Appearance: Melissa is of Merfolk descent, perhaps had she been born anywhere but the polluted south she would have looked vastly different. From the top to the bottom her appearance is certainly unique for those of her race. She has no hair upon her body, save for two rather dark eyebrows. She is not bald by any means, for where her hair should be are a mass of writhing tentacles. Thick and flowing, many mistake them for snakes when she is first seen, being dubbed the serpent from where she hails due to this uncanny appearance, her tentacles are a mixture of blue and purple in colour, slimy to the touch yet strong, they are fully functional though not as practical as if they were where they should be. This is not the only physical deformaty brought on by the plague rain. Looking at her body there is an array of different issues.
Her entire being seems to have been changed, merfolk seem to be a mixutre of fish and humans, bearing human like skin tones, Melissa's skin tone is a rather strange mixture of a dull blue and a rather polished grey. Her eyes are a stunning blue though seemingly hold no irises when looking far away, upon closer inspection you can just make out the faint glimmer of the darker blue where the black holes should be.
Her hands seemed to have been aged a little more than the rest of her body, much longer and given an older like appearance, reminiscent of a hags hands, they are soft to the touch despite the seemingly aged appearance. Her fingers are much longer than normal as are the natural nails that have an un-natural durability. Trying to work out her heritage is rather tricky with her appearance, is she of octo descent or shark, the tail screams shark while the hair screams octo. She is descended from a Mimic Octopus.
In terms of attire, she dresses in greens, this seems to highlight her features, her tail is generally uncovered as it is a natural sickly green while her torso is generally matched with a tight fitting material of a matching colour to show her feminine curves. She has a rather "better than you" type of posture given the impression she is uncaring or just "Above it"
Personality:
Melissa has an addictive personality, this is meant in the literal sense. Due to being a merfolk born in the south, she like almost all became heavily dependant on drugs to try to "Cure" her deformities. Being one of the more serious cases to have been born in recent years, this meant forming a bond with drugs, perhaps this is also where her determination stems from. She would do anything to get a hold of what she needed, what she craved and this is a trait that has not left her system. When she has a goal in mind, she will go for it.
The easiest way to make her mad is to be an ass hole about her appearance. She can't help but roll her eyes or show disdain for those who clearly are not okay with how she looks. If someone keeps making this mistake she will not hesitate to gouge out an eye or two. If they don't like how she looks then the easiest way to halt this is to make it so they can never see her again.
Melissa is also a casual flirt, a tease so to speak, this being more of a defence mechanism more than anything, she has hostile moments but has realised it throws people returning harsh jibes with seductive words. Though don't get her too angry, she hasn't been persecuted all her life and not learned how to whip back with her heartless words when the need arises. Outgoing in most senses of the word, she wants to see the world, she wants to prove to those like her that being different doesn't need to mean being alone and isolated.
In probably a different way than most, she can be very argumentative, though this manifests itself in silly little ways, when arguing she rarely throws out points without some form of stupid dig at those shes arguing with, generally these insults and digs aren't even clever or good. She's goofy in so many ways but rarely has she been given the chance. With deformities and the state of her home, its hard for a person to not grow up far too quickly and it would seem as though this is her way of retaining some child like qualities.
A strong, calculating and powerful woman yes, but a woman none the less and like all woman and men she has vulnerabilities and things that break her, yet she has put up a wall to try to hinder anyone from seeing these. Alone she can be broken, alone she cries and tears at herself. When in the company of people it takes a lot for this gorgon like woman to shatter. Pain is nothing compared to what he faces on a day to day.
A lover of music, she sings, she dances and it would certainly seem as though this is the only time she is indeed happy. Music takes her to a place where she isn't constantly hurting. Where she isn't dreading every day.
Additional Information: Likes: Sushi. Singing, Music, People who just don't care about the appearance of others. Being free. Swimming.
Dislikes: The marines who did not help her people. The south and its inhabitants. The world government for letting her people suffer. Brussels sprouts. The underworld for exploiting her people.
Interests: Seeing the world: Becoming a stronger person. Finding love?
Future: To return home and break the curse of the plague, to free her people from their dependency on drugs and "cures".
History: Born in Baterilla to Shaula the Octopus mermaid and Takun the Shark Merman. The history of the south is a tragic one, especially for those who call the sea their home. With the pollution of the surrounding sea from the on going after effects of the plague rain, the merfolk became shunned more and more. Each generation faltered with different defections. Some minor, some major and some, well some were born like Melissa. A slimy creature, one with deformities that could not be hidden, her small tentacles spawning from where hair should be. Her grey and green blended skin, the moist scales upon her tail yet it was her hands that caused the most concern. Her finger nails even as a calf where long and un-naturally strong, her fingers, her hands themselves were much larger than average yet the bones within them where brittle, they caused ever lasting pain with every movement. To say that she was a nightmare child was an understatement. She did nothing but cry, over and over again. Her mother was lucky, she escaped the curse and was born without any deformity, her father was lucky in that his was mild,messed up eyes and a discolouration of his right face.
To make money, her mother worked in the brothels, while her dad worked under one of the Lips. They had too, they needed "cures" they needed pain medication for their daughter, and that did not come cheap. Her parents loved her, showered her with affection, they did everything they could, worked jobs that were demeaning and heartbreaking. She may have been in pain but she knew she was loved. The best thing about living in the sea, about living in a community that was practically all infected with some form of disease one way or another, is that you are barely judged. Though whenever they had to go to land, it all changed. Doctors were expensive, and rude and mean. They prodded her, they laughed at her, they even cut parts of her for "testing". Humans sneered and laughed at her, they called her ugly, snake hair and monster.
Yet, it didn't seem to be an issue or at least she didn't let it get to her, back in the water, back where they belonged. She went on with her daily life, she would float around singing, and that is one thing the world had not taken from her, she loved singing, she would just sing to people, and it brought her joy, and it brought them joy. Most importantly it made her family smile, because when she sang, it just made them all forget about what was going on.
As a younglin, her dependency on medication was obvious, though it wasn't something they could stop, they tried hundreds of "Cures" some helped for a little bit but it just couldn't take away the affliction forever. The pain was so intense, so powerful and...she couldn't think when the pain returned and it only got worse, the older she got. At the age of sixteen the pain was unbearable. So unbearable that she took the butcher knife and tried to hack off one of her hands. The wound was deep but her dad caught her just in time. Another un-needed doctors trip. This was the one, the one that stole her life.
Amethezine
This was the latest drug, and was the most expensive, "Guaranteed to take away the pain". It was true, it was and it did. It took away all the pain she felt, it took away EVERYTHING. There, well there are spurts of memory that it did not take. She remembers the first time taking it. The feeling of her hands flowing away. "It doesn't hurt any more mummy". She said. Then darkness. "WE CAN'T KEEP GIVING HER THAT". Her dads voice rang out, broken pieces, she remembers screaming, then more broken memory "She's like a zombie" "my beautiful girl". More screaming followed. Scenery changed, her house shrunk, her father vanished. In this haze, she remembered one thing, one thing stood out more than anything else. Her mother crying. Somehow, for some reason, it seemed that it pushed through the vast darkness. Her medicine on the table beside her, ready to take. How long had it been since she had been coherent.
Five years. Five years of her life, but it felt so good. Five years of no pain, and now. Being awake, properly awake, not having that beautiful dull feeling and just feeling the pain, ever worse than before. Stumbling through a house that felt familiar but wasn't. It wasn't the usual den. Her throat was sore, everything hurt. There she found her mother. Now out of her daze, she saw her, like really saw her. The beautiful mother was no longer there, her clothes were old and tattered, her face gaunt, her body or well what she could see bruised.
"Mum, where's dad"
Her mother looked up at her, her mums eyes looked at her with disdain, then confusion. A moment of realisation and, the two embraced. Yet Melissa didn't know what was wrong. Her mum filled her in. The drug was expensive and her parents struggled to pay for it, yet they saw their daughter no longer in pain. So they continued to do whatever they could to pay for it. They had their daughter, because even though her mind was blank she still moved around though more like a zombie, she ate a little, drank a little and took her medicine and that was her life for the next five years, no emotion, nothing. Her father died trying to get the money, to make up for it her mother sold everything they could, took clients that were much rougher. This was the push.
No one, not a single person had kicked the habit, once hooked, they were hooked for life. Nothing shook them out of it, its how most Merfolk ended up in debt, ended up doing some form of job for the underworld. Not Melissa, not any more. She sold the drugs she had, cheaper than they got it for, and she isolated. She cried, she screamed, she cut herself, she broke her hands. She did every single thing she could to get through this and one day, six months down the line, she woke up....feeling free. She woke up and did something her mother hadn't heard for for five and a half long years.
She sang.
What could she do now. This stint, everything that had happened while she was out of it and everything that happened. She began to preach in song, she tried to open up the eyes of the merfolk, but of course it fell on deaf ears. She sang, she performed, she did everything she could think off. Nothing worked. Eventually she realised, peace wasn't going to happen by singing. Action was needed. So she went to the surface of course she wasn't very good on land given her tail had not split yet. She was fighting with words and apparently her naivety would have been the end for her. Had she not been saved.
Fate, destiny, good fucking luck. She was fighting, she was screaming at the top of her lungs for change, that the World Government, the marines needed to stop being cowards, to stop being disgusting low lives and fight for those who needed to be fought for. For turning a blind eye against the suffering and abuse they were against. For the racism for it all. Well apparently the marines and the underworld didn't like her causing an uproar, very unheard off in the South. One voice could spark a revolution. She remembers gunfire, a bullet wound and pain in her abdomen. She remembers running, or well, floundering. She called for help and no one was coming. Then a man, then hands. Then she was on a ship. Someone had patched her up and there she was. Twenty six years old and on a pirate ship.
She rested for two days, only seeing the doctor of the ship, yet she wasn't scared. Of course she heard stories of Pirates and what they could do, but her life had already been awful as it was. This was just fitting, now a slave right? She refused all forms of pain medication, and strangely enough the doctor agreed to this odd request. On the second day, she was sitting by the port hole in sick bay, singing to herself, unaware that above on the main deck, her voice was travelling to the ears of the crew. She sang about her life, her addiction, the heartbreak of not even knowing your own father had died. She sang about her hatred for the marines and the World Government, for the controlling faction that held the south. For the rain that caused her people to become the way they where.
She would soon learn that she was on the pirate ship known as the Scarf, vessel of the Red Scarf pirates, gifted their name due to the red scarfs they all wear. Simple, but seemingly effective enough to draw attention whenever deeds where done in their name. They were in the South researching the Plague. Their doctor was a human from the south who had fallen in love with a mermaid, alas the plagues poison took her from him. He gave her his word that he would try to help her people and the Red Scarf pirates were great enough to help. It turned out the doctor was the one who insisted on saving the strange looking mermaid, He had heard her speech and liked what he had heard.
Chevalier 'Iron Fists' Gabriel Captain of the Red Scarves was a some what flamboyant Captain; He liked the uniqueness, and it wasn't till he came down to speak to her that she realised why he was given his epithet. The iron fists part wasn't some homage to his strength, in that his fists were as powerful as iron, no. It was given because his hands were actually iron. Cybernetic hands. Chevalier offered Melissa the chance at freedom, the chance at making what she sang about a reality. She accepted, The pirates sent a message to her mother to let her know she was okay and that she would return some day. She was introduced to the crew and actually spent a lot of time with Morgan Seafarer Vance. A fish-man of Daggertooth pike descent became one of her best friends on the ship. In fact Morgan began to train her in combat. Specifically teaching her how to manipulate water in a combat based environment. She had never practised this art before, it involved a lot of movement with the hands and of course her hands had been a big concern. Yet she didn't realise how good the water dancing around her hands could really feel. She became the musician of her crew, every day she also trained in her mermaid combat style. Realising a large flaw of the technique early on she would become accustom to carrying around water to use when needing to be on land. She had never realised how amazing being involved with a lot of people could be. Though during her travels she discovered one other thing, humans did not like her, did not like fishmen or mermaids wherever she went. She was always looked at with disdain and disgust. It certainly turned her colder to the human race.
The pirate life certainly was different and honestly she didn't mind when they had to pillage, or when they took from those that deserved it. She actually thrived on it. Eventually through general pirate deeds, pillaging from towns, destruction of property but what really set her up as a pirate in her own name was when she encountered Ensign Toruto. Ensign Toruto was a member of the marine core that resided in the South, He was the marine that shot her well over a year ago, it would seem he had been transferred to the west and they would have a fateful encounter on Ohara. Why was the Red Scarf pirates on Ohara? Research. They were researching as much as they could about the Plague Rain and trying to find out any information on how the great doctor ;Ba’an Briggs stopped the rain. Alas they did not manage to get the information when the marines attacked. All over the island of Ohara the marines and the Red Scarf pirates battled. As she fled to the ship Ensign Toruto cut her off.
Melissa had never, in her life felt rage much like it. Ensign Toruto could not hold his tongue, she had never heard such colourful language and such insults to her people. To say this was a fight was a great exaggeration. Melissa was defeated rather easily, being able to only use minimum amount of water combined with her inability to move very quickly upon the land really hindered her. She took a lot of damage including a scar across her neck, thankfully it was not deep enough to end her life. It was simply luck that allowed her to "win" this battle. As Ensign Toruto looked over the mermaid, he gloated. Gloated about his victory, gloated about the many many fishmen and mermaids he had slain. He gloated about how when Melissa had fled, he had checked her records, he had found her mother and how he enjoys her screams, He went in to great detail, with a bout of anger and a single drop of water, her aim was true or so she believed. She shot the ensign straight in the left eye. She believed him to be dead, people witnessed this but Melissa was picked up by her crew and they managed to escape to the ship. The Scarf pulled out of port and blasted away, The captain having killed Rear Admiral Kanjuro during this journey.
Within the Shine Sea, the Red Scarf pirates would come to make a small "hideout" in this area. Upon a small island within a well hidden cove, they would use this to store their possessions and plundering. Though Captain Gabriel had bested the Rear Admiral, he had been heavily wounded in battle and this is where they would stay for now. Melissa knew that she was alive right now due to sheer dumb luck. She was useless, unable to really do anything. She tried to wield guns, she tried to wield weapons but her hands, they couldn't take the weight, she needed large bodies of water to do anything and lets face it, a voice well a voice is but a voice. Not much you can do in a real battle with a voice. So how, how could she fight, how could she help her allies out when she was so clearly unable to do anything.
This is where she had to get creative, where she had to realise that just giving up would get her no were. Water was the main function of her abiliites, they were derived from her race, Yet water itself seemed so fluid but without a large source of it useless. Yet that, thats not the case. Water made up almost every single thing in the world right? Water was in the air, water was in the body, Water could be shaped. Thats it she could use different forms of liquids as well as the ability to shape these, water wasn't heavy so it shouldn't be a problem with her hands. Being in a pirate crew, there was no shortages of acidic components and liquids that were at her use. First things first. She had to learn how to create constructs. She had to wield water like clay itself and use her mind to shape it. Thats what she did. Over the coming months, she played around with water, as a mermaid she had the ability to touch water as if it were a solid, to grasp it and manipulate it in different ways. Constructs were much harder than simple bursts and waves. They required such precise control. Thankfully she was a determined young woman and she seemed to have a knack for control. over six months worth of training, she could create her own blade covering her hands, she could manipulate the size of it, she could manipulate its density and the sharpness of it. Alas after she had finally managed to wield such an ability The "Iron Fist" had recovered. The Red Scarf Pirates would set sail once more
The resident swordsman was a master of the Nitoryu, the two sword style. Though at this present time with her manipulation abilities Melissa was only capable of creating and maintaining one blade around her hand. Swordsmen Kakua was a nice man, gentle as the falling leaves yet his ability with a sword was well known. She would train with him, learning the way of the blade, Kakua was also big on meditation, something he would pass down to Melissa whom would find this a rather handy method to help build her concentration. Learning the way of the sword was not something you master in a day or two. Every single day for the next few years, they trained together. The Red Scarf Pirates travelled the seas, causing a bit of ruckus for the Underworld and the Marines wherever they went. Melissa had learned to wield more water techniques, some in aid of her movement on the ground while others were laced with other liquids. Mainly she combined her water manipulation with acid to cause extra damage to those she fought. She began during these escapades showing great growth in her abilities. She felt more at piece.
Have you ever felt your body split in two? The first time, upon her thirtieth birthday, The Mermaids tail would split, she had never, in her life been in such pain. Screaming, the crew knew nought what was happening until they saw it. The flippers on her lower half seemingly becoming more leg like. She could walk, she could run. She was no longer going to be slow on the land, she could fight even better and that became apparent very quickly as she trained with with her crew. Her crowning achievement? She managed to put a single scar upon the powerful hands of her Captain, of course she was beaten mercilessly after wards but that was a memory that would stick with her. It had too, for her journey with the Red Scarfs would not have a happy ending.
The crew had years of happiness, they avoided marines, they pillaged and plundered and stored their goods in the hideout. They laughed, they fought, they cried and they recovered. They mourned losses and drank at victories. They listened to her sing time and time again. Thirty One years old, in the prime of her life. They were sailing within the West Sea. They came so quickly, they attacked without any sign. The sea was empty, the sea was calm, the first boom, the first shake. The marines attacked, they came from underneath, then upon the shore line a single ship, then another, then another. It all happened so quickly. The crew went to action. Knocking back cannonballs, fighting bodies that just appeared out of the air itself. As they fought the ship began to crumble, bit by bit, every so often out of the corner of her eye she would see her crew mates, some taking out their enemies, then she would see a friend fall. Over and over yet she managed to remain standing until with one mighty explosion the Red Scarves vessel was no more.Something had caused the explosion and the bodies upon the ship were blasted into the water.
She woke up, she awoke in the murky water a day or so later. Bodies of pirate and marine alike. Swimming through the water she found some bodies but not all. She found the body of her fishman teacher, left to sink. She found the bodies of her friends but not the first mate or the captain. With great haste Melissa flew through the ocean back to the hide out. There it was untouched, its treasures and secrets. A few days went by and no one came, she ventured out, the coo revealed the attack, that the pirates known as the Red Scarfs had been taken out, that three had seemingly survived, three bodies unfound. Herself, Kakua and Iron Fist himself, though the latter had been captured. Her life had changed once more, and she has yet to sing again. Her heart broken.
