EXSILIUM - app.

[reassures]

» PLAYER INFORMATION

Player NAME: Seek
Current AGE: 20
Player TIME ZONE: PST
Personal JOURNAL: goodjobself
IM & SERVICE: AIM; anathematisation
Player PLURK: goodjobself
Current CHARACTERS: N/A

» CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character NAME: Nill
Canon & MEDIUM: DOGS: Bullets & Carnage, manga
Canon PULL-POINT: End of chapter 22.
Character AGE: canonly 15, though Nill is currently 19.
Character ABILITIES:

Nill, canonly, has no fantastic abilities. The only thing really on her side is her speed. She's light and fast, and can easily escape from bad situations given the right opportunity. She's also something of a natural empath, easily able to read the feelings of most people she happens to be near, even for short periods of time.

However, during her stay in other games she's gained a few additional skills. She's learned how to not only use a gun, but to be an excellent shot. Living in a game full of monsters at night, she practiced non-stop for months on end, and learned how to easily take care of herself in most dangerous situations. For awhile she was able to stop time, which gave her additional opportunities to hone her aim and skill. She's also learned how to use knives and kunai, more for long-distance combat, but she's also practiced with close-range to some extent as well. She's much more skilled with long-range, as her aim when throwing kunai is excellent. Theoretically she's spent at least a year and a half on her skills.

Character HISTORY:

If anyone remembered what year it was, no one said so; the apocalypse had come and gone, brought about by (as expected, as foretold) man’s golden age of technology, and it had taken the seasons with it when it left. The world was unchanging, with the same gray weather and cold temperatures every day no matter where you went, and because we’re such a damned resilient race, humanity survived. It rebuilt its cities, rebuilt its crime and cars and pollution, and it continued as though nothing ever happened, even though everyone now lives as the lowest of the low, and the only people with enough money to really get by are mob bosses. No one ever learns.

It was this world—a place almost completely devoid of kindness and caring—that Nill was born into; her mother was most likely a genetically modified human, a remnant from that golden age of man; and as such she was born similarly, with little downy stumps on her back. Nill has no memory of her parents, although she suspects that her mother must have lived in the same conditions as her, and her father... Well, she tries not to think about who her father was.

Nill was sold the moment she was born. It was never a matter of human rights or of freedom, because as a general rule the people of her world don’t view descendants of genetically modified humans as “human”. They’re lower, less than them, and they make sure that every single person like Nill is aware of it. They make sure for their extra traits to take something away from them; and in Nill’s case, they took her voice. It was very briefly implied in canon that something may be able to be done about Nill’s voice, but the possibility was never touched upon again.

Most people like Nill – the girls, at least – are sold into slavery, and Nill was both unlucky and very fortunate to be a rare type. Aside from her wings, she doesn’t have any outwardly undesirable traits. And so she was moved from one “husband” to the next (which seems to be the canon way that pimps refer to themselves), and trained, and forced into sex slavery. But Nill never gave up trying, never gave up hope. She bided her time and did what she was told, and every chance she got, she made a run for it.

It was during one of these escape attempts, when she was fourteen-years-old, that Nill met Heine.

Heine wasn’t like anyone else that Nill had met before; his hair was white, his eyes were red, and without any more reason than ‘you’re like me’, he saved her. Took her to a place where she could get a hot shower, where she could relax for a few moments, and he even caught on to the fact that she couldn’t speak. He went on to say that they were alike; that when artificial life forms are created and things are added to them, that something is usually changed or removed, and that occasionally, in order not to create something better than normal beings, artificial limits are intentionally created.

Heine was a far more troubled person than Nill could ever be, haunted by more demons than she could have imagined. The minute she tried to touch him, comfort him in the only way that she could, he shouted, told her not to touch him—and then, the men came, and they shot Heine full of lead and pushed him out a window. And they took Nill with them when they left.

For the first time that she could remember, Nill was mad; the man before her, this awful, awful person had just killed the only being that had ever truly tried to help her. And he was trying to do those things to her again. Why, why was this man so cruel? Thankfully, oh so thankfully, the sound of gunfire began to ring through the halls, and the minute his grip loosened even a little bit Nill bolted yet again, being the fast little thing that she was.

She didn’t expect to see Heine there in the hallway, guns blazing and perfectly intact. Perfectly alive.

He filled the pimp with holes without so much as blinking. “No matter how many shots I put in ya... why won’t you die..?” The words of a dying man; Heine wasn’t much better off, but still standing, bleeding all over the place. “What, you drink some magic potion or something?” “Yeah, something like that.” Heine said in return, spitting out a mouthful of bullets as he did. “A cheap potion.” And then the dying man pointed out the iron collar around Heine’s neck, and he died, calling Nill’s savior a monster; Heine couldn’t disagree.

“Now you’re afraid… of me.” He had said, and Nill could only smile at him.

Nill was taken away by Heine after that, to an old gothic church and the man that ran the place, and she was put in his care. (Bishop, he was called, and nothing more than that.) He was blind, and he liked frilly dresses and short skirts, constantly telling her how cute she was in them even though he couldn’t see; and she lived with him from that day on in the church, waiting for the days when Heine would come to visit her. She was content, though, very content. On the days he would visit, Heine often brought Badou with him, the strange red-haired man that apparently had a hand in her rescue. They were all strange, they were all broken, and Nill... well, she couldn’t have been happier.

Even when a strange woman with short black hair and a sword ended up spending her time at the church (saving Nill from being kidnapped on her very first visit) things only got better; Heine would avoid the girl, Naoto, and Badou would make his odd little comments about them both, and the Bishop would scold them if they broke his rules.

As far as Nill knew, it was a very nice, simple sort of life, even if it wasn’t anywhere near perfect; she seemed to be the only one without demons, but it was better that way.

Character PERSONALITY:

Nill is - for all intents and purposes - a fairly young girl, and despite her background she makes no attempt to act otherwise; she gets teary-eyed easily but smiles just as readily, and is very eager to help whenever and however she can despite her clumsiness. Likewise, with this youth comes Naïvete, and though Nill understands very well the things that Heine and Badou do for a living and the danger they're always in, she just doesn't totally grasp that they regularly kill people. Death means little to her, and the fact that Heine and Badou kill people doesn't bother her because it isn't a concept that hits home to her. Badou is untouchable and Heine is like mist, and the world cannot take them from her. Besides, the people that go missing on the streets every day are strangers. And if she would stop to think about it she'd think that it's terrible, awful, and that the world is really a cruel and awful place, but it hasn't taken Heine from her yet, hasn't left Badou bleeding out in a gutter, and so the world is kind and beautiful and Nill is content not to think about it.

She's a happy and caring person, always able to offer someone a smile or try to cheer them up in some way or another if she can; but if smiles and small acts of kindness aren't enough she'll do her best to soothe, even if she has no voice to do so with. She's considerably more physical than one would expect, more than open to reaching out to place a hand on the face of a stranger or hug someone in need of one. Nill doesn't always catch on when something is wrong, of course, but more often than not she's perceptive enough to be able to tell when someone is upset, and isn't the world filled with enough unhappiness, enough sorrow? If she can manage to make someone happy, then it's all she feels she needs to do.

Nill is an optimist. No matter what awful thing happens, no matter what might come her way, she has absolute confidence that tomorrow will be a much happier day, and that the world will be right again. Of course, this is a somewhat naive outlook on the world, but someone needs to have hope for something better, don't they?

It takes quite a lot to manage it, but once Nill is actually mad at someone she will never really stop being mad at them; and it's very obvious when she is mad, as she rarely tries to hide her disapproval of someone and her wings will flare out behind her back like a cat with its fur on end. Unless they have done something redeemable in her eyes, it's very likely that anyone she is mad at will receive a similar reaction to that every time they run into her. Anger can be a rare thing for her at times, but it’s when Nill is angry that the influence of her world starts to show through. One of the only instances in which she is mad at someone is played off as her being tiny and cute, but when you look at her reaction, it’s not cute at all. A man who is almost twice Nill’s size says something bad about Heine, and Nill immediately starts hitting him, fists closed and tears on her face. The world has taught Nill that anger and violence are appropriate reactions, and though she is difficult to anger, she is not above it.

Despite all her happiness and smiles, Nill does have her own little set of demons, but they rarely cross her mind. She sees little point to dwelling on a past that can't be changed and refuses to let prior bad experiences interfere with her daily life; she’s more of an “I’m happy now” than an “I was unhappy then” sort of person.

» EXSILIUM INFORMATION

Chosen WEAPON:

Nill has been in a number of situations where her weapons, which she relied on previously, were taken away from her, leaving her helpless; as such, she'd be unlikely to pick an actual weapon, but wish for herself to be the weapon, with the request that she be made "as strong as possible".

Nill is already quite strong on her own, and as such, the first stage of her abilities will be regaining her telepathy. In many ways though she'll be starting from the beginning again; if before her control of her telepathy and all the things that it encompassed could have been considered being at level 85, then she'll be back down to about level 15. Her evolution with her powers will go through six stages, and she'll get stronger and more capable with every stage.

Stage 1: Stage 1 will be unlocked directly upon choosing her weapon. She'll immediately regain her telepathy, but her range of use will be weakened considerably. She'll still be able to read the surface thoughts of others, but she'll only be able to hear people or sense their feelings maybe up to fifty feet away from her. She'll be able to do more than this if she pushes herself, but it'll be tiring work. In much the same way that she'll be able to 'talk' to people, she'll be able to push feelings or experiences onto them, but overuse of it will completely drain her of energy. Showing someone an image or a memory will make her need to sit down almost immediately. With practice this will become easier and less draining. One thing of note is that Nill will be able to turn off her telepathy if it ever occurs to her to attempt to do so, and it will turn off automatically when she falls asleep.

Stage 2: At stage 2 Nill will unlock further abilities with her telepathy. She'll be able to create realistic illusions from the environment around her, and effectively be able to hide herself for extended periods of time by masking herself with a reflection from the environment. Naturally, the average mind will be easy to fool with this power, but she won't be able to trick any cameras or cyborgs, or anyone else that might be immune to it. Her range extends from 50 feet to 100. She'll also develop some basic telekinetic skills, which she will need to hone as she will need to do with most other powers. It will be difficult to control at first, but eventually she'll be able to move objects at will, and eventually even be able to change the trajectory of bullets.

Stage 3: At this stage Nill will be able to create 'solid' illusions that don't necessarily reflect on her environment; she'll be able to conjure any image, and trick the mind of the person seeing it into thinking it's real. If they were to try to touch it, it would be appear to be there. Nill would need to have a good understanding of whatever she's showing, because the person would definitely be able to call it being a fake. Like the last stage, her abilities won't be able to trick a video camera. If done correctly, Nill will be able to create entire environments that aren't actually there, though this will be understandably draining. Telekinesis will evolve to the point that Nill will be able to not only move objects, but also crush things with enough concentration, hold something in place, and if she's quick enough, potentially stop bullets.

Stage 4: By the time she gets to this level Nill will be extremely experienced in her telepathic capabilities, and she'll have figured out how to rework them enough that she'll be able to manipulate the mind directly. It's unlikely she'd find a need to doo so very often, but at this point she'll be able to modify the mindset of someone, potentially altering their memories or even preventing them from remembering something entirely. As this could have permanent, very detrimental effects on other characters, even if it's unlikely that Nill would use it, this will never be done without permission. Telekinesis at this stage will start to take on different properties; she'll be able to do undo locks, and with enough practice even be able to make objects spontaneously combust. Theoretically she'd even be able to regenerate her own cells or the cells of others, healing injuries as needed.

Stage 5: By this point Nill will be able to manage most of her telepathic abilities without much physical drain, and be able to go for extended periods of time with her illusions in place or keep up a telepathic relay for however long is necessary. Her telekinesis will evolve to the point that she'll be able to temporarily stop time, though not without detrimental effects. At first she'll only be able to do it for a few minutes, and with a great deal of practice she'll be able to keep it stopped for up to two hours. Doing this for extended periods of time will leave her almost completely drained, and likely to pass out. This will never extend to the point where she might be able to time travel.

Stage 6: By this stage, Nill will have mastered all aspects of her abilities. At this point she'll be able to use her telekinesis for up to nine hours straight, though it will always be a great strain. Telepathy, meanwhile, will come much more easily, and use up little energy if the conditions are right.

Character INVENTORY:

(1) Luger P08 pistol
(1) SIG Sauer P226
(?) Lots of extra ammo
(5) kunai
(1) NetVice, with pictures on it, and lots of music
(1) flipknife
(2) lacey black hair ribbons
(1) black leather jacket
(1) black turtleneck sweater
(1) pair of black jeans
(1) pair of black leather boots

» PREVIOUS GAME INFORMATION ( IF APPLICABLE )

Previous GAME(s): neo_rpg & sirenspull
Previous GAME SETTING(s):

NEO_RPG

Nill's first game took place in a city called NeoGenesis. People believed that they had spent their entire lives in this city, but that was a lie. Characters brought into the game had chips put into their heads to feed them fake memories and block off the old ones. Characters were given serial numbers, which branded them for the duration of their time in the city, and social classes were heavily enforced by the powerful and the people running the place. You could either come into the game the lowest of the low or the richest of the rich, and the low were always put down or used by the rich. If someone died, they were immediately put up for auction upon revival, and essentially forced into slavery by the wealthy. The city itself was built on three layers, the lowest of which was Abyss. All characters whose serial numbers began with a 3 start off there. Abyss was an almost literal hell hole, and the weak do not survive there. The second level, Terra, was more of a suburb, closer to the darkness of Abyss but not necessarily tainted by it. The serial numbers of people living there began with a 2, and it was relatively easy to live a normal life if you tried. The highest level was Elysium, and that was where the healthy and the politicians lived. Elysium was spotless, but the people who lived there were usually just as awful as the people in Abyss, they were just more hush hush about it. Typical politicians and wealthy people, really. Their serial numbers began with a 1. If yours started with a three, it was virtually impossible to get into Elysium unless you were accompanied by someone that lived there.

The plot of the game centered around characters slowly regaining fractured bits of their memories, and generally surviving in a city that was basically out to get you. The shadowed rulers of the city, an organization called Alpha & Omega, made it as difficult as possible for people to live, even going so far as to programming the chips of some of the characters in game to make them think they worked for them, and always had.

As the game came to a close, the social structure of the city began to crumble, until the place was nothing but chaos and death. During a fourth wall event people from outside the city came in, claiming to know many of the characters who were there. The dark side of Elysium immediately became apparent to everyone paying attention, and Alpha & Omega started killing anyone that came in, along with anyone that could be considered a mutant. Finally even that started to crumble, and anyone that was still alive got the hell out of dodge.

SIRENSPULL

Sirenspull drags characters into the city of Siren’s Port; they’ve all been dragged here from different worlds and different times by something called the Core. The Core causes any sort of madness you can think of, from making the sky rain candy to making the same day repeat over and over again for a week or more. The Core also gives anyone that might be considered “normal” powers, irreversibly mutating them to be more than just simple people. Some mutations can be physical, others mental, but regardless of what happens, Newcomers are easy to tell apart from the rest of the population, and the Natives resent them for existing.

The plot centers on a city that anyone who enters cannot leave because of the Pull of the Core. Anyone that gets too far away will die, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The city is run by two opposing companies, Afterglow Inc. (AGI) and SERO, who are in a constant turf war with each other, and neither company is on the side of the Newcomers, who tend to make up the neutral third faction. With rising discrimination against the Newcomers from Natives, corrupt politicians, and the companies alike, it’s a struggle just to get a job and pay rent, let alone survive the monsters that come out of the Darkness every night. Regardless of where you go or what you do, there will be at least one side against you.

Previous GAME CR:

☑ = People Nill has permission to remember.
☒ = People Nill is not permitted to remember.

Heine Rammsteiner (DOGS: Bullets & Carnage): appeared in sirenspull briefly, and spent the majority of the time fighting with Giovanni. He wasn't around for long.
Badou Nails (DOGS: Bullets & Carnage): stuck around for longer than Heine, but Nill has trauma with redheads and had changed a lot, and she wasn't sure what to say to him anymore. Despite this, Badou treated Nill no differently than he ever had.
Giovanni Rammsteiner (DOGS: Bullets & Carnage): is someone Nill didn't actually know in canon, but who showed up and made a point of threatening her. She will never forget him now.
Yosuke Hanamura (Persona 4): is the person that took Nill in when the man she was living with disappeared. She stuck by his side for years until she decided he was treating Shikamaru poorly and shoved all of his mistakes back into his head from her point of view. They didn't talk much after that until he died. By some strange stroke of bad luck, Nill ended up caring about the next Yosuke to the point that she was sure she loved him. ☑
Souji Seta (Persona 4): He was one of the only people from Yosuke's world that Nill ever met. She blamed the first Yosuke not wanting to stay with her and Shikamaru on him, and viewed him as a living symbol of a lot of things wrong in the lives of her family. He gave Yosuke a bottle of vodka for his birthday, which Yosuke nearly poisoned himself with after Souji disappeared. She still hates him.
Shikamaru Nara (Naruto): He was Nill's oldest and greatest friend by the end of things, though he was also her downfall in a lot of ways. Shikamaru was the person who told Nill that their lives were a lie back in NeoGenesis, and he was also the one responsible for her and the rest of their small group of four making it out alive. After most of her friends had died, he was the only person left behind. They had a quiet kinship, and they went through hell and back together a dozen times. Nill owes her life to Shikamaru more times than she knows how to count, and she was completely crushed when he died.
Naruto Uzumaki (Naruto): Naruto made up the third part of Nill's family after Shikamaru and Yosuke. He was one of the happier members. Unlike Shikamaru and Yosuke, he disappeared, but Nill assumes the version of him that she knew is dead.
Sakura Haruno (Naruto): Nill only talked with Sakura briefly the few times she was in and out of the Port. They argued once, but otherwise Nill formed no major opinion of her, outside of her being from Konoha. ☑
Chouji Akimichi & Ino Yamanaka (Naruto): Nill didn't have the opportunity to know them very well, but she loved them because Shikamaru loved them.
Itachi Uchiha (Naruto): Itachi was an amazing influence in Nill's life. He was one of the first and only people to treat her as capable and able to take care of herself. Like most others, Nill assumes the version of him that she knew is dead.
Hidan (Naruto): He was Shikamaru's "brother" in NeoGenesis, and a horrible influence in his life, before and after they all regained their memories. Nill has mixed feelings about him.
Sasuke Uchiha (Naruto): Nill has met twice, and she really, vehemently hated him both times. He treated Ino like trash until the day she disappeared, and Nill wants nothing to do with him.
Asuma Sarutobi (Naruto): He meant the world to Shikamaru, and he died.
Obito Uchiha (Naruto): He had just died when Nill met him, but he seemed like a nice kid.
Minako Arisato (P3P): She used to run the boarding house that Nill lived in. They never really spoke, but Nill saw her on a semi-regular basis before she disappeared.
Gilbert Nightray (Pandora Hearts): From the time Nill arrived in Siren's Port to the day she left, Gilbert was probably the friend that stuck around for the longest. He understood Nill better than anyone, and by the time she left Nill trusted him more than anyone, even more than she had her own family.
Oz Vessalius (Pandora Hearts): He means more to Gilbert than life itself, and as such Nill decided if she ever needed to, she would protect him, despite not actually knowing him. ☑
Vincent Nightray (Pandora Hearts): Gilbert's brother, who seems to do an awful lot of somewhat questionable things.
Elliot Nightray (Pandora Hearts): Gilbert's other brother, who he held a lot of regret about, and who is no longer alive. ☑
Jack Vessalius (Pandora Hearts): Nill spoke to him once, but she would recognize him because she was doing recon at the time. She has no idea about his true nature-- yet.
Xerxes Break (Pandora Hearts): Nill met him while he was driving a very expensive car in Gilbert's body, but he delivered flowers to her from Yosuke. Definitely a strange guy. ☑
Rin Asano (Blade of the Immortal): ran the boarding house that Nill lived in after Minako disappeared. She was a nice girl who Nill was fond of. ☑
Claire Stanfield (Baccano!): lived in the boarding house during Nill's stay there, and they kept in contact as associates even after she moved out. He left her a knife after he disappeared that she still has with her. ☑
Chane Laforet (Baccano!):, who also seemed to enjoy baking, who also had telepathy, was also mute, and also lived in the boarding house. Nill liked her, though they never had much in the way of conversations. She knows that Chane and Claire loved each other very much.
Replica Riku (Kingdom Hearts): called himself Joe Fieldman while Nill knew him. They went on a date once and it was quite possibly the most awkward thing to ever happen in the history of ever.
Ventus (Kingdom Hearts): Ventus was a nice boy, who looked just like Roxas. Nill thinks they must have been brothers.
Xigbar (Kingdom Hearts): Xigbar was responsible for nearly killing Nill the night that Dave saved her, although she doesn't concretely know it. Still, she's suspicious of him.
Miles Edgeworth (Ace Attorney): was a close friend of Shikamaru's, and for awhile Shikamaru talked about going to his world with Nill someday. Nill didn't entirely believe in what Edgeworth did, but she believed he was a very kind person, and that if he believed in it then maybe that made the difference. ☑
Sirius Black (Harry Potter): He threatened Shikamaru, and Nill threatened him back. In return, he called her nothing, and she never forgot the day someone actually voiced how terrible her name is.
Seras Victoria (Hellsing): She worked on the police force in NeoGenesis with Shikamaru, and appeared in Siren's Port after a long time. She is the closest to a motherly existence Nill has ever known.
Uryuu Ishida (Bleach): Uryuu was Shikamaru's boyfriend. He made Shikamaru happier than anything else ever did, and so Nill vowed to protect him at all costs, even long after Shikamaru had died.
Allen Walker (D.Gray-Man): He was one of the first people Nill ever celebrated having her birthday with, and she decided that day would be her birthday after that (as she doesn't know it). He was also one of the only people willing to help Nill when she first became telepathic. Allen left and a different version of him returned, and Nill got to see him more than she ever did the previous Allen. ☑
Davesprite (Homestuck): Dave was the first person to introduce Nill to doomed timelines. He was one of the only people that made her enjoy life when things got really bad, and she visited him in the hospital when they were both half dead of guilt plague. He was a good friend to her, and she missed him very much when he left. ☑
Jake English (Homestuck): wasn't someone that Nill knew very well at first, until she realized how lonely he was when all of his friends disappeared. Knowing full well how that felt, she decided to stick around and be his friend when other people couldn't be. ☑
Auto-Responder (AR Strider) (Homestuck): was the second "Strider" Nill really got to know. She realized early on what he was, and they got into a few arguments about limbs being difficult (or easy) to keep. She fed him when he ended up in Jake English's body for a week and didn't know how to use it properly.
Bro Strider (Homestuck): Dave and Davesprite's older brother/father, who Nill knows is dead.
Dave Strider (Homestuck): This Dave appeared not long after Davesprite disappeared. Nill wasn't sure what to think of him at first, and they didn't really talk until Nill drunk texted him one night to ask him if the Davesprite in his world was okay. They didn't really talk again until the night he saved her life, and they've been close friends ever since. He picked up where Davesprite left off on the information about different timelines, and effectively rid Nill of her complex about not being "real", but instead put the full horror of doomed timelines in her head. ☑
Rose Lalonde (Homestuck): Nill has never met her before, but shw knows a decent amount about her thanks to looks in both Dave and Davesprite's heads.
John Egbert (Homestuck): offered to take Nill flying.
Karkat Vantas (Homestuck): Quite possibly the most awkward person Nill has ever met, but he seems like a good kid underneath all the yelling.
Dirk Strider (Homestuck): The younger alternate universe version of Dave and Davesprite's brother/father. Nill doesn't know him well, but she thinks they have a sort of a mutual understanding about keeping an eye on Dave. Nill had a lot of money, so she anonymously gave him $100,000 for Christmas so he could pay the bills for his friends. ☑
Lisbeth Salander (Millenium Trilogy): She reminded Nill heavily of Shikamaru after he disappeared. At first their relationship was primarily business, but the more Nill got to know her, the more she adored her. Lisbeth is the only person that knows Nill killed someone, and the only thing she was upset about at the time was Nill getting caught.
Jesse Pinkman (Breaking Bad): The man that Nill bought her extra powers from. She purposely kept him at as much of a distance emotionally as she could so that she could manipulate him later if she needed to. She regrets this, but not enough to stop doing it. ☑
Mary Winchester (Supernatural): Mary was responsible for bringing Newcomers together in a lot of things, especially when they all rioted after they found out about the second Newcomer Hunt. Nill mostly knows her by seeing her around.
Chuck Shirley (Supernatural): is God. Nill doesn't think he's a bad person, but she also can't help but hate him a little bit.
Castiel (Supernatural): He healed Nill's wings after she was attacked by Xigbar's heartless, and Nill mostly didn't want to talk to him at the time because he was an angel. He immediately ended up on her shit list when Leviathan!Castiel killed Dave and John.

Your character's DEVELOPMENT:

Nill is not a young girl anymore. She still becomes teary-eyed easily, and she still cries when she’s really angry, or relieved, or happy; she’s still eager to help however she can, even if she’s not as clumsy as she was once upon a time. She’s outgrown much of the naïveté that once made up a great portion of her way of thinking, and she no longer holds any illusions about the people that she’s close to. She no longer looks back on her life and avoids thinking about the people that Heine and Badou probably had to kill on a regular basis in order to come home safely. She knows full well all the things they probably needed to do in order to survive, and she does not hold it against them, does not judge them for it. They mean the same to her as they ever did, because she’s known so many people over the past several years who have had to do similar things.

The main change in her way of thinking began when Nill was forced into something called Battle Royale. The people running NeoGenesis from behind the scenes thought of it as a game, but it was far from being a simple game. Most of the people that Nill loved at the time were dragged into it along with her, and contestants were told at the start that only one person would make it out alive. Everyone was expected to kill everyone else in order to be that one last person left standing, and Nill realized before the game even started that she wouldn’t be making it out alive. When her name was called, she took her bag, and made a break for it. She absolutely refused to let the people she cared about see her die, and she refused to let them be the ones to kill her. So, knowing full well that she would probably not make it through the day, Nill left them behind.

She didn’t make it through the day. She was found by someone with a sadistic streak, and died a horrible, painful death, all the while wishing she could go home. She’d never been more terrified in her life, and would never be more terrified again after. But through some fluke, some strange stroke of luck, Nill was revived. Everyone was revived, and no one was put up for auction. The people she loved came home, and they got to live together again. Everything was okay, but the world was no longer a beautiful place after that. People that she loved did dangerous things, and most of them died. They were all put up for auction, and most of them were lucky enough to be bought by friends instead of the wealthy people of Elysium, but a few weren’t. People disappeared from the city entirely, or were found dead and never brought back. Laws were put in place that said anyone who was a mutant would be killed, and many of her friends had to go into hiding, constantly afraid for their lives. Even Nill herself needed to hide her wings in public, because that too was considered a mutation by the rules of the new law. It was around the time that Nill began to realize how awful the world really was that strangers from others worlds began to filter into the city, and some of them had the faces of her loved ones. Every last one of them died, killed by the Alpha & Omega, and Nill was told after by one of her loved ones that their lives were a lie. All of their memories were false, and their friendships were probably fabricated.

Nill realized at this point that all of the hope she had ever held on to for a better tomorrow was pointless, because there was something pulling the strings, and as long as they remained in that place none of them would ever be happy. For the first time in her life, Nill saw the big picture of everything, and it made her miserable.

When NeoGenesis began to crumble, she and a few of her loved ones managed to escape to a better place – or so they thought. They were aiming for the home world of two of her friends, a place called Konoha, but instead ended up in a place called Siren’s Port. The moment Nill landed on the baseball field she could remember all the things that she couldn’t in NeoGenesis; she remembered Heine, the man in the fractured bits of memories she’d regained during her time there, Badou, Naoto, Bishop. She remembered everything, but with remember came forgetting. Many of the people who didn’t make it to Siren’s Port were removed from her memories. She could still recall little things they did, what they meant to her, but no faces would appear in her memory, and names were always right on the edge of her thinking, but never close enough to be recalled. Though Nill could differentiate between her two different sets of memories, and she knew which one was meant to be “real” and which was “fake”, one never felt more real than the other. Nill began her new life with two sets of memories full of holes.

If at all possible, the discrimination in Siren’s Port was even worse than it was in NeoGenesis. Newcomers were easily identifiable as such, and the law was largely on the side of Natives over Newcomers. Nill began to adjust to her new life, though her loved ones were hardly around. She was lonely, but not necessarily unhappy, because they were all alive. But as time went on, the Natives became more and more violent towards Newcomers. Nill and one of her loved ones, the people she considered her family, were in their apartment specifically for Newcomers the evening that terrorists blew it up. Another home lost, and some of her faith in humanity diminished, they moved on to a new home. Nill gradually began to resent her inability to protect her loved ones; they were always getting hurt, and she was always the one being protected.

Not long after this, Nill’s Core-given power awakened, and she found quickly that she could read minds and hear the thoughts of others. All notions of returning to school immediately left her mind when she found that simply going grocery shopping could be too overwhelming for her to manage. She spent much of the next several months rarely leaving her home, though she paid attention to the Network and knew what was going on in the Port.

You have to understand, people think awful things, and Nill never found a way to turn off her ability. When she was awake she noticed every thought running through every single person’s head, and when she slept she had dreams (or nightmares) that didn’t belong to her, but to someone living in the same building as her. There are few things as all-encompassing as the thoughts and the feelings of others. Her ways of thinking gradually began to change the more time she spent around someone, because it was easy to forget the way she thought and to instead recall the ways other people thought. This became apparent when one of her family members, Shikamaru Nara - the same person that had been in the apartment with her when it blew up, who NIll adored and who she owed her life to in many ways - was forced to become a slaver for one of the big corporations of Siren’s Port, and Nill threatened the city at large if anyone came after him for it. Shikamaru meant the world to Nill, and she would stand up to the rest of the world to protect him if she needed to. Shikamaru began to teach Nill how to use a gun, and she devoted a large portion of her time to practicing her aim.

Time went by, and Nill realized she could do a lot more with her abilities than simply read the thoughts of others and ‘talk’ to them. Eventually she realized she could contact people she knew well from halfway across the city; she could force her way into the thoughts of others, feel their emotions, and push images or feelings or experiences onto them. It was a versatile skill, and she dedicated much of her time to honing that, as well.

Things began to go wrong, though. Nill’s loved ones began to disappear or die, and they never came back. It started with Yosuke Hanamura, who had taken Nill in back in NeoGenesis; he wandered the streets at night and died, and he was never brought back to life. So many of his loved ones were devastated, Nill and Shikamaru included. Then, another one of the people that had come with them from NeoGenesis, and boy named Naruto Uzumaki from Shikamaru’s world, disappeared, and never came back. Nill’s outlook went downhill as the world she’d built for herself grew smaller and smaller, and worse and worse things happened. Shikamaru began doing drugs and getting himself killed regularly, and Nill watched, helpless to do anything for him.

Some time before Naruto disappeared, Yosuke came back to the Port, but he wasn’t the Yosuke that Nill had known. He was younger than Nill now, and he had no memories of either her or Yosuke. Nill remained conflicted over his existence for a long time, because she didn’t know if she should hate him for not being the Yosuke she knew, or if she should adore him, because he genuinely cared about her and Shikamaru, where the previous Yosuke didn’t.

Then, one day, Shikamaru disappeared, and Nill fell into despair, thinking the last member of her family – and the only person left in the world who could confirm whether or not everything that occurred in NeoGenesis really happened – was gone forever. Yosuke stayed by her, making sure she didn’t do anything hasty, until the day Nill found a snowglobe with images from Shikamaru’s memories in it, along with snowglobes for other people. It meant that he was still somewhere on the island, and Nill immediately started searching the entire city to find him.

She did find him eventually. She heard him begging her to find him, and when she and Uryuu – Shikamaru’s boyfriend – got into the building he was in, they found out why. He’d been turned into a grotesque cyborg, unable to move or scream, just feel pain and wait for the end. Nill tried to shoot him so that she could end his suffering, but found that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t pull the trigger. Uryuu had to be the one to kill him, and Nill had never hated herself so much in her life. Shikamaru revived a little while later, and abused drugs more, and Nill, who was a bartender at the time, began slipping alcohol into her coffee at work. For a few months, things were as okay as they ever were, and nothing really bad happened until the day of the first Newcomer Hunt.

Newcomers from all over the city were kidnapped, and held in cages without food for days. They were fitted with collars that were screwed into the tops of their spines, and caused unimaginable agony if any of them tried to use their powers. They were told they were going to be hunted down like animals and that their bodies would be used as trophies. Then they were released into the hunting grounds, and the game began.

Nill, who relied heavily on her telepathy, was left helpless. She found two knives and grabbed them for self-defense, and she found Shikamaru. The two stayed away from everyone else, who joined together, and they managed to stay safe unil a woman named Jaina Fife found them. Jaina’s power was to inflict pain on others, and she used it to incapacitate them. Desperate, Nill moved past the pain, past the agony of the collar, and pushed her own agony and pain onto Jaina. In that moment, she genuinely wished for death, but it was enough that Shikamaru was released. He grabbed NIll and got her out of there, and Jaina never came after them. They survived the night of darkness and monsters even without their powers, and when the dawn came Nill and Shikamaru walked out of the hunting grounds together.

They were not sad, though. They didn’t fall into bottles or drugs. Being forced into something like that for the second time in their lives broke something inside of Nill, and eroded some of her sweetness irreparably into angry and sour. If the world would not let her live happily, which is all she had ever wanted, then she wouldn’t let the people pulling the strings live happily either. Nill never forgot the serial number she’d been given in NeoGenesis, and she believed the same people secretly ran Siren’s Port as well. So she began using her serial number as an anonymous tag, using it for conversations that could otherwise get her put into jail, and she began training with Shikamaru to make herself stronger so that if she were put into a situation like that ever again, she would not need him to survive on her own.

Then, something unexpected happened. Barely a few months after the first Newcomer Hunt occurred, a second one took place, and most of the Newcomer population revolted. They attacked the hunting grounds, Nill included, and they made sure that everyone made it out of the hunt alive this time. Nill was shot in the process, but Yosuke, who had been taken this time, made it out alive, and she was healed for the most part. The events only served to fuel her anger, and she began taking more drastic measures.

Soon after, she began working with a woman by the name of Lisbeth Salander and a man named Claire Stanfield. They all wanted revenge for what had been done to them and the people they cared about, and they were going to get it together. She began spending money she had been left by dead loved ones to buy herself powers from Jesse Pinkman, who sold them at high prices to whoever came looking. She also did her best to get into Jesse’s good graces, knowing that if she could get him to trust her, then she’d be able to use him later for whatever she needed. It worked like a charm. Nill bought the ability to freeze time, which she used constantly so she could better practice her skills, and she bought the ability to manipulate air, which let her get around much more easily. She could almost fly with it, and for the first time in her life, Nill felt strong.

Shikamaru moved faster than Nill did in getting his revenge, though. He did something reckless and stupid, and he got himself killed; and like so many other people that Nill had known over the years, he never came back. Nill was alone, and without anyone left to confirm if a good portion of her memories were real or if the people she loved had ever really existed, she began to self-destruct. Yosuke was the only person around that Nill still really cared about – no, who she had grown to love – and even he disappeared one day. At the same time, Nill’s other good friend, a boy named Dave Strider, disappeared as well. So Nill took the list of names that Claire had left behind for her and Lisbeth when he, too, disappeared, and she stopped time. She found the man known as Mr. Faife, the father of the woman who had attacked her and Shikamaru in the first Newcomer Hunt, and she slit his throat.

It didn’t feel real, because he didn’t die while she was there. She went home, and started time up again, and waited for the news to report his death. Even after what had happened sank in, Nill didn’t regret what she did.

Dave came back, and he still remembered Nill; and Yosuke came back a month later, and he remembered her too. And though Newcomers were losing their rights all over the island, though nothing was really better, Nill wasn’t alone. It was the only good thing that had happened to her in months, and she was so beyond grateful that she had no words.

Nill had been living with Shika’s ghost for a long time, though. She had moved into his empty apartment after he died, and had stayed there for several months. He was the man that she set many of her standards to, whose methods she used in her own life and way of doing things. His absence was a weight on her shoulders that never lifted no matter what she did, and Nill never got over his death. She decided that she couldn’t keep living with something that was gone, so she decided to burn down the apartment. She left many of the mementos of people that she’d gained over the years in the apartment (sets of keys from numerous homes, belongings of people that were no longer there, gifts that she had held onto over the years) and she sat outside, smoking with one of her closest friends - Gilbert Nightray - while they watched it burn. Even if she would never forget the people that had died, she concluded that she was still alive even if they weren’t, and she needed to start acting like it.

Nill has changed a lot over the years. She is still a relatively kind and caring person, but she has learned how to smile even when she’s not happy so that she won’t put down the happiness of others. She is no longer an optimist, and much of the hope she held on to in her younger days has left her, but she isn’t completely hopeless. Even suffering through loss after loss, she’s determined to live, even if there are days that are hard enough that all she wants to do is to go to sleep and not wake up again. She still believes that tomorrow will be a better day, she just doesn’t believe she can sit and hope that it will be. If she wants anything to change, then it needs to be by her own strength. It’s a lot harder not to dwell on the past than it used to be, but as long as she’s alive, she’ll be able to see a better day eventually. It might just take a while to get there.

» SAMPLES

First PERSON:

[Nill has had quite a bit of experience with electronics over the years. Even with the tutorial, it doesn't take her long at all to figure out how to work her new Tablet. The video feed starts off with an uncertain looking young woman staring into it. Once she realizes the video has started, she smiles as politely as she can. She'd avoided using the video feature in the Port so frequently that this felt alien to her, but she needed to start making connections here, as quickly as possible.]

Hello, everyone-- my name is Nill.

[Her wings flutter awkwardly against her back, visible in the video.]

It sounds like we'll all be here together for awhile, so it's nice to meet you all. I was hoping some of you could tell me anything that I haven't been told so far-- the things that they don't tell you when you arrive here. Anything you could share would be appreciated. I want to become as familiar with this place as I can.

I was also hoping to find someone that could help transfer some files onto my tablet from a device with no connection. I know how to work the tablet just fine on my own, but I'm not familiar enough with the device yet to find a way to do that. It's something I'd prefer to do sooner than later.

[She smiles at the camera again, and finally decides that she doesn't know what else to say. It's been a long time since she needed to introduce herself like this, but she's pretty sure that was a good way of going about doing things, while also seeming fairly harmless. Finally satisfied with it, she waves at the video, and the feed clicks off.]

Third PERSON:

Nill's eyes open to the sound of death, ringing in her ears. The fall has knocked the wind out of her, and as she pushes herself onto her knees she wheezes, trying to gain her bearings, to sort out what has happened to her in her head. To make the ringing go away so she can concentrate. She doesn't hear the woman enter the room until she speaks, and that's the part of it all that really startles Nill, because she can always hear everyone, whether she wants to or not. She's on her feet in a second, gun raised, pointed at the woman, and it's then that Nill realizes she can't 'speak'. The ability that the Core had given her is gone, and with it her voice as well. The most she can do is stare in frightened bewilderment. Instantly any chance this woman has of making Nill trust her is gone, because Nill can't tell if she's thinking about killing her.

The woman steps forward, and Nill steps back, hand settling on her other gun. It's meant to be a warning, and the woman takes it, but Nill notes beyond her panic that she doesn't look worried. The woman is used to this, Nill realizes, and her grip on her gun tightens. Whatever was going on, it was bad. It had to be SERO; AGI was more concerned about slavery, and they wouldn't have someone like this working for them. SERO would be the ones to try to gain her trust before they gutted her, and she wasn't making that mistake. It's then that the woman begins to speak, and all thoughts of escape quickly leave her, as the reality of the situation sinks in.

"Welcome to Exsilium. We have much to discuss."

Nill never once holsters her gun, but she follows the woman, and she listens as the woman explains. She's in another world, again. Somehow they ripped her away from Siren's Port when she was out patrolling, and they dragged her to this place. She doesn't know how they did it, and she wants to ask, but the woman shoots her down before Nill even has the chance. There is no way to leave until the war is won, she's told. It's explained in much kinder terms, but Nill doesn't need it to be sugar coated. It's the core of the truth, and it's all that Nill really remembers of the woman's words at first. She's trapped, and the only way to leave is to fight a war that she doesn't care about. For the first time in a long while, Nill feels utterly helpless. Her wings fold in against her back, and though she's still holding her gun, her arm drops down to swing at her side, and she comes to a stop in the hallway. It wasn't fair. Yosuke had come back, and he was still in the Port, probably waiting for the next time he'd see her. Tomorrow he would call her, and she'd never pick up, because she wasn't there anymore. Another person lost to the whims of the Core, with nothing left behind but the dial tone on an NV. He would think she was dead, and she'd might as well be, because she might not ever make it back to see him again.

The woman reassures her gently, but she also doesn't try to make the situation sound a great deal better than it is. It does nothing to make Nill feel better, but she wipes at her eyes to make sure the tears clinging to her lashes never have the chance to fall, and she picks up her feet again.

The rest of the explanations go by in a blur. Nill retains most of the information, but she can't bring herself to listen very closely; not until they get to the armory, and the woman asks Nill what weapon she wants, because Nill is a soldier now, and all soldiers needed weapons. She looks down to the gun in her hand at first, and the woman holds her own hand out expectantly, but Nill shakes her head. She still has her NV in her pocket, and she pulls it out. She notes right away that it has no reception, but she brings up the notepad program, and holds the NV up when she's done typing.

I'll be the weapon. Make me as strong as possible.

Nill has been in too many situations for her to think about where she was left without her weapons, and needed to make due in times of dire need. She relied on her guns a great deal, but never to the point that she could not do without them; she refused to put all of her power and strength into a gun that could be taken from her. If that meant she would become something less (or more) than she was, then that was fine. She needed to fight in this war to get back, and that was what she was going to do. They agree, and by the time they're done fiddling with her, Nill can hear their thoughts. It makes her head hurt, and she can't hear as much as she would like to, but it's enough to put her a little less on edge, make her a little less liable to shoot someone. She can figure out who intends to do what again, and it makes the whole process easier.

By that point though they're nearly done. They hand Nill her new Tablet, and the ticket for the bank. The woman touches her arm, and she seems sincere when she thanks Nill, but Nill can't find it in her to show the woman the same kindness. Nill does nothing in return, and after that the woman leaves her so that she can go get settled into her new life.

Nill exits the building after she figures out what room she's meant to be living in without ever entering it. She finds a quiet alley, and she leans against the wall of it, before her knees give out and she slides down it to sit on the ground. She pulls her NV out again, which still has no signal, and for a moment Nill hopes that maybe it's a lie - maybe, somehow, it will connect. She finds Yosuke's contact information and hits dial, and for a moment there's nothing, and she hopes above all hope that maybe, somehow, she can talk to him. Hear his voice. Let him know that she'll come back, she will absolutely come back, because he's still there, and he came back for her.

Her hopes are dashed when the sound of death - the harsh dial tone of a disconnected NV - echoes through the alley, and Nill knows she will never be able to tell anyone that she still exists.

» ADDITIONAL NOTES

Nill had bought powers from Jesse Pinkman at sirenspull in addition to her Core given powers. I made mention of them in the app, but just wanted to clarify here that they will disappear entirely the moment she enters Exsilium.