Application: Hidden by Gods

[honourably]

Mun
Name/Nickname: Fox
Age: Over 18
Current Characters in Game: N/A

Character
Character Name: Angeal Hewley
Canon: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Age: Approx 25-27; no exact age given
Appearance: image here, and with the wings he has at his canon point
Canon Point: Chapter 6, shortly after telling Zack that Hollander and Genesis are at Modeoheim.
History: character wiki page; game wiki page.
AU History: N/A
Personality:

Embrace your dreams. If you want to be a hero you need to have dreams... and honor.

These words of Angeal's typify him, perhaps more than any other line he speaks in Crisis Core. The concepts of dreams, honor, and heroism are of great importance to him, and he lives his life believing in dreams and honor and their importance in all aspects of life, and to all people. He has an extremely strong moral code. Angeal takes his honor as a SOLDIER very seriously, and he's known as the heart of SOLDIER. People admire him, and it's mutual; part of the reason he is given so much respect is because of his great respect for others. He looks for the best in them, tries to expire it. He's a teacher and a mentor. He is loyal to his friends and students both.

Angeal is known a serious person, to the point where people joke about his lectures, but he has his funny moments, and he is far from being humorless. He's seen joking around with Zack, and is said to have been involved in some ridiculous things in his day when spending time with his friends, such as sneaking into the Training Grounds after hours to play games with swords and apples. He tends to be the most sober person in any group, and he is prone to (and known for) giving those "dreams and honor" lectures of his, but he'll gladly play along with silliness and jokes. His wry sense of humor is no secret when it comes to those who know him best. A sense of humor and a playful spirit are traits he enjoys in others, which is part of the reason he and Zack form such a strong bond.

Angeal is a simple man, in some ways. Unlike his comrades, Genesis and Sephiroth, with their more elaborate, individual gear, he wears a standard First Class SOLDIER uniform, with no additional adornments, in spite of the fact that he, like they, can choose to wear anything he likes. He grew up poor, and he places little value in material goods unless they have a strong sentimental meaning. Those possessions he does have are important to him and well cared for. His Buster Sword especially has a great deal of personal significance. His parents borrowed a great deal of money to buy the sword for him when he joined SOLDIER, and his father fell ill and died while overworking himself to pay off that debt. Angeal doesn't use the weapon in battle often, wanting to spare it from wear and tear, usually using a standard SOLDIER sword instead.

As seriously as he takes SOLDIER, and that is very seriously indeed, Angeal is rather well-rounded in his interests. There's much more to him than his work as a warrior and guardian. He enjoys cooking and gardening, and he has an active interest in photography. He takes pictures of the scenery whenever he goes on a mission, and his camera, not his Buster Sword, is his most precious possession, as it was a gift from his mother. He's a great lover of nature and believes that time spent out of doors is good for the spirit. Plants, animals, fresh air, the landscape: all these things are precious to him. The Planet itself is vital to him. As it becomes clear by the end of the game, it's Angeal's love for the Planet and desire to protect everyone and everything who lives upon it that motivated him overall, causing even clones of him to act with that same goal in mind.

As important and laudable as his honor is, it is also a source of some of Angeal's difficulties. When he begins to discover his nature as an experiment, he starts to believe he is no longer honorable or worthy of respect, because of what he's become. He begins to dislike, and even loathe himself for what he is. He considers himself a monster. His SOLDIER pride gives him a stubborn, proud, black and white way of thinking about the matter that wasn't necessarily realistic or fair to himself. That pride, then, became a downfall. His honor also made him remain loyal, in action as well as in spirit, to his old friend Genesis, even at times when Genesis was wrong and Angeal should have stepped in to stop him. Loyalty is a good trait, but unquestioning loyalty can become a flaw. He only realized this mistake later, and then it became yet another thing for him to reproach himself for.

Zack tells Angeal his wings are not the wings of a monster, but those of an angel. But an Angel, Angeal says, dreams of being human. This is what Angeal, the simple man, wants to be. Not some powerful creature who can rule the world, but a human being.

At one point, when initially overcome by the Jenova cells, after manifesting his wings, Angeal's mind is "in a fog", and he is overcome by ideas of revenge and world domination, hallmarks of the Jenova cells. However, his honor and integrity are such that he is able to overcome that way of thinking, proving that his will is immensely strong. He returns, in the end, to being a SOLDIER at heart, and his SOLDIER pride is later proven to be the "Gift of the Goddess". The country boy who loved plants and cooking is ultimately not ruled by the changes that were made to him by others. He manages to remain himself, on his own terms. In this, he proves himself stronger than Genesis and Sephiroth both.

Even though, in the end, he chooses to die and puts Zack in the painful circumstance of being the one to kill him, he does this, too, for the Planet. It's not that he doesn't want to live, but he knows his ability to serve as a "two way genetic conduit" is one that is extremely dangerous and would be used by the world's scientists to do horrible things that would harm everyone. "Thank you," he tells Zack. As hard as it was, and as sorry as he is, he knows that Zack has done a great favor to him as well as all the Planet's inhabitants.

Abilities: Angeal is a genetically enhanced warrior. His strength, speed, and endurance are all far greater than that of the average human. Even among members of SOLDIER, he is one of the very strongest. Though many members of SOLDIER use magic, he rarely does, preferring to fight with his sword or even hand-to-hand.

He has two wings. They are both on the same side of his body, yet he is nonetheless able to fly.

He is a "two way genetic conduit", meaning that he can transfer his own genetic materials onto others, or take on the genetic material of others. However, he would be extremely unlikely to use this power in game, or to want to (particularly as he doesn't currently remember it).

Payment to Yubaba
Memory:
1. His Buster Sword and associated history.
2. The incident in which Genesis was wounded.
3. His defection from SOLDIER.
4. His mother's suicide.
5. The fact that Hollander is his biological father.
6. The power Jenova gives him to serve as a two-way genetic conduit.
7. The reason he has his wings.
8. Genesis' defection from SOLDIER/the Genesis War.
9. Dumbapples and their sentimental significance.
10. His photography hobby, along with the camera his mother gave him.

New Name: Alga

Samples
First Person: sample thread
Third Person:; bonus thread

The sun beat down on his back, warm on his neck as he leaned forward, pressing his spade into the earth over and over, loosening the soil. I should invest in a hat, he told himself. Yes, that was what he needed. A hat with a wide brim to protect him from the sun. It would be a good investment. He'd have to see about that the next time he was paid.

At times, he was so focused on his work, he almost forgot the wings on his back, but then he'd move them without thinking, and he'd see a flash of white in the periphery of his vision and start, before remembering, They're mine. They rose from his side, a mystery, the solution to which hovered somewhere out of reach. He was sure he must have known the answer. Others here didn't arrive with wings new-grown. He felt a faint sense of dread, but pushed it from his mind. No, best not think of it now. It did no good worrying.

He looked down at the earth breaking beneath his spade and smiled. A spade was far from being a sword, but he didn't see this new job as a demotion from SOLDIER. Working the earth was a good, honest occupation. Planting seeds, nourishing new life. What could be better? He need not kill here--that thought brought another strange, uneasy feeling, but he brushed that off as well.

He breathed in deep and closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on the sweet, earthy smell of the air, the feel of the breeze on his face, the sun beating down on his shoulders. He could hear the hum of insects, the calling of birds, the shifting and intermittent calling of the farm animals in their pens, the distant sound of voices and labor from the bathhouse.

Maybe he should have minded it more, working here, the loss of his memories. It wasn't that it didn't bother him at all, but there was an appeal to it, too. The work came naturally to him. His parents, poor as they were, had had a garden when he was a child, and he used to spend many of his afternoons there, weeding and tending to the plants. He knew growing seasons, garden lore. Now, as a SOLDIER, he could work for hours on end, without tiring. He opened his eyes again. He returned to the task at hand. Inch by inch and foot by foot, he broke the soil and made it ready for the seeds. Breathing deep and even. He didn't break a sweat. Almost as if he weren't human.

No, he was. He'd always be human. It was human to work with the soil, to make things grow. Human to doubt like this, to struggle with himself.

When Angeal finally decided to stop, it was almost twilight, the blue sky turning purple at the edges, the yellow light of the sun taking on an almost rosy cast. He straightened, took in another deep breath, and realized he did feel tired. Not physically, but emotionally. Something had drained out of him, something that had nothing to do with his labors in the field.

"Time to go home," he said, aloud. Home. At the word, for a moment, he saw the leafy orchards of Banora, the trees bending to form those distinctive arches he used to run through as a child, laughing, sometimes leaping up to grab a low-hanging apple. There was something about those apples... No, they were only apples. His memory gave them no additional meaning. It was Genesis he was thinking of, Genesis who'd been important. He'd run through the apple trees to meet his friend. Genesis had been waiting for him, standing before his father's house in the early evening. Standing and waving as Angeal ran toward him. Suddenly, he knew what he was feeling. Sadness. Not a great sadness, but a small one that nonetheless weighed on him, made its presence felt, much as the sun had beat down upon him earlier. Unlike the sunlight, there was nothing he could buy to protect him from that sorrow.

He wasn't going home. He was far from the orchards of Banora. "Better get back," he amended his earlier statement. Lifting his spade and resting the handle on his shoulder, he turned to go, his white wings a bright spot in the growing darkness.