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Post by Miguel Hidalgo on Nov 8, 2014 10:59:33 GMT -5
MIGUEL HIDALGO
BASICS
Name: Miguel Alejandro Hidalgo Alias:Francisco “Franz” Colleano, Grim, Le Capuchon, Voleur de Plume Age: 27 Gender: Male Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
Region: Kalos > Orre Class: Pokemon League Occupation: Iceburgh Gym – Dark | Businessman Rank - - -
DIRECTORY & OOC INFO
Directory Info: [size=3][b]EL TROUBADOUR[/b][/size] [url=link to application][b]Miguel Hidalgo[/b][/url] Face claim: [b]Pandora Hearts[/b] – Gilbert Nightray, [i]Hidalgo, Miguel[/i] Alter ego face claim: [b]Marvel Comics[/b] – Taskmaster, [i]Hidalgo, Miguel (Grim | Le Capuchon)[/i]
Continuity: Original Other Characters: Zernebog Romanov, Altair Stavros
Pokedex Name: Greninja ALIAS: Sub Zero GENDER: Male ABILITY: Torrent MOVE SET: Extrasensory | Feint Attack | Role Play | Shadow Sneak Shiny Spritz courtesy of Zernebog Romanov
Pokedex Name: Houndour ALIAS: Clegane GENDER: Male ABILITY: Flash Fire MOVE SET: Counter | Flamethrower | Foul Play | Punishment Donated by Zernebog Romanov
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Miguel is a man slightly above average height for adult men at 6’0”. He makes himself look just slender and fit with his clothing, but underneath his clothes is a very muscular gymnast’s body born from a life of acrobatics and circus performances, the latter of which turned into survival in cities and the wilderness in later years. Accompanying that ripped body are very calloused hands and feet, which were from his hard life in the streets and in the circus. Also hidden by his clothes are raven wing tattoos on his back which he had gotten during his circus days that the public never knew about and a massive scar on his chest from LeClaire, though he makes up stories for its origins to his one-night-stands and to his friends.
He has chin-length wavy hair that is unruly and extremely difficult to style, much to his dismay. He only runs a comb through his hair and leaves it as it is unless he really needs to style it for some reason. It still matches his sharp, handsome features and his expressive golden eyes anyway so no one minds much.
Miguel has an obsession with suits and Victorian-style clothing. They are his preferred normal wardrobe and as such he is very rarely seen without one. He is usually seen in a lounge suit if he has to attend to business meetings and fancy, formal Victorian-style clothing when he’s not in work. He prefers his lounge suits to be of English cut, though he’ll wear Italian cuts on occasion. As for his Victorian-style clothing, he has a lot but his favourite is that of a white collared shirt with buckles, a white cravat, black pants, black coat, and black pointed boots.
He usually has signature accessories to along with these clothes. The most apparent one is a hat, which is most often black to match with his black clothes. However, he does have other colors and styles of hats in order to match his clothes for the day because he wasn’t about to give up style for sentimentality in that aspect. Along with his hat, he usually has a pair of gloves on. The color of these gloves varies with his clothes, but they are most often white or black. The one he wears most often though is a curved golden cuff earring that he wears on his left ear, which is on at all times unless he absolutely has to remove it. Yes, he wears it even while sleeping.
When visiting the graves of his parents and mentor though, he adopts a different set of clothing. He thinks that suits are for happy occasions and he doesn’t dare wear his signature Victorian-style look because he doesn’t want to be recognized while visiting the graves, so instead he wears far more casual clothing. Namely, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a dark hoodie, gloves, loose jogging pants, and rubber shoes.
As Le Capuchon, he has an entirely different wardrobe in order to separate himself from that identity. His usual outfit consists of a dark blue short-sleeved hooded jacket with gray accents and lighter gray metal pieces, a special long-sleeved white shirt underneath that extends up to his fingers, fingerless gloves in the same color as the jacket and have metal studs on the knuckles, gray armguards, a simple belt, and flexible dark blue pants with armor in strategic places. He usually wears this with a simple skull mask with yellow lenses and a black skin-tight mask underneath, the former of which covers most of his head and the latter of which covers the entirety of his head and neck.
Unusually, his usual outfit is not Le Capuchon’s iconic outfit. That honor belongs to his alternate outfit, which he only brings out when he wants attention. Why? Because this ensemble consists of a white hooded cloak that is yellow inside, a black spandex costume with yellow parts on his lower forearms and yellow window on the upper center part of his chest that is angular and bordered with white, white boots and gloves, white underpants, and a utility belt. While he still wears a black skin-tight mask underneath, he uses a far more realistic skull mask for this costume to inspire fear.
6’0” / 200 lbs || 183 cm / 91 kg
Very fit with the build of a gymnast
Calloused hands and feet from a life of very physical activity
Massive chest scar from LeClaire
Expressive gold eyes
Unruly wavy black hair that used to be long and is now cut short. Rarely responds to styling, much to his dismay.
Cuff earring on his left ear that is usually gold but can be switched for that of any other metal.
Signature black hat
Two main costumes for Le Capuchon
PERSONALITY
On the surface, Miguel seems like your typical everyday nice, polite, and altruistic businessman. He always goes out of his way to greet people on the street and do nice things to friends and strangers alike even when there seems to be nothing he could gain from it. He’s naturally charismatic and friendly as well, though he has this unfortunate tendency of being too curious about things for his own good. Sometimes to the point of being nosy, even.
However, he is far from the perfect gentleman. He is in fact very, very far from the idea. He has a lot of strange habits and other eccentricities that he isn’t afraid to show to other people like making up words, asking for high fives and variations of it that only he and very few other people have ever heard of, making up complex plans to do things even if the solution for it is simple, making up strange competitions and games just because he can or because he was inspired by something, and his propensity for learning and showing magic tricks to friends and sometimes to strangers. In fact, these eccentricities and his gung-ho, committed attitude to challenges actually make him kind of a dork, not that he ever realizes it. A suave dork, but a dork nonetheless.
It does not help that he is an unrepentant pervert who loves to leer at and flirt with hot girls unless it was absolutely imperative that he focus on something else. Not only is he a pervert, but he is a womanizer through and through, preferring to have one night stands with various women instead of relationships. In fact, he seems to revel in the stereotype of a rich, vain playboy despite his manners. However, all of this is due to his fear of commitment that stems from losing most of the people important to him in his life and being betrayed by most of the few that remained.
Ironically though, for a guy who is afraid of commitment he is actually quite possessive of what he does have. This extends mostly to his pokemon, his acquired station in life, and one certain person. He will freely admit to the first two but trying to make him admit to the third is like trying to make a Numel go through the eye of a needle. He’s partially in denial and partially unaware of his behaviour regarding that one person and tends to come across as somewhat hypocritical about her and his own behaviour because of it.
While he is a nice guy with a lot of eccentricities, he is still a businessman at his core. Like most powerful and successful businessmen, he is greedy, opportunistic, and ambitious. He just hides it better under a veneer of charm and kindness. He won’t hesitate to stoop down to doing nasty things as long as he knows that he can get away with it. Actually, sometimes even if he knows that he can’t get away scot-free he would still stoop to those heinous acts anyway if he finds enough reason to do so.
If there were some people who were born to kill, Miguel would be one of them. Despite his upbringing under different people that had never encouraged this type of behaviour, he has gained violent and bloodthirsty tendencies by the time before he had made his first kill. Though he would never admit it, these came about as an extension for his constant search for that adrenaline rush that gets his heart pumping. Along with these, he has also gained a bit of pyromania due to his experiences with fire, with it being both the very thing that robbed him of his family and the main instrument of his first vengeance. Despite being a Dark-type user, he fully believes that fire is the element of power and power is one of the things that he wants.
Even before he had gained the violent behaviour that necessitated it, Miguel already had secretive tendencies. He never likes revealing anything more than necessary to anyone, including those who are closest to him. This bleeds over into his manipulative streak, wherein his preferred method of manipulation is by giving bits and pieces of information to yank people’s chains and make them dance to his tune. However, he is familiar with other methods of manipulation and changes up according to the need of the situation and sometimes his whims.
Ambitions: Whenever asked, he’ll say that his goal is to see and observe every single kind of Dark-type pokemon there is, whether they be common fare or of the more fantastic variety. Not just that, but catch and train the best Dark-type team he can and make them enough of a force to be reckoned with to reach Elite Four status.
Very few people know that he has much higher aspirations than that. He wants to expand his businesses and make himself more powerful as well as expand his influence. He wants to see how far he can go and how much he can control, even entertaining notions of controlling entire regions, perhaps even the world if he can.
What he hasn’t told anyone is that he wants to find other human Aura users, mostly to see if they were all similar or if they had different manifestations of power like with psychics but also because some part of him wanted to be around similar people despite the risks. To that end, he also wants to acquire a Riolu and other pokemon who can utilize Aura as well to test his theory. In truth, though he would never admit it, his other reason for wanting a Riolu is because he wants to emulate his late master.
HISTORY
Miguel Hidalgo hasn’t always been a Gym Leader and a successful entrepreneur, which isn’t the most mind-boggling thing in the world. However, most people would be thrown for a loop if they ever find out that his name hasn’t always been Miguel Hidalgo either.
Born Francisco Colleano and the fifth child to a loving family of circus performers, being a Gym Leader or an entrepreneur was the farthest thing from his mind. Instead, his dreams were filled with fantasies of following after or even being able to surpass his parents, who were like invincible gods who could do anything in and out of the ring. It was hard to think otherwise when they walked and performed death-defying feats on thin wires and balanced themselves on various objects with a single finger while other adults struggled to do push-ups with both hands on the ground.
Besides, most little boys would be thrilled to be part of the circus life since birth. Francisco, or Franz as he was affectionately nicknamed by his parents, was no different. He was enthralled by all of the awe-striking aspects of circus life, from meeting people and pokemon from all walks of life to getting a free pass to watch the circus act every night. It was almost like having the biggest and liveliest party ever going on everyday in young Franz’ eyes, only much smellier and cruder.
However, being exposed to too much of the extraordinary tends to make things lose their luster after a while. Having the prerequisite attention span of a child did not help matters and actually practicing the beginning of the stunts that he would one day do alongside his family only made it worse. It didn’t take long for breathtaking and heart-stopping acts to become nothing more than a normal everyday occurrence. Being the curious sort, it didn’t take long for him and his few young friends to start sneaking out of the circus during performances since they weren’t needed during the show. Sometimes their parents caught them and reprimanded them for it. However, it was fine for the other adults in the circus as long as they don’t get left behind when they pack up and move on to a new location, so they didn’t stop.
It was during one of those times that he snuck off away from the circus with his friends that they encountered a strange old man and a Lucario living in small shanty a few alleyways from the circus tent. As a curious and mischievous boy of 8, he and the others tried to bug the old man from his strange sleeping position that looked like sitting. He didn’t notice the others though, and only opened his eyes to stare at him with the most piercing and unnerving gaze he’d ever seen in his young life.
That was enough to bore the others and made them leave the old man alone, but not young Franz. He started to visit the strange old man everyday during performances and after practices, trying to make him do more than stare at him. Sometimes he even brought food with him, though he was never sure if the man ate it or if he just gave it to the Lucario who was seated beside him, always giving him a curious gaze. The old man and his Lucario never did do anything but stare at him while seated for the rest of the circus’ stay in the city, so in frustration he copied their position and just stared at them back a few days in.
Still, the old man hadn’t cracked by the time that his family was packing up and leaving to go to the next city, so he finally gave it up as a lost cause and decided to forget about the old man and his Lucario. So imagine his surprise when the old man and his Lucario walked up to him one night when he was sneaking around during a performance in the new town that the circus had set up shop in and actually talked and generally acted like living creatures instead of statues. The old man introduced himself as Michael Anderson and his Lucario as Richard, then started to tell him about Aura while intentionally misremembering his name as Miguel because according to him he looked more like a Miguel than a Francisco or a Franz.
Franz wasn’t willing to believe the old guy at first but after having the existence of Aura proven to him and having his very first experience using his own Aura by detecting that of the old man’s by concentrating really hard for an hour, he finally believed him. Being the curious little boy that he was, he wanted to know more about Aura and old man Anderson decided to oblige him by taking him on as a student as long as the boy kept him fed like he did in the last town. It sounded easy enough so the young boy said yes.
He was wrong about it being easy. Between his new master, his training at the circus, and being a kid with his other siblings and his friends, it was hard to balance everything without going crazy. It did have the effect of making him calmer and more withdrawn than a kid of his age would be. That made his siblings suspicious, but they didn’t question it since they were also busy and having less of a spitfire to deal with could only be a boon. His parents and the other people at the circus wondered the same things, but they came to the same conclusion as well.
However, he managed to figure out how to balance his schedule with the help of Master Anderson, enabling him to live an awesome life for three years. When he had turned eleven though, things started to fall apart. His parents found out about his hobo of a master and started an argument with him about it during one of their stops in the wilderness before reaching a town. If that wasn’t bad enough, during the climax of the argument one of his siblings run into their room in the tent, half-burned and screaming about a fire that was consuming the entire circus and how it was spreading so far and so fast while wondering why they locked the door like lunatics.
The attention quickly shifted from fighting to trying to escape the fire. They tried to get out of the room with the half-burned sibling, only to find themselves trapped. Their only avenue of escape was through one of the wires holding the large tent up. If they had been anything but tightwire walkers, they would have resigned themselves to death. However, since they were tightwire walkers, they all decided to go out through the wire by climbing up onto the flaming tent’s roof and then walking along the line. They decided to have young Franz go first since he was the youngest and the lightest. Despite his inexperience and the fact that he’s never dealt with highwires before, he managed to scrounge up the adrenaline and confidence to cross the wire despite the smoke he had already inhaled while looking for a way out earlier and the panic he could feel. Right after crossed the wire, he started cheering on his burned sibling as he started to cross the wire too. It was the very last thing he could remember before the world turned black.
When he woke up again, he was surprised to see that he was in a bed of all things instead of lying in the dirt like he expected. He also did not expect Anthony LeClaire, head of the one of the rival circuses of his family - the Cirque Plume – to be sitting by his bedside looking at him in what looked like concern. His surprise turned into horror when LeClaire told him that he was the only survivor from his circus. Refusing to believe it, he ran out of the place he was being held in despite protests from his head to where the tent was… only to see the charred remains of people, pokemon, and the tent itself before his eyes, being pecked on by Mandibuzz and Honchkrow with a few Murkrow looking on.
The sight was forever tattooed in his mind as he had fallen to knees that day. He didn’t know how long he had kneeled or when his sight had gotten blurry with tears, but he could remember the overwhelming grief, the burning in his lungs, and the sensation of sharp talons digging into shoulder. He had cried himself to sleep that day, uncaring of the fact that he had run out of tears by the time that LeClaire had a couple of his lackeys drag his unresisting form back to rest.
He thought that nothing could approach the pain that he had felt that day. He was quickly proven wrong when he had arranged and held a mass funeral for everyone that had died in the fire with the help of LeClaire, which hurt almost as much since he had constant reminders of their death as well as a reminder of the fact that he hadn’t seen his master since before the fire. The only upside to that time was that he had a certain annoying Murkrow that distracted him from becoming too depressed with her antics while never straying far away from him. He had no idea why the bird was sticking around, but he didn’t want to question it because it was the only thing he was comfortable with in the new situation he found himself in.
After the funerals, LeClaire offered him a spot within his circus since he didn’t want a kid on the streets. Having nothing else to lose, Franz accepted as long as he could take the strange friendly Murkrow he named Ravenna with him. That was the start of the great Franz Colleano, the last of the Colleano wirewalkers, dancer of the wire, matador of the wire, the most daring boy in the circus, and the star of the Cirque Plume.
For four years, he trained hard and worked with the people in Cirque Plume in order to pay back the debt he owed LeClaire for taking him in, travelling around the world and performing shows with them. He tried his best to mingle with them, but they were aloof with him for the most part since they thought that the vagrant orphan was trying to steal their thunder. He only managed to make friends with their resident magician David Williams, who taught him how to throw things properly and showed him a lot of the tricks of the trade. In fact, he had gotten so good at it that he became the guy’s assistant when not doing his wire acts and even incorporated a little magic into the acts as well as flips, somersaults, dancing, and even matador antics. He managed to do this by practicing everyday and reading the remainder of his parents’ and siblings’ journals for tips.
It was during this time that he discovered that he had developed a fear of large fires. The few psychologists that LeClaire and David managed to take him to told him that it was because of the loss he had suffered from the fire. He tried to deal with it the hard way, but that just left with him even more afraid so Williams, being the good friend that he was, just decided to get him a water pokemon to avoid the issue. This water pokemon was a shiny Froakie that he named Sub Zero on a whim.
However, what really helped keep him calm and out of depression for the most part during those four years was what his missing master Anderson taught him during their time together. He meditated and practiced his Aura skills in secret constantly, distracting himself from the memories and the pain and satisfying himself with watching others when not practicing his tightwire act. In fact, due to the meditation and constant practice he was also able to do the tricks that his mom was famous for, namely the one-finger handstand on objects like poles and balls.
He was content –almost happy even- with this niche he had carved out for himself in Cirque Plume. It was inevitable that it would come to an end, which it did in the form of a battle-worn Lucario appearing to him one night when he decided to roam by himself. At this point he had decent capabilities with Aura, so he was able to sense that this one was extremely familiar. Thus, he chased after the blue jackal until he led him to an older, scruffier but still recognizable Michael Anderson. He even checked the guy’s Aura to be sure, but it was the old man calling him Miguel that was the clincher.
He then questioned –more like demanded to know- where his master had been these past four years when he had needed him. He did not expect to hear that his master and the Lucario had been battling LeClaire’s henchmen and allies for years in order to reach him and tell him the truth – that LeClaire had orchestrated everything that had happened the night of the fire. In fact, LeClaire had originally intended to kill them all but found a better use for him by painting himself as the hero who saved the last of his rival circus out of the good of his heart through raising him and fostering him as his new star.
Franz, understandably, refused to believe such outrageous claims. His master Anderson simply advised him to use the power he had taught him to sift the truth from the lies and then come back to him to see he was lying. He did just that the next day by asking LeClaire about the day of the fire and about his family while watching his boss’ aura.
That talk was enough to make him come back to his master with his pokemon in tow, contrite and depressed about the shattering truth – LeClaire really had murdered his family and his extended family –the circus- though he didn’t know why. His master advised him to run away with him and leave, but Franz knew that LeClaire would just chase after him if he tried so he told him that he would figure out how to deal with LeClaire on his own and for his master to trust him. His master allowed it as long as he was to resume training under him again, which he readily agreed to.
After that talk, Franz tried to see what allies he could gather to his side before working out a plan. Unfortunately for him, he only managed to get his sole friend David on his side as the rest were firmly loyal to LeClaire. Even with that problem, he still worked with it by getting himself one more pokemon as an accomplice – a Sneasel he named Knives – while David got a couple more accomplices himself. They then spent that year clearing out the air between them and plotting the downfall of the corrupt Cirque Plume.
After that one year, they set the plan into motion. While travelling in the badlands of Kalos, Franz and David drugged the other people in the circus and set up the explosives and the gasoline. After that, they then had a chat with LeClaire in his office. At first they were friendly as they made small talk before veering into dangerous accusatory territory. LeClaire got angry at the accusations and tried to prove his innocence, only for Franz to finally drop the bomb and tell him that he knew that he was responsible for the death of his family and his extended family. LeClaire tried to attack him himself with a knife, only for Franz to start dodging and fighting back.
Franz wasn’t good at fighting though, so LeClaire managed to corner him really fast due to his experience and superior strength and reach. However, before he was able to deal a deathblow to Franz, David blocked the fatal blow with his own body, being fatally wounded in the process. Seeing that caused something to snap in Franz, making him take out the cards that he had been playing with earlier and throw them like he did with his magic tricks, only with lethal force. He managed to snag both of LeClaire’s eyes, blinding him and then throwing a third card that sunk into the guy’s jugular, making a lot of blood spurt out and start to choke him.
As much as he wanted to freeze and think about the fact that he had just taken a life with freaking playing cards, David quickly pulled his attention away and told him that he had to finish it for them all while the old man was still choking on his blood. He wanted to bring David to a doctor instead, but the guy already knew it was too late for him and asked him to finish the job anyway. This was to be his atonement for his sins with LeClaire and his circus. With that last request, Franz did as the older man told and went with the plan, getting out of the circus and triggering the explosives. The circus was set aflame in an eerily-familiar way, but this time he felt no fear from the fire anymore.
Instead, he laughed long and hard as the fires raged. He didn’t know when the laughter gave way to tears or when he started kneeling on the ground with his pokemon looking at him in concern, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about much at all as his master found him and pulled him away from the burning wreckage that was the circus, making sure to remove as much of their trail as possible.
He spent a few weeks alternating between rage, depression, and satisfaction while travelling constantly in the wilderness before his master and his pokemon were finally able to calm him down. Once he was calm enough, Master Anderson finally deemed him stable enough to re-enter city life. It was there in Anistar City where he had his first taste of true hardship and poverty as he was forced into thievery to make a living and eat despite his master’s protests. The first thing he had ever stolen was a feather from a noble to pay for some bread, earning him the nickname Voleur de Plume amongst the populace.
Thieving, his master could deal with even though he was uncomfortable with it. However, when his protégé progressed into murder on after a little over a year of staying in Anistar, he was forced to realize that maybe his protégé still had problems in his psyche and wasn’t actually ready for civilization yet. With that in mind, he dragged his protesting protégé back out to the wilderness to train him and have him heal in isolation while avoiding the increasingly-suspicious authorities.
Franz, Master Anderson, and their pokemon then spend the next two years in the wilderness. Master Anderson used that time to impart his student with everything he knew about Aura and being an Aura Guardian. During that time, Franz befriended a Larvitar he named Gojira and a Zorua that he named Morgan while his Froakie finally evolved into a Frogadier. It was there that he learned to smile and have fun again after seeing David murdered in front of his very eyes and then pretty much committing into becoming a mass murderer right after killing LeClaire.
Unfortunately, like his other periods of happiness and contentment, it was not meant to last. Franz and Master Anderson managed to run afoul of a horde of angry Gyarados and Steelix and barely escaped with their lives. However, Richard the Lucario wasn’t nearly as lucky and died defending his master. Franz, being in better shape than his battered master, prepared the Lucario for burial while caring for him. Fortune was not smiling at him on that day as his master passed away a few hours after his Lucario did, leaving him and his pokemon truly alone for the first time in years.
Franz did not let himself grieve for them until he had dragged their bodies to the same cemetery where his family was buried, preserving their bodies via ice from his Sneasel. Before he had them buried though, he was paralyzed with shock when he saw his own grave with that of his parents. It was then and there that he realized that the world thinks him dead, and from the date on the gravestone it was due to the very fire he started. He had no idea who was actually buried at his grave, but in the end he decided that he shouldn’t think about it or else he might go crazy. Instead, he stared at his own grave in a sort of horrified trance until he came into a realization where he had to live for everyone who had died before him.
More importantly though, he realized that his past was truly dead and gone, buried and soon to be forgotten in the annals of time. He couldn’t be Francisco Colleano anymore despite how much he wanted to go back to the past where happier times laid. So when he buried his master and his master’s Lucario in graves beside his family’s, he also buried Francisco Colleano.
That boy was dead. In his place… only Miguel remained.
With nothing but his pokemon to his name, the newly re-christened Miguel went to the nearest city and registered as a trainer. He got dirty and pitying looks for being a dirty, messy-looking thing with no last name but he didn’t give a damn. Instead, he started to look for work since he promised his master that he would try to go on the straight and narrow.
Unfortunately, he was woefully unprepared for city life in poverty. No one was willing to hire a one-name vagrant with only pokemon to his name, forcing him back to petty crime to make a living. This time though, he spent a year travelling from city to city, wowing people with magic tricks while conning and stealing from them, using Aura to make sure that he couldn’t be tracked or fooled.
One of his victims just so happened to be a Don. Specifically, Don Felix Hidalgo, head of a large energy business in Kalos. The old man was impressed that such a young man was able to trick him and had him be caught by his guards. Miguel took offense to this and tried to escape, only to be stopped by an offer from the old man to adopt him of all things so that he could become a bodyguard to his heir Eduardo Hidalgo. This was the first time that someone actually offered him a legit job –and with the bonus of being adopted no less- so he quickly agreed and became Miguel Alejandro Hidalgo, adopted son of Don Felix Hidalgo.
Don Felix Hidalgo wasted no time in indoctrinating the boy in the ins and outs of upper-class society with the help of his two sons Eduardo and Maximo, all the while using him to encourage his boys to excel instead of just be satisfied with how things currently are. They were the ones who impressed the importance of appearance and first impressions in society, as well as the need for manipulation and trickery in order to stay on top. They even taught him their own family’s language as well as the most important business language in the world. Not only that, but they also gave him a pokemon to solidify their ties, namely a Pawniard, a Pancham, and a Houndour.
With their guiding hand, Miguel slowly changed into a sharp and dangerous businessman, the ultimate tool against their enemies. And ultimately, the instrument of their downfall.
After two years, Miguel grew dissatisfied with being just a mere bodyguard and adviser to Eduardo. They were not ruthless and visionary enough for him, so he decided that he had to take over himself. To do that, they would all have to die, starting with the least important one – Maximo. He plotted for a year on how to kill the guy while still maintaining his façade.
After that year, he took in a scarred, battered woman named Miyu Sergius who had just killed a man when he had found her. He taught her the ways of the Hidalgo and his own and made her utterly loyal to him. In that same year, he donned a disguise and murdered Maximo with Miyu as his accomplice to make sure that there were no traces to his deed. After that, he ran around in his disguise around Kalos and became known as Grim or Le Capuchon, striking fear into the hearts of many.
Predictably, the Hidalgos went into a panic at the loss of one of their own. Miguel promised to investigate into the matter and kill the one responsible. He then has a decoy killer confess then killed, satisfying the Hidalgos with the ‘quick justice’ gotten in a few months. He then lulled them into a false sense of security for almost a year after that before killing Eduardo, this time with Miyu’s active participation and a different method so it would look like a different killer.
Don Felix Hidalgo became depressed and furious at the loss of his heir and ordered Miguel to bring him the head of the killer. Once again, he had another decoy confess before murdering him then bringing the head to Don Hidalgo. Not trusting his relatives with the business, he then names Miguel as his heir and gives him a security detail. This made Miguel unable to act until he was able to find a way around the surveillance and security, which took another year.
After that year, he made his move and got Don Hidalgo alone in his villa, wherein he killed him as Grim. Killing him allowed him to take over the business as Miguel Hidalgo officially, enabling him to elevate the business into new levels that his predecessor would have wished. He established himself as the head of the company with Miyu as his personal assistant/accomplice, but it didn’t take long for him to start aiming higher.
With a new goal in mind, he decided to expand the business to Orre and then apply for the open Dark Gym Co-Leader position. He managed to pass, becoming the co-leader in the Takhi gym. He then managed to establish a foothold in Orre, with plans to further expand amongst other things.
Two years after that fact, Miguel is still the reclusive Dark Co-leader of Takhi, but now his energy business was booming in Orre. It was almost time to make his next move….
OTHER INFORMATION
Fully-realized Aura user (Thank you Sera Werner for letting me borrow this~)
Capabilities of Aura Wikipedia - Aura has also been described as a map of the thoughts and feelings surrounding a person. Ability to sense other Auras – The range of this ability is dependent on the amount of focus he puts in. The longer the range, the more focus he needs. The range he is most comfortable with is 175 meters because he has learned to use that often, but he can lengthen the range to 250 meters if absolutely necessary. However, even with his current skill he can only maintain the maximum for two hours at most before he needs to rest or else it would start to harm him. Ability to "sense" other Auras even while blinded. – In fact, for Miguel his ability to sense Auras is actually heightened when he is blinded whether it be voluntary or not, courtesy of his master’s training. His range doubles when not using his sight as he diverts more focus and energy to his aura-sensing by default, but he has to be more careful because he can’t see ghosts and non-sentient objects and can easily crash into something. The Aura of a specific person can be tracked down as long as he has a piece of the Aura to track - As long as the person has recently come in contact with it, Miguel can track them down. The amount of focus required to keep tracking it is directly proportional to the amount of time that has passed since the person has come in contact with it. If it’s been within an hour, then he needs almost no effort to track him down but if it’s been over a week or two then he has to focus considerably to keep tracking him. Ability to read minds and actions of another being – He can read the thoughts and actions of any living being, may they be a person or a pokemon. He has to exert effort in actually sensing the Aura, with how much being dependent on distance and number. The farther they are, the more effort he has to exert in reading their minds and actions. The same also holds true for the number, with more needing more effort. However, he has to be careful when reading multiple people because it will cause side-effects to trigger if he reads too many people or if he does it for too long. ( Reading of PCs will only be done with permission of the roleplayer and will be discussed accordingly before use) Ability to see the Auras of others – With a little focus, he can open his mind’s eye and see the Auras of others. The ability to read the minds, actions, and intents of another being are clearest when he is actually seeing the Aura and not just sensing it. He’s practiced enough with the ability to be unable to misinterpret what he was reading. This particular ability is limited by the range of his senses. Aura colors – The tints and shades of an Aura denotes the subject’s current intent. Tints (lighter colors) are associated with positive intent while shades (darker colors) represent negative intent. The intensity of the tint or shade corresponds with how strong the intent is. There are varying shades of tint and shade with Aura, but one devoid of either tint of shade is associated with neutral or no intent. Aura is the same as sound, it can be interrupted by anything that cuts the airspace. Because of the very nature of this ability, Aura cannot be used to sense or read Ghost-type pokemon and spirits of the dead - Ghosts don’t have life energy after all since they’re technically dead.
Aura Causes - Taken from Wikipedia Auras appear gradually over a number of minutes and generally last fewer than 60 minutes. Vision disturbances – They are the most frequent side-effect, occurring in up to 99% of the cases. These often consist of a scintillating scotoma (an area of partial alteration in the field of vision which flickers and may interfere with a person's ability to read or drive.) and typically start near the center of vision then spread out to the sides with zigzagging lines which have been described as looking like fortifications or walls of a castle. Usually the lines are in black and white but some people also see colored lines. Some people lose part of their field of vision (hemianopsia) while others experience blurring. Sensory aurae – These occur in 30-40% of people with auras and are the second most common type. This often starts with a feeling of pins-and-needles on one side in the hand and arm and spreads to the nose-mouth area on the same side. Numbness usually occurs after the tingling has passed with a loss of position sense. Silent headaches - It is difficult to assess the frequency of such cases because patients who do not experience symptoms severe enough to drive them to seek treatment. They may not realise that anything special is happening to them and pass it off without reporting anything. Cortical spreading depression – Also referred to as spreading depression by Leão, this are bursts of neuronal activity followed by a period of inactivity, which is seen in those with migraines with an aura. After the burst of activity, the blood flow to the cerebral cortex in the affected area lowers for two to six hours. It is believed that when depolarization travels down the underside of the brain, nerves that sense pain in the head and neck are triggered. There are a number of explanations for its occurrence including activation of NMDA receptors leading to calcium entering the cell.
Aura Triggers Focus – All of his abilities require at least the bare minimum of focus to activate and keep up. For him, it isn’t always on. However, focusing too much and/or too long can trigger any of the side-effects and powering his way through it will only worsen them. Emotions – Anger can sharpen his perception of Auras, but at the price of accelerating the onset and intensity of the side-effects. His master has warned him against using that as a focus and he is no fan of the price he has to pay, so prefers to be calm when using it. Touch – He is able to sense and see Auras best when he is in contact with the subject in question, mainly due to Aura’s nature as a wave. However, his range is cut in half when he is touching someone to sense their Aura. His range lowers even more the more beings he is in contact with to sense their Auras. However, he has to take caution not to use it on more than five beings at once or he will immediately start experiencing side-effects. It is also important to note that he needs to touch the object in question when tracking down other beings. Vision – While optional for sensing Auras, it is necessary if he wants to see them and fully ascertain their actions and intent. He must be careful to avoid using it while in large crowds lest he risk sensory overload, which in turn leads to vision disturbances. The more people there are, the more severe the side-effects will be.
As a former member for the circus from birth till he was sixteen, he has developed the skills to become an accomplished acrobat and tightwire walker. Training under the old man and living in both the wilderness and the streets for a few years afterwards along with learning parkour has honed his skills even more into a fine edge and made him extremely mobile.
His time at the circus and in the streets have made him learn to be a magician who likes using card and fire tricks, though he prefers street magician tricks over the elaborate acts done by professionals. His favourite ‘trick’ happens to be throwing playing cards like throwing knives or shuriken to deadly effect, though this one isn’t an illusion or a trick and is very real, being the product of pure arm force.
He was raised to speak Romanian and French from birth, never having a need to learn English due to living in Kalos for most of his early life. However, he was forced to learn English and Spanish when he was taken in by Don Hidalgo as part of his education in order to make him more useful. All things considered, he speaks them well for someone who has only learned to use it in adulthood.
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After creating your PC, add your PC and Profile to your Mini-Profile by following the steps below Click on Profile either at the top of the page beside "Home" or click on your Name right above your Avatar. Go to Edit Profile Click on Personal Scroll down and under signature you will find Profile and PC You can fill these area's in using [url= ]Text[/url] All that we ask is to Keep the Text short
Post by Miguel Hidalgo on Jan 20, 2015 0:57:09 GMT -5
MIGUEL HIDALGO
BASICS
Name: Miguel Alejandro Hidalgo Alias:Francisco Colleano, Grim Nicknames:Franz, Jeune Gitan, Le Capuchon, Voleur de Plume Age: 27 Gender: Male Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
Miguel is a man slightly above average height for adult men at 6’2”. He makes himself look just slender and fit with his clothing, but underneath his clothes is a very muscular gymnast’s body born from a life of acrobatics and circus performances, the latter of which turned into survival in cities and the wilderness in later years. Accompanying that ripped body are very calloused hands and feet, which were from his hard life in the streets and in the circus. Also hidden by his clothes are raven wing tattoos on his back which he had gotten during his circus days that the public never knew about and multiple massive scars on his chest and arms. The one on his chest and the upper arm from LeClaire and the one on the lower arm is from a Steelix, though he makes up stories for their origins to his one-night-stands and to his friends.
He has long wavy hair that is unruly and extremely difficult to style without a lot of gel, much to his dismay. He only runs a comb through his hair, gels it and then ties it up unless he really needs to style it for some reason. It still matches his sharp, handsome features and his expressive golden eyes anyway so no one minds much.
Miguel has an obsession with suits and Victorian-style clothing. They are his preferred normal wardrobe and as such he is very rarely seen without one. He is usually seen in a lounge suit if he has to attend to business meetings and fancy, formal Victorian-style clothing when he’s not in work. He prefers his lounge suits to be of English cut, though he’ll wear Italian cuts on occasion. As for his Victorian-style clothing, he has a lot but his favourite is that of a white collared shirt with buckles, a white cravat, black pants, black coat, and black pointed boots.
He usually has signature accessories to along with these clothes. The most apparent one is a hat, which is most often black to match with his black clothes. However, he does have other colors and styles of hats in order to match his clothes for the day because he wasn’t about to give up style for sentimentality in that aspect. Along with his hat, he usually has a pair of gloves on. The color of these gloves varies with his clothes, but they are most often white or black. The one he wears most often though is a pair of gold earrings that is on at all times unless he absolutely has to remove it. Yes, he wears it even while sleeping.
When visiting the graves of his parents and mentor though, he adopts a different set of clothing. He thinks that suits are for happy occasions and he doesn’t dare wear his signature Victorian-style look because he doesn’t want to be recognized while visiting the graves, so instead he wears far more casual clothing. Namely, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a dark hoodie, gloves, loose jogging pants, and rubber shoes.
As Grim, he has an entirely different wardrobe in order to separate himself from that identity. His usual outfit consists of a dark blue short-sleeved hooded jacket with gray accents and lighter gray metal pieces, a special long-sleeved white shirt underneath that extends up to his fingers, fingerless gloves in the same color as the jacket and have metal studs on the knuckles, gray armguards, a simple belt, and flexible dark blue pants with armor in strategic places. He usually wears this with a simple skull mask with yellow lenses and a black skin-tight mask underneath, the former of which covers most of his head and the latter of which covers the entirety of his head and neck.
Unusually, his usual outfit is not Le Capuchon’s iconic outfit. That honor belongs to his alternate outfit, which he only brings out when he wants attention. Why? Because this ensemble consists of a white hooded cloak that is yellow inside, a black spandex costume with yellow parts on his lower forearms and yellow window on the upper center part of his chest that is angular and bordered with white, white boots and gloves, white underpants, and a utility belt. While he still wears a black skin-tight mask underneath, he uses a far more realistic skull mask for this costume to inspire fear.
[/b], polite, and altruistic businessman. He always goes out of his way to greet people on the street and do nice things to friends and strangers alike even when there seems to be nothing he could gain from it. He’s naturally charismatic and friendly as well, though he has this unfortunate tendency of being too curious about things for his own good. Sometimes to the point of being nosy, even.
However, he is far from the perfect gentleman. He is in fact very, very far from the idea. He has a lot of strange habits and other eccentricities that he isn’t afraid to show to other people like making up words, asking for high fives and variations of it that only he and very few other people have ever heard of, making up complex plans to do things even if the solution for it is simple, making up strange competitions and games just because he can or because he was inspired by something, and his propensity for learning and showing magic tricks to friends and sometimes to strangers. In fact, these eccentricities and his gung-ho, committed attitude to challenges actually make him kind of a dork, not that he ever realizes it. A suave dork, but a dork nonetheless.
It does not help that he is an unrepentant pervert who loves to leer at and flirt with hot girls unless it was absolutely imperative that he focus on something else. Not only is he a pervert, but he is a womanizer through and through, preferring to have one night stands with various women instead of relationships. In fact, he seems to revel in the stereotype of a rich, vain playboy despite his manners. However, all of this is due to his fear of commitment that stems from losing most of the people important to him in his life and being betrayed by most of the few that remained.
Ironically though, for a guy who is afraid of commitment he is actually quite possessive of what he does have. This extends mostly to his pokemon, his acquired station in life, and one certain person. He will freely admit to the first two but trying to make him admit to the third is like trying to make a Numel go through the eye of a needle. He’s partially in denial and partially unaware of his behaviour regarding that one person and tends to come across as somewhat hypocritical about her and his own behaviour because of it.
While he is a nice guy with a lot of eccentricities, he is still a businessman at his core. Like most powerful and successful businessmen, he is greedy, opportunistic, and ambitious. He just hides it better under a veneer of charm and kindness. He won’t hesitate to stoop down to doing nasty things as long as he knows that he can get away with it. Actually, sometimes even if he knows that he can’t get away scot-free he would still stoop to those heinous acts anyway if he finds enough reason to do so.
If there were some people who were born to kill, Miguel would be one of them. Despite his upbringing under different people that had never encouraged this type of behaviour, he has gained violent and bloodthirsty tendencies by the time before he had made his first kill. Though he would never admit it, these came about as an extension for his constant search for that adrenaline rush that gets his heart pumping. Along with these, he has also gained a bit of pyromania due to his experiences with fire, with it being both the very thing that robbed him of his family and the main instrument of his first vengeance. Despite being a Dark-type user, he fully believes that fire is the element of power and power is one of the things that he wants.
Even before he had gained the violent behaviour that necessitated it, Miguel already had secretive tendencies. He never likes revealing anything more than necessary to anyone, including those who are closest to him. This bleeds over into his manipulative streak, wherein his preferred method of manipulation is by giving bits and pieces of information to yank people’s chains and make them dance to his tune. However, he is familiar with other methods of manipulation and changes up according to the need of the situation and sometimes his whims.
Ambitions: Whenever asked, he’ll say that his goal is to see and observe every single kind of Dark-type pokemon there is, whether they be common fare or of the more fantastic variety. Not just that, but catch and train the best Dark-type team he can and make them enough of a force to be reckoned with to reach Elite Four status.
Very few people know that he has much higher aspirations than that. He wants to expand his businesses and make himself more powerful as well as expand his influence. He wants to see how far he can go and how much he can control, even entertaining notions of controlling entire regions, perhaps even the world if he can.
What he hasn’t told anyone is that he wants to find other human Aura users, mostly to see if they were all similar or if they had different manifestations of power like with psychics but also because some part of him wanted to be around similar people despite the risks. To that end, he also wants to acquire a Riolu and other pokemon who can utilize Aura as well to test his theory. In truth, though he would never admit it, his other reason for wanting a Riolu is because he wants to emulate his late master. [/div][/PTab={tab-color:#E3E3E3;tab-background-color:#FFFFFF;tab-border-width:1px;tab-border-style:solid;tab-border-color:#e3e3e3;tab-alignment:left;;tab-font-size:10px;tab-font-family:tahoma;tab-letter-spacing:1px;tab-text-transform:uppercase;tab-hover-background-color:#eaeaea;tab-hover-color:#ffffff;tab-selected-background-color:#19c9e6;tab-selected-color:#ffffff;}]
[PTab=HISTORY]
[attr="class","cafappscr"]Miguel Hidalgo hasn’t always been a Gym Leader and a successful entrepreneur, which isn’t the most mind-boggling thing in the world. However, most people would be thrown for a loop if they ever find out that his name hasn’t always been Miguel Hidalgo either.
Born Francisco Colleano and the fifth child to a loving family of circus performers, being a Gym Leader or an entrepreneur was the farthest thing from his mind. Instead, his dreams were filled with fantasies of following after or even being able to surpass his parents, who were like invincible gods who could do anything in and out of the ring. It was hard to think otherwise when they walked and performed death-defying feats on thin wires and balanced themselves on various objects with a single finger while other adults struggled to do push-ups with both hands on the ground.
Besides, most little boys would be thrilled to be part of the circus life since birth. Francisco, or Franz as he was affectionately nicknamed by his parents, was no different. He was enthralled by all of the awe-striking aspects of circus life, from meeting people and pokemon from all walks of life to getting a free pass to watch the circus act every night. It was almost like having the biggest and liveliest party ever going on everyday in young Franz’ eyes, only much smellier and cruder.
However, being exposed to too much of the extraordinary tends to make things lose their luster after a while. Having the prerequisite attention span of a child did not help matters and actually practicing the beginning of the stunts that he would one day do alongside his family only made it worse. It didn’t take long for breathtaking and heart-stopping acts to become nothing more than a normal everyday occurrence. Being the curious sort, it didn’t take long for him and his few young friends to start sneaking out of the circus during performances since they weren’t needed during the show. Sometimes their parents caught them and reprimanded them for it. However, it was fine for the other adults in the circus as long as they don’t get left behind when they pack up and move on to a new location, so they didn’t stop.
It was during one of those times that he snuck off away from the circus with his friends that they encountered a strange old man and a Lucario living in small shanty a few alleyways from the circus tent. As a curious and mischievous boy of 8, he and the others tried to bug the old man from his strange sleeping position that looked like sitting. He didn’t notice the others though, and only opened his eyes to stare at him with the most piercing and unnerving gaze he’d ever seen in his young life.
That was enough to bore the others and made them leave the old man alone, but not young Franz. He started to visit the strange old man everyday during performances and after practices, trying to make him do more than stare at him. Sometimes he even brought food with him, though he was never sure if the man ate it or if he just gave it to the Lucario who was seated beside him, always giving him a curious gaze. The old man and his Lucario never did do anything but stare at him while seated for the rest of the circus’ stay in the city, so in frustration he copied their position and just stared at them back a few days in.
Still, the old man hadn’t cracked by the time that his family was packing up and leaving to go to the next city, so he finally gave it up as a lost cause and decided to forget about the old man and his Lucario. So imagine his surprise when the old man and his Lucario walked up to him one night when he was sneaking around during a performance in the new town that the circus had set up shop in and actually talked and generally acted like living creatures instead of statues. The old man introduced himself as Michael Anderson and his Lucario as Richard, then started to tell him about Aura while intentionally misremembering his name as Miguel because according to him he looked more like a Miguel than a Francisco or a Franz.
Franz wasn’t willing to believe the old guy at first but after having the existence of Aura proven to him and having his very first experience using his own Aura by detecting that of the old man’s by concentrating really hard for an hour, he finally believed him. Being the curious little boy that he was, he wanted to know more about Aura and old man Anderson decided to oblige him by taking him on as a student as long as the boy kept him fed like he did in the last town. It sounded easy enough so the young boy said yes.
He was wrong about it being easy. Between his new master, his training at the circus, and being a kid with his other siblings and his friends, it was hard to balance everything without going crazy. It did have the effect of making him calmer and more withdrawn than a kid of his age would be. That made his siblings suspicious, but they didn’t question it since they were also busy and having less of a spitfire to deal with could only be a boon. His parents and the other people at the circus wondered the same things, but they came to the same conclusion as well.
However, he managed to figure out how to balance his schedule with the help of Master Anderson, enabling him to live an awesome life for three years. When he had turned eleven though, things started to fall apart. His parents found out about his hobo of a master and started an argument with him about it during one of their stops in the wilderness before reaching a town. If that wasn’t bad enough, during the climax of the argument one of his siblings run into their room in the tent, half-burned and screaming about a fire that was consuming the entire circus and how it was spreading so far and so fast while wondering why they locked the door like lunatics.
The attention quickly shifted from fighting to trying to escape the fire. They tried to get out of the room with the half-burned sibling, only to find themselves trapped. Their only avenue of escape was through one of the wires holding the large tent up. If they had been anything but tightwire walkers, they would have resigned themselves to death. However, since they were tightwire walkers, they all decided to go out through the wire by climbing up onto the flaming tent’s roof and then walking along the line. They decided to have young Franz go first since he was the youngest and the lightest. Despite his inexperience and the fact that he’s never dealt with highwires before, he managed to scrounge up the adrenaline and confidence to cross the wire despite the smoke he had already inhaled while looking for a way out earlier and the panic he could feel. Right after crossed the wire, he started cheering on his burned sibling as he started to cross the wire too. It was the very last thing he could remember before the world turned black.
When he woke up again, he was surprised to see that he was in a bed of all things instead of lying in the dirt like he expected. He also did not expect Anthony LeClaire, head of the one of the rival circuses of his family - the Cirque Plume – to be sitting by his bedside looking at him in what looked like concern. His surprise turned into horror when LeClaire told him that he was the only survivor from his circus. Refusing to believe it, he ran out of the place he was being held in despite protests from his head to where the tent was… only to see the charred remains of people, pokemon, and the tent itself before his eyes, being pecked on by Mandibuzz and Honchkrow with a few Murkrow looking on.
The sight was forever tattooed in his mind as he had fallen to knees that day. He didn’t know how long he had kneeled or when his sight had gotten blurry with tears, but he could remember the overwhelming grief, the burning in his lungs, and the sensation of sharp talons digging into shoulder. He had cried himself to sleep that day, uncaring of the fact that he had run out of tears by the time that LeClaire had a couple of his lackeys drag his unresisting form back to rest.
He thought that nothing could approach the pain that he had felt that day. He was quickly proven wrong when he had arranged and held a mass funeral for everyone that had died in the fire with the help of LeClaire, which hurt almost as much since he had constant reminders of their death as well as a reminder of the fact that he hadn’t seen his master since before the fire. The only upside to that time was that he had a certain annoying Murkrow that distracted him from becoming too depressed with her antics while never straying far away from him. He had no idea why the bird was sticking around, but he didn’t want to question it because it was the only thing he was comfortable with in the new situation he found himself in.
After the funerals, LeClaire offered him a spot within his circus since he didn’t want a kid on the streets. Having nothing else to lose, Franz accepted as long as he could take the strange friendly Murkrow he named Ravenna with him. That was the start of the great Franz Colleano, the last of the Colleano wirewalkers, dancer of the wire, matador of the wire, the most daring boy in the circus, and the star of the Cirque Plume.
For four years, he trained hard and worked with the people in Cirque Plume in order to pay back the debt he owed LeClaire for taking him in, travelling around the world and performing shows with them. He tried his best to mingle with them, but they were aloof with him for the most part since they thought that the vagrant orphan was trying to steal their thunder. He only managed to make friends with their resident magician David Williams, who taught him how to throw things properly and showed him a lot of the tricks of the trade. In fact, he had gotten so good at it that he became the guy’s assistant when not doing his wire acts and even incorporated a little magic into the acts as well as flips, somersaults, dancing, and even matador antics. He managed to do this by practicing everyday and reading the remainder of his parents’ and siblings’ journals for tips.
It was during this time that he discovered that he had developed a fear of large fires. The few psychologists that LeClaire and David managed to take him to told him that it was because of the loss he had suffered from the fire. He tried to deal with it the hard way, but that just left with him even more afraid so Williams, being the good friend that he was, just decided to get him a water pokemon to avoid the issue. This water pokemon was a shiny Froakie that he named Sub Zero on a whim.
However, what really helped keep him calm and out of depression for the most part during those four years was what his missing master Anderson taught him during their time together. He meditated and practiced his Aura skills in secret constantly, distracting himself from the memories and the pain and satisfying himself with watching others when not practicing his tightwire act. In fact, due to the meditation and constant practice he was also able to do the tricks that his mom was famous for, namely the one-finger handstand on objects like poles and balls.
He was content –almost happy even- with this niche he had carved out for himself in Cirque Plume. It was inevitable that it would come to an end, which it did in the form of a battle-worn Lucario appearing to him one night when he decided to roam by himself. At this point he had decent capabilities with Aura, so he was able to sense that this one was extremely familiar. Thus, he chased after the blue jackal until he led him to an older, scruffier but still recognizable Michael Anderson. He even checked the guy’s Aura to be sure, but it was the old man calling him Miguel that was the clincher.
He then questioned –more like demanded to know- where his master had been these past four years when he had needed him. He did not expect to hear that his master and the Lucario had been battling LeClaire’s henchmen and allies for years in order to reach him and tell him the truth – that LeClaire had orchestrated everything that had happened the night of the fire. In fact, LeClaire had originally intended to kill them all but found a better use for him by painting himself as the hero who saved the last of his rival circus out of the good of his heart through raising him and fostering him as his new star.
Franz, understandably, refused to believe such outrageous claims. His master Anderson simply advised him to use the power he had taught him to sift the truth from the lies and then come back to him to see he was lying. He did just that the next day by asking LeClaire about the day of the fire and about his family while watching his boss’ aura.
That talk was enough to make him come back to his master with his pokemon in tow, contrite and depressed about the shattering truth – LeClaire really had murdered his family and his extended family –the circus- though he didn’t know why. His master advised him to run away with him and leave, but Franz knew that LeClaire would just chase after him if he tried so he told him that he would figure out how to deal with LeClaire on his own and for his master to trust him. His master allowed it as long as he was to resume training under him again, which he readily agreed to.
After that talk, Franz tried to see what allies he could gather to his side before working out a plan. Unfortunately for him, he only managed to get his sole friend David on his side as the rest were firmly loyal to LeClaire. Even with that problem, he still worked with it by getting himself one more pokemon as an accomplice – a Sneasel he named Knives – while David got a couple more accomplices himself. They then spent that year clearing out the air between them and plotting the downfall of the corrupt Cirque Plume.
After that one year, they set the plan into motion. While travelling in the badlands of Kalos, Franz and David drugged the other people in the circus and set up the explosives and the gasoline. After that, they then had a chat with LeClaire in his office. At first they were friendly as they made small talk before veering into dangerous accusatory territory. LeClaire got angry at the accusations and tried to prove his innocence, only for Franz to finally drop the bomb and tell him that he knew that he was responsible for the death of his family and his extended family. LeClaire tried to attack him himself with a knife, only for Franz to start dodging and fighting back.
Franz wasn’t good at fighting though, so LeClaire managed to corner him really fast due to his experience and superior strength and reach. However, before he was able to deal a deathblow to Franz, David blocked the fatal blow with his own body, being fatally wounded in the process. Seeing that caused something to snap in Franz, making him take out the cards that he had been playing with earlier and throw them like he did with his magic tricks, only with lethal force. He managed to snag both of LeClaire’s eyes, blinding him and then throwing a third card that sunk into the guy’s jugular, making a lot of blood spurt out and start to choke him.
As much as he wanted to freeze and think about the fact that he had just taken a life with freaking playing cards, David quickly pulled his attention away and told him that he had to finish it for them all while the old man was still choking on his blood. He wanted to bring David to a doctor instead, but the guy already knew it was too late for him and asked him to finish the job anyway. This was to be his atonement for his sins with LeClaire and his circus. With that last request, Franz did as the older man told and went with the plan, getting out of the circus and triggering the explosives. The circus was set aflame in an eerily-familiar way, but this time he felt no fear from the fire anymore.
Instead, he laughed long and hard as the fires raged. He didn’t know when the laughter gave way to tears or when he started kneeling on the ground with his pokemon looking at him in concern, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about much at all as his master found him and pulled him away from the burning wreckage that was the circus, making sure to remove as much of their trail as possible.
He spent a few weeks alternating between rage, depression, and satisfaction while travelling constantly in the wilderness before his master and his pokemon were finally able to calm him down. Once he was calm enough, Master Anderson finally deemed him stable enough to re-enter city life. It was there in Anistar City where he had his first taste of true hardship and poverty as he was forced into thievery to make a living and eat despite his master’s protests. The first thing he had ever stolen was a feather from a noble to pay for some bread, earning him the nickname Voleur de Plume amongst the populace.
Thieving, his master could deal with even though he was uncomfortable with it. However, when his protégé progressed into murder on after a little over a year of staying in Anistar, he was forced to realize that maybe his protégé still had problems in his psyche and wasn’t actually ready for civilization yet. With that in mind, he dragged his protesting protégé back out to the wilderness to train him and have him heal in isolation while avoiding the increasingly-suspicious authorities.
Franz, Master Anderson, and their pokemon then spend the next two years in the wilderness. Master Anderson used that time to impart his student with everything he knew about Aura and being an Aura Guardian. During that time, Franz befriended a Larvitar he named Gojira and a Zorua that he named Morgan while his Froakie finally evolved into a Frogadier. It was there that he learned to smile and have fun again after seeing David murdered in front of his very eyes and then pretty much committing into becoming a mass murderer right after killing LeClaire.
Unfortunately, like his other periods of happiness and contentment, it was not meant to last. Franz and Master Anderson managed to run afoul of a horde of angry Gyarados and Steelix and barely escaped with their lives. However, Richard the Lucario wasn’t nearly as lucky and died defending his master. Franz, being in better shape than his battered master, prepared the Lucario for burial while caring for him. Fortune was not smiling at him on that day as his master passed away a few hours after his Lucario did, leaving him and his pokemon truly alone for the first time in years.
Franz did not let himself grieve for them until he had dragged their bodies to the same cemetery where his family was buried, preserving their bodies via ice from his Sneasel. Before he had them buried though, he was paralyzed with shock when he saw his own grave with that of his parents. It was then and there that he realized that the world thinks him dead, and from the date on the gravestone it was due to the very fire he started. He had no idea who was actually buried at his grave, but in the end he decided that he shouldn’t think about it or else he might go crazy. Instead, he stared at his own grave in a sort of horrified trance until he came into a realization where he had to live for everyone who had died before him.
More importantly though, he realized that his past was truly dead and gone, buried and soon to be forgotten in the annals of time. He couldn’t be Francisco Colleano anymore despite how much he wanted to go back to the past where happier times laid. So when he buried his master and his master’s Lucario in graves beside his family’s, he also buried Francisco Colleano.
That boy was dead. In his place… only Miguel remained.
With nothing but his pokemon to his name, the newly re-christened Miguel went to the nearest city and registered as a trainer. He got dirty and pitying looks for being a dirty, messy-looking thing with no last name but he didn’t give a damn. Instead, he started to look for work since he promised his master that he would try to go on the straight and narrow.
Unfortunately, he was woefully unprepared for city life in poverty. No one was willing to hire a one-name vagrant with only pokemon to his name, forcing him back to petty crime to make a living. This time though, he spent a year travelling from city to city, wowing people with magic tricks while conning and stealing from them, using Aura to make sure that he couldn’t be tracked or fooled.
One of his victims just so happened to be a Don. Specifically, Don Felix Hidalgo, head of a large energy business in Kalos. The old man was impressed that such a young man was able to trick him and had him be caught by his guards. Miguel took offense to this and tried to escape, only to be stopped by an offer from the old man to adopt him of all things so that he could become a bodyguard to his heir Eduardo Hidalgo. This was the first time that someone actually offered him a legit job –and with the bonus of being adopted no less- so he quickly agreed and became Miguel Alejandro Hidalgo, adopted son of Don Felix Hidalgo.
Don Felix Hidalgo wasted no time in indoctrinating the boy in the ins and outs of upper-class society with the help of his two sons Eduardo and Maximo, all the while using him to encourage his boys to excel instead of just be satisfied with how things currently are. They were the ones who impressed the importance of appearance and first impressions in society, as well as the need for manipulation and trickery in order to stay on top. They even taught him their own family’s language as well as the most important business language in the world. Not only that, but they also gave him a pokemon to solidify their ties, namely a Pawniard, a Pancham, and a Houndour.
With their guiding hand, Miguel slowly changed into a sharp and dangerous businessman, the ultimate tool against their enemies. And ultimately, the instrument of their downfall.
After two years, Miguel grew dissatisfied with being just a mere bodyguard and adviser to Eduardo. They were not ruthless and visionary enough for him, so he decided that he had to take over himself. To do that, they would all have to die, starting with the least important one – Maximo. He plotted for a year on how to kill the guy while still maintaining his façade.
After that year, he took in a scarred, battered woman named Miyu Sergius who had just killed a man when he had found her. He taught her the ways of the Hidalgo and his own and made her utterly loyal to him. In that same year, he donned a disguise and murdered Maximo with Miyu as his accomplice to make sure that there were no traces to his deed. After that, he ran around in his disguise around Kalos and became known as Grim or Le Capuchon, striking fear into the hearts of many.
Predictably, the Hidalgos went into a panic at the loss of one of their own. Miguel promised to investigate into the matter and kill the one responsible. He then has a decoy killer confess then killed, satisfying the Hidalgos with the ‘quick justice’ gotten in a few months. He then lulled them into a false sense of security for almost a year after that before killing Eduardo, this time with Miyu’s active participation and a different method so it would look like a different killer.
Don Felix Hidalgo became depressed and furious at the loss of his heir and ordered Miguel to bring him the head of the killer. Once again, he had another decoy confess before murdering him then bringing the head to Don Hidalgo. Not trusting his relatives with the business, he then names Miguel as his heir and gives him a security detail. This made Miguel unable to act until he was able to find a way around the surveillance and security, which took another year.
After that year, he made his move and got Don Hidalgo alone in his villa, wherein he killed him as Grim. Killing him allowed him to take over the business as Miguel Hidalgo officially, enabling him to elevate the business into new levels that his predecessor would have wished. He established himself as the head of the company with Miyu as his personal assistant/accomplice, but it didn’t take long for him to start aiming higher.
With a new goal in mind, he decided to expand the business to Orre and then apply for the open Dark Gym Co-Leader position. He managed to pass, becoming the co-leader in the Takhi gym. He then managed to establish a foothold in Orre, with plans to further expand amongst other things.
Two years after that fact, Miguel was still the reclusive Dark co-leader of Takhi, but now his energy business was booming in Orre. However, he wasn’t idle during that time as he had been contacted by the League with an offer to become a full-fledged gym leader with his own gym in a new region – Nue. To that end, he hired people to look for the best place to set up his new business headquarters in Nue since he was going to move there.
They found the perfect place near Iceburgh and Mt. Halo, so Miguel decided to move there after finishing up business in Orre and Kalos. However, his timeline was delayed by several weeks when a budding team in Kalos named Luxury hired his alter ego as a mercenary to help capture Hotel Richissime in Luminose City and extort huge amounts of money and pokemon from the government in charge of the area. While the team failed miserably, Miguel found some very interesting individuals that he wanted on his side….
Pokedex Name: Greninja ALIAS: Sub Zero GENDER: Male ABILITY: Torrent MOVE SET: Extrasensory | Feint Attack | Role Play | Shadow Sneak Shiny Spritz courtesy of Zernebog Romanov
Fully-realized Aura user (Thank you Sera Werner for letting me borrow this~)
Capabilities of Aura Wikipedia - Aura has also been described as a map of the thoughts and feelings surrounding a person.
Ability to sense other Auras – The range of this ability is dependent on the amount of focus he puts in. The longer the range, the more focus he needs. The range he is most comfortable with is 175 meters because he has learned to use that often, but he can lengthen the range to 250 meters if absolutely necessary. However, even with his current skill he can only maintain the maximum for two hours at most before he needs to rest or else it would start to harm him.
Ability to "sense" other Auras even while blinded. – In fact, for Miguel his ability to sense Auras is actually heightened when he is blinded whether it be voluntary or not, courtesy of his master’s training. His range doubles when not using his sight as he diverts more focus and energy to his aura-sensing by default, but he has to be more careful because he can’t see ghosts and non-sentient objects and can easily crash into something.
The Aura of a specific person can be tracked down as long as he has a piece of the Aura to track - As long as the person has recently come in contact with it, Miguel can track them down. The amount of focus required to keep tracking it is directly proportional to the amount of time that has passed since the person has come in contact with it. If it’s been within an hour, then he needs almost no effort to track him down but if it’s been over a week or two then he has to focus considerably to keep tracking him.
Ability to read minds and actions of another being – He can read the thoughts and actions of any living being, may they be a person or a pokemon. He has to exert effort in actually sensing the Aura, with how much being dependent on distance and number. The farther they are, the more effort he has to exert in reading their minds and actions. The same also holds true for the number, with more needing more effort. However, he has to be careful when reading multiple people because it will cause side-effects to trigger if he reads too many people or if he does it for too long. ( Reading of PCs will only be done with permission of the roleplayer and will be discussed accordingly before use)
Ability to see the Auras of others – With a little focus, he can open his mind’s eye and see the Auras of others. The ability to read the minds, actions, and intents of another being are clearest when he is actually seeing the Aura and not just sensing it. He’s practiced enough with the ability to be unable to misinterpret what he was reading. This particular ability is limited by the range of his senses.
Aura colors – The tints and shades of an Aura denotes the subject’s current intent. Tints (lighter colors) are associated with positive intent while shades (darker colors) represent negative intent. The intensity of the tint or shade corresponds with how strong the intent is. There are varying shades of tint and shade with Aura, but one devoid of either tint of shade is associated with neutral or no intent.
Aura is the same as sound, it can be interrupted by anything that cuts the airspace.
Because of the very nature of this ability, Aura cannot be used to sense or read Ghost-type pokemon and spirits of the dead - Ghosts don’t have life energy after all since they’re technically dead.
Aura Causes - Taken from Wikipedia Auras appear gradually over a number of minutes and generally last fewer than 60 minutes.
Vision disturbances – They are the most frequent side-effect, occurring in up to 99% of the cases. These often consist of a scintillating scotoma (an area of partial alteration in the field of vision which flickers and may interfere with a person's ability to read or drive.) and typically start near the center of vision then spread out to the sides with zigzagging lines which have been described as looking like fortifications or walls of a castle. Usually the lines are in black and white but some people also see colored lines. Some people lose part of their field of vision (hemianopsia) while others experience blurring.
Sensory aurae – These occur in 30-40% of people with auras and are the second most common type. This often starts with a feeling of pins-and-needles on one side in the hand and arm and spreads to the nose-mouth area on the same side. Numbness usually occurs after the tingling has passed with a loss of position sense.
Silent headaches - It is difficult to assess the frequency of such cases because patients who do not experience symptoms severe enough to drive them to seek treatment. They may not realise that anything special is happening to them and pass it off without reporting anything.
Cortical spreading depression – Also referred to as spreading depression by Leão, this are bursts of neuronal activity followed by a period of inactivity, which is seen in those with migraines with an aura. After the burst of activity, the blood flow to the cerebral cortex in the affected area lowers for two to six hours. It is believed that when depolarization travels down the underside of the brain, nerves that sense pain in the head and neck are triggered. There are a number of explanations for its occurrence including activation of NMDA receptors leading to calcium entering the cell.
Aura Triggers Focus – All of his abilities require at least the bare minimum of focus to activate and keep up. For him, it isn’t always on. However, focusing too much and/or too long can trigger any of the side-effects and powering his way through it will only worsen them.
Emotions – Anger can sharpen his perception of Auras, but at the price of accelerating the onset and intensity of the side-effects. His master has warned him against using that as a focus and he is no fan of the price he has to pay, so prefers to be calm when using it.
Touch – He is able to sense and see Auras best when he is in contact with the subject in question, mainly due to Aura’s nature as a wave. However, his range is cut in half when he is touching someone to sense their Aura. His range lowers even more the more beings he is in contact with to sense their Auras. However, he has to take caution not to use it on more than five beings at once or he will immediately start experiencing side-effects. It is also important to note that he needs to touch the object in question when tracking down other beings.
Vision – While optional for sensing Auras, it is necessary if he wants to see them and fully ascertain their actions and intent. He must be careful to avoid using it while in large crowds lest he risk sensory overload, which in turn leads to vision disturbances. The more people there are, the more severe the side-effects will be.
As a former member for the circus from birth till he was sixteen, he has developed the skills to become an accomplished acrobat and tightwire walker. Training under the old man and living in both the wilderness and the streets for a few years afterwards along with learning parkour has honed his skills even more into a fine edge and made him extremely mobile.
His time at the circus and in the streets have made him learn to be a magician who likes using card and fire tricks, though he prefers street magician tricks over the elaborate acts done by professionals. His favourite ‘trick’ happens to be throwing playing cards like throwing knives or shuriken to deadly effect, though this one isn’t an illusion or a trick and is very real, being the product of pure arm force.
He was raised to speak Romanian and French from birth, never having a need to learn English due to living in Kalos for most of his early life. However, he was forced to learn English and Spanish when he was taken in by Don Hidalgo as part of his education in order to make him more useful. All things considered, he speaks them well for someone who has only learned to use it in adulthood.
