worick arcangelo; coa app

[whorick]

→ IC
□ Name: Worick Arcangelo
□ Journal: whorick
□ Series: Gangsta.
□ Canon point: End of Chapter 4
□ History: Worick's canon doesn't have any information online, so here is a written history.

Wallace Arcangelo was born into the unfortunate position of being the bastard youngest son in an influential, rich family. As such, despite the fact he was generally provided for and educated properly, he was a second-class citizen in his own home from the moment of birth. As he grew older, treatment degraded from being generally ignored and tolerated to serious physical and emotional abuse, particularly from his father, who paranoidly suspected Wallace was plotting against him in some way. This treatment, along with frequent beatings, lead to Wallace becoming something of a delinquent by the age of 13, chainsmoking, talking back, withdrawing and lashing out at the people around him, verbally and physically.

It was at this point that, Wallace having chased away every guardian and bodyguard he'd been offered, the mercenary group employed to protect the mansion eventually settled on a skinny Asian boy a year younger than Wallace as a replacement. At first, Wallace ignored him, determined to drive him off just as he had every other caretaker, but he softened a little when he noticed that the boy bore the same patterns of abuse that he did - an opinion that changed the moment he realized he was deaf. Angry that he'd been given what he perceived as a useless bodyguard because his father didn't care about his safety, Wallace threw a book at him, and locked himself in his room, essentially throwing a tantrum until the mansion's staff gave up and left him alone.

It was that boy who finally got Wallace to open his door by knocking, and Wallace, thinking it was more house staff, opened the door and hurled a radio at the person there, hitting his bodyguard in the face. The boy simply held out the book that had been thrown at him earlier, and said in a halting voice that he couldn't read, so he was returning it. Feeling guilty for having hurt him, Wallace apologized, and asked the boy's name - Nicolas. From that point on, the two were fast friends. In secret, Wallace taught Nic how to read and use sign language, and Nic began to truly look up to Wallace.

It was during this time that Wallace started to suspect that Nicolas was a Twilight, or 'tagged' - a group of people descended from super-soldiers in the 1900s who used a toxic drug called Celebre to enhance their abilities in battle. This drug caused serious genetic defects in its users due to its toxicity and addictive qualities. These genetic defects and superiorities were passed down through those original bloodlines, resulting in a sub-population of people not quite human, able to take more damage and push themselves harder and further while generally suffering from other genetic defects and shortened lifespan - and reliant on a small daily dose of Celebre to keep them alive and functioning. In this world all Twilights need to be identified by the dog tags they wear around their necks with their information and a rank based on their fighting ability, and to be quarantined in Ergastulum, a city run by mafia and populated by Twilights, refugees, and criminals.

As a Twilight, Nic wasn't supposed to be outside Ergastulum, and his status as tagged was something meant to be kept a secret, and something Wallace didn't particularly believe. At least, not until anti-Twilight sentiment resulted in civil unrest in the area Wallace lived in and he witnessed Nic killing an intruder first hand. At this time, Nic was also taken from Wallace as his mercenary group was called in to assist with the civil unrest in Ergastulum, to keep the fighting in control. At first, Wallace was sure he would never see Nic again, but the boy returned, injured and apologizing for partially ruining the sign language book Wallace had given him. Wallace, at this point, noticed the Celebre Nic had to take, though he was still in denial about Nic's status as tagged until Nic passed out due to infection in his injured arm and the house doctor told Wallace in no uncertain terms that Nic was a Twilight, not expected to live for long, and employed as a slave fighter to his mercenary group. Wallace was at first unable to accept that Nic was a Twilight, having been told that they were inhuman monsters, but after a short time considering, decided that he simply didn't care. He decided to buy Nic from his merchant group so he could provide Celebre for him and keep him for himself.

Things were relatively alright for a short time, until Wallace's father's abuse started steadily getting worse, more serious, and he started to wonder if he would be killed the next time he messed up or disobeyed, something he confessed to Nic. The flashbacks are rather stream of consciousness and unclear at this point, though it seems that Wallace's father seriously attacked him and damaged his left eye beyond repair, possibly with a lit cigarette, and that Nic snapped (likely related) and killed every living person in Wallace's home.

While the circumstances are unclear, at this point Wallace started going by Worick, hid his identity as the last living member of the Arcangelo family, and the two ran away to Ergastulum, struggling to survive on their own. By the time Worick was 14, he was a child prostitute in order to help the two survive, employed in a brothel. It is at this point they met Chad, a Police Officer who would come to take on a mentoring role throughout their lives, and who would later employ them on various jobs as adults.

There's little information given about their lives from age 14 to the current timeline in the manga, where they're 35 years old, but it is apparent that they have made Ergastulum their home. Worick moved his main job from being a gigolo to operating Benriya with Nicolas, a 'jack of all trades' company that serves to complete jobs from finding lost cats to taking out entire mafia gangs (though Worick still works as a gigolo on weekends). In the beginning of the manga, Worick notices a prostitute he sees frequently in the area and has some sympathy for, only to be hired by Officer Chad to take out the gang she is part of and eliminate all members, as they've been stepping on the toes of the bigger mafia that make Ergastulum function smoothly. When he protests killing a lady, Nic asks if they can take whatever loot they want and, after being given permission, Worick takes the girl aside and tells her her pimp won't be coming back anymore before going off to help Nic take out the rest of the gang. After the prostitute, named Alex, follows him and empties a gun into her pimp's dead body, Worick invites her to answer phones for Benriya and stay with them for a while, and they reveal her presence to Officer Chad, claiming her as their loot. Alex continues to stay with Benriya and observe their interactions, finding out that Worick is a gigolo on weekends, and meeting Nina, a young nurse apprentice that the guys have befriended.

Worick sees action again when Nina tells them that the doctor she apprentices with wants them to take out some thugs threatening him, wanting to take over his clinic. In exchange for a hefty amount of the Celebre Nic needs, he goes with Nina to take out the thugs, including a high-level tagged, at the clinic while Worick takes out any guys tracking them, intending to ambush (with Alex's help as a distraction).

It is after the big fight at Dr. Theo's clinic that I'll be taking Worick.

□ Personality: Worick, for the most part, grew up on the streets, and this has shaped much of how his personality has developed from an angry, aggressive, deeply hurt child into a charismatic, self-sufficient adult with a mean streak.

Worick has spent the better part of his life having to take care of himself and Nicolas, and this has forced him to develop a wide range of coping mechanisms - these coping mechanisms, in turn, became the basic formation of his personality. While Worick has a compassionate nature that hasn't changed from childhood to his present form, it is heavily tempered with other traits he's been forced to emphasize in order to survive. For example, Worick is a salesman - charismatic, charming, and outwardly easygoing, he's almost always selling something, whether it's his services as a gigolo or member of Benriya, or just selling someone on his personality in order to make a connection. Of course, even the most charismatic salesman can come across a bit sleazy, and Worick is no exception - on many occasions he can go overboard, though he generally makes light of it in such a way that he still manages to charm his mark.

Truly, most people around him are marks to Worick. There are very few people he actually places value on - Nicolas, for certain, perhaps Officer Chad (just a little), and Alex as well, to a certain extent. In every other interaction, Worick shows little true emotional connection or attachment - dangerous things to get used to forming when growing up on the streets. Underneath his charisma, Worick has a well-honed survival instinct, a greedy streak that urges him to make money no matter what, and a tendency to view other people as objects. He's certainly not a sociopath, more than capable of forming connections when he chooses to, he's simply not in the habit of doing so, even for people he sees very frequently over long periods of time. In fact, the only person that one can be sure Worick values completely and would be lost without is Nicolas, with whom he has spent 22 years of his life. This is an attitude well-honed from years and years of being a child prostitute, and feeling for most of his life that it's him and Nicolas against the world - a feeling that was actually true most of the time.

Worick also has an extremely compromised judgement of right and wrong, existing entirely in the moral grey. He shows absolutely no hesitation to kill and torture others in order to get paid, so he can provide for himself and Nic, even smiling while doing it and getting hungry immediately after stacking up a pile of freshly-killed corpses. To be sure, he doesn't enjoy killing, it simply doesn't bother him. This attitude of needing to do whatever it takes to survive, and to keep Nic alive is something built directly into his personality - even before he left home, he showed no guilt about purchasing his best friend from mercenaries, and after that he didn't hesitate to enter child prostitution, commit theft, and eventually start murdering in order to get Celebre for Nic and to feed and provide for both of them. While Nic has certainly contributed to their survival, Worick feels more responsible for both of them, having been the primary breadwinner for their most formative years on the street, and feeling a sense of ownership over his bodyguard-turned-best-friend. His entire relationship with Nicolas is, in fact, an equal mixture between ownership, viewing him the way one might view a particularly well-bred dog one is proud of, and love, viewing Nic as a best friend that he couldn't live without.

Finally, Worick is extremely detail-oriented, maintaining a mental database of people, their affiliations, what they look like and their identifying marks, as well as a host of other things. Though he comes across as the type of guy who gets by on charm, looks, and personality, he's actually incredibly intelligent, well-read and well-educated due to his wealthy upbringing, and more than capable of using both his education and shrewd street-honed instincts to keep himself and Nicolas afloat in a vicious world.

□ Age: 35
□ Gender: male
□ Appearance: Worick stands at 5'11" and is the picture of masculinity - thickly built and muscular with broad shoulders and hair on his chest, forearms, and jaw, as well as various scars in various places. He has fair skin and pale ash blond hair worn around shoulder length (usually pulled back either halfway or, in times of action, all the way). He's missing his left eye from an incident in his youth (the eyeball is missing and there is a thick scar vertically along the eye socket) and the one remaining eye is pale blue. Worick is a gigolo and dresses like one in blazers, vests, and button-up shirts with the buttons undone enough to show off half his chest - all designer, of course. Finally, he has a tribal style tattoo across the back of his shoulders that matches one Nic has.
□ Abilities/Powers: Worick's only real ability is his memory, which is exceptional and very detailed, somewhat photographic. It's not out of the realm of human ability, but it's certainly above average. Other than that, he has general skills with guns and various forms of hand-to-hand combat, a general idea of torture methods, a good education, and generalized knowledge about how to complete odd jobs like construction, etc.
□ Personal Items: a handgun with a silencer and an extra clip, an extra suit of clothing, a bag with two weeks' supply of Celebre (uppers and downers), his keepsake sign language book, a few photos of Nic when he was a kid

□ First Person Sample: http://zodion.dreamwidth.org/620422.html - Worick is lonely at Christmas in Zodion.
□ Third Person Sample:

http://zodionlogs.dreamwidth.org/731190.html - A log with Nicolas at Zodion.
http://zodionlogs.dreamwidth.org/730926.html - An actionspam log with Nicolas and Panty at Zodion.