[ ✰ 000 ; info ]
[ basic information ]
NAME | idui (iritique=rodui)
SERIES | Erementar Gerad
AGE | Who knows -- she looks and acts about 6, though.
SPECIES | Adel Raid
GENDER | F
HEIGHT , WEIGHT | 2'5" (75cm), 35 (16kg)
OCCUPATION | ex-Arena fighter / pickpocket
LEVEL | Abyss
ID NO. |
[ appearance ]
Well, she's a pretty cute kid. Sort of.
First off, she's tiny, she's always been. Short and light and cute, she's like a tiny kitten, maybe, or just a little fuzzy animal that clings to your sleeve and tags along after you. Dirty blonde hair cut short and ragged, it flops around her face, kept in place only by that black bandanna she's always wearing. The ends are torn because she's always wearing it, and they flap behind her almost like little wings, and she likes it that way. Sure, it sort of hides her eyes and gives her that air of subtle mischief, but maybe that's okay. It fits her.
And besides, it goes with her clothes. Cute clothes, with a gothic twist, maybe. Her favorite is a pair of black overalls with a tail attached. It's fake, of course, and it trails behind her when she scampers all over the place, but it looks cute on her, and she likes it, and other people seem to like it too, so that's good, right? Look closer, and at the small of her back there’s a little gemstone embedded there - a clear black color, reflective - but it’s not like you’ll ever get a good look at it before she turns away and hides it.
A right regular little devil, really. Give her a pat on the head, she's cute.
[ personality ]
Well, there's not much to say for a brat, eh?
Take one look at her, and she's just your typical kid, really. Give her a candy, she'll take it happily. Give her a crayon and she'll doodle all over the wall. Show her a little cat and she'll hug it and cuddle it and hold it tight.
But see, maybe it's not that simple.
Because, back before she ended up here, she wasn't just a kid, she was a weapon that was used to kill countless people, and it shows. Those doodles on the wall, they look suspiciously like decapitated and dismembered stick figures, the way she holds that cat looks dangerously similar to a strangle-hold, and the way she smiles? Yeah, it holds hints of threats there. Talk to her more, and you start seeing it, that weird double-edged part of her.
She knows where you need to stab a person to kill them quickly, where to hit to put them in pain, where to slice to cut their tendons apart and bring them to their knees. She loves stories of carnage and violence and blood, she loves watching the news and hearing about all the new murders and fights and deaths. She'll just sit there in front of the TV laughing and clapping her hands. And physical abilities, oh boy, she’s tiny, but she’s better than she looks - not strong, but fast, animal-quick reactions, here one moment, gone the next - and, of course, she’ll be looking for pledger, so that she can properly fight again. “Idui wantsh to fight well, too,” she’ll chirp, tugging at your sleeve.
Then, offer her a lollipop, and she'll gladly pop it in her mouth and go off to find someone to play with.
Just a kid, right? But I wouldn't want my kid to be like her.
[ abilities ]
For one thing, she’s fast, ridiculously so - quick on her feet and with perfect reactions, she’s a little bit like a wild animal - rapid-fire movements and scampering everywhere, climbing on people and hiding under furniture sometimes. She’s also fairly trained when it comes to fighting - knows all about fighting and battle tactics, and knows where to stab a person if you want to kill them, which tendon to slice if you want to bring them down to their knees, how to torture them if you want them to talk.
However, her real strength comes into play once she finds a pledger, and can transform into her weapon form - a massive sword entwined with strands of black energy. As a weapon, she can heighten her user’s speed, slice through almost any given material, and shoot out rays of energy - a few times more powerful than your average shotgun. Stamina isn’t a problem - she can last as long as her user can - and as a weapon, she’s also fairly resilient. A great fighting tool, in fact. Without a pledger, her abilities are considerably more limited to a few "songs," - or, as most people would call them, spells. A slashing burst of wind that circles away from her, or a sudden darkness, for example, but nothing that would do more damage than a few broken bones.
And away from the physical aspect, her greatest strength would be her loyalty. Although she’s awfully flitty when you don’t know her, once you’re friends, she’ll trust you and do anything within her power for you. And if you’re her pledger, it goes even further - someone she’s acknowledged as her pledger is someone she will do absolutely anything for - even stay by them to the death, as was the case with her last pledger.
[ history ]
Idui really doesn’t remember much about her past - she’s not the type to keep things like that in mind. All she knows is that she was always assigned to the Orga Knights - as a Dark-type Adel Raid, and a powerful one at that, she was considered a valuable resource and was assigned to one of the fighters. She knew little of the organizations intents or purposes, just knew that, if she didn’t fight well, she’d be “disposed of.” However, things didn’t go as planned, and the missions always failed. Usually a miscalculation by her pledger, or some other disaster unaccounted for. Things just never went well, and she was often blamed for it - the pledger would say, “This Adel Raid isn’t any good, it’s her fault, get rid of her!” And she was too young to fight back, didn’t know the right way to rebut these unjustified accusations.
Until, Gladias, one of the newly-promoted fighters and without a fighter, offered to give her one last chance - “I feel that perhaps her Pledgers performed rather poorly, and I may be able to better employ her strength,” - and she was given one last chance.
Which was a wise choice.
She and Gladias made a near-unstoppable combination - deadly fast, powerful, merciless - and although Gladias was known for being cold, heartless, cruel, he was always kind to her - it seemed things were going well.
Until, well, as Gladias said - “things never went well for long.” They were assigned to the retrieval of the legendary Adel Raid - and murder of her pledger. It seemed an easy job, at first, it always did, but then the tables were turned - even their best couldn’t defeat the unleashed power of the legendary Adel Raid, and they barely escaped, Gladias badly injured and Idui clinging to him, pleading, “Gradiash, don’t die, don’t die.” They barely made it back to the base of the Orga Knights when they were betrayed. By who? It was hard to tell. All Idui knew was that Gladias was pinned to the wall with a dozen spears of light - he was probably dead - and that she had a spear through her stomach. Dying. Dying.
Funny, that.
Next thing, she was waking up in NeoGenesis.
[ false memories ]
Born as a hybrid of magic and scientific experimentation, like all the other Adel Raids -- a rare subspecies of human with the ability to morph into deadly weapons. What wasn't to want about her, especially to the trash that occupied the majority of the Abyss? Her very first memories are vague camera-reel films of being employed as a weapon, and nothing more. Traded between handlers at the Arena, a short stint at the Circus (--she was used to saw the magician's assistant into pieces--), and displayed on the streets as a freak-show. She doesn't recall this time very well, only because she remembers absolutely nothing pleasant about that time. Just lots, and lots, and lots of blood.
The first clear memory she has is of meeting Gladias -- a quiet veteran at the Abyss, and she immediately took a liking to him -- out behind the building, where she was nibbling on a piece of bread, he chanced upon her, smoking a pipe, and crouched down, smiling at her. It was the first time anyone had looked at her with anything but greed. And he told her, "don't worry, little one. I'll rescue you."
He kept that promise.
It took exactly thirty seconds in the ring for him to ram his pipe through the eye of the Idui's owner, killing the poor wretch instantly, and he swished out of the ring without bothering to claim any prize except letting her climb into his kimono sleeve. Maybe that was enough for him.
And to an outsider, it might have looked like her life hadn't changed at all -- still employed as a weapon in the Arena every day, used to gut men like pigs and rend through skin and bone -- but the person who she was pledged to made all the difference. She liked Gladias, and he was kind to her -- that was probably why she clung to his dead body when he was ambushed in the dirty back alleys of the Abyss by a faceless serial killer, shaking his shoulder, "wake up, Gradiash, wake up."
Eventually, she accepted his death -- Gladias wasn't coming back -- and she took to flitting between Terra and Abyss, surviving on pickpocketed money and food given to her by strangers out of pity, and sleeping wherever she find a place warm and dry -- without permission, of course. And it's not exactly a great life, but it's a life -- she does miss the apartment flat in the nicer part of Terra that she used to live in with Gladias, and she does miss him an awful lot -- but she has to move on.
Another day to live, another day to scamper up and down the streets surviving.