Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2013 18:13:15 GMT -5
Alice Juliana Ceres
Age:
21 years
Species:
Human
Alignment:
Loyal to the Ashoka Gang
Occupation:
Leader of the Ashoka Gang
Canon?
Yes
Position:
Gang Leader
Appearance:
(See image here)
Alice doesn't look like what one might expect the leader of a rebel gang to look like. She is quite small at five feet five inches. She has a slender frame, her clothes hiding the outline of muscles developed from a life of training and hardship. Her gold hair is always styled in two large spiraling curls on either side of her youthful face. Her eyes are such a light shade of brown that they almost seem to match her hair. Because she spends a lot of time indoors hiding from the law and developing missions, her skin is quite pale and almost sickly.
When not undercover she always wears the same outfit as a uniform of sorts. She wears a white shirt and a brown form-fitting waistcoat with unattached sleeves leading to fingerless brown gloves. She wears a short gold skirt and knee-length brown-striped socks that protrude from a pair of brown and gold boots. A yellow bow is always tied around her high color and on her head she wears a brown beret with a fluffy white feather and wire flower pin. Where she got this outfit, no one knows. Some expect she sleeps in it given how few people have seen her without it. While others suspect she must have more than one set of the same outfit since you would think it would smell after a while.
Alice has a difficult to read expression. She is constantly smiling, only allowing a slight frown when really trying to communicate displeasure. Her eyes, however, always remain the same, a sort of far-off lonely look that contrasts with the rest of demeanor. She never raises her voice, preferring to communicate through stiff actions and politely delivered insults.
Face Claim:
Mami Tomoe - Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Personality:
Alice's demeanor seems to be built entirely on contradiction. Her facial expressions, movements, and everyday mannerisms seem precisely scripted to resemble those of a polite and refined individual, unbothered by the world around them. "Scripted" is a good term. Every action taken and every word spoken seem painfully practiced as if Alice was auditioning for a play. She tries to keep up this facade even when missions fail, comrades make mistakes and the enemy is knocking on her door. The mask is very thin however and she doesn't always act particularly kind even when being polite.
She doesn't have a very high tolerance for mistakes or laziness especially when it comes from her fellow Man. She tends to be very critical of failure from her Human followers and spends a lot of time berating them even while smiling pleasantly. This has lead many to notice a large double standard when it comes to how Alice treats her comrades. Alice seems particularly fond of Dreams. She can much more easily forgive their failures and she is quicker to act when one of them is in trouble. Of course, it is to be expected that the Dreams in her company would get some consideration given that almost all of the new decrees from the President seemed aimed at them, but Alice's affection seems to run deeper than that and it shows in her actions.
Conversely, to say Alice's treatment of Nightmares is harsh would be a serious understatement. Her official stance on what the gang should do if they ever get into an altercation with a Nightmare is to attempt to bring them in for "questioning", which in this case means many days of torture until they are finally disposed of. If that isn't possible, they are to be exterminated. She has been known to assign missions to kidnap Nightmares for "questioning" on just a rumor that they might be connected with the Falvadin. Because of this unforgiving attitude toward Nightmares she has become known in some parts as the “Nightmare of Nightmares”.
When not giving speeches to her followers or sitting in on interrogations, Alice mostly studies. She pours over documents and maps, writing pages upon pages of strategies and notes. She only stops to eat, practice her marksmanship and sleep when she has become physically unable to stay active any longer. This regiment has been quite deleterious to Alice's health and she is often ill. For the most part her contented mask keeps those around her from noticing, but it has become bad in the past.
On the inside Alice boils with emotions: sadness, anger, frustration, doubt, fear... The care-free act was created in order to hide these emotions away from her friends, from her enemies and most importantly from herself. She has a fake-it-to-make-it mentality, but she has been faking it for a long time now and the world still hasn't changed. Sometimes Alice wonders if the Ashoka Gang is nothing more than a group of children playing pretend, but then she smiles and gets back to her notes.
Weapon:
(See image here)
Alice's weapon, Ragnarok, once belonged to her father. Well, sort of. Morphing in the hands of his daughter, it now only resembles his musket physically. Its abilities have changed and grown according to Alice's wishes. It's appearance is important as a symbol. But its abilities are what makes it effective. Alice cares deeply for the weapon and keeps it locked in a safe in the Ashoka Gang hideout. She only calls upon it when she needs it.
- Longing A basic and ever-present ability, Alice is able to pull her gun out of the ether, retrieving it from anywhere in the world as long as no Human, Dream or Nightmare is holding it at the time. [Cooldown: 0 posts]
- Melancholy, level 1 Ragnarok's basic attack. Alice is able to fire off a seemingly endless supply of bullets in quick succession. Although not as fast as a machine gun the bullets explode when they hit their target doing a low to moderate amount of damage. [Cooldown: 1 post]
- Recollection, level 1 An attack Alice learned from her deceased pact mate and built into the gun. An illusion is cast of many duplicate Ragnaroks pointed at their target. When the trigger is pulled the target is assaulted with a large burst of bullets from random directions doing a moderate to large amount of damage depending on how many shots hit their target. [Cooldown: 3 posts]
- Vengeance, level 1 A shot that never misses, because it will follow its target to the ends of the Earth. A bit like a heat-seeking missile, this bullet locks on to the very essence of its prey and hunts it down. It does a moderate, but not insignificant amount of damage. [Cooldown: 3 posts]
- Solace, level 1 A shot is fired into the air and splinters into a mist creating a bubble shield that lasts for one turn and protects against low to moderate damage.
[Cooldown: 2 posts]
Abilities:
None
History:
Growing up in the Ashoka Slums was probably one of the best and one of the worst experiences of Alice's life. Sure, life was hard; you never knew if you would have enough to eat from one day to the next or if you would have to risk sneaking something away from the shops in the entertainment sector or, if you were feeling particularly lucky, the Strand. Still, you never lost sight of what was important. You never had to worry about the politics and fashions of the upper class and the powers-that-be mostly ignored the slums, oddly allowing the people there a sense of autonomy in their squalor. Whether you were Human, Dream, or Nightmare you're life was hell and the difficulties did more to erase the enmity between the three than any prior peacekeeping effort. Everyone knew everyone. When a crime was committed everyone knew who it was and because there was no hope for justice from the higher-ups, the slums dealt with everything themselves as a community. It was oddly... comforting. At least, that's how Alice liked to think of it.
Alice's family had been a permanent fixture in the slums since times immemorial. The Ceres family just could not catch a break and the Great City didn't offer many opportunities for improvement. The Ceres family had become known as one of the "Old Families", the true inheritors of the slums as opposed to those residents who found themselves there after falling on hard times. They knew their way around the rat infested gutters like the back of their hands. They knew how to beg, and steal, and do whatever was needed to survive. Well, they did until the President arrived.
The President's decrees were harsh on the slums. People who were barely making it found they could no longer work due to the new laws. Although the decrees mostly applied to Dreams, almost all the Humans in the slums relied on their pacts to make it by. The Ceres family was a little luckier than most. They were used to dealing with hardship and Roran's pact was with a Nightmare anyway. He had found the pitiful Nightmare starving in a gutter. The creature offered to make the pact when Roran saved him despite his own dwindling food supplies. Still, Roran worried for his young daughter who had made a pact with her dream, Lotus, when she was just 4-years-old. Roran worried that if the President's reign continued, Alice might not be able to sustain herself into adulthood. He brushed off the thought however, as he believed the President's reign would be short-lived. No one would follow such a tyrant, but... the President didn't go away, he only became stronger.
Over the course of a few months the Ashoka Slums began to decay. The poison of the new decrees stopped all activity in the slums. Crime rose within its walls, but a new police force called the Falvadin kept it out of suburbia and the Strand. The people of the slums were getting restless and frustrated. Even those who had been made cynical from years of poverty began to rouse. It would take only one incident to finally cause the tension to snap.
One day a Dream, a member of one of the Old Families, went to the entertainment sector and never returned. She was well respected in the slums. Despite her situation being just as bad as everyone else's she never broke a law, never stole, never fought and always helped those in need as much as she could. Even the worst of criminals liked her, so when she disappeared no one had any idea of what could have possibly happened to her. When the Human whom she had a pact with found her powers waning, everyone expected the worst. A rumor was heard that she was caught accidentally breaking one of the decrees and the Falvadin killed her. Soon this rumor evolved into a cry of rage. The residents of the slum turned towards the old families for answers and were met with nothing but a reflection of their own discontent. Roran was the first to speak the word "rebellion" and thus became the leader of the Ashoka Gang.
The Ashoka Gang started small, causing havoc in the Strand, hiding Dreams away from the Falvadin and stockpiling as much weaponry as they could get their hands on, but they had much higher goals. They wanted to take down the President. They sent out spies to gather intel and gather allies. Because it would be too suspicious for Dreams to do this task and too dangerous for Humans, the Nightmares of the slums volunteered for this task. There was probably no evil intent at first, the Nightmares had grown up in the slum as well and they felt for their neighbors even when they weren't hit nearly as hard by the new laws. Roran's pact Nightmare was among them, but the President is an insidious creature.
He offered everything to the Nightmares of the slums, a way out, a place in power. For creatures who have lived their entire lives destitute, it was more than enough to turn their allegiance. They spilled the plans of the Ashoka Gang to the President. That night the President sent out his minions and the first chapter of the Ashoka Gang was over.
The Ashoka Slums were attacked mercilessly. Everyone was guilty in the eyes of the Falvadin and the punishment for treason is death. Roran reacted immediately, seizing his musket, Ragnarok, and gathering the gang to face the approaching army. Juliana, Alice's mother, grabbed her daughter's hand and ran. They headed down an alleyway that lead to an open sewer. Juliana swiftly instructed Lotus, Alice's pact mate who nervously ran behind, to hide with Alice and keep her safe. She kissed Alice goodbye and ran to join her husband's fight.
That night is still burned into Alice's memory. The noises of explosions and screams filled the air. Alice crouched in the sewage and plugged her ears. The sanctuary was disturbed only once by a curious Nightmare who had been charged with rooting out escapees. Lotus, acting fast, cast a powerful illusion around Alice and went to meet the intruder. She didn't return. Alice cried.
When Alice finally emerged from the sewers, everyone she loved was gone. The slums had been razed to the ground. A few survivors were numbly picking through the scraps. Alice found her father's gun.
Alice had trouble recalling what happened after that. The Ashoka Slums quickly recovered. After all, this was just another hardship. The new decrees did much to fill up the empty spaces left by the Incident, but nothing could replace the Old Families. Alice was the only one of that legacy left, but for a while everyone thought she had died with the rest of them. She had gone somewhere immediately after the Incident. No one knew where and she wouldn't say, but when she returned she was a very different person. It wasn't the sort of change you would expect after such a tragedy. She was smiling, clutching her father's notebook and musket. Everything from her clothes, to her hair, to her demeanor was completely different. It was like she had literally reinvented herself.
"I think it's about time we did something."
OOC Alias:
Lyrics
