Zephel Archer
From Inga no Kusari wiki
| Archer, Zephel ♂ | |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 11th November, 1986 (25) |
| Place of Birth | Heidelburg, Germany |
| Player | Zephel |
| Quincy | |
Contents |
Appearance
Beyond this more eccentric outfit He is on occasion spotted wearing a white and red body stocking with no sleeves. The black chest plate is worn over this covering the joined red cross that is on the middle of his sternum and hidden beneath it.
Personality
Zephel is a profoundly stoic individual, a lack of emotion would not be close to scratching the surface on how monotone he can be about everything around him. His desires are unspoken, his pains unshared, his hates and that which he likes or dislikes a complete mystery. While he behaves as this outwardly it is only because he does not know how to interact or is afraid to do so with those around him. He does feel lonely, he does feel loss and remorse when those who he knows leave, but he does not show this in any way he can see.
History
Zephel was only a year old when his parents passed away, both prodigies among the Quincy, leaving him in the hands of his fellow quincy who arrived to investigate the deaths.
Being of such young age he was immediately turned over to a set of foster parents, also quincies, though of a less potent caliber then of his own parents. The foster family itself was a petty group of power grabbing cowards, seeking the chance to assimilate his power into their weak lineage and gain fame among their fellows. They had battled inside of the Quincies personal government and used the wealth they had accumulated through normal business they maintained or held stock in to in short buy his parentage from others. He would be well taken care of, and as far as the boy was concerned he would be there son, there powerful, ingenious son. He would never need to know the truth. He would never need to know his name was not truly Tristan Richter
As he did grow however his powers would not form in such magnificent leaps and bounds as the Richters had expected, no amount of forced training time, no whipping, no doting upon seemed to increase his will to learn the traits that he had been bought for. After fruitless years his adoptive family simply stopped trying, stopped doting, stopped caring for him as well as before. He became a nuisance, another mouth to feed.
Tristan, or Tristan as he still knew himself, let there dislike pass him buy hiding the amount of pain it caused him to see his supposed parents hate for him. He ventured away from the house more often, exploring the homes near his own substantial land area for anything of interest. No children beyond himself lived in the area, none that he could tolerate anyways, so when it was an elderly man who approached him while he passed by 'the paper house' as he had nicknamed it he was not so quick to run and instead came to find the mans presence somehow reassuring.
The old man, who he came to know as Tenijiro Umbeki intrigued the young child, he seemed to understand spirits existed, he could see them just like Tristan could. When Tristan asked eagerly if he had figured out a way to help them pass on the old man chuckled as his gaze went to a closed door across the spacious courtyard of his traditional housing. He did not answer Tristan with anything further then a reassuring pat on the shoulder at the time.
Zephel would continue to come see this man every few days, as often as he could meet his friend considering he had schooling to attend to even if his parents no longer cared about him. He did not share with them who his new friend was only saying that he had made one. He also did not share with them that he felt different, not like his parents but not like a plus or a hollow either. He couldn't tell them because they would stop him from seeing that man. Mr. Umbeki had told him that when he asked to introduce him to his parents. He had been vehement on the matter and his strange aura had seemed oppressive for a moment before he realized Tristan had been frightened by it.
However, as with all things, a child's words always escape their mouths at the wrong time. It had been a year since he had met Mr. Umbeki, and his parents even with their disinterest in him knew enough about him from Tristans continued descriptions of the house that it would take but an accidental missed turn while driving to the city every other weekend to find out who Tristans friend really was. His father came home in a fit lifting Tristans up by his collar without even noticing the bow had been performing exercises with his arrow that he hadn't taught him to do yet. Exercises that Mr. Umbeki had told him to try out without ever directly saying they would be useful for that skill of Spiritual Reishi harnessing that he didn't even know the boy had. He dragged Tristan up to his room before slamming the door and locking him inside exclaiming something about "those damn reapers" and giving Tristan no explanation on the matter.
Tristan waited till nightfall before finally picking the simple lock with a thin folded paper to push under the doors slanted lock mechanism and slowly venturing down into the household to the tune of hushed voices from the kitchen. As he got closer the voices became understandable and his horror began to seep free from mental images he was able to form from them.
His uncaring, distant, and scornful parents had kiled a man. Tristan wasn't so dimwitted to not understnd the meaning of "dealt with" so he knew his one real friend was dead or dying. They killed him over something as stupid as thinking he was trying to use Tristan but they hadn't even tried to notice he had only improved since speaking with the man. They mentioned a boy, zephel, in the same scornful way they'd pronounce his name while complaingin about his lack of progress in training. The one who failed to remember who Zephel was rose th question revealing that Tristan, he himself, was this zephel they seemed to despise for his worthlessness after being adopted. After they'd gone through the trouble of killing his real family and through a stroke of dumbluck getting him out of the equation. Benison...Katherine...Zephel could admit he didn't have any memory of them but he felt them somehow in the way a child can imagine such a thing. A sense of loss and a sense of hatred. However most of all Zephel felt a distinct sense of fear. These people had done something to Mr. Umbeki, he had to run before they did something to him as well.
His father laughed before Zephels foot suddenly shifted and he ran from the home. He could hear his dad, no not his dad he captor, shouting his name. Shouting that fake name of his Tristan, not Zephel. He was still young and so he ran to the only real shelter he could know at Mr. Umbekis. He arrived to find the front gates not smashed but seemingly shot through, the walls cratered all over and Mr. Umbeki's body riddled with no less than 4 holes as he reached for a blade inside the room he'd gazed at so long ago while laughing and telling Zephel to not worry about the Spirits of this area. Zephel rolled the body over as if Mr. Umbeki would suddenly come back but the only thing it served to do was display the gruesome wreckage that was his opens chest cavity. Zephel leaped away at first in horror knocking over some vessel of water in his mad scramble to get away from the corpse. He screamed outright running out of the house without noticing the extra lump in the cuff of his legging.
Just outside the gate his captors snagged him and forced him into the car, a broken terrified shell unable to resist them now, and rushed him home before setting him down in the midst of the living room and trying to see what he knew. He curled into a ball head tucked between his legs trying to ignore them, to make the images just go away and make them disappear as well.
It went on for ten minutes of them trying to gently coax him with polite voices, loving pats on the shoulder, small hugs that he forced off by wiggling, before he lifted his head to glance over his knees at them while they walked away to try and think of a new plan. They huddled together in the hallway whispering in hushed tones he couldn't hear about new ideas to get him talking. He loosened himself before looking down at the small bump that he'd felt while curled into a ball and noticed it as hollow bait. Slightly soggy, it had no doubt been left in the water he remembered knocking over, and broken already it had no doubt already started attracting lesser hollows. Zephel glared at his would-be parents while thinking of the plan they'd devised.
Kill the man and make it seem like a hollow attack. Poor little Tristan would be to devastated to figure out the reality of it. He was angry, they had lied to him, killed people, denied him his real life. He screamed again, yelling to them that his name was not Tristan, crushing the hollow bait as he threw it at the wall next to them and before he could even begin to scream and run in anger the first hollow smashed through the front of the home.
The authorities arrived a few hours later to find the mutilated bodies of the Richters laid bare in the remains of the home, some parts crushed and smashed, some parts pockmarked with what almost looked like bullet holes. The son Tristan was not among the wreckage nor among the dead and was considered a missing persons. Quincy would arrive a few days later to investigate the deaths before turning their worries to the young child. Alone and probably unsure of his powers he would need the proper guidance they could provide. They asked around at the few houses spread about the area, slowly building up an idea of his patterns before coming to the home of Mr. Umbeki.
It too was covered in police tape but they pushed inside regardless to find Zephel was not here as they had hoped. the last one out stopped to look around before noting a single flower was missing from a bush at the entrance, the plant itself was known to have only a few buds at a time so the missing one was noticeable. He looked around to find it sitting in the middle of the polices body chalk outline of where the body had been. He passed it off as some strange parting through of the police officers before leaving the scene and mentally filing Zephel as KIA.
Zephel, very much alive and well, disappeared for several years following this, leaving his home country and traveling to unknown parts of china to hide away from the remainder of the quincy who would still be looking for him in order to 'save him' as they would egotistically put it. While in china he learned more of true archery and through this teaching has come to understand more about how to control his own shots.
More recently Zephel resurfaced in his home country, claiming the inheritance left by his adoptive family and taking residence from age 19 to 24 in a small apartment south of Leipzigs main urban areas. He attempted to regain contact with the thinly spread quincy groups and get tied back to the scheme of things when he saw a few faces of known interest appear on a foreign news cast. The names could have been coincidental but with no success in coming in contact with German quincy he soon fled to Japan to find that which he sought, his heritage, his family, a place to belong perhaps. Unknown, it would seem, even to himself what that was exactly.
Combat
Strengths
Accuracy:...just to be obvious about it....
I-Summon-Ye: He is exceptionally skilled at calling Reishi to him, forming it more solidly and with greater refinement, making his bow appear almost real and solid in nature rather than spiritual. Though as of now the real meaning to this is limited to just his bow being more solid looking and stouter.
Ranged Weapons Proficient: While obviously the main weapon is his bow he is capable of using knives, and other thrown items just as accurately. His proficiency with guns however is relatively civilian, meaning he has never actually picked up and attempted to wield one. Most of these hide in his armor or shoulder pauldrons.
Weaknesses
Get-Outta-My-Face: He is not accustomed to up close and personal combat, and does not seem proficient at it either, he tends to move away from his targets as he fights them relying on ranged attacks exclusively. When in close he is more likely to surrender and hope for mercy then to just die in a horrible attempt at a punch.
Quincy Humility - A rare flip-of-the-coin idea of his. Quincy as a whole are no better then a hollow, for a hollow is merely trying to survive and it is not it's fault that spiritually aware humans or human souls are its meal. He can and will clash with his fellow quincy on the matter of killing a hollow that is not directly attacking them, or a currently living human, because as it is designed the Plus Soul, Shinigami, or other such spirits are not of the living and thus a direct part of the hollow food chain. This will in time alienate him from any quincy he does come to meet.
