Post by ZACK RICHARDS on Mar 11, 2017 0:30:50 GMT
ZACHARIAS RICHARDS
MEISTER CLASS ONE 5'11" 150LBS SIXTEEN |
PERSONALITY
POSITIVE TRAITS AdaptiveBroad-Minded Decisive Energetic Proactive | NEGATIVE TRAITS BrazenCompulsive Quick-Tempered Ruthless Vulgar | STRENGTHS IngenuityDexterity Tactics Loyalty Tenacity | WEAKNESSES StrengthEgo Curious Stubborn Impulsive |
APPEARANCE
HAIR COLOR: red | EYE COLOR: brown | BODY BUILD: wiry | ETHNICITY: caucasian |
HISTORY
About seventeen years ago, in the large city of San Bernadino, there lived a girl who had moved out of her parents place after she had been kicked out. She lived with a guy that she had lost all love for and had only stayed together with this far out of obligation, desperation and the occasional wild night. One of these wild, loveless nights lead to a pregnancy that she neither wanted nor felt that she could ever be ready for, but she stuck with it anyway. That pregnancy changed everything between her and the boyfriend that she didn't even love anymore. He grew more angry and abusive out of fear of being a father, and finally when she was about seven months pregnant, after a fight, she left him. She couch-surfed, even after Zacharias Nathan Richards was born, and the two of them couch-surfed until Zack was about two. By then, his mother had repaired her relationship with her parents with the help of promising visits with their grandson, and had moved back in to try to give her kid a good life. Such is the life when you're a single mother. She let Zack be raised partially by herself and partially by his grandparents while she worked several jobs to pay for everything that her and Zack needed in life. His grandparents were very free-range parental units, much like they had been with Zack's mother, and let Zack play with other children in the neighbourhood so long as he was back by sundown and didn't get into any trouble. But Zack, the precious little rascal, had different plans for himself, and one of those plans was in the form of a young girl named Penny Worth who lived next door.
Penny Worth was Zack's first and deepest friend. Since the age of three or four, the two of them had been inseparable, even when Zack did things like tease her, pull her hair, dare her to do stupidly risky things and generally got the little girl into trouble. There was barely a night where the two of them didn't come back with skinned knees and dirty faces, where one kid was begging their parents to let them stay over at the other's house for dinner. They played make-believe, rode bikes, and when they got older and other kids moved to the neighbourhood, they played sports and tried a whole bunch of things that they weren't supposed to do, with Zack being the ambitious and courageous leader that lead them all to victory with his cunning plans! When they hit kindergarten, they started going to the same school and were normally even put into the same class.
For a little while, they separated in friendships. Penny got popular and Zack started hanging out with a bunch of rambunctious boys his age. They fell apart until one day where Penny started to talk about how she was starting to develop Weapon powers, like the famous Weapons that protected the world. Well, of course Zack thought that it was the coolest thing he had ever experienced in his young life. He was the first friend of a Weapon! But then Penny demonstrated her powers in the middle of class, opened a zipper on her arm, and put her pencil in it. Most of the kids jeered at her for not being a 'real' Weapon, but as far as Zack was concerned, his friend had totally just grown a zipper on her arm with no pain whatsoever and jabbed a pencil into her arm without even flinching. Zack thought it was amazing! Yet, it got him lumped in with the jeering, but frankly, he couldn't have cared even if he tried. It was when Penny started being bullied that he actually started to act up. He'd yell at the girls that snidely teased her and got into fistfights in the halls, courtyard and classrooms with the boys that dared to try to screw with her. As a result, plenty of suspensions were in his future. Penny stopped going to class when Zack wasn't there for the most part, and through that they learned that he had a compatible wavelength with Penny. It was a fact that they didn't know was even special at the time, but Zack devoted a lot of his time to helping Penny learn her abilities.
The bullying grew worse and worse, mainly because Zack made the mistake of reacting to it. One particularly terrible incident occurred in sixth grade that would change Penny and Zack's fates forever. Zack let his anger and pride get the better of him and started savagely beating another child into the classroom rug. Penny and Zack's Soul Resonance sparked and went entirely out of control, resulting in the destruction of the classroom and the severe injuries of the teacher and several of the children. The two of them were expelled and both were enrolled by their mothers into Shibusen in an attempt to get their powers under control at the age of thirteen.
During their three years at Shibusen, they learned to control their Resonance out of necessity. Being so close while they were young lead to a nastily powerful duo that had a lot of potential to reach Class One. They both fueled each other to be at their absolute best and felt that they had found the place where they belonged. Due to the memories and the trauma of the incident in their childhood, Zack took great care to learn how to control his own personal Resonance above all else. While most Meisters were learning how to actually fight with their Weapons, Zack was learning how to use his own body as a pseudo-weapon to make up for Penny's weaknesses. While Penny had a lot of utility, she was not a Weapon in the conventional sense.
A tag team competition in one of his Combat Classes in Year Two made Zack aware that he was able to resonate with another Weapon besides Penny. A particularly vicious battle resulted in his partner being knocked out with her Weapon laying on the ground and in an act of desperation, he picked up the other Weapon and tried to fire it. The surprise attack resulted in victory for his team and his own lack of confidence in himself. If he wasn't able to use his own Weapon to her fullest potential and he just picked up any Weapon off the ground, how could he call himself her Meister? Since that day, he hasn't attempted to use another Weapon out of conscious choice, however if it means making sure that he and Penny are safe, he'll use anyone and anything.
Penny and Zack are considered the weakest of the Class One students, but have reached Class One through furious dedication and untiring relentlessness. Their drive would be an inspiration for the younger students, but the fact that they're general class clowns and incredibly reckless has most wondering what kind of standards Class One has that people like THOSE idiots ever managed to get into it. Way to bring down the curve.
ABILITIES
Zack has had a Weapon partner officially for the last three years named Penny Worth, and due to some of the things that Penny herself lacks, he's had to make up for with his own abilities. For some odd reason, Zack refuses to get rid of her and try to resonate with another weapon full time, and views the challenge of partnering with Penny as an excitement as opposed to a hindrance.
MEISTER ABILITIES
SELF/SOUL RESONANCE: [mastery] Zack has the capacity to tap into his own soul's and his partner's wavelength. He understands his own soul's strengths and weaknesses and how to utilize it to the best of his abilities.
SOUL PERCEPTION: [mastery] Zack can view the condition of a soul and how to either match or disrupt the wavelength of it. While a skilled witch can hide their soul in entirety with Soul Protect against him, against the unskilled he can see the flaws in their soul where they are trying to cover it up, and can discern from there whether or not they have something to hide.
SOUL STRIKE: [mastery] Zack can channel his own soul's wavelength into his fist as an attack without his weapon. It produces a powerful concussive force via his fist that can even affect a Weapon in its Weapon form. Prereq: Self Resonance, Soul Perception.
ADDITIONAL ABILITIES
HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT: [intermediate] Zack is skilled in hand-to-hand combat with several mundane weapons, including brass knuckles and improvised weapons (skateboards, baseball bats, rocks, etc). In his education at Shibusen he's at the top of his physical combat classes, and top physical performance is almost required for a Meister at Shibusen. His favoured techniques are the techniques that most would consider to be 'dirty moves'; throat punches, axe stomps, up knees, whatever it takes for him to win in a fight. This has a drawback however in that he has a lot of trouble with the non-humanoid opponents, mostly in trying to figure out where the hell to punch them.
UTILITY MEISTER TYPE TWO: [beginner] Zack can synchronize his wavelength with multiple Weapons, however he cannot use said weapons simultaneously. This was one of his natural gifts from the beginning of his school days due to being as adaptable and broad-minded as he is. He hasn't found another Weapon other than his current one, but has been known in a tough training exercise or desperate battle to pick up another Weapon on the fly if his main Weapon isn't suitable for the job. He hasn't had enough of a chance to do this too often, and thus doesn't know how far this ability even extends or how it is triggered.
Examples of previous student Utility Meisters: Maka Albarn, Kilik Rung.
