Krow, Zachariah 'King'

[Guest]

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CASE FILE: Homunculus

"If you don't defend your family... what else do you have?"
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FULL NAME:
→ Zachariah Vincente 'King' Krow

AGE:
→ 28 (has been homunculus for approx. 9 months)

SEX:
→ Male

BIRTH PLACE:
→ Lior, Great Desert

SPECIES:
→ Human-based (Cerisian-Gelemortian)

SIN:
→ Gluttony

DATE OF BIRTH:
→ Feb 9th, 1984

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HEIGHT:
→ 6" 3'/190cm

WEIGHT:
→ 15st/210lbs/95kg

PICTURE:
→

Spoiler:

DESCRIPTION:
→ King stands with a fairly muscular frame. Since his history, he's started working out intensively due to try and block the pain out with exhaustion and otherwise mundane activities, and focuses mainly on his upper body. He's tall, and sometimes doubles as a bouncer for the bar he works in, in Vaingloria, when he's not working for Vanity.

King's got medium-length grey-silver hair (not exactly Ayden silver, but still close) and two deep green eyes. He'll always be seen with a cigarette in his mouth and a bottle of beer in hand, and it should be noted that his left ear is extensively pierced due to, hey, fuck it, he works in a bar.

The Ouroburos symbol is etched into his tongue. It's still a little sore. For a couple of days afterwards, he was speaking as if his tongue had been pierced as opposed to anything else.

Generally, he wears either an open-collared shirt and black slacks (bartending uniform) or a vest, a leather jacket and jeans. 100% of the time he will be wearing aviators. He's rather loud, and, usually, you'll be able to hear him before you see him. Especially so if he's in his Challenger. Or if you've pissed him off; then his arrival will generally be prefaced by extensive firing of his Defender.

The Defender is generally slung down at his waist, concealed somewhat by his jacket. His Automag is kept in a shoulder holster, usually, and a spare clip's more often than not somewhere in his jacket. His canine teeth are tapered to unusual points, and appear to be elongated and thinner, as well as more hardy (and too white for a chain-smoker and alcoholic).

Note that King never gets hungover, too. His mannerisms are generally quite obnoxious and blunt; he speaks with a very loud, gruff voice, Cerisian-accented, usually. There's a little Amestrian twang in there from his time in Lior, but nothing too noticeable to anyone but a native.

For formal wear (which he usually dabbles in) he wears a white suit with a pink shirt and black tie. Aviators are included. Generally doesn't pack the Defender here, however.

King's deceptively strong and resistant to most harm, thanks to being a homunculus. His punches will hurt - he can put a dent in bricks without really thinking too hard about it, although his fist will most likely hurt a little after that. He can get back up after being knocked over with his tanned complexion being unscathed, though his vest will likely be ripped in all the right places, ladies.

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PERSONALITY:
→ King's a very odd man. On the surface, he appears to be somewhat laid-back, and appreciates a beer, a scantily-clad underwear model, a pair of aviators, and a patio deckchair on some Esparian beach. He tends to epitomise the typical stereotype of 'action hero', and then takes it a little further past that extreme. He appreciates everything you'd expect a man of his appearance too. Fast cars. Naked women. Shotguns.

King's right at home in a bar, a car, or a battlefield. Anywhere other than those three or his apartment, and he's more than likely to be alert, aware, and ready to pull out one of his guns at a moment's notice. And note that he's trained to kill with these babies - and then some.

Whilst slow to start, when King gets going, he's cocky and overconfident, and values successful irrationality. He enjoys the odd trickshot, or thinking on his feet with success; and he likes explosions, too. Anything that makes him look the badass will be lapped up eagerly.

He can crack one-liners on the brink of his peril with seemingly no problem, and does this consistently enough to be considered the god of all earthly puns. As Gluttony, he tends to be consistently hungry, and never shies away from a KFC bargain bucket or two, but miraculously seems to never put any weight on from this ridiculous rate of consumption of garbage.

A little more on his actual personality, though. King is hot-headed and tends to make sporadic and impulsive decisions dependent on exactly how he feels at the moment. Generally, if they're right, he'll go ahead and brag to high hell about it. If they're not, he'll feel a little internal regret, but won't show it, and will make excuse after excuse about his bad decision-making skills. King loves bragging (though not as much as Pride, obviously).

As a child, King was very bitter towards his family, and to this day, remnants of this somewhat-dormant aspect of his personality have been shown to occasionally rear their ugly heads once again. He can become very defensive in a heartbeat, and often rather poisonous and bitter, too.

Whilst he might come across as having far too much testosterone for his own good, King's got a bit of a softer and more realistic side to him. He enjoys the more relaxed moments of life (hence why he works as a bartender when he's not blowing shit up affectionately), but, more importantly, a word can be said on loyalty. If King likes you, then you've done yourself well by way of protection and revenging. He'll go out of his way to put a shell or two in anyone who dares to go near his friends, brother, or employer, and if they fall, then he'll spend his time grieving, then head after the killers, too.

As Gluttony, as you'd expect, King's naturally hungry, as I mentioned. But he's not just hungry for food. No, King's hungry for something more. Since his becoming a homunculus, he's felt increasingly... bored, and apathetic. He did it for a reason, obviously - Jack needed saving, and that was that. But Gluttony's soul within him, that beatless stone of a heart, has given him a newfound hunger. One that can't ever be sated. A hunger for reason, and excitement. He's constantly looking for his next fix. King is now the ultimate adrenaline junkie - he needs campaigns and reasons to fire his shotgun. Obviously, there are still physicalities of it all; he has to feed regularly on blood, human or animal, but that's less of a problem in the personality sense.

King's a good guy, and his morals are sometimes in the right place. But he's a bodyguard and a manservant to a woman he knows is another homunculus, and since joining her ranks has slowly spiralled down into a world that another King might not have done. The pay's good, and he needed to keep the hounds that were the medical salesmen at bay, but King can't help but feel that since joining on with Drachma, he's become more of a bodyguard and a thug than he initially would have.

King only knows Vanity (and of Toss) as for other homunculi.

To summarise, King is a laid-back guy, slow to start, but when provoked into action, is hot-headed and often irrational. He's cocky, often makes bad decisions in the heat of the moment, but he's deadly loyal to his friends, and if you touch a hair on their head in even the most minor of adverse manners, King will come after you and dish out the hurt.

King, despite having joined RIOTE, stays true to his apathetic description, appearing to be initially calm and rather passive. He and his employer, Alena/Sekretar Vanity, appear to be rather close, and King considers the possible sparks of romance between the two, but knows all-too-well of his boss' seductive grasps and colder interior - alongside her moniker and nickname as 'the Queen Bitch'. He won't pursue this avenue just yet, but the pair are rather close, and he finds that she's endearing herself to him more and more with every waking moment - though King is a tough nut to crack in this respect.

King respects and cares for Vanity but won't make any play until she does, simply enough, for his own sake, and, to a lesser extent, his brother's - he requires the lucrative paychecks that being the Left Rook of Drachma can afford him.


LOVE:
→ Food! Damn, does King love food. Seriously, he loves that shit right there.
→ Excess.
→ Beer.
→ Jackyll G. Krow, his younger brother
→ Vanity. He calls her 'Miss V' or 'V' usually.
→ Pissing off Jack
→ His car.
→ Shotguns.
→ Driving.
→ Aviators.
→ Leather jackets.
→ Drinking.
→ Smoking.
→ Bragging.
→ Being an ass.
→ Horror movies.
→ Women
→ Calling Jackyll 'Jack'
→ Being badass.
→ Meaningful moments (guilty pleasure).
→ 80s glam metal
→ Thunderstorms.
→ Video games.
→ Cider.
→ Bacon.
→ Cider bacon.
→ Drinking blood.
→ The motherland.


HATE:
→ Jackyll G. Krow, his younger brother
→ Apathy, and to a greater extent, his own apathy.
→ Himself - he feels desperately guilty for what happened to Jack.
→ Being called Zach, Zachariah, or really anything other than King.
→ When people take away his aviators. >:
→ Most other homunculi.
→ Assholes.
→ Assholes who can't drive.
→ People who don't rock leather jackets
→ The sea, boats, whatever
→ Wolfgang Murinyo.
→ Going batshit crazy.
→ His power.
→ Gluttony's abilities
→ War, in general.
→ Smoking
→ Jack driving his car.


DEEPEST SECRETS:
→ First off, he's a homunculus.
→ The night that he became a homunculus, King released himself onto the world, and murdered a young woman due to the craze he was in thanks to the newfound rush of energy. It was then that he realised that this blessing indeed was also a curse - very much a double-edged blade.
→ The soul of his younger brother lives on within him due to the powers of Gluttony that King's assimilated (though not for much longer).
→ He's a member of RIOTE.


IDOLS:
→ Larten Crepsley
→ Vanity
→ Steve McQueen
→ Bruce Willis

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HISTORY:
→ One, two, who are you

Zachariah 'King' Krow's first memory isn't one of pride, or of happiness and remembrance. It's one of anger. He knew from a young age that he was a well-built boy, eternally hungry, and he'd always known his name. However, growing up in a small orphanage on the outskirts of Lior with a sickly younger brother, Jackyll, King knows his first memory. And he knows it well. And it pisses him off more than anything else in the world.

He remembers the faces of his parents.

Three, four, lock the door

Backing up a little. King never knew his parents as a child. He knew he was Cerisian-Gelemortian, and the closest thing he had to a parental figure was a nun at the orphanage who'd taken a particular shine to him. From a young age, she'd always call him 'The King of the Castle'. He was a little greedy as a child; whenever he and Jack would play one of their many games, King always had to fill the superior role. Hence, one day, whilst Sister Agatha watched over them frolicking in the grass, noticing that King was always the one to sit on the elevated ground - 'the castle' - she realised that this boy desperately sought to be his brother's superior and mentor.

King always did his best to protect Jack. He was barely a year old when they'd been dropped off at the orphanage, King himself around four. He can't remember anything except two faces: both well-defined, beautiful, yet calloused by age and experience. A thin, discoloured strip of scar tissue leading down a cheek brushed by sunlight and given a light tan. His father and his mother. Those who should have taken care of him - should have.

The pair grew up fairly quickly in the orphanage, and whilst Jack was always content, King always found himself bored. Some days, he'd sit in his room and read through maps, atlases; as he grew older and older, he became bitter and tried to comprehend the answer to questions that couldn't ever have a response: why had they left them? What had he done? And just where the hell had they gone?

As Jack, despite his sickly frame, continued to play with the other children, King grew older and his search for his parents turned from a passive venture into his entire reason for living. He was only fourteen, and desperately looking for two needles in all the haystacks in the world. It was a pointless endeavour, and he knew it just as much as the nuns who looked on in worry as the boy's wellbeing slowly degraded and his frame turned from slender to emaciated: he starved himself in this pursuit, he drained himself of all sleep.

And, then, it came.

Five, six, get your fix

King's fifteenth birthday. He hadn't been outside in two weeks. He stumbled lethargically down to the hall, where they all indulged themselves in cereal and toast. The mail came; some children were only here because their parents had to venture away. Jack and King had never been that lucky. Letters came in swathes for just about everyone whilst the King children sat quietly in the corner and ate their food.

Nothing. No contact. Jack had even made him a cake. No response. No thanks. And then-

"Mail for Zachariah Krow!" He leapt to his feet as if someone had shot him in the buttocks. With all of the energy that he'd slowly drained from this fruitless search, he sprinted to the nun holding the burlap sack filled with white envelopes. He eagerly snatched his own from her hand, and returned to Jack as the pair tore it open, a bright look on their eyes as they scanned and analysed the wavy calligraphy on the front. And, then, the letter.

Dear Zachariah and Jackyll,

I know we've never met, and I know your parents never wanted us to, but you're the only grandchildren I have. Your mother tells me that you were the most beautiful of brothers; handsome and true Cerisians even at such a young age. We haven't seen your father in a few years now.

I know, this message is brief; but I love you, il mio bambinos. Whenever you can, come to visit me in Vaingloria, I'll be waiting.

- Constanza Balise, your grandmother

King couldn't believe what he was reading. All this fruitless searching, every waking minute spent flicking through atlas pages... and it had all finally come to this. All this preparation, all this readiness... and for once, fate had shined upon the brothers. They'd been given a beacon to guide their way.

With newfound reason and fire behind his eyes, King grabbed his brother and took him up to their room, where they packed everything they owned into bags. They waited until sunset; the cover of night would be necessary. And when everything was ready, moments before they were about to break out of this hellhole and into the real world, King looked to Jack, his little brother... and he told him that everything had come to this, and that everything would fall into place, whether he knew it or not.

Seven, eight, smash the gate

With pliers and a liberated fistful of stray Cen notes in hand, King, ever the little hellraiser, cut a hole in the fence with ease. Together, the pair left whilst the nuns were sleeping, and were gone into Lior proper well before sunrise. From there, they took the train to Creta, and managed to sway the half-asleep sales representative for Creta's national ferry service to give them two tickets to Vaingloria.

Their journey was long, and not without the odd bump as every passing passenger looked nervously at the two pale and panting boys sitting alone and alongside each other on a flight accompanied by businessmen and stewards. But it wasn't long before the boat reached the port at the other end, and Jack and King filed off with the rest of the passengers, exhausted, stepping out into the beautiful cold air of the country, having made sure to stock up on coats with their quickly-diminishing monetary supplies.

It took King a few days to get ahold of his grandmother's contact details, but he spent every waking moment ensuring that Jack was comfortable in the best motel room he could afford. It was... shabby, at best, but this was his idea: his brother was an accessory, but one he couldn't live without. He had to have the comfort and quality. It was only fair - through the brave face, King was sure that Jack was close enough to breaking point. A twelve-year-old boy taken along on a journey like this? It still didn't feel right.

He picked up the phone and rapidly tapped in the numbers. Breathing haggard and fast, heart beating in his mouth, exhaustion taking its toll on his heavy eyelids, he heard the dial tone click in and then a strong Cerisian-accented voice inquire as to his nature on the other end with just a simple word: "Hello?"

"It's... it's me. Zachariah."

They broke immediately into conversation. Constanza, their grandmother, drove over almost immediately, despite it being close enough to the crack of dawn. Jack and King made their brief introductions to the teary-eyed elderly woman, and then they returned back to her small bungalow in the Vaingloria suburbs.

Nine, ten, home again

Jack and King acclimatised to the newfound hospitality of their grandmother, but it was all welcome. The trio were perfect alongside each other; with Constanza's regret for what her daughter had done, she ensured that she took care of the boys with every last living fibre of her body. Gianna had left a few weeks prior, with no apparent intention of coming back, but Constanza informed the pair that she did this many a time and would more than likely return soon.

King was a little harder to sway and persuade, but his grandmother eventually brought him over to her side with bowl upon bowl of soup and several large chocolate bars - even a fifteen year old couldn't resist temptations like that. Eventually, the three were getting on like a family. And for a month or so, this continued - everything was perfect. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Constanza even taught little Jack alchemy, having been an advanced alchemical tutor herself, once she discovered his potential. King wasn't as lucky, but the pair spent ages together devising new and weird ways to play out their games, even at this age.

And then, in the doorway, one night, as the thunder crackled outside, she appeared. Gianna Krow, maiden name Balise. But King and Jack knew her as their mother.

Eleven, twelve, who will delve

Jack rushed towards her with tears in his eyes, but King's bitterness wasn't going to fade just yet. Sitting in the corner, he stared at her with wild infernos in his eyes, flames that spoke worlds of his desires. For her travesties, half of him wished that she'd disintegrate, turn to dust before his very eyes. He snarled and growled as she tried to approach him, nothing more than a rabid animal. It had taken her grandmother this long to get him to appreciate her - there was no way she could just come back into his life like that.

Feeling as poisonous as ever, King retreated to his bedroom for weeks, and watched from the outside as Jack and his mother consulted and caught up. She showed regret. True, honest, regret... but something was wrong. It just didn't feel right. And that was when King started to notice it; almost a few moments before he'd considered opening up to her.

That slow, nasal weeping... that horrific sound, like the sound of someone watching a lover or sibling die. It was sobbing; but it was unnatural, reverberating off of the walls with an encroaching and choking noise... something felt wrong. Definitively wrong. King couldn't bring himself to open the door.

After that first occurrence, King caught sight of his mother weeping day upon day with increasing frequency. Jack noticed it, too. King regressed back into his bitter self as he watched his brother comfort her, his thirteenth birthday having just passed. When she wasn't crying, she was pale, guilty, and looked even suicidal. She seemed to only find solace in little Jack's smile... but there was something, something overwhelming that she thought he had to know.

One day, Jack entered her room, to find her weeping once more. Except, now? All her bags were packed. She was mid-way through writing a letter for her children and her mother; and as Jack entered, he just couldn't understand what was happening. And then she crouched down, tears streaking through her mascara, and sobbed into Jack, desperate... she just had to tell him. Had to let it out, get it off her conscience, or it would eat her alive; but she couldn't be there for what happened afterwards.

"You had a twin brother... his name... his name was Karis..."

Thirteen, fourteen, more lies brought in

Jack dropped to his knees as his mother rushed from the house, King finding him a few moments later, silent and weeping in the middle of her room. Jack explained it, and King straightened his little brother up and tried to desperately reinforce him with all manner of lies. 'It wasn't true, she was just lying, it's not your fault, there was never a twin, he never existed, he never existed, he never existed!'

Things seemed to get a little better after that, but only marginally. Jack was never the same. Always ducking and weaving, going from left to right, always a little odd. Something had clicked within him, a switch pulled from one extreme to the other. And it just... wasn't right. He wasn't the old Jack that his brother and grandmother remembered. He muttered about dreams, nightmares; his twin brother. He spoke to Karis as if he were real, and, before long, the boy appeared as an apparition. A mirror image, and an imaginary friend that none else could see.

Jack had developed a compound personality. He was going through horrors that a boy of his age should never have to; slowly, his mind and sanity were degrading, as King struggled desperately to try and assist him with regaining his full mental capacity. It was horrific, but, slowly, the pair came to terms with it, and Jack managed to live with Karis haunting his every step.

Returning one day from a grocery shop, an odd, dark cloud hung over the house. It was raining; on days like this, it always seemed to be, even in Vaingloria. Returning into the house with Constanza out looking for medicine for Jack, King locked the door behind him, and set the bags down on the table, heading upstairs to his brother's room.

The door was ajar. A shadow hung across the room, one that could never be simulated by any human vessel. Electrical discharge crackled, but it was discharge that King had never seen before. A deep, purple-black. The alchemist's sin. The ultimate taboo.

A shriek pierced the veil of darkness hanging over the house.

Fifteen, sixteen, the hour of witching

Busting through the door and into the room, King was but a moment too late. The electricity and the darkness faded; a pale figure lay upon the ground, chest spasmodically rising and collapsing, as blood streamed forth from his lips, gushing like a river. His skin whiter than the pale moonlight. His eyes blank and white, life fading slowly from them.

King didn't know what to do. He panicked. But he knew that his brother couldn't just be left here. He didn't have time to call an ambulance. He picked up the slender figure of little Jack, and slung his arm around his neck. Reassuring the boy as he slipped into and out of unconsciousness that all would be fine, and everything would be alright in the end, that he was only just a little dizzy, King left the house and bolted down the road to the hospital.

His brother's blood streaming down him, mixed in with the grimy rainwater, he burst into the ER carrying the pale figure, setting him down upon a gurney as he was taken into an operating room immediately. A scan ascertained exactly what was wrong with him; puzzlingly, the boy now no longer had kidneys or a liver. His survival was remarkable; some sort of energy had stopped his body from failing entirely.

Wheeled into a room off in another ward, King darted after the unconscious Jackyll, now hooked up to life support and a dialysis machine as a doctor made the sombre announcement. Jack was lucky to survive the ordeal, but he will be bedridden for the rest of his life, and unable to ever live without the machines. Alternatives of euthanasia were brought up, but King simply blocked them out. Tears streaming down his eyes as he asked himself time and time again, shaking and rocking his brother's bed. 'Why?' He asked. 'Why did you do this?'

He knew who Jack had tried to bring back to life. And he'd failed. Nothing had been produced but a pile of ash. It was hopeless. A fruitless endeavour right from the starting block.

Seventeen, eighteen, the Devil's a-waiting

King spent the night at the hospital, awakened by a pale-faced Constanza informing them that she could never allow practitioners of such a taboo art back into her home. She brought the boys their bags, and then told them that was the last they'd see of them; King spent weeks at his brother's side, enduring even through his seventeenth birthday, but the boy didn't care.

Over time, Jack's condition fluctuated, but he never awakened for more than a few days, King rushing back every single time he did. He would tell tales of Karis still haunting him in his mind; but the pain had brought him newfound clarity. He understood that Karis was an illusion, a deceptive mirage created by his mother and his own delusional brain. The boy never died, and his condition never got better. He was in a near-death state of medical limbo.

Over the next few months, King purchased an apartment in Vaingloria, and began to work as a bartender to keep at bay the atrocious medical bills, fighting desperately to save his little brother from euthanasia.

Nineteen, twenty, some souls are empty

Over the next ten years, not much changed. Jack stayed bedridden, 24, and King, 27, had found himself a proper job, working for the Sekretar of Drachma herself as a personal bodyguard. Jack hasn't woken up in around five years, and things are looking especially grim; but the man's made enough money to support himself and his little brother.

When not working for Vanity, the Sekretar, King would work in a bar called Nuevo in Vaingloria proper, switching between there and Moscow every couple of weeks. The lifestyle was off-and-on; dodging shells one week, then serving martinis the next. One was a welcome break from the other after too long... it gave him time to rest from the chaos of the war.

King still hasn't gotten any closer to anyone save for Vanity and Jack. Sure, he's had the odd fling or two stay the night in his apartment, but never actually considered staying with someone beyond that. Relationships are a waste of time, if they're not Jack, in King's eyes. He has to concentrate on his brother; to lose attention is to lose hope. And to lose hope is to condemn him. With enough money in the hole, King's managing to support himself well enough.

Things, however, changed a few months ago. A wayward call from the doctor in charge of Jack invited him to the hospital, now a good friend of King's due to regular consultation... and miraculous developments have been made. Not without their downfalls, however.

Due to a rare blood type and the nature of the wound, Jack wasn't able to accept donor kidneys or livers without serious risk of blood poisoning and death. However, due to new technological advancements, over a few years, new prosthetic artificial organs were fashioned, and only a few weeks prior to the meeting had they been licensed for official use. Running off automail principles and using artificial tissues, they work at roughly 95% efficiency and are immune to all diseases based around the set organ.

Via surgery, King is informed, his brother's condition can be healed and eradicated, after ten long years. But there's a drawback. The surgery is risky. And waiting for too long may mean that Jack will be stacked at the bottom of the waiting list with everyone else. If he signs himself up for the prototype surgery, then he'll get it free of charge - but there's a 30% survival rate coupled with the rare blood condition.

King begun to panic. Not knowing what to do, he turned desperately to every other medical consultant he can find, burning quickly into his supplies of money. With but two days left to make the decision, King turned into an alleyway and readied himself to empty his frustration, punch a wall, and just sit and stagnate, drinking the night away.

That was when they appeared.

Three guys, in grimy suits, clutching lead pipes. They beat him mercilessly; threw him to the floor, simply because they'd had a bad day. They stunk of sweat and alcohol, and pressed King's bloody face to the floor for no reason, rifling through his pockets for money, keys...

The third time his face went crashing to the ground, he felt it hit metal. Cold, hard, wet metal. The stench of waste filled his nostrils. And through the grate, stuck in between bars, he eyed something. A red glint of light danced across it. Luminescent, iridescent... perfect. He... he wanted it. He was a magpie, searching eagerly for his next treasure.

And, luckily enough for him, the next big lug grabbed his head and slammed it against the grate. Time and time again. He felt teeth drop from his mouth, blood fill it; and, then, finally, it dislodged the little crimson orb itself. Stopping it with trembling fingers, quickly, King took it, and hid the grimy little jewel in the corner of his mouth for no reason whatsoever.

And then he was punched in the gut. In sheer surprise, he swallowed the orb; and that's when he blacked out.

When he came to, the grey-haired figure could only fathom one noise through a single sense, his hearing. A slow, steady dripping. Eventually, his skin's numbness faded, and he felt nothing but... warmth, and wetness. A pool of it, rippling gently around him, engulfing him and drenching him.

As his eyes flickered open, the man sat up, and looked down at trembling fingers. His heart was pounding as loud as a drum; amidst the ominous hissing of various hydraulics in the dimly-lit room, constructed of metal and machinery, he could see... blood. Swathes and splatters of it, across the walls, various pods lining them... and beneath him, flooding the room. A light flashed intermittently above him, illuminating a flooding crimson pool. Blood. He was sitting in it. He didn't know what had happened to the men that'd assaulting him... but he knew this wasn't just one person's blood. They had more than likely met their end, too.

A single corpse surfaced, that of a woman. Looking to the roof, King, trembling almost hazardously, his body thrumming with paranoia and guilt as he struggled desperately to process all this new, fresh, and confusing information... finally, he understood it. That wet, warm, metallic taste in his mouth. That strong tang, that sour twinge... it reminded him... of licking cuts, back when he was just a little boy. Nuns scalding him for taking part in such a grotesque and primal action.

Blood. Upon his lips, teeth, tongue... face, body... drenching his entire form. He was a figure spattered with red, his narrow pupils slit-like, comparable to a cat's, as if he'd just been on the biggest drug rush of his life. He realised now that his heart wasn't pounding just because of what these circumstances meant. In the ceiling, he saw limbs, hewn and torn, a giant vat filled with blood dribbling it down. He'd made the first kill. He'd taken from her her soul, absorbed it into himself, consumed it, utterly and completely; and when she hadn't reacted, he shook and tore her body until it bent and broke beneath him.

The manic screams resounded through the halls of the facility. The complex. King edged towards the doors, and with newfound strength, ripped them in two. Floods and cascades of the warm red liquid gushed out, and filled the halls, the entire building containing corridors now awash with redness. There were no more obstructions in his way; he was free to leave.

This was a testament to his new strength, and the prices he'd paid for it. Disoriented and choking on the stench of blood and death, he rushed through the halls and burst out into the open air, an ominous reflection of that laugh he remembered so vividly booming through the corridors' halls as he desperately sputtered for breath.

The cars, the signs... the starlit sky. It was night. The dead of it, in fact. He was in... another city? He'd been here before on Vanity's orders a couple of times... but... this wasn't right. Stealing fresh clothes and drying out a few blood-drenched notes from his wallet, the man took the first late-night bus back to Vaingloria - he wasn't heading to Vanity, now. Not like this, at least. She'd told him rumours of creatures like herself - homunculi. It sounded far too much like he'd joined the ranks of the artificial humans with their beatless hearts and all.

He remembered the terms of his agreement. He was to hold the man's 'sin'. And in return, he would be given power beyond his wildest dreams, and the means... the means to save Jack. He rushed back to the hospital, morning light shining through the window, stinking of that despicable warm crimson that his body had been floating in. He felt... inhuman. Different. He felt terrible, horrific, as if he was hangover ten times over... and yet, he felt brilliant. Powerful. Like there was something brewing within him. A hunger. One that couldn't ever be quenched. A hunger, both physical and metaphorical.

He spent a few weeks acclimatising as the new prosthetic organs were prepared for Jack, discovering that he could actually both see the souls of people, and absorb them via consumption. This would allow him to keep Jack's mind alive if things went dangerously wrong during the operation.

Unhinging his jaw and holding it agape over his brother's torso, King pulled the unconscious soul from his brother's body, and with it, his consciousness. Jack would live for what would seem like years within him, in a dream world where he would know his brother, Karis, his friends, his boss... but none of it was real.

A falsity. An illusion. But that was better than death. King couldn't afford to lose Jack. He... just... couldn't.

For three weeks, Jackyll Gauner Krow lived on inside his brother's stomach, in three years of dreaming. None of it was real; all just a figment of the joined subconscious of Jack and King themselves forging a world for him. It would be idealistic, but not without its downfalls; if it was too brilliant, Jack would see through it, and the illusion would be crushed. The least King could do was give his brother a taste of solace, right?

The procedure went ahead as a success, but Jack's mortal form nearly died. Had his consciousness not been within King, Jack would have suffered severe amnesia, but his brother had been his salvation on a number of fronts. However, as the comatose Jack 'recovered', with no consciousness of which to speak, King wondered on what he'd do, having already saved his brother.

Every day, before work, on leave from Vanity for two months either side of the operation, he'd prick his brother's neck and reinsert a small amount of the blood, reversing the procedure he'd carried out to ensure the survival of Jack's mental state. Slowly, as more and more of the active consciousness leaves the illusions that King's prepared for him, the dreams become more wild and dilated, but over time, King has actually fully reinserted his brother into the body, through careful acclimatisation, without any mental trauma, and a fully recovered physical form. Once he wakes up, Jack will be full and whole again, for the first time in ten years. He'll be able to walk, talk, run, smile, dance, and live life how he should have done.

But his brother has paid the price of his humanity for it.

*****

King has since returned to Drachma, to work for Miss Alena once more, taking up his old mantle as Left Rook, her bodyguard and designated protector. Whilst he awaits diligently on his brother's awakening, King waits day and night for that phone call to come through from the Gelemortian doctors that it's time to witness his brother's recovery.

King has also encountered one Anouk Ueda through an old friend of his, Piotr, alongside her sons, Kitaro and Kenta. The pair have bonded and King is generously offering Anouk a property deal for a small renovated bar King had in London prior to his working for Vanity - rather apathetic about the entire thing, King simply wanted to somehow offload and slowly enough pay off the property, which Anouk seems more than happy to do. The pair will undoubtedly be in contact in the future.

Through Vanity, King has also joined RIOTE as a title-bearer.

...........................................................................

POWERS:
→ Level One :: Soul Consumption - The philosopher's stone within King is comprised primarily of, yep, you know it, souls. Now, if these appear to be small blood-red precious stones, the question still remains - what do real souls look like?

Long story short, King is able to see people's souls. These appear as small, glowing spheres within them. Once he approaches them, a person restrained or subdued, if he opens his mouth (above the skin) above the soul's location, it will actually slowly be dragged out and into the gaping void that is Gluttony's mouth. King consumes their soul.

The body goes limp, and the world takes its toll on it. He can hold currently one soul within him at the current level. This soul is subject to all manners of dreams and illusions, as seen with Edward, Ling, and Envy when Gluttony consumed them in FMA, pulling them into the false gate in his stomach, though King, as a fresher and more refined incarnation, seems to be able to make these illusions real, and less dependent on whatever it is he actually eats.

Gluttony always seems to have a hunger and addiction when it comes to souls. Some are much tastier and fulfilling than others, and it requires a lot of willpower to not go willy-nilly and murder simply because he has to, and keeping his hunger in check for an extended period of time is, let's face it, impossible. He's a homunculus of excess - and he needs his souls.

As a side-note, souls taste like chicken. As an addendum, he's also got a fairly strong set of jaws with a decent amount of control over them. He can't exactly bite through steel as old Gluttony could - but he's still perfectly able to bite through softer materials, such as flesh. Note now that Gluttony's jaw strength has increased tremendously, and he can now chew through softer metals, stone, and wood with ease.

→ Level Two :: Durable Insides - Something which is more of a convenience than an ability, King is almost indestructible from the inside, as a note.

This has tactical applications, such as King consuming, say, live ordnance, in order to shield his allies from the explosion, as it won't effect him, dropping quickly into his gut and only glancing his innards with the explosion. This'll hurt - he'll be in gut-wrenching pain for a moment - but it won't last. As majority of the time this is just manifested as an interior 'shield' of sorts. He's still just as killable from the exterior, which is to say, not really, considering his nature as a homunculus.

Please note that this isn't just King's gut - it's every part on the inside of his body, including his throat, which makes the next ability a LOT less painful.

→ Level Two :: Regurgitation Expulsion - Whilst not exactly the most attractive of abilities for King, to start with, he can selectively regurgitate anything kept in his gut. This ranges from anything from a mulch of food matter to small swallowed shards of metal or wood.

The regurgitation process, however, is forceful, and anything that comes up will be expelled with a significant amount of force behind it, travelling at around 150mph moments after the expulsion. This isn't as fast as, say, a bullet, but it's still fast enough to tear through flesh and some solid surfaces, and can be especially lethal if King's regurgitating particularly long or sharp objects. He tends to enjoy swallowing screwdrivers in whole in preparation for this.

...........................................................................

TRIVIA:
→ Fluent in Cerisian and Rouenian (Gelemortian Dialect), also speaks Drachman, fractured Amestrian and partial Cretan.
→ Gets reaaaally badly seasick.
→ Has a habit of reciting 'You're fucked, sunshine' before he does something fairly dramatic or even anti-climactic.
→ Works in a bar in Vaingloria called Nuevo. He's trying to rack up money to pay for Jack's surgery. He keeps a lever-action shotgun under the counter. It's also a cover for his being Vanity's Left Rook.
→ Sometimes doubles as a bouncer.
→ Has beaten Alastair Carson in a drinking game
→ Tequila makes him violently ill
→ Claims that his aim gets better with each beer he has (it doesn't)
→ Often works overtime through into the morning to rake in more money.
→ Visits Jack every day before (and usually after) work.
→ Can order a beer in thirteen languages (Cretan, Amestrian, Creig, Ishvallan, Gelemortian Rouenian, Cerisian, Aerugese, Aerugese Kansaiben, Esparian, Drachman, Xingese, Bacunsto and Sign Language).
→ Was an adept hand-to-hand combatant prior to becoming a homunculus; now his punches hurt all the more.
→ Isn't really a very physical Gluttony; sure, he eats like crazy, but his real hunger? It's for meaning, reason, and excitement (why do you think he carries a shotgun?).
→ Has been a homunculus for approximately nine months.
→ In Vaingloria because he's doing a little envoy work there for Vanity. And jus' chillin'.
→ Calls Jackyll 'Jack'.
→ Doesn't know a lot about homunculi, and what he DOES know is wild speculation and what Vani's told him.
→ Whilst Jack's the playboy of the two, King is the hard partier, and he's a little more serious. Both are ladies men, but King seems to be more interested in beer than women.
→ Owns a bar in Creta which Anouk Ueda is currently working over as a new business venture.
→ Desperately wishes he can quit smoking and drinking... though he doesn't forsee this happening until after his brother awakes.

...........................................................................

ALIAS:
→ Ross

OTHER CHARACTERS:
→ Ayden Derocha, Balthazar, Marcus Frostbrook, Zen Howler, Alastair Carson, Nazario Alvarez, Leon Eames IV, and Siegfried Egil.

CREATOR'S COMMENTS:
→ A herpin' and a derpin'. #8.
→ Level two changes in light grey.

CUSTOM RANK:
→ BROTHER'S KEEPER

FACE CLAIM:

Code:

[b]KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN[/b]/[i]gokudera hayato[/i]

...........................................................................

[Guest]

Ready. Longest history I've ever written at around 4500 words.

[Guest]

REVISE

- Personality is not for assessing someone's combat abilities and their proficiency. Punt out the whole being able to fight hand-to-hand proficiently in personality, sixth paragraph. Includes the whole fortitude and capacity to withstand punishment, that goes without saying, and should be put nowhere near personality.

- Ability is inconsistent with Gluttony's ability if that is the Sin you are applying for. Going with how "Lust cannot grow wings" rule, you are unable to become a vampire. Something nowhere Gluttony has shown. There is also failure to acknowledge Gluttony is not the Sin of hunger, but the Sin of excess, whereas your character demonstrates none of those traits but merely eating to quench some hunger as if he were needy. Than being plain old wasteful.

= No vampirism. It is not consistent with the lore of Gluttony, you're not the prince of darkness, the child of the night. Gluttony is a creature where it eats and eats and eats without an end, merely because it has no sense of restraint, and its indulgence goes upon the vast abyss so to say metaphorically.

= Weakness does not inspire strength or power, and feeding for Gluttony to give him power up is a moot point. Gluttony is a creature that has little to do with power gained from devouring considering that is Pride's demonstrated canon ability, and more to do with the souls that power it. He is an engine powered by a Philosopher Stone, and therefore doesn't gain a benefit from drinking someone's blood. It is not something filled with invigorating and vitality giving restoration properties, it is blood. Just like with humans, it does not give sugary upstart of an ability.

= Someone dead will no longer house a soul inside to give them the vitality to live. To drink someone's blood does not really give anything to be gained, Gluttony never demonstrated the ability either to gain someone's memories based upon eating them, henceforth that ability will have to be denied.

= Gluttony's ability does not encompass in a pocket dimension within him stomach but a border dimension between Truth's realm and the human material realm when he turns into a fake gate. It has not been shown to be going at a slower rate than the rest of the world, as if it follows a Narnian difference of time, but merely flows along normally with the rest of time. His stomach isn't the one that has the border dimension that houses all the objects, but rather it's the false gate Gluttony has, which doesn't show souls but all the objects Gluttony accumulated from his devouring rampage with the false gate. Making use of an abridged version is denied. Controlling illusions for the soul hasn't been demonstrated in canon either by functions of the Homunculus Gluttony, and when devouring another's soul as well as controlling whether you can eject them or not, if not make illusions, is also denied. This is Pride's abilities to assimilate and learn of others and their knowledge, and strictly a human philosopher stone with the capacity to control their own internal make up to influence their souls as shown by Hohenheim. Illusion hasn't been shown whatsoever.

= Preserving something that isn't in danger of degrading due to the fact souls do not age, is a null point. For 450 years Hohenheim and Father have shown their souls can live for quite long, and as such, do not degrade as if it were nature that took its toll, only spent. If one's body is "preserved", then it is a vegetable. It cannot maintain itself without care, and it is not in a vampiric mummified mode either. Trying to preserve a consciousness inside a tempest can only be done by noteworthy individuals such as Kimblee, then there was the original consciousness Ling had in Greed, but mostly because he is the original body's owner, and so far, you don't have many souls inside you as a starter Homunculus to in fact make it a chaotic myriad that one loses themselves inside them.

- Alright, history. Why does the most cunning Homunculus in the entire FMA series with the patience to wait for centuries and make plans that long, killed by Daigoro himself and is confirmed to be dead... is visiting a random griefstricken boy in particular where loyalty is not a guarantee? Where benefits are not immediate from him either? It is inconsistent with the lore in three ways ways, doesn't match Father's cunning personality as well as the fact it is too out of character for him to traverse far on the off chance he'd find someone to turn into a Homunculus when he already has a few at his side, not to mention Father is dead. He doesn't exist to give the stones, and it is inconsistent with the fact King works for Secretary Vanity. She became Secretary when Father is dead.

- Gluttony is not a vampire. Gluttony does not have a beatless heart. Gluttony is not an undead child of the night that stalks prey and has his hunger quenched. Gluttony's hunger is NEVER quenched, is because Gluttony is a Sin of excess. Revamp that in your history.

- Concerning your brother and the way you healed him, it is inconsistent for the critique I made of your abilities above. Consult it to know why it wouldn't fit.

My following advice is to lower the number of abilities in the following, being illusory control, coma induction, memory soul sucking, mummification preservation, blood based power up, and worm hole stomachs. Stick with canon-friendly Gluttony abilities, change your history to acceptable levels, ensure consistency and continuity, remove vampirism (especially considering the similarities to a certain sugar vampire we know), lessen the overall power level (even if he is a Homunculus, he has a limit and a specialized role to fulfill), fix the Father inconsistency, punt out the whole give soul by regurgitating bulimia Homunculi ability, and tweak your history to actually be more plausible if you really wanted your brother to live, than using quasi-esoteric methods to keep him alive somehow. Please apply that train of thought from above and I'll take another gander.

[Guest]

Have cut all aspects of vampirism. As said to you, the soul consumption is something that has stayed, so I cut it back as completely barebones and to be more in keeping with the general theme of Gluttony as a whole. Reduced the number of abilities drastically.

Reworking history now, Father's gone - including some semblance of a dark-night alley brawl anyway. Cut the chunk in personality, too.

If there's a further problem with the powers, tell me - I think I've got the means to fix them at hand, though they're less-than-desirable.

[Dai]

A P P R O V E D

Looks relatively alright to me - be warned and know your damn limits. I'm not having a shitstorm come about. Kapesh?

[Dai]

Rank Rolling.

[Dai]

The member 'Dai' has done the following action : Rank Roll

'Lieutenant Roll' : 7

[Guest]

Dai, you silly bishie. I hadn't yet finished his history.

And it's capiche. I'll edit in the stuff here - it's negligible at best.

[Guest]

Finished up for level 2. Let me know if the powers aren't okay.

[Guest]

{REVISE}

- Invincibility, even if it is only one aspect such as within, is denied. Opt for another ability in its place instead of merely being unable to be hurt by anything inside. It has too much in place for such a general aspect, and is best remedied by changing it entirely. Also one cannot have three abilities as part of one package to become "one ability" as listed as it follows, impregnable prison without breakage, invulnerability in an aspect of interior, and immunity to poisoning (which Homunculi don't really care about anyways).

You already have strong jaws, and bullet vomit covered as one ability, which leaves the invincibility to fix.

[Guest]

{APPROVED}

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