Player Name: Gwiggs
Are you 16 or older: Yep!
Contact: McGwiggles or PM this account.
Current Characters: None yet.
Tag: Nico Robin

IN CHARACTER
Name: Nico Robin
Canon: One Piece
Canon Point: Pre-canon, six months after the destruction of Ohara.
Age: 8

History: Link! Please note that only the section "Tragedy of Ohara" is currently applicable.

Personality:

Before the events at Ohara, Robin was a quiet girl who liked to read. The people in her life, generally speaking, weren't kind to her. Her father was dead, her mother was gone, and her aunt was particularly cruel to the young girl, so Robin preferred the world of books to any sort of social interaction that she was offered. The scholars in the Tree of Knowledge, a man named Clover specifically, were kind enough to take her in, and allowed her to check out almost any book she liked. They were very kind to her, and while Robin liked them all very much, she mostly took them up on their offer and spent the majority of her time reading.

Their kindness was, at least in part, due to the fact that her mother had been among their numbers, and had left the island on a secret mission to study the forbidden language of the Poneglyphs - giant stone monoliths that contained unstudied knowledge of their world's history. Such a task was extremely illegal, of course, and so they had to keep their studies a secret, even to Robin. Robin learned a lot history because of the books they lent to her, and gained a passion for archaeology, much like her mother. She learned of their secret studies, and began rigorously studying on her own, intent on passing her archaeologist's exam, in hopes that they would include her in studying the poneglyphs and that, one day, her mother would return to the island and be proud of what she had accomplished on her own. Robin accomplished this task at the age of 8 - a spectacularly impressive accomplishment for one so young, but to Robin's heartbreak, the other scholars would not include her in their studies, out of fear of bringing punishment down upon Robin as well if they were ever caught.

That is, until a Giant washed up on the far shore of Ohara. Robin discovered the shipwrecked man and did what she could to help him (admittedly not much, due to her tiny size compared to him, but he appreciated the effort nonetheless). The Giant, a man by the name of Jaguar D. Saul, received her kindness, and was kind to her in turn. They talked with each other, shared facts about themselves, and became friends in a very short time. Unlike the scholars of Ohara (who were kind and caring toward Robin, but were hardly parental figures), however, Saul saw the pain and the loneliness that Robin felt, and did more than just be kind to the girl: He encouraged her. He could tell that she was a bright kid, and that she was going to accomplish a lot in her life. While the other scholars gave Robin a way to make it through her present on the island, and a passion for the past, it was Saul who gave Robin a hope for her future.

Of course, shortly after meeting Saul, Robin's mother, Nico Olvia, returned to the island. She had been captured by the military, but had escaped through the help of a Vice-Admiral-turned-deserter named Saul (yes, that Saul), and came to warn the other scholars that the government knew of Ohara's connection to the Poneglyphs, and that they all had to escape. Her warning came too late, however, as the Marines were right on her trail. A few soldiers arrived on the island, shot Clover in front of everyone, and activated the Buster Call - causing the six nearby warships to rain hellfire down upon the island.

The scholars couldn't believe it - they weren't just being arrested for their crimes, their entire island was being made an example of! The scholars (including a wounded Clover and Robin's mother Olvia) ran to the Tree of Knowledge to try to save as much research as they could, at the cost of their own lives. It was the first time Robin had seen her mother since she was two years old, and so she begged to go with them, but the scholars would not let her. Olvia told Robin that she had to leave the island, to survive all this, and that as long as Robin was alive, the Scholars of Ohara would still exist, and the history of the Void Century would one day be revealed. It was the last time Robin would ever see her mother.

Saul grabbed Robin and tried to take her to the raft he had been building, in hopes that the two of them could both escape the island together. However, along the way there, they were attacked by one of the warships surrounding the island. Saul set Robin on the ground and destroyed the ship with relative ease (he was a Giant, after all, and so his strength was the stuff of legends). Unfortunately, this drew the attention of the then-Vice-Admiral Aokiji - a Devil Fruit User who was made of and could control ice. Saul knew he was outmatched by this opponent and told Robin to run. Aokiji froze Saul to death in front of Robin, but as he froze, Saul did his best to encourage her one final time. He told her that he knew she would be lonely after all this, but that no one was destined to be alone forever. He promised that somewhere, out on the open seas, people existed who would be true friends to Robin. He smiled as he froze, spending his last few moments of consciousness trying to comfort the poor, crying girl.

Robin ran after that. Aokiji caught up to her, of course, but allowed her to escape the island on a small rowboat, because she was only a child and because he respected Saul's sacrifice. He warned her, though, that he was not her friend, and that if she got into too much trouble, or if he caught her again, he would kill her himself. Robin would never forget this man's face or his name. He absolutely terrifies her.

Robin escaped from Ohara in tact, although the island had no other survivors. Afterwards, a bounty of 79,000,000 beri was placed on Robin's head under a false pretense. The wanted poster claimed she had single-handedly sunken six battleships using her devil fruit powers, but her true crime was learning how to translate the poneglyphs - a crime which apparently made her a terrible threat to the government itself.

Robin was a quiet girl before all that happened to her, but such events can't happen without changing a person irrevocably. Quietness turned to stoicism, as Robin became careful to show her emotions to anyone around her. She is still capable of smiling if she's putting on an act to keep from being discovered, but Robin's guard hasn't been down since she left her homeland. She sleeps with one eye open, doesn't trust anyone, and only stays in one place for a few days at a time, out of fear of being recognized. She's already been sold out by a few people in the short months since she left home, and with each incident her mistrust toward strangers has grown. She's even been forced to take a few lives already, despite being so young. She's become - or she's trying to become - cold and hard, so as to better survive in a world that would only see her dead.

She still cries sometimes, when no one is looking. She still laughs sometimes too, although only because Saul told her it would help her through the tears. She hasn't laughed genuinely in a long time. She wants to be stoic, to not let anything get to her, but Robin is still young, and she's still a few years away from truly pulling that off just yet.

Despite all this, Robin still has plans for the future. She wants to live, so that the Scholars of Ohara may continue to exist in spirit, through her actions. She wants to study the Poneglyphs, as her mother did before her, and to discover the secret history of her world. Robin even hopes - almost despite herself, that she will one day meet the friends that Saul promised were out there for her, although Robin is beginning to lose hope on that last one, if she were honest with herself.

All-in-all, Robin is a young girl who has gone through more than anyone her age should ever have to go through, and it's forced her to become strong. She's got a tough life ahead of her, and it seems like everyone in the world is against her, but Robin is absolutely determined to live it as best she can and to accomplish her goals.

Abilities/Skills:

Robin's only superhuman ability is the power granted to her by the hana hana no mi - otherwise known as the Flower-Flower fruit. To put it simply, eating this Devil Fruit gave her the ability to grow copies of her own body parts on any surface within a certain (unspecified) range of her body, "like flowers." The body parts that Robin "blooms" are usually copies of her arms, although she can technically copy any part of her body, up to and including fully functional eyes and ears.

This power is good for battle - each arm copy is only as strong as Robin's original arm is, which isn't very strong at all, but the sheer number of copies she's able to create makes it possible for her to quickly subdue or even kill (usually through strangulation or by breaking their necks) larger opponents. It also has many alternative uses, however, such as spying or creating ladders/paths/tools out of copies of her limbs. It can be a little disturbing to watch, at times, but one cannot doubt its effectiveness.

There are a few limitations to this power, however. Firstly, it takes a some concentration to do. As an adult, Robin helps herself focus by crossing her arms, but this is a habit that young!Robin has not yet grown into. Instead, she tends to point directly at the place she wants a limb to grow in order to focus - which can be a bit of a bad habit, as she's starting to learn, because it takes away the element of surprise.

Secondly, the copied limbs that Robin creates are linked to the ones on her real body - which is to say that when one of her fakes is injured, she can feel it as if it had happened to the original limb. As such, it's strength relies in either overwhelming an opponent quickly, and doesn't really help with taking hits at all.

Lastly, the act of eating a Devil Fruit completely removes a person's ability to swim. Legend states that Devil Fruits are reincarnations of the Sea Devil, and when someone eats one the sea begins to hate them. As such, Robin (and all other Devil Fruit users) loses all of her strength when submerged in water, to the point that she's completely unable to move. The more of her body that is submerged, the less strength she has and the longer it takes for her to recover.

Strengths/Weaknesses:

Strengths:

- Intelligence: Robin passed the Ohara Scholar's exam (a test intended to test the knowledge of adults) and learned the written language of the poneglyphs by the age of eight. Needless to say she is a smart kid.. A prodigy, in fact.
- Drive for learning: In addition to being well-read and a smart cookie in general, Robin is naturally curious and seeks out understanding as to how things got to be the way they are. This tends to lean more towards the history of things, though, than the sort of curiosity an engineer might have.
- Survival: Robin may be a child, but she is in no way helpless or naive. She's been on her own for several months now and, being the smart kid that she is, has already developed a set of skills to keep herself clothed and fed. Often these skills involve lying, stealing and bargaining to get what she needs, but she's also capable of fishing for food and has the basic knowledge required to survive in the wilderness for a day or two. She's not a hard core survivalist by any stretch of the imagination, but she knows how to build a fire and a decent shelter at the very least.
- Fight or Flight: In these last few months, Robin's life has become rife with potential violence and danger, and as such she has had to adapt. Out of necessity, she's learned how to quickly recognize the difference between a fight she can win, and a fight she cannot, and how to act accordingly.
Furthermore, while Robin takes no pleasure in the act, she has killed before. Her preferred method of fighting is to quickly restrain and subdue her opponents and to make her escape while they can't follow her, but if Robin feels that her life is at risk or that she won't be able to properly restrain someone, she won't hesitate to take their life.


Weaknesses:

- Can't swim: As previously mentioned, Robin cannot swim or be completely submerged in water. So obviously jobs that involve that are right out.
- Physical Frailty: Superpowers aside, Robin is a (slightly malnourished) eight year old girl. While she's capable of increasing her offensive abilities exponentially by increasing the number of limbs she's involving in an attack, her ability to take a hit is only slightly above what you'd expect a child in her condition to take.
- Mistrust: In addition to being hunted by the government, Robin has been betrayed by many others in her short time on the lam. She's been sold out by people who had seemed kind and had offered her help, as well as by pirates who had found themselves in hot water after taking her in - these experiences haven't escaped the young girls notice, and she's come to realize how few people there are in the world that she can depend on.
She isn't completely jaded yet, still remembering the last actions of Saul and the scholars of Ohara. She'll still accept help when she needs it, and she won't be outright defiant of anyone unless she feels as if she's being confronted. But she's hesitant to really put her trust in anyone after everything that's happened, and frequently prepares herself for potential betrayals.

Items:
- A black dress
- Her Wanted Poster
-

SAMPLES
Network Sample:

[They don't have anything like MIDs in the water-covered world that Robin called home. They didn't have spaceships either, for that matter, though, so it didn't take long for the girl to realize that she's dealing with technology on an entirely different plane than she's accustomed to.

After accepting that fact, it was simple enough to figure this device out. It's actually very user-friendly, as it turns out.]

Hello. My name is Jaguar D. Clover.

[A fake name, of course. Stolen from the two men who influenced Robin's life the most positively.]

I'm... [She hesitates ever-so-slightly.] ...an archaeologist.

I know I might seem young, but that's what I really am. I really want to learn about the history of this place - and of the places it visits. So if any of you have any books or, um. MIDs about any of that, please let me know. I can't pay you for them, but I promise I'll give them back after I've learned what I can.

And when my research is done, I'll publish my findings where everyone can read them, I promise.

[The past belongs to everyone, after all. That's the last lesson she learned from the real Clover.

She ends her message with a brief bow.]

That's all, thank you for listening.

[End transmission.]



Prose/Action Sample:

Robin isn't sure what, exactly, just happened. One moment she's in a new town, on a new island, subtly trying to take her wanted poster down from a bulletin board before interacting with any of the town's residents, and the next, she's... here. Wherever here is.

Robin is a smart cookie, though – a prodigy, in fact. And it doesn't exactly take much to figure out that something is very, very wrong with this situation.

Someone mentions a ship – the Moira, is it's name – and mentions that they're on it now. Robin doesn't recognize the uniform this crew member is wearing, but the fact that they're wearing a uniform at all certainly doesn't bode well. It barely takes her a few seconds to piece together the rest: Uniforms and a fancy ship, combined with the fact that they grabbed her somehow – either bringing her here in an instant, or somehow causing her to black out.

As far as Robin can figure, these people might work for the government, or they might be a group of high-budget bounty hunter. Or it's possible that they're just a well-organized group of psychopaths, kidnapping people for some reason other than the massive bounty on Robin's head. Either way, Robin doesn't want to stick around and find out, she's got to escape.

The crew member has more to say, of course, but Robin doesn't give them much of a chance. A well-placed hand on their back, a tap on their shoulder, and a turn of the crew member's head is all she needs, and Robin is gone – using the momentary distraction to make her break for the door.

She runs out the room, into the hall as fast as her young legs will carry her. She won't let herself stay captured on this ship, she can't let the military take her in. She's already been through so much, she won't be executed yet – she has so much more she needs to do.

Survival is the only thing on Robin's mind as she charges headlong through the corridors. Through rooms, past other crew members, desperately searching for some kind of exit - if not a door, then a porthole or a ladder of some sort to the upper deck. How can a ship this big not have any exits?

It's during this desperate, frantic search, that the young Nico Robin ends in a place she hadn't ever expected: The Observation Deck.

"W-what..." Stammers the eight-year old. That is a lot of stars. And... A planet below them? This is not a discovery she had been at all prepared for. "What is this...?"