly the size of his torso, fit for dealing crushing blows. This can be performed on one or both arms.
Name: Breaker Wheel
Fighting Style: Redbeard Combat
Rank: 1
Description: Reis flicks his arm outward, his hand shifting in form to be replaced by a large, singular gear spinning at high speeds, which he may use in melee combat as in impromptu circular saw blade, best suited for facing blade-wielding combatants and for cutting through obstructions.
Background
Growing up an orphaned vagrant, Reis struggled to survive the underworld-dominated streets, until when he was fourteen years old, when a new Marine base was built off the coast, manned by the crew of one Captain Jackson Stern. Reis approached the Captain one day outside, requesting the join the crew, seeing his chance to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a great sailor. However, Stern had no interest to bring someone he saw as a dirty urchin aboard, even as a cabin boy, and jokingly said that if Reis could load and unload his ship from the docks, he would let him in the crew.
After a week of watching as the boy strained and struggled in his determination, Stern noticed that Reis was capable of managing burdens impressive for a boy his age, especially in his destitute state, even moreso than some of the men under his employ. Reapproaching Reis, he rephrased his mockery before into the guise of an actual arrangement, determined to keep a valuable source of cheap labor handy. Driven to earn his position on a ship, Reis became an unpaid dock worker for the Marines stationed there, regardless of the fact that Stern had no intention of keeping his word.
For the next four years of Reis’s life, Reis worked unpaid and uncontracted for the Marine base, hefting and managing greater and greater loads as he grew older, conditioning his body through the extreme menial labor, his body becoming stronger and stronger. Town locals grew a sense of admiration for his dedication, local restauranteurs tossing food his way, and sailors who would come and go being intrigued with him, sometimes granting him spare maps, charts, and globes they had from their travels.
For the Marines of the base, as turnover rate was so high, few bothered learning his name at all…but, needing something to call him, Reis came to commonly be referred to as “Redbeard”, for the striking auburn lining his jawline that had grown in during his adolescence.
When he was eighteen years old, however, something peculiar occurred. While unloading a shipment of produce from the latest arrival at the docks, a strong wind blew the tarp covering the crate off—and a single, bizarre fruit came bouncing off of the heap, landing at Reis’s feet.
It resembled a small, round watermelon, but of a strange shape... Its curvature was lined with raised squared ridges, like the teeth of a gear, and a dark swirled pattern lined its skin. Though the fruit was surely long off the source, it was topped by a vibrant green stem, as though still full of life.
Seeing as how the fruit matched nothing in the rest of the shipment, Reis decided to take it home with him, to enjoy after another long day of work, another day of toiling tirelessly, to be stronger and more capable, in that everlasting pursuit of his dream, to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Returning to his makeshift home amidst a wreckage off the coastline shores, Reis would reflect on the past ten years of his life since losing his only family, and all the little baubles he’d accrued; the charts, the maps, the books… And reflecting on how he was certain, any day now that he’d be able to take to the seas, he tucked into the odd, but delicious-looking fruit.
(It was nowhere near as good as it had appeared.)
The following day Reis realized his being had changed. His body felt firmer, muscle, sinew and bone seeming taut. Raising his arms and stretching, he found his shoulders rotated entirely at the joint with a ratchety sound — and, upon examination, realized that, in the moment, his shoulders had been replaced by what appeared to be gearwork, coming from within his own body. Curious further, he examined his hands, and found just by thinking about it, whirring, spinning teeth replaced his palm's interior. Experimenting, he tried to lift a heavy piece of wreckage debris with one hand, and was astounded as his arm's shape clacked and shifted, more mass being distributed into the limb until a large hand comprised of meshing gearwork was lifting the load with ease.
Recalling a number of stories his father told him before his passing, Reis realized that the odd fruit he’d taken must have been a Devil Fruit, now possessed of a strange and remarkable power.
Realizing he now had another avenue he could explore, Reis gave up on the vain hope of Stern bringing him aboard, deciding to focus on training himself independently so he could venture out to sea on his own. However, the sudden loss of a one-man dock crew didn’t escape Stern’s notice, and he sent a crewman to try and bring Reis back, only for Reis to turn him down. For the following three years, Reis would set off on his own path, learning how his power worked and how to control it to a greater degree. He began working odd jobs around town, in large part for the people who’d lent him a hand in his youth, picking up a number of skills, learning about reading sea charts, getting a sense for changes in the weather, and even some pointers on helming a ship – all the while, Stern had men watching him and doing background checks, trying to figure out where and how a nobody like him had gotten ahold of a Devil Fruit, and the locals grew fonder and prouder of the Redbeard they knew, a man of incredible strength and ability who just helped out on a whim.
When Reis turned twenty-one, he woke up one day to find a full company of Marines outside his home, pounding on his door. Escorted at rife point, Reis was taken back to the Marine base, where he was confronted by Stern. Having run the numbers, he’d finally worked out the timeline and realized the shipment that must have contained the Devil Fruit Reis had eaten. Though the fruit was indeed an anomaly not in the books, Stern realized the opportunity, and claimed that Reis had stolen it as had been intended for the shipment, Devil Fruits running hundreds of millions of berries in price. Deciding to leverage Reis for opportunity as a Devil Fruit user, Stern announced that he would be giving Reis to Marine headquarters, and had him thrown in the brig while awaiting a ship to come in the following days.
Dwelling on his history with the Marines, how his father had been brought onto an expedition and never returned, how he’d been strung along for unpaid labor to a dishonest captain, and now how even after distancing himself from them the same party now was treating him, a living person, as a monetary offering for personal welfare, Reis realized that the kind of sailor he wished to be couldn’t coexist with the Marines. Focusing himself, Reis let burst a large gear from his back, spinning with a circular saw torque and snapping through the cuffs that bound his wrists and ankles. Barreling down the gate of his cell with an enlarged fist, Reis tore hell through the base in making his escape, tossing aside every opposition that came in his path, before being stopped by Stern himself just before reaching the front doors.
Stern proceeded to lambast and mock Reis, asking what he meant to achieve. Even if he were to escape captivity, he’d stolen Marine property worth more than this whole town earned in a year, and had just resisted arrest and battered officers. If he returned to captivity and awaited his transfer, he’d get to be a Marine, “like he’d wanted” – but if he was to take to the sea, like this? He’d be nothing more, in Stern’s words, than a “filthy pirate”.
This actually gave Reis pause. In a moment, he considered his path.
But only a moment.
Because if that was how it was going to be, then maybe being a pirate was just fine by him.
A colossal punch punctuated Reis’s decision, blowing his captor through the front gates and tearing open the outer wall, the force throwing Captain Stern clear over the docks Reis had slaved away at for so many years and into the water. Reis began to make his escape—but stopped for only a moment, seeing a crate of spare dressings had been torn open in the calamity. As he’d been stripped of his attire in favor of prisoner's garbs upon arrest, Reis snatched a handful of clothing out of the wreckage and made his getaway, unwittingly having snatched up a captain’s attire in his mitts.
As Stern managed to fish himself out of the water, he and his entire company gave chase, pursuing Reis to the edge of the island, to his little wreckage home...but, upon arrival, found Reis was not on land, but a little ways off the coast, a small, single-cabin sailboat was drifting away. A vessel he’d been preparing in anticipation for the day he made departure, albeit sooner than he’d expected.
Reis had called out to the Marine company attempting to get out rifles to get a bead on him, standing tall amidst the morning sun, letting them know that he'd once wanted to sail alongside them, to join their ranks upon the sea – but his dream didn’t come on bended knee. And if he had to do it as a pirate – then he was just going to have to be the greatest pirate of them all.
Reis restructured his arm, creating a structure in mimic of a fan blade, and aimed it towards the sail, and let it spin at maximum speed. The sudden buffeting of air force filled the sail, sending the vessel hurtling outwards and onwards into the sea, to the beginning of his journey.
All the while back on shore, Stern screamed and flailed at the water’s edge, declaring that Reis would find no respite, that he wouldn’t be welcome anywhere – and if it was the last thing he did, the entirety of the West Blue would know the name Redbeard.
Yet, as Reis heard the empty threats fading away over the roar of the waves, he realized—
—that didn’t sound too bad by him at all.
Character Music: First Step Towards Wars — Ys I & II
Miscellaneous: Reis's name is derived from two historic figures who carried the name of "Redbeard", Oruc Reis and Frederick I, also called Frederick Barbarossa.
