Kieff, Hunter

[Guest]

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Alchemist/Amestrian Militant

"Don't ever let this man have 'one last smoke'. It may be your last mistake."
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FULL NAME:
→ Hunter Raymond Kieff

AGE:
→ 19 years old


SEX:
→ Male

BIRTH PLACE:
→ Hamburg, Amestris

RACE:
→ Amestrian

DATE OF BIRTH:
→ June 23rd, 1993

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HEIGHT:
→ 6 feet 4 inches

WEIGHT:
→ 195 lbs

PICTURE:
→

Spoiler:

DESCRIPTION:
While Hunter isn't exactly muscular, he is in very good physical shape due to his career path as a military man. With an ectomorphic body type, the young man burns fat with ease but has a hard time building and maintaining the muscles he does have. In order to keep himself from looking sickly, Hunter must work extra hard to build what little muscle he can. Unfortunately that doesn't come easy with his smoker's lungs. While he holds the disadvantage of being especially susceptible to cold temperatures and a lack of raw physical power, he can function extremely well in extremely hot weather and makes for a very acrobatic fighter. While most close ranged fighters have him when it comes to pure strength, he makes up for it with acrobatics and ingenuity. Due to his ego and tendency to take any fight he is offered, it's not uncommon for him to wander about with a fresh cut on his lip or a shiner in one or both of his eyes.

Because he is a smoker, one can always tell when he's wandering about. If they don't follow the trail of cigarette butts, then all they need to do is smell the air when he needs to be found. While having a cigarette in his mouth comes with the usual disadvantages, he has used them to save himself from more than a couple bad situations.

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PERSONALITY:
→ Hunter feels that first impressions can make or break a relationship with a person. If he were to start off thinking someone was bad, or unworthy of his trust; it would be hard for him to think any better of them unless they were able to show that they were more than what they seemed to be when they first met. At first, he will seem very distant and uninterested it what they have to say. But if the person caught his attention he would be friendly and open to them. He's not outwardly rude to people, and generally responds appropriately unless rubbed the wrong way. When he feels that his pride is on the line, Hunter won't hesitate to call out the offender and challenge him to a fight. And when challenged, he simply can't refuse even when the scales weigh against him. He's gotten himself in more than one bad situation because of this and it's only a matter of time before he digs into a hole too deep to climb out of.

On the other side, he is an extremely stubborn and headstrong individual. In fights with more than one person involved, he is most likely to jump right in the center of the action without regard for his own personal safety. When it comes to decision making, he generally acts on his emotions rather than a long and thought out process. Unfortunately, his irrationality makes him a horrible leader. But with time and practice he can learn to keep his emotions in check. Loyal to a fault, once someone has successfully swayed him to their side of the argument he won't betray them no matter how far they may fall. When given orders considered morally questionable, he will attempt to go about the situation in the most humane way possible and outright refuse an order involving the physical harm of children.


LOVE:
→ Caffeine
Cigarettes
Sweet things
Spicy food
Large dogs
Honesty
HATE:
→ Cats
Bitter things
Disrespectful individuals
Lies/Deceit
Swimming

DEEPEST SECRET:
→ A crippling fear of deep water and drowning. The young man refuses to look out of the window when driving over bridges with water beneath them, feigning sleep until the perceived danger has passed. When it comes to boats, large or small, he simply won't get on them unless his life absolutely depends on it. If he had a choice between walking around a body of water or crossing the bridge, he'd choose the former.

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HISTORY:
→ Early Life
Hunter Raymond Kieff was the first and only to a small Amestrian family in the outer region of Hamburg, Amestris. Their mother, Valencia, was a kind and gentle woman who spent most of her day tending to the children while her husband, Ingram, worked long hours at the local factory. The man looked rough and rather intimidating, but his facade always dropped when he stepped through the door, arms spread wide to embrace the child jumping into them. The young Hunter wrapped his arms around the man's neck and held him tightly as the kissed his wife and, in jest, acted as if the weight of his son was just too much for him to bear, "You've been eating, Hunter!" He would say, a wide smile on his hardened face, to which the son would reply, "Only what I'm given, Papa."

After their initial embrace had passed, Ingram would carry his son over to the old rocking chair and peel the little boy's arms from around his neck so he could place Hunter in his lap while he sat. Hunter bounced up and down on his knee, asking the usual questions a child would ask after not seeing his father for quite some time. And with the patience of a saint, Ingram would answer his every question with that same wide grin on his face. The family didn't have very much when it came to possessions or money, but they always made up for it with their closeness, "A quilt woven with threads of steel." was how Valencia described them. It may have seemed silly to most, but it was the truth. Nothing could rip the bonds they shared.

Unfortunately, the family's time together didn't last forever. Every Monday morning, Ingram would leave for work without so much as a goodbye to his son or wife. For a time, Hunter would grow upset or even angry with his father but Valencia was always there to explain his reason for doing so. As much as the older man would love to kiss his son goodbye, he was sure that the young boy wouldn't be able to handle watching him walk out through that door without breaking down. For the most part, he was right.

In the long week between visits from his father, Hunter would entertain himself by playing with the few toys Ingram would leave at the foot of his bed before leaving. Despite their obvious lack of spending money, the man always had just enough to leave his son something new to play with. They were nothing special, just wooden figures shaped like people. They didn't have faces or moving parts but it was more than enough to keep him entertained. But his mother always found a way to make them better.

In order to keep her son from discovering what was going on with his wooden figures, Valencia would always send Hunter off to do some mundane task or chore to keep him occupied and out of the immediate area, ensuring that he left one or two of his toys behind. Once the boy was gone, she would gather a few more materials before drawing an ornate circle on the exposed concrete floor with everything necessary placed right in the middle. Then, after clapping her hands together, she would place them near the toys and the other raw material to give them moving parts and detailed faces. She did her best to keep everything a secret but her son, like every nosy child, found out the truth eventually. Instead of heeding his mother’s wishes by working on the small task she sent him to do, Hunter watched from around the corner as she transmuted another one of his toys into something even better than his father could make. He decided against confronting her about it at the time due to the trouble he would get into for not listening, but he silently vowed to modify his own toys while Valencia wasn’t paying attention.

The young Hunter was in and out of their flat almost every day since watching his mother perform an alchemic transmutation, and he wanted to learn as much as possible without rousing her suspicion. He would visit the local library under the guise of playing with the children that lived around him in an attempt to gather the very basics of alchemy. “In order to gain, something of an equal value must be lost” also known as the Law of Conservation of Mass. That would explain why Valencia always brought extra material when modifying the toys as it was impossible to create something from nothing. He also learned that he would be unable to do scientifically impossible things with the items necessary to transmute. While alchemy seemed like magic at first, it began to show its true nature as a complex science to the young boy. There were many concepts he was unable to understand, but with time they would become basic knowledge.

Pre-teenage Years

Hunter had continued to study the basics of alchemy in secret and practiced drawing his transmutation circles in the dirt with sticks, rocks, or even a finger if he couldn’t find anything else. He found himself becoming more distant from both his father and mother as knowledge became even more important to him. While he didn’t exactly intend to push his family away, he would use his free time to read and write. These activities would even bleed into the time he was supposed to be spending with his father. Rather than wait anxiously by the door for Ingram to return, he would simply offer a small wave or nonchalant grunt to acknowledge the man’s presence. After close to two years of this kind of interaction, the man’s sage like patience with his son began to wear thin, and he found himself growing angrier as each week passed him by.

The first tear in the “Iron quilt” began to show when Hunter simply stopped greeting Ingram at the door, opting to secretly transmute small items from the raw materials he gathered between trips to and from the library in his room. With one of the few reasons for keeping himself motivated beginning to slip away, Ingram found his strength and resolve fade. And as the distance between father and son widened, he found himself becoming weaker and weaker. Ingram tried his best to prevent Valencia from forcing Hunter out of his room, reasoning that he had found something important to him. Even as the distance continued to grow, the father’s love for his son never faltered.

Teenage Years
Unbeknownst to Hunter, Ingram’s condition steadily worsened as time crept by. The man was reduced to limping through the door, absent his son to help walk him to his favorite chair. Eventually it was Valencia who confronted him in private, shouting through eyes wet with tears about how little he cared about his ailing father. As much as Hunter wanted to counter with his own arguments, he focused on his own studies with alchemy without even considering how his family felt about it. And in a way, it was his lack of care that put his father in a bad condition. In an attempt to make up for what he had done, Hunter approached the sick Ingram and dropped to his knees as his apology. He couldn't even bring himself to look at the man until he felt his father's hand on the top of his head, ruffling the hair beneath it. When he finally managed to look up at his father, Ingram still wore the same wide grin he usually did when Hunter first greeted him at the door before he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Hunter rose early the next morning to see Ingram face down on the ground as if he were dead. In a panic, he flipped the man onto his back and gently shook him in an attempt to rouse some kind of reaction. As hope began to fade, he pressed his ear to Ingram's chest and detected the faint beating of his heart. Without a second thought, Hunter lifted the man from the ground and ran as fast as he could down the path to the nearest hospital possible, a transmutation circle stuffed in his back pocket just in case he needed it. The young man trudged along the road as long as he could until his breath was labored and his veins pumped battery acid, showing that he was close to collapse. He desperately tried to flag down the passing vehicles but none would stop. They slowed down to see what was going on, but none were willing to aid a complete stranger. Just as he was ready to give up and continue carrying his father, a small vehicle pulled up next to him, its driver an older woman with worry plastered on her wrinkled face. Hunter desperately plead his dilemma but the woman cut him off mid-sentence to tell him that she would be more than willing to take Ingram to the hospital. However there was only enough room for one passenger. There was no way Hunter would be able to walk himself all the way back home, but he cast away his own fear and pulled his father into the car.

The journey back to his home was long, cold and miserable. Hunter's thoughts and worry about the condition of his father surely didn't help him along, but he needed to tell Valencia the good news. The walk around would take close to two hours, but there was a shorter way if he were to cross the frozen body of water instead of walking around. He didn't consider it earlier due to the added weight of his father and the ever present thought of the ice breaking beneath the both of them. If that happened, either one or both of them would have perished. Against his better judgment, Hunter stepped out onto the ice and slowly made his way across; small cracks from the pressure forming underneath his feet. He had half a mind to turn back, but he was committed. If he turned back, the ice would surely give way beneath him. Unfortunately, he was damned either way. Apparently the ice wasn't consistently thick and his foot broke right through a smaller section. In an attempt to free himself, he increased the pressure on his free leg but that only made the ice around it fail, sending him directly into the freezing water. The shock made him gasp reflexively and he swallowed a mouthful of the liquid, making his already frantic flailing even worse. He groped for the ice around him, but it only broke as he applied the pressure necessary to lift himself out of the water. As he felt his muscles begin to lock, a wave of thoughts rushed into his head while the water slowly sucked him under. He was angry at himself for being selfish, for focusing on his own work instead of the parents that raised him. He was angry at himself for taking a shortcut that was obviously dangerous instead of following the known path. He was scared of drowning. He was scared of death and he was scared about what would happen to him after he died. Would someone find him in the spring? Would anyone even bother looking for him? It was useless to fight, to try and move. His body wouldn't allow it and he could feel the pressure in his lungs, attempting to force him into taking a breath. He was going to die.

Late Teenage Years
Hunter awoke with a gasp and jerked upward from his seat only to be shoved right back down by unseen and unknown hands. He fought them as hard as he could, kicking and shouting until he felt a firm slap across his face that brought him to his senses. His aching eyes soon adjusted to the light and he was greeted by the familiar face of his mother, Valencia who had been sitting next to him as soon as she heard of his being brought to the hospital. He gazed into the teary eyes that stared directly as his face and raised his hand to touch her face, stopping once he saw the black discoloring of the skin on it. Hunter attempted to clench and open the hand, but his fingers wouldn't move. The attending doctor later revealed that both his hands and feet were severely frostbitten. If he hadn't been found when he was, Hunter would have simply frozen solid in the water. Considering the circumstances, his inability to move both his hands and feet was a blessing.

Hunter was crushed by the news, but he continued to hold his happy expression in order to keep his mother from worrying and instead asked about the condition of his father, Ingram. He was told that the man was in stable condition, but he was trapped in a coma. They were sure that he would wake in time with constant medical treatment, but the family wouldn't be able to afford it. With time running thin and options slipping away, a tall man dressed in a blue military uniform stepped into the room, a slim but noticeable smile on his face. He had heard the news of Hunter's dilemma and would be happy to help... In exchange for his enlisting in the military. The young man opened his mouth to protest, but he was quickly silenced by Valencia's telling him that it was the military man who pulled him out from the freezing water. That news coupled with his own and Ingram's condition was enough for Hunter to make a decision, agreeing to the terms. He had doubts about how useful he'd be without his hands or feet, but the man before him offered a simple solution; Automail. It was going to be a long and painful procedure since they would have to operate without anesthetic. They needed to see how his nerves worked and how much of his body had to be amputated in order to accommodate the metal prosthetic. A small handful of nurses entered the room shortly after the man left and began making measurements while the doctor estimated how much they would need to remove from his body. After a brief moment of deliberation, He marked each of his limbs with a dark black line, showing where to cut. On his left and right arms, Hunter was to lose everything below his elbows while he was to lose what was below his knees on his legs. Once the room was cleared, his operation began.

Release From the Hospital
The automail surgery was long and excruciatingly painful. Despite his attempts to mask the pain he felt, Hunter couldn't keep himself from crying out in agony. First, they removed the un-necessary limbs and went on to attach the sockets where his replacements would go. The open air combined with the pinching of nerves and scraping against the exposed flesh and bone was hell, but he was too far in to give up. Once everything necessary was in place, Hunter felt one last jolt when they attached his new limbs to his body. In the weeks that followed his surgery, Hunter went through extensive physical and medicinal therapy to ensure that his body wouldn't reject the new attachments. His new limbs felt different and, quite frankly, he hated them. Sure he could still feel certain sensations like pressure, but he was too used to genuine flesh and bone.

Valencia was there with her son for every step of his recovery, watching anxiously as he took his first steps with his new legs. He may have been a grown man, but it was like watching a toddler for her. The way he stumbled about was slightly entertaining. By the time Hunter was able to walk and operate on his own, he was dead set on seeing his father for one last time before enlisting in the Amestrian military.

There wasn't very much of a change in the old man save his sickly appearance. Hunter approached his bedside cautiously and gently placed his new hand against Ingram's cheek, a quiet sigh slipping from his lips, "I'm sorry for neglecting you, Papa... But I'll make it right." He said, "I can promise you that." And with that, Hunter took his leave from the hospital; eyes set on the same man that pulled him from death's door.

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TRIVIA:
→ Due to his smoking habit, Hunter has trouble with holding his breath or performing extremely strenuous activity for long periods of time.
→ Extremely religious, Hunter wears a rosary around his neck at all times. It lays under his clothing except for when he prays.
→ Hunter is a fairly trusting man and often confides in the people around him. If that trust were to be betrayed, he will never trust that person again.
→ Though the man is young, don't mistake his naivety for stupidity.
→ Hunter excels in close quarters combat but his aiming from range is absolutely horrible. Never trust him with a gun.
→ While he will do so when absolutely necessary, he almost always hesitates before striking a woman.
→ Hunter often jumps from one project to the next, leaving the one before it unfinished. It's a miracle for him to actually finish something he starts.
→ Hunter is extremely laconic when speaking any language other than Amestrian. He fears his own accent may make him sound stupid.
→ Hunter follows a strict moral code and may even go so far as to refuse a direct order if they are in violation of his core beliefs.
→ Hunter speaks: Amestrian (First language), Cretan (With a slight Amestrian accent) and (Broken) Drachman

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ALIAS:
→ Hunter


OTHER CHARACTERS:
→ First Character


CUSTOM RANK:
→ Pending

OFFICIAL TITLE:
→ The Black Lung Alchemist

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[Guest]

Ready for review.

[Iris]

Looks good so I dub thee

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