If he’s honest with himself - which he only rarely is - Gajeel is not expecting this to work out. He knows the Trailblazers want to keep an eye on him, but he can’t be sure how long they’ll consider that to be worth it.

But, for the moment, it seems like he’s going to be allowed in. So here he is, with a scowl etched into his face as always and a duffle bag slung over his shoulder.

Just… standing in the doorway, looking pissed. No big deal.

“So. How’s this gonna work.”

PLAYER STUFF
Name: Maggie
Pronoun: she/her
Email address: neomeg@bellsouth.net
Preferred contact: plurk (omixgirl10)
Other characters: Miko Nakadai, Myaxx, Peony Fields, Victor Veloci, Artemis Clarke


CHARACTER STUFF
Name: Gajeel Redfox
Aliases: Iron Dragon
Canon: Fairy Tail
Role: villain with a high likelihood of switching sides
Species: human
Gender: male
Age: 19
Appearance: face and supervillain costume

As far as general description, he's a tall, muscular guy with a crudload of piercings, long, spiky black hair, sharp teeth and red eyes, and he almost always looks like he's going to punch someone.

Origin story:

Seventeen years ago, a steel-plated dragon named Metalicana was in the process of sneaking as close to human civilization as he could feasibly get ("sneaking" - he was an enormous metallic dragon, he was mostly just flying high enough to minimize how many humans would see him. He probably freaked some people out anyway. Good job), mainly for the purpose of spying on them, confirming that they sucked, and going back to his cave far away in the mountains, secure in the knowledge that humans were in fact as gross as they looked from a distance (so, out of curiosity, basically). Then he noticed something on the ground that he hadn't really expected: A very small human child, out in the woods, weirdly far away from any adults.

For all Metalicana knew, not that he ever tried to find out, the child's parents could have been killed by a bear or something, or he could have just wandered off and they could have been looking for him now. Metalicana, however, did not give a crud, because he also sensed a massive amount of untapped magic power coming off this kid, and of course he didn't want that to go to waste. So he chose to assume that the parents were dead and stole the child.

Unfortunately, this kind of set the tone for what kind of mindset the boy who would soon be named Gajeel Redfox (because dragon naming conventions have very little to do with human ones, and Metalicana also did not care that the kid probably already had a name) would be raised with.

As Gajeel grew, Metalicana taught him a few very basic things about how to interact with other humans, but mostly he taught him how to use magic. From an early age, Gajeel was very strongly affected by his proximity to Metalicana, both mentally and in terms of how his magic developed. Over time, he branched away from simple imitation of Metalicana's abilities (some of which seemed to just sort of happen naturally, some took work) to doing ridiculous things like turning his arms into swords, but he did end up in kind of a rut in terms of mostly just being able to do things involving metal.

So basically, for ten years, Gajeel was raised by a dragon whose main priority was to make him as efficient at destroying things as possible, leaving him largely unprepared for the day he would be left on his own. Which did come.

Seven years ago, Metalicana disappeared without a word or a hint of where he had gone. After waiting in the mountains for a few days, Gajeel realized that he wasn't coming back.

Gajeel did initially make a token effort to integrate into human society, but was hindered by 1. his lack of knowledge of how to do that beyond some fairly basic concepts (he could read, he knew what money was, he could recognize some common pieces of technology. That was about it), and 2. his incredibly abrasive, often violent personality. By the time he was around fourteen, Gajeel had basically given up on that, and had instead started to make use of what Metalicana had taught him (punching things, really hard, with iron).

Since then, things just sort of escalated, and these days Gajeel has made something of a name for himself as the "Iron Dragon", a supervillain known not for long-term scheming or Big Plans so much as just destroying and stealing things because he can (and is convinced that the fact that he can get away with this and hasn't been stopped yet means it's completely justified and he can totally do whatever he wants).

Despite his ongoing insistence that he doesn't care where Metalicana is/why he left/if he ever sees him again, Gajeel will take any lead he can get to possibly find his foster father (including some that may be kind of questionable). However, if anyone else is around when he finds a possible lead, that alone makes him several times less likely to follow it, and more likely to insist that he doesn't care and pointedly ignore it.

What a frickin tool.

Personality:

Usually the most immediately obvious way to describe Gajeel's behavior is something to the effect that he is a horrible piece of garbage. He's rude and insensitive, practically never thinking before he speaks, and has a tendency to pick fights with just about everybody. He mocks those who aren't as powerful as him, and constantly tries to prove himself stronger than those who can match up to or surpass him, and, in both cases, will gladly beat them into the ground given what he considers justifiable reason (his idea of what's justifiable is pretty loose).

However, once he considers someone an ally, he will be fiercely loyal to them, doing his best to go above and beyond what they expect of him in order to get their approval. He really does have a strong need to belong to some kind of group, though his methods of accomplishing that consist mostly of punching things; if he ever wants to be accepted somewhere where that doesn't fly, he might be in trouble (by which I mean he would probably start flipping between ridiculous attempted displays of goodwill engineered to "fit in" [he might sing. don't let him he thinks he's good but he's really really not] and dramatic gestures of loyalty that are quite likely to get him injured if not worse).

At the moment he has yet to really form any meaningful personal connections, but it can be assumed that if he somehow managed that his loyalty and protectiveness toward that person(s) would go far beyond what he shows toward a non-personal, purely "business"-based ally (if he REALLY likes someone he might even show genuinely positive [as opposed to smug or mocking or hidden behind a thick layer of derision] emotion toward them). He is also, again, very protective of anyone he actually cares about, even if he knows that they can take care of themselves just fine, but especially if he sees them as weaker than him.

On the other end, if he forms a grudge against someone, he can hold it pretty much forever. Even if they end up on the same side at some point, he will still probably be sort of extra-hostile toward that person (as opposed to his usual, constant level of hostility); he's capable of setting his rivalries aside for short periods of time when it's necessary, but will go right back to putting extra effort into picking a fight with them as soon as he can. In addition, if he considers an ally to also be a rival, he will set up random, arbitrary "competitions" with them, whereas if he considers an enemy to be a rival he will just try to punch them until they stop moving just about every time he sees them.

In addition, it should be noted that Gajeel is what is often called an "emotionally constipated jackass". This is part of why he has no friends. Despite his constant, usually successful efforts to seem scary and apathetic and nothing else, Gajeel is actually a very emotional person. Given the right situation and stimulus, he can be set off fairly quickly - usually in the general direction of uncontrollable, screaming rage, but not always, depending on the situation.

There are also some morals hidden in there somewhere. Deep down. Deeper than that. Seriously, they're hard to get to, but they're there. Basically, getting through to him in any capacity usually require some serious effort or a really big shock, followed by him sulking for a while, and then with the right prompting he will suddenly start trying really, really hard to do whatever he feels he needs to now. He is, however, quite unlikely to actually verbally take back anything he's said or done; if he does feel like he's made a mistake, he'll try to prove it with action, but he's not very good at using his words.

In short, Gajeel Redfox is a simple man with simple desires. Most of those desires involve breaking things and punching people, but there's probably something in there about wanting to belong somewhere or some feelsy crud like that. However, getting to that part takes quite a bit of work, because he's such a poorly-adjusted loser that he has basically convinced himself that being a jerk is his only option for how to go through life.

(What a frickin TOOL)

Differences from canon: Has never been part of a wizard guild, can only turn his arms into swords instead of frickin chainsaws, powers generally toned down some.


Power level: B probably
Powers:

- Somewhat enhanced physical abilities (strength, speed, stamina, smell and hearing; he's also more vulnerable to really strong smells or loud noises as a result)

- Eating metal; he gains a certain amount of energy from doing that, also sometimes he eats it just because he can (and wants to scare people). He can't eat the metal that he produces himself, that would be gross
- he can also consume energy/magic in solid form, but doing that isn't necessarily a good idea as it gives him a massive power boost for a few minutes but then leaves him exhausted if not just completely unconscious

- METAL MAGIC of various types
- transformation of skin to iron scales (obviously harder to damage than skin, but any damage the scales take will remain on his body once the spell wears off)
- roaring really loud and creating a vortex of storm-force winds and shards of metal shrapnel
- transformation of limbs into iron weapons - he can turn one arm at a time into either a sword or a club-like thing. This can give him an advantage in otherwise-unarmed combat, but if they are damaged, he WILL feel it.

Team affiliation: none

First person sample: [posted to a forum that probably mostly discusses current events]

ok so ive heard some rumors thst som1 saw a dragon around the genral area of la and i wannt to make sure theres some actual evidence here b4 i go off after some drunk asshole's halucination

so if youve actually got some kind of proof than i want to kno about it and i dont mean a shittyass phone pic of a blur in the fukin distance, or some bul about how ur dads uncles cousins gfs dog saw somethin pickign up a sheep n flying away

basicaly what i'm saying is if 1 youve seen a dragon and 2 you have some actual detales and not just bullshit then go ahead and tell me if u want, what can i say i'm curious and want to know if theres actual dragons around here or what

and serioiusly if youve actually SEEN a gd dragon, if you come on here and try to lie about this and make me look stupid i swaer i will find you and beat your ass into the ground

EDIT: no im not tryin to be funny and im not 12 im a grownass adult and im talkin about serious shit here

EDIT: and no u sick fucks i dont want to fuck the dragon i'm just wonderin

why would you even suggest that you guys have problems


Prose sample: would it be fun to punch this child