[OOC] Detailed Character History
Noa would never have imagined the kind of life that awaited him. Born with a rare medical condition that rapidly weakened his body so that a day’s worth of physical activity equaled a year’s worth of stress, he was forced to wear a metallic spinal brace for support. He was often restricted from playing outside in case he got sick and was bullied by other children who thought him a freak. Additionally, his hometown Calm offered him little to look forward to. Its technological advances have polluted and corrupted the city to the point it can’t sustain natural ventilation - hardly a place to raise such a sickly boy. Though he abode by the rules like a proper citizen, his sheltered, structured life left him counting the days till he died. Noa carried out his life the best he could under these conditions. He befriended Zed at a young age after he saved Noa from a pack of bullies. They shared a similar desire for freedom, in his case from his illness. Though everyday movements would shorten his lifespan, he chose to live out his life as he wanted rather than be restrained to a hospital bed and live longer.
One day the people of Neotopia summoned him to their country. However, during the shifting (teleporting) process he was redirected to Lato, one of Neotopia's villages, rather than the capital city. A kind couple found him wounded and leaned against their house. They tended to him with Healing Shards, which lessened some of the stress his illness put on his body, and offered he stay with them for the meantime, in part because Noa reminded them of their own son Gale, who left town to serve military duty at the capital. During his stay, Noa befriended Keith and Aisha, Gale's childhood friends and opposers of Neotopia's totalitarian government based upon Absolute Law. Gale soon returned to Lato on official business. By taking Noa into their home without notifying the capital Gale's parents disobeyed the Absolute Law. As a result, Gale publicly executed his father. The incident horrified Noa to the point of abhorring the Neotopian law and government. It also sparked a rebellion against the system, pitted Keith and Gale against each other, and awakened Noa's latent Shard Casting powers. When Keith and Gale apparently killed each other, Noa broke down and subconsciously set fire to part of Lato. After he came to, Aisha shifted him away from the village with the last of her strength, and he landed in the outskirts of Zymot, an enemy nation.
Noa came into the care of a nomadic people called Seekers. They were transporting a trunk containing what they believed to be their god. Throughout his stay, he heard a voice from the trunk calling to him. Despite the Seekers' kindness and his friendship with the young Seeker Sagiri, Noa decided to leave on his own, fearful his dormant power would bring them destruction the way it did to Lato. Just as he headed off, the voice called to him once more. A powerful Spirit called Sachura broke out of the trunk and appeared to Noa, choosing him as his Shard Caster. (Spirits are magical beings used for battle by Shard Casters -- think along the lines of Pokemon.) The Seekers went to investigate the situation, only for Noa's power to lash out and destroy the Seekers' camp. Everyone else but Sagiri was killed, confirming Noa's belief his power only caused pain. Diana, a high-ranking general and Neotopian ruler Hyrum's right hand man, shifted to their location and took them back to Neotopia's capital.
Noa learned he was Neotopia's prophesied savior, the man who would wield the power of a Key Spirit and defend the Absolute Law maintaining the country's peace, stability, and political influence. (If Spirits are like Pokemon, the Key Spirits would be the KIBA-verse's Legendaries.) He was reluctant at first to fulfill the nation's expectations and wield his newfound power because of its destructive nature, until Diana convinced him it lashed out violently because he was too weak to control it. Touched off at his most emotionally sensitive point, Noa gave in to the demands he assume the role of their savior. With time and mental training he was manipulated into using his Shard Casting abilities to uphold the same strict, regimented rules he originally hated after how they tore apart Lato. Armed with a new found cause to dedicate his life to, he grew stronger and more confident in himself and quickly became one of Neotopia’s fiercest soldiers, the Neo Knights.
His first mission sent him to the country Tusk to find Keith, who was healed on the spot by Neotopian soldiers and imprisoned for treason. Keith broke out of prison and made a run for Templer, only to be caught by authorities. Noa's best friend Zed was shifted to Templer about the same time Noa landed in Lato and since became an honorary citizen of the country because of his own Shard Casting potential and posession of the Key Spirit Amir Gaul. Zed was put in charge of transporting Keith back to Neotopia, but getting him there would be more difficult than expected. Keith made another attempt to escape, but a Templer girl and Zed's friend Roya pushed him back into the shifting circle, sending her off to Neotopia's capital with the two boys. As part of his plan to collect all the Key Spirits, Zymot's king Hugh ordered his forces to redirect Zed, Roya, and Keith to Tusk. Roya was kidnapped by Tuskan beastmen to be sacrificed to their god Tusker, and the sacrificial ceremony attracted Hugh, Zed, Keith, and Noa as well as the Key Spirits Pronimo, Amir Gaul, and Sachura to the same location. The three Key Spirits' gathered presence emitted a powerful aura that destroyed the sacrificial site. Noa, Zed, and the others escaped in time. Still, Noa had his mission to attend to. After shifting Zed and Roya back to Templer, Noa executed Keith on the spot in the name of Absolute Law.
Neotopia hosted an international Shard Casters' Joust, which properly brought Noa and Zed together. What started out as a heartfelt reunion eventually turned ugly when Zed realized how much Absolute Law twisted Noa's perceptions. Noa had grown arrogant because of the power his Shard Casting abilities, Sachura, and Neotopia's laws gave him. He vowed to prove Absolute Law's greatness and his newly gained strength to Zed by defeating him in the Joust, turning best friends into rivals. Both boys easily fought their way into the semifinals, when they were finally pitted against each other. Zed was afraid to fight against his friend with full power, which Noa took as an insult. He then said that rather than looking up to his friend, he hated Zed for supposedly befriending him out of pity to boost his ego. Angered by Noa's accusations, Zed fought back, but just as he was about to deliver the deciding blow he hesitated. Noa took advantage of this and defeated him, but was unsatisfied with the win. He went on to face Hugh, who disguised himself as a Tuskan representative in order to take Amir Gaul and Sachura. By their fight, Hugh already stole the former from Zed, and after weakening Noa managed to get the latter. Because Hugh wasn't strong enough to control three Key Spirits, he experienced a rejection response that forced him to relinquish the Key Spirits he had stolen and shifted back to Zymot, giving Noa the win by default. Later he found Zed after he and Ginga, an Urvarx representative, rescued Roya from execution for previously breaking Absolute Law. Instead of killing them for their crimes, he approached Zed as to why he refused to fight him seriously then let him escape, breaking Absolute Law himself out of friendship.
Neotopian soldiers snuck into Templer to take Zed back by force without success. Hyrum ordered Noa to find and execute Zed, but their fight was disrupted by Zymot and Tusk's joint assault on the capital city. Noa returned to the capital, where he and the other Neo Knights were ordered to span out and hold back the intruders. Hugh arrived intending again to steal Noa and Zed's Key Spirits, but a bigger threat appeared, forcing the three of them to join forces against it. Helic, who led an earlier revolt against Hyrum for banishing his fellow Urvarxans several years ago for a single infraction against his government, summoned his country's artificially developed Spirit Ex Machina to finish the job, but the Spirit was too unruly to command and wreaked havoc on the capital. Pronimo, Sachura, and the newly evolved Amir Gaul contained Ex Machina. Hugh used this an an opportunity to capture Noa and Zed, force Neotopia to divide its forces between defending its capital and rescuing their savior Noa, and usurp Hyrum's throne. The two were rescued by Roya and the Neo Knight Kira, and together they met up with Hyrum and Diana, who were hiding from Hugh and his forces at the country's beacon.
Despite Hugh having taken over most of the capital, Hyrum refused to take any action until the Key Spirit Monadi hidden beneath the beacon was recovered for Noa to wield against Zymot and Tusk. Unable to withstand the building pressure of being Neotopia's savior at this time of crisis, he experienced a mental breakdown that weakened his morale and largely incapacitated him. Deeming Hyrum unworthy to rule Neotopia and uphold Absolute Law, Diana surrendered him to their enemies and took Noa underground to find Monadi. Someone else had found it first and used it against them before escaping with it. As Noa realized everything he dedicated himself to protecting had fallen, the beacon crumbled under battle. He and Diana were presumed dead, and Neotopia was officially annexed to Zymot and Tusk.
But Noa survived. Having only his ever consuming desire for power to guide him, he made it his mission to gather all the Key Spirits to awaken Tusker, the god of all Spirits. Myth said when the six Key Spirits were collected and Tusker summoned, the world would end and the summoner granted power to create a new world. To do so, Noa took on an alternate persona dubbed Dolga and allied with Tusk's ruling council, which itself wanted to summon Tusker in order to conquer the world. Zed arrived in Tusk hoping to stop the Tuskan council from trying to resurrect Tusker and ultimately stop all the fighting that accompanied the desire for ultimate power, only to run into his old friend doing exactly what he was trying to put an end to. Despite claiming he cut off all his bonds and wanted to kill Zed, Noa saved him a few times from the Tuskan council's attacks and somewhat helped him help the Tuskan savior Mirred escape from the council. The council managed to gather the six Key Spirits and through Mirred temporarily summon a slumbering Tusker, but because she was not the chosen "true savior" Mirred went through a rejection response so terrible she lost her memory. Noa believed himself to be this true savior and took all the Key Spirits but Amir Gaul, who stubbornly stuck by its rightful Shard Caster Zed.
Diana also managed to survive and found Noa in Tusk. Her insistence he come back with her to rebuild Neotopia annoyed him, but more than that she claimed that two stars were shining in destiny's sky -- and one of them was outshining the other. Noa understood the symbolism and took it poorly. He decided it was time for finish Zed off once and for all to prove his status as true savior. So the fated battle between best friends turned enemies happened, with Noa and his army of Key Spirits overwhelming Zed and Amir Gaul. While Zed lied down and out, Noa took Amir Gaul and summoned Tusker, who seemed to deem the boy a better fit to posess. Still, Noa's consciousness warred with that of the god's, but it looked to be a losing battle. Through Noa, Tusker destroyed the barriers between the Shard Casting countries and made them collapse into each other so it could remake the world as it pleased. Only Zed was able to break through Tusker's hold on Noa and make him realize this destructive power wasn't the kind he sought out. Noa's obsessive search for power blinded him from seeing he wanted to grow stronger so he could repay Zed for always helping him out, as well as help others in need. Tusker began to consume Noa's being entirely, until an anguished Zed offered himself in Noa's place. Tusker accepted; Zed was the true chosen savior after all. Zed's posession caused all Spirits to turn against their Shard Casters to pave the way for a new world of only Spirits. With Noa's insistance Tusker release his friend and some divine intervention, Zed snapped out of his power trance, found Amir Gaul, and escaped Tusker's hold. Amir Gaul's extraction unbalanced the Spirit god and left it vulnerable to Zed and Amir Gaul's assault, and they defeated it. The Spirits stopped attacking their Shard Casters, five of the Key Spirits including Sachura dispersed across worlds, and Zed disappeared with the last Key Spirit Amir Gaul to a land suspiciously like our own.
Though the chaos wrought by Tusker and the Key Spirits convening ceased, it is said that as long as people desire power and are willing to go to destructive lengths to obtain it, the threat of history repeating will continue to loom over humanity. For now, the Shard Casting world will rebuild itself. Countries will be created and resurrected, alliances will be made, and the human population will live on. The future promises both despair and hope, but not all are lucky enough to have the luxury of looking forward to either. For dear Noa, his journey as an elite Shard Caster, as a Savior, and as master of his own destiny meant the final stretch of his life. Healing Shard treatments stymied the progression of his childhood illness for only so long, and at this point the only relief they give him is from aches and pains. No longer able to walk, he can do very little on his own anymore. As his illness worsens, Noa's transient grasp on his freedom loosens. He can only hope he'll see his old friend Zed, the savior of the world, before his time finally expires.
One day the people of Neotopia summoned him to their country. However, during the shifting (teleporting) process he was redirected to Lato, one of Neotopia's villages, rather than the capital city. A kind couple found him wounded and leaned against their house. They tended to him with Healing Shards, which lessened some of the stress his illness put on his body, and offered he stay with them for the meantime, in part because Noa reminded them of their own son Gale, who left town to serve military duty at the capital. During his stay, Noa befriended Keith and Aisha, Gale's childhood friends and opposers of Neotopia's totalitarian government based upon Absolute Law. Gale soon returned to Lato on official business. By taking Noa into their home without notifying the capital Gale's parents disobeyed the Absolute Law. As a result, Gale publicly executed his father. The incident horrified Noa to the point of abhorring the Neotopian law and government. It also sparked a rebellion against the system, pitted Keith and Gale against each other, and awakened Noa's latent Shard Casting powers. When Keith and Gale apparently killed each other, Noa broke down and subconsciously set fire to part of Lato. After he came to, Aisha shifted him away from the village with the last of her strength, and he landed in the outskirts of Zymot, an enemy nation.
Noa came into the care of a nomadic people called Seekers. They were transporting a trunk containing what they believed to be their god. Throughout his stay, he heard a voice from the trunk calling to him. Despite the Seekers' kindness and his friendship with the young Seeker Sagiri, Noa decided to leave on his own, fearful his dormant power would bring them destruction the way it did to Lato. Just as he headed off, the voice called to him once more. A powerful Spirit called Sachura broke out of the trunk and appeared to Noa, choosing him as his Shard Caster. (Spirits are magical beings used for battle by Shard Casters -- think along the lines of Pokemon.) The Seekers went to investigate the situation, only for Noa's power to lash out and destroy the Seekers' camp. Everyone else but Sagiri was killed, confirming Noa's belief his power only caused pain. Diana, a high-ranking general and Neotopian ruler Hyrum's right hand man, shifted to their location and took them back to Neotopia's capital.
Noa learned he was Neotopia's prophesied savior, the man who would wield the power of a Key Spirit and defend the Absolute Law maintaining the country's peace, stability, and political influence. (If Spirits are like Pokemon, the Key Spirits would be the KIBA-verse's Legendaries.) He was reluctant at first to fulfill the nation's expectations and wield his newfound power because of its destructive nature, until Diana convinced him it lashed out violently because he was too weak to control it. Touched off at his most emotionally sensitive point, Noa gave in to the demands he assume the role of their savior. With time and mental training he was manipulated into using his Shard Casting abilities to uphold the same strict, regimented rules he originally hated after how they tore apart Lato. Armed with a new found cause to dedicate his life to, he grew stronger and more confident in himself and quickly became one of Neotopia’s fiercest soldiers, the Neo Knights.
His first mission sent him to the country Tusk to find Keith, who was healed on the spot by Neotopian soldiers and imprisoned for treason. Keith broke out of prison and made a run for Templer, only to be caught by authorities. Noa's best friend Zed was shifted to Templer about the same time Noa landed in Lato and since became an honorary citizen of the country because of his own Shard Casting potential and posession of the Key Spirit Amir Gaul. Zed was put in charge of transporting Keith back to Neotopia, but getting him there would be more difficult than expected. Keith made another attempt to escape, but a Templer girl and Zed's friend Roya pushed him back into the shifting circle, sending her off to Neotopia's capital with the two boys. As part of his plan to collect all the Key Spirits, Zymot's king Hugh ordered his forces to redirect Zed, Roya, and Keith to Tusk. Roya was kidnapped by Tuskan beastmen to be sacrificed to their god Tusker, and the sacrificial ceremony attracted Hugh, Zed, Keith, and Noa as well as the Key Spirits Pronimo, Amir Gaul, and Sachura to the same location. The three Key Spirits' gathered presence emitted a powerful aura that destroyed the sacrificial site. Noa, Zed, and the others escaped in time. Still, Noa had his mission to attend to. After shifting Zed and Roya back to Templer, Noa executed Keith on the spot in the name of Absolute Law.
Neotopia hosted an international Shard Casters' Joust, which properly brought Noa and Zed together. What started out as a heartfelt reunion eventually turned ugly when Zed realized how much Absolute Law twisted Noa's perceptions. Noa had grown arrogant because of the power his Shard Casting abilities, Sachura, and Neotopia's laws gave him. He vowed to prove Absolute Law's greatness and his newly gained strength to Zed by defeating him in the Joust, turning best friends into rivals. Both boys easily fought their way into the semifinals, when they were finally pitted against each other. Zed was afraid to fight against his friend with full power, which Noa took as an insult. He then said that rather than looking up to his friend, he hated Zed for supposedly befriending him out of pity to boost his ego. Angered by Noa's accusations, Zed fought back, but just as he was about to deliver the deciding blow he hesitated. Noa took advantage of this and defeated him, but was unsatisfied with the win. He went on to face Hugh, who disguised himself as a Tuskan representative in order to take Amir Gaul and Sachura. By their fight, Hugh already stole the former from Zed, and after weakening Noa managed to get the latter. Because Hugh wasn't strong enough to control three Key Spirits, he experienced a rejection response that forced him to relinquish the Key Spirits he had stolen and shifted back to Zymot, giving Noa the win by default. Later he found Zed after he and Ginga, an Urvarx representative, rescued Roya from execution for previously breaking Absolute Law. Instead of killing them for their crimes, he approached Zed as to why he refused to fight him seriously then let him escape, breaking Absolute Law himself out of friendship.
Neotopian soldiers snuck into Templer to take Zed back by force without success. Hyrum ordered Noa to find and execute Zed, but their fight was disrupted by Zymot and Tusk's joint assault on the capital city. Noa returned to the capital, where he and the other Neo Knights were ordered to span out and hold back the intruders. Hugh arrived intending again to steal Noa and Zed's Key Spirits, but a bigger threat appeared, forcing the three of them to join forces against it. Helic, who led an earlier revolt against Hyrum for banishing his fellow Urvarxans several years ago for a single infraction against his government, summoned his country's artificially developed Spirit Ex Machina to finish the job, but the Spirit was too unruly to command and wreaked havoc on the capital. Pronimo, Sachura, and the newly evolved Amir Gaul contained Ex Machina. Hugh used this an an opportunity to capture Noa and Zed, force Neotopia to divide its forces between defending its capital and rescuing their savior Noa, and usurp Hyrum's throne. The two were rescued by Roya and the Neo Knight Kira, and together they met up with Hyrum and Diana, who were hiding from Hugh and his forces at the country's beacon.
Despite Hugh having taken over most of the capital, Hyrum refused to take any action until the Key Spirit Monadi hidden beneath the beacon was recovered for Noa to wield against Zymot and Tusk. Unable to withstand the building pressure of being Neotopia's savior at this time of crisis, he experienced a mental breakdown that weakened his morale and largely incapacitated him. Deeming Hyrum unworthy to rule Neotopia and uphold Absolute Law, Diana surrendered him to their enemies and took Noa underground to find Monadi. Someone else had found it first and used it against them before escaping with it. As Noa realized everything he dedicated himself to protecting had fallen, the beacon crumbled under battle. He and Diana were presumed dead, and Neotopia was officially annexed to Zymot and Tusk.
But Noa survived. Having only his ever consuming desire for power to guide him, he made it his mission to gather all the Key Spirits to awaken Tusker, the god of all Spirits. Myth said when the six Key Spirits were collected and Tusker summoned, the world would end and the summoner granted power to create a new world. To do so, Noa took on an alternate persona dubbed Dolga and allied with Tusk's ruling council, which itself wanted to summon Tusker in order to conquer the world. Zed arrived in Tusk hoping to stop the Tuskan council from trying to resurrect Tusker and ultimately stop all the fighting that accompanied the desire for ultimate power, only to run into his old friend doing exactly what he was trying to put an end to. Despite claiming he cut off all his bonds and wanted to kill Zed, Noa saved him a few times from the Tuskan council's attacks and somewhat helped him help the Tuskan savior Mirred escape from the council. The council managed to gather the six Key Spirits and through Mirred temporarily summon a slumbering Tusker, but because she was not the chosen "true savior" Mirred went through a rejection response so terrible she lost her memory. Noa believed himself to be this true savior and took all the Key Spirits but Amir Gaul, who stubbornly stuck by its rightful Shard Caster Zed.
Diana also managed to survive and found Noa in Tusk. Her insistence he come back with her to rebuild Neotopia annoyed him, but more than that she claimed that two stars were shining in destiny's sky -- and one of them was outshining the other. Noa understood the symbolism and took it poorly. He decided it was time for finish Zed off once and for all to prove his status as true savior. So the fated battle between best friends turned enemies happened, with Noa and his army of Key Spirits overwhelming Zed and Amir Gaul. While Zed lied down and out, Noa took Amir Gaul and summoned Tusker, who seemed to deem the boy a better fit to posess. Still, Noa's consciousness warred with that of the god's, but it looked to be a losing battle. Through Noa, Tusker destroyed the barriers between the Shard Casting countries and made them collapse into each other so it could remake the world as it pleased. Only Zed was able to break through Tusker's hold on Noa and make him realize this destructive power wasn't the kind he sought out. Noa's obsessive search for power blinded him from seeing he wanted to grow stronger so he could repay Zed for always helping him out, as well as help others in need. Tusker began to consume Noa's being entirely, until an anguished Zed offered himself in Noa's place. Tusker accepted; Zed was the true chosen savior after all. Zed's posession caused all Spirits to turn against their Shard Casters to pave the way for a new world of only Spirits. With Noa's insistance Tusker release his friend and some divine intervention, Zed snapped out of his power trance, found Amir Gaul, and escaped Tusker's hold. Amir Gaul's extraction unbalanced the Spirit god and left it vulnerable to Zed and Amir Gaul's assault, and they defeated it. The Spirits stopped attacking their Shard Casters, five of the Key Spirits including Sachura dispersed across worlds, and Zed disappeared with the last Key Spirit Amir Gaul to a land suspiciously like our own.
Though the chaos wrought by Tusker and the Key Spirits convening ceased, it is said that as long as people desire power and are willing to go to destructive lengths to obtain it, the threat of history repeating will continue to loom over humanity. For now, the Shard Casting world will rebuild itself. Countries will be created and resurrected, alliances will be made, and the human population will live on. The future promises both despair and hope, but not all are lucky enough to have the luxury of looking forward to either. For dear Noa, his journey as an elite Shard Caster, as a Savior, and as master of his own destiny meant the final stretch of his life. Healing Shard treatments stymied the progression of his childhood illness for only so long, and at this point the only relief they give him is from aches and pains. No longer able to walk, he can do very little on his own anymore. As his illness worsens, Noa's transient grasp on his freedom loosens. He can only hope he'll see his old friend Zed, the savior of the world, before his time finally expires.