Post by Atlas on Jan 7, 2022 22:55:37 GMT -5
Nico Calavera
Epithet: None yet, but he’s interested to see what people will call him.
Height: 6’4
Build: Lanky, Muscular
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Occupation: Bounty Hunter
Total X-Poinz: 300
Used X-Poinz: 300
Earned X-Poinz Record: 300
+300 (Starting XPz)
-300 Sato Sato no Mi
Rebate X-Poinz Record:150
+150 (Sato Sato no Mi)
-50 (Sweet Skull)
-50 (Sweet Surprise)
Personality
Nico is an incredibly passionate young man, bringing enthusiasm to all facets of his life. He chases after his desires with intense zeal, which can often make him appear reckless and cocky. Though this initial assessment is only... Half true. He isn’t reckless, creating plans to get what he wants and diligently following each step he creates. Though he IS cocky, that’s only because he never plans for his defeat, believing such a precaution to be tantamount to admitting defeat in the first place.
Still, despite the resolute focus on his own aims, Nico does have a moral core to him. He’s fully willing to put his own desires and appearance to the side in order to help the oppressed and vulnerable of society. Nico also has an anti-authoritarian streak a mile wide, unwilling to blindly accept someone's authority and always quick to criticize something if he can spy flaws in it.
Appearance
Nico is thin, so you wouldn't normally think he has any muscle tone at a glance, which is why he tends to keep his shirt bared to show off his pectoral muscles. In keeping with his home island's traditions, Nico's attire is vibrant and skeleton themed. He has bone tattoos adorning his arms and hands, wears a skull mask on the right side of his face, and his clothes incorporate bone and skull designs. He has brown eyes underneath his mask and black and white hair running underneath his hat, his parent's genetics mixing up to give him that particularly unique feature. He dresses semi-formally, his charro-style suit mostly black and white, with strands of yellow running through it in flowery designs. There are also highlights of red in his red undershirt, red sash, and red band and bangles hanging from his hat.
Traits
Inhuman Speed
Intense training made Nico able to move more quickly than anyone else, though not at blinding speeds. He’s faster and a lot harder to hit while moving around.
Extremophile
Extensive training in the intense climates of Sombra Island’s desert, coupled with a diet of elemental salt since birth has made Nico resistant to extreme heat, as well as very spicy flavors. It takes quite a bit to burn Nico, and even when he does get burned, he can recover from them a lot quicker.
Bottomless Gullet
An odd quirk of Nico’s body allows him to consume massive amounts of food in a single sitting. While he’s able to still function on the average amount of calories for a human his size, he can also take in many times that amount at once, and subsist on those calories for long periods of a time, provided he doesn’t burn through all of them doing something extremely strenuous.
Sugar Human
Nioco has eaten the Sato Sato no Mi, a rare form of Paramecia known as a Special Paramecia, making Nico a Sugar Human. He can transform himself into sugar, create sugar, and control that sugar. Though this also means he can never swim again without seizing and drowning. He is also vulnerable to liquids and things that can emulate the sea’s energy.
Fighting Styles
Name: Sato Sato no MiFocus: Special Paramecia
Class: E
Description: As a Sugar Human, Nico can create granulated sugar as well as control that sugar, manipulating it’s form and moving it around. Finally, as a Sugar Human Nico can also turn himself into granulated sugar.
Name: Sweet Skull
Cost: 0 X-Poinz | 50 Rebate
Fighting Style: Sato Sato no Mi
Rank: 1
Description: Nico transforms one of his hands into a blob of sugar, that he then tightly packs and compresses into the shape of an oversized sugar skull, before pitching backwards and launching it forwards to slam into an enemy.
Name: Sweet Surprise
Cost: 0 X-Poinz | 50 Rebate
Fighting Style: Sato Sato no Mi
Rank: 1
Description: Nico bursts into a cloud of sugar, before reforming closer to an opponent with an attack already readied.
Background
Nico was born to Maria Calavera, a baker, and Ponce Calavera, a fisherman. They lived peacefully on Sombra Island, with Nico having a humble early childhood. He spent plenty of time with his father, learning how to fish, but also learning how to just slow down, which was hard for the hyperactive young lad. But slowing down meant he could think things through and plan, while also savoring the joys of life.But Nico clearly took more after his mother. Her zest and joy were infectious, and when he wasn’t fishing, Nico was baking with his mother. He learned every recipe in his mother’s cookbook by heart, and came to understand the power of sweetness, learning just how successful his baking could be in bringing joy.
It was while he was baking with his mother, when Nico was just 7, that Maria finally told her son more about her life. Maria had come from a wealthy, but stifling family of plantation owners, their cash crop being the sugar cane that kept so much of the West Blue sweet and happy. While she had everything she could want, Maria found the routine and monotony dull. She wanted excitement and thrills, and so ran off the first chance she got to explore the West Blue at 17.
It was out there in the West Blue that Maria earned a reputation as a hellraiser, arriving in towns and islands and focused solely on having a good time, oftentimes inspiring others with her legendary charisma into parties that would last for days on end. Though as her ragers would stretch on, the parties would become so wild they’d cause destruction and chaos in their wake. And Maria always managed to get away before the good times ended and the bill came due, her IOUs always winding up being paid by her family’s fortune.
Still, eventually her family couldn’t handle all of Maria’s debts, and they cut her off entirely. Fresh out of someone else to foot the bill and still quite reckless, Maria would find her parties beginning to rub some of the West Blue the wrong way. One particular enemy was Veimer Lux, Captain of the Dazzle Pirates, a group that prided themselves on their ability to rob entire towns blind with their own destructive parties. Veimer saw Maria’s party animal antics as a challenge to his own mastery of good times, and challenged her to a party-off. If she lost, she’d join his crew, but if she won, he’d pay for all her antics up until then.
Maria wanted to get her debts paid and her family off her back, so she agreed. It was a tense battle, and Maria was nearly recruited by them, but actually managed to out-dance, out-drink, and ultimately out-style Veimer, stunning the captain into a stupor and actually destroying his ship in the course of their contest. With the Captain defeated, Maria handed him and his crew over to the Marines, claimed his bounty, and snuck off with some of his more lucrative stolen goods.
With the treasure she had earned, Maria went back and settled the debt she had stacked up. And seeing the consequences of some of her wild parties had started to sober up the wild young woman. With what was left, she ultimately parted ways with her family, and settled on Sombra Island. But while she was now safe, happy, and a devoted wife and mother, fear still gnawed on Maria’s mind. She had gotten news of Veimer’s escape from the West Blue prison he’d been held in. And so Maria gave her son a backup plan to follow in the event his past ever sought to come and claim his present. In the event anything happened to Maria and Ponce, Nico was to run to an orphanage on the far side of the island.
Nico accepted all this with the blase attitude of a 7-year old who didn’t really understand the danger, but knew that his mother was talking about something serious. Nico largely let his mother’s past fall to the wayside, putting it out of his mind for the most part. Until he was 12 years old, and returned from a day of play to the bakery he had lived in with his mother and father blown apart and reduced to ruins. In the center he could see the disturbingly familiar outline of his parents’ bodies in the rubble. Walking away from the sight of such carnage was a deeply grizzled and bitter Veimer Lux.
He had spent decades rotting away in his prison, stewing over his defeat. That hatred for Maria had fueled his motivation, and he busted out of that cell more determined than ever. Veimer put together a more serious and deadly crew, the Wormwood Pirates, and started to more effectively loot and plunder the West Blue. Finding little challenge left, Veimer had arrived on Sombra Island to settle his grudge before he left for more interesting waters on the Grand Line.
With the image of Veimer Lux walking away from his ruined home seared into his memory, Nico was left alone to mourn his family. Though not for long, as he remembered just what his mother had told him to do. Stuffing his face with whatever pastries he could find in the wreck of his former home, Nico set off across the desert of Sombra Island to head straight for that orphanage. Maria likely didn’t intend for her son to take the most dangerous route there, but Nico was starting to feel resentful and distrustful of others, and needed to be alone.
In Nico’s eyes, the law that he had always trusted to keep himself and his loved ones safe had failed him, but that was a minor pain in comparison to the betrayal he felt towards his neighbors. Nico had arrived at a desolated home, and none of the people who bought his mother’s bread, or who ate his father’s fish, had tried to stop Veimer at any point of his attack. In his naive eyes, his community was just as guilty as Veimer. After all, Nico himself would have done something, or gone after Veimer, so how come the village didn’t?
In fact, going after Veimer was just what Nico wanted to do, but his mother’s instructions kept repeating in his head, so Nico continued towards the orphanage instead via the desert. During the intensely hot days, Nico would rest in small sanctuaries of shade. And during the freezing nights, he would fend off vicious predators of the desert. He eluded the predators not by being faster or stronger, but by being able to outlast them, pacing himself and leading them on wild goose chases, fueled by the collective trash of towns he scavenged in. Urban legends of the feral Coyote Child, abandoned by his parents and who would eat drunken revelers late at night, would spread across Sombra Island the longer Nico traveled.
Finally, Nico would arrive at the New Dawn Orphanage, unsure of why his dad had instructed him to head here instead of going to seek revenge. However, once Nico was taken in by the kindly Sister Alandra, who ran the orphanage, the truth was revealed. New Dawn took in children who had been left as orphans by a sea riddled with violence. And actually served to help guide them away from falling into cycles of revenge or criminal activity.
Granted, Nico was resistant to the teachings, currently harboring a disdain for authority and fairly intent on taking Veimer’s head. But the more he stayed at New Dawn, the more he learned about how hatred could spiral and only lead to unleashing more suffering. Nico’s interests were encouraged, as his chores became centered on the kitchen and cooking. Slowly but surely, his passion for providing joy through food was rediscovered. And the way the New Dawn Orphanage took in children from all across the West Blue exposed Nico to all manner of new and interesting cultures. He really appreciated just how much the differences in humanity could culminate in something better, like ingredients mixing together in a pot to create a fine stew.
Granted, Nico still retained his stubborn dislike of authority, but it was more moderate now, less indiscriminate. He was able to refine his general disregard for the rules into criticisms and analysis of broken systems. Though he was much more critical, Nico never let it disillusion him to the wonders the world had to offer, as evidenced by how much he still loved the classic storybook, Legends of the Grand Line, at 16 as he did at 12.
Legends of the Grand Line was a mixture of rumors and first hand accounts surrounding different islands in the Grand Line, fictionalized and funneled into a single book, containing countless stories of discovery and wonder. And Nico’s favorite story from all of the others was that of Totto Land, a place where races, flavors, ideas, and foods the world over were assembled into a single nation built entirely from the sweets it cultivated. Such a place was more valuable than a thousand El Dorados, Emerald Cities, or One Pieces in Nico’s eyes.
But it resided in the treacherous Grand Line, the most dangerous waters in all the world. If Nico ever wanted to reach Totto Land, he’d have to either get insanely rich or insanely strong. And as this was the West Blue, there was a particular career choice that shone brightly in Nico’s mind. Bounty Hunting would pit Nico against strong foes, while also promising lucrative riches. IF he could earn them, of course.
Getting up to the requisite level of strength wouldn’t be easy, but Nico eagerly took on the challenge. Returning to the desert at 16, Nico would once again challenge the beasts of the desert, and when they weren’t enough, at 17 he became a deputy of the local Sheriff. Granted, serving “The Man” was the last thing Nico wanted to do, but it was a nice bit of income, and would hopefully provide challenging opponents to lock up.
Unfortunately, this was still Sombra Island, and so most criminals didn’t pose as much challenge as feral purritos. Nico was usually bored out of his skull most days, and started thinking about returning to the desert. Until one day, they made an actually significant arrest. An Underworld dealer who had been attempting to meet up with someone to sell a Devil Fruit. Nico, who was well acquainted with the myths of magic fruits that gave you crazy powers, recognized the importance of a man with ties to the black market being arrested trying to sell a single bit of weird fruit.
Smuggling the fruit out of evidence, Nico left his deputy badge behind and devoured the devil fruit, stem and all, he didn’t want to miss out on a single bit of that power. Granted, he really wished the book had told him just how nasty Devil Fruits could taste, but Nico powered through it to finally get strong enough to become a Bounty Hunter. At first, he didn’t notice a difference, but soon enough, Nico found himself starting to puff into a cloud of sugar when startled, and producing grains of sugar from his fingers when he wanted something sweet.
Nico felt underwhelmed by the fruit’s abilities, and felt cheated. But rather than bitch and moan about his fate, he dedicated the next 2 years of his life to becoming as proficient with his fruit as possible. With some moves figured out, (and goodwill with the local authorities thoroughly tapped dry), Nico set off from Sombra Island to become a fearsome Bounty Hunter of the West Blue, wielding his power against those with high bounties. Hoping to one day earn enough and/or become strong enough to take on the Grand Line, and reach the legendary utopia of sweets, Totto Land.
