Idoc Zaitli

[Laskt]

Character Information

Names: Idoc Zaitli
Epithet: Red Phoenix
Height: 6'5
Weight: 160 lbs
Build: Muscular, thin
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Occupation: Revolutionary, Blade for Hire
Devil Fruit: Yari Yari no Mi
Total X-Poinz: 438
Used X-Poinz: 300=200(Paramecia Purchase) + 50 (E Class FiST) + 50 (E Class Devil Fruit)

Fighting Style: Striking Phoenix
    Spinning Talon (Rank 1, 50 XPZ)

Fighting Style: Yari Yari no Mi (50 Rebate XPZ remaining)
    Silver Beak (Rank 1, 50 XPZ)

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Physical Appearance

The most striking things one first notices about Idoc is his brilliant amber eyes and deep black hair, making his appearance rather unusual, at least compared with the majority of humans within East Blue. His thick hair is usually combed out of his face, except for a single lock that tends to veer diagonally across his face. Idoc’s facial features are strong and piercing, sporting a high bridged nose, prominent cheekbones and a well defined mouth.

Moving onto the rest of his appearance, Idoc’s body is strong and muscular, a token of his long years of intense physical labor as a battle slave. There is little to no fat anywhere on his body, and he is in excellent physical shape. He most commonly wears an outfit of dark teal, consisting of a sleeveless shirt and long pants. Idoc wears similarly colored bracers on his forearms, and heavy black boots on his feet. Finally, around his waist, he wears a leather belt with abundant pouches.

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Personality

Perceptive: One of Idoc’s most defining traits is his perceptiveness. Due to his live as a slave and training as an apothecary, Idoc’s natural curiosity has been honed to a razor’s edge. He will often spend the length of a conversation or encounter subtly gathering details about a person: their attitudes, reactions to stimuli and preferences. This trait has saved him more than a few times in his life, as his attention to the little things has alerted him to dangers that few others even bothered to notice. Idoc’s perceptiveness also extends to his time outside of dangerous situations, as he is often seen cataloging and recording interesting facets or information that he comes across.

Overcautious: Due to his rather eventful life, Idoc is often extremely cautious about even the smallest things in life. In his ideal world, the spearman likes to have time to prepare himself for any major situation that comes his way, often drawing upon his habit of cataloging things to devise an obscene number of fallback plans and countermeasures. Even when forced into something without this preparation, Idoc will attempt to keep his distance until he feels that he knows enough to provide the optimal solution for whatever the problem is.

Analytical: Idoc has always been rather quick of thought, and he applies this natural inclination often both on and off the battlefield. He has a talent for, and indeed enjoys, confronting puzzles and finding efficient solutions that minimize risk factors. Unlike many other warriors, Idoc will not shy away from using underhanded or deceptive tactics to minimize dangers, especially if it gains him significant advantage over his opponents.

Quiet: Despite many a first impression, Idoc is not particularly withdrawn or introverted, despite his circumstances. He quietly enjoys many social settings but prefers to keep his direct participation in them nonintrusive. Around those he trusts not to betray them, such as his family, he is far more like his old, affable self, but still talks far less than he once did.

Fear of Being Useless: One of Idoc’s greatest, most deep-seated fears. He watched helplessly for years as his friends were taken from his village without him being able to lift a finger, then watched as his father was brutalized and his brothers killed. Idoc will do whatever is necessary to be able to at least contribute something to whatever he does, be it cooking a meal or fighting on the battlefield. If he is confronted by something that he has no control over or cannot assist in, he will often break down and attempt to solve the problem anyway.

Stubborn: Idoc does not give up easily, this much should be obvious after the first conversation one has with him. His is not the stubbornness of one repeatedly trying the same solution in hopes of different results, but rather the belief that everything has a solution if you look hard enough. This stubbornness often causes him to extend a situation far past where a normal person would have given up, as he continually tries new strategies and tricks to overcome whatever obstacle is in his way.

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History

Idoc’s story was a simple one at its conception, and far from the man he would one day become.

The spearman was born the youngest of 8 children, four boys and four girls. His father was the leader of a small community on a backwater island, and his mother was the village apothecary, the closest thing to a doctor that the settlement had. Idoc was a bright and happy youngster, and even though his family was rather large, his parents still made and effort to engage with their band of children as much as their busy occupations allowed. Idoc’s father, Matiche, allowed some of the older boys to follow him in his work governing their village, while his mother, Catherine, taught the girls and Idoc her trade: which plants would relieve infection or counter fever. Idoc in particular developed a deep fascination and, indeed, talent with the art, casually outstripping the younger sisters in both knowledge and skill by the time he was five. He was still nothing compared to his eldest sister Katla, but the boy clearly had a knack for the practice, and his father encouraged him as much as possible. After all, a small, isolated community could never have enough doctors.

Unfortunately, this happy story soon took a dark turn. A band of marauding pirates arrived on the island’s shores, precisely on the date of Idoc’s tenth birthday. The child was torn from the celebrations to stand with the rest of his people on the rainy shore of his home, shivering in the cold. The captain of the pirates, while extremely crude, was not one of the idiotic or arrogant ones, so he got straight to his brutal point. His crew, while decently powerful, was being constantly hounded by their many foes, and was losing many of their most powerful fighters due to sheer exhaustion. To remedy this, the crew took ‘volunteers’ from many of the villages in the region to serve as cannon fodder, sparing their more valuable troops. Ten men were lead out of the village in chains that day, every one of them bent in sorrow.

In the years that followed, Idoc’s happy childhood morphed into something far more quiet and somber. Every year without fail, ten members of his home were led off the island, never to be seen again. Every year, his family and friends grew more and more withdrawn, despite Idoc’s best efforts to cheer them up. By the time Idoc was fifteen, the situation was ready to shatter as the people grew more and more unruly in response to the blatant slave-taking. Idoc sat in on meetings with his father as the man designed an engagement plan, encouraging his father in his efforts.

This all came to a head one foggy morning when Matiche Zaitli lead a small band of fighters to ambush the pirates as they came in for their yearly tribute. Of course, such peaceful villagers didn’t have a prayer against hardened, merciless pirates, and most of them were summarily butchered. Matiche himself was critically wounded and thrown down at the entrance of the village as an example of what happened to those who defied them.

In a further example, the pirates took Idoc and his three brothers from their family, along with 6 other children, furthering Matiche’s anguish. In the years that followed, the brothers tried their best to keep one another alive, and were successful for the most part. While the other slaves were killed and left behind, the remaining Zaitli covered one another, compensating for their lacking skills with excellent teamwork.

It wasn’t enough.

Despite their careful planning and desperate training, the life they now led took it’s toll. Gale, the second eldest brother that had always been obsessed with the ocean and it’s many mysteries, took a sniper round to the face in one fighting retreat against marine forces. Fafr, the third eldest, who had always wanted to be a Marine, was ambushed from behind by a rival pirate group and was stabbed in the back. Before long, it was just Idoc, and his eldest brother Franklin who were left alive, mourning their loss.

Despite the circumstances, Idoc’s bright and talented spirit still shone through, and he simply refused to give up while one of his brothers was left standing. He knew that his brothers had died due to trying to protect him when he was weak, and was determined that he would never be unable to be contribute again. For years, every spare moment was spent honing his skills with the spears they were given until he was easily the best fighter among the slaves, then among the pirate crew as a whole. Franklin tried to keep up, but it was clear that he simply wasn’t as talented with a spear as his little brother was. Instead, the eldest turned his skill with words and natural charisma to prevent the brothers from falling victim to any traps off the battlefield, preventing many a ploy by a jealous pirate.

Eventually however, the brothers simply grew too confident for their own good. Wanting to separate the pair before they became dangerous, and perhaps annoyed at their refusal to die, the pirates sold Idoc to another allied pirate crew, and departed for the legendary Grand Line.

Heartbroken due to the separation, and terrified for his brother’s safety in such a dangerous area, Idoc redoubled his training, dead set on escaping from his confinement. Raw talent was polished into a coherent fighting style, and bad habits were removed. The slave was even lucky enough to steal one of the legendary Devil Fruits, eating it and honing it’s powers and secret.

Then, all he had to do was wait for an opportunity to escape……

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Abilities and Equipment

Traits:

• Superhuman Agility -
  To survive in the harsh world Idoc grew up in, one has to be exceptionally quick, and Idoc himself is no exception. While not as fast in raw speed as others, his footwork and dexterity is very high, allowing him to quickly outmaneuver his foes or dodge around them as needed. He also offensively applies this agility by pressuring his foe with precise and accurate strikes with swift dexterity.
• Superhuman Strength -
  One would expect that such an agile warrior would be primarily a speed-based fighter, focused around the principles of evasion and hit-and-run tactics. Idoc, however, breaks this mold however by being extremely physically strong. While not as mighty as those with giant blood, his strikes can easy send the unprepared flying through buildings and crater the ground.

Fighting Style:

Name: Striking Phoenix
Focus: Twin Spears, Overwhelming Power and Precision
Class: E
Description: The Striking Phoenix is a self-taught martial art devised by Idoc back in his slave warrior days. Unusually, the style focuses on two spears held with one hand each, rather than a two-handed grip which is more common. Rather than patience or drawing out a fight, this style emphasizes overwhelming offensive firepower, often smashing clean through an opponent's defenses before spearing them clean through. This style is perfect for a battleground where enemies are too numerous to count and one needs to finish opponents as fast as possible. To this end, the longer spear is primarily used as the offensive tool, while the shorter spear is kept closer for defensive engagements.

This is not to say, however, that the Striking Phoenix is some brawler's style: wielding aggression like a blunt instrument until the enemy is overwhelmed by sheer strength. On the defensive side of things, the style focuses on precise footwork and a stalwart defense, followed up by immediate offensive counters: seizing the momentum of the fight rather than passively responding to an opponent's actions.

Techniques:

• Spinning Talon
  Rank 1, 50 X-Poinz
  Fighting Style: Striking Phoenix
  Through clever wrist movement and immense strength, the user is able to rotate their spears at extremely high speeds, appearing to be nothing but a circular blur of steel and wood to the untrained eye. This technique is mostly used to counter incoming projectiles, but also has a multitude of uses as a surprise offensive tactic (for example confusing the enemy or throwing them off their guard by repeated spinning strikes).

Name: Yari Yari no Mi
Focus: Paramecia, Extension and Sharpening
Class: E
Description: The Yari Yari no Mi allows Idoc to lengthen and sharpen anything that he comes into physical contact with. While admittedly not as flashy or overtly powerful as many other devil fruits, what the Yari no Mi lacks in firepower, it more than makes up for in sheer versatility. The applications of the Devil Fruit's limited ability are nearly endless to one with a creative mind such as Idoc. The spear-man mostly commonly uses this power in conjunction with his spears, lengthening them for long range stabs and thrusts.

Techniques:

• Silver Beak
  Rank 1, 50 X-Poinz
  Fighting Style: Yari Yari no Mi
  The user grips onto one end of an object(most commonly a spear), and rapidly elongates and sharpens the end of the object. This results in a powerful piercing attack that is most powerful when using an actual weapon, as the user can focus on sharpening the end rather than creating an end in the first place. The main danger of this technique is it's raw speed, as the elongation is extremely rapid.

Items:

• Long Spear (Rank 0) - Idoc's main weapon is a fairly standard weapon. It consists of a long, two-handed spear wrapped from just below the head to the butt in a faded violet cloth, about as long as his own body. The main body of the spear is made of reinforced wood although it is really nothing special. Similarly, the head is made of strong good-quality steel.
• Short Spear (Rank 0) - Idoc's offhand weapon is a shorter spear, only about half as long as his own body. Similarly to his long spear, it is wrapped from head to butt in the same violet cloth, and is also made of the same materials.