dox

NAME — Cassandra Rookwood -- now prefers to go simply by 'Dox'
AGE — Nineteen
GENDER — Female
SEXUALITY — Asexual -- demiromantic
TRAINER CLASSES — Morph [Mimikyu], Inspirator, Outfitter
AFFILIATION — Unaffiliated
OCCUPATION — Self-employed 'brightener of days' -- apprentice seamstress


HEIGHT — 5'1"
WEIGHT — 100 lbs -- lighter than one might expect from appearances
HAIR COLOR — n/a
EYE COLOR — Pale silver/white
SKIN COLOR — Presumably inky black
ABNORMALITIES — Dox's entire existence is some sort of abnormality. She's ashamed enough of a strange, unnatural appearance stemming from being a Mimikyu Morph -- and paranoid enough about the stories of curses and deaths that follow the unveiling of a Mimikyu's true form -- that she keeps as much of her body covered as possible at all times, especially her face. Despite her efforts, however, it's quite easy to tell she's not human, and not just because of her usual attire. Between the spindly, ink-colored legs that seem a hair too thin and long and the too-long arms tipped with long, clawed fingers (that can extend if she's ever forced into an attacking situation), there's definitely something off about her.

For all intents and purposes, no one really knows what Dox really looks like. It's rumored that the doctor in the room when she was born fainted upon seeing her, and, if the stories about Mimikyu's outlandish, indescribable appearance are true, one can assume that Dox possesses a number of these traits as well. Beneath the cloaking dress she wears, the flesh occasionally seems to shift or move in a way that suggests a less-than-normal body frame. If any part of her skin is revealed, it's an inky black, shadowy color that certainly isn't a typical skin tone. Though she tries to avoid touching anything with bare skin, if touched, her skin feels cold and oddly rubbery and slippery, as though it's some sort of solid, living oil. This strange body composition is likely the reason her limbs are able to extend and grow in certain situations, though she lacks the ability to alter other parts of her body in similar ways.

Her body is almost always covered as fully as it can be -- she could feasibly cover herself in any sort of attire, from full-body suits to long johns, and achieve the same effect, but some traditionalist side of her seems to have embraced what she is. Whether it's acceptance of her own form or a sort of warning to those that would prefer to avoid her is unknown, but the hooded cloak she wears emulates a solid portion of a Mimikyu's Pikachu-inspired disguise quite well. Long sleeves -- very long to cover naturally long arms -- hang in tatters and obscure the sharp, sickled claws on her fingers. The fabric appears well-worn and faded, though this is hardly surprising, considering the time and effort it takes her to stitch a new one together. It ends at about mid-thigh level, and her spindly black legs are mostly left bare. She goes barefoot -- if you can call the odd, shifting ends of her limbs feet to begin with.

Her face is covered with extra care in a black mask that leaves the area beneath her hood looking eerily vacant. She can see out of the fabric, but no one can see in, and that's probably for the best. Curiosity can lead to some pretty nasty things, after all.






One might expect such a strange creature to be menacing or frightening; however, in this case, Dox is far less frightening than her appearance seems to let on. One might equate her general demeanor to that of an overenthusiastic puppy – innocent, energetic, and far too eager to please anything deemed as a friend. She moves and maneuvers with a certain speed and energy that can startle others, especially given her appearance, but it’s excitement, rather than any sort of ill intent, that pushes her into action. On the rare occasion that she seems slow or sluggish, there’s likely some emotional factor weighing her down; a happy Dox is an active Dox.

Her upbringing didn’t allow her to experience quite as many things as most young adults, and she’s ridiculously sheltered and naïve as a result. Her innocence and optimism about certain situations, while endearing to some, can be infuriating to others. It’s quite easy for the Morph to trust others, even when they shouldn’t be trusted. She makes ‘friends’ too easily – a side effect of having hardly any friends while growing up – and is inclined to do anything if she thinks it’ll make a so-called friend happier. She’s also been told that she’s a monster for most of her life. As such, compliments tend to sway her to your side quite quickly. If you’re kind and friendly enough, you can probably convince her to do anything, even if it’s something morally questionable or ‘bad’. Though she’s determined to do good things and redeem herself as a good person, her grasp of morality is questionable at best, and someone could easily phrase something unpleasant as having a good impact or being a good thing.

If you become her friend, she can be overbearing and clingy. She loves affection, despite being hesitant or fearful to touch others due to the strange properties she possesses. If she makes a friend, it’s not uncommon for her to craft them little presents from any fabrics or materials she may have laying around. As she comes into more money, she’ll likely start buying her friends things as well, even if they might not always need her odd, eccentric gifts. She can become a little overdependent on her friends and loved ones, and has been known to have episodes of jealousy if she thinks she’s being overlooked or overshadowed by someone else.

She has a good heart, even if she isn’t the brightest or most well-versed in the world. Her deepest desire is to leave the world a better place in the long run, and, as such, it’s not uncommon to see her doing menial little tasks in an effort to better peoples’ days – whether or not people want her to do these things is up for debate. Sometimes, she can be a little bit too helpful.

Despite wanting to help others so much, her attitude towards herself is surprisingly dark and pessimistic. She believes wholeheartedly that, at her core, she’s cursed and doomed to spread ill feelings wherever she goes. That itself is one of the main reasons why she fights so hard to help others – if she tries hard, she believes she can overpower the bad she creates with the good. She’s constantly surprised when people like her for her, rather than what she is, and, when she’s feeling emotional, her true feelings about herself tend to come out.

It’s rare for her to be aggressive, but she has a deep-rooted anxiety about keeping her form concealed at all times, and is known to lash out, physically or emotionally, if someone tries to uncover or unmask her. Physical contact that isn’t initiated by her is met with similar, instinctual reactions. If she inflicts harm upon someone else, she tends to be quite upset about it afterwards; she doesn’t like to inflict harm, and anything that reinforces the idea that she is a monster is deeply troubling to her.



For as long as the Rookwood family could remember, misfortune seemed to shadow them like starving, rabid dogs. Records surrounding the first Mimikyu Morph that existed in their lineage seem to have gone missing, but, for whatever reason, genetics seem to have carried the trait across numerous generations. Her mother, Fantine, was born a Mimikyu Morph with less physical resemblance than many others – a rarity in the Rookwood family, and something that was celebrated. Their family had always – perhaps rightfully so, given Mimikyu’s lore – been superstitious, and Fantine’s relatively-normal appearance was a blessed omen. Unlike most of the family, she didn’t have to lurk beneath cloaks and suits to hide her true form.

It became clear as Fantine grew that, though she had escaped the curse of a Mimikyu’s appearance, bad luck still followed her every step. She grew up distant from most things, and wary of getting too close to any one person – people she got close to tended to get hurt. Despite her best efforts and her cautious nature, however, she found herself falling for a colleague while she was in her late twenties. Love at first sight might be a cliché, but it was hard for her to describe the feelings she held towards him as anything else. Even eldritch shadow monsters occasionally fall victim to common tropes.

For a couple of years, things seemed remarkably normal, despite her fears and previous history. The two married quickly and learned that they were expecting a child only two years later. Fantine found herself praying to the gods above that their new child be born human, rather than a Mimikyu Morph. Some members of her family had been lucky enough to escape the so-called ‘curse’ that came with being a Mimikyu Morph, and she was cautiously optimistic that her son or daughter share a more fortunate fate. Though she was happy in that moment, she knew that happiness rarely lasted for her, and that, somehow, bad luck would return in the future.

While she was pregnant, things began to get worse once again. She lost her job, and one of their Pokemon was stricken with an illness from which it was never able to recover. Her relationship with the man she loved more than anything else – the man who was her savior from an otherwise-terrible, plagued life – grew stressed and strained the closer she got to her delivery. She had never been terribly optimistic, but she found herself dreading the arrival of her child more than anything else.

It’s said that Cassandra Rookwood’s appearance was so horrifying that the doctor in the delivery room fainted. Despite Fantine’s prayers, her daughter was a Mimikyu Morph – and one that was far more physically-different than herself. The mere sight of her sent her father – the man that Fantine loved still, more than anything – into a state of shock and panic. He had never been one prejudiced against Morphs, but it was difficult to look at Cassandra and see anything but an abomination that should not have been able to exist.

He’d been falling out of love with Fantine for a while as it stood, but the birth of his daughter was what finally nailed the coffin shut. Fantine was left alone with a child that, to her, seemed like the darkest of omens. This shadowed, monstrous child was the apparent ending of her pleasant, fortunate days and a return to darker times.

It’s little surprise, given Fantine’s superstitions and beliefs, that Cassandra was taught the less-pleasant traits of what she was at a young age. It became of the utmost important to always wear something that fully covered the body and face, because revealing her true form to others would only bring ‘terrible, terrible things’. She was told that, though she was naturally a creature that attracted misfortune and unhappiness, revealing what she was and what she looked like to others would only compound the already-negative effect.

She was taught that she was a bad thing, and that she could never change that.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that she developed severe self-esteem issues as she grew up. School was an interesting, but not pleasant, experience for her for the most part – teasing about her strange outfits and weird voice in early years shifted into general avoidance and uneasy whispers once her peers matured enough to understand the myths and rumors surrounding Mimikyu. Most people, even her teachers, hardly dared to look at her. It was an awkward, terrible time for the young girl, and the lessons drilled into her at home only convinced her further that no one would ever even consider being friendly towards her.

In middle school, a new student – one who hadn’t grown up surrounded by “that weird Mimikyu girl” – transferred into the school system. His name was Avery Callihan, and, to Cassandra’s great surprise, he was positively fascinated by her. Avery considered himself a bit of a horror snob – he lived and breathed anything remotely horror-related – and Cassandra, in his opinion, was the coolest and closest thing to a real-life horror movie that he’d ever seen.

It was a rather selfish reason for him to pursue friendship, but Cassandra, who had never even considered that having friends was possible, hardly cared. She grew attached very, very rapidly and was almost too eager to do things to appease her newfound friend. Even if she didn’t always like the same things he did, she’d often pretend to, just to keep him close and impressed. Eventually, another boy – a boy named Mike – joined the small group. He and Avery were remarkably close – a fact that left Cass jealous at times, though she’d never say so – but he wasn’t frightened of her, and treated her even more normally than Avery did.

As they progressed through their high school years, she opened up more and more to her friends, and a friendship that had initially been based off shallow, aesthetical reasons had become a honest-to-gods friendship. She revealed just how unhappy and upset she was with her lot in life, and her fears that she’d never be anymore than a monster that everyone hated and feared. And Avery, in his typical, surprisingly-calm way, shrugged at her and replied that that was largely up to her. Clearly, if she was able to make friends like him and Mike, she wasn’t as bad as everyone seemed to think. She was odd – the oddest kid in school, probably – but there was nothing wrong with that, and he certainly didn’t seem to think she was a monster.

For the first time, she found herself seriously questioning her mother’s teachings, though she’d never breach the topic with Fantine herself. It was as though some grand revelation had suddenly become clear to her, and she became almost obsessed with the idea that she could change the course fate had laid out for her. Perhaps, even if she was destined to be an unlucky monster, she could leave a good impact upon the world.

Avery – and Mike, to a lesser extent – encouraged this idea, and Avery took time out of his own plans for college and the future to help make a plan for her as well. She had no interest in pursuing higher education herself, but Avery suggested the idea of traveling the Stellara Region – a region that was far more vast and diverse than their small town suggested – and spreading positivity and trying to find herself. He called it a ‘spiritual journey’, and she decided that she really, really liked the sound of that. She’d felt stifled and confined by her residence for so long, and a complete reinvention of herself – a new purpose, and new people to leave impressions on – was suddenly overwhelmingly tempting.

“It’d be kind of neat, if you think about it,” Avery had said. “I mean, you’re this big, rad shadow ‘monster’, right? Kinda seems like a paradox to think about you goin’ around and spreadin’ light and happiness wherever you go.”

Leaving everything she’d known behind – her mother, her friends, and her home – was the most difficult thing she’d imagined. The fact that she didn’t dare to tell her plan to her mother – the fear of immediate denial and being forced to stay was too great – only made it harder, though Avery and Mike were both of vital help in preparing her to set off. They wouldn’t be coming along – they had their own paths to follow, and their own dreams to pursue – but they promised to keep in touch, and let her know that they were only a text message or a phone call away.

Wandering and fending for herself, without any outside help, was even harder than leaving. If she’d found actually starting the journey difficult, surviving was next to impossible. And, despite her efforts to act friendly, most people seemed to instinctively shy away from her. The beginning part of her journey left her cold, hungry, and miserable most days, and it was hard for her to justify going forward. The fact that she’d thoroughly left who she was behind – even going so far as to change her name to go by ‘Dox’, after Avery’s comment about her mission being a paradoxical one – made it impossible for her to turn back, and she stagnated for a couple of weeks, wandering aimlessly.

She happened upon Nil by pure coincidence, though she insists some higher power brought the two of them together. She found the Absol while she was roaming through cold streets, and the large Dark-type seemed to get a true reading of the young girl and her intentions almost immediately. The Morph before him was naïve – well-meaning and more than a little eccentric, but hopelessly naïve and lost to the way the real world functioned – and, though he had never considered himself a fan of humans or anything related to humans, he found himself inexplicably drawn to protecting her. If she was going to wander the region and try to make the world “a brighter place”, someone would have to protect her. He shouldered that role himself.

He had no clue what she was going to do, or how she’d accomplish it, but he made a bow to stick by her through thick and thin, and to defend the Mimikyu Morph with his life if the need ever arose.



NAME — Nil
LEVEL — Five
SPECIES — Absol
TYPE — Dark
EGG GROUP — Field
ABILITY — Super Luck
HELD ITEM — n/a
GENDER — Male
HEIGHT — 4'11"
WEIGHT — 140 lbs
MOVE LIST — Perish Song, Scratch, Leer, Quick Attack, Feint, Play Rough (egg)
PERSONALITY —
A quiet, often-grumpy creature, Nil is the first to admit that he dislikes most people. With a rather pessimistic world view, along with the experience of the stigma people often associate with his species, it's little surprise that he's so disillusioned with the world and the way everything works. While not an overtly aggressive creature, he can hardly be called friendly, and is notoriously suspicious of anyone that may approach him. Despite these traits, however, he feels oddly drawn to Dox -- or, by extension, anyone or anything that embodies that same, pure sort of naivety that the Morph possesses. There's not enough pure, good-hearted people in the world, and he feels fiercely compelled to defend Dox with all he has. That sort of innocence and good should be preserved, rather than soured by unhappy life experiences.

He won't go out of his way to make friends -- even with Dox, his acts of love and affection aren't exactly obvious, no matter how deeply he cares for her. But he's always there to keep an eye on his self-appointed charge, and he's always analyzing a situation with a more reserved, cautious eye than his trainer. Though he isn't much of a fighter, he's more than willing to fight on Dox's behalf, and would risk his own life if it ever came down to it. He wants to see her succeed in her mission, despite his doubts about whether such a thing is possible, and if that means he needs to become stronger to continue supporting her, he's willing to sacrifice his own ideals for her sake. Beneath that cold, grumpy exterior, there's an intelligent, caring father that only means well. It's just not very common to see his compassionate side.

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