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Tusk G. Nettle
Sat Nov 02, 2019 9:16 amTusk G. Nettle
Basic Character Information
Starting Bonus: Pocket Change | [Starting Bonus Roll]
First Name: Nettle
Middle Name/Initial: G.
Last Name: Tusk
Epithet: Brokedown
Age: 9
Gender: Male
Race: North Fennarian Bull-Hog
Faction: Marine
Profession:
Shipwright: Human architecture has always possessed a special part in Nettle’s heart, particularly the construction of ships. He thoroughly enjoys learning of the various mechanics, structures and properties of sea travel, though his expertise in navigating open waters are severely limited.
Deck Swabber: Nettle isn’t particularly clean by nature (no more than the norm, in any case), but he enjoys engaging in the mediocre chore. This doesn’t necessarily mean he accomplishes his task successfully, as he finds himself getting too distracted to be mindful of every stain and blotch, but he takes the time to ensure the ship is properly cared for.
Puppeteer: Another interest Nettle adopted upon integrating with humans. Due to his exceedingly shy nature and insecurities, Nettle is unable to speak directly to others. He lacks the confidence to engage with humans, however he finds he is more capable of interacting with others through the use of ventriloquism and puppetry. Surprisingly, he performs quite an entertaining show and he thoroughly enjoys narrating his experiences through his puppets. He will take every opportunity he can to use his puppets to aid his explanations, though this can often become problematic when he is required to divulge important details pertaining to missions and instructions.
Tracker: Courtesy to his animal instincts, Nettle makes an excellent tracker and possesses strong sensory abilities. In addition to his tremendously trained instincts, Nettle’s perception through all his senses (auditory, vision, scent, touch and taste) are exceptionally well-developed and he often relies heavily on these qualities. Provided they are within range, Nettle is capable of pinpointing an individual's location upon identifying their “biological signature” with near perfect precision depending on the level of information he is provided. Furthermore, through his heightened senses, Nettle can identify any changes in the general atmosphere of his surroundings and keenly predict the weather.
Physical Appearance
Height: 150cm
Weight: 90kg
Hair Style: Nettle possesses thick straw-like fur which is pale beige in colour. Due to the lack of development of his devil fruit powers, he has yet to obtain the ability to transform his head from a boar to a human.
Hair Color: Pale Brown
Eye Color: Bright Blue
Scars: N/A
Clothing and Accessories:
Nettle has yet to become fully accustomed to the feel of human clothing and limits his attire to straw sandals, black trousers, a belt made from the hide of a brown-furred beast and a thick cape made from the same hide. His clothes are flexible, allowing for easy and unhindranced shifts between his boar, hybrid and human forms.
In spite of his finite garments, Nettle has a high tolerance for cooler temperatures, largely attributed to his abnormally high body heat and his upbringing among the high altitude northern mountains. Furthermore, should his human or hybrid form fail to endure more frigid climates, Nettle’s boar form is equipped with a thick pelt specifically designed to insulate warmth.
Nettle additionally has a strong admiration for accessories, some designed by human hands and others he skillfully assembles from anything he stumbles over and collects amid his adventures, including stones, feathers, pelts and even bones. Even as a boar, he was renowned to hoard large amounts of treasures in his den and with his newly obtained form, he lavishes in leather armbands, feathered necklaces, beaded anklets and even silver rings hang from his pointed boar ears.
Description:
Nettle possesses a lean, yet surprisingly muscular body, and standing at a stout 150cm in height, he is rightfully considered to be a midget. His strangely tough, rugged skin is lightly tanned and with almost iron-like bones, even the portion of Nettle’s most human-like physiques has yet to achieve veritable human-ness and has certain corresponding qualities of a boar. Furthermore, despite the near hairlessness of his upper body and torso, his legs and head are covered entirely in the thick, coarse hairs of his boar form. Though he tries desperately to conceal his woolly legs with trousers, his head and tail are evidently too incongruous to camouflage.
Owing to inexperience and lack of mastery over the powers of his fruit, Nettle is unable to fully transition his head to that of a human’s, thus displaying the limits of his transformations. The weightiness of Nettle’s boar head forces him to constantly tense his muscles and he has thus conditioned his body to rigidly hold itself in a way to continually support himself.
Nettle’s gargantuan boar form possesses the bulky likeness of a mountain. He has pale beige fur and thin black stripes running across his ample body, which gradually transitions into the black fur of his legs. Furthermore, he possesses a thick black mane, which additionally runs along his spine like spikes. His furred tail is almost deer-like in it’s springy shape and it often reacts to the level of his emotions. He has strong and glistening hooves, their indomitable toughness capable of rivaling boulders and jutting from his lower jaw, two battle-tempered tusks curve upwards, their tips sharpened to a pin. In his human-hybrid form, these tusks shrink to small studs, making them unusable in combat outside of his boar form.
In his boar years, Nettle was formerly considered to be the grand old pack leader of a drift of North Fennarian boars, known as Bull-Hogs for their vicious tusks. This corresponds with the tired wisdom reflected in his large, joltingly wide azure eyes and the yellowed weathered-ness of his tusks. However, in spite of his veteran boar years, he is only considered to be a child by human standards. As such, his human-hybrid form appears to be that of a young adolescent.
The Past
Main Traits: shy, insecure, kind, wholesome, pacifist, devoted
Likes:
- Cloud-gazing
- Alcohol: he has an incredibly high tolerance and his immense weight is believed to make him near or completely immune to drunkenness.
- Gathering things in nature to make into trophies and accessories.
- Cleaning: the motions of cleaning calms him and allows him to think freely as his body moves. This does unfortunately mean he isn’t entirely focused on his tasks, however due to his devotion, the end result is always sparkling clean, even if it does take him hours to accomplish getting there.
- Honey: his favourite food and he loves everything that contributes to its cultivation, including bees, flowers (which he also enjoys as a snack) and birds. His species is herbivorous, so he also enjoys a wide range of fruits, mushrooms and roots.
- Stories and story-telling: despite showing signs of dyslexia and easily confuses with the written language, Nettle loves hearing stories told orally and he equally enjoys enacting stories with the help of his puppets.
Dislikes:
- Organising: despite his love for cleaning, Nettle loathes moving things around to create a neater living space. In fact, he loves the feeling of clutter all around him and though everything must be clean, he often leaves his belongings strewn across the floor and often creates disastrous tripping hazards.
- Fire: due to a traumatic event in his life when his forest was ravaged by bushfire during a particularly hot summer, annihilating his entire drift.
- Commitment: Nettle loves freedom above anything else and though he is more than happy to follow the mission and instructions led by the Marines, he isn’t so agreeable or appreciative when the mission and instructions are delivered strictly with the threat of punishment in the case of failure.
Unique laugh: Snort-snort-snort-squeeeee-snort-snort
Hometown: Fennario Island, West Blue
Personality:
For as long as he could remember, Nettle has been completely enraptured by humans and their civilisations. Having developed a far more empathetic nature than many of his bull-hog peers, Nettle found himself resonating strongly with humans and growing increasingly interested in their behaviour and attitudes. His already strong sense of empathy only heightened upon the consumption of the Hito Hito no Mi and, as a result, Nettle feels the pain of others with almost the same intensity himself.
Nettle’s vision and perception of “Justice” is dogged in his belief that any who disobey the law are criminals who are deserving of punishment. Nettle's way of cherishing and appreciating simplistic ideals such as laughter, peace and nature’s beauty is often heeded as naive and unsullied. While his mental capacity is often challenged by those around him due to his misleadingly youthful countenance, many fail to grasp the wisdom he gathered from his earlier life as a grand veteran boar.
Despite leading a wild life of constant conflict and survival in the harsh “kill-or-be-killed” snowy caps of Fennario Island’s north mountains, Nettle possesses a gentle soul tempered by wisdom and age, a quality reflecting ever so constantly in the manner he holds himself in. Yet in contrast to his pacifistic nature, Nettle’s first solution in protecting the innocent and the downtrodden is often defaulted to resorting to violence. Without the natural eloquence of many humans unlike him and equipped with only his crude and war-ridden upbringing as a boar (where conflict is often resolved through the clash of tusks), Nettle finds no qualms with bringing his fists into an argument.
In correlation to his past history as the leader of his forest’s ruling drift of bull-hogs, he possesses an unwavering belief that the strong should instruct the weak, but he further believes that the strong should protect and provide for the weak. He considers any who oppress the weak to be performing acts of injustice. In conjunction with his early realisation of the responsibilities and the meaning of the strong to the weak, Nettle was headstrong in enforcing his beliefs, which he carries further into his role as a marine.
Nettle additionally has a vast appreciation for tranquility and freedom. While he rigidly holds onto his beliefs of justice, he also finds that little else require the same level of attention. As such, he is often found to be quite mellow and docile in his behaviour, displaying a trait of easy acceptance, open friendliness and naive trust.
- History:
Nettle was born by the name “Oktai”, a word in his language referring to nettle. He was born to a small pack of north fennarian bull-hogs, large boars widely feared as dangerous predators for their violent tendencies, deadly tusks and powerful charges, despite their herbivorous diets.
Nettle was small and feeble at birth, and believed to be incapable of surviving the brutal winters of the mountains. He was thus abandoned by his pack and left to die by the bull-hogs’ breeding grounds. Fortunately, he was found by a human passing the foot of the mountain, who had heard the abandoned squeaker’s hungry cries.
Nettle was brought to the human’s family, where he was lovingly nurtured and raised as a domesticated animal companion. Named “Tusk” by his new family after his small and studded tusks, Nettle acclimated and integrated naturally into the human household. He developed an intimate, trusting bond with his foster family and the early memory of an unforgiving wildlife soon faded.
His life was quickly overturned when Nettle grew exponentially. Under the support of his voracious eating habits and having his diet provided plentifully, his growth was exorbitantly rapid and the family realised their beloved pet’s bull-hog status too late. Frightened by the violent implications of his species, they abandoned Nettle at the foot of the island’s northern mountains just before the break of the first snow.
Betrayed and discovering an entirely new life of hardship and bloodshed, Nettle was forced to mature and adapt quickly. He learnt to dig under soft snow for hibernating seeds and hidden roots, but most importantly, he learnt of the constant battle for territory among his kind. He fought month after month, but he soon discovered that with the bountiful nurturing of his human foster family, he had gained an overwhelming advantage in size and a vast reservoir of preserved strength.
Before long, Nettle had fought his way to stand before and challenge the grand old leader of a group of bull-hogs. Young and reared isolated from his own kind, Nettle possessed vitality and strength unprecedented to many bull-hogs and subsequent to his long, brutal battle, he assumed the role of the pack’s new, juvenile leader.
Years would pass and he soon conquered the mountain, his drift growing larger in numbers and strength. He carried his reign into his grand veteran years, until natural disaster brought it to an abrupt end. Tragedy struck during a particularly hot summer, when Nettle’s drift nurtured their newly born young at the base of the mountains. At the break of a summer storm, wildfire from a charred, thunderstruck tree rapidly spread across the foot of the mountains, trapping and forcing all forms of wildlife to flee to higher altitudes to escape the ravenous flames.
Yet, despite the cooler temperatures of the northern mountains, the dryness from the summer heat only served to feed the wildfire’s progression. As Nettle took the rear to ensure none from his drift fell behind, one of the new young lost his footing as they traversed a narrow path. Reacting fast, Nettle dived for the young and pushed the squeaker back to the safety of its mother’s flank. However, with his weight imbalanced, Nettle slipped off the path and fell into the yawning abyss of the ravine underneath.
The fall would have killed any other, but gifted with his sturdy frame and thick hide, Nettle, though severely beaten, regained consciousness hours later. Trapped in complete darkness all around with the only light sourced from the sky far above him, Nettle relied entirely on the mastery of his senses and instincts to traverse the bottom of the ravine. He attempted to climb the rocky walls, but his weight hindered him and he could only hope to find an easier path further along the unforgiving and dark terrain.
He quickly realised the ravine was barren, save for bones picked clean from maggots. Nosing his way through the ravine’s meagre offerings, he survived picking at scant moss and fungi. Several days passed and Nettle grew ever weak from hunger, exhaustion and lonesome misery. Finally on the brink of his reserved energy, Nettle’s sharp nose detected the scent of a fruit and pushing himself on the last of his willpower, he collapsed beside a fruit completely obscured by shadows.
Through his heightened senses, Nettle identified the fruit as an object completely outside conventional reason, but with his consciousness already slipping away, he resolved to eat the fruit. When he next regained consciousness, he had partially recovered his stamina and his body felt foreign. Slowly straightening, Nettle discovered his body felt far softer and when he flexed his limbs, he discovered he could grip jutted stones with fingers.
Seizing opportunity when presented, Nettle immediately turned to the rocky walls he had failed to climb previously. Though navigating his new body was difficult with his head feeling heavier than usual, Nettle displayed a show of the same fixed drive that had helped raise him to the status of a respected and feared king of bull-hogs.
His progress was slow and he slipped back to his starting point often, but his dogged determination never failed him, until he finally escaped his abyssal prison. Quickly gathering nourishment from nearby plantation, Nettle came to recognise his new body as that of a human, though he prioritised the search for his drift. His goal was completely in vain and founded nothing but disappointment and despair. He discovered other drifts, all of which chased him from their territory and with his new, alien body, he failed to display the strength he was formerly so renowned for.
Eventually finding himself at the foot of the mountain like he had been at birth, forsaken and utterly deserted by his own kind, he was discovered yet again by a human. This time, however, he was discovered by a retired Marine who had served in the New World and had been known by his peers as George Zett the “Dire Wolf”. Having witnessed far stranger beings than a human with a boar head, the Marine readily took Nettle in and nursed him back to health.
Despite his long life in the wild, Nettle never forgot the warmth of a human household and though initially distrustful, he gradually found himself opening to the Dire Wolf. Zett educated Nettle in the human language and narrated stories from his career as a Marine. Completely captivated by Zett’s life, Nettle came to develop the initial phase of his “Justice” and he learnt of the nature of the fruit he had devoured at the brink of his death. By the end of the season, he had fully recovered and too aggrieved to return to his mountain where his drift had surely perished, Nettle decided to join the Marines under Zett's referral and dedicate his new extended lifespan to traverse outside the mountain. Similar to his rise as a juvenile leader of his drift, Nettle gained rapid traction among the marine ranks and soon rose to the rank of Commodore, despite his apparent youthfulness.
Gray
[tracker=/t131-tracker-gray-starks#504]
Name : Gray
Epithet : "The Conqueror"; "Black Fist"
Age : 49
Height : 10'2" (310 cm)
Weight : 1043 lbs (473 kg)
Species : Cyborg Human
Faction : Pirate
World Position : Lurking Legend (Former Yonkou)
Crew : Black Fist Pirates (Destroyed)
Ship : Sangria's Vane (Destroyed)
Crew Role : Captain (Former)
Devil Fruit : Pressure-Pressure Fruit
Bounty : [ber=r] 5,000,000,000
EXP Bonus : +0.20 (to all allies)
Income Bonus : +0.20
Shop Discount : -30%
Balance : [bel] 25,000,000,000
[[strollingdeath]][[baneoftheweak]][[riseandshine]][[childofdestiny]][[freakofnature]]
[[punchoutguru]][[dulcetvirtuoso]]
[[improviseadaptovercome]]
Posts : 3907
Re: Tusk G. Nettle
Sat Nov 02, 2019 10:01 amAs always, this was a most detailed and in-depth bio and a treat to read. Please continue to inspire us.
Approved!
Approved!
Tusk wrote:Tusk G. Nettle
Basic Character Information
Starting Bonus: Pocket Change | [Starting Bonus Roll]
First Name: Nettle
Middle Name/Initial: G.
Last Name: Tusk
Epithet: Brokedown
Age: 9
Gender: Male
Race: North Fennarian Bull-Hog
Faction: Marine
Profession:
Shipwright: Human architecture has always possessed a special part in Nettle’s heart, particularly the construction of ships. He thoroughly enjoys learning of the various mechanics, structures and properties of sea travel, though his expertise in navigating open waters are severely limited.
Deck Swabber: Nettle isn’t particularly clean by nature (no more than the norm, in any case), but he enjoys engaging in the mediocre chore. This doesn’t necessarily mean he accomplishes his task successfully, as he finds himself getting too distracted to be mindful of every stain and blotch, but he takes the time to ensure the ship is properly cared for.
Puppeteer: Another interest Nettle adopted upon integrating with humans. Due to his exceedingly shy nature and insecurities, Nettle is unable to speak directly to others. He lacks the confidence to engage with humans, however he finds he is more capable of interacting with others through the use of ventriloquism and puppetry. Surprisingly, he performs quite an entertaining show and he thoroughly enjoys narrating his experiences through his puppets. He will take every opportunity he can to use his puppets to aid his explanations, though this can often become problematic when he is required to divulge important details pertaining to missions and instructions.
Tracker: Courtesy to his animal instincts, Nettle makes an excellent tracker and possesses strong sensory abilities. In addition to his tremendously trained instincts, Nettle’s perception through all his senses (auditory, vision, scent, touch and taste) are exceptionally well-developed and he often relies heavily on these qualities. Provided they are within range, Nettle is capable of pinpointing an individual's location upon identifying their “biological signature” with near perfect precision depending on the level of information he is provided. Furthermore, through his heightened senses, Nettle can identify any changes in the general atmosphere of his surroundings and keenly predict the weather.
Physical Appearance
Height: 150cm
Weight: 90kg
Hair Style: Nettle possesses thick straw-like fur which is pale beige in colour. Due to the lack of development of his devil fruit powers, he has yet to obtain the ability to transform his head from a boar to a human.
Hair Color: Pale Brown
Eye Color: Bright Blue
Scars: N/A
Clothing and Accessories:
Nettle has yet to become fully accustomed to the feel of human clothing and limits his attire to straw sandals, black trousers, a belt made from the hide of a brown-furred beast and a thick cape made from the same hide. His clothes are flexible, allowing for easy and unhindranced shifts between his boar, hybrid and human forms.
In spite of his finite garments, Nettle has a high tolerance for cooler temperatures, largely attributed to his abnormally high body heat and his upbringing among the high altitude northern mountains. Furthermore, should his human or hybrid form fail to endure more frigid climates, Nettle’s boar form is equipped with a thick pelt specifically designed to insulate warmth.
Nettle additionally has a strong admiration for accessories, some designed by human hands and others he skillfully assembles from anything he stumbles over and collects amid his adventures, including stones, feathers, pelts and even bones. Even as a boar, he was renowned to hoard large amounts of treasures in his den and with his newly obtained form, he lavishes in leather armbands, feathered necklaces, beaded anklets and even silver rings hang from his pointed boar ears.
Description:
Nettle possesses a lean, yet surprisingly muscular body, and standing at a stout 150cm in height, he is rightfully considered to be a midget. His strangely tough, rugged skin is lightly tanned and with almost iron-like bones, even the portion of Nettle’s most human-like physiques has yet to achieve veritable human-ness and has certain corresponding qualities of a boar. Furthermore, despite the near hairlessness of his upper body and torso, his legs and head are covered entirely in the thick, coarse hairs of his boar form. Though he tries desperately to conceal his woolly legs with trousers, his head and tail are evidently too incongruous to camouflage.
Owing to inexperience and lack of mastery over the powers of his fruit, Nettle is unable to fully transition his head to that of a human’s, thus displaying the limits of his transformations. The weightiness of Nettle’s boar head forces him to constantly tense his muscles and he has thus conditioned his body to rigidly hold itself in a way to continually support himself.
Nettle’s gargantuan boar form possesses the bulky likeness of a mountain. He has pale beige fur and thin black stripes running across his ample body, which gradually transitions into the black fur of his legs. Furthermore, he possesses a thick black mane, which additionally runs along his spine like spikes. His furred tail is almost deer-like in it’s springy shape and it often reacts to the level of his emotions. He has strong and glistening hooves, their indomitable toughness capable of rivaling boulders and jutting from his lower jaw, two battle-tempered tusks curve upwards, their tips sharpened to a pin. In his human-hybrid form, these tusks shrink to small studs, making them unusable in combat outside of his boar form.
In his boar years, Nettle was formerly considered to be the grand old pack leader of a drift of North Fennarian boars, known as Bull-Hogs for their vicious tusks. This corresponds with the tired wisdom reflected in his large, joltingly wide azure eyes and the yellowed weathered-ness of his tusks. However, in spite of his veteran boar years, he is only considered to be a child by human standards. As such, his human-hybrid form appears to be that of a young adolescent.
The Past
Main Traits: shy, insecure, kind, wholesome, pacifist, devoted
Likes:
- Cloud-gazing
- Alcohol: he has an incredibly high tolerance and his immense weight is believed to make him near or completely immune to drunkenness.
- Gathering things in nature to make into trophies and accessories.
- Cleaning: the motions of cleaning calms him and allows him to think freely as his body moves. This does unfortunately mean he isn’t entirely focused on his tasks, however due to his devotion, the end result is always sparkling clean, even if it does take him hours to accomplish getting there.
- Honey: his favourite food and he loves everything that contributes to its cultivation, including bees, flowers (which he also enjoys as a snack) and birds. His species is herbivorous, so he also enjoys a wide range of fruits, mushrooms and roots.
- Stories and story-telling: despite showing signs of dyslexia and easily confuses with the written language, Nettle loves hearing stories told orally and he equally enjoys enacting stories with the help of his puppets.
Dislikes:
- Organising: despite his love for cleaning, Nettle loathes moving things around to create a neater living space. In fact, he loves the feeling of clutter all around him and though everything must be clean, he often leaves his belongings strewn across the floor and often creates disastrous tripping hazards.
- Fire: due to a traumatic event in his life when his forest was ravaged by bushfire during a particularly hot summer, annihilating his entire drift.
- Commitment: Nettle loves freedom above anything else and though he is more than happy to follow the mission and instructions led by the Marines, he isn’t so agreeable or appreciative when the mission and instructions are delivered strictly with the threat of punishment in the case of failure.
Unique laugh: Snort-snort-snort-squeeeee-snort-snort
Hometown: Fennario Island, West Blue
Personality:
For as long as he could remember, Nettle has been completely enraptured by humans and their civilisations. Having developed a far more empathetic nature than many of his bull-hog peers, Nettle found himself resonating strongly with humans and growing increasingly interested in their behaviour and attitudes. His already strong sense of empathy only heightened upon the consumption of the Hito Hito no Mi and, as a result, Nettle feels the pain of others with almost the same intensity himself.
Nettle’s vision and perception of “Justice” is dogged in his belief that any who disobey the law are criminals who are deserving of punishment. Nettle's way of cherishing and appreciating simplistic ideals such as laughter, peace and nature’s beauty is often heeded as naive and unsullied. While his mental capacity is often challenged by those around him due to his misleadingly youthful countenance, many fail to grasp the wisdom he gathered from his earlier life as a grand veteran boar.
Despite leading a wild life of constant conflict and survival in the harsh “kill-or-be-killed” snowy caps of Fennario Island’s north mountains, Nettle possesses a gentle soul tempered by wisdom and age, a quality reflecting ever so constantly in the manner he holds himself in. Yet in contrast to his pacifistic nature, Nettle’s first solution in protecting the innocent and the downtrodden is often defaulted to resorting to violence. Without the natural eloquence of many humans unlike him and equipped with only his crude and war-ridden upbringing as a boar (where conflict is often resolved through the clash of tusks), Nettle finds no qualms with bringing his fists into an argument.
In correlation to his past history as the leader of his forest’s ruling drift of bull-hogs, he possesses an unwavering belief that the strong should instruct the weak, but he further believes that the strong should protect and provide for the weak. He considers any who oppress the weak to be performing acts of injustice. In conjunction with his early realisation of the responsibilities and the meaning of the strong to the weak, Nettle was headstrong in enforcing his beliefs, which he carries further into his role as a marine.
Nettle additionally has a vast appreciation for tranquility and freedom. While he rigidly holds onto his beliefs of justice, he also finds that little else require the same level of attention. As such, he is often found to be quite mellow and docile in his behaviour, displaying a trait of easy acceptance, open friendliness and naive trust.
- History:
Nettle was born by the name “Oktai”, a word in his language referring to nettle. He was born to a small pack of north fennarian bull-hogs, large boars widely feared as dangerous predators for their violent tendencies, deadly tusks and powerful charges, despite their herbivorous diets.
Nettle was small and feeble at birth, and believed to be incapable of surviving the brutal winters of the mountains. He was thus abandoned by his pack and left to die by the bull-hogs’ breeding grounds. Fortunately, he was found by a human passing the foot of the mountain, who had heard the abandoned squeaker’s hungry cries.
Nettle was brought to the human’s family, where he was lovingly nurtured and raised as a domesticated animal companion. Named “Tusk” by his new family after his small and studded tusks, Nettle acclimated and integrated naturally into the human household. He developed an intimate, trusting bond with his foster family and the early memory of an unforgiving wildlife soon faded.
His life was quickly overturned when Nettle grew exponentially. Under the support of his voracious eating habits and having his diet provided plentifully, his growth was exorbitantly rapid and the family realised their beloved pet’s bull-hog status too late. Frightened by the violent implications of his species, they abandoned Nettle at the foot of the island’s northern mountains just before the break of the first snow.
Betrayed and discovering an entirely new life of hardship and bloodshed, Nettle was forced to mature and adapt quickly. He learnt to dig under soft snow for hibernating seeds and hidden roots, but most importantly, he learnt of the constant battle for territory among his kind. He fought month after month, but he soon discovered that with the bountiful nurturing of his human foster family, he had gained an overwhelming advantage in size and a vast reservoir of preserved strength.
Before long, Nettle had fought his way to stand before and challenge the grand old leader of a group of bull-hogs. Young and reared isolated from his own kind, Nettle possessed vitality and strength unprecedented to many bull-hogs and subsequent to his long, brutal battle, he assumed the role of the pack’s new, juvenile leader.
Years would pass and he soon conquered the mountain, his drift growing larger in numbers and strength. He carried his reign into his grand veteran years, until natural disaster brought it to an abrupt end. Tragedy struck during a particularly hot summer, when Nettle’s drift nurtured their newly born young at the base of the mountains. At the break of a summer storm, wildfire from a charred, thunderstruck tree rapidly spread across the foot of the mountains, trapping and forcing all forms of wildlife to flee to higher altitudes to escape the ravenous flames.
Yet, despite the cooler temperatures of the northern mountains, the dryness from the summer heat only served to feed the wildfire’s progression. As Nettle took the rear to ensure none from his drift fell behind, one of the new young lost his footing as they traversed a narrow path. Reacting fast, Nettle dived for the young and pushed the squeaker back to the safety of its mother’s flank. However, with his weight imbalanced, Nettle slipped off the path and fell into the yawning abyss of the ravine underneath.
The fall would have killed any other, but gifted with his sturdy frame and thick hide, Nettle, though severely beaten, regained consciousness hours later. Trapped in complete darkness all around with the only light sourced from the sky far above him, Nettle relied entirely on the mastery of his senses and instincts to traverse the bottom of the ravine. He attempted to climb the rocky walls, but his weight hindered him and he could only hope to find an easier path further along the unforgiving and dark terrain.
He quickly realised the ravine was barren, save for bones picked clean from maggots. Nosing his way through the ravine’s meagre offerings, he survived picking at scant moss and fungi. Several days passed and Nettle grew ever weak from hunger, exhaustion and lonesome misery. Finally on the brink of his reserved energy, Nettle’s sharp nose detected the scent of a fruit and pushing himself on the last of his willpower, he collapsed beside a fruit completely obscured by shadows.
Through his heightened senses, Nettle identified the fruit as an object completely outside conventional reason, but with his consciousness already slipping away, he resolved to eat the fruit. When he next regained consciousness, he had partially recovered his stamina and his body felt foreign. Slowly straightening, Nettle discovered his body felt far softer and when he flexed his limbs, he discovered he could grip jutted stones with fingers.
Seizing opportunity when presented, Nettle immediately turned to the rocky walls he had failed to climb previously. Though navigating his new body was difficult with his head feeling heavier than usual, Nettle displayed a show of the same fixed drive that had helped raise him to the status of a respected and feared king of bull-hogs.
His progress was slow and he slipped back to his starting point often, but his dogged determination never failed him, until he finally escaped his abyssal prison. Quickly gathering nourishment from nearby plantation, Nettle came to recognise his new body as that of a human, though he prioritised the search for his drift. His goal was completely in vain and founded nothing but disappointment and despair. He discovered other drifts, all of which chased him from their territory and with his new, alien body, he failed to display the strength he was formerly so renowned for.
Eventually finding himself at the foot of the mountain like he had been at birth, forsaken and utterly deserted by his own kind, he was discovered yet again by a human. This time, however, he was discovered by a retired Marine who had served in the New World and had been known by his peers as George Zett the “Dire Wolf”. Having witnessed far stranger beings than a human with a boar head, the Marine readily took Nettle in and nursed him back to health.
Despite his long life in the wild, Nettle never forgot the warmth of a human household and though initially distrustful, he gradually found himself opening to the Dire Wolf. Zett educated Nettle in the human language and narrated stories from his career as a Marine. Completely captivated by Zett’s life, Nettle came to develop the initial phase of his “Justice” and he learnt of the nature of the fruit he had devoured at the brink of his death. By the end of the season, he had fully recovered and too aggrieved to return to his mountain where his drift had surely perished, Nettle decided to join the Marines under Zett's referral and dedicate his new extended lifespan to traverse outside the mountain. Similar to his rise as a juvenile leader of his drift, Nettle gained rapid traction among the marine ranks and soon rose to the rank of Commodore, despite his apparent youthfulness.
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