CHARACTERName: Formerly Nathan Bralium; presumed dead.
Aliases: Project t17, Trial #17, The Chupacabra
Age: 23 born: 17 Arashi 57 AC
Species and Gender: Male wolverine faunus
Symbol: N/A
Occupation: failed experiment/plot device
Appearance: T17 is 5’10” and 170lbs. It has long, unkempt, black hair and orange/red eyes. It has a light but muscular build and often carries itself in a slouch which makes it look like it is only 5’1”. T17 has pale skin and its front set of teeth (excluding his canines which are just slightly sharper than normal as a result of his faunus heritage) have been filed into points. It typically wears dirty, ripped, shirts and pants which could barely be considered clothing, and down the side of its left arm from shoulder to wrist are branding marks for t1, t2, t3, and so on until they stop at t17.
History: Nathan Bralium, came from a relatively poor family in Atlas, but he was lucky enough that his faunus heritage wasn’t blatantly visible. To fund his family (most of whom were out of work due to persecution), he joined Atlas academy as a soldier at the age of 16. He had always been weak, and he was never the brightest student, but he possessed an inhuman amount of determination. He was kicked into the dirt by other students and teachers alike, mostly by those who found out about his faunus heritage, but he kept trying his hardest. As his grades slipped and his performance in combat proved still worse, though, he was on the brink of being thrown out altogether. Then, in a fit of rage over his pitiful state, he unlocked his semblance. The semblance was a huge asset to Nathan, and after demonstrating an aptitude with its use, he began excelling in his work for the first time in his schooling. Nathan went on to say that once he could fight on par with the rest of the students, it gave him the confidence to truly improve in both his fitness and academic fields. He passed successfully after the eight years of training were completed and became an Atlesian Specialist. Nathan became very successful in his time as an Atlesian Specialist in the Atlas military and he became one of the few faunus ever to gain prestige within the military.
By the time he was 22, Nathan had been entrusted with a squad of soldiers. For his first mission of the year he was sent as the leader of a mission to go deal with a White Fang stronghold that was growing in strength just outside of the city. Unfortunately for Nathan, the White Fang were expecting the attack and ambushed his squad, killing all of his men and taking him prisoner. Nathan spent three months in a solitary confinement cell while the White Fang group tried to figure out what to do with him, and Nathan almost went insane during this stretch of time without human or faunus contact. A new White Fang science division located in a bunker just northeast of Vale reached out to the group outside of Atlas looking for test subjects, so Nathan was transferred in his makeshift cell to the bunker via stolen air transport. He became their lab rat, and was subjected to scientific and psychological experiments against his will. This led to further deterioration of Nathan’s mental state. He soon became animalistic and rambled aimlessly instead of making intelligible speech.
Meanwhile, the Atlas military had quickly assembled a second squad and wiped out the original White Fang stronghold. This second group discovered the bodies of Nathan’s squad and pronounced them KIA while Nathan was finally declared missing, and they began searching. While Nathan underwent torturous testing in the bunker outside of Vale, the search for him in Atlas and the surrounding areas slowly died. Nathan’s family lost hope, and, due to the circumstances of his disappearance, was proclaimed dead on his 23rd birthday.
Around the same time he was proclaimed dead, Nathan underwent his final involuntary test. Up until that point, the “scientists” of questionable merit and methods had been enraged by Nathan’s continuous refusal to join them, and had resorted to using him as a sick catharsis for their anger at faunus discrimination under the pretense of scientific research. Originally Nathan's semblance had been closer to becoming an actual chainsaw (something like
this), but as the torture continued and his soul's health worsened, the semblance began to resemble what it would become. This time they had caught wind of top secret testing going on in the Atlas labs. They heard that it was possible to transfer aura from one thing to another, and their first thought was to try and replicate it themselves. With no knowledge of the machine, process, or ramifications, they began making shots in the dark. Sixteen times Nathan was subjected to these failed tests, but the seventeenth was different. The test had finally managed to affect Nathan’s aura directly, but instead of transporting his aura, it damaged it. This was the final straw, and Nathan snapped. He activated his semblance at an intensity he had never reached while sane, in a different form than it had ever been while he was sane, and managed to rip through his restraints within seconds. He slaughtered the scientists, then the guards, then the staff; killing every living thing in the bunker before escaping into the wilderness. Nathan had finally and truly died, leaving behind the beast known only as t17.
T17 descended on Vale in the form of a string of grisly murders. Each victim was found dismembered, ripped apart, and missing various internal organs. The investigators had originally thought it was some new type of burrowing grimm, but as the murders continued with suspicious regularity, they began to suspect a human or faunus culprit. Before long, a hunter was sent to find this mystery killer, and he was able to track t17 down. He encountered the monster for the fist time in a backstreets alleyway in the dead of night, and he found it while it was digging into the carcass of a stray cat. The two engaged in a fierce battle, but t17 surprised the hunter with the sheer ferocity of its attacks before slipping away through a tunnel it had previously made. The hunter was wise enough not to pursue this thing into its own domain, and reported his finding to the Vale law enforcement who have since failed to capture t17, even with the help of other hunters. The Vale law enforcement, with the help of various hunters and huntresses, keeping t17’s existence under wraps so as to avoid mass hysteria, and they have managed to keep it secret from even the most prying media organizations. Only the most knowledgeable informants even know of t17’s existence, and no one in the world has pieced together where it came from and who it used to be.
Personality: T17 is a broken shell of what used to be a sane faunus. It has no ability to distinguish between human and animal, and has reverted into a primal state of survival instinct and savagery. T17 feeds itself by killing things and eating from the corpses raw, or by stealing food (the latter is becoming more common as law enforcement try to prevent it from feeding on people). When it isn’t hunting for food, t17 often finds a dark place to hide out until bodily needs necessitate leaving. T17 has lost all ability to understand or speak languages, and it often snarls and makes barking noises when threatened, but they don’t seem to have any hidden meaning or message. T17 is also extremely aggressive and will attack at even the slightest provocation from anyone or anything. It has even gone so far as to cut down trees that were swaying in a strong wind. Only a handful of people have encountered t17 and lived, but all who have feel great pity for the wretched creature.
Aura and Semblance: T17’s aura is a reddish black color and is head-and-shoulders above most in terms of protective ability due to its extensive use. His semblance is called Skin of the Earth: Rending Variant, and is t17’s only offensive weapon. When activated, the semblance causes t17’s skin (or just the sections that he wants) to become covered in an obsidian-like shiny black substance created from his aura. This "outer skin" then shifts upwards in jagged triangles which then start moving across t17’s body at high speeds, essentially turning his body into a living chainsaw. Not only that, but t17 can chose which general pattern the blades follow, which allows him to use them as a means of burrowing, be it through the ground or flesh. While it does not provide protection against bullets and heavier blades, one-handed blades and knives can be parried fairly easily with the semblance’s mass of edges. Due to extensive use, t17’s aura supply is well above average and as such the drain on his semblance is 3% per minute.
Combat Behavior: Strangely enough, t17 still fights like a skilled warrior in its insanity. The one thing it seems to have retained from its past life is Nathan Bralium’s custom martial art for use with his semblance (well, half of it, to be more accurate). This martial art focuses on always keeping the opponent on the defensive, and it involves delivering a relentless series of blows to break down enemy defenses. Of course it had a defensive side too, but this defensive style required strategic placement of tunnels which t17 cannot do. Only the offensive part of Nathan’s martial art has carried on in muscle memory, and so t17 only reacts to being attacked by attacking back with greater intensity. That said, it has some understanding of its own abilities, so it will still use its burrowing capabilities to attack in unexpected ways. While strong and dexterous, t17 has no concept of strategy and will simply flee if a fight is going badly for it.
Topic: Project t17: restrained (Read 10616 times)