Joshua Christopher (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sinningsaint) wrote2012-08-07 12:25 am
sinningsaint) wrote2012-08-07 12:25 am
Entry tags:
Zodion Application
TL;DR warning. No, seriously, this was 13 pages long in Word. ...Yeah.
✖ PLAYER:
Name & DW Journal: Haley, carrotsgtfo
Birthdate & Age: Nov 9 1987 // 24.
Characters played in Zodion: N/A
✖ CHARACTER:
Name: Joshua Christopher
Canon: Chrono Crusade
PB/Image: http://i.imgur.com/ed0ci.jpg
Info links: Wikipedia is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Crusade#Sinners The information is more based on the anime than the manga, though, and they REALLY changed Joshua as a character in the adaptation, so it’s not the best source. There’s also the fan wiki here, which seems to be…OK: http://chronocrusade.wikia.com/wiki/Joshua_Christopher
Canon Point: About a month or so after the end of the main manga storyline, but before the epilogue. (He has the horns off, is with Rosette again, etc)
Gender & Sex: Male/Male
Age: 15
Birthdate/Sign: April 9th/Aries—not canon. I partially chose the birthdate because it fits into the canon timeline well and it explains why his parents decided to name him something like Joshua Christopher (it’s Good Friday in the year he was born, 1909). Lucky for me, however, I think Aries is actually the best fit for Joshua!
For the strengths: Even when Joshua was sick, he wanted more than anything to spend time with his sister outdoors, and managed to keep up a somewhat cheerful, energetic personality despite being bedridden. He rarely, if ever, backs down from fights in canon, and enjoys comparing his powers with those he knows. After he loses his horns—which means weaker than he has been in canon previously—he jumps between an enemy and his sister TWICE within the space of a few hours. In the future, he “defends the vulnerable” in another way when he joins the Magdalene Order and dedicates himself to helping rebuild New York City (which was destroyed partially because of his actions with the horns) and is shown feeding the hungry. He seems to think of the best in others, even Aion.
Weaknesses: Joshua doesn’t really think through his decisions when he’s desperate—he jumped on Aion’s offer of Chrono’s horns without even thinking about the consequences. He was so jealous of the healthier children at the orphanage that he couldn’t even bare to watch them play outdoors. He describes it as being “too bright” to watch. Although he’s compassionate, he also tends to be self-centered and thinks about his own problems first (until reality gives him a huge slap in the face when he has his sanity back). When Rosette tries to tell him she’s his sister, he refuses to believe her because she doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear.
Attributes: Joshua tends to jump into the fray without waiting for a go-ahead from Aion. He’s very focused on his goals (become stronger to be with and protect his sister), to the point that it becomes an obsession when he loses his sanity. He’s prone to mood swings (arguing with Rosette, then laughing, then becoming depressed because of his powers in the space of a few minutes) even WITHOUT the horns, and when he gained the horns he was so controlled by his emotions that he was wildly unpredictable. He has big dreams that he clings to fiercely. He has a habit of being snarky and talking back. As mentioned above, he eventually joins the Order specifically to do charity work to atone for what he’s done, and even before this he’s shown being concerned for the wellbeing of the other Apostles—particularly Azmaria, who he’s only just met.
Tattoo: On his back between his shoulder blades. It’s big enough to just fit inside a 2x2” square.
Suitability: First of all, it’s probably worthwhile to note that Joshua mentions in a flashback that he would’ve had to leave the orphanage at the age of 15, so apparently where he’s from he’d be considered old enough to fend for himself at this age, anyway.
Joshua is pretty stubborn, surprisingly mature once he loses the horns, and has a clear sense of responsibility and the consequences of a person’s actions. He’s been pretty beaten up emotionally by his experiences, but those experiences have managed to help him grow up very fast. He already shows signs that the end of canon that he’s preparing himself to try to fix what he’s done as much as he can—when Rosette asks him if he’s hurt, he tells her “I’ve hurt people more than this. I can handle a little pain.” Later as an adult it’s shown that he never lets that attitude go, considering his charity work with the Order.
He’s also shown living alone with Fiore for an extended period of time in Aion’s house and he manages to survive just fine, and even fends off intruders from the home. He’s still pretty insane at that point thanks to the horns, but since he matures rapidly when he loses them I think that’s only a sign that he’d be even more prepared for the responsibility of living on his own.
The sex stuff will be a little trickier—we’re not given much info about how he feels about sex in canon, but it seems like with the horns he was crazy enough to not really think about it much, and afterwards it’s highly likely (and I’m assuming that) he is taken in by the Magdalene Order. We’re not given a huge amount of info on how the Order views sex either, but Sister Kate DOES get after Remington for his flirtatious jokes toward the nuns, so it’s probably not that sex-positive, particularly since the Order is basically “Anime!Catholic.” (Then again one of the other priests in the Order is a pervert that peeps on girls while showering and goes on panty raids so WHO KNOWS.)
Either way, even assuming Joshua will be a little awkward with the sex at first, there are two important things that will drive him. One is that he cares very, very much about helping other people. He already did even as a kid, the way he would use his powers without much resistance even for things like scraped knees, but as a teen? Thanks to that added guilt, his biggest desire (besides, maybe, spending time with his sister) is to help people and to try to become a better person than he once was. If he’s convinced that he has to “worship” to help other people, well then…he’s going to do it.
Secondly, Joshua is very driven to survive. His sister literally sacrificed her life to save him from his own stupid mistake and allow him to live. Despite his shaken confidence in himself, despite everything he’s been through, despite him believing that he deserves pain for what he’s done, he would NEVER take that sacrifice for granted. He’s going to survive and find his way back to his sister, damn it, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make it.
Power: Since he loses his powers in canon after the battle on Christmas, I’m choosing to give him a zodiac-related power. He’s going to get “Healing: Draw the heat out.” It works pretty similarly to how his old Apostle healing powers used to work, so…that should be amusing.
Personality:
Joshua can be a tough nut to crack because in canon we see three sides to Joshua: what he was like as a child, how the power of Chrono’s horns twists his mind and personality, and a little bit of him as a teenager without the horns (but under a very stressful, intense situation). However, when you combine the whole of canon together, Joshua’s true personality and how he’s grown up and been affected by what he’s been through and the people in his life paint a full picture of his personality. Joshua is a warm, loyal teenager who’s been battered by life and made some horrible mistakes, but he’s determined to learn from what has happened to him so that he can become a better person and make sure that his sister’s sacrifice for him was not in vain.
Despite the hardships Joshua has had in his life, he seems to naturally be a cheerful person. As an ill child, Joshua wanted little more than to just spend time with his sister outside and have fun with her, rather than worry over his illness or strange powers. He doesn’t particularly WANT to dwell on his problems (even though he often does), he wants to just enjoy life and have fun. So even when he’s under a lot of stress, he tends to manage to make jokes, have fun discussions with the people he cares about and engage in playful banter.
Of course, sometimes that “playful banter” of his can take a snarky, argumentative, and even downright childish tone. As a kid, he mocks his older sister because her chest is “as flat as a pancake.” He gets into extended arguments with Fiore because he hates carrots and she wants him to eat healthily. He apparently has a toy gun even as a 15-year-old. He mocks and eggs on opponents in a fight. (“Hah! That wasn’t even close! You DO know how to shoot, don’t you?”) We don’t see him engage with this after he loses his horns, so it’s possible that he “grows out of” this trait later on, but it’s also just as likely that the situations we see him in afterward simply don’t call for it.
His ‘childish’ side also manifests in a more positive way, in that Joshua is very imaginative and creative. As a child trapped indoors most of the time because of his illness, he became very attached to books. Most of the stuff he read was dime novels and pulp fiction, with a particular interest in adventure, sci-fi, westerns and the occult. (Honestly, a lot of his interests are downright geeky, particularly when you realize that dime novels are a precursor to comic books.)
He loves consuming stories and is fascinated by people of different cultures and ideas, and idolizes larger-than-life heroes. He also channels this creative energy into music—he’s shown singing “Israfel” the first time we see him as a teenager, and we later learn that he focuses his powers through music (particularly through a pipe organ made specifically for his use).
As a child, his love of stories and of the strange and unusual is part of what drew him closer to Chrono. He was fascinated at first by Chrono’s claim of being a demon, asking him if “witches and fairies [were] real, too?” and not showing a hint of fear. When Chrono begins to tell them stories and legends he’s amazed and inspired by them, particularly Chrono explaining the “astral lines” where the souls of the dead are said to go. As a child he decided that he and Rosette were going to become explorers and find the astral lines (and he’d write a book about it, of course!) Even as a sane teenager, he can’t help but point out to Rosette that their dreams have come true, since when she saves him they ARE surrounded by the astral line.
In general Joshua is bold, dreams big, and enjoys taking on new challenges. His idealized version of himself is the heroes that he’s so fascinated by—for example, when he heals Rosette with his powers and she thanks him, he tells her that she shouldn’t thank him until he saves her from a group of bandits with only a rifle. He has a fascination with guns (probably from all those books he reads), to the point where he sometimes fights with guns despite the fact that the horns allow him to tear apart demons with his bare hands.
He very, very rarely backs down from a challenge, and only seems to when ordered to or convinced otherwise. When a group of demon Pursuers come to Aion’s home and demand to see him, he warns them not to underestimate him (probably just to rile them up) and then kills them all with nothing but his powers and bare hands, only getting a little scratch on his hand in return. Later, when he starts to question whether Rosette really is his sister as she says she is, Fiore encourages him to seek out the truth—so he does, going to her directly and asking her point-blank “You really are my sister Rosette, aren’t you?” Even after he loses his horns and is back to being frail due to his powers, he not once but TWICE jumps between Rosette and an enemy, determined to protect her.
In fact, as a child he promised himself on his father’s grave that he would grow up as strong as he could to be able to protect Rosette, which is one of the reasons why he despises his illness so much. He’s VERY bothered that Rosette “acts just like a boy” and is the one being strong and protecting him, instead of the other way around. He seems to only half-remember the promise he made, but it greatly affects how he sees himself. He knew that because of his illness, he wasn’t as strong as he wanted to be, and he was upset by it. In an interview in the English volume 2 of the manga, the writer of the series mentions that Joshua has a “childhood dilemma of [a] gap between the person he wants to be and the person he actually is,” which I think is a good way of summing up how Joshua feels about himself.
Because of his high expectations, he HATES being pitied and patronized. As a child he knew that caring for him was tiring, and both felt guilty for being a bother and resented people pitying and coddling him because of his illness. He also gets very upset by Rosette wanting to be a doctor so she can take care of him (even though she thinks she’s “too stupid” for it), which is even hinted to be a motivating factor in him taking the horns. To him, being reminded that he’s ill and weak is insulting, and later in life, when he has great power because of the horns, he goes out of his way to show it off as if to prove a point.
He seems to place a high expectation on others, as well as himself, and is disappointed when they fail to match his expectations. On the flip side, when someone exceeds his expectations he’s quick to applaud them for it. For example, when Chrono snaps out of a rage-fueled frenzy during a fight and is stabbed by Aion because of it, Joshua expresses disappointment in how the fight ended, since he knows Chrono is a powerful demon. Later on, when Azmaria shows quick-thinking and uses her Apostle powers in an unconventional way to call Rosette’s soul back to her body, he’s visibly impressed with her.
His love of larger-than-life heroes, the occult, and admiration for the powerful is probably why he was so attached to Aion when he was part of the Sinners. From Joshua’s viewpoint, Aion was always calm, collected, and in control. He was powerful, and he knew it. To a boy driven insane by the “noise” he was hearing Aion must have seemed one of the few steady, in control things in the universe. He greatly looked up to Aion, and Aion in turn expected much of him and included him in his plans. Joshua was proud of his work with Aion.
Even after he lost the horns, he stops and listens when Aion speaks to him, tries to reason with Aion rather than considering him as an enemy, and even seems concerned for him (after he makes sure his sister is all right). Of course, he doesn’t make excuses for Aion either, and is silent when Chrono and Rosette decide to face him a final time. He doesn’t argue that they shouldn’t fight Aion. He just warns Chrono to keep Rosette safe.
Speaking of Rosette and Aion, Joshua tends to be very loyal to those that he comes to care about. In general he’s rather friendly, but distant. He doesn’t seem to have had many friends in the orphanage—particularly once he got his powers, which frightened them. But the few people that he gets truly close to? He can be fanatically devoted to.
I’ve already mentioned that as a kid he promised himself he would be there for Rosette. If you asked him who the most important person in his life was, he would pick Rosette with little hesitation. She’s the only family he has left, and even though they sometimes fight or tease each other, he cares for her deeply. When he was sick, he hated feeling like he was holding her back, which was another thing that drove him to take Chrono’s horns from Aion.
After he got the horns, his memories of Rosette started to become faded and corrupted. It got bad enough that he couldn’t even remember her face. Unable to tell the difference between dreams and reality, he constructed a false Rosette in his mind out of scattered memories and wishful thinking, imagining her as a pure, kind-hearted girl who would never disagree with him and support his quest for power. He became obsessed with the false sister he created in his mind, and that image became something he clung to when the noise or his illness became too much of a strain. In his mind, all the pain would be worth it once he was with his sister in Aion’s newly remade world.
Meeting the real Rosette again was a shock, particularly when she dared to do something like—GASP—tell him to give back the horns! It was so out of line with his memories that he attacked her, but she had none of that and shot a horn off, enabling him just enough sanity that he could remember his promise to her and choose to tear out the other horn. The rest of the manga, he spends time with her and, after she collapses and nearly dies, desperately works with the other characters to save her life. He’s a very devoted, doting brother without the horns, and the knowledge that her life is shortened because of his actions tends to send him into solemn contemplation when he thinks about it. Still, he’s bound and determined to protect her for as long as she lives, but on his OWN strength, now, instead of Chrono’s.
Despite how attached he is to Rosette, she’s not the only one he loves. His loyalty to Aion I covered earlier, and although the horns caused him to be selfish around her, it’s very clear that he also cares deeply for Fiore. (In fact, in a flash-forward set eight years after the main storyline, he’s STILL missing Fiore and hoping he’ll be able to see her again so he can thank her for all she did for him.)
However, despite how loving he can be to those he trusts, he has a bad habit of thinking of himself first, and others second. Rosette never asked to be protected by Joshua, but he was bound and determined to do it, even if it meant making a deal with the devil.
Loyal as he is to Aion, he seems to only somewhat care about Aion’s needs and ideals—as much as Aion used him, with the horns he was happy to play along for the power given to him and the promise of a new world he could share with his sister. He’ll directly disobey Aion’s orders if it’s frustrating or inconvenient for him, like when he decides to attack Chrono to make the horns stop their “screaming.”
And while I do think he cares about Fiore, he’s definitely much more interested in what she can do for HIM while he has the horns. While with Fiore he tends to be clingy, concerned with his problems and frankly pretty whiny. He constantly goes to her for advice and emotional support without offering much in return. Part of it is just how their relationship works—she’s his maid, after all—but he definitely doesn’t mind having her to serve him hand and foot, and even seems to actively enjoy it. (He gets a kick out of asking her if she was worried about him after a fight and even offers his cut-up hand to her so she can lick the blood from the wound. …It’s a weird moment.)
He gets much better about this behavior after he loses the horns, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a part of his personality—he’s just got a much better control over it when he’s not all crazy. He still shows signs of being a little demanding even without the horns, particularly when it comes to Chrono’s treatment of Rosette (…and her body). And particularly since this was a trait of his even before the horns, it’s likely that’s just the way he is—his guilt is just stamping out his selfishness when he’s not flying off the handle emotionally.
Oh, right, his emotions. He’s not very good at controlling them. He seems calm in comparison to Rosette, but that’s just because Rosette’s EVEN WORSE than he is. It’s at its worst when he has the horns, of course. He has very little impulse control with them, which is where most of his chaotic nature with the horns comes from. But even without the horns he has a tendency to switch emotions at the drop of a hat. As a kid, while being generally cheerful, he was often depressed by his powers, and he also played a pretty mean prank on her as revenge for her ruining a book. (Plus, he yells at her when she offers food to Chrono because HE’D been hungry earlier—oh, yeah, there’s the selfish side again.)
Even without the horns, perhaps even because of the trauma from all the horns put him through, he is pretty volatile emotionally. This manifests the most when he’s under a lot of stress. As things start to go worse and worse for him and Rosette, he gets more and more unpredictable when it comes to his mood swings. He’s not a stoic guy by any stretch of the imagination.
Chrono seems the most likely character to set him off throughout canon. When he has the horns, it’s partially because he thinks of Chrono as an enemy (for wanting to take the horns from him) and partially because when he’s around Chrono the horns are noooot happy and make the noise even worse. He shoots Chrono on impulse because of this, and came very, very close to killing him because of it.
Once the horns are gone, things still aren’t great between him and Chrono, mostly because of how devoted and overprotective he is of his sister. When he finds out about the contract Chrono had with Rosette, he flies into a rage and beats Chrono until his knuckles are bloodied. (Also Chrono was already missing an arm and an eye before Joshua decided to beat him up more.)
Aion comes around eventually to point out that Rosette made the contract to save Joshua, but even then that doesn’t quite calm him down about it. He yells at Chrono when Chrono’s about to leave Rosette(‘s body) behind, and when Rosette and Chrono decide they have to face Aion together, Joshua gives Chrono a veeeeeery reluctant blessing and an apology for calling him a “monster.” It’s not that he hates Chrono—far from it, he even seems to think of Chrono as a friend and expresses concern for him at one point. It’s just that when emotions are running high, it’s easy for him to pick a target to lash out at—plus, he’s the stereotypical overprotective brother. He’s glad that Rosette cares about Chrono, but he’s going to make VERY SURE that Chrono takes good care of her.
But really, despite all of his hang-ups, chaotic emotions and selfishness? By the end of the manga, Joshua is determined to become a better person. We might not get to see much of him without the horns, but baring his outbursts over Chrono’s contract with Rosette, every single thing he does after he loses the horns is directed at helping other people.
When it’s revealed that there’s a chance to save Rosette’s life, he immediately offers to help and races with Azmaria to the ‘Astral Organ’—a pipe organ made specifically for him to use. He uses it to help Azmaria call Rosette’s soul back to her body, despite the fact that he’s using his Apostle powers and once again causing himself to become ill (to the point where he starts to bleed from the mouth). Despite his tense moments with Chrono, he doesn’t let him go without apologizing for being harsh toward him. The last thing we see him do in the main manga timeline is comfort Azmaria when she begins to cry. And in the epilogue, we learn that he eventually joins the Order to atone for the harm he’s caused.
This isn’t actually all that surprising—although he can be selfish, as a child we’re never given any reason to think he ever refused to heal someone with his powers, despite resenting his ill health and despite his powers and illness making him an outcast in his orphanage. In fact, considering that his powers are what cause his illness in the first place? It’s pretty clear that he’s been using his powers a lot, considering how sick he is by the time he gets the horns.
So in conclusion? Joshua is a screwed-up kid that can be self-centered and argumentative, clingy and prone to mood swings. He’s also compassionate, a devoted brother, curious and creative, and by the end of the manga is on his way to becoming someone who lives his life helping others.
✖ SAMPLES:
"Zodion" First-Person Network Entry:
[The video opens with a blond young man staring at the screen, his hair sticking out every which-way as if he went to bed with it wet. He doesn’t look very happy. In fact, he looks angry and frightened at the same time.
He straightens as soon as he realizes that the recording’s started and puffs himself up, glaring out of the screen.]
I’m guessing this thing will let me talk to the “Twelve.” Well I read your letter! Very flattering and very vague. [His eyes narrow.]
Well, sorry but I don’t buy it. I’m sick and tired of talk of power and the “fate of the world” and how I’m needed for some grand plan. And what information I’m getting from ‘thinking of you’ is…[he blushes and glances awkwardly away from the screen] weird, and not helpful. If you want my help, I need details! What is so bad that you can justify pulling me to wherever HERE is without even asking me if I was interested?!
[He looks back at the screen and forces himself to look firm and in control.] If you can’t even answer that, then you can forget it. I’m not “worshiping” someone just because they tell me to. I’m giving you an hour, and if you can’t answer me I’m finding a way back home to my sister!
[He seems satisfied enough that he’s managed to get his point across, and punctuates his last sentence with a deep breath before shutting off the recording.]
"Zodionlogs" Third-Person Prose Entry:
Joshua dreamed he was sitting on the edge of Eden, watching the clouds roll by underneath his bare feet as he dangled them off the edge. The wind blew through his hair, bringing with it some sort of faint, sweet whisper from a distance away. The whisper sounded almost musical as it floated in and out of his range of hearing, and served as some sort of soundtrack to the clouds lazily drifting beneath him.
This place was peace, in his mind. Paradise. Up here there were no people to fill his head with jumbled, half-formed thoughts that mixed together as a buzz of noise. Up here there was no death, and so there were no deaths he felt responsible for. And up here there was…
He turned to look over his shoulder, watching as a dark-haired maid hung laundry up on a clothes line. She hung up the clothing with enough speed and precision to be a machine. The shoulders of the shirts she pinned up were always aligned perfectly, and the clothespins were always spaced evenly apart, exactly one inch from the start of the sleeve. The speed and precision of her work made it almost a shame to interrupt her.
Almost. He pulled his legs back from the edge and got up to walk toward her, looping his arms around her shoulders and pressing his chest into her back. “Fi, tell me a story?”
The maid’s shoulders tensed, but otherwise there was no sign of an emotional reaction from her as she pinned a lab coat into place on the line. “This isn’t the time, Master Joshua.”
“Please?”
He leaned forward just enough that he could see her lips flatten into a straight line. In the back of his mind, he could hear the whispering song getting louder, and his head began to dully throb. She took a deep breath and began to speak:
“Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved heroes. As he lay in bed, wasting away, he soon grew tired of merely reading about powerful heroes. He wanted to become one. He wanted the power of the heroes he’d read about over and over again.”
Joshua’s grip on her shoulders loosened. Something didn’t seem right.
“The boy was friends with a once-powerful demon, who often supplied him with the stories he loved. One day, he had an idea—if he took the horns of his friend, would he become powerful? The thought consumed him, until finally he betrayed his friend and grasped his horns, ripping them out of his head and taking them for his own.”
Joshua dropped his hands to his side and backed away. The song was getting louder, and it didn’t sound nearly as sweet. “No, no I didn’t—“
“Reveling in his new-found power, the boy plotted his revenge on those he hated. He stopped the time of every child in the orphanage where he lived, freezing them in place. Every person who’d ever doubted him, pitied him, feared him was going to get the same.”
A twisted, ghostly figure rose from the ground. The top half of the figure looked like the body of a demon woman with long, sweeping horns, but where her legs would have begun there grew instead a mass of the mangled bodies of other women, crying out in despair and pain and rage. They grabbed at him when he tried to run, holding him in place.
“Then, the boy had a terrible idea…”
The demon woman smiled and lovingly caressed his cheek, continuing her menacing song. When he tried to pull away from her, she dug her nails into his head until he bled, then leaned forward to sing into his ear. The sound was enough to nearly drown out all others, although he could somehow still hear Fiore’s story above it all.
“His sister was strong, and full of life. If he could add her power to his own, perhaps with her blood…”
Joshua jerked back, struggling against the arms that held him in place. “I never did anything like that!”
“Didn’t do what? Decided to trade your misery for theirs?”
“I didn’t know the horns were Chrono’s! I didn’t know Rosette would make a contract with him to find me!”
“You’d trade anyone for power, wouldn’t you?” Her back was still turned to him, but he could see her hands curling into fists. “Even me.”
The demon woman was screaming into his ear. This was a dream. This had to be a dream. “No,” he insisted, “I made a mistake; I didn’t do it on purpose. I care about you, I wouldn’t—“
The maid laughed—a sound he’d never heard her make, which made it sound alien and strange. “Care about me?” She turned, looking at him with a face twisted in bitter anger that made her unrecognizable from the girl in his memories. “You left me to die!”
Joshua woke up.
It took several minutes of staring up at the ceiling of his room in fear and confusion before he remembered where he was--the San Francisco branch of the Magdalene Order. He rubbed a hand over his face and slowly sat up.
‘I really hope this isn’t another dream,’ he thought to himself as he swung his feet off the bed and carefully put a foot down on the floor. The wooden planks creaked softly under his bare feet, and didn’t seem like they were about to collapse underneath him. He stood with a deep breath and squinted in the darkness to read the clock up on the wall. It was three in the morning. That meant he’d slept longer than he’d managed to on the previous night, but still not quite enough. Even so, there was no way he was going to try to sleep again. He could still hear the echoes of Pandaemonium’s screams in his mind.
He grabbed a set of the clothing he’d been given when he first came to the Order and made his way to the communal washroom as quietly as he could. At least that was one advantage of getting up so early—nobody was going to be up and about at this time of the morning, so he wouldn’t have to fight with anyone else for a shower, and he wouldn’t have to deal with the conversations of the members of the Order as their voices echoed off the tiled walls. Even a small crowd could sound unbearably loud to him while he was in there.
He showered and changed, then dried his hair as best he could with a towel. He could already feel that his hair was sticking up every which-way, as always. He’d never been able to keep his hair tame. He wiped some of the fog on the bathroom mirror off with his hand so he could see how bad his hair was looking at the moment.
That was when he saw his face. He looked tired and obviously upset, with dark circles under his eyes. He also couldn’t help but notice that despite being thin enough that the Order doctors had told him he needed to gain weight, he still had a rounded bit of baby fat around his cheeks, which he hated. It made him look young. He narrowed his eyes at his reflection and straightened. “You look like something the cat dragged in,” he told it. The reflection crossed its arms as he did and looked out at him with an expression of disapproval.
“Come on, pull yourself together. You know they’re going to want to ask you more questions about Aion and the other Sinners today. If you look like this at the meeting they’re going to treat you like a damaged victim again. You’re tired of that, aren’t you?” He sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “Yeah. I’m tired of it, too.”
He could always avoid them. This place was big enough that he could probably find all sorts of places to hide. A part of him liked the idea. He could even make it a game—who would find him first? The Elder, Father Remington, Sister Kate? He’d personally bet on Rosette, if only because he’d feel guilty for making her worry. But it could actually be fun. The thought was tempting.
Still…the more trouble he caused for the members of the Order, the more they were going to think of him as a burden and a troublemaker. He should probably try to stay on their good side, especially since they weren’t all bad.
So it was decided. He’d be cooperative and on his best behavior. And to be awake enough to be on his best behavior, it’d probably be good to get a cup of coffee. The cafeteria would be open in about an hour, so until then he could hide out in the library. They seemed to have a few interesting books to read, squished in between all of the religious texts and dry manuals on the different subsets of undead familiars (which had no right to be as dull as they were). His mind made up, he took a deep breath and stepped out of the bathroom…
And out onto a grassy field.
For a moment, he thought for sure he was having another nightmare. Or maybe the past month had all been a delusional dream given to him by the horns and he’d really never left Eden. But both of his guesses were quickly disproved—his senses felt too sharp for him to be dreaming, and wherever he was, it wasn’t Eden.
Some distance away there was a series of arches, and beyond those there was an altar surrounded by a ring of water. His curiosity immediately flared up. It looked like a temple—sort of like the faded pictures he’d seen in books about long-dead civilizations as a child. The ancient ruins of temples had always fascinated him. He couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if the ancient gods were truly real. Would they hover nearby their abandoned altars, waiting for one of their worshippers to return? The curiosity he felt about the temple was so strong that he barely needed the pull of the glowing box on the altar to motivate him to come closer.
When he stepped up to the altar, he suddenly felt a small stab of pain on his back and the waters rose up around him. His first reaction was to wince and hold up his arms in front of him in defense. When nothing happened for a moment, he slowly lowered his arms down and looked at the water.
His reflection was looking back at him again—this time with a wide-eyed, frightened look. He realized to his confusion that his face somehow looked a little older and more angular and his shoulders were broader, making him look closer to the vague memories he had of his father than the boy he’d seen in the mirror a few moments before.
Then he realized to his shock that the reflection he was looking at was completely naked. He crouched and placed his arms on his lap to cover himself before he realized that he himself was still wearing the clothing he’d changed into moments before. He frowned and looked back up at the reflection, wondering if he’d been mistaken, but in the water he still looked bare.
That was when he looked past his frightened face to see the reflection of the waters behind him, and noticed the brand placed upon his back, right where his wings used to seem to sprout from when he’d had his Apostle powers. He recognized the symbol almost instantly—it was the symbol for Aries, the ram, his zodiac sign.
He stood as the waters fell back down into place. Just what the hell was going on here? What was that symbol supposed to mean? That was when he saw the box on the altar out of the corner of his eye, as if it was an answer to his question. He reached out toward the box and opened it. Inside was a strange device, like something the demons might’ve used, and a piece of paper. He unfolded and read it.
It was a letter written directly to him, with a vague request for some sort of help. He snorted to himself when he read that he’d been chosen for his “compassion and spiritual strength.” He would’ve thought they’d mistook him for someone else at the Order if it didn’t have his name on it. Just who were they trying to fool?
The more he thought about it, the more the reality of his situation became clear. He’d been taken from his home AGAIN, without even being asked if he’d like to come this time, marked with some sort of tattoo, and dropped here with the expectation that he’d perform some sort of worship. He wasn’t frightened anymore; he was ANGRY. Who the hell did these ‘Twelve’ think they were to take him from his sister after he’d waited so long to see her again? He cursed under his breath and stormed away from the altar, then set to work trying to understand the device he’d been given. As soon as he found out where these zodiac-obsessed gods were, he was going to tell them EXACTLY what he thought about them wanting him to worship them!
✖ PLAYER:
Name & DW Journal: Haley, carrotsgtfo
Birthdate & Age: Nov 9 1987 // 24.
Characters played in Zodion: N/A
✖ CHARACTER:
Name: Joshua Christopher
Canon: Chrono Crusade
PB/Image: http://i.imgur.com/ed0ci.jpg
Info links: Wikipedia is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Crusade#Sinners The information is more based on the anime than the manga, though, and they REALLY changed Joshua as a character in the adaptation, so it’s not the best source. There’s also the fan wiki here, which seems to be…OK: http://chronocrusade.wikia.com/wiki/Joshua_Christopher
Canon Point: About a month or so after the end of the main manga storyline, but before the epilogue. (He has the horns off, is with Rosette again, etc)
Gender & Sex: Male/Male
Age: 15
Birthdate/Sign: April 9th/Aries—not canon. I partially chose the birthdate because it fits into the canon timeline well and it explains why his parents decided to name him something like Joshua Christopher (it’s Good Friday in the year he was born, 1909). Lucky for me, however, I think Aries is actually the best fit for Joshua!
For the strengths: Even when Joshua was sick, he wanted more than anything to spend time with his sister outdoors, and managed to keep up a somewhat cheerful, energetic personality despite being bedridden. He rarely, if ever, backs down from fights in canon, and enjoys comparing his powers with those he knows. After he loses his horns—which means weaker than he has been in canon previously—he jumps between an enemy and his sister TWICE within the space of a few hours. In the future, he “defends the vulnerable” in another way when he joins the Magdalene Order and dedicates himself to helping rebuild New York City (which was destroyed partially because of his actions with the horns) and is shown feeding the hungry. He seems to think of the best in others, even Aion.
Weaknesses: Joshua doesn’t really think through his decisions when he’s desperate—he jumped on Aion’s offer of Chrono’s horns without even thinking about the consequences. He was so jealous of the healthier children at the orphanage that he couldn’t even bare to watch them play outdoors. He describes it as being “too bright” to watch. Although he’s compassionate, he also tends to be self-centered and thinks about his own problems first (until reality gives him a huge slap in the face when he has his sanity back). When Rosette tries to tell him she’s his sister, he refuses to believe her because she doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear.
Attributes: Joshua tends to jump into the fray without waiting for a go-ahead from Aion. He’s very focused on his goals (become stronger to be with and protect his sister), to the point that it becomes an obsession when he loses his sanity. He’s prone to mood swings (arguing with Rosette, then laughing, then becoming depressed because of his powers in the space of a few minutes) even WITHOUT the horns, and when he gained the horns he was so controlled by his emotions that he was wildly unpredictable. He has big dreams that he clings to fiercely. He has a habit of being snarky and talking back. As mentioned above, he eventually joins the Order specifically to do charity work to atone for what he’s done, and even before this he’s shown being concerned for the wellbeing of the other Apostles—particularly Azmaria, who he’s only just met.
Tattoo: On his back between his shoulder blades. It’s big enough to just fit inside a 2x2” square.
Suitability: First of all, it’s probably worthwhile to note that Joshua mentions in a flashback that he would’ve had to leave the orphanage at the age of 15, so apparently where he’s from he’d be considered old enough to fend for himself at this age, anyway.
Joshua is pretty stubborn, surprisingly mature once he loses the horns, and has a clear sense of responsibility and the consequences of a person’s actions. He’s been pretty beaten up emotionally by his experiences, but those experiences have managed to help him grow up very fast. He already shows signs that the end of canon that he’s preparing himself to try to fix what he’s done as much as he can—when Rosette asks him if he’s hurt, he tells her “I’ve hurt people more than this. I can handle a little pain.” Later as an adult it’s shown that he never lets that attitude go, considering his charity work with the Order.
He’s also shown living alone with Fiore for an extended period of time in Aion’s house and he manages to survive just fine, and even fends off intruders from the home. He’s still pretty insane at that point thanks to the horns, but since he matures rapidly when he loses them I think that’s only a sign that he’d be even more prepared for the responsibility of living on his own.
The sex stuff will be a little trickier—we’re not given much info about how he feels about sex in canon, but it seems like with the horns he was crazy enough to not really think about it much, and afterwards it’s highly likely (and I’m assuming that) he is taken in by the Magdalene Order. We’re not given a huge amount of info on how the Order views sex either, but Sister Kate DOES get after Remington for his flirtatious jokes toward the nuns, so it’s probably not that sex-positive, particularly since the Order is basically “Anime!Catholic.” (Then again one of the other priests in the Order is a pervert that peeps on girls while showering and goes on panty raids so WHO KNOWS.)
Either way, even assuming Joshua will be a little awkward with the sex at first, there are two important things that will drive him. One is that he cares very, very much about helping other people. He already did even as a kid, the way he would use his powers without much resistance even for things like scraped knees, but as a teen? Thanks to that added guilt, his biggest desire (besides, maybe, spending time with his sister) is to help people and to try to become a better person than he once was. If he’s convinced that he has to “worship” to help other people, well then…he’s going to do it.
Secondly, Joshua is very driven to survive. His sister literally sacrificed her life to save him from his own stupid mistake and allow him to live. Despite his shaken confidence in himself, despite everything he’s been through, despite him believing that he deserves pain for what he’s done, he would NEVER take that sacrifice for granted. He’s going to survive and find his way back to his sister, damn it, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make it.
Power: Since he loses his powers in canon after the battle on Christmas, I’m choosing to give him a zodiac-related power. He’s going to get “Healing: Draw the heat out.” It works pretty similarly to how his old Apostle healing powers used to work, so…that should be amusing.
Personality:
Joshua can be a tough nut to crack because in canon we see three sides to Joshua: what he was like as a child, how the power of Chrono’s horns twists his mind and personality, and a little bit of him as a teenager without the horns (but under a very stressful, intense situation). However, when you combine the whole of canon together, Joshua’s true personality and how he’s grown up and been affected by what he’s been through and the people in his life paint a full picture of his personality. Joshua is a warm, loyal teenager who’s been battered by life and made some horrible mistakes, but he’s determined to learn from what has happened to him so that he can become a better person and make sure that his sister’s sacrifice for him was not in vain.
Despite the hardships Joshua has had in his life, he seems to naturally be a cheerful person. As an ill child, Joshua wanted little more than to just spend time with his sister outside and have fun with her, rather than worry over his illness or strange powers. He doesn’t particularly WANT to dwell on his problems (even though he often does), he wants to just enjoy life and have fun. So even when he’s under a lot of stress, he tends to manage to make jokes, have fun discussions with the people he cares about and engage in playful banter.
Of course, sometimes that “playful banter” of his can take a snarky, argumentative, and even downright childish tone. As a kid, he mocks his older sister because her chest is “as flat as a pancake.” He gets into extended arguments with Fiore because he hates carrots and she wants him to eat healthily. He apparently has a toy gun even as a 15-year-old. He mocks and eggs on opponents in a fight. (“Hah! That wasn’t even close! You DO know how to shoot, don’t you?”) We don’t see him engage with this after he loses his horns, so it’s possible that he “grows out of” this trait later on, but it’s also just as likely that the situations we see him in afterward simply don’t call for it.
His ‘childish’ side also manifests in a more positive way, in that Joshua is very imaginative and creative. As a child trapped indoors most of the time because of his illness, he became very attached to books. Most of the stuff he read was dime novels and pulp fiction, with a particular interest in adventure, sci-fi, westerns and the occult. (Honestly, a lot of his interests are downright geeky, particularly when you realize that dime novels are a precursor to comic books.)
He loves consuming stories and is fascinated by people of different cultures and ideas, and idolizes larger-than-life heroes. He also channels this creative energy into music—he’s shown singing “Israfel” the first time we see him as a teenager, and we later learn that he focuses his powers through music (particularly through a pipe organ made specifically for his use).
As a child, his love of stories and of the strange and unusual is part of what drew him closer to Chrono. He was fascinated at first by Chrono’s claim of being a demon, asking him if “witches and fairies [were] real, too?” and not showing a hint of fear. When Chrono begins to tell them stories and legends he’s amazed and inspired by them, particularly Chrono explaining the “astral lines” where the souls of the dead are said to go. As a child he decided that he and Rosette were going to become explorers and find the astral lines (and he’d write a book about it, of course!) Even as a sane teenager, he can’t help but point out to Rosette that their dreams have come true, since when she saves him they ARE surrounded by the astral line.
In general Joshua is bold, dreams big, and enjoys taking on new challenges. His idealized version of himself is the heroes that he’s so fascinated by—for example, when he heals Rosette with his powers and she thanks him, he tells her that she shouldn’t thank him until he saves her from a group of bandits with only a rifle. He has a fascination with guns (probably from all those books he reads), to the point where he sometimes fights with guns despite the fact that the horns allow him to tear apart demons with his bare hands.
He very, very rarely backs down from a challenge, and only seems to when ordered to or convinced otherwise. When a group of demon Pursuers come to Aion’s home and demand to see him, he warns them not to underestimate him (probably just to rile them up) and then kills them all with nothing but his powers and bare hands, only getting a little scratch on his hand in return. Later, when he starts to question whether Rosette really is his sister as she says she is, Fiore encourages him to seek out the truth—so he does, going to her directly and asking her point-blank “You really are my sister Rosette, aren’t you?” Even after he loses his horns and is back to being frail due to his powers, he not once but TWICE jumps between Rosette and an enemy, determined to protect her.
In fact, as a child he promised himself on his father’s grave that he would grow up as strong as he could to be able to protect Rosette, which is one of the reasons why he despises his illness so much. He’s VERY bothered that Rosette “acts just like a boy” and is the one being strong and protecting him, instead of the other way around. He seems to only half-remember the promise he made, but it greatly affects how he sees himself. He knew that because of his illness, he wasn’t as strong as he wanted to be, and he was upset by it. In an interview in the English volume 2 of the manga, the writer of the series mentions that Joshua has a “childhood dilemma of [a] gap between the person he wants to be and the person he actually is,” which I think is a good way of summing up how Joshua feels about himself.
Because of his high expectations, he HATES being pitied and patronized. As a child he knew that caring for him was tiring, and both felt guilty for being a bother and resented people pitying and coddling him because of his illness. He also gets very upset by Rosette wanting to be a doctor so she can take care of him (even though she thinks she’s “too stupid” for it), which is even hinted to be a motivating factor in him taking the horns. To him, being reminded that he’s ill and weak is insulting, and later in life, when he has great power because of the horns, he goes out of his way to show it off as if to prove a point.
He seems to place a high expectation on others, as well as himself, and is disappointed when they fail to match his expectations. On the flip side, when someone exceeds his expectations he’s quick to applaud them for it. For example, when Chrono snaps out of a rage-fueled frenzy during a fight and is stabbed by Aion because of it, Joshua expresses disappointment in how the fight ended, since he knows Chrono is a powerful demon. Later on, when Azmaria shows quick-thinking and uses her Apostle powers in an unconventional way to call Rosette’s soul back to her body, he’s visibly impressed with her.
His love of larger-than-life heroes, the occult, and admiration for the powerful is probably why he was so attached to Aion when he was part of the Sinners. From Joshua’s viewpoint, Aion was always calm, collected, and in control. He was powerful, and he knew it. To a boy driven insane by the “noise” he was hearing Aion must have seemed one of the few steady, in control things in the universe. He greatly looked up to Aion, and Aion in turn expected much of him and included him in his plans. Joshua was proud of his work with Aion.
Even after he lost the horns, he stops and listens when Aion speaks to him, tries to reason with Aion rather than considering him as an enemy, and even seems concerned for him (after he makes sure his sister is all right). Of course, he doesn’t make excuses for Aion either, and is silent when Chrono and Rosette decide to face him a final time. He doesn’t argue that they shouldn’t fight Aion. He just warns Chrono to keep Rosette safe.
Speaking of Rosette and Aion, Joshua tends to be very loyal to those that he comes to care about. In general he’s rather friendly, but distant. He doesn’t seem to have had many friends in the orphanage—particularly once he got his powers, which frightened them. But the few people that he gets truly close to? He can be fanatically devoted to.
I’ve already mentioned that as a kid he promised himself he would be there for Rosette. If you asked him who the most important person in his life was, he would pick Rosette with little hesitation. She’s the only family he has left, and even though they sometimes fight or tease each other, he cares for her deeply. When he was sick, he hated feeling like he was holding her back, which was another thing that drove him to take Chrono’s horns from Aion.
After he got the horns, his memories of Rosette started to become faded and corrupted. It got bad enough that he couldn’t even remember her face. Unable to tell the difference between dreams and reality, he constructed a false Rosette in his mind out of scattered memories and wishful thinking, imagining her as a pure, kind-hearted girl who would never disagree with him and support his quest for power. He became obsessed with the false sister he created in his mind, and that image became something he clung to when the noise or his illness became too much of a strain. In his mind, all the pain would be worth it once he was with his sister in Aion’s newly remade world.
Meeting the real Rosette again was a shock, particularly when she dared to do something like—GASP—tell him to give back the horns! It was so out of line with his memories that he attacked her, but she had none of that and shot a horn off, enabling him just enough sanity that he could remember his promise to her and choose to tear out the other horn. The rest of the manga, he spends time with her and, after she collapses and nearly dies, desperately works with the other characters to save her life. He’s a very devoted, doting brother without the horns, and the knowledge that her life is shortened because of his actions tends to send him into solemn contemplation when he thinks about it. Still, he’s bound and determined to protect her for as long as she lives, but on his OWN strength, now, instead of Chrono’s.
Despite how attached he is to Rosette, she’s not the only one he loves. His loyalty to Aion I covered earlier, and although the horns caused him to be selfish around her, it’s very clear that he also cares deeply for Fiore. (In fact, in a flash-forward set eight years after the main storyline, he’s STILL missing Fiore and hoping he’ll be able to see her again so he can thank her for all she did for him.)
However, despite how loving he can be to those he trusts, he has a bad habit of thinking of himself first, and others second. Rosette never asked to be protected by Joshua, but he was bound and determined to do it, even if it meant making a deal with the devil.
Loyal as he is to Aion, he seems to only somewhat care about Aion’s needs and ideals—as much as Aion used him, with the horns he was happy to play along for the power given to him and the promise of a new world he could share with his sister. He’ll directly disobey Aion’s orders if it’s frustrating or inconvenient for him, like when he decides to attack Chrono to make the horns stop their “screaming.”
And while I do think he cares about Fiore, he’s definitely much more interested in what she can do for HIM while he has the horns. While with Fiore he tends to be clingy, concerned with his problems and frankly pretty whiny. He constantly goes to her for advice and emotional support without offering much in return. Part of it is just how their relationship works—she’s his maid, after all—but he definitely doesn’t mind having her to serve him hand and foot, and even seems to actively enjoy it. (He gets a kick out of asking her if she was worried about him after a fight and even offers his cut-up hand to her so she can lick the blood from the wound. …It’s a weird moment.)
He gets much better about this behavior after he loses the horns, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a part of his personality—he’s just got a much better control over it when he’s not all crazy. He still shows signs of being a little demanding even without the horns, particularly when it comes to Chrono’s treatment of Rosette (…and her body). And particularly since this was a trait of his even before the horns, it’s likely that’s just the way he is—his guilt is just stamping out his selfishness when he’s not flying off the handle emotionally.
Oh, right, his emotions. He’s not very good at controlling them. He seems calm in comparison to Rosette, but that’s just because Rosette’s EVEN WORSE than he is. It’s at its worst when he has the horns, of course. He has very little impulse control with them, which is where most of his chaotic nature with the horns comes from. But even without the horns he has a tendency to switch emotions at the drop of a hat. As a kid, while being generally cheerful, he was often depressed by his powers, and he also played a pretty mean prank on her as revenge for her ruining a book. (Plus, he yells at her when she offers food to Chrono because HE’D been hungry earlier—oh, yeah, there’s the selfish side again.)
Even without the horns, perhaps even because of the trauma from all the horns put him through, he is pretty volatile emotionally. This manifests the most when he’s under a lot of stress. As things start to go worse and worse for him and Rosette, he gets more and more unpredictable when it comes to his mood swings. He’s not a stoic guy by any stretch of the imagination.
Chrono seems the most likely character to set him off throughout canon. When he has the horns, it’s partially because he thinks of Chrono as an enemy (for wanting to take the horns from him) and partially because when he’s around Chrono the horns are noooot happy and make the noise even worse. He shoots Chrono on impulse because of this, and came very, very close to killing him because of it.
Once the horns are gone, things still aren’t great between him and Chrono, mostly because of how devoted and overprotective he is of his sister. When he finds out about the contract Chrono had with Rosette, he flies into a rage and beats Chrono until his knuckles are bloodied. (Also Chrono was already missing an arm and an eye before Joshua decided to beat him up more.)
Aion comes around eventually to point out that Rosette made the contract to save Joshua, but even then that doesn’t quite calm him down about it. He yells at Chrono when Chrono’s about to leave Rosette(‘s body) behind, and when Rosette and Chrono decide they have to face Aion together, Joshua gives Chrono a veeeeeery reluctant blessing and an apology for calling him a “monster.” It’s not that he hates Chrono—far from it, he even seems to think of Chrono as a friend and expresses concern for him at one point. It’s just that when emotions are running high, it’s easy for him to pick a target to lash out at—plus, he’s the stereotypical overprotective brother. He’s glad that Rosette cares about Chrono, but he’s going to make VERY SURE that Chrono takes good care of her.
But really, despite all of his hang-ups, chaotic emotions and selfishness? By the end of the manga, Joshua is determined to become a better person. We might not get to see much of him without the horns, but baring his outbursts over Chrono’s contract with Rosette, every single thing he does after he loses the horns is directed at helping other people.
When it’s revealed that there’s a chance to save Rosette’s life, he immediately offers to help and races with Azmaria to the ‘Astral Organ’—a pipe organ made specifically for him to use. He uses it to help Azmaria call Rosette’s soul back to her body, despite the fact that he’s using his Apostle powers and once again causing himself to become ill (to the point where he starts to bleed from the mouth). Despite his tense moments with Chrono, he doesn’t let him go without apologizing for being harsh toward him. The last thing we see him do in the main manga timeline is comfort Azmaria when she begins to cry. And in the epilogue, we learn that he eventually joins the Order to atone for the harm he’s caused.
This isn’t actually all that surprising—although he can be selfish, as a child we’re never given any reason to think he ever refused to heal someone with his powers, despite resenting his ill health and despite his powers and illness making him an outcast in his orphanage. In fact, considering that his powers are what cause his illness in the first place? It’s pretty clear that he’s been using his powers a lot, considering how sick he is by the time he gets the horns.
So in conclusion? Joshua is a screwed-up kid that can be self-centered and argumentative, clingy and prone to mood swings. He’s also compassionate, a devoted brother, curious and creative, and by the end of the manga is on his way to becoming someone who lives his life helping others.
✖ SAMPLES:
"Zodion" First-Person Network Entry:
[The video opens with a blond young man staring at the screen, his hair sticking out every which-way as if he went to bed with it wet. He doesn’t look very happy. In fact, he looks angry and frightened at the same time.
He straightens as soon as he realizes that the recording’s started and puffs himself up, glaring out of the screen.]
I’m guessing this thing will let me talk to the “Twelve.” Well I read your letter! Very flattering and very vague. [His eyes narrow.]
Well, sorry but I don’t buy it. I’m sick and tired of talk of power and the “fate of the world” and how I’m needed for some grand plan. And what information I’m getting from ‘thinking of you’ is…[he blushes and glances awkwardly away from the screen] weird, and not helpful. If you want my help, I need details! What is so bad that you can justify pulling me to wherever HERE is without even asking me if I was interested?!
[He looks back at the screen and forces himself to look firm and in control.] If you can’t even answer that, then you can forget it. I’m not “worshiping” someone just because they tell me to. I’m giving you an hour, and if you can’t answer me I’m finding a way back home to my sister!
[He seems satisfied enough that he’s managed to get his point across, and punctuates his last sentence with a deep breath before shutting off the recording.]
"Zodionlogs" Third-Person Prose Entry:
Joshua dreamed he was sitting on the edge of Eden, watching the clouds roll by underneath his bare feet as he dangled them off the edge. The wind blew through his hair, bringing with it some sort of faint, sweet whisper from a distance away. The whisper sounded almost musical as it floated in and out of his range of hearing, and served as some sort of soundtrack to the clouds lazily drifting beneath him.
This place was peace, in his mind. Paradise. Up here there were no people to fill his head with jumbled, half-formed thoughts that mixed together as a buzz of noise. Up here there was no death, and so there were no deaths he felt responsible for. And up here there was…
He turned to look over his shoulder, watching as a dark-haired maid hung laundry up on a clothes line. She hung up the clothing with enough speed and precision to be a machine. The shoulders of the shirts she pinned up were always aligned perfectly, and the clothespins were always spaced evenly apart, exactly one inch from the start of the sleeve. The speed and precision of her work made it almost a shame to interrupt her.
Almost. He pulled his legs back from the edge and got up to walk toward her, looping his arms around her shoulders and pressing his chest into her back. “Fi, tell me a story?”
The maid’s shoulders tensed, but otherwise there was no sign of an emotional reaction from her as she pinned a lab coat into place on the line. “This isn’t the time, Master Joshua.”
“Please?”
He leaned forward just enough that he could see her lips flatten into a straight line. In the back of his mind, he could hear the whispering song getting louder, and his head began to dully throb. She took a deep breath and began to speak:
“Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved heroes. As he lay in bed, wasting away, he soon grew tired of merely reading about powerful heroes. He wanted to become one. He wanted the power of the heroes he’d read about over and over again.”
Joshua’s grip on her shoulders loosened. Something didn’t seem right.
“The boy was friends with a once-powerful demon, who often supplied him with the stories he loved. One day, he had an idea—if he took the horns of his friend, would he become powerful? The thought consumed him, until finally he betrayed his friend and grasped his horns, ripping them out of his head and taking them for his own.”
Joshua dropped his hands to his side and backed away. The song was getting louder, and it didn’t sound nearly as sweet. “No, no I didn’t—“
“Reveling in his new-found power, the boy plotted his revenge on those he hated. He stopped the time of every child in the orphanage where he lived, freezing them in place. Every person who’d ever doubted him, pitied him, feared him was going to get the same.”
A twisted, ghostly figure rose from the ground. The top half of the figure looked like the body of a demon woman with long, sweeping horns, but where her legs would have begun there grew instead a mass of the mangled bodies of other women, crying out in despair and pain and rage. They grabbed at him when he tried to run, holding him in place.
“Then, the boy had a terrible idea…”
The demon woman smiled and lovingly caressed his cheek, continuing her menacing song. When he tried to pull away from her, she dug her nails into his head until he bled, then leaned forward to sing into his ear. The sound was enough to nearly drown out all others, although he could somehow still hear Fiore’s story above it all.
“His sister was strong, and full of life. If he could add her power to his own, perhaps with her blood…”
Joshua jerked back, struggling against the arms that held him in place. “I never did anything like that!”
“Didn’t do what? Decided to trade your misery for theirs?”
“I didn’t know the horns were Chrono’s! I didn’t know Rosette would make a contract with him to find me!”
“You’d trade anyone for power, wouldn’t you?” Her back was still turned to him, but he could see her hands curling into fists. “Even me.”
The demon woman was screaming into his ear. This was a dream. This had to be a dream. “No,” he insisted, “I made a mistake; I didn’t do it on purpose. I care about you, I wouldn’t—“
The maid laughed—a sound he’d never heard her make, which made it sound alien and strange. “Care about me?” She turned, looking at him with a face twisted in bitter anger that made her unrecognizable from the girl in his memories. “You left me to die!”
Joshua woke up.
It took several minutes of staring up at the ceiling of his room in fear and confusion before he remembered where he was--the San Francisco branch of the Magdalene Order. He rubbed a hand over his face and slowly sat up.
‘I really hope this isn’t another dream,’ he thought to himself as he swung his feet off the bed and carefully put a foot down on the floor. The wooden planks creaked softly under his bare feet, and didn’t seem like they were about to collapse underneath him. He stood with a deep breath and squinted in the darkness to read the clock up on the wall. It was three in the morning. That meant he’d slept longer than he’d managed to on the previous night, but still not quite enough. Even so, there was no way he was going to try to sleep again. He could still hear the echoes of Pandaemonium’s screams in his mind.
He grabbed a set of the clothing he’d been given when he first came to the Order and made his way to the communal washroom as quietly as he could. At least that was one advantage of getting up so early—nobody was going to be up and about at this time of the morning, so he wouldn’t have to fight with anyone else for a shower, and he wouldn’t have to deal with the conversations of the members of the Order as their voices echoed off the tiled walls. Even a small crowd could sound unbearably loud to him while he was in there.
He showered and changed, then dried his hair as best he could with a towel. He could already feel that his hair was sticking up every which-way, as always. He’d never been able to keep his hair tame. He wiped some of the fog on the bathroom mirror off with his hand so he could see how bad his hair was looking at the moment.
That was when he saw his face. He looked tired and obviously upset, with dark circles under his eyes. He also couldn’t help but notice that despite being thin enough that the Order doctors had told him he needed to gain weight, he still had a rounded bit of baby fat around his cheeks, which he hated. It made him look young. He narrowed his eyes at his reflection and straightened. “You look like something the cat dragged in,” he told it. The reflection crossed its arms as he did and looked out at him with an expression of disapproval.
“Come on, pull yourself together. You know they’re going to want to ask you more questions about Aion and the other Sinners today. If you look like this at the meeting they’re going to treat you like a damaged victim again. You’re tired of that, aren’t you?” He sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “Yeah. I’m tired of it, too.”
He could always avoid them. This place was big enough that he could probably find all sorts of places to hide. A part of him liked the idea. He could even make it a game—who would find him first? The Elder, Father Remington, Sister Kate? He’d personally bet on Rosette, if only because he’d feel guilty for making her worry. But it could actually be fun. The thought was tempting.
Still…the more trouble he caused for the members of the Order, the more they were going to think of him as a burden and a troublemaker. He should probably try to stay on their good side, especially since they weren’t all bad.
So it was decided. He’d be cooperative and on his best behavior. And to be awake enough to be on his best behavior, it’d probably be good to get a cup of coffee. The cafeteria would be open in about an hour, so until then he could hide out in the library. They seemed to have a few interesting books to read, squished in between all of the religious texts and dry manuals on the different subsets of undead familiars (which had no right to be as dull as they were). His mind made up, he took a deep breath and stepped out of the bathroom…
And out onto a grassy field.
For a moment, he thought for sure he was having another nightmare. Or maybe the past month had all been a delusional dream given to him by the horns and he’d really never left Eden. But both of his guesses were quickly disproved—his senses felt too sharp for him to be dreaming, and wherever he was, it wasn’t Eden.
Some distance away there was a series of arches, and beyond those there was an altar surrounded by a ring of water. His curiosity immediately flared up. It looked like a temple—sort of like the faded pictures he’d seen in books about long-dead civilizations as a child. The ancient ruins of temples had always fascinated him. He couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if the ancient gods were truly real. Would they hover nearby their abandoned altars, waiting for one of their worshippers to return? The curiosity he felt about the temple was so strong that he barely needed the pull of the glowing box on the altar to motivate him to come closer.
When he stepped up to the altar, he suddenly felt a small stab of pain on his back and the waters rose up around him. His first reaction was to wince and hold up his arms in front of him in defense. When nothing happened for a moment, he slowly lowered his arms down and looked at the water.
His reflection was looking back at him again—this time with a wide-eyed, frightened look. He realized to his confusion that his face somehow looked a little older and more angular and his shoulders were broader, making him look closer to the vague memories he had of his father than the boy he’d seen in the mirror a few moments before.
Then he realized to his shock that the reflection he was looking at was completely naked. He crouched and placed his arms on his lap to cover himself before he realized that he himself was still wearing the clothing he’d changed into moments before. He frowned and looked back up at the reflection, wondering if he’d been mistaken, but in the water he still looked bare.
That was when he looked past his frightened face to see the reflection of the waters behind him, and noticed the brand placed upon his back, right where his wings used to seem to sprout from when he’d had his Apostle powers. He recognized the symbol almost instantly—it was the symbol for Aries, the ram, his zodiac sign.
He stood as the waters fell back down into place. Just what the hell was going on here? What was that symbol supposed to mean? That was when he saw the box on the altar out of the corner of his eye, as if it was an answer to his question. He reached out toward the box and opened it. Inside was a strange device, like something the demons might’ve used, and a piece of paper. He unfolded and read it.
It was a letter written directly to him, with a vague request for some sort of help. He snorted to himself when he read that he’d been chosen for his “compassion and spiritual strength.” He would’ve thought they’d mistook him for someone else at the Order if it didn’t have his name on it. Just who were they trying to fool?
The more he thought about it, the more the reality of his situation became clear. He’d been taken from his home AGAIN, without even being asked if he’d like to come this time, marked with some sort of tattoo, and dropped here with the expectation that he’d perform some sort of worship. He wasn’t frightened anymore; he was ANGRY. Who the hell did these ‘Twelve’ think they were to take him from his sister after he’d waited so long to see her again? He cursed under his breath and stormed away from the altar, then set to work trying to understand the device he’d been given. As soon as he found out where these zodiac-obsessed gods were, he was going to tell them EXACTLY what he thought about them wanting him to worship them!